by A. W. Cross
“And Clarice.” Francois grabbed my sister’s hands and shook them. “So happy to see you too.”
Francois was the oldest person in town, well over eighty, a significant age if you considered most people didn’t even make it to sixty. He was also the wisest person in town, and the closest thing to a grandfather that I’d ever had. He had read every book in the library, a feat I had yet to accomplish.
The library was quite small, but it was packed to the brim with books, most of them organized by genre, although others were classified by how much Francois had enjoyed reading them. In some ways, probably because anyone in town bothered to visit the library, it acted more like Francois’ personal book collection than anything else.
I’d once asked the old man if he managed to make any profit at all from running a library. Normally, people were supposed to pay a small fee when they loaned the books, but he had never asked me for a fee, and if I was the only one borrowing any of the books, then he should’ve been bankrupt already. But Francois had explained to me that centuries ago, before the world became overrun by the Tainted, his family was extremely wealthy. They had a library the size of several houses—something I could scarcely imagine, and that was surely an exaggeration. When the Tainted came, his great-great-great grandfather, who was an avid bibliophile, saved all the books he could and vowed to give them to the town’s people to read so that no one would forget how the world was like before the Blight destroyed it all.
Thinking about that story, especially in light of what Clarice had said earlier, made me feel hollow and empty, but I took a deep breath and tried to channel some of Francois’ enthusiasm.
“I was hoping you could help me,” I said. “I would like to check the atlas.” The idea had hit me after realizing Father’s invention would require us to install the wires at different distances and in different segments. The atlas had some maps of the terrain outside our town, and I could inspect those to see where we could best install the tripping wire.
“Ah, the atlas!” Francois pushed his glasses further up his nose. His hair was so grey it was almost white, and the last few years, his eyesight had worsened too. I had no idea how much he could still see, even with his glasses, but I hoped it would be many years before he turned blind, as he feared he would. For a man so obsessed with books as the librarian, a world without the possibility to read would be a true nightmare.
“It’s in the back room. Astrology, astronomy, and geography.” I knew the genre-catalog by heart by now, but I always let Francois say it, let him take the lead, because he always lit up from happiness whenever he could show me around and help me find a particular book.
“I have been thinking about re-categorizing the genres,” Francois said as he led us through the maze of small and medium-sized rooms all the way to the back room. All walls were lined with bookshelves reaching to the ceiling, and all of them were completely occupied by books in all sizes and colors. “Maybe geography works better with mathematics than astronomy. Or is it crazy of me to think that?”
“Francois talks about re-categorizing everything in the library every few months of so,” I explained to Clarice, ignoring the librarian’s question. “And he never does it. I don’t know how many systems we’ve worked on already, but the books have been in the same spot for at least a decade.”
“Argh, you’re right!” Francois threw up his hands in mock-frustration. It wasn’t the first time that we’d gone through this or had this exact same conversation, but I still enjoyed it. “It’s just that, I get a good idea for a re-organizing, I work it out but then when it comes to actually starting it… No. Then, I start to think, what’s wrong with the old system? At least this way I know where I left everything, and I don’t have to re-learn the system from scratch again.”
“Plus, it makes more sense to have geography with astronomy, if you ask me,” I said. “Why would you even consider putting it next to mathematics?”
“I don’t know. I even considered going alphabetical, but that seems illogical,” Francois said. “Anyway, we’re here!” He gestured to the room in front of us. The cabinets to the left housed all his books on astrology—the study of the sun and the moon signs, of Virgos, Gemini, Aries, and all the other signs of the horoscope.
The middle closets showcased all the books related to astronomy, to the planets illuminating the sky above, from where, perhaps, distant civilizations glanced down at us and wondered how we had managed to screw up so badly that the entirety of our once great world was reduced to one small, pivotal town.
To the right were perhaps the saddest books of all: geography books, sad reminders of how the world had once been, and would never be again.
“Which atlas do you need?” Francois said while he pointed at the closet. “You know I’ve got a few.”
“The most recent one. I want a map of the area outside of our town. How it looked before the Blight came.”
A dark look crossed Francois’ face. “Why do you want to see that? You’re not planning on heading out there, do you?” I had no doubt that if I said yes, the old man would try to restrain me with all the strength he had, and maybe even try to lock me up in the library. It warmed my heart to see how much he cared for me.
“You’re not, right?” Clarice asked, the same worry resonating in her tone.
“No, no, don’t worry. It’s for Father’s newest invention.”
Both of them looked at me as if I’d just spoken Latin, so I explained. “He’s working on a defense mechanism for the town. It’s supposed to go up on the walls, but in order to install it properly, I need to know what is beyond our border, and at what distance we should install what.”
“Hm.” Francois looked hesitant for a second, but then he reached for the upper shelf and grabbed one of the atlases anyway. “If you’re sure that’s why, then fine. I can’t refuse to help out with something that could protect our town.”
Clarice didn’t say anything. She looked as pale as a ghost.
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to go beyond the Wall,” I reassured her. “It’s just for Father’s project.”
She nodded at me, but she still seemed upset, and the color didn’t return to her skin. “They will be alike,” she whispered below her breath. “And she will join him beyond the Wall…”
“What did you say?” I asked her, frowning.
“Nothing,” she answered quickly. “Nothing. Just something from my dream.”
Francois walked to the bookstand in the middle of the room and put the massive book down on the stand. The atlas was one of the heaviest and tallest books in the collection—it easily weighed five kilograms, if not more. All the pages were double the size of ordinary pages in length, and most of them were decorated left and right, to show larger-sized maps of the world.
“What do you mean with ‘something from your dream’” I asked Clarice.
She shook her head. “Not now.”
Francois skimmed through the pages until he found a map of our area. “There.”
The map showed a green background, and the names of various villages that had now been wiped off the face of the earth. Once upon a time, our town had been one of many, and we traded with our neighboring villages and even held yearly feasts where we celebrated the harvest together, at least according to what I had read in the history books Francois kept in his library.
A bit further away lay the forest, a vast army of trees that separated us from other towns and cities, some of them much larger than the place we lived in, some of them even smaller. One place, the capital, had been so large that our village could fit in it fifty times, if not more, before it got overrun by the Tainted and was destroyed.
I understood now completely what Clarice had meant when she said that reading made people sad. Seeing this, the truth of what the world had been reduced to, black on white—or black on green, since the background of the map was colored green—made me feel empty, hollow and sad.
“So, here’s our town, there’s the f
orest where our hunters go to catch game…” I traced the locations with my finger. “It could be helpful to already add some tripping wires there, but we have to make sure that we have a way to turn the system off when our Hunters are out there. Especially if we install these threads as far away as the forest. And we’ll need someone to roll out the connecting rope all the way from the forest to the Wall…” I mused out loud, tracing over the parts of the map that were relevant.
“Wait.” Clarice was standing beside me, hovering over my shoulder, as she pointed her finger at a spot on the map, right in the middle of the forest. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Francois, peeked over my other shoulder, shoved his glasses back up his nose in order to see what she was pointing at. “Oh, that? It’s a castle. I don’t know if it’s still there, but before the Blight came, a castle stood in the forest, home to an aristocratic family—”
“A castle?” The words came out like a squeak, and they immediately made me turn and glance at my sister. She sounded like all the air had evaporated from her lungs.
“Clarice, what’s wrong?”
She wheezed a little, almost as if she’d faint, and I grabbed her arm to steady her. “Clarice?” I asked again, nearly snapping at her now from worry.
“A castle. There’s a castle in the woods.” Panic flickered in her eyes.
“Yes. Why? What’s wrong? Why does that matter?” The questions tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Is this related to your nightmare? Clarice?”
Her mind seemed to work in overdrive, processing a thousand thoughts a minute, as her eyes snapped from left to right.
“My nightmare… I don’t know if it was a nightmare at all. Maybe it was a premonition. I think I dreamt this moment, Belle.” She spoke so fast I could barely keep up. “I’m sure I dreamt about the castle, and about something horrible, dreadful, hiding inside.”
“Something other than the Tainted, you mean?” I asked her. “By now, the ruins of that castle could’ve easily been overrun by them.”
Clarice hesitated for a second, but then shook her head. “Not the Tainted. Something worse.”
I turned to Francois. “Could there be something hiding in that castle? Something that is even worse than the Tainted?”
The librarian looked as clueless as I felt. “All I know is that the castle used to be inhabited by one of the wealthiest royal families in the world. Before the Blight came, that is. The town used to pay taxes to the family in the castle, in exchange for protection. But when the Blight arrived, no army of soldiers could fight against it, and even the castle was overrun. Could there be something hiding in there… Maybe, yes. Maybe…” He paused, licking his lips. “Maybe it’s where the Beast resides.”
The Beast. The terrible monster that plagued our town every few years, and which was even more horrible than the Blight. Because every time the Beast came, it demanded a sacrifice.
A human sacrifice.
Clarice shivered. “Is there a drawing or painting of this castle somewhere?”
“Hmm, I think I have it in one of the books…” Francois put a finger to his lips, thinking. A moment later, he started rummaging about, moving from room to room.
“What else happened in your nightmare?” I asked Clarice.
“Nothing. I don’t… I just remember bits and pieces.” She scratched her forehead, thinking. “All I know is that it started with someone saying ‘They will be alike. And she will join him beyond the Wall.’ Someone whose voice I didn’t recognize, but it seemed like…. Almost like a prophecy, or something said a long, long time ago.”
“Like before the Blight?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “It was all so chopped off. Maybe it was just a dream, but with you hearing a voice that told you almost exactly the same… And then when I heard about the castle beyond the Wall…”
I nodded. “I understand. So, you don’t remember anything else from it?”
She cast me a look that was so dark I instantly got goosebumps. “No, but I don’t think I want to remember, to be honest.”
“Here you go!” Francois appeared in the doorway, holding one of his tomes. The atmosphere in the room was cutting-edge, but when he walked back in, the tension lifted a little. He put the book on top of the atlas on the bookstand, opening it up on a page that showed a drawing of the castle.
“I doubt it looks anything like that now, if it still exists,” the old man said. “I asked our Hunters about it once, but they never go out that far into the woods. Too tricky, too dangerous, too many possibilities for the Tainted to hide and surprise them.”
The castle was magnificent. It was a complete mystery to me how mankind had been able to create something like it. Built on a hill overlooking the valley below, surrounded from all sides by forest. Five lank towers reached for the skies, and one larger tower, the tallest of them all, loomed above them. A bridge connected the castle to the rest of the world. The enormous building had countless window, all of them starting off rounded and ending in a point—gothic style, if my references to the building styles of the world before the Blight was correct.
“Wow.” I whistled below my breath. “I would love to see it, explore its ruins. Even as a ruin, it must look amazing.”
Francois nodded, sharing my excitement.
But Clarice looked as grim as if someone had just told her that her great-aunt had passed away. Her lips were a thin line and she had a haunted look in her eyes.
“It was this place. This was the castle I dreamt about.” She gasped. “I need some fresh air.” She’d barely spoken the sentence before she hurried out of the library, her skirts flowing behind her as she practically ran for the door.
“Is she all right?” Francois asked, sounding both worried and confused, two emotions that I also felt at the moment.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Thanks for the help. I have to catch up with her.” With those words, I left too, leaving the old man standing over a book filled with drawings of a crumbling castle hidden deep within the woods outside our town.
6
“Is there something about this castle you’re not telling me? Or about this nightmare?” I asked Clarice the moment I spotted her outside the library. She was standing in the middle of the road, looking dazed.
“It’s nothing. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Clarice, talk to me. Whatever this nightmare means, I’m involved too.” I threw my hands in the air. “We’re in this together; you can trust me.”
She paused and looked at me, really looked at me, which she hadn’t done since we’d entered the library. “I know. But I can’t make sense of it myself, not right now. Let me talk to Father about it and then… Then, I’ll tell you.”
I wanted to press her to tell me right then and there, but that seemed a bit cruel. She seemed so… delicate. Fragile. Like a flower that could wither and die any second.
“Okay,” I reluctantly gave in. “Let’s go home then, so you can talk to—”
“Clarice,” a familiar voice interrupted our conversation. The voice came from behind me, and the moment I heard it, realizing who it was, I cringed.
Charles.
Stuck-up, selfish Charles, probably the last person on this planet who I wanted to see right now, or who I wanted talking to Clarice right now.
“Hey, Charles.” Clarice’s whole demeanor changed from upset to sparkling, radiant. God, she fancied him so much, and the worst part was that he didn’t deserve it at all. Not an ounce of it.
He bowed for her; a gesture that was supposed to be elegant but made him look boorish. Everything about Charles was disproportionate. He was tall and lean, but his hands seemed too big for his body, and his limbs were so long his arms reached half-way to his knees. His nose was a gigantic monstrosity in his otherwise thin, gaunt face. He would certainly not win any awards for being handsome, although for some reason he seemed to consider himself God’s gift to mankind.
“I’m surprised
to see you here today.” Coming from him, it almost sounded like an insult, as if Clarice should’ve been a good girl and stayed at home where she belonged. Maybe I was being judgmental again, but Amélie didn’t like Charles either and we couldn’t both be wrong, could we?
“And with your sister, nonetheless.” The look Charles gave me bordered somewhere between contempt and hatred, as if he hadn’t quite decided yet if he wanted to spend any energy on actively hating me, or if he’d settle for just feeling a passive sense of contempt.
“We went to the dress shop,” Clarice said, ignoring any possible malice that could be in Charles’ voice. “I bought a ribbon. Do you like it?” She pointed at the ribbon in her hair and then turned around, showing it to him.
No man alive could manage to look more disinterested than Charles did at that moment. If he was supposed to like her, if he wanted to marry her, which I guessed he did since he had proposed to her, for God’s sake, then you’d think he’d at least be interested in her, right? I had to resist the urge not to strangle him.
“And Belle has a matching one. Well, in a different color.” Clarice gestured at me now, but Charles didn’t even bother to look in my direction.
“I’m heading to the tavern, where I’m meeting the other Hunters,” Charles said. “Do you want to join us?”
The Hunters tended to huddle together like a herd. It wasn’t that strange, I supposed, since they practically spent all day together training, and most of them were the same age. Because of their rigid training schedule, and the dangers of their job, most people quit being a Hunter after the age of forty.
“We would love to!” Clarice answered before I could protest, her nightmare seemingly forgotten.
I shot her an angry look and groaned in frustration, but she ignored me and gave Charles her sweetest smile. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”