The Mind Below the Mire

One drop of ink fell from the quill to the yellowing page. Beyond the iron lattice- work of the chamber window, tracts of desolate land could be observed. Lands inhabited only by the spectral mountain mists, clothed by the darkened smereka trees of the forest, and where looming and rain-swept rocks dwelt. The light from the sun was retiring behind a wall of gray cloud, promising the moon no time to glow. At the center of this land, atop the highest of the Carpathian Mountain peaks, laid a great castle. The Carpathian lands stared in return, through the iron lattice-work of the chamber window, at one Otto Poligori.

            At a carved wooden desk sat he, as he often did, gazing out of the chamber window, so that he may translate the sights of his lands after they were filtered through his mind’s eye. That night, not one word came to him. Success was never expected on his daily observations. Finally bringing his eyes away from the dying sunlight, he noted at the top-right corner of the page October 11^th, 1845.

            The rest of the page was left blank. He decided it was best to retreat from the desk, and turned his attention to an old text he had become increasingly interested in. A vast majority of Otto’s day was typically spent within rare books; books that could only ever align with his own exotic interests. Not being a well travelled fellow, he never secured them himself from the unknown lands that they originated from. And when the night arrived he would dream (assuming he managed to even fall asleep to begin with) of what their strangely beautiful homes must be like. He read of ancient traditions of the East; of ages-old practices enacted under the cover of darkness and veils of hashish smoke.

            Interruptions were few, being one of the few occupants of the once richly populated Castle Poligori. Save for two servants that still remained through the years, the castle was afflicted by a painful emptiness. With what little illumination could be offered by oil-lamplight, the shadows that swallowed many of the castle’s chambers and halls were warded away. However, it was the very sight of these shadows that drove Otto to flee from them, and take refuge in his chamber. It was not necessarily the shadows and the desolation that they manifested alone that affected him, but of the mysteries that he would be led to wonder about.

            His dreams were not exclusive to the origins of the books that consumed his day, but to vague remembrances of childhood. Though the Count was young, he could recall days when the castle was alive with light and kept vibrant by the warmth of his large family. When caught in a reverie, Otto could still hear the olden lullabies that his mother sang to him beneath the benevolent moonglow that shone through his chamber window; he could feel the smooth pages of the numerous books in the grand library that his father had amassed; he could remember the daily wanderings over the hills, in the days when the ghostly mists were sparse and friendly-seeming.

            Since then, those days had long vanished, and to where, Otto was never certain. There was a great void in his memory that disallowed him from knowing what became of his family or the vibrancy that accompanied them. Fearing the madness that could result from such terrible uncertainty of the past, he hid from the darkness that had come to inhabit most of the castle. The only others that were left, two servants, did not even wince at the dark.

            Otto already loathed them for their inability to help him answer the questions that vexed him for many years. They claimed ignorance to the days that he spoke of, but he suspected that they were only lying. Thoughts of them and the entire mystery though, were eclipsed by the contents of his books and the poetry he wrote at his desk.

            He sat there at the oaken desk again, having returned the text to a set of shelves on the wall aglow by the lamplight.

            One line came to him, more than what he had had for the entire day. A loud pounding sounded at the door. Instantly annoyed, he hastily wrote down the line: There came a rapping at my chamber door.

            Remembering a certain author whose work he had recently come across, he tugged at his hair out of frustration and scribbled over the words on the page. Following one deep breath, he called out, somewhat weakly.

            “Enter!”

            There was a metallic clink, and the door opened. From the shadow just beyond the threshold, stepped one of the servants, an older woman dressed in a rust-colored gown.

            “Did you want something to eat soon?”

            Otto found that they spoke so plainly, and with little regard to his status. It served as an irritant to him. He replied all the same, though in a hushed voice.

            “It matters not at all to me what is prepared this evening, Hepzibah.”

            “Alright.”

            The plainness disgusted him, but he did well to keep his disgust hidden, as always. He intended to speak no more to Hepzibah, but one more matter came to mind. Hepzibah nearly began to close the door behind her.

            “Ah! Please wait!”

            Her face reappeared from behind the half-closed door. The sight unnerved Otto. Due to the meager lamplight, there appeared to be a visor of shadow over Hepzibah’s eyes.

            “Were you able to deliver the gift?” he asked.

All that came in reply was a nod. A barely audible “thank you” was muttered by Otto before the door came to a jarring close. Hepzibah’s presence had briefly altered his mood to melancholy , but it was replaced by a brighter one in seconds.

            A smile formed across his face as he returned to the parchments on his desk. One thing on this earth was certain to encourage pages upon pages of verse from Otto, and that was a beautiful maiden, Laura.  She dwelt further down the mountainside, but he could always glimpse her angelic figure wandering among the pine and sycamore trees. The awe never failed to come to him as the mists parted for her, or as the grey clouds scattered to make way for the Sun to shine down upon her.

            Otto fancied that she could banish the shadow from the castle forever, and usher the return of light to Castle Poligori. With this in mind, he attempted to capture her attention for one month now, having gifts sent to her on a weekly basis. Soon, he was certain he could have her summoned, and proclaim his feelings.

            Throughout the month, Otto had delivered a rose bound in black ribbon, an ornate mirror with alchemical lettering inscribed into the silver frame, and most recently, an onyx music box escarped by jade stones. The tune generated by the machinery inside resembled the lullabies from his childhood. Her hand would one day be his, Otto was certain of that, and wrote on into the night.

            Hours passed with silence, save for the scratching of the quill pen upon the parchment. An empty plate and pint sat off to the side of the oaken desk. Satisfied with the numerous pages written, the pen was replaced in its ink bottle. In the morning, the pages could be perused, and bound for Laura’s future reading. Sleep was, at this point, actually desired by Otto. Though he adored the night, he knew when it was time to lay down and dream. Dreams of brighter days were anticipated, and Otto rose from the desk to prepare for his bed. He turned, and a shudder crept through him. The entire half of the room behind him had been plunged into darkness, the oil lamps extinguished. It was returning again.

            Otto wordlessly reached for the candleholder on his desk, and paced toward the darkened half of the room to relight the lamps there. A cry rose from within him, but could not escape. The lamps had vanished entirely from the wall.

            “Damn you!”

            On this night, he realized, they were returning again. Whatever it was that sought him from outside his chamber, decided to make clear that their intentions (though unknown) were in deadly seriousness. All of the extra latches on the door were inspected by Otto. The lamp in his hand shook, nearly falling out of it. He turned back toward the lit portion of the chamber, only to see that blackness, deeper than a starless night sky, loomed beyond the window.

            Nearly sprinting, Otto went to seal the shutters. A horrible howl attacked his eardrums; a howl seemingly without origin; a howl that surrounded the chamber. Hand on the first shutter, he slammed it shut. Reaching to close the second, he noticed to his horror that the shadow from the outside was leaking in, flowing as though it were a liquid. It had engulfed the second shutter.

            No screams actually came from Otto, but they instead remained trapped in his throat, wanting to leap forth but unable to. Gritting his teeth together, he thrust his hand into the hideously fluid shadow. The scream was finally unleashed.

            Unseen fingers closed all about Otto’s hand and threatened to pull him from the little light that remained. Whatever unseen things that dwelled in the darkness of the castle sought to ensnare him, so that he too would be forced to succumb to the emptiness, to become the very emptiness itself. Otto screamed again at the thought, and found hold of the second shutter. With an extreme effort, he slammed it shut. His hand had become free of the grip that the shadow had on it. Suddenly, the howl ceased. The air had stilled.

            Then so soon as serenity began to regain hold on the night, an eldritch voice shrieked it away in dissonant tones.

“YOU SHALL NOT HIDE FOREVER! SEAL THE SHUTTERS AND LOSE YOURSELF IN TEXTS, BUT WE WILL PRY YOU FROM YOUR DELUSION!”

            In response, Otto cried out in a volume that nearly matched that of the voice outside the walls.

            “YOU WILL NEVER TAKE ME, DAMN YOU! LEAVE ME MY LIFE!’’

            The otherworldly voices outside the stone walls decreased in loudness, but did not die away completely. No, they remained at a static rumble, comprised of indecipherable syllables.  Otto shrank back to the shelves of books, clutching the candle, the only source of light left in his possession. He let his eyes close, waiting for the ominous rumbling to fall silent. Time dragged its feet, and Otto cursed it aloud.

            Upon doing so, he opened his eyes, and in the same moment bade Time to forgive him, and to mercifully quicken its pace. He was no longer alone in the glow of the candlelight. From what he could briefly glance on the edge of the shadows, there was a face like that of a vulture, but equal in size to that of a human being. Its flesh was the color of charcoal. Distinctive features were lacking in the meager light, save for but one terrible sight.

            Darkness shrouded half of the grotesquely sized carrion’s face. The orb of light on the right of its face appeared to be an eye, but bore no features of such an organ. All that there was, was an unfeeling sphere of eerie light that looked upon nothing, yet contained the power to shatter any man’s soul.

            Otto did not behold it for more than several seconds. As he sank into unconsciousness, he noticed powerful waves of light pour from the eye socket of the carrion.

 

            Elizabeth Morton stood on the stone stoop of the townhouse, watching the orange and red-brown leaves of Autumn fall to the lawn from the trees. She no longer questioned how she could even keep her eyes open from the poor amount of sleep she had become prone to over the past two years.

            The front door behind her opened. Elizabeth did not turn to greet Ambrose. With the silence that had gradually wedged between them, one could barely call it a marriage. Their sole reason for remaining together resided in a room upstairs.

            “Lizzy?”

            Ambrose rarely took to calling her that, but when he did, he felt he could recover a fragment of their past; a relic from before two years ago.

            “Please tell me you didn’t stay up all night, again.”

            She finally spoke to him.

            “He won’t stop calling me Hepzibah.”

            “And apparently I’m still Udolpho. I’m not sure how much longer he will be allowed to stay with us. Is it even still a good idea? You know what Dr. Giffin said.”

            Elizabeth stood, unmoving, hushed. She would be likely to remain so. Her mind full of morose wonder, she stepped forward and sat herself down on the stone, and took to watching the Autumn leaves descend with the wind. Ambrose turned and wandered back into the house in silence.

            From a window above the front door, an expressionless young face also watched the leaves fall.  Otto Morton sat at his cluttered desk, overrun by stacks of the works of Walpole, of Radcliffe, of Hawthorne, of Poe, and of various others. Behind the volumes, dust collected on neglected bottles of medication.

 Otto’s stilled eye caught a figure moving on the street. Immediately, he revealed a pen and a notebook of lined paper, and began jotting down lines in frenzy.

            The figure noticed Otto in the window, and hurried along towards her home. Laura Parrish lived down the street from the Mortons, and found that their son had taken to observing her from his bedroom window. With each passing, she felt briefly flattered, but in the same instant would shudder at his gaze.

  Upon reaching home, her mother approached, holding a small box, ornately wrapped. Laura’s mother opened her mouth to speak, to question if it was another gift from Otto. Laura gave her no such chance, and immediately seized the package from her hand. The wrapped box in her grasp, she quickly disposed of it in a garbage bin at the end of the driveway. She walked back to the house, rushing inside. Had she lingered another moment, she would have heard the faint melody of a music box playing from within the garbage bin.

Reviews

[Morena Chancellor]

The imagery for this story was truly stunning. The way that you described Otto's surroundings were so immersive, that I felt like I was there myself. I truly got a feel for how dark and peaceful the night was. I also found the character for Otto incredibly unique. Though he seemed to be a rather terse fellow, there is something about his character that makes it hard to stop reading about him. I also think you captured the fine line between obsession and love completely, allowing us to sympathize with Laura and her feelings about Otto despite the rather short amount of time she has in the story. It's truly stunning what you managed to do with the length of story you wrote!