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A Nightmare of Tiffauges Castle: Part One
- A Nightmare of Tiffauges Castle: Part One -
It was dark in the place where I sojourned... in the slumber in which I had sought to find solace. In the darkness there were voices rustling like autumn leaves in a great forest. How long had I slumbered for? I could not say, but it did not concern me overmuch. Within me, there are three souls, each which has a great tapestry of memories, of lives lived in ages past before the life all three of us share now, as we are together in a single body. But it was not always so! Once, we were three separate people with our own bodies and our own separate destinies. A dark series of events that culminated in my birth in this life so caused this bizarre union... though in my dreams, in my memories, I see the memories of all three often. All of which now are me, even though I was not always them. To the uninitiated into certain secrets, it may seem strange to hear me speak so... but it is the truth nonetheless, as mad as it may sound to hear it said by my lips. Normally, one soul is most dominant in me... the third. The one that is neither the boy nor the girl who were meant to have been born as twins. But sometimes, in my dreams, the memories of one of the twins will surface and for a time it is that which is dominant in me. Such was it last night. It is a horrible thing that I shall now relate, a terrible memory. But how I could I not speak of it? Even the most terrifying of horrors must be given vent to be spoken of when the memory of it become too hard to bear, too perverse to hold unto. Is this sharing, this venting, a kind of therapy? Perhaps! And so it is. This is what the dream, the nightmare, contained. This is not a tale for the faint of heart to hear told...
I was wandering through a dark autumn forest, just prior to the part of the season when the leaves fall. The trees were colorful, by day, but at night the lofty trees that were not evergreen mixed with the ones that were to create a maze of wooded walls filled with brambles and brush of all sorts. The paths that as one might follow otherwise were unseen in this midnight hour, and even animal trails vanished from all sight, so that unless one were attuned to such things they might never find them. I felt my body with my hands, it was a young body... a child's body... and it was slender. A young girl's body, perhaps no older than twelve years of age. I was lost, but I know not how I came to be so. My hands grasped the soil as I sat beneath a tree and had fallen asleep. The earth was cold, damp, and the dirt ran through my fingers as grains of sand run through an hourglass. So, I mused, I am the girl twin tonight and this is one of her memories! I had laid in bed only moments previous, to awaken here, like this, in this bygone era. It was instantly familiar, as I surrendered my consciousness to fully become her. She was a part of me now, so it was only right that I let her memory come to the fore on this occasion. She... I... was wearing a white blouse with long puffy sleeves, in the peasant style. And it was tucked into a long silky feeling skirt of the same white color. My feet had sandals upon them, and I wore no jewelry and had no cosmetics upon my face. Unsurprisingly, since I was only a child after all and seemingly not one of the nobility. As far as I could tell, my hair was cut short in the pageboy style... with neatly trimmed bangs just above where my eyebrows were... and my hair seemed to be black from what I could see of it out of the corner of my eyes. It was chilly, and I was hardly dressed for such a night as this. I stood up from the oak where I had laid down to rest previously, and looked about me. A warm glow caught my attention nearby, and I did walk slowly and cautiously towards it. It was a campfire, and at it sat a group of hunters who had a boy with them and two girls. Likely one of the men was the father of the children, and they were out in the woods to teach the children... especially the boy... how to hunt. A common enough skill to need taught, back in the medieval era which I now knew this memory belonged to. For the dress of these people all matched that era, though which decade or precise year it was impossible to know. Even back then, half the time the common folk simply did not keep track of such things. Preferring instead to live season by season, year by year and telling time by nature. For clocks had not been invented yet. I could hear one of the men say to the little girl: “This is not a place for godly folk, daughter! We should never have so thought to venture into these woods, so close as they are to the house of the evil one as rules this land.”
It was not any dialect of English either modern or old that was being spoken, though I naturally shall relate all that was spoken in this dream, this memory, in perfect modern English for the benefit of the reader. The little girl looked up at her father, her eyes wide with fear as she asked: “What makes you so sure this place is evil, father? It seems cold, but not hellish.” Then the father replied: “That is part of all that makes this place so wicked, child. You cannot see the danger until it is too late. And the lord of the land, he is cruel and vile... worse than any animal or beast of the forest. If he catches us hunting in this forest, he will kill us all. All save for you and your brother, to whom he will do far worse by far than a man may do by killing alone. The worst he can do to me is behead me or flay me. But beauty can be a curse, and your and your brother are both beautiful! May his eyes never behold either of you, lest he be taken by lust to do unspeakable things.” The girl did not comprehend her father's meaning, nor did her brother. But I knew the danger, for I was more mature minded for my age. I recognized the language at last, as the language of the country of Brittany. It was an old tongue, a precursor to modern French after a fashion, and I must have been from the same country in that life for I understood all that was said, and could speak the same tongue with no difficulties. I wanted to approach these people, talk to them, find out just how lost I actually was and possibly find my way. But I was fated to be too late, in that regard.
I heard the howling of wolves, resounding loudly in the night air. And suddenly, a large pack of them set upon the hunters and the children. I did not even have the time to scream as I witnessed the animals savagely attacking these people with bestial ferocity. Black wolves, blacker than night itself! A frenzy of fangs and claws, tearing into flesh. For their part, the hunters tried their best with their spears, axes, and slings... but they were too slow and the animals too fast. I closed my eyes out of fear... as I tried to hide myself and put the sounds out of my mind. The growling, the howling, the sound of jaws biting, of teeth gnashing, the chewing of flesh and the spilling of blood. The father's voice cried out many times, as he fought valiantly against the creatures. The children cried out as well, and by the gurgling noises I heard them make I knew they perished as did all the men save the father himself. Their cries were more terrible than the children's though far less heartbreaking to hear than theirs had been. So valiant was the father's fight, that the wolves were driven away at the last. As soon as I heard them scamper off, I did open my eyes and approach the campfire where all the people lay dead thereabout. The man's face was covered in blood and scratches, and he was now missing his left eye. His right hand had been bitten off by one of the wolves, and out this deep in the woods he would not be able to get it the attention such a wound needs before bleeding to death from it. The man desperately made a crude torch with a branch and some cloth wrapped around it, and used that to staunch the wound and stop the bleeding. He then tore strips of cloth from the shirt of a dead hunter and wrapped it about the stump where his hand used to be. It was crudely done, but he could still well live so long as he got to a healer in time... before any sort of infection could set in, which would be deadly if it happened. He treated the wound in his eye socket the same way, and he screamed when the heat of the torch met his face. He patted his beard to put out the fire he set upon it by doing this, and screamed: “Damn it! Damn me for a fool! I will surely kill myself yet at this rate.” The moment he saw me, his face went pale and his eye widened with fear. He must have taken me for a ghost or some sort of evil spirit, for he said unto me nervously: “Who are you, child... are you some spirit, come to take the souls of those who perished here away to Hell? Or, if fate truly be unkind, are you sent hither from the lord of this land, from his terrible castle!” I said unto him honestly: “Sir, I do not know you. Nor... do I know this lord of which you speak. I am not from this area, I am lost and from a place far from here though still in this country. You would not have heard of my home were I to tell you of it. Of that I am certain.” The man then exclaimed: “You are not a normal child! No child speaks as you do, the way an adult speaks. And your face is sad, your mouth a frown of a sort born of profound loneliness and sorrow. Your skin, unnaturally pale. Only ghosts look that pale!”
I smiled, and asked him: “How many ghosts have you seen, sir! And what castle do you speak of? As I said, I am not from around here.” The man cleared his throat, then answered: “I will not name the site, for it a place accursed to speak the name of. The castle is a devil's lair now, whatever it may have been in the past. And the lord of it is the Devil himself, they say! Flee this land, child... especially because it is that you are a child. Children here, do not fare well... as you can see.” and the man pointed to the still corpses of his slain children to drive his point home. I confided then: “I cannot, sir, for I am lost and do not know the way back home. I was hoping to get help returning there... but I see you have more serious problems to worry about now.” The man said unto me, tears in his one remaining eye: “I just witnessed the deaths of my children! It does not get more serious than that. Their mother died birthing them, and I shall not get more children in my lifetime. Not at my age... not given my poor health. You chose an evil time to come upon me... I am certain you are some sort of devil yourself, however fair your form. Go, I say unto you! Depart from my sight, and bedevil me not. I have children and friends to bury.” I saw that he would not be of any help to me, and so I left him there to do as he felt he must. I heard the man cry... I heard him weeping piteously... but I could not help him. Nothing could. And he did not want comfort from me, it seemed. I left him there with the dead, and ventured onward. The night was black, and all I saw about me were shadows and vague shapes within them. I could hear an owl hooting, and the noises of scampering animals in the underbrush just beyond my sight. Soon, I saw a brightness not far away. It was the moon, a full harvest moon looming over a stretch of green meadows that looked pale and sickly in the odd illumination. I made for it, eager to escape those terrible woods at last. The night was cloudy, and starless... an awful night, where other than the moon there was no light to travel by at all. I wished, all at once, that the hunter had chosen to help me... for I knew not where I was, nor where I was going. I was lost, and could see a distance away the rough outline of a mighty castle. Its' shape was hard to fully make out in the dark of night, in the present hour so distant from dawn. That could only have been that same evil place of which the man had spoken. I desperately did not want to go there, but neither could I wander in the wilderness and eventually starve to death, or perish from exposure to the elements either.
There was dew soaking through my sandals, I felt it on my toes. On a night such as this, it could turn to frost if I did not get warmth soon. As I said, I was not dressed for such a journey... but had not at all the time to choose my traveling garments with greater care ere I had set out to begin with. I had taken a cloak from one of the dead hunters, but it practically swallowed me for I was hardly fully grown in my height, child as I was at that time. It kept me warm enough for now, but was not exactly ideal! I heard once more the sounds of voices, and made my way towards them hoping it would be people who could help to get me home... or at least take me in for a while until we could figure something out. I heard a woman's voice, she was singing, and I did not recognize the song. She sang, and some men sang with her as she did so. It sounded happy, inviting, and I ventured closer and closer to the source of the sound. Ere long, I came upon another campfire around which were several tents of colorful design. A group of soldiers dressed in leathers and armored breastplates were seated around the campfire whilst a woman dressed in a blood red gown, her hair as black as coal, sang for them and danced whilst a young man so played a lively tune upon a flute he was clearly skilled with. The young man was no older than I would say sixteen or seventeen years of age, and he had a rather effeminate quality to him. He was not actually handsome, but rather pretty instead, and he wore delicate attire fit for the nobility. His blonde hair was in a style not unlike my own hair was, and I reasoned he had to be someone important by the way that the soldiers deferred to him. Nearby, a black stallion was leashed to a post and chomped happily upon what feed was provided for it. This looked like a merry band, and so I hoped they could help me. From all I heard... soldiers worked for the nobility, and that meant they could be trusted. How little I knew of the world, and how naive and foolish I was to think that all nobles were noble in spirit as well as blood!
The young man was staring at me as I approached the campfire, and said aloud as I neared the fire at the center of this small camp: “Who are you? A child I see! And what brings a little girl like yourself to our camp on such a chill night as this, I wonder.” The man's voice was light and lilting, and melodic in its' tones. I said unto him: “My name is Jeanne, sir. I am lost, and cannot find my way home once again. I was hoping someone could help me on that account.” The man then smiled in a way that made me feel rather uncomfortable, and he said to the nearly soldiers: “Lost, she claims to be! A pretty little morsel to be lost in such wilds as we have hereabouts. Such a pity! But, did you hear her name? Jeanne, the same as the Maid of Orleans, whom our master so reveres. Surely, that has to be a sign of some sort!” I did ask of him, interrupting his conversation with the soldiers: “Who is this maid of which you speak? For, I must confess, I have never heard of her before now.” The man then said in an offended tone of voice: “You have never heard of the Maid? How far away is your home, child! But I must not jest with you... I doubt your parents, whomever they are or were, saw fit to mention her to you. I daresay, she was a truly great individual... but perhaps not the best of role models for little girls to follow after. So I will forgive your lack of knowledge! In deference to your age and your sex. Come, sit down by me here, and warm yourself by our fire!” I did as he bade me, assuming it was safe to trust him. As soon as I sat next to the man, his arm was about my waist and he held me tightly. He continued to play the flute for a time, but soon he set it down and began to feel my chest with his hand, licking his lips perversely. “I'll wager you have never laid with a man, before.” he whispered in my ear, licking my earlobe as he did so. Then... he said out loud: “But worry not! I shall save you solely for our master, who likely will want a proper go at you first. Then, if he be feeling gracious perhaps he will share you with me later. The lads here, they all prefer grown women... but I share my master's preferences for younger sport.” At that age, I knew truly nothing at all about sexual matters, and was still a virgin and rightly so. Thus, I took the man's actions to be strange and peculiarly playful after a fashion, but could not comprehend the meaning behind them or his odd choice of words when he spoke about me. He actions, and what he did with me, filled me a bit with pleasure but I could not know or understand why. Part of me like it, part of me did not. I said to the man: “You're a funny man! Doing things to me, that I only ever saw my parents doing together. Are you trying to be like my father, and playing at me being your wife? Would that make me mother, then!” The man then slapped my mouth and said to me crossly: “Funny? I think not! And your tone is mocking to my ears... childlike, yet too mature to be so. I like this not, little girl. I like you not! Oh, you may yet be made a mother of, should my lord get you with child. But I would not want such as you for a wife! I prefer a child who knows her place and acts respectfully. And yet, somehow... your insolence make me want to fuck you all the harder! A pity I have to deliver you to... him... first.” I then cried a bit because of the slap, and then through my tears I said to the cruel young man: “I would never agree to be a wife to a man like you! Never, never, never. I would sooner bite off my own tongue and choke to death on it. If you try to make me do anything with you as I don't want to... see if I don't bite something off of you!” The man chuckled as soon as I said that, and assured me: “When my lord is through with you, you will be lucky if you still have blood left in your veins... let alone such spirit as you seem to possess! Perhaps he will pull some of those pesky teeth of yours, so you can't bite anything or anyone with them again.” I then said to the man angrily: “Fine! Than take me to see your lord right now. Let me talk to him myself, and maybe he will like me and want to help me. Maybe you are wrong!” At that the youthful man said in a cold tone of voice that chilled me to the bone: “Maybe I am wrong... maybe he will kill you like he did to so many others that displeased him. Your name may give him pause before thinking to do so, I'll wager though. But it will not spare you from any defilement I should delight in visiting upon you. Let us see, shall we?” The man then stood up, leaving me seated on the log we had shared as a seat. He said to everyone in the camp and no one in particular: “Come on, everyone! Let us pack up and return to the castle. We've a new bride for our master, and a spirited one it seems. He will enjoy breaking her spirit!”
I was dragged to my feet and forced to walk along with these men whether I wished to our not. I did want to meet the lord of the castle, for I hoped he would prove to be a goodly man. Unlike his servant, who it seems had a cruel streak to him that frightened me greatly even though I tried not to let it show that I was scared. Rough hands of soldiers bore me forward, and more than a few rubbed their hands on my buttocks as they made crude comments and threats of a sort as I did not know the meaning of. I kept on crying, for I was frightened and thought they meant to hurt me in some way. I tried to be brave, tried not to let my fear show... but my tears would not allow me to do so. Through my tears, and through the shadows all around me, I could make out that we passed through a portcullis, and past a gateway at one point. The horse was given into the care of a stable boy... who carried it off. Torches, dimly illuminated the castle that we passed into, with far more lighting on the inside than without. We were still outside at present, but within the castle walls beyond the main gatehouse. The walls were all of some very rough looking stone, in places covered with ivy and cracked with age. There were bloodstains on many of the walls, with servants working tirelessly to clean it up. There was a young housemaid nearby, but she was enduring harassment at the hands of more soldiers. As we passed, one of them clapped a hand over the maid's mouth whilst he and his fellows dragged her off into a tent near the stables. Her muffled scream of terror filled the air like the unnatural shriek of a wounded animal. We approached the entrance to the keep, and nearby were black wolves kept in cages. Identical to the wolves that had set upon the hunters in the forest. The animals' eyes, I could have sworn, were red like is fire! But that may have been a trick of the torchlight and its' fiery glow. Near the cages, several clergymen stood about with a rotund monk, all of them clearly drunk out of their minds and singing lewd songs the lyrics of which I did not get but which I thought had a harsh and crass air about them. Unlike other clergymen and monks I had seen, all of these were dressed solely in robes and vestments of black trimmed with deep red. At least one wore an inverted pentagram around his neck instead of a cross. Soon, a blindfold was placed over my eyes... and all was black for a long time thereafter. “Can't have you knowing the way out, sweetmeat!” I heard the cruel young man say, and after that I tried not to pay attention to the awful sounds that met my ears.
When the blindfold was taken from off my face, I saw that I was within a large dining hall. Candles, rather than torches, lit the room brightly... as well as an oil lamp or two... and plates piled high with all manner of food from meats and chicken to fruits and vegetables and various breads. Cups and chalices filled with water, wine, and other beverages that I knew not were just as plentiful. Here, I witnessed the most grand of feasts being held, and none of the soldiers were present. This was for the lord of this hall, and his personal inner circle only. Even the cruel young man from before was not present. The men and women hereabouts seemed pleasant and refined, in direct contrast to the rough men who had practically dragged me hither. They were laughing, singing, and having a great time. All seemed normal, until after a bit I began to notice what was wrong about this scene! There were tables set up along the edges of the hall, well out of sight of the center where the great and long rectangular shaped dining table was set up. On those half-hidden tables... some even obscured behind hanging tapestries and draperies... I beheld a truly horrible sight. Jars filled with organs... hearts, brains, eyeballs, and other things... all set up next to strange apparatuses of some dark alchemy's arts. Some flasks and beakers were filled with blood, I saw, and had labels upon them written in Latin. I could not quite make out the handwriting, so I do not know what the meaning of all of that may have been. The preserving fluids smelled strongly, but incense from hanging burners masked that scent somewhat and made the air at least bearable to breathe despite all of that. At some of the tables, men and women in black and red robes tended to whatever they labored on with such experiments as they conducted. I felt frightened as I heard them chanting in low tones that to my young ears seemed quite menacing. I simply stood in place for a long time... the servants who were the ones who had removed my blindfold had scampered away quickly... and I did not know what to do.
At the head of the dining table, a man called out to me to come closer. I noticed that he was quite the very handsome man, with hair so black it was a bluish black in color. He was somewhere I should say, in his thirties, but it was impossible to determine his precise age. He seemed careworn, as if the weight of all the world bore down upon him, and he had enhanced the color of his neatly trimmed beard so as that it appeared blue using dyes to achieve this. His eyes were dark, and I could not make out the color of them in the present lighting. He was pale, I noticed, but not nearly as pale as I was. I could hear the sound of rain outside, with thunder in the distance... that was not normal or usual for this time of year! I hurried across the floor towards the man who called to me, and as I got closer I saw that he was dressed in a black and red robe of more elaborate design than the others who wore such in this place. He had a kindly way about him, and this I found to be encouraging. He said unto me: “Many boys and girls, have passed into these halls, but this is the first time I have seen one who reminded me so much of she who I once loved above all others, the incomparable Jeanne. The Maid of Orleans.” He spoke poetically... and with warmth in his voice, genuine affection. His adoration for this “Maid” was evident, and of course in my waking life in the present I understand why. But in that memory, trapped in that time long past as I experienced it, and cut off from the present... I was unable to realize what was so important about all of this, about the Maid of Orleans, and about this man whom I was now confronted with. One of the men and women who sat at the table nearest to him, said in a gravelly but still dignified sort of voice: “My lord, this child is younger than she... far younger... but otherwise, she is the very spitting image of the Maid of Orleans herself. I believe your servant said this child's name is Jeanne as well! A good omen.” I had heard a servant come forward and whisper something, to someone, before my blindfold was taken off, and this at least explained the meaning of that. The lord of the castle, the man with the blue beard, looked me up and down and smiled appreciatively. He then gestured for me to sit down at one of the empty chairs nearby. I did as he asked of me, and he asked me all manner of questions about my birth. About my parents, the region I grew up in, what my life was like and what drove me to wandering. All of what he asked, I answered as best as I could, and as maturely as I had taught myself to behave. He did after that say unto me: “Well, little Jeanne... you may not be the Maid reborn... you are too old for that to be the case, after all. But you are welcome in my house nonetheless! You may not be of noble birth, but as far as I am concerned... you may as well have been. Your coming here tonight is a sign, I believe! Of what, I cannot guess. But it is a goodly sign, as my friend here said. I hope that my people did not mistreat you when they brought you to me... I know they can be rough and sometimes wicked.”
I told him all that I had suffered at the hands of the cruel young man and the soldiers as they brought me to the castle. He looked angry, filled with barely contained rage, and then said: “They will all have to be dealt with then... harshly, I think, this time! I am too lenient with them, I think. I have not ever so tolerated, even in times of war, such behavior. And what did they tell you of me, I wonder... likely, all manner of devilish things, to chill the soul and bring dread to the heart. Only some of them are true, the tales they tell of me. Only some! I am not an evil man, little Jeanne. I never was. But history, it seems, is determined to paint me blackly. I have... interests... that the Church does not appreciate. And, I would be lying to say I do not have certain preferences that they might find undesirable in a Christian man. In my own home, they would seek to control me and demand I be as other men more pliant for them to be able to control. They wanted to control my beloved Jeanne as well... and caused her death in the end! I never forgave them for that, and I never will. How could I? We play at being devils here sometimes, but I will make one thing clear... we are but men and women in search of knowledge, pleasure, and peace. We follow the old ways that came before Christ... it was not always so, but after the Maid's death I had to break from the Church. They betrayed her, they betrayed all of us! And so, now we betray them right back. It is only fair, it is how such games are played. But, do not be frightened of me! No matter what.”
I asked him if he could help me to get home, for I missed my family, and he said to me on that score: “I cannot do that, at least not yet, child. Not until I get to know you better and learn why fate brought us together like this. Look at that painting on the wall over there!” he commanded, and I followed his gaze to see the painting on the far end of the dining hall, hanging next to the door. For on both sides of that door were paintings, and this was one of the two. It hung on the right side of the door from where I sat. I walked over to the painting so I could see it clearly, and saw that it depicted a woman wearing a white suit of armor. She had short black hair cut into a pageboy style just like my own hair was. The woman, she was but a young girl herself though older than me, and she stood grasping the hilt of a sword with its' blade downward thrust towards the ground. It was like looking into a mirror in some ways, but I saw also the differences between she and I. In another reality, we might have been twins... but in this one, I simply knew nothing of her at all. “Is this her, then? The other Jeanne, the one you loved I mean.” I did ask, and the man answered: “That was indeed she! My beloved Jeanne. Though, I think, the hair she has in that painting... it may have been a wig, since sometimes she had it longer and blonde in color. That, I believe, was also a wig. She may have kept her natural hair shaved bald, as a sacrifice to God and a sign of her covenant with powers not of this world. It has been so long through it seems... it is hard to recall with preciseness such details.” One of the others at the table then said: “Perhaps, my lord, but I think it is that you remember correctly. For once, I could swear I remember seeing her without any hair at all. It was during a campaign, and she covered her head quickly when she noticed I had seen. I think I might have embarrassed her just a little. I was a servant at camp that day, and sought to bring her some food.” Then, the lord sighed and appeared depressed as he admitted: “I tried to forget as much about her as I was able to, for a time... I thought it would make my grief go away, but it only returned greater than it had been previously. I... punish myself sometimes... for ever having tried to forget her.” I did not ask a thing more regarding that woman, and returned to my seat and ate the meal presented to me in silence. I was presented with wine to drink, and was hesitant. “Am I not too young for wine, my lord?” I asked of my host, to which he replied: “Nonsense! I was younger than you when I first tasted it. Drink up and be of a mind to enjoy yourself for a change... never mind what your parents taught you! Tonight, we make merry and both of us try to forget our pasts.” My past had indeed been painful, and I had cause to forget it if I could. I had told the lord all about it... and I suspect, he wondered why I wanted to go home at all.
After the feast, the lord of the castle took me by the hand and showed me about the place. “There had been only seven whom I had loved following the death of my beloved. Seven little girls, who preceded you in arriving here, all of whom touched my heart in various ways. All of whom are no more. We live in hard times, Jeanne, and many younger than you perish from sickness or other things well before the time when they should. Actually? No one should die... yet all living things must! That is the horror and the contradiction of life itself. That it must end with death, no matter how much joy we try to find in it.” I saw sadness in the man's face, genuine sorrow, a match for my own. I wiped the tears from his eyes at one point, offering him a cloth I had snatched from the dinner table and was carrying with me. He said to me sweetly: “You are a good little girl! A credit to your parents, even if they are not deserving of an angel such as yourself.” He took the cloth, and after wiping his eyes with it, he placed it in a pocket of his robes. Then, suddenly, he kissed me passionately upon my lips and ran his hands through my hair in a momentary explosion of love. After the kiss, he apologized and we resumed our walk. He said to me: “I hope you will forgive me, child, but... you look so much like her, I simply had to kiss your lips. It was like tasting hers, once again!” History would say that Jeanne d'Arc died a virgin when the Church finally burned her at the stake, and had never known a man's love. History sometimes either lies, or can omit the truths it does not know at all. Whatever the nature of her relationship with this man, it clearly had been more than a mere friendship, and certainly more than a passing infatuation on both their parts.
Bluebeard... that was what I came to call the man, for he had not told me his actual name... was more kind to me than his fearsome reputation should have warranted. He showed me every corner of that old castle, from the opulently appointed chambers all the way down to the dungeons and the crypts that lay beneath the chapel. He showed me where the seven children had been interred, and he cried at each of their resting places and told me that normally he left presents for them but today he regretted that he did not bring any. These presents had collected over time, and I saw that there were many heaped about the outside of the crypts wherein the children rested eternally. He warned me never to open the doors of the crypts, lest it disturb the children's slumber. I agreed to his rightful wishes, for I had no desire to disturb the dead in any case. He showed me to a chamber fit for a princess, and told me the room was mine for as long as I wished for it to be. It was filled with toys, beautiful clothes, and all manner of delightfully wonderful and wondrous things as only a child would take enjoyment from. And being a child, I did! I stayed for far longer than I had expected to, and the lord of the castle was kind to me and treated me as if I was his actual blood daughter. But ever, the cruel young man whom I mentioned earlier in this work did sneer at me most wickedly whenever it was that he so chanced to notice me about the castle's halls. There was jealousy in his glaring, and I had an increasing suspicion that he wanted the lord's favor all to himself. Had some of the children the lord had loved, in some cases, been murdered by that young man out of such jealousy? It seemed likely... and I began to fear for my own life when sometimes I happened to notice the young man making throat cutting motions with his finger as he stared hatefully at me when I passed him by. I wore the finest gowns and dresses, and knew what it was like to wear necklaces and bracelets and rings. I felt the touch of silk upon my skin, and the scent of fine perfume was about me. I knew the lord of the castle was married, but his wife was presently away... and I wondered whatever it was she would have made of me had she known I was there, and that her husband favored me as he did. Sometimes, the lord came to my bedchamber to spend the night with me. He would caress my hair, and my skin, and instruct me in how to pleasure him with my mouth our with my hands. I learned of how to pleasure a man that way, and he promised to one day grant me pleasure in turn. “But not yet!” he said, often, and I realized soon enough that I was no longer a daughter him, but rather a wife. He acted, often, much like a child himself... and I like the adult. Sometimes, we switched those roles around. I came to see his soul, and to love him for it. And he saw mine, and loved me too. His name, I eventually found out, was Gilles de Rais. The cruel young man's name was Étienne Corrillaut, whom everyone called by the name of Poitou. Things reached a certain status quo whereby I was pampered and shown all proper and due love and courtesy by Gilles... whilst Poitou continued to always treat me with disdain, as if my very existence was an annoyance to him. Just as his, became an irritation to me. One night, things came to a head at last when Poitou barged into my bedchamber unannounced and without having at all been sent for or called for by anyone. He wore a fancy dress tunic and looked as pompous and full of his own sense of self worth and overly inflated importance as ever. He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me down on the bed with an evil gleam in his eyes. He said to me, almost in a hissing voice: “Well... what do we have here? Little Jeanne, all alone, without daddy to protect her! And what have you been doing for daddy to deserve the royal treatment, eh? Sucking his cock, no doubt! And, what has he been doing with you, I wonder. Well, it is time for me to get my full share of the spoils and see if you put up nearly as much of a fight as some of those other girls did before you. I never took them, you know... never put my cock in them... I just killed them, is all. Put a pillow over one's face, pushed another out the window and made it look like she fell by accident. Poisoned another to make it look like the fever took her. All in all, I killed three... the others died by the fever or by accident, no doing of mine at all. Why kill when nature sorts things out as it should! But you... number eight... you I will enjoy fucking before I snuff out your miserable little life. I think I will fuck your cunt first and save your ass for last. Before you die, I'll make sure to cast my seed into as many holes on your body as I can shoot it up into. Now... let us play!”
He began to tear at my beautiful clothes, ripping them from me savagely, leering at me in a way that made me certain that this man was no man at all but a demon from Hell itself. His hands were upon my chest, on my thighs, all over me... rubbing me, caressing me not gently but very roughly. His vile body's weight kept me on my back, pinned the to bed, and I was helpless as he parted my legs and wedged his form between them. I could feel something hard poking me between my legs, rubbing up and down on my crotch. But nothing penetrated me yet, and I had no knowledge of what was supposed to happen. It was my first time with a man of any kind in this way... it should have been Gilles who was the one that claimed my virginity. I wanted so badly for it to have been him! Not this evil person who menaced me so perversely. I screamed, cried out for Gilles, but no one could hear me it seemed not even a servant. I was in despair, resigned that I was going to die on my back at the mercy of this hateful son of a whore. I was naked, frightened, and in tears... but I never once begged for my attacker's mercy. He noticed this, and said to me evilly: “Well, it seems you really are different from the others after all, little Jeanne! All of them begged for their worthless lives before I delivered them unto death's sweet embrace. Beg, you rotten little bitch! Beg, and I might not ravish you after all. Let me hear you plead for your life. Let me hear the same fear in your voice that I can see in your eyes! Beg... or so help me I will rape you, hard.” I said only one thing to him: “No! You go beg Gilles, to forgive you for murdering those he loved.” Then I spat in the man's face and tried my hardest to get free of him. He smacked me across my mouth and I saw him remove his tunic and throw it across the room, before he untied the drawstrings of his trousers. He took his manhood out and it was as erect as a spear... he smacked me again, and I cried worse than I had previously. “Please... I don't want this. Not with you!” I begged, but he laughed and said to me: “If you had only begged me before, it need not have come to this. But you are too late, my little slut! Once I am this hard... only some girl cunt can do me ease. I will actually be doing you a favor by killing you after I finish with you. My family is very fertile... you would surely be with child, and I doubt strongly that you would want to carry the child of the man who raped you and bring it into this world. Truly that would be a fate far worse than death!” I said to him: “You are sick! You are evil.” which made him just for a moment stop what he was doing. He got up a bit from me and said in an almost hurt tone of voice: “Evil! I, evil? Not nearly as evil as your beloved Gilles. Do you know how many children he has killed, himself? The ones he did not fall in love with! I lost count after fifty. I, am the one who had to procure them for him... the one who had to clean up after his dalliances with them. Daddy is a very bad man, I am afraid. You have been sucking a devil's cock and never even realized it. What is good or evil, in the sort of world where saints are killed and sinners run the very Church that condemns good people to die? You dare accuse me of being evil! And look... you've made me lose my erection. Now, we shall need to start over again and see if we can get me back in the mood.” He then wrapped his murderous hands as hard as he could around my neck, and he began to squeeze. Not enough to kill me... not yet... but more than enough to bring me near to passing out from the pressure. I was through begging, done trying to be reasonable with him, and I knew my struggles were useless. This was to be the end of my life, and it did fill me with blackest despair. I could hear footsteps coming down the hall.. the door was open, someone had to be able to see what was going on if they walked past. I could hear Gilles' voice and knew that it was him coming down the hallway. I dug my fingernails as hard as I could into Poitou's arms, until my attack drew his blood. He withdrew his hands from my neck and I cried out as loud as I could, my voice becoming hoarse from having already screamed and cried so much: “Gilles! My lord, help me. Oh... my sweet lord... please. Poitou is trying to kill me!” I heard the lord of the castle curse and he hastened his steps as fast as he could, with two of his soldiers at his side. They rushed into the bedchamber and did pull the wicked young man off of me. The soldiers restrained Poitou, whilst the lord put his arms about me lovingly and asked me: “Did he put anything inside of you, child? Tell me if he did, and I will have him killed for it! As it is, he is going to suffer for this.” I said unto him: “No, but he was just about to.”
“Get dressed, whilst I deal with this serpent!” the lord commanded me, and I was only all to happy to obey him. I told the lord: “He killed three of the seven girls you loved, three of the ones who rest in the crypts below. But, he told me you killed countless others before... the ones you did not fall in love with. Is it true? Are you all murderers in this castle, then!” Gilles then glared at Poitou angrily with a gaze as should have withered the young man's soul, to ashes. He said unto him: “So, you told her everything, it seems! Didn't you. This, is just like you, Poitou... thinking with your cock, rather than your brain. Keep up this way, and you will have the Church upon us before too much longer. And then we will all end up just like poor Jeanne did. Out of all the seven girls I loved, this eighth is my favorite, for she is the most like Jeanne in name, appearance, and it seems spirit if I am to judge by the marks on your arms, lad. So tell me, Poitou... why, did you do all these things? I find it hard to believe you killed those three simply out of blood lust, and hat you acted just now as you did merely out of animal lust. There has to be more to it than that, if I am any judge of men's hearts at all!” The young man was silent but then the lord of the castle grabbed him by the genitals and squeezed them hard enough to cause Poitou to cry out in pain from it. The young man then said fearfully: “Alright my lord! Stop, please... I killed those three, and did as I had with this one, because I want you for myself. I am in love with you, my lord! I know that this is sinful in the eyes of the Church, but I confess it all the same. I cannot bear to share you with others, and I daresay even when you are with your wife I wish that it were I instead of she at your side. Forgive me, and I swear I shall never kill another whom you love ever again... nor shall I molest this child further if she truly pleases you so much.” Gilles then pulled out a sharp looking dagger from a sheathe at his belt, and smiled cruelly whilst the guards who were holding Poitou securely both smiled and began to laugh. “Oh, I intend to forgive you! After all, you love me, or so you claim. But there is a difference between love and obsession... your obsession with me has caused you to kill and to attempt worse than killing. I think if you confessed all this to a priest it would not go so well for you. I am not a priest, thankfully for you! I am a more... forgiving man.” Then, the lord did take his knife and begin to make a series of cuts into the young man's scrotum, cuts which bled furiously. The lord then rubbed his hands upon the cuts, so that the blood was upon his very fingers, and he licked the blood and sucked it up until it was gone. “Shall I drink you dry, lad? Use you for my wine press, perhaps! Nay.. not this day. Today... you, get to live... and you shall spend the rest of your days in fear, never knowing if I shall finish the job I began in this moment with your balls. Or not. I have a taste for blood, as you know! But yours tastes bitter to my tongue. The guards will take you to get those cuts looked at and treated... I am a merciful man, after all. Consider this, your penance! Perhaps more shall be added to it, when I have had the time to consider a more fitting punishment for you than this alone.” He motioned and the guards took their prisoner away. I was happy for that horrible young man to finally be out of my sight. Then... the lord came back to me, and he did kiss me tenderly and asked me how my throat and neck were feeling. I told him they hurt me a great deal, and asked if anything could make them feel better. “Only time, and some soothing liquids I think will do that, young lady!” he stated, acting very much like the concerned parent. He then said unto me: “Come! Let us get to the kitchen, and see what we have. I believe, I shall have to start reciprocating Poitou's affections if I am to keep him from going mad with jealousy any further than he has already. At least tonight, everyone needs to heal and clear their heads. On the morrow, I will show you more of the places in this castle where certain secrets of mine are kept. If you prove strong enough to bear them, as I am certain you are able to... then you will be a worthy companion for me for the long term. You will be the heir to my legacy that I have for so long now sought! And a worthy wife, despite that I already have one. But she is not you, my pretty little Jeanne. Only you, are you!” and, with that, we made all haste to get to the kitchen. The servants fussed about me a great deal and worried over me a lot, and soon I was partaking of some soothing cool beverages and trying to forget how close to death I was only moments before. I still loved my lord very much, but did not know what to make of his truly horrid seeming past.
It was dark in the place where I sojourned... in the slumber in which I had sought to find solace. In the darkness there were voices rustling like autumn leaves in a great forest. How long had I slumbered for? I could not say, but it did not concern me overmuch. Within me, there are three souls, each which has a great tapestry of memories, of lives lived in ages past before the life all three of us share now, as we are together in a single body. But it was not always so! Once, we were three separate people with our own bodies and our own separate destinies. A dark series of events that culminated in my birth in this life so caused this bizarre union... though in my dreams, in my memories, I see the memories of all three often. All of which now are me, even though I was not always them. To the uninitiated into certain secrets, it may seem strange to hear me speak so... but it is the truth nonetheless, as mad as it may sound to hear it said by my lips. Normally, one soul is most dominant in me... the third. The one that is neither the boy nor the girl who were meant to have been born as twins. But sometimes, in my dreams, the memories of one of the twins will surface and for a time it is that which is dominant in me. Such was it last night. It is a horrible thing that I shall now relate, a terrible memory. But how I could I not speak of it? Even the most terrifying of horrors must be given vent to be spoken of when the memory of it become too hard to bear, too perverse to hold unto. Is this sharing, this venting, a kind of therapy? Perhaps! And so it is. This is what the dream, the nightmare, contained. This is not a tale for the faint of heart to hear told...
I was wandering through a dark autumn forest, just prior to the part of the season when the leaves fall. The trees were colorful, by day, but at night the lofty trees that were not evergreen mixed with the ones that were to create a maze of wooded walls filled with brambles and brush of all sorts. The paths that as one might follow otherwise were unseen in this midnight hour, and even animal trails vanished from all sight, so that unless one were attuned to such things they might never find them. I felt my body with my hands, it was a young body... a child's body... and it was slender. A young girl's body, perhaps no older than twelve years of age. I was lost, but I know not how I came to be so. My hands grasped the soil as I sat beneath a tree and had fallen asleep. The earth was cold, damp, and the dirt ran through my fingers as grains of sand run through an hourglass. So, I mused, I am the girl twin tonight and this is one of her memories! I had laid in bed only moments previous, to awaken here, like this, in this bygone era. It was instantly familiar, as I surrendered my consciousness to fully become her. She was a part of me now, so it was only right that I let her memory come to the fore on this occasion. She... I... was wearing a white blouse with long puffy sleeves, in the peasant style. And it was tucked into a long silky feeling skirt of the same white color. My feet had sandals upon them, and I wore no jewelry and had no cosmetics upon my face. Unsurprisingly, since I was only a child after all and seemingly not one of the nobility. As far as I could tell, my hair was cut short in the pageboy style... with neatly trimmed bangs just above where my eyebrows were... and my hair seemed to be black from what I could see of it out of the corner of my eyes. It was chilly, and I was hardly dressed for such a night as this. I stood up from the oak where I had laid down to rest previously, and looked about me. A warm glow caught my attention nearby, and I did walk slowly and cautiously towards it. It was a campfire, and at it sat a group of hunters who had a boy with them and two girls. Likely one of the men was the father of the children, and they were out in the woods to teach the children... especially the boy... how to hunt. A common enough skill to need taught, back in the medieval era which I now knew this memory belonged to. For the dress of these people all matched that era, though which decade or precise year it was impossible to know. Even back then, half the time the common folk simply did not keep track of such things. Preferring instead to live season by season, year by year and telling time by nature. For clocks had not been invented yet. I could hear one of the men say to the little girl: “This is not a place for godly folk, daughter! We should never have so thought to venture into these woods, so close as they are to the house of the evil one as rules this land.”
It was not any dialect of English either modern or old that was being spoken, though I naturally shall relate all that was spoken in this dream, this memory, in perfect modern English for the benefit of the reader. The little girl looked up at her father, her eyes wide with fear as she asked: “What makes you so sure this place is evil, father? It seems cold, but not hellish.” Then the father replied: “That is part of all that makes this place so wicked, child. You cannot see the danger until it is too late. And the lord of the land, he is cruel and vile... worse than any animal or beast of the forest. If he catches us hunting in this forest, he will kill us all. All save for you and your brother, to whom he will do far worse by far than a man may do by killing alone. The worst he can do to me is behead me or flay me. But beauty can be a curse, and your and your brother are both beautiful! May his eyes never behold either of you, lest he be taken by lust to do unspeakable things.” The girl did not comprehend her father's meaning, nor did her brother. But I knew the danger, for I was more mature minded for my age. I recognized the language at last, as the language of the country of Brittany. It was an old tongue, a precursor to modern French after a fashion, and I must have been from the same country in that life for I understood all that was said, and could speak the same tongue with no difficulties. I wanted to approach these people, talk to them, find out just how lost I actually was and possibly find my way. But I was fated to be too late, in that regard.
I heard the howling of wolves, resounding loudly in the night air. And suddenly, a large pack of them set upon the hunters and the children. I did not even have the time to scream as I witnessed the animals savagely attacking these people with bestial ferocity. Black wolves, blacker than night itself! A frenzy of fangs and claws, tearing into flesh. For their part, the hunters tried their best with their spears, axes, and slings... but they were too slow and the animals too fast. I closed my eyes out of fear... as I tried to hide myself and put the sounds out of my mind. The growling, the howling, the sound of jaws biting, of teeth gnashing, the chewing of flesh and the spilling of blood. The father's voice cried out many times, as he fought valiantly against the creatures. The children cried out as well, and by the gurgling noises I heard them make I knew they perished as did all the men save the father himself. Their cries were more terrible than the children's though far less heartbreaking to hear than theirs had been. So valiant was the father's fight, that the wolves were driven away at the last. As soon as I heard them scamper off, I did open my eyes and approach the campfire where all the people lay dead thereabout. The man's face was covered in blood and scratches, and he was now missing his left eye. His right hand had been bitten off by one of the wolves, and out this deep in the woods he would not be able to get it the attention such a wound needs before bleeding to death from it. The man desperately made a crude torch with a branch and some cloth wrapped around it, and used that to staunch the wound and stop the bleeding. He then tore strips of cloth from the shirt of a dead hunter and wrapped it about the stump where his hand used to be. It was crudely done, but he could still well live so long as he got to a healer in time... before any sort of infection could set in, which would be deadly if it happened. He treated the wound in his eye socket the same way, and he screamed when the heat of the torch met his face. He patted his beard to put out the fire he set upon it by doing this, and screamed: “Damn it! Damn me for a fool! I will surely kill myself yet at this rate.” The moment he saw me, his face went pale and his eye widened with fear. He must have taken me for a ghost or some sort of evil spirit, for he said unto me nervously: “Who are you, child... are you some spirit, come to take the souls of those who perished here away to Hell? Or, if fate truly be unkind, are you sent hither from the lord of this land, from his terrible castle!” I said unto him honestly: “Sir, I do not know you. Nor... do I know this lord of which you speak. I am not from this area, I am lost and from a place far from here though still in this country. You would not have heard of my home were I to tell you of it. Of that I am certain.” The man then exclaimed: “You are not a normal child! No child speaks as you do, the way an adult speaks. And your face is sad, your mouth a frown of a sort born of profound loneliness and sorrow. Your skin, unnaturally pale. Only ghosts look that pale!”
I smiled, and asked him: “How many ghosts have you seen, sir! And what castle do you speak of? As I said, I am not from around here.” The man cleared his throat, then answered: “I will not name the site, for it a place accursed to speak the name of. The castle is a devil's lair now, whatever it may have been in the past. And the lord of it is the Devil himself, they say! Flee this land, child... especially because it is that you are a child. Children here, do not fare well... as you can see.” and the man pointed to the still corpses of his slain children to drive his point home. I confided then: “I cannot, sir, for I am lost and do not know the way back home. I was hoping to get help returning there... but I see you have more serious problems to worry about now.” The man said unto me, tears in his one remaining eye: “I just witnessed the deaths of my children! It does not get more serious than that. Their mother died birthing them, and I shall not get more children in my lifetime. Not at my age... not given my poor health. You chose an evil time to come upon me... I am certain you are some sort of devil yourself, however fair your form. Go, I say unto you! Depart from my sight, and bedevil me not. I have children and friends to bury.” I saw that he would not be of any help to me, and so I left him there to do as he felt he must. I heard the man cry... I heard him weeping piteously... but I could not help him. Nothing could. And he did not want comfort from me, it seemed. I left him there with the dead, and ventured onward. The night was black, and all I saw about me were shadows and vague shapes within them. I could hear an owl hooting, and the noises of scampering animals in the underbrush just beyond my sight. Soon, I saw a brightness not far away. It was the moon, a full harvest moon looming over a stretch of green meadows that looked pale and sickly in the odd illumination. I made for it, eager to escape those terrible woods at last. The night was cloudy, and starless... an awful night, where other than the moon there was no light to travel by at all. I wished, all at once, that the hunter had chosen to help me... for I knew not where I was, nor where I was going. I was lost, and could see a distance away the rough outline of a mighty castle. Its' shape was hard to fully make out in the dark of night, in the present hour so distant from dawn. That could only have been that same evil place of which the man had spoken. I desperately did not want to go there, but neither could I wander in the wilderness and eventually starve to death, or perish from exposure to the elements either.
There was dew soaking through my sandals, I felt it on my toes. On a night such as this, it could turn to frost if I did not get warmth soon. As I said, I was not dressed for such a journey... but had not at all the time to choose my traveling garments with greater care ere I had set out to begin with. I had taken a cloak from one of the dead hunters, but it practically swallowed me for I was hardly fully grown in my height, child as I was at that time. It kept me warm enough for now, but was not exactly ideal! I heard once more the sounds of voices, and made my way towards them hoping it would be people who could help to get me home... or at least take me in for a while until we could figure something out. I heard a woman's voice, she was singing, and I did not recognize the song. She sang, and some men sang with her as she did so. It sounded happy, inviting, and I ventured closer and closer to the source of the sound. Ere long, I came upon another campfire around which were several tents of colorful design. A group of soldiers dressed in leathers and armored breastplates were seated around the campfire whilst a woman dressed in a blood red gown, her hair as black as coal, sang for them and danced whilst a young man so played a lively tune upon a flute he was clearly skilled with. The young man was no older than I would say sixteen or seventeen years of age, and he had a rather effeminate quality to him. He was not actually handsome, but rather pretty instead, and he wore delicate attire fit for the nobility. His blonde hair was in a style not unlike my own hair was, and I reasoned he had to be someone important by the way that the soldiers deferred to him. Nearby, a black stallion was leashed to a post and chomped happily upon what feed was provided for it. This looked like a merry band, and so I hoped they could help me. From all I heard... soldiers worked for the nobility, and that meant they could be trusted. How little I knew of the world, and how naive and foolish I was to think that all nobles were noble in spirit as well as blood!
The young man was staring at me as I approached the campfire, and said aloud as I neared the fire at the center of this small camp: “Who are you? A child I see! And what brings a little girl like yourself to our camp on such a chill night as this, I wonder.” The man's voice was light and lilting, and melodic in its' tones. I said unto him: “My name is Jeanne, sir. I am lost, and cannot find my way home once again. I was hoping someone could help me on that account.” The man then smiled in a way that made me feel rather uncomfortable, and he said to the nearly soldiers: “Lost, she claims to be! A pretty little morsel to be lost in such wilds as we have hereabouts. Such a pity! But, did you hear her name? Jeanne, the same as the Maid of Orleans, whom our master so reveres. Surely, that has to be a sign of some sort!” I did ask of him, interrupting his conversation with the soldiers: “Who is this maid of which you speak? For, I must confess, I have never heard of her before now.” The man then said in an offended tone of voice: “You have never heard of the Maid? How far away is your home, child! But I must not jest with you... I doubt your parents, whomever they are or were, saw fit to mention her to you. I daresay, she was a truly great individual... but perhaps not the best of role models for little girls to follow after. So I will forgive your lack of knowledge! In deference to your age and your sex. Come, sit down by me here, and warm yourself by our fire!” I did as he bade me, assuming it was safe to trust him. As soon as I sat next to the man, his arm was about my waist and he held me tightly. He continued to play the flute for a time, but soon he set it down and began to feel my chest with his hand, licking his lips perversely. “I'll wager you have never laid with a man, before.” he whispered in my ear, licking my earlobe as he did so. Then... he said out loud: “But worry not! I shall save you solely for our master, who likely will want a proper go at you first. Then, if he be feeling gracious perhaps he will share you with me later. The lads here, they all prefer grown women... but I share my master's preferences for younger sport.” At that age, I knew truly nothing at all about sexual matters, and was still a virgin and rightly so. Thus, I took the man's actions to be strange and peculiarly playful after a fashion, but could not comprehend the meaning behind them or his odd choice of words when he spoke about me. He actions, and what he did with me, filled me a bit with pleasure but I could not know or understand why. Part of me like it, part of me did not. I said to the man: “You're a funny man! Doing things to me, that I only ever saw my parents doing together. Are you trying to be like my father, and playing at me being your wife? Would that make me mother, then!” The man then slapped my mouth and said to me crossly: “Funny? I think not! And your tone is mocking to my ears... childlike, yet too mature to be so. I like this not, little girl. I like you not! Oh, you may yet be made a mother of, should my lord get you with child. But I would not want such as you for a wife! I prefer a child who knows her place and acts respectfully. And yet, somehow... your insolence make me want to fuck you all the harder! A pity I have to deliver you to... him... first.” I then cried a bit because of the slap, and then through my tears I said to the cruel young man: “I would never agree to be a wife to a man like you! Never, never, never. I would sooner bite off my own tongue and choke to death on it. If you try to make me do anything with you as I don't want to... see if I don't bite something off of you!” The man chuckled as soon as I said that, and assured me: “When my lord is through with you, you will be lucky if you still have blood left in your veins... let alone such spirit as you seem to possess! Perhaps he will pull some of those pesky teeth of yours, so you can't bite anything or anyone with them again.” I then said to the man angrily: “Fine! Than take me to see your lord right now. Let me talk to him myself, and maybe he will like me and want to help me. Maybe you are wrong!” At that the youthful man said in a cold tone of voice that chilled me to the bone: “Maybe I am wrong... maybe he will kill you like he did to so many others that displeased him. Your name may give him pause before thinking to do so, I'll wager though. But it will not spare you from any defilement I should delight in visiting upon you. Let us see, shall we?” The man then stood up, leaving me seated on the log we had shared as a seat. He said to everyone in the camp and no one in particular: “Come on, everyone! Let us pack up and return to the castle. We've a new bride for our master, and a spirited one it seems. He will enjoy breaking her spirit!”
I was dragged to my feet and forced to walk along with these men whether I wished to our not. I did want to meet the lord of the castle, for I hoped he would prove to be a goodly man. Unlike his servant, who it seems had a cruel streak to him that frightened me greatly even though I tried not to let it show that I was scared. Rough hands of soldiers bore me forward, and more than a few rubbed their hands on my buttocks as they made crude comments and threats of a sort as I did not know the meaning of. I kept on crying, for I was frightened and thought they meant to hurt me in some way. I tried to be brave, tried not to let my fear show... but my tears would not allow me to do so. Through my tears, and through the shadows all around me, I could make out that we passed through a portcullis, and past a gateway at one point. The horse was given into the care of a stable boy... who carried it off. Torches, dimly illuminated the castle that we passed into, with far more lighting on the inside than without. We were still outside at present, but within the castle walls beyond the main gatehouse. The walls were all of some very rough looking stone, in places covered with ivy and cracked with age. There were bloodstains on many of the walls, with servants working tirelessly to clean it up. There was a young housemaid nearby, but she was enduring harassment at the hands of more soldiers. As we passed, one of them clapped a hand over the maid's mouth whilst he and his fellows dragged her off into a tent near the stables. Her muffled scream of terror filled the air like the unnatural shriek of a wounded animal. We approached the entrance to the keep, and nearby were black wolves kept in cages. Identical to the wolves that had set upon the hunters in the forest. The animals' eyes, I could have sworn, were red like is fire! But that may have been a trick of the torchlight and its' fiery glow. Near the cages, several clergymen stood about with a rotund monk, all of them clearly drunk out of their minds and singing lewd songs the lyrics of which I did not get but which I thought had a harsh and crass air about them. Unlike other clergymen and monks I had seen, all of these were dressed solely in robes and vestments of black trimmed with deep red. At least one wore an inverted pentagram around his neck instead of a cross. Soon, a blindfold was placed over my eyes... and all was black for a long time thereafter. “Can't have you knowing the way out, sweetmeat!” I heard the cruel young man say, and after that I tried not to pay attention to the awful sounds that met my ears.
When the blindfold was taken from off my face, I saw that I was within a large dining hall. Candles, rather than torches, lit the room brightly... as well as an oil lamp or two... and plates piled high with all manner of food from meats and chicken to fruits and vegetables and various breads. Cups and chalices filled with water, wine, and other beverages that I knew not were just as plentiful. Here, I witnessed the most grand of feasts being held, and none of the soldiers were present. This was for the lord of this hall, and his personal inner circle only. Even the cruel young man from before was not present. The men and women hereabouts seemed pleasant and refined, in direct contrast to the rough men who had practically dragged me hither. They were laughing, singing, and having a great time. All seemed normal, until after a bit I began to notice what was wrong about this scene! There were tables set up along the edges of the hall, well out of sight of the center where the great and long rectangular shaped dining table was set up. On those half-hidden tables... some even obscured behind hanging tapestries and draperies... I beheld a truly horrible sight. Jars filled with organs... hearts, brains, eyeballs, and other things... all set up next to strange apparatuses of some dark alchemy's arts. Some flasks and beakers were filled with blood, I saw, and had labels upon them written in Latin. I could not quite make out the handwriting, so I do not know what the meaning of all of that may have been. The preserving fluids smelled strongly, but incense from hanging burners masked that scent somewhat and made the air at least bearable to breathe despite all of that. At some of the tables, men and women in black and red robes tended to whatever they labored on with such experiments as they conducted. I felt frightened as I heard them chanting in low tones that to my young ears seemed quite menacing. I simply stood in place for a long time... the servants who were the ones who had removed my blindfold had scampered away quickly... and I did not know what to do.
At the head of the dining table, a man called out to me to come closer. I noticed that he was quite the very handsome man, with hair so black it was a bluish black in color. He was somewhere I should say, in his thirties, but it was impossible to determine his precise age. He seemed careworn, as if the weight of all the world bore down upon him, and he had enhanced the color of his neatly trimmed beard so as that it appeared blue using dyes to achieve this. His eyes were dark, and I could not make out the color of them in the present lighting. He was pale, I noticed, but not nearly as pale as I was. I could hear the sound of rain outside, with thunder in the distance... that was not normal or usual for this time of year! I hurried across the floor towards the man who called to me, and as I got closer I saw that he was dressed in a black and red robe of more elaborate design than the others who wore such in this place. He had a kindly way about him, and this I found to be encouraging. He said unto me: “Many boys and girls, have passed into these halls, but this is the first time I have seen one who reminded me so much of she who I once loved above all others, the incomparable Jeanne. The Maid of Orleans.” He spoke poetically... and with warmth in his voice, genuine affection. His adoration for this “Maid” was evident, and of course in my waking life in the present I understand why. But in that memory, trapped in that time long past as I experienced it, and cut off from the present... I was unable to realize what was so important about all of this, about the Maid of Orleans, and about this man whom I was now confronted with. One of the men and women who sat at the table nearest to him, said in a gravelly but still dignified sort of voice: “My lord, this child is younger than she... far younger... but otherwise, she is the very spitting image of the Maid of Orleans herself. I believe your servant said this child's name is Jeanne as well! A good omen.” I had heard a servant come forward and whisper something, to someone, before my blindfold was taken off, and this at least explained the meaning of that. The lord of the castle, the man with the blue beard, looked me up and down and smiled appreciatively. He then gestured for me to sit down at one of the empty chairs nearby. I did as he asked of me, and he asked me all manner of questions about my birth. About my parents, the region I grew up in, what my life was like and what drove me to wandering. All of what he asked, I answered as best as I could, and as maturely as I had taught myself to behave. He did after that say unto me: “Well, little Jeanne... you may not be the Maid reborn... you are too old for that to be the case, after all. But you are welcome in my house nonetheless! You may not be of noble birth, but as far as I am concerned... you may as well have been. Your coming here tonight is a sign, I believe! Of what, I cannot guess. But it is a goodly sign, as my friend here said. I hope that my people did not mistreat you when they brought you to me... I know they can be rough and sometimes wicked.”
I told him all that I had suffered at the hands of the cruel young man and the soldiers as they brought me to the castle. He looked angry, filled with barely contained rage, and then said: “They will all have to be dealt with then... harshly, I think, this time! I am too lenient with them, I think. I have not ever so tolerated, even in times of war, such behavior. And what did they tell you of me, I wonder... likely, all manner of devilish things, to chill the soul and bring dread to the heart. Only some of them are true, the tales they tell of me. Only some! I am not an evil man, little Jeanne. I never was. But history, it seems, is determined to paint me blackly. I have... interests... that the Church does not appreciate. And, I would be lying to say I do not have certain preferences that they might find undesirable in a Christian man. In my own home, they would seek to control me and demand I be as other men more pliant for them to be able to control. They wanted to control my beloved Jeanne as well... and caused her death in the end! I never forgave them for that, and I never will. How could I? We play at being devils here sometimes, but I will make one thing clear... we are but men and women in search of knowledge, pleasure, and peace. We follow the old ways that came before Christ... it was not always so, but after the Maid's death I had to break from the Church. They betrayed her, they betrayed all of us! And so, now we betray them right back. It is only fair, it is how such games are played. But, do not be frightened of me! No matter what.”
I asked him if he could help me to get home, for I missed my family, and he said to me on that score: “I cannot do that, at least not yet, child. Not until I get to know you better and learn why fate brought us together like this. Look at that painting on the wall over there!” he commanded, and I followed his gaze to see the painting on the far end of the dining hall, hanging next to the door. For on both sides of that door were paintings, and this was one of the two. It hung on the right side of the door from where I sat. I walked over to the painting so I could see it clearly, and saw that it depicted a woman wearing a white suit of armor. She had short black hair cut into a pageboy style just like my own hair was. The woman, she was but a young girl herself though older than me, and she stood grasping the hilt of a sword with its' blade downward thrust towards the ground. It was like looking into a mirror in some ways, but I saw also the differences between she and I. In another reality, we might have been twins... but in this one, I simply knew nothing of her at all. “Is this her, then? The other Jeanne, the one you loved I mean.” I did ask, and the man answered: “That was indeed she! My beloved Jeanne. Though, I think, the hair she has in that painting... it may have been a wig, since sometimes she had it longer and blonde in color. That, I believe, was also a wig. She may have kept her natural hair shaved bald, as a sacrifice to God and a sign of her covenant with powers not of this world. It has been so long through it seems... it is hard to recall with preciseness such details.” One of the others at the table then said: “Perhaps, my lord, but I think it is that you remember correctly. For once, I could swear I remember seeing her without any hair at all. It was during a campaign, and she covered her head quickly when she noticed I had seen. I think I might have embarrassed her just a little. I was a servant at camp that day, and sought to bring her some food.” Then, the lord sighed and appeared depressed as he admitted: “I tried to forget as much about her as I was able to, for a time... I thought it would make my grief go away, but it only returned greater than it had been previously. I... punish myself sometimes... for ever having tried to forget her.” I did not ask a thing more regarding that woman, and returned to my seat and ate the meal presented to me in silence. I was presented with wine to drink, and was hesitant. “Am I not too young for wine, my lord?” I asked of my host, to which he replied: “Nonsense! I was younger than you when I first tasted it. Drink up and be of a mind to enjoy yourself for a change... never mind what your parents taught you! Tonight, we make merry and both of us try to forget our pasts.” My past had indeed been painful, and I had cause to forget it if I could. I had told the lord all about it... and I suspect, he wondered why I wanted to go home at all.
After the feast, the lord of the castle took me by the hand and showed me about the place. “There had been only seven whom I had loved following the death of my beloved. Seven little girls, who preceded you in arriving here, all of whom touched my heart in various ways. All of whom are no more. We live in hard times, Jeanne, and many younger than you perish from sickness or other things well before the time when they should. Actually? No one should die... yet all living things must! That is the horror and the contradiction of life itself. That it must end with death, no matter how much joy we try to find in it.” I saw sadness in the man's face, genuine sorrow, a match for my own. I wiped the tears from his eyes at one point, offering him a cloth I had snatched from the dinner table and was carrying with me. He said to me sweetly: “You are a good little girl! A credit to your parents, even if they are not deserving of an angel such as yourself.” He took the cloth, and after wiping his eyes with it, he placed it in a pocket of his robes. Then, suddenly, he kissed me passionately upon my lips and ran his hands through my hair in a momentary explosion of love. After the kiss, he apologized and we resumed our walk. He said to me: “I hope you will forgive me, child, but... you look so much like her, I simply had to kiss your lips. It was like tasting hers, once again!” History would say that Jeanne d'Arc died a virgin when the Church finally burned her at the stake, and had never known a man's love. History sometimes either lies, or can omit the truths it does not know at all. Whatever the nature of her relationship with this man, it clearly had been more than a mere friendship, and certainly more than a passing infatuation on both their parts.
Bluebeard... that was what I came to call the man, for he had not told me his actual name... was more kind to me than his fearsome reputation should have warranted. He showed me every corner of that old castle, from the opulently appointed chambers all the way down to the dungeons and the crypts that lay beneath the chapel. He showed me where the seven children had been interred, and he cried at each of their resting places and told me that normally he left presents for them but today he regretted that he did not bring any. These presents had collected over time, and I saw that there were many heaped about the outside of the crypts wherein the children rested eternally. He warned me never to open the doors of the crypts, lest it disturb the children's slumber. I agreed to his rightful wishes, for I had no desire to disturb the dead in any case. He showed me to a chamber fit for a princess, and told me the room was mine for as long as I wished for it to be. It was filled with toys, beautiful clothes, and all manner of delightfully wonderful and wondrous things as only a child would take enjoyment from. And being a child, I did! I stayed for far longer than I had expected to, and the lord of the castle was kind to me and treated me as if I was his actual blood daughter. But ever, the cruel young man whom I mentioned earlier in this work did sneer at me most wickedly whenever it was that he so chanced to notice me about the castle's halls. There was jealousy in his glaring, and I had an increasing suspicion that he wanted the lord's favor all to himself. Had some of the children the lord had loved, in some cases, been murdered by that young man out of such jealousy? It seemed likely... and I began to fear for my own life when sometimes I happened to notice the young man making throat cutting motions with his finger as he stared hatefully at me when I passed him by. I wore the finest gowns and dresses, and knew what it was like to wear necklaces and bracelets and rings. I felt the touch of silk upon my skin, and the scent of fine perfume was about me. I knew the lord of the castle was married, but his wife was presently away... and I wondered whatever it was she would have made of me had she known I was there, and that her husband favored me as he did. Sometimes, the lord came to my bedchamber to spend the night with me. He would caress my hair, and my skin, and instruct me in how to pleasure him with my mouth our with my hands. I learned of how to pleasure a man that way, and he promised to one day grant me pleasure in turn. “But not yet!” he said, often, and I realized soon enough that I was no longer a daughter him, but rather a wife. He acted, often, much like a child himself... and I like the adult. Sometimes, we switched those roles around. I came to see his soul, and to love him for it. And he saw mine, and loved me too. His name, I eventually found out, was Gilles de Rais. The cruel young man's name was Étienne Corrillaut, whom everyone called by the name of Poitou. Things reached a certain status quo whereby I was pampered and shown all proper and due love and courtesy by Gilles... whilst Poitou continued to always treat me with disdain, as if my very existence was an annoyance to him. Just as his, became an irritation to me. One night, things came to a head at last when Poitou barged into my bedchamber unannounced and without having at all been sent for or called for by anyone. He wore a fancy dress tunic and looked as pompous and full of his own sense of self worth and overly inflated importance as ever. He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me down on the bed with an evil gleam in his eyes. He said to me, almost in a hissing voice: “Well... what do we have here? Little Jeanne, all alone, without daddy to protect her! And what have you been doing for daddy to deserve the royal treatment, eh? Sucking his cock, no doubt! And, what has he been doing with you, I wonder. Well, it is time for me to get my full share of the spoils and see if you put up nearly as much of a fight as some of those other girls did before you. I never took them, you know... never put my cock in them... I just killed them, is all. Put a pillow over one's face, pushed another out the window and made it look like she fell by accident. Poisoned another to make it look like the fever took her. All in all, I killed three... the others died by the fever or by accident, no doing of mine at all. Why kill when nature sorts things out as it should! But you... number eight... you I will enjoy fucking before I snuff out your miserable little life. I think I will fuck your cunt first and save your ass for last. Before you die, I'll make sure to cast my seed into as many holes on your body as I can shoot it up into. Now... let us play!”
He began to tear at my beautiful clothes, ripping them from me savagely, leering at me in a way that made me certain that this man was no man at all but a demon from Hell itself. His hands were upon my chest, on my thighs, all over me... rubbing me, caressing me not gently but very roughly. His vile body's weight kept me on my back, pinned the to bed, and I was helpless as he parted my legs and wedged his form between them. I could feel something hard poking me between my legs, rubbing up and down on my crotch. But nothing penetrated me yet, and I had no knowledge of what was supposed to happen. It was my first time with a man of any kind in this way... it should have been Gilles who was the one that claimed my virginity. I wanted so badly for it to have been him! Not this evil person who menaced me so perversely. I screamed, cried out for Gilles, but no one could hear me it seemed not even a servant. I was in despair, resigned that I was going to die on my back at the mercy of this hateful son of a whore. I was naked, frightened, and in tears... but I never once begged for my attacker's mercy. He noticed this, and said to me evilly: “Well, it seems you really are different from the others after all, little Jeanne! All of them begged for their worthless lives before I delivered them unto death's sweet embrace. Beg, you rotten little bitch! Beg, and I might not ravish you after all. Let me hear you plead for your life. Let me hear the same fear in your voice that I can see in your eyes! Beg... or so help me I will rape you, hard.” I said only one thing to him: “No! You go beg Gilles, to forgive you for murdering those he loved.” Then I spat in the man's face and tried my hardest to get free of him. He smacked me across my mouth and I saw him remove his tunic and throw it across the room, before he untied the drawstrings of his trousers. He took his manhood out and it was as erect as a spear... he smacked me again, and I cried worse than I had previously. “Please... I don't want this. Not with you!” I begged, but he laughed and said to me: “If you had only begged me before, it need not have come to this. But you are too late, my little slut! Once I am this hard... only some girl cunt can do me ease. I will actually be doing you a favor by killing you after I finish with you. My family is very fertile... you would surely be with child, and I doubt strongly that you would want to carry the child of the man who raped you and bring it into this world. Truly that would be a fate far worse than death!” I said to him: “You are sick! You are evil.” which made him just for a moment stop what he was doing. He got up a bit from me and said in an almost hurt tone of voice: “Evil! I, evil? Not nearly as evil as your beloved Gilles. Do you know how many children he has killed, himself? The ones he did not fall in love with! I lost count after fifty. I, am the one who had to procure them for him... the one who had to clean up after his dalliances with them. Daddy is a very bad man, I am afraid. You have been sucking a devil's cock and never even realized it. What is good or evil, in the sort of world where saints are killed and sinners run the very Church that condemns good people to die? You dare accuse me of being evil! And look... you've made me lose my erection. Now, we shall need to start over again and see if we can get me back in the mood.” He then wrapped his murderous hands as hard as he could around my neck, and he began to squeeze. Not enough to kill me... not yet... but more than enough to bring me near to passing out from the pressure. I was through begging, done trying to be reasonable with him, and I knew my struggles were useless. This was to be the end of my life, and it did fill me with blackest despair. I could hear footsteps coming down the hall.. the door was open, someone had to be able to see what was going on if they walked past. I could hear Gilles' voice and knew that it was him coming down the hallway. I dug my fingernails as hard as I could into Poitou's arms, until my attack drew his blood. He withdrew his hands from my neck and I cried out as loud as I could, my voice becoming hoarse from having already screamed and cried so much: “Gilles! My lord, help me. Oh... my sweet lord... please. Poitou is trying to kill me!” I heard the lord of the castle curse and he hastened his steps as fast as he could, with two of his soldiers at his side. They rushed into the bedchamber and did pull the wicked young man off of me. The soldiers restrained Poitou, whilst the lord put his arms about me lovingly and asked me: “Did he put anything inside of you, child? Tell me if he did, and I will have him killed for it! As it is, he is going to suffer for this.” I said unto him: “No, but he was just about to.”
“Get dressed, whilst I deal with this serpent!” the lord commanded me, and I was only all to happy to obey him. I told the lord: “He killed three of the seven girls you loved, three of the ones who rest in the crypts below. But, he told me you killed countless others before... the ones you did not fall in love with. Is it true? Are you all murderers in this castle, then!” Gilles then glared at Poitou angrily with a gaze as should have withered the young man's soul, to ashes. He said unto him: “So, you told her everything, it seems! Didn't you. This, is just like you, Poitou... thinking with your cock, rather than your brain. Keep up this way, and you will have the Church upon us before too much longer. And then we will all end up just like poor Jeanne did. Out of all the seven girls I loved, this eighth is my favorite, for she is the most like Jeanne in name, appearance, and it seems spirit if I am to judge by the marks on your arms, lad. So tell me, Poitou... why, did you do all these things? I find it hard to believe you killed those three simply out of blood lust, and hat you acted just now as you did merely out of animal lust. There has to be more to it than that, if I am any judge of men's hearts at all!” The young man was silent but then the lord of the castle grabbed him by the genitals and squeezed them hard enough to cause Poitou to cry out in pain from it. The young man then said fearfully: “Alright my lord! Stop, please... I killed those three, and did as I had with this one, because I want you for myself. I am in love with you, my lord! I know that this is sinful in the eyes of the Church, but I confess it all the same. I cannot bear to share you with others, and I daresay even when you are with your wife I wish that it were I instead of she at your side. Forgive me, and I swear I shall never kill another whom you love ever again... nor shall I molest this child further if she truly pleases you so much.” Gilles then pulled out a sharp looking dagger from a sheathe at his belt, and smiled cruelly whilst the guards who were holding Poitou securely both smiled and began to laugh. “Oh, I intend to forgive you! After all, you love me, or so you claim. But there is a difference between love and obsession... your obsession with me has caused you to kill and to attempt worse than killing. I think if you confessed all this to a priest it would not go so well for you. I am not a priest, thankfully for you! I am a more... forgiving man.” Then, the lord did take his knife and begin to make a series of cuts into the young man's scrotum, cuts which bled furiously. The lord then rubbed his hands upon the cuts, so that the blood was upon his very fingers, and he licked the blood and sucked it up until it was gone. “Shall I drink you dry, lad? Use you for my wine press, perhaps! Nay.. not this day. Today... you, get to live... and you shall spend the rest of your days in fear, never knowing if I shall finish the job I began in this moment with your balls. Or not. I have a taste for blood, as you know! But yours tastes bitter to my tongue. The guards will take you to get those cuts looked at and treated... I am a merciful man, after all. Consider this, your penance! Perhaps more shall be added to it, when I have had the time to consider a more fitting punishment for you than this alone.” He motioned and the guards took their prisoner away. I was happy for that horrible young man to finally be out of my sight. Then... the lord came back to me, and he did kiss me tenderly and asked me how my throat and neck were feeling. I told him they hurt me a great deal, and asked if anything could make them feel better. “Only time, and some soothing liquids I think will do that, young lady!” he stated, acting very much like the concerned parent. He then said unto me: “Come! Let us get to the kitchen, and see what we have. I believe, I shall have to start reciprocating Poitou's affections if I am to keep him from going mad with jealousy any further than he has already. At least tonight, everyone needs to heal and clear their heads. On the morrow, I will show you more of the places in this castle where certain secrets of mine are kept. If you prove strong enough to bear them, as I am certain you are able to... then you will be a worthy companion for me for the long term. You will be the heir to my legacy that I have for so long now sought! And a worthy wife, despite that I already have one. But she is not you, my pretty little Jeanne. Only you, are you!” and, with that, we made all haste to get to the kitchen. The servants fussed about me a great deal and worried over me a lot, and soon I was partaking of some soothing cool beverages and trying to forget how close to death I was only moments before. I still loved my lord very much, but did not know what to make of his truly horrid seeming past.
Published 27th May 2023
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29th May 2023 3:09am
A tragedy for sure! Part of you... one of three parts of you, it seems... actually lived through that harrowing life. Gilles de Rais was quite the complicated historical figure... just like Joan of Arc was... and anything written about him is bound to go through some dark territory. Was he totally mad, was he possessed? Was he wrongly convicted by the Church when they put him to death? It seems he was actually possessed... or he may have suffered from a bad mental illness and merely thought he was possessed. Which means he may not have actually been responsible for his actions at all! Even as depraved as those actions were. I think if Joan of Arc was fond of him, there had to have been some good in him though. That is why that part of you loved him back then, in the life you relate in this two-part memoir. As for Polly, I can understand why you loved the little dear. She sounds like a very nice kid. The ending made me cry! But that is how all proper tragedies are, isn't it? Love you lots, babe.
30th May 2023 1:40am
Hey there, Chloe my love! You have the right idea for sure about this, I was attempting to relate what I remembered about Gilles, and Polly, and about the whole situation as I recalled it. And I realized, as I was writing it, that even though Gilles was indeed a monster... he was perhaps not a monster of his own making. Whatever the problem he had was, history only tells us one side of the matter, that being the darkest possible side of it thanks to the Church. But whatever was responsible for that darkness, no one will ever know for certain. Whether he was possessed, like you said and like he had himself believed... or whether he was well and truly ill in his mind... in either case, he was not himself, no longer the very goodly man he had once truly been. When Joan of Arc knew him, he was still wholly good, and the side of him that the female soul within me who was that young girl from this memory... when she, or rather I, knew him there was yet good within him however tainted by darkness and evil it may have been. Polly's death was unfortunate in the extreme, and I cried when I had to write that part and commit it to posterity in this way. Doubly when I had to put down what my final words were as I died in that life. Polly was a very nice kid... the nicest. Yeah, this writing is definitely best classified as a dark tragedy. One of the hardest things I ever had to write. Love you lots too, my sweetie pie!
