The woman and the man strode down the steps of the balcony, happiness written not on the pale blank faces of death but of ones of sweet adoring memories, cherished after all these times.
The man twirled her around, sweeping her into a dance, their bodies melding. Their forms shifted and wavered under the faint light, the crowd fading to the echoes of the orchestra strumming their tune. Love and happiness shattered into beautiful, striking chords. The colors of gowns swathed the dance floor in hues of merrymaking all to the familiar harsh tones of delicate fingers crescendoing in glorious faith.
One I knew and yearned to hear and play again.
The lovers twined their way across the ballroom, slowing to a stop to be framed by the catching light. Touching their foreheads against one another, whispering low to each other as the man tucked a single strand of red among the spooling fire of the woman’s hair. One could argue they were the only ones in the room despite the faraway cheers.
The scene clipped itself, winding itself to further on in that night as I rose higher into the air, climbing my way to the balcony. The ghosts around the ballroom appeared lax, their vacant eyes chattering among one another in conversations long forgotten to time. The lovers embraced in the dark space, tucked away from prying eyes, unaware of the approaching shadow clutching a knife of silver.
The man’s gaze flickered up to the shadow only for it to be too late.
All of it was too late.
I watched as the woman’s soft voice shuddered upon the bloodied entrance of the knife, her words lost to time. With the slick release of the knife, the perpetrator dashed into the dark, never followed into the depths of the castle. The man’s horror-stricken figure faltered a step or two before catching her falling body and failing against the bodice of the dress to staunch the bleeding. He called out to someone—anyone for help, speaking fervently to his bride.
“Shush, hold on. Please, Cecilia, don’t leave me,” the man said with a quivering voice as ash tears fell upon his opaque features. “Someone! Help us!”
His pleas were drowned out by the merriment of his guests. Blood pooled at her feet, and the light in her eyes was slow to fade until nothing remained.
In a space lost to the absence of time, he was alone, and I was unable to stop the scene before me. I was removed from the pain, the sheer agony laid upon his feet. His torment appeared to be his to bear. I only watched as the past unfolded on itself.
Midnight eyes pierced through body and soul, cutting into decades—no, centuries—in a blink of an eye.
The man was slow to form his words.
“I am begging you, help me. I’ll do anything. I’ll bargain with any God, even if it means my own soul.”
Throat bobbing, I answered him, tears swimming, knowing I can not change any outcome. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Why not! You are a witch, are you not?” he asked.
I held my tongue. This was a vision of the past. What matter did my own answer have on this poor man’s soul to the anguish which lay bare at his feet.
He held the woman, cradling her head to his chest, as a heart wrenching sob let loose into the crowded space. I stretched out a hand only for it to pass through his iridescent form.
I clutched my chest with the only comfort of the building ache to keep me company.
From the body of the woman, her soul rose, watching with evergreen tears to the man’s frustrated cries, calling to her longing soul once more to come back to him.
She, with loving eyes, stared at her corpse before flickering upwards from heavy lashes. “Are you the Angel of Death?” she said softly as if in a daze. “Have you come to take me away?”
With the words caught in my throat, I watched as she floated down the grand staircase. Her expression was solemn and wary, and when those evergreen eyes turned upwards to the landing, they rang with familiarity of the present rather than the past.
“No, perhaps you are merely a watcher of past events. I’ve been so long dead I almost forgot. I always forget, but sometimes, it is better to forget.” She offered a sad smile, her form light and free dancing, no longer restricted by the convention of the living.
I followed her down the steps as the ballroom shifted. “What do you mean by that? Does that mean you can see me?”
She nodded. “I am of a past notion. I am the reason events played out as they did and why they persist. I am an echo, one that exists in this space as punishment for sin.”
“If you exist in this space, how did you get to the main part of the castle, and why did you strangle me!” I taunted. “The more I am stuck in the castle, the more I am dragged into hell for the sake of people I hardly know stating they need my help. I am tired of being pushed around, so tell me, what is it that you want from me?”
I chased her to the edge of the ballroom, floating into the next memory without cause or warning.
The scene collided in floating, scrambled images, the ghost of partygoers past in endless loops, donning masks among the shifting shapes. The room restructured itself, expanding and collapsing in a blink of the eye.
The woman danced without care in front of my wandering eyes as I struggled to cling to the one sense of the expanding realities, only to come to a halting stop.
The man—the prince—stood atop of the balcony. Weary midnight eyes surveyed the crowd below with a sorrowful, twisted expression. The prince was accompanied by a woman in a tight crimson dress. From the ballroom, I was only able to make out the basics of details, the sweep of blonde hair and the shadowy smirk of plump ruby lips. How long had it been since Cecilia’s death? Who was the woman on the balcony?
