I went over to the woman, pulled her by her hair and pushed her against the wall.
“You thought you’d accept responsibility for your husband’s mistake and we would show mercy because of you being a woman?” She looked at me in shock while I held her by the throat. “What the hell were you thinking, woman? If I hadn’t come along at the right time, this all would’ve been inflicted on you.” She started weeping. “You have children to watch over and you thought you could bear this shit?” My hand left her throat and she started panting hard to catch her breath.
From the age of twelve, I had been trained mercilessly to learn the ways of torture and mind-ripping pain. It was not just the body that had to endure the pain, but the soul too. You see their souls being crushed, limb by limb, as they beg for death.
I had been taught to torture men, but this was the first time I had accepted torturing a woman. I had seen my father torturing women, but I had never agreed to do it on my own. I knew my father’s methods for women. They were shackled to the rack—their legs open wide. He’d first use the body for his pleasure, and then flog her until she could no longer bear the intense pain. Each welt on her skin would brand her with Stefan’s savagery and worked like an aphrodisiac for him. Her tongue would then be cut out so she could no longer speak about her experience. If she were spared death from her wounds, she’d ultimately kill herself because she no longer desired to live in shame.
Taking out the tongue, to make them speechless, was the last torture that King Stefan imposed on women before death. He never killed a woman with his own hands, but he’d take the victim to an extreme level of self-loathing where she would kill herself.
“If I free you, you’ll still get caught by the king’s men. They will take you back to King Stefan and you have no idea what will happen next.” I observed her, the tumultuous emotions racking her body. She was too vulnerable for any pain. If I shouted out loud, she might die from a heart attack. “And if I forbear your punishment here and you get back to your house, the villagers will know I spared you and they will spread the word.”
“Cut my tongue out, then,” she said instantly.
I gaped at her. “What did you say?”
“I said cut my tongue out, Your Highness. So people will believe that I still bore these tortures, and I won’t be able to speak.” Her voice shivered.
I closed my eyes for a second. How can I torture a woman? I have never touched any woman in my life, and I don’t want to torture her with my hands.
I grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the room. She was shocked by my sudden violent stride but tried to hold her breath tightly. We went down the stairs to the ground floor to take a secret passage out of the tower, and strode toward the stables. My horse Ulysses neighed as soon as he heard my footsteps. I never had to call him; he’d just know I was there—always. I unclasped my velvet cape and covered the woman, hiding her face.
I watched her grieved expression. “Get your children and husband, and leave the village tonight.” I took some gold coins from my pocket. “Keep it. You’ll need it in your new country.” I placed the coins in her palm.
“You’re a god. I will worship you forever, Your Highness.” She knelt down and bowed in front of me. I held her by the shoulders and pulled her back to stand up.
“Stop doing that. I’m no God.” I looked her in the eyes, which were now filled with warmth. They welled up with tears of joy. “If I see you near this village, you’re dead. Now get the hell out of here.” I threw her up on Ulysses’s back and she gave me a shocked look.
“Take this woman to the village.” I rubbed his white neck. He was the finest of the Hue horses. “Don’t ever come back to this land,” I warned her.
I let her out from a side gate. The horse galloped away instantly and left my sight.
I noticed Stefan’s horse was missing, so he had already gone hunting.
Since Ulysses was gone for a while, I decided to take a run. The black sand on the ground, which had become part of our lives, scratched under my feet. I raced with long strides till I reached the south boundary of Hue Castle’s lands. The south gate opened to the lush green fields, leading to the lake. I could see this lake from my room. It was my private, tranquil spot to hunt solace and peace, which was lacking in my home.
The grass was not green on the path I walked. When I walked out of the boundary at the age of ten to visit the lake for the first time, I learned that nature was forbidden to my touch. I could never walk on green grass, either barefooted or with shoes. It would burn and turn black as soon as my feet touched the ground. Since then, I had walked on the same path, created my own dark trail to reach the lake for seventeen years.
Being alone always gave me the feeling that the woman from my dream was out there watching my every move. She knew how I felt…what I felt. Her steel-grey eyes haunted me in my dreams and in my reality. I gazed the lake for a few minutes, and for a moment I thought she’d just taken a long breath and noticed me here. I felt the warmth in her eyes. It was like an invisible window through which she could sneak into my world. My every move, my every feeling, my every breath was being documented and recorded in her life. It was being written down somewhere and she was reading me.
My life was locked and frozen in time. I was trapped in this plagued castle and time was my only enemy—if only I could find the strength to leave this world.
I observed my image in the water—the same old black beast looking back at me. His ears were pointed horns like deadly knives—eyes as daunting as dark wells—skin as shriveled as a dying old man.
The last time I’d come here was three months ago, when Emma wanted to visit the lake. She was looking at her reflection in the pure water. Luckily she was not from the Hues’ male bloodline, and had the sinless blood of the baker running in her. She could see herself in any mirror in the entire kingdom, but unfortunately there weren’t any mirrors in our castle except for the one in the chapel. She didn’t know what my reflection looked like. She was too engrossed in creating waves with her small hands when I stood behind her. When she saw the monster in the water, she fainted in fear. That was when I realized how dreadful I looked. She never demanded to go near the lake again. She never knew it was my reflection.
“I know you’re here somewhere, watching me,” I called loudly. My voice dissipated in the wind. “You know who I am and what my life is.” I was feeling wrecked right now, for being in drunken enmity against my father. “I know you can hear me, but you’re doing nothing other than smiling at my fate, aren’t you?”
I picked up a small stone, and threw it in the water to create ripples. Everything was alive outside my cursed home. I looked back at the castle. I wanted badly to know what had happened in the past. “Do you know what happened here?” I shouted. “Will you ever come and talk to me?” I didn’t know whom I was talking to. I just wanted to take out my anger on someone. “Come out, whoever you are.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I need you. I need someone to talk to.” I started throwing stones in the water one by one. “I want to see myself. I want to see how I look.” I kept yelling at the open land. “I want to know who I am.”
I kept sneaking glances at the castle—the pool of darkness had remained there for centuries. It had become a forbidding presence looming over the landscape, and acted as a warning to the potential wrongdoers. No one guarded the south gate. No one wanted to invade Hue Castle. Who’d want to live in this demonic cage? It was my fate I was born here. I wished I were born outside the Hue family. At least someone would have loved me then. Someone would have touched my face and told me how I looked.
I wished I could see my face in her eyes.
I wished I could see myself in the mirror.
I wished I could turn the pages.
I wished I could be free.
“Love makes your soul crawl
out from its hiding place.”
Zora Neale Hurston
CHAPTER 5
MYRA
A
PRIL 2015
We walked back to the great hall, passing through the long passage. The corridor was made of huge windows on the left side for sunlight, and stone walls on the opposite side, adorned with beautiful paintings of scenic views. The paintings provided the only color in the place; otherwise it was actually monochrome. Also, I still hadn’t seen any rats or spiders, even though the place had been closed up for centuries.
The image of the woman in the bridal gown and the man standing behind her kept flashing into my mind. It was something I would never forget. The man’s presence was getting stronger the more I thought about him.
In the center of the Great Hall the ceiling was vaulted, with a beautiful chandelier, which was capable of holding at least one thousand candles. A very strong rope supported the chandelier, and was tied to a hook at the left corner of the room. When they wanted to light up the place, they would unhook the rope, which passed through a pulley, and slowly lower the chandelier so that the old candles could be replaced with new ones. The candles were the same as the ones I’d noted earlier—half burned, as if time had been frozen within the castle. Like something tragic happened which had forced the residents to leave suddenly and with no preparation.
“As you can see, the Great Hall was used for the castle’s everyday activity. The king would hold meetings here with his knights…the villagers came here quarterly to pay their taxes.” Julia interrupted my thoughts when we reached the hall. “The first Hue king—I mean King David—was a kind and benevolent ruler. Later on, when King Andrew invaded this castle and took the throne, the people around the kingdom started raising their voices against him. He imposed more taxes and brutal punishments for those who rebelled against him.”
We roamed around the Hall. There was nothing more than some chairs for the royal family, and a massive dining table at the eastern corner. There was a huge fireplace, which held the charred remains of a log fire. It had been like this for six hundred years—untouched, and unaffected by time. I walked closer to the fireplace and knelt down beside the charred wood. Julia was still talking to Steve and Tyler about the uniqueness of this place. I picked up one chunk of charred wood and smelled it.
“Hey, Steve, come here. Check this out,” I called. All three of them came over to me. “See this…the smoky odor is still strong, like someone burned this last night.” I displayed the wood in my palm. Steve took the block of wood from me and sniffed it. His gaze was full of warning. Tyler approached us and took the piece of wood from Steve.
“This is weird, dude,” Tyler exclaimed. “It looks like someone just used it. It’s not even cold.” He gulped in fear.
There was something cooking in Steve’s mind. He got up and opened his camera again and started clicking, taking pictures around the hall. He sighed in frustration. “What’s wrong with this camera?” he blustered. He looked at Julia, who was watching all this silently. “Is there anything you know about this place that we don’t know?” He closed his camera. “I don’t like surprises, Miss Watson.” There was an alarming power in his voice—he was making use of his family’s name and influence.
At Steve’s words, Julia sagged. Tyler and I stood up and waited for Julia to speak up.
“There is a tower on the west side of castle, which was once used as the torture room. The legends say that hundreds and thousands of innocent people were victimized in that tower for eight generations. When the workers started restoration in the eighteenth century, they said they heard screams from the tower. But when they reached there, it was just an empty room.” She paused and looked at me in a way that implied I knew something about this.
“What do we do if we hear screams today?” I asked in fear.
“She’s right, Steve. I don’t feel good about being here,” Tyler said. “We’d run. What else?”
Steve was looking down, biting his nails absentmindedly. His mind was locked in some deep thinking.
“I’ve been planning to film this place for my game for two years.” He looked up at me. “And now when it’s finally happening, you guys are entertaining ridiculous ideas.” He looked at Tyler. “Nothing bad has happened so far.” He stole a glance at me. I gulped. “I’m not backing out. I feel like the unwritten story of my game lies in this castle, and I want to explore the whole thing.”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck. I could see how stressed he was. It showed in his eyes, in his body language, that he’d worked hard to get into this place, and now Tyler freaking out over every incident was making him crack.
I held his hand. A glint of hope sparked in his eyes. “I’m in this as much as you are.” Tyler was watching us. “You don’t know how much I wanted to visit this place, and now when I’m finally in here, I shouldn’t be scared.” I smiled at him.
He touched my cheek with his hand. “Thank you.” He glanced at Tyler and then looked back at me. “It means a lot to me.”
Tyler walked toward us. “Oh man! You know I can’t see you like this.” He wrapped his arms around both our necks and pulled us toward him. “We are a team now.”
Julia cleared her throat to grab our attention. “So where do you guys want to go next? Explore this main floor, the upper floor or the tower?”
“Tower,” I said instantly.
She took a paper from her bag and opened it. It was a map of the castle.
“So you don’t know where the tower is?” Steve asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve never visited the tower. I’ve only explored the kitchen and a few rooms. I had a very limited time, Mr. Bernard.” She paused. “The tower was not originally part of the castle’s layout, because David never used such punishment. It was his brother Andrew who extended the castle and built the tower to torture people.”
“You mean to say this castle doesn’t have a dungeon?” I asked.
“That’s correct. According to my knowledge, there was none, as David and Jasmine never held anyone in prison during their reign.”
I looked around the Great Hall and walked toward the massive wooden dining table. It was covered with a red velvet tablecloth. The chair at the head of the table had a high back and was positioned on a higher level than the others. There were fourteen chairs on each side, all beautifully carved on the back in some unknown language. I pulled out one chair adjacent to the head of the table and sat on it.
For some unknown reason, my heart started beating faster, like I had run a marathon. I had a feeling of déjà vu—as if I had been to this place, I had used this table, and had eaten dinner here. I looked around the hall and noticed a passage, which had been hidden in darkness.
“I think the tower is on that side.” I pointed out the passage.
Steve and Tyler looked where I indicated. Julia looked up from her map. “She’s right.” She looked at both the men and then to me. “How do you know?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I really didn’t know.
I got up from the dining chair and started down the darkened path. It was a wide passage at first, but then it started getting narrower and closed-in like a cave. There was a strange dingy smell, and it was too dark to see. Steve turned on the flashlight from his iPhone and we all followed him.
“I don’t see any light fixtures here,” commented Tyler. “Is it a tower or a dungeon?” He looked at Julia.
Julia thought for a moment. “Like I told you, I haven’t read anything about a dungeon here. I’d just heard of the tower—that it was used for punishing people.”
The dark, narrow passage ended at a wooden door. Steve threw the light on the door to find the handle. He moved it and pushed the door wide open. There were spiral stairs going up to the tower. The walls were so narrow that there was only space for one person to climb at a time. There were no windows or openings to the outside, but there was another passage adjacent to the stairs.
“Okay.” Steve turned around and asked Julia, “Are we going up or following that passage?” He pointed to the unknown path.
“Let’s check upstairs first,�
�� I commented, before Julia could say anything.
“All right.” Steve took the first step and we all followed him.
It took almost five minutes to reach the top landing of the stairs. There was a vast open area and it had several wooden doors, all black.
Steve looked back at us. “Which one do we pick first?” He was specifically asking me.
“Shall we do eeny-meeny-miny-mo?” Tyler joked.
“What do you suggest, Julia?” I asked our guide.
“Let’s check one by one, starting from the left corner,” Julia answered.
We agreed to her suggestion and Tyler opened the first door on the left. It was a dark room, with a very small opening to the outside world and nothing else. It was completely empty, but the smell in it was rotten.
“It stinks in here,” I commented. “What’s the smell from, if it’s been closed for six hundred years?”
“It smells of blood,” Steve replied. He looked around the room. “Strange…if it’s been so many years since people were tortured here, why does it smell like fresh blood?”
Steve’s question sent goose bumps all over my body. I rubbed my left arm with my right hand and looked around the room. I walked toward the small opening and tried to look outside.
What I saw from the window gave me a jolt. I instantly fell back, but fortunately Steve was standing close to me so he caught me by the shoulder.
“Hey, girl, watch out!” he shouted.
My breath was ragged. “It’s…it’s…” I was completely out of words.
“What’s wrong, Myra? What did you see?” He looked me in the eye, concerned for me.
Before he could ask me anything else, Tyler peeked out the window. “Dude, come check this out,” he called to Steve.
Once Upon A [Stolen] Time (Stolen Series Book 1) Page 8