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The Reincarnation of Semiramis
- The Reincarnation of Semiramis -
Part One: A Mansion in the Marshlands
It was one of those early summer days when the welcome breeze played upon one’s senses like a gleeful sprite may alight upon the blooming rose. The dark of the afternoon, when dusk is nigh but not yet fallen, was heavy upon the old road I was walking along. The heavens above did seem still bright in places, with the rays of the sun shining through the coming twilight like the hands of God. The countryside I was passing by was not unpleasant, but neither was it beautiful. It was, rather, wholly unremarkable for a rural area. I almost welcomed the coming gloom, for it at least held the promise of the charms of the night within its’ grasp. One could imagine things in the dark… wondrous things… that the light denies us with its’ all too stark revelations. I espied from a distance a lonely marsh, and within the twisted trees and tangled plants there loomed a great antebellum mansion, most common in the South, and charming in its’ old world style. Once, I would imagine, the columns of that great and noble-seeming house did look upon fields in which people toiled. Now, naught could grow upon the poisonous ground that was soaked with water from the nearby pond, thus forming the wetlands that this forsaken domain had become. Whilst all around it was this marshy land, the mansion itself was upon a dry and solid rise as crumbled not, unlike much of the earth around it. If there lived anyone with the halls of that dwelling, they had seen the change come upon the soil, and if they loved this place before then surely they wept for it now. As I looked more and more upon the façade of the mansion, I could have sworn that the windows were not unlike eyes staring down upon me like the way the giant stares down upon men of smaller stature than he or she. Vines crept up the walls and windows, and I could imagine the earth itself was attempting to hold that structure fast, as if to keep it from sinking into the horror of the bogs that surely lay in the deeper places of the marsh. I could make out the great oaks that had lined the path to the house in simpler times, but now they were dead and rotted… seeming more like claws than trees. Claws, reaching up and out towards the heavens to vent the wrath of some unknown force trapped within the sod. One may imagine such things, in a place like this! And with twilight nigh upon the land, one could imagine much more still. But what ensorcelled me to think of this place in such dark shades I could not say. A spirit perhaps was at work in the air itself of that domain. But spirits are intangible at most times, and I could have sworn upon Holy Scripture that the evil (dare I to speak so strongly) at work in those marshes was something far from untouchable. One could simply reach out a hand and touch the face of it. I was loathing doing so, but the prospect of spending the night in the wilds was not for me. And so I approached the solitary mansion, and I steeled myself: for whatever… or whoever… awaited my fist in its’ knock upon the house’s heavy doors. The knockers themselves were of heavy iron, and in the shape of cherubic heads with faces locked in the type of grin that was more insane than endearing. I rapped three times upon the portals before me, and I waited for signs of what life may exist.
Part Two: The Belle of the Cursed Realm
A young woman in her early teens answered the door. She had an angelic face, blood red hair, and eyes as green as the leaves of a tree. She wore a full-length gown with puffy sleeves, trimmed with delicate lace… a true belle was she, and in the freckles of her delightful face was the warm smile of a kindly soul. A rare thing in those days: so soon after the war that pit brother against brother all across America. She spoke with that charming accent that no woman of the North ever used. “You have the look of a traveler, sir.” She said to me. “And by the mud on your boots, I’d dare say you came a long way through that hellish swamp to get here. Come in, and have a glass of lemonade. Or would you prefer whiskey?” I told her I actually preferred lemonade over anything alcoholic, for I have never drank alcohol in all my years upon this world… and there was no sense breaking with my traditions now. She seemed to find my choice funny, and was happy to seat me at her fine table and pass a glass of the tasty beverage into my weary hands. “Do you not care whence I came, miss, or if it was from the North or from the South?” I inquired of her, and she replied: “Why should I? My homeland is quite apart from either side now, and no one comes here who was not called by other powers than those of a political or national nature.” And oh, how I found her choice of words just then to be peculiar! But I said nothing of that notion, swallowing another swig of the delicious juice before looking around some. The kitchen was modest for a place of this stately size, and I suspected that this girl lived her quite alone. For no sign of servants or other occupants could be seen: anyplace inside of those walls. All was silent, save for our conversations, and I wished to hear some signs of light, life, or laugher but none came save for when the girl would laugh at something or other that I said. Old paintings hung from the walls, but they had faded until their subjects could be no longer made out with ease. I imagined from the sooty exterior of many pieces of furnishing, that a fire must have broken out here at one time, and that repairs had been made since then… but never completed. “Where is your family, girl?” I asked, and she just smiled and said: “They went away one day, but I chose to stay and welcome visitors like yourself. Certain guests are expected, and so it would be rude to keep them waiting here with no proper host… or in my case, hostess.” And a charming hostess she was! Almost too charming for such dark and morbid surroundings. “Your hair is beautiful, miss, but I have not seen that shade of red before on anyone. It is like a blood red rose, and you may take that as a compliment from me!” I said. And she replied with her usual cheerfulness: “Why thank you, sir! You are a real and true gentleman. Not too many of those left anymore, not since the war made monsters of some and martyrs of others.” And I saw a single tear run down her cheek when she said that, even though her smile had not lessened enough to betray her seemingly happy exterior. But that tear was enough to tell me that her parents had perhaps not left as willingly as she had claimed. I suspected they likely died, and she was trying to cope.
Part Three: Love in the House of Despair
I had not yet learned the girl’s name, nor had I given mine unto her. We remained strangers, though by her manner one would assume we had known each other since childhood. She showed me into the living room, and the place was lofty and almost Victorian in design. The windows were covered in thick draperies that kept the horror of the marsh outside from intruding within. Again I noticed black soot upon some items, but I dared not mention such things. Not yet, at least! What light existed without did not penetrate within, and we may as well have been in a timeless realm neither of yesterday nor tomorrow, but caught up instead in an eternal now. I liked that notion, but was also terrified of it at the same time. I reached my hand behind one of the drapes, and felt the glass of the window behind it. It was cold, which was strange for a warm summer day as today had been. Cold and clammy as a winter day, in fact! This paradox I did mention to the girl, and she seemed keen on any topic that would explain it with ease. “Perhaps it is just from the cool water of the marshes, sir. Sometimes, when the air rises near nightfall, the windows do fog up and grow chill. I cannot imagine another more logical explanation, can you?” And her eyes looked around wide and vague as she asked this, as if addressing more guests than merely myself. “No, miss, I cannot.” I agreed, and so I let it go. The girl then sat down at a large black grand piano and started to play a most haunting tune. It was like a grand waltz for some noblewoman of long ago, and I could well imagine it playing at some of the carefree balls hosted at these types of mansions in the days before the war. I tapped my foot to the beat of the music, and I let my arm come to rest upon the lovely girl’s shoulders. I was old enough to be her father, but young enough to fall in love with her anyway. I forgot about the sorrowful air of the old house and its’ gloomy land, I forgot about wars and troubles and the evils that men can do in the name of some cause or another. I almost let myself forget the world entire, as I lost myself in this beautiful girl and her music. When she finished, she turned back in her seat and surprised me with a bold kiss. I was surprised and she withdrew for a moment and said: “Don’t turn me aside, sir. I know this is what you want, so let me make you happy right now.” And I did as she wished, until we embraced with such fierce passion that only lovers could conjure up. I touched her body, and she pressed firmly against mine. We made love upon a nearby couch, and I shall remain a gentleman by not speaking more of it than that. When all was said and done, hours later, we stood in the library and were pursuing some of the books collected there. Many obscure and occult volumes were tucked away within that gathering of knowledge, and the sheer strangeness of that reawakened within me the curiosity I felt when first I entered the old mansion. The heat of passion and love had not yet faded from me, but nagging questions and a gnawing sense of dread set me once more ill at ease even in such perfect company. Now, I did think it prudent, to ask the girl for her name. And so I did. “Why sure, sugar!” She answered, “My name is Marie Simarimes. And yours is…?”
Part Four: Madness and Mystery Within
I told her my name, and found as of yet nothing strange about hers. I was merely glad to know Marie’s name, and found greatest relief that she did not attempt to keep it a secret from me. She held one book in particular very closely, and every time I drew close to her she would place it coyly behind her back, much as a child might do. “May I see that book you’ve been reading there, Marie?” I asked playfully. She replied with wide eyes and a pouting mouth: “Now, why would you want to spoil things just now? We’ve been having so much fun so far!” And with that, she giggled in a very silly way and literally jumped up upon a nearby table to place the book upon the very top of the book shelf, just enough so that it was beyond my reach without myself resorting to climbing upon a table to get to it. These mad antics were almost cute, were they not so infuriating in their implications of something hidden about either Marie or this place. Something I now knew for certain she did not want me to discover! Suddenly, a rapping upon a nearby window caused us both to jump in fright. And equal suddenness, a tree branch crashed through the window and tore through the draperies that covered it. Were either of us in front of it, we would have been impaled most gruesomely! But fate was merely toying with us for the present, and so we lived still. Marie then screamed: “It is the house! The house is calling the land to take it below… but the land resists the cursed call, and so this single dry spot slips not into the grave it would otherwise prefer to lie in.” And those words seemed utterly insane, and yet at the same time completely honest to the point of plausibility. I found myself believing her, and asked: “Is it true? That this house is cursed, I mean.” And Marie pranced towards me like a ballet dancer, ran her tongue down the side of my face, and laughed with such obvious lunacy that I could not believe my eyes or ears. Was this the same classy, charming girl I had fallen in love with only so short a time before, and wanted in my heart to perhaps even stay here with forever? “It was only a fallen tree branch, and nothing more!” I exclaimed, drawing away the tattered draperies to show her. She averted her eyes, screaming at the top of her lungs: “No! Please, if you love me cover that awful sight. Do not let the marsh into the house, lest the poison of the land come within!” And so out of pity for the poor, mad girl I covered the tree branch and the window, even going so far as to push the branch back outside. I offered to board up that broken pane, but Marie said it could be done later… and so I agreed to let it wait for the time being. “Let me see what is within that book you hid, Marie. I do love you, so there should be no secrets between us.” I argued. But she countered: “It is for love’s sake that I just cannot agree to what you propose. That book is an evil, vile, wicked thing. All lies! Do not fret yourself so over it. I will burn it later, and then we can get back to where we were before. Yes, fire always cleanses evil when the need arises!” and in her eyes I could see a mania forming. I knew then, the reason the house had burned before. And I called her on it, asking: “Was it evil that made you burn the house, Marie… is that what all the soot is from?”
Part Five: The Fire of the Avenging Spirits
Suddenly, I had a waking vision of the house covered in flames, and an older man and woman screaming, choking and gasping for air… racing for a door, or a window, but not quite making it. A little girl laughed madly as she escaped through a shattered window that she broke with a wooden log from the fireplace. That girl was Marie. “They are dead, Marie. Your parents are dead, because of you.” I stated as the vision had ended, leaving me back in the library once more. Marie said nothing, looking at me intensely… as though seeing me for the very first time, but not quite comprehending what it is she was looking at. “Why did you do it?” I asked her, but she merely cried and said nothing. She wept so bitterly and so piteously, that I wept for her as well. “Marie… tell me, for I’ve a notion you did not comprehend the deed’s consequences.” I offered, but she still remained silent. Finally, she admitted: “My mother used to beat me, and my father drank all the time and let her. Neither of them ever loved me. After he came back from the war, my father was a cruel man. He treated the servants cruel too, and beat them so terribly that it shamed me to witness it. No one else in town ever treated their families or their servants like that… but my father did. He was such an evil man, and my mother was no better, no matter how she’d spout verses from the Bible! My father locked me in my room that night, and he set it on fire trying to kill me. He said he hoped to have a boy next time, and my mother did nothing to stop him. I broke a window and climbed out, then broke another to get back in the house, hoping that when they saw me alive my parents would say they didn’t mean it and make up with me. But my father said he’d douse me with whiskey and set me on fire right then and there… so I took a log from the fireplace and set the draperies aflame with it before he could catch me. My parents tried to get the fire under control, but I threw my father’s whiskey bottle at the worst of the blaze, and that made the whole place go up really quick. I took another log, one that was not on fire, and I broke one last window to get out. I don’t know why I did not just escape through the one I had already broken… maybe I just needed to vent my rage one final time. I wandered in the marshes until an old African lady found me and took me in. She taught me all kinds of magic, and I used her magic to call up the spirits that dwell in the swamp… the Loa of the land… and I let them pass judgment upon the mansion and those within. My parents didn’t die in the fire. They died in the swamp, after crawling out of the burning house on their bellies. No one has ever found them, either. No one will. That’s how the Loa passed their judgment. Something happened to the land after that, and the swamp grew until it claimed all this land for itself alone. The old lady is still out there somewhere, casting her spells and teaching her charms to anyone who will listen and learn. Now you know almost everything!” and at last I felt that I knew her, and truly understood her pain. “You were only defending yourself. No child should have to, not against one’s own parents.” And I held Marie close to me, caressed her hair, and cried with her. We cried together, and just let it pass.
Part Six: A Queen, who Conquered Death
All was well at last, and I had boarded up the broken window as Marie finally requested of me. We replaced the draperies and began to forget the painful revelations of before, when I noticed Marie had reclaimed that strange book she was withholding previously. She took it with her as we retired to a nearby study to relax for a few hours. Suddenly, a second strange vision came over me and I saw Marie… only it could not in any way possibly have been her… standing within a great palace in ancient Babylon, exactly as it was written about in the Bible. At least, I can only assume it was Babylon! And she was commanding, imperious, terrible yet beautiful. Her hair was black and hung in delicate ringlets from the golden diadem that was her crown. She wore the gown of a queen, and held a scepter topped with lapis lazuli. She was prideful, and many called her a living goddess. They built shrines to her, and worshipped before idols and gigantic statues of her, and they formed cults in her name that continued in secret down through the long ages of history to come. She died, and yet they said she lived on… her soul still lived on, and it came to rest in new bodies as time went on. Until now… now, I awoke from the vision and I saw Marie in a new light. I thought deeply about her name, particularly her last name: Simarimes. It was Semiramis, backwards… the name of a famous Babylonian queen. “I know what is in that book you will not let me see… Semiramis.” I said to Marie, and she looked aghast at my choice of words. She cast the book at my feet and looked away from me angrily. I picked it up and opened it to the page that she had been looking at. The book was a written occult history of ancient Babylon, and upon the page in question was a painting of Queen Semiramis in all her glory. Marie, in another life! Her face was just the same, even if her hair was a different color now than it had been back then. “Now you know who I am!” she said. Not was. Am. That was how she emphasized it. “Can you still love me?” she wept. And I knew what some said of that legendary queen, how many judged her to have been a wicked and perhaps even demonic ruler. But Marie had come a long way since Babylon. She was just poor, little Marie now. A sweet but tormented girl, almost a woman, who had a woman’s concerns and who never had a real childhood. “I do still love you, Marie! I do not care who you were before you were Marie. I only care that Marie is who you are now, and who you shall ever more be, at least in my eyes.” And suddenly, I could see the house growing darker as fire crackled somewhere out of sight, but not out of hearing. “Then embrace me, my beloved, and let us join the gods on high!” she said this, and she grasped me to her in a strong embrace. The embrace of a queen, taking her new king into her arms! We kissed passionately, and the fire I could not see before was upon us now. Everything was ablaze, including us. But there was no pain, and the air was sweet and clear of any smoke or soot. The house was falling apart all around us, as the swamp ravaged it at long last… yet we were no longer in the swamp or the burning mansion. We were in a paradise beyond this world, fit only for the lofty gods.
Part One: A Mansion in the Marshlands
It was one of those early summer days when the welcome breeze played upon one’s senses like a gleeful sprite may alight upon the blooming rose. The dark of the afternoon, when dusk is nigh but not yet fallen, was heavy upon the old road I was walking along. The heavens above did seem still bright in places, with the rays of the sun shining through the coming twilight like the hands of God. The countryside I was passing by was not unpleasant, but neither was it beautiful. It was, rather, wholly unremarkable for a rural area. I almost welcomed the coming gloom, for it at least held the promise of the charms of the night within its’ grasp. One could imagine things in the dark… wondrous things… that the light denies us with its’ all too stark revelations. I espied from a distance a lonely marsh, and within the twisted trees and tangled plants there loomed a great antebellum mansion, most common in the South, and charming in its’ old world style. Once, I would imagine, the columns of that great and noble-seeming house did look upon fields in which people toiled. Now, naught could grow upon the poisonous ground that was soaked with water from the nearby pond, thus forming the wetlands that this forsaken domain had become. Whilst all around it was this marshy land, the mansion itself was upon a dry and solid rise as crumbled not, unlike much of the earth around it. If there lived anyone with the halls of that dwelling, they had seen the change come upon the soil, and if they loved this place before then surely they wept for it now. As I looked more and more upon the façade of the mansion, I could have sworn that the windows were not unlike eyes staring down upon me like the way the giant stares down upon men of smaller stature than he or she. Vines crept up the walls and windows, and I could imagine the earth itself was attempting to hold that structure fast, as if to keep it from sinking into the horror of the bogs that surely lay in the deeper places of the marsh. I could make out the great oaks that had lined the path to the house in simpler times, but now they were dead and rotted… seeming more like claws than trees. Claws, reaching up and out towards the heavens to vent the wrath of some unknown force trapped within the sod. One may imagine such things, in a place like this! And with twilight nigh upon the land, one could imagine much more still. But what ensorcelled me to think of this place in such dark shades I could not say. A spirit perhaps was at work in the air itself of that domain. But spirits are intangible at most times, and I could have sworn upon Holy Scripture that the evil (dare I to speak so strongly) at work in those marshes was something far from untouchable. One could simply reach out a hand and touch the face of it. I was loathing doing so, but the prospect of spending the night in the wilds was not for me. And so I approached the solitary mansion, and I steeled myself: for whatever… or whoever… awaited my fist in its’ knock upon the house’s heavy doors. The knockers themselves were of heavy iron, and in the shape of cherubic heads with faces locked in the type of grin that was more insane than endearing. I rapped three times upon the portals before me, and I waited for signs of what life may exist.
Part Two: The Belle of the Cursed Realm
A young woman in her early teens answered the door. She had an angelic face, blood red hair, and eyes as green as the leaves of a tree. She wore a full-length gown with puffy sleeves, trimmed with delicate lace… a true belle was she, and in the freckles of her delightful face was the warm smile of a kindly soul. A rare thing in those days: so soon after the war that pit brother against brother all across America. She spoke with that charming accent that no woman of the North ever used. “You have the look of a traveler, sir.” She said to me. “And by the mud on your boots, I’d dare say you came a long way through that hellish swamp to get here. Come in, and have a glass of lemonade. Or would you prefer whiskey?” I told her I actually preferred lemonade over anything alcoholic, for I have never drank alcohol in all my years upon this world… and there was no sense breaking with my traditions now. She seemed to find my choice funny, and was happy to seat me at her fine table and pass a glass of the tasty beverage into my weary hands. “Do you not care whence I came, miss, or if it was from the North or from the South?” I inquired of her, and she replied: “Why should I? My homeland is quite apart from either side now, and no one comes here who was not called by other powers than those of a political or national nature.” And oh, how I found her choice of words just then to be peculiar! But I said nothing of that notion, swallowing another swig of the delicious juice before looking around some. The kitchen was modest for a place of this stately size, and I suspected that this girl lived her quite alone. For no sign of servants or other occupants could be seen: anyplace inside of those walls. All was silent, save for our conversations, and I wished to hear some signs of light, life, or laugher but none came save for when the girl would laugh at something or other that I said. Old paintings hung from the walls, but they had faded until their subjects could be no longer made out with ease. I imagined from the sooty exterior of many pieces of furnishing, that a fire must have broken out here at one time, and that repairs had been made since then… but never completed. “Where is your family, girl?” I asked, and she just smiled and said: “They went away one day, but I chose to stay and welcome visitors like yourself. Certain guests are expected, and so it would be rude to keep them waiting here with no proper host… or in my case, hostess.” And a charming hostess she was! Almost too charming for such dark and morbid surroundings. “Your hair is beautiful, miss, but I have not seen that shade of red before on anyone. It is like a blood red rose, and you may take that as a compliment from me!” I said. And she replied with her usual cheerfulness: “Why thank you, sir! You are a real and true gentleman. Not too many of those left anymore, not since the war made monsters of some and martyrs of others.” And I saw a single tear run down her cheek when she said that, even though her smile had not lessened enough to betray her seemingly happy exterior. But that tear was enough to tell me that her parents had perhaps not left as willingly as she had claimed. I suspected they likely died, and she was trying to cope.
Part Three: Love in the House of Despair
I had not yet learned the girl’s name, nor had I given mine unto her. We remained strangers, though by her manner one would assume we had known each other since childhood. She showed me into the living room, and the place was lofty and almost Victorian in design. The windows were covered in thick draperies that kept the horror of the marsh outside from intruding within. Again I noticed black soot upon some items, but I dared not mention such things. Not yet, at least! What light existed without did not penetrate within, and we may as well have been in a timeless realm neither of yesterday nor tomorrow, but caught up instead in an eternal now. I liked that notion, but was also terrified of it at the same time. I reached my hand behind one of the drapes, and felt the glass of the window behind it. It was cold, which was strange for a warm summer day as today had been. Cold and clammy as a winter day, in fact! This paradox I did mention to the girl, and she seemed keen on any topic that would explain it with ease. “Perhaps it is just from the cool water of the marshes, sir. Sometimes, when the air rises near nightfall, the windows do fog up and grow chill. I cannot imagine another more logical explanation, can you?” And her eyes looked around wide and vague as she asked this, as if addressing more guests than merely myself. “No, miss, I cannot.” I agreed, and so I let it go. The girl then sat down at a large black grand piano and started to play a most haunting tune. It was like a grand waltz for some noblewoman of long ago, and I could well imagine it playing at some of the carefree balls hosted at these types of mansions in the days before the war. I tapped my foot to the beat of the music, and I let my arm come to rest upon the lovely girl’s shoulders. I was old enough to be her father, but young enough to fall in love with her anyway. I forgot about the sorrowful air of the old house and its’ gloomy land, I forgot about wars and troubles and the evils that men can do in the name of some cause or another. I almost let myself forget the world entire, as I lost myself in this beautiful girl and her music. When she finished, she turned back in her seat and surprised me with a bold kiss. I was surprised and she withdrew for a moment and said: “Don’t turn me aside, sir. I know this is what you want, so let me make you happy right now.” And I did as she wished, until we embraced with such fierce passion that only lovers could conjure up. I touched her body, and she pressed firmly against mine. We made love upon a nearby couch, and I shall remain a gentleman by not speaking more of it than that. When all was said and done, hours later, we stood in the library and were pursuing some of the books collected there. Many obscure and occult volumes were tucked away within that gathering of knowledge, and the sheer strangeness of that reawakened within me the curiosity I felt when first I entered the old mansion. The heat of passion and love had not yet faded from me, but nagging questions and a gnawing sense of dread set me once more ill at ease even in such perfect company. Now, I did think it prudent, to ask the girl for her name. And so I did. “Why sure, sugar!” She answered, “My name is Marie Simarimes. And yours is…?”
Part Four: Madness and Mystery Within
I told her my name, and found as of yet nothing strange about hers. I was merely glad to know Marie’s name, and found greatest relief that she did not attempt to keep it a secret from me. She held one book in particular very closely, and every time I drew close to her she would place it coyly behind her back, much as a child might do. “May I see that book you’ve been reading there, Marie?” I asked playfully. She replied with wide eyes and a pouting mouth: “Now, why would you want to spoil things just now? We’ve been having so much fun so far!” And with that, she giggled in a very silly way and literally jumped up upon a nearby table to place the book upon the very top of the book shelf, just enough so that it was beyond my reach without myself resorting to climbing upon a table to get to it. These mad antics were almost cute, were they not so infuriating in their implications of something hidden about either Marie or this place. Something I now knew for certain she did not want me to discover! Suddenly, a rapping upon a nearby window caused us both to jump in fright. And equal suddenness, a tree branch crashed through the window and tore through the draperies that covered it. Were either of us in front of it, we would have been impaled most gruesomely! But fate was merely toying with us for the present, and so we lived still. Marie then screamed: “It is the house! The house is calling the land to take it below… but the land resists the cursed call, and so this single dry spot slips not into the grave it would otherwise prefer to lie in.” And those words seemed utterly insane, and yet at the same time completely honest to the point of plausibility. I found myself believing her, and asked: “Is it true? That this house is cursed, I mean.” And Marie pranced towards me like a ballet dancer, ran her tongue down the side of my face, and laughed with such obvious lunacy that I could not believe my eyes or ears. Was this the same classy, charming girl I had fallen in love with only so short a time before, and wanted in my heart to perhaps even stay here with forever? “It was only a fallen tree branch, and nothing more!” I exclaimed, drawing away the tattered draperies to show her. She averted her eyes, screaming at the top of her lungs: “No! Please, if you love me cover that awful sight. Do not let the marsh into the house, lest the poison of the land come within!” And so out of pity for the poor, mad girl I covered the tree branch and the window, even going so far as to push the branch back outside. I offered to board up that broken pane, but Marie said it could be done later… and so I agreed to let it wait for the time being. “Let me see what is within that book you hid, Marie. I do love you, so there should be no secrets between us.” I argued. But she countered: “It is for love’s sake that I just cannot agree to what you propose. That book is an evil, vile, wicked thing. All lies! Do not fret yourself so over it. I will burn it later, and then we can get back to where we were before. Yes, fire always cleanses evil when the need arises!” and in her eyes I could see a mania forming. I knew then, the reason the house had burned before. And I called her on it, asking: “Was it evil that made you burn the house, Marie… is that what all the soot is from?”
Part Five: The Fire of the Avenging Spirits
Suddenly, I had a waking vision of the house covered in flames, and an older man and woman screaming, choking and gasping for air… racing for a door, or a window, but not quite making it. A little girl laughed madly as she escaped through a shattered window that she broke with a wooden log from the fireplace. That girl was Marie. “They are dead, Marie. Your parents are dead, because of you.” I stated as the vision had ended, leaving me back in the library once more. Marie said nothing, looking at me intensely… as though seeing me for the very first time, but not quite comprehending what it is she was looking at. “Why did you do it?” I asked her, but she merely cried and said nothing. She wept so bitterly and so piteously, that I wept for her as well. “Marie… tell me, for I’ve a notion you did not comprehend the deed’s consequences.” I offered, but she still remained silent. Finally, she admitted: “My mother used to beat me, and my father drank all the time and let her. Neither of them ever loved me. After he came back from the war, my father was a cruel man. He treated the servants cruel too, and beat them so terribly that it shamed me to witness it. No one else in town ever treated their families or their servants like that… but my father did. He was such an evil man, and my mother was no better, no matter how she’d spout verses from the Bible! My father locked me in my room that night, and he set it on fire trying to kill me. He said he hoped to have a boy next time, and my mother did nothing to stop him. I broke a window and climbed out, then broke another to get back in the house, hoping that when they saw me alive my parents would say they didn’t mean it and make up with me. But my father said he’d douse me with whiskey and set me on fire right then and there… so I took a log from the fireplace and set the draperies aflame with it before he could catch me. My parents tried to get the fire under control, but I threw my father’s whiskey bottle at the worst of the blaze, and that made the whole place go up really quick. I took another log, one that was not on fire, and I broke one last window to get out. I don’t know why I did not just escape through the one I had already broken… maybe I just needed to vent my rage one final time. I wandered in the marshes until an old African lady found me and took me in. She taught me all kinds of magic, and I used her magic to call up the spirits that dwell in the swamp… the Loa of the land… and I let them pass judgment upon the mansion and those within. My parents didn’t die in the fire. They died in the swamp, after crawling out of the burning house on their bellies. No one has ever found them, either. No one will. That’s how the Loa passed their judgment. Something happened to the land after that, and the swamp grew until it claimed all this land for itself alone. The old lady is still out there somewhere, casting her spells and teaching her charms to anyone who will listen and learn. Now you know almost everything!” and at last I felt that I knew her, and truly understood her pain. “You were only defending yourself. No child should have to, not against one’s own parents.” And I held Marie close to me, caressed her hair, and cried with her. We cried together, and just let it pass.
Part Six: A Queen, who Conquered Death
All was well at last, and I had boarded up the broken window as Marie finally requested of me. We replaced the draperies and began to forget the painful revelations of before, when I noticed Marie had reclaimed that strange book she was withholding previously. She took it with her as we retired to a nearby study to relax for a few hours. Suddenly, a second strange vision came over me and I saw Marie… only it could not in any way possibly have been her… standing within a great palace in ancient Babylon, exactly as it was written about in the Bible. At least, I can only assume it was Babylon! And she was commanding, imperious, terrible yet beautiful. Her hair was black and hung in delicate ringlets from the golden diadem that was her crown. She wore the gown of a queen, and held a scepter topped with lapis lazuli. She was prideful, and many called her a living goddess. They built shrines to her, and worshipped before idols and gigantic statues of her, and they formed cults in her name that continued in secret down through the long ages of history to come. She died, and yet they said she lived on… her soul still lived on, and it came to rest in new bodies as time went on. Until now… now, I awoke from the vision and I saw Marie in a new light. I thought deeply about her name, particularly her last name: Simarimes. It was Semiramis, backwards… the name of a famous Babylonian queen. “I know what is in that book you will not let me see… Semiramis.” I said to Marie, and she looked aghast at my choice of words. She cast the book at my feet and looked away from me angrily. I picked it up and opened it to the page that she had been looking at. The book was a written occult history of ancient Babylon, and upon the page in question was a painting of Queen Semiramis in all her glory. Marie, in another life! Her face was just the same, even if her hair was a different color now than it had been back then. “Now you know who I am!” she said. Not was. Am. That was how she emphasized it. “Can you still love me?” she wept. And I knew what some said of that legendary queen, how many judged her to have been a wicked and perhaps even demonic ruler. But Marie had come a long way since Babylon. She was just poor, little Marie now. A sweet but tormented girl, almost a woman, who had a woman’s concerns and who never had a real childhood. “I do still love you, Marie! I do not care who you were before you were Marie. I only care that Marie is who you are now, and who you shall ever more be, at least in my eyes.” And suddenly, I could see the house growing darker as fire crackled somewhere out of sight, but not out of hearing. “Then embrace me, my beloved, and let us join the gods on high!” she said this, and she grasped me to her in a strong embrace. The embrace of a queen, taking her new king into her arms! We kissed passionately, and the fire I could not see before was upon us now. Everything was ablaze, including us. But there was no pain, and the air was sweet and clear of any smoke or soot. The house was falling apart all around us, as the swamp ravaged it at long last… yet we were no longer in the swamp or the burning mansion. We were in a paradise beyond this world, fit only for the lofty gods.
Published 29th Sep 2011
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15th Nov 2012 6:33am
I really enjoyed reading this, you are a very talented writer.
~ Mystic ~
~ Mystic ~
