I should have run. Any sane person would have fled at the sight of plants moving with conscious intent. But exhaustion, curiosity, and the strange pull of the roses themselves kept me rooted to the spot, watching in horrified fascination as the vines continued their unnatural dance.
They seemed to be converging, I realized, climbing the crumbling remains of what had once been a garden wall. The vines wound together, thickening as they joined, forming something that looked disturbingly like a throat. A gullet, swallowing something long and thin that thickly protruded from the mass of vegetation.
My curiosity overcame my caution. I moved closer, peering at the strange formation. The thing being consumed by the vine-throat was pale, almost white in the moonlight. Too regular to be a branch, too smooth to be stone. It looked almost like—
“No,” I breathed, horror dawning as recognition hit me. “No, no, no.”
An arm. A human arm, protruding from the writhing mass of vines. And not just any arm, but one I recognized the scar on from a mishap at his work bench.
“Papa?” My voice broke on the word.
I lurched forward, no longer feeling the cold or my injuries. The vines had parted just enough for me to see his face. Nearly peaceful in death, as if sleeping, but unmistakably my father. I heard him inhale, seeing proof of life, but for how long? He couldn’t hear me or wake up.
The vines wrapped around his body, piercing his flesh in dozens of places, the thorns digging deep. Where they pierced him, the roses bloomed their brightest, fed by what could only be his blood. No wonder I smelled it, they were feeding off him.
A scream tore from my throat, primal and raw. I lunged for him, hands outstretched to tear away the vines, to free him from this grotesque fate.
“Papa! I’ll get you out, I’ll—”
One of the vines whipped forward with the speed of a striking snake, slashing across my palm. I jerked back with a hiss of pain, blood welling from the deep cut. The vine that had struck me curled back protectively around my father’s body, joined by others that tightened their grip, thorns digging deeper.
“Let him go!” I demanded, clutching my bleeding hand to my chest. “He’s my father!”
The roses seemed to pulse brighter in response, as if my blood—or perhaps my pain—had somehow fed them too. I stared in horror and helpless rage, realizing that I had no way to free him from this monstrous consumption. The vines were too numerous, too quick, too eager to defend their feast.
Blood dripped from my cut palm, landing on the dead grass at my feet. Wherever the drops fell, the withered blades seemedto straighten slightly, as if drawing sustenance from my essence. The same way the roses drew sustenance from Papa.
“Is this what happened to the others?” I asked aloud, though I expected no answer. “To all the sacrifices the village sent into the forest? You... feed on them?”
The vines continued their rhythmic pulsing, neither confirming nor denying. Above me, the raven cawed once, drawing my attention back to the castle looming behind the rose garden.
I stared at the structure with new eyes. If the rose vines had taken Papa like they had taken all the sacrifices over the years, then perhaps there were answers inside. Some explanation for this horror. Some way to understand what had happened to him, and what was happening to me.
And practical concerns asserted themselves as well. I was still soaking wet, still freezing, still in danger of hypothermia if I didn’t find shelter and warmth soon. The castle, abandoned though it was, offered the promise of walls to block the wind, perhaps even a hearth where I could light a fire.
With one last, agonized look at my father. Slumbering peaceful in death despite the grotesque manner of his consumption, I turned toward the castle. The raven took flight, leading the way to the enormous front gates that waited like the maw of some stone beast, ready to swallow me just as the vines had swallowed Papa.
“I’ll come back for you,” I promised my father’s corpse. “I’ll find a way to free you from... whatever this imprisonment is.”
The roses pulsed once more, as if acknowledging my vow. Then I turned my back on them, forcing one foot in front of the other, following the raven toward the dark promise of the abandoned castle.
Whatever answers awaited me inside, they couldn’t possibly be more horrifying than what I’d already endured. Or so I toldmyself as I approached the looming gates, my bleeding hand extended to push the metal open, my heart a battlefield where fear and determination waged their endless war.
ten
Isabeau
The ancient iron of the gate bit into my palm as I pushed, reopening the wound the rose thorns had left. Fresh blood welled, warm against my freezing skin, and with it came a strange surge of strength.
The metal groaned in protest, years or centuries of rust giving way beneath my desperation. I wondered if it was the blood that persuaded it to yield, if this place, like the roses, hungered for sacrifice. Either way, the gate relented, swinging inward with ashriek that echoed through the courtyard beyond, announcing my arrival to whatever might be waiting in the shadows.
The gap was barely wide enough for my body to slip through, the torn fabric of my dress catching on the jagged edges. I yanked it free, caring little for the additional rips. The garment was already ruined form Gaspard’s angered touch and the cage they sank me in, soaked through and clinging to my trembling form like a second skin. What did a few more tears matter when I’d already lost everything else?
I stumbled into the courtyard, my bare feet landing on cracked stones that had once formed an elegant path. The raven was nowhere to be seen. Had it abandoned me now that I’d reached my destination? Left me alone in this dead place with nothing but roses that fed on human blood and the ghosts of whoever had once called this castle home?
The moon emerged from behind a cloud, bathing the courtyard in silver light. I could see more clearly now. The remains of what must have been a magnificent fountain dominating the center, its basin cracked and dry. Stone benches lined the perimeter, many toppled or broken. Statues stood as silent sentinels, their features worn away by time and weather until they resembled nothing so much as featureless ghosts carved from stone.
For a moment, the sheer enormity of what I’d survived and what I’d escaped crashed over me. I’d fled my home. Been nearly drowned as a witch. Discovered my father’s body suspended in a grotesque garden of blood-drinking roses. And somehow, impossibly, I was still alive. Still breathing. Still standing.
