The Burning in the Bride's Shadow

The Burning in the Bride’s Shadow.

Oh—how it burns!

Burning with such savagery, yet it does not consume me in my entirety, nor with the faintest semblance of reason. Nay. For it writhes and it shifts. A ballet of needles cavorts with searing glee about my body; each pointed step of this perverse dance directed to send me deeper into this damned despair. The throbbing, it pirouettes within my very fingertips extorting a gasp from between my parted, panting lips. Ghastly pain drifts in islands of fire across my weary skin. Yet, all the while, the flames do not deliver me to ashes. They flicker. They lick at the hollows of my arms. My thighs. Even my eyes! As if wildfire, spreading through a parched woodland, it enrages all that it touches.

Respite—nay, none.

No mark of infection; no scorched skin, no vile reek of singed hair. As if alive with squirming unseen burrowing insects. My body no more than a charnel cradle for their scorching larvae. Invisible to the eye, yet in my ears the clamour of a thousand buzzing, pulsing wings. They will eat at my rot. My desolation. And though shame sickens my stomach to confess it; I believe they would feast upon my wretched existence entire. Not a hair should remain, as this voracious plague devours me piece by piece.

The aches too—O Lord! Tension coils about my heavy shoulders; its serpentine chains spiral my bones, winding them tight in cruellest iron. My limbs drag as though the earth herself has grown wrathful by my weight. Veins brim with liquid lead that pumps, pumps—condemning my heart! How it fills my bosom’s core, suffering it to swell. Threatening suffocation from the inside out. Every beat of my pulse crushes the breath within my chest. Certainly, this is some Hellish torment or the malice of some malignant spirit.

The physician at despairing request had tapped at my chest, laughed and declared me fit! Nay, saith he—I do not suffer consumption or cholera. I have no fever. Yet it burns! As if I had become enrobed in some other’s carcass; I fear supernatural forces conspire against my frame. Or that sickness runs rampant within my mind.

A chill wind whispers around my ankles—and there! Her soft voice surely murmurs my name. As once she bewitched me in life; it must be the case that she would haunt me in her death. Had she passed with such wrath to return and inflict this horror? Her spirit knowing how very dark the darkest of hours had become. No day has passed since that I have not longed to feel her embrace. Or is this my own condemnation—am I scourging myself with the Lord’s Holy fire? For I had surely forsaken her.

I remember the musty odour that hid beneath the cloying sweetness of the floral arrangements that crowded the nave. The drip of the candle’s wax, pale as bone against crimson rose—her most cherished bloom. The echo click of her shoes upon stone as I stare at the dancing dust motes in the light. Time dragged slow and the anticipation raged within me as if I were to burst. Father had mocked her cruelly, but her stumble seemed but a charm of the day. The congregation had gasped— she steadied herself with that feline grace I adored. A nervous smile, a breathless giggle beneath the shivering white veil. The joy I felt—and oh—the fevered desires! The need of her beauty as my ravenous eyes met hers. I could scarce await to call her wife, to prove that night the very depths of my devotion that. Ay, and for every night thereafter! Yet—did others see her frailty—where I only saw her strength? Her stunning beauty.

But it is not merely a quaint remembrance to tell children not blessed to bear. That stumble mocks me now—as father had mocked her. The affliction—lurking within her for longer than we knew—had affected her gait. Did the congregation sense foreboding? Half smiles. Half sniggering whispers behind gloved hands. Our families surely hated our union their appearances of mourning. My father appeared as if attending his only son’s funeral! It was not difficult to find oneself pondering if their acridity caused disease upon our union. I would wander my mind to that memory in the bleak hours of her decline. Seeking signs or some reason. During the rare still moments of those last few weeks together, when it stole away her voice, robbed her of her continence, and her very dignity—it did bedevil what little sleep I dared.

Itell myself that my love for her was so pure, so steadfast—I would have wed her even had her affliction come before our vows. But in every dream—nay in every nightmare—

I ran.

Ran from her. Ran.

Unnatural in my breast, my heart beats a frantic rebellion against its plumbeous prison. I fear it will wrench itself utterly apart! O, how foolishly I thought her passing had already laid waste to it leaving a cavernous hole in its place. A thought darts forth, sudden as lightning: would that be a relief? Yes! Stop—stop and be still my broken heart! Let this unappeasable torture cease, for certainly there would be mercy at the end. Yet, my yearning for release brings darker thoughts of death. Nay, tell! Have I, by daring wish, beckoned the gaunt reaper to my door once again? Will it come and deliver my soul?

I had too hastily abjured prayer, falling victim to my exasperation. I would mutter, in hopelessness, pleas to the devil. Her suffering inescapable. Merciless. Loathe to see; I loathed more how it cast its shadow upon me. So, I had wished, as hard as one may—for her end.

And by God! It came. With such pain I scarcely expected. Whether our love was short lived or had we had decades into old age. The pain would always be as if she had been torn from my own mortal frame.

I had fallen asleep in the chair beside our bed. Our bridal chamber—now a place of despair; a sickroom. A sudden, cold draught had stirred me, as if she had extended her ghostlike hand to caress my cheek one final time. And as our eyes met, I seemed to know. There was no cough, nor scream. No seizure or tender farewell. She merely stared up at me—and I bore witness as the light extinguished. Eyes like lifeless glassy orbs, sunken deep into her haggard face. It seemed the house itself, that very instant sighed in great relief—as though it too had awaited her release. Welcoming her spirit—every creak of the house grew louder. The walls became my accusers; the rafters groaned of my guilt. I had not realised I had been screaming her name until the housekeeper came blustering in, her face wrought with anguish. The dismay of my tone sufficiently bearing tidings of our tragedy.

Upon hearing of her death, that spinster sister of hers arrived. Her mouth all thorns, tongue sharp. Her bitterness was odious enough, only outstripped by the arrival of my parents. Before my wife’s corpse was even cold, Father spoke of a potential suitor. Engagement. His fixation with begetting of heirs uncouth and distasteful. The vision of my wife as the vessel in which to carry a child—dare she posses a will of her own.

“Love is the fever of the weak—Bloodlines demand duty not passion! Your chamber and nursery lay empty boy!” He spat.

My eyes rested upon my wife still laying in our bed as the housekeeper tended to her body, as rage bled beneath my skin. His words struck deeper than any blade, for I loathed him—I could not shake the thoughts. Had her destiny been to suffer? Or had our love undone her? Yet still, ‘twas my mother that wounded me most. Listening in silence, holding my wife’s hand in hers. Her eyes glazed eerily akin to those of my wife’s.

Lifeless. Glassy orbs.

Her skeletal appearance. My despair appeared unencumbered by limitations; it was then I realised the spirit within my mother was just as dead as my wife.

That pestilent prickle now pours havoc onto my arm. Wild, my fingernails rasp at skin; reddened, enraged. Yet it is not relieved. The sensation withdraws—creeping, crawling away like vermin driven from light. Only to return. Gnawing. Insatiable. God—no—not my back! I just cannot reach, though my arms bend and twist with monstrous force. My joints crack and scream. As if a man possessed—possessed by this compulsion to rend my fitful flesh. Is this what my dearly departed demands as retribution for my sinful wish? Or is my body striving to tell me some hideous truth? Is my own health in jeopardy? And just as the very tip of my finger grazes my punished skin—

Ah!

A knock!

A knocking against the door!

It stops.

Too late for visitors. Surely it is but the wind. My last meal was hours past. Had I not sat at ease, brandy filled glass and a slim volume of verse by the dying embers? Yes—slippers on, her shawl soft about my knees. How long had I sat? The clock still stood at the time of her death—such a grim tradition. The servants dismissed; no patience in my grief to suffer their oppressive intrusions. Now, the fire is out, one slipper astray on the far side of the room. The spirit spilled, glass shattered, and the shawl scattered, soaking. Had I drifted into sleep, waking in stupor of dream?

Embalmed in terror, arms pinned about my back by their own contortions—a self-made restraint, a hostage to my own body. As I stare agape—my whole body palpitates. Was I beset by ghouls, or–

Between the smattering of broken glass. A trail. Leading towards me.

Bloodied footsteps.

Impossible.

Dark and glistening. They track through the shards, each one fresh as if stamped just a breath before. My consciousness begins to fear how attractive my wife’s jewellery sits—as she had left it—upon her dresser. Doubtless the notice of her decease was already set in type—not phantasm but some lurking knave. Had their intrusion woken me—set me off into this grief-stricken delirium?

My head turns for an eternity, unwilling or unable to face what lurks behind. My eyes search the empty air. Unless they too conspire against me, I am surely alone. So, so, very alone. Could my shattered reason have conjured the image? Or were the footsteps tokens of phantoms that troubled my chambers? I stooped down. Had I not known better, I would swear they were my own. The heel marks, the arch, the span—ay, they all seemed mine, yet not mine alone. Printed in blood as though my shadow’s shadow had walked ahead of me. Such tricks and foolery.

Another knock.

It reverberates through me, through the accusing house, rattling the guilt from the rafters and shaking the marrow of my bones. Why can they not leave me? Perhaps—if I stay stone-still like a statue—they will pass. Far too occupied with remaining hidden, secret in my own home, I do not realise the itching has ceased.

Another knock. Loud. Insistent. My heartbeat drums my ears, my body betraying me once more. Someone calls, yet all I can hear is—

Thump.

Thump.

Stiff arms jerk with the hideous fluidity of a wooden puppet. Hands to my face. I weep.

Thump.

Thump.

A low hum escapes me, a monotone purr to reset my ears. I do not realise that I pace until the window meets me. Her perfume persists in the folds of the heavy purple drapes. I caress the curtain—warm to the touch. Light spills into my darkened chambers. Morning. Impossible.

I peel a gap and peer through the shutters. The street outside lives with the ghoulish jollification of death. Mock me, do they? Those black gloss horses of the undertakers, all decked in pomp and plumage, plumes nodding solemnly upon their heads. Hooves striking the cobbled stones with impatient clatter. The carriage in readiness for that final journey adorned in the blood red roses she was so fond, and candles oozing ivory wax. In this torpid heat, not even this ostentatious display could be enough to hide the stench of sweat and death beneath. I could almost see the fetor, like a nauseous cloud seeping between the grand show of wealth. Of mourning.

“Leave me be! I dare not, I cannot, suffer witness to this.” I cry out, recoiling from the view. “I will have no part of it, you hear?”

I saw them just as I turned my back to the window. A fresh breeze of her scent wrapped my senses. The spinster sister, my father, my mother. Their faces grotesque in grief. Guilt dripping in the folds of their frowns.

A cold-hearted smile twists my lips. Another wicked relapse; a moment of dark imaginings and sinful reflections. O—I wish it so! Might they suffer!

I think of how deadly ashen father appeared. Mother’s porcelain skin, no more than that of a doll. They seemed—wounded.

My heart stalls.

As if I have forgotten. Are we to bury her today?

Sudden familiarity seizes me, as though an icy hand grips me, frostbitten to the bone; it is the mournful attendant in his black, formal frock coat, who pounds upon my door.

Thump.

Thump.

Haggard face beneath the brim of his hat—gaunt and grim. His eyes; lifeless, glassy orbs. Even from the safety of my chamber, hidden behind the drapes—I sense the chill of his breath, the odour of death seeping from between his teeth. Pray, tell: is he not the reaper who appeared in my dreams on that darkest night, the night I tempted the infernal one for her death?

Are we to bury her today? Or—

God help me—

I dare not ask!

Do they come to lay us both to rest?