The Lady in Yellow

by Alyne de Winter

  “It’s getting stronger every month, you know. Every year it will get stronger until I’m fourteen. Then there will be no going back.”

  “What?” Veronica gasped, unsure at first what the child meant.

  Jacqueline ran out the door, leaving her white china doll sitting on the window sill. Veronica picked it up. It looked grubby as if the child hadn’t let it out of her grasp for weeks. She couldn’t forget how it had writhed in Mrs. Twig's hand that night in the kitchen, and put it back down.

  Then the realization struck her.

  “The cycle of transformation grows stronger with age,” she whispered. “It is firmly established at puberty. Before age fourteen, she can be saved.”

  Veronica steeled herself and knocked on Rafe de Grimston’s door. There was no answer.

  “Rafe? Mr. de Grimston? It’s me, Veronica,” she said, knocking again.

  Still, no answer. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room felt deserted. She checked Rafe’s bedchamber and found her pistol lying on the dresser, loaded with three silver bullets. How could Janet have missed it? Veronica picked the weapon up and aimed it at the mirror. The reflection looked like a stranger in another dimension, pointing the gun at her. With a pounding heart, she set it down.

  Light was streaming in through the windows of the sitting room. Veronica gazed up at the two portraits, reminded of the first time she’d seen them, when Rafe and Sovay were still mysteries to her. She wandered out to the bay and looked down through the stonework at the gardens and the tomb nakedly visible through the bare trees. The masonry was white with frost, the angels on the rooftop furred with heaps of snow. Further away, up the slope, was the ruined chapel, veiled under the crystalline boughs of the yews. The lawn was a pure pane of whiteness. Veronica hurried up to the landing, and faced the tower door. Mrs. Twig’s blood had been cleaned from the floor, but a streak of darkness remained. Skirting the place, she took the rest of the stairs up to the roof of the tower.

  She scanned the garden as far as she could see, but there was no sign of life, let alone of Rafe. Perhaps he was in one of the walled gardens. She thought she should go down and try to find him, but she stalled. It was painful to admit that she was frightened of him. The early twilight tinged the landscape blue and violet. A faint echo of the grandfather clock gonged the hour for tea, and she remembered her promise to Jacqueline. She was halfway down the stairs when a shriek went up in the birch wood. Veronica hurried back up to the roof and looked out in time to see Jacqueline fall upon a small animal and kill it with her teeth. Then the child stood up, gasped the white rabbit by its long ears, and carried it towards the house leaving a trail of blood behind her on the snow.

  “It’s tonight,” Veronica muttered. “They change tonight.”

  She clung to the battlements, her fingers digging into the stone, and waited for the moon to rise. Stars began winking out. There was noise near the Rock Garden. The door opened and a shadowy figure emerged, tall, bulky and hunched over as if under a terrible burden. Rafe!

  Veronica could not wait for the moon to rise. She ran down the stairs. On the landing she saw Janet with the dead rabbit on a platter, holding the tower door open for Mrs. Twig and Jacqueline to enter. Though they still looked human enough, their eyes were focused in the way of beasts; both of them were raising their hackles, resisting their temporary imprisonment.

  “Oh, Janet! Why did you wait until this night to send for me?” Veronica said.

  Janet gave her a blank look and, using the rabbit as bait, lured Mrs. Twig into the tower.

  Confused as ever, Veronica ran across the landing to the bay, and into Rafe’s rooms. Once inside, she paused again to look at his portrait. So handsome he was in the picture, so normal, so exactly as she wanted him to be. That wife of his, Sovay, what would she be up to tonight? The loaded gun was on the dresser. Did she dare to face the man she loved that night of all nights without it? She remembered the terrifying beast in the tower; the brutal death of the farm woman. No!

  Far off in the distance as from another realm, the old bell began tolling slow and out of tune. Veronica grabbed the pistol and went downstairs.

  She saw him through the window, standing in the garden in a shaft of moonlight, Rafe de Grimston shimmering from dark to very bright, from wolf to man. It seemed as if he wanted to come inside, but something stopped him. Veronica cocked her pistol and prayed she would have time to speak to him before complete savagery engulfed him. She opened the back door and went out into the garden to face him. The full moon was just edging above trees, casting his long shadow before him on the ground.

  “Rafe?”

  “Veronica. I see you’ve brought the gun. Use it then. Use it and put me and mine out of our misery forever.”

  The look of utter despair in Rafe’s eyes brought Veronica’s heart into her throat. In the shadows it was difficult to tell if he were still wholly a man, or part beast, or in the midst of his transformation. The bell tolled again, even more out of tune than before. Just then high, sweet, despairing howls erupted from the tower. Curving slightly in on himself, confusion clouding his eyes, Rafe growled at Veronica.

  “Stand back!” With a shaking hand, Veronica aimed the pistol at him. “Stand back!” she cried. “I don’t want to shoot you. I don’t!”

  “Why not?” he said. His body was bending painfully towards the ground. His head was changing, his neck thickening, his jaws elongating, his face disappearing under a cloud of silver fur. “You’d better hurry, or you’re lost,” he snarled.

  “No, Rafe!” she raised the gun again, and again let it fall as she too bent over, weeping. “Is this why you summoned me here? For this? Why me? Why do I have to do it? I can’t, Rafe de Grimston. I love you.”

  Just before his claws hit the ground, he paused, and then let out a terrible roar.

  Childish shrieks pierced the air. They were coming over the grass, a bright mist of children in birch bark hats.

  “What did you say?” Rafe rasped out.

  “I love you. I adore you. I….”

  The children, sparkling like Roman candles, gathered in a wide half-circle around Rafe. Each holding a single lily, they sang in high, clear voices, moving ever closer to the werewolf to surround him.

  “Stop it! You’re trying to confuse me!” Veronica shouted, squeezing the trigger of the gun.

  The ring of children was closing around him. Suddenly Veronica forgot her fear. She rushed through the gap just before the circle completed and wrapped Rafe tightly in her arms. A flash of brilliant light instantly blinded her; a powerful force tore them apart. Rafe howled and flung Veronica to the ground. He thrashed about, ready to fall upon her when a high-pitched wail shot through the air and a foot was slammed on Veronica’s wrist. Someone wrenched the gun away, and then fell back. Scintillating in an enormous cloud of golden light, her eyes slit and blazing with hate, was Sovay.

  “How dare you? Don’t believe her, Rafe. It’s me you love. It’s always been just we two. She’s just here to break us apart. Get out of our lives, you bitch!” In a mad frenzy, Sovay hurled herself at Veronica, baring her sharp white teeth.

  Howling went up in the tower, barking and moans that slowly died out and returned again. Half wolf, half man, Rafe lurched around to menace Sovay. He took a swipe at her with his heavy paw, but she quickly vanished and re-appeared on the other side. Rafe rose into the air with a powerful leap. He twisted around, seemed about to fall upon Veronica who feinted, scrambled for the gun and pointed it at Rafe. Then, as if some other power had grabbed her arm, she swung the gun at Sovay and pulled the trigger. The explosion was so powerful, she fell over from the blast. Rafe fell in a heap on the snow not three feet away.

  The ring of children vanished leaving a thick, viscous haze over the ground.

  It was difficult to be sure what had happened.

  “Rafe! Rafe! Oh my God! Oh my God! Rafe!” Veronica screamed.

  Someone was sobbing as if their heart would break.
>
  Veronica stumbled through the mist and found Sovay lying in the snow. The silver bullet had torn through her bodice, but there was no blood. Her face was wet with tears. She did not seem to see Veronica, for she was gazing up at the millions of stars twinkling across the black heavens.

  Her lips did not move, but Veronica heard Sovay’s voice clearly. Why did you not love me, Rafe? If only you had loved me, we could have ended this curse long ago.

  Veronica stood still, listening to her own heart beat, trembling with sorrow and the shock of what she’d done. Rafe was lying close by, moaning. Veronica ran to him.

  “Oh, my darling!” she cried and lay over him, covering his face with kisses.

  Rafe rose up on one elbow looking so much smaller and slimmer in his human shape. He glanced over at Sovay with an expression of terrible recognition and remorse. Smoky fumes rose from the body, gradually taking the shape of a white wolf that lay bleeding from its heart.

  Rafe stood up and grabbed Veronica. Together they watched the wolf become a woman again. But this time it was not Sovay, but a girl with masses of curling, flaxen hair and wearing a medieval gown of yellow brocade. She glowed as if the moon lit her from within. Her face was rosy, smiling, wanton and alive. Veronica clung to Rafe, tugged at his shirt, coaxed him turn away. Suddenly the beautiful body imploded. Dust rose, black and smelling of sulfur, yellow as the decayed medieval gown that clung to the long, the fine bones of the libertine.

  Veronica hid her face against Rafe’s chest. They stood together in a warm embrace. They were about to go into the house, when they turned to look back and saw Sovay’s body lying there, her white dress, her shroud, stained over the heart with blood.

  “She was possessed,” said Veronica. “Poor thing.”

  “I wasn’t sure how it was,” Rafe said. His eyes were fixed on Sovay, yet his fingers moved mindlessly through Veronica’s hair. She grabbed his hand and held it to her cheek.

  “Please, Rafe. Don’t let Sovay’s death come between us. Not after all this.”

  Rafe turned to Veronica and kissed her. Then he looked back at Sovay lying dead in the snow.

  “She was beautiful. Tragic and beautiful,” he said.

  “Do we have to burn her?” Veronica said. “I couldn’t bear to burn her.”

  “I’ll put her in the silver coffin,” he said. “Where she’ll be safe.”

  EPILOGUE

  The enchantment was over for the living. Mrs. Twig enlisted Janet and Peggy to cook up a feast for them all. Jack chose to remain Jacqueline in honor of her other half who had died as Jacques and would go on, as the boy twin, to Heaven. He and Sylvie, lying in their marble coffins, reverted to a state of mortal decay. Sovay was locked in her silver coffin. Would it indeed hold her in? The only reassurance they had that the time of Werewolves and Soul Stealers was over, was that the children with birch bark hats haunted the well no more.

  Rafe and Veronica were married at Saint Mary’s. Then they moved their entire household far, far away. No one knows where they went. The chateau in France was finally sold. The mural of the lady in the wolf’s jaws faded until nothing was left but a streak of yellow pigment on a snow-white wall.

  The End

  CURRENT E-BOOKS BY ALYNE DE WINTER

  Short stories and novellas that stand on their own.

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  ****

  EXCERPT FROM PORTRIAT OF A VAMPIRE

  Portrait of a Vampire

  By

  Alyne de Winter

  Gina always dressed for the occasion: vintage evening dress of gleaming black satin, Czech crystal beads, magenta hair teased rock star high. A good bottle of Corvina always stood on a small table at her side, with two gold-leaf goblets, both filled, one for her and one for her “model”. The walls of her small studio were covered with black drapes that kept all natural light out. Only rings of candles flaring from two Baroque candelabra were permitted. In that spectral glow, Gina sat painting, with small, careful strokes, so as not to make a mess, the single image that obsessed her: the face of her beloved Laurence, whom she affectionately called Lorenzo.

  Portraits of Lorenzo hung all over Gina’s apartment. She couldn’t bear to part with them. She set them like jewels in elaborate golden frames, hanging them sequentially on her slate-blue walls, like a gallery of ghostly ancestors. Lorenzo’s image changed subtly with the years, as if he were still alive rather than frozen in perpetual youth under the earth. At first, Gina preferred to think of him living, far away in some exotic country like Illyria or Bohemia, rather than where he really was.

  She’d met him in a club, of course. Where else? That’s where she always was with Amylie (Emily really) of the sheer black hair (dyed of course) and ample bosom, and mousy, lisping Jen the Wren who didn’t really fit in with the glam-Goth scene, but liked to watch all the “creatures” as she called them. Laurence had approached Gina out of the darkness, a slim, blue and gold satin aristocrat with shimmering bleached blond hair. He came very close, surveying her face, penetrating her soul with the bright green eyes of a big cat. He didn’t ask her to dance, merely pulled her out onto the flickering dance floor. There, he began a sinuous tango, holding her so tightly against his pulsating body, twirling her, bending her, forcing her to his rhythm, dancing her as she’d never been danced before. It was an uneasy pleasure playing puppet to his mastery.

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  About the Author

  Alyne de Winter grew up in the woods in witchy old Massachusetts, so what choice did she have? She left the performing arts, moved into a haunted house in London and began writing speculative fiction. Her prize-winning poetry and short stories may be found in many print publications and online.

  ****

  Contact Information

  Email me: alynedewinter@yahoo.com

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  My Blogs:

  Alyne de Winter: Gothic Fiction from the Dark Paradise

  www.alynedewinter.com

  Gothic Faery Tales: For the Darker Side of Faery Tales

  www.gothicfaerytales.com

  Winterspells: Life on the Magical Path

  www.winterspells.com