Walls of Ash

by Amber Newberry

  After tea I was shown to my room which was right next to Celia’s. She informed me that her brother and his wife were tending to business in Hamburg, but they would return to Anbetung before I left for the convent and that I would meet their children, as well. As she pulled back the curtains in my room she told me that this was the room my mother stayed in when she was there. Despite the feeling of welcome, I also felt a little strange to be sleeping in the same bed that my mother slept in so many years ago. Celia must have noticed that I was feeling a little uneasy at that prospect because she placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “Not to worry, dear, you will find that the nights here are restful and as quiet as the English countryside.”

  When she left me, I changed my clothes and washed my face with water from a basin across the room. The windows had a bench seat right in front of them, so I leaned over it to look out. I was quite high up, and as I looked down at the top of a tree, the height made me dizzy. I felt my stomach flutter, but I sat and looked at the surroundings of where I would be spending the next few days. This place certainly was awe-inspiring but there was a strange presence in this room. Two souls, one body, I thought, and little bumps appeared on my arms and the back of my neck.

  It was not the thought that my mother’s soul remained with me all of this time. A part of me always felt that way, why else would I have dreamt of her so clearly and so often. If anything, I found that presence comforting. This feeling was different and it made me wonder if I was being warned. Was she trying to tell me something? I laughed out loud at myself and thought how silly I was. These are the ramblings of the little girl I left behind in London. Time to put that little girl to rest, I thought.

  Chapter 6

  That night I hardly slept. I thought about what Celia’s mother said to me on our arrival. The worries of starting school and meeting the other girls who I’d be spending the next few years with made me horribly nervous, too. My mind was going round and round in circles when I heard the sound of a creaking floor board just outside in the hall. I sat straight up and the covers flew forward. Had I locked my door?

  A faint flickering light shone beneath my door. My chest heaved and my thoughts went back to the night I heard the voices in the hallway back home. Hilda was not here to lock me safely in. A clicking sound and my door slowly opened. I pulled the covers up to my chin. The mangled hands of Celia’s mother held a candle straight out in front of her. She crept slowly toward me as though she was floating and I inched back until my shoulders were against one of the four posters of the bed. The carvings in the wood dug into my spine.

  “Celia!” I called out, “Celia? Julian?” I didn’t care which of them came as long as someone did.

  Her hair was wild and her face twisted into a mindless expression as she held the candle straight out.

  “Zwei Seelen, ein Körper” she said softly.

  “Celia, please! Julian!” I was pleading now for one of them to come to my aid.

  “Zwei Seelen, ein Körper,” she said again, her voice a whisper that seemed to echo as she spoke. Her eyes went white, and she let go of the candle which fell onto the bed. I was immediately surrounded by the flames and I heard the weathered voice again chanting over and over.

  “Tamsin!” Celia was calling my name. Everything went black.

  I opened my eyes to see Celia staring down at me with her hands on my shoulders.

  “It was a nightmare. You were calling out for me as though someone held a knife to your throat!” She held me against her like a small child.

  “Whatever was going on in that mind of yours?” My cheeks were wet with tears, and I was too embarrassed to tell her that her mother tried to burn me alive, so I told her that I dreamed I was thrown over the cliff with the Perseus. As she rocked me back and forth I saw a shadow on the floor. Julian stood in the doorway.

  “She’s had a fright. Will you go downstairs and get her a glass of warm milk to help calm her?” Celia asked. He didn’t answer, he just rushed out to be of service.

  “I’m so sorry I woke you, both of you--” I started and she shushed me like a baby. The dream was still fresh in my mind, and it was a long time before I was calmed. When she finally let me go, Julian came back into the room with three glasses of warm milk on a tray.

  “Well, I figured we might all need some assistance getting back to sleep.” With that he sat down in a chair across the room.

  “I’m sure your Aunt would be appalled that you’ve seen me in my night clothes,” he laughed.

  It got a smile out of me and I said, “Not as appalled as she would be knowing you’ve seen me in mine.”

  Celia said, “You better get back to your own bed, Julian,” and she nodded toward the door. He got up, but before he exited the room he turned to look at us.

  “I may not have come to the rescue at the cliff, but remember who brought you warm milk in the middle of the night.” He bowed to me and left. I could not help but giggle, and Celia laughed, too.

  “I don’t always understand that one, but I think he means well... most of the time,” she said to me while sipping her milk.

  “Leo is mine, so we seem to have a special bond, but since Julian was born to Reginald’s first wife, he has always seemed a bit harder to get close to. He was a willful boy and he hated me when he was young.”

  “Julian’s mother was soft spoken, proper and frail. She died young, when Julian was small... only five years old, I believe. Older than you were when you lost your own mother.” She paused at the thought of my mother before she continued.

  “I only knew her for a brief while. I met her even before I knew Reginald because he was often away at his offices in London when I came to visit your mother at Rhineholt.” It almost seemed like she was talking to herself.

  “Everything happened so fast with Julian’s father. We met just a year after his first wife’s death and it was only a few months after that, that we were wed. It was too fast for Julian, he still mourned his mother and he thought I was trying to replace her.” She stood up and walked toward the door, but turned back to me before leaving.

  “If you’d like, you can come and sleep in my room if you are still frightened.”

  I thought about the old woman holding out the candle, and I stood up to follow her across the hall.

  * * *

  I woke before Celia and quietly went to my room to clean up and dress. The room was less haunting with the sun shining through the glass. I was hungry, so I took my chances and went downstairs to attempt to find breakfast. The stairs led down to a wide room with marble floors a lot like the ballroom at Rhineholt. There were several huge paintings on the walls. I stood for a moment and admired one of an imposing structure that stood on a hill. There was a voice behind me.

  “I see you have found Hohenzollern.” I turned to see Julian, who was thankfully no longer in his night clothes.

  “It is most beautiful,” I said.

  “Perhaps I shall reward your finding it with breakfast? Then a tour of Anbetung after?” I was very curious about this place, but I was in need of nourishment.

  “I would like that,” I said.

  Breakfast was served in the conservatory, much the same way it was at home, buffet style, laid out on the sideboard. I sat down with a hard-boiled egg, and a moment later Julian sat next to me with a veritable menagerie of animal parts on his plate. He noticed my disgusted look.

  “What? I have a long journey ahead of me!”

  I shook my head and giggled but then stopped when I realized he would be leaving. I was surprisingly sad to see him go. Our relationship was a strange one, but he was one of my few friends in this new place and after he was gone, there would only be Celia, and she would be leaving me at the convent. The thought made me both a little terrified and exhilarated, if it is possible to be both at the same time.

  After my plate was cleared, I watched Julian shovel in his breakfast. Bernadine would’ve said he ate “like a plough-man.” We got up, and he led me up
and down halls, to room after room, and told me about the paintings and the oldest pieces in the house, where they came from and their significances. There was one room in particular that caught my eye.

  “This is called the Gold Room,” Julian said.

  The walls were a very dark and papered with a floral design that only showed when caught by the light, and there were several large portraits and many smaller ones. Light came in through the tall windows, and when Julian pulled the gold brocade curtains a little wider, the light shown directly onto something more beautiful than anything I had seen at Anbetung thus far. A pianoforte, the largest and most elegant I had ever seen. There was an old, out of tune pianoforte in one of the rooms at Rhineholt, but I only ever played the spinnet, which was much smaller. This piece was very large and black with gold flowers painted on the prodigious legs and the bench, which also had a gold velvet cushion.

  Julian followed my gaze to where it rested on the pianoforte. He walked over to it and lifted the cover to reveal the black and white teeth. His finger plunked down the lowest of the keys creating an echoing, dark sound within the room.

  “Would you like to play?” he asked.

  “As if you need to ask!” I said, and he pulled the bench out for me to take a seat. My fingers had not touched the keys when he stopped me.

  “Wait,” he said and walked to the side where he pulled up on the top of the pianoforte. It opened from the center like a flower and on either side were two large golden roses. He propped up the sides.

  “Now. We can’t have our renowned pianist playing a muffled instrument, can we?” He smiled at me, and after taking in the beauty of the gold against the black, I began to play.

  Julian walked over to one of the windows and pulled back a thick, red drape to look out. After plunking through a simple tune I learned as a child, I stopped.

  “Oh come now. That can’t be all?” Julian said scornfully.

  “I haven’t any idea what to play on such a magnificent piece of artwork. I would not want to disgrace it, after all.”

  “How dare you say such a thing. You put this pianoforte to shame.” He joked, but I felt the heat rush to my cheeks and I looked down at the keys again.

  “The only disgrace you could do is not to play something equally magnificent. Or not to play it at all. It sits here collecting dust that gets polished away by a maid once or twice a week, and I daresay that is the only attention it gets. It is practically a piece of furniture. You’d hardly know it was musical.” I thought for a moment and then placed my fingers softly on the keys and began to play Paisiello’s Piano Concerto no. 4.

  The warm tones echoed between the golden walls, and it was clear why this room was chosen to house the instrument. The acoustics were matchless. When I finished the song, the final chord sustained for a long time creating a rather dark atmosphere as it slowly died off into silence. When I looked up, Julian’s eyes were on me.

  “Do you suppose it was satisfied with that?” I asked.

  “It was perfect,” he said, and I felt the warmth rising to my cheeks again.

  “You like this room?” Julian asked, breaking the awkward silence. I nodded.

  “Good, because there is something unique in this room that I think you will find especially interesting.” I looked at him questioningly.

  “You mean aside from where I sit now?” I asked in mock surprise.

  “Let’s see if you can figure out what it is.” He was amused by my curiosity.

  Julian was always playing games with me, and I wasn’t sure if he meant it menacingly or if that was just his way of being friendly. Whatever his intentions were, our time together was certainly never dull. My eyes darted around the room trying to figure out what it was he wanted me to see. I got up from the bench and surveyed the room. There were several small portraits where he stood, so I walked over and tapped my foot as a governess might when dealing with a combative student.

  “It is cheating if you are hiding whatever it is I am supposed to be looking for.”

  He laughed and said, “Touche!”

  As he stepped to the side I caught my breath. It was a portrait of my mother and Celia together. They appeared to be young in the painting, which hung between a portrait of Celia’s parents and one of a small round child that I recognized as Leo. In the portrait, Celia sat on a settee and my mother stood behind her. They were both beautiful, but my mother’s eyes were simply captivating. She was as attractive as always, but the look on her face made me imagine that she found Anbetung just as strange and chilling as I did.

  “I see you have found your mother,” Celia said from behind us.

  “My father brought in an artist, once, to restore some old pieces in the gallery. He insisted on painting the two of us. We were not much older than you are now, I believe.”

  “It is lovely. I might have seen it sooner if my view was not obstructed.” Julian grinned at my comment and pulled a pocket watch from his vest.

  “I should prepare to leave. I trust you will finish Tamsin’s tour... Mother?” he said, a strange emphasis on the last word.

  She nodded. “As long as you don’t forget to say goodbye before you leave.”

  “Of course,” He replied and kissed her cheek before he left us alone. It was an odd exchange, but we moved on and continued the tour.

  Once we finished exploring, Celia said that her brother and his wife would be arriving that afternoon and that the following morning we could go into the village. She was going to sit with her mother and asked if I’d join her, but I declined, still thinking of my nightmare. So we parted ways and I set about the business of finding my room again.

  I walked through room after room and realized quickly that I was lost. I came to a large open area with gold accented marble floors that I recognized as the ballroom. There were high ceilings and tall, thin windows that turned to a dark blue the higher up they went. I admired the painted ceiling, which had a depiction of Loki naked and bound with a serpent above his head. Nearby, there was a woman, also nude and holding a bowl. I remembered the story that Hilda told me about Loki. She often talked of the myths and stories of her homeland.

  “Jötunn.” I heard Julian’s voice behind me. It was a word that I understood referred to the Norse race of mythical Gods.

  “Loki is bound by Skadi, the Goddess of winter. I’d say she has him in an awful predicament. The woman is Sigyn, his beloved. She catches the serpent’s venom so it will not kill Loki.”

  “What happens when the bowl is filled?” I asked.

  “Excruciating pain that was said to have caused earthquakes. The venom gave poor Loki an insatiable thirst for freedom. Not to worry, he finds his freedom and dies an honorable death at the hands of Heimdallr, who, sadly also finds death at Loki’s hands.”

  “This mythology, it has many bitter ends, from what Hilda told me,” I said.

  “Yes, well, that is often the way of the Jötunn.”

  We were silent for a moment admiring the ceiling.

  “Are you lost?” he finally asked. I did not want him to know that I allowed myself to get lost in the huge house, but I wanted to find my way back to my room.

  “I suppose you could say that.”

  He laughed, “You are either lost, or you’re not, which is it?”

  I sighed, “I’m lost.”

  “There, that wasn’t so hard to admit?” he said, “Follow me.” He led me over to the far corner of the ballroom where there was a curtain which he pulled aside to reveal a hidden staircase which was very dark.

  “When Leo and I were young, we would hide behind this curtain during parties. My step uncle, who you will meet this afternoon, had a taste for large gatherings and the balls would go well into the night. Leo and I would fall asleep on the stairs listening to the music.” His face hardened and I wondered if he was thinking about Leo’s inability to hear music, now.

  “After you,” he bowed to me. I went ahead of him, against my better judgement. There were many stairs and a
door which I opened and went through, and it slammed behind me.

  “Julian?” I called but there was no answer.

  “Julian?” I said again.

  Silence.

  I placed my hands against the door but it was locked. My breathing became heavy, my palms were sweating. Turning to try the door behind me, I felt that it was also locked.

  I was trapped.

  I thought about the candle falling to the bed engulfing me in the flames.

  I shuddered.

  Looking around, it was so dark I could hardly see the stairs below me.

  “Hello?” I said, trying to stay calm. I was ready to scream. Breathing deeply, I began to beat my hands against the door that slammed behind me, hoping that Julian was still on the other side, trying to free me.

  Finally, there was a noise from above me which led to a light shining down into the stairwell. Julian’s face peered at me from above, laughing.

  “You are absolutely juvenile!” I called up to him. Running up and out into the hallway, I pushed him aside to get through the door.

  “You are despicable!” I yelled as I passed him.

  “Calm down, you didn’t like my trick? There’s a trap door that leads to the second floor. You missed it in the darkness... I didn’t mean to give you such a scare.” He was laughing hard.

  “Yes, you go ahead and laugh. Consider our ‘draw’ over. You are inconsiderate and I don’t care to spend any more time with you. A second more and I might be ill!” I growled.

  “Whatever will you do when your Aunt and Uncle give their consent when I ask for your hand?” Julian teased. He was still laughing.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” I whispered harshly. He laughed even harder.

  “I hate you!” I screeched and before I thought, I pushed him into wall that held a floral painting. He stumbled and when he got his footing back, I could see that he was angry with me.

  “Who then? That dull Eckhardt? He would bore you to death!” I looked down.