Mary-Cade Mandus - The Spell Bound

Once upon a time
not so very long ago
baby girls…twins…were born
into an ancient dynasty of
powerful but benevolent witches.
As the babes…Odette and Odile…grew…
they enchanted all who saw them
and so were much doted upon.
Though not indistinguishable
both were lovely to behold
and captivated with wit and grace.
But that is what showed without…
within…hidden…they differed…greatly.
One’s heart was bright and sweet as a day in May
The other’s was overcast and lackluster
as an icy December rain.
And…in one…
the seeds of envy and hate
had been early sown
for the witchly gift…their birthright
had…within the womb…
been divided between the pair
thus diluting its potency
assuring a balance of power.

One day Odile…
while eavesdropping outside
her lady mother’s chamber…
overheard their granny
[who suspected her grandchild’s
darkness-enshrouded heart]
warning her parent
of the little known corrective…
the death of one
could restore full power
to the other.

Excited beyond bearing
Odile hastened from the house
hugging the revelation close
until she could reach
her secret hideaway
where it could be contemplated…
weighed and evaluated
without fear of interruption.

In eagerness
she had abandoned
her post too soon
and thus failed to hear
the remainder of
her grandmother’s caveat…
Should one of the twins give birth
to a daughter
and die in the birthing
the child would receive
not only the power naturally bestowed
but that of the dying mother
as well.

##################

Years slipped by…
to commemorate their twenty-first birthday
the twins were permitted to attend
the Naked Emperor Hefner VI’s Golden Jubilee
and there fell in love at first sight
with the same man…
Derek, the Comte de Cigny
great, great grandson of Steven,
the eldest of the six Swan Princes.
Though both twins were stunning
it was Odette who captured
the young Comte’s heart
and waltzed the night away
in his arms
under Odile’s baleful gaze.
Two months later
Odile danced at her sister’s wedding
feigning joy and mouthing rapturous platitudes.

The happy couple took up residence
at the Comte’s family estate of Swan’s Rest
and the manor and lands
flourished…shone
with their love.

Their happiness reached its zenith
when they discovered a baby
was soon to make their family complete.
With this added blessing
the young couple grew even closer
but as the date of the baby’s arrival
approached
the Comte was called away
and Odette
[joy slightly dampened
by a nagging homesickness
and her husband's absence]
on impulse took pen to paper
and invited her twin to visit.

Odile
accepted with perverse pleasure…
profane eagerness…
and upon arrival played the part
of adoring sister to perfection
untiringly fetching…sweetly nagging…
unselfishly attending…
to her expectant twin…
even solicitously brewing…serving
a very special herbal tea.

The tea she so lovingly steeped
and served in a dainty porcelain cup
was a lethal but gradual poison
she’d elaborated over the years.
The victim experienced no symptoms…
suspected no harmful intent
until much too late.

Odette’s deathblow was dealt
as her body was
caught in a tug of war
between giving life and giving in to death.
By the bedside Odile watched
[with vulturous greed…
icy detachment…
barely able to restrain her impatience]
while her twin struggled futilely
against her fate.
She hungered…lusted
for the moment of transference
when the harvested power
would pour in and fill her.

Her avarice bred carelessness…
a loosened tongue
and she spewed
into her writhing sister’s ear
all the buried…accumulated
hostility…jealousy
of twenty-two years
as well as
her heinous plan.

Jubilant…
thinking her moment of triumph near
Odile rose from her vigil
assumed a mask of grief
and fled the room
shrieking for someone to fetch a doctor
quickly.

Through unimaginable agony
Odette had listened in abject horror
to her sister’s words
and with her departure
desperately gathered what strength
her tortured body had left
and bearing down thrust her baby
out into the light.

The bedroom door burst open
and a feignly distraught Odile entered
her mask slipping
replaced by true emotion
at the sight that greeted her.

Her sister lay slackly sprawled
amid bloody sheets
a tiny newborn babe
cradled against her breast.
Their gazes met.
Momentarily renewed…
fueled by overwhelming
desperation…determination
Odette summoned forth all her power
and with a kiss upon its birth-slicked head
transformed her beautiful
newborn daughter into
a sunflower.

Stunned…uncomprehending
Odile wavered upon the threshold.
Life fading
Odette raised the flower to her lips
and blew gently into its face
a golden mist drifted down upon
its petals and sank into its flesh.
Energy expended
Odette fell back
and gazing triumphantly
into her sister’s eyes…died.

Sparing no thought…sympathy
for her dead twin
Odile grabbed for the flower
lying upon Odette’s thigh
but it vanished at her touch.
A flash of blinding light…a clap of thunder
forced her to her knees
her face pressed against the mattress side.
It was some moments before
she dared to rise.
The room appeared no different
the body still lay as before
but there was a strange rustling
coming from outside.
Crossing to the casement
she peered out
and stepped quickly back in disbelief.
Where that morning verdant parkland
had rolled in open abandon
now fields of sunflowers stood
in suffocating numbers
twin upon twin upon twin
straight and tall and in sentry-like formation.

At that moment the Comte arrived
and greeted by his sorrowing servants
rushed to his wife’s side.
In numbing disbelief
he’d embraced the body
sobbing and burying his face into her hair.
After some time
questions began to needle
and he turned to Odile for answers.
“What had happened?”
“How could this be?”
and
“Where was the baby?”

Cornered…Odile struck back
casting a spell
over the Comte…the servants…the manor
placing them in semi-limbo
until she had the answer
to what Odette had done
and the knowledge to rectify it.

In a maddened frenzy
she set out
journeying day and night
stopping for neither food nor rest
riding her mount into the ground
until it died in its tracks
before the sagging cottage door
of the Swamp Witch.

Within the vault
beneath the ancient cottage
by her mentor’s desiccated corpse’s side
Odile learned the succession clause
laid forth by her paired birth
and the ramifications of
her twin’s checkmate.

Odette had hidden her child
within the field
each flower identical to the other
and there she would remain
until the age of twenty-one
when her powers would be fully blown.
Only by the death of the child
before it came of age
could Odile absorb its power
and only by her hand
face to face
could that death be meted out.

Odile must find the flower that housed
her niece and dispatch her.
But a safeguard had been set
by her sister’s spell…
Odile was forbidden
entry to the field.

Reanimated by the Swamp Witch
the corpse of Odile’s wretched steed
carried her back
to the Fifth Kingdom…
to Swan’s Rest…
to seek out an remedy
to nullify her sister’s counterblow.

The succeeding years
passed in hollow attempts
to discern the enchanted child.
Odile released
the harpies of her frustration…rage
upon the hapless Comte…
desecrating his mental state…
refashioning his physical ability…
appearance.

Without the Comte’s guardianship
the magnificent estate
soon fell into disorder…ruin.
Its servants going about their daily chores
under a spell of obliviousness.

A whisper in the right ear
here…there
aided a rumor’s spread
[“the young Comte…
struck mad by a heart broken
over the death of his beloved wife
was kept cloistered
behind the crumbling walls…
now and then slipping away
to forage through the forests
for his lost love
piteously crying out her name
to the coldhearted sky.”]
and served to keep
local busybodies at bay.

But now…
the time of retribution
is fast approaching.
The granules of time
are pouring from the glass.
In three days Odette’s child
will take her rightful place…
her powers fully manifested.

The spider’s weaving had come to its close, but Odette and Odile’s tale’s end had yet to be written.

Torin’s heart contracted in sorrow and his hands fisted in rage; here was the source of Solace’s suffering. And, if the spider could be believed, it was only a matter of days before she would be free and able to hold her own against her aunt. Therefore, it was up to him to protect her, as he had sworn, until the designated time. But how was that to be achieved? The answers to all the questions that had plagued him were revealed upon the web. All, save for the two that mattered most - who and where was the witch?

The Comte

The butterfly flirted recklessly with the hand, finally daring to settle and explore. Its weight hardly registered in the Comte’s thoughts. Sighing deeply he closed the book, interrupting the insect’s perambulations.

He couldn’t concentrate. Three times his eyes had roamed the same passage and never noted a single word. His body sagged back against the bench. All around him life went about its way. The garden sprouted, burst, blushed, trailed and twined. In the gaudy blue sky above swallows swooped in looping figure eights and high in a rowan tree a dove mourned softly of absent love.

This had been Odette’s Garden of Happy Ever After. He’d lost count of how many evenings he watched her, sitting on the study floor before the fire, legs childishly crossed, charcoal rouging a cheek and smudging her fingertips, as she contentedly planned and sketched its design.

From his bedroom balcony their initials could still be discerned in the pattern she’d created as the centerpiece: white roses intertwining about a vacant heart where red roses had been planned but never planted. It’s emptiness was a stark testament to a love left unpersonified and incomplete by the birth of their expected child.

Sadly Derek withdrew Odette’s miniature from its velvet pouch. The sunlight seemed to brighten and the breeze to sweeten as the lovely countenance emerged. Her smile was a mental kiss and warm arms holding him tight.

He shook his head, there was so much he was still unsure of, so many memories misplaced, so much time stolen and life deprived. Twenty years had been expunged, but holding her likeness and gazing upon the adored face anchored him in the here and now.

Returning the portrait to its sanctuary he walked among the flowerbeds breathing in their delicate scent. Finding too many ghosts haunting the quiet beauty of the garden, he retired to his study to await the evening meal.

Odile

Water dripped
in nerve-on-edge monotony
exaggerated…intensified
by the vastness of the cavern.
Collected in rimstone blocked pools
the liquid glowed
its luminosity
infecting the surrounding area
with a leprous sheen.
The tinny disputing of bats
echoed mutedly
from hidden…distant chambers.

A figure…hunched…
inched its way
across the fragmented floor
hands single-mindedly gathering…
plucking…stowing.
The skirt beneath her knees
was wet…sticky.
As she crawled
stuck fabric tore loose
from lacerated flesh
causing fresh blood to well.
Within the cloth
thousands of tiny mouths latched on…
suckling greedily at the wounds.

The torment
was an insignificant annoyance
compared to the excitement that filled her.
After decades of dashed…thwarted hopes
success might finally be achieved.
The scouring of ancient tomes
had…at last…rendered devastating fruit.

The Scourging Blight…
set loose…from this very cavern…
upon the Eighth Kingdom
by some fractious wizard
eons ago
had transformed
that region of milk and honey
into a sterile glacial wasteland
and its queen into a frigid fury.
Only swift intervention
by the Elf King, Olaf II…ruler of the Seventh
had preserved the other Kingdoms
from sustaining the same fate.

Now the Blight was hers
and by a complex incantation
could be reined in…contained…controlled
to do her biding.

The Comte

Ears straining…
eyes probing shadow-secreted corners…
body stiff under the coverlet
waiting for a reprisal of
whatever
had awakened him.

The moon had not yet risen
allowing for no differentiation
between the blackness
within or out.
Yearning for a light
his hands arrested
in their fumbling for the tinderbox
as a pair of will-o'-the-wisps
breached the dark.
Floating in unison
just above the floor
they swiftly
approached the bed
and in the blink of an eye
soared upward
to hover beside his startled face.

As suddenly as they’d appeared
they vanished
then
materialized again
shimmering…sparkling
honeyed spheres
that scrutinized unwaveringly
setting his fright-stretched nerves
on edge.

A stream of moonbeams
glided across the floor
heralding its mistress’ debut…
highlighting bits and pieces…
transforming a threatening
fathomless void
into a secure…familiar haven
and unveiling the bogey
for what it was…
a cat.

In one fell swoop
recognition swamped his fear…
nerves relaxed…
muscles slackened…
teeth unclenched…
a breathless laugh escaped.
The lad’s pet…companion…
that’s all it is.
Its purpose in the manor…
his room
is a puzzlement.

As though reading his mind
the animal
voiced a low growl…
jumped down…
trotted to the balcony doors…
snaked through the partial gap…
wiggled between the balusters…
and stood motionless…tail was becalmed.
its attention seemingly ensnared
by something
in the garden far below.

Lured by curiosity
he gingerly padded outside…
peering over the rail.

Breath sucked in so fast
he choked.
Spotlighted by the moon
the gaping hole embraced by
his and Odette’s
interlacing monograms
had been filled
by a perfect heart
of scarlet roses.

Felled to his knees
by a fusillade of emotion
he reached out blindly
with a burning need
to touch…hold
something corporeal
to moor him in reality
but his hand encountered…nothing…
the cat was gone.

Jessamine

It was starting.
A faint tingling in arms, legs, face
heralded coming change.
She snuggled closer…
the strong arms tightened
in response.
If only they could stay forever…
here
in her phantom world…
secure…
safe from fear…
worse.
But her destiny rested
not in her hands
but in those
that now so lovingly held her.
As long as he waited on the other side
she could face what was to come.
Twenty-one years ago
a pendulum had begun to swing
a progression triggered by
her birth…
that only a death could halt.