Play of Shadows

00.11 Return Sequence

The dining hall oozed wax.

The room was lit by a sea of candles. They protruded from gilded candelabras mounted along the stone walls, sat in bouquet bunches upon the table, swayed high above on chandeliers tiered like cakes. The hall was far brighter than it had ever been. It also smelled of burning wick as heavily as a church during Sunday mass.

The players were gathered at the table, one man short. They had been there for some time – long enough for Ann to take to gazing at the ceiling, trying to make out the mural painted in its arch. She saw flashes of silver wings, but the rest was lost to time and flickering shadows.

Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap.

"How much longer?" James groaned.

"He should be along any minute, now," Ann said.

James lay his head on the table with a whimper. He looked terrible – the wound was healing, but slowly. Tarah tried to ply him with more wine but that only got him whimpering louder and muttering about liver failure.

Cilla and Philip sat on the other side of the table. There was an empty chair at Philip's side, where Max usually sat.

"Where did he go?" Philip asked.

"He said he wanted to see Lona's chapel," Ann told him.

Philip looked at her oddly, but didn't press.

Tap-tap, Cilla's fingers drummed over the table, tap-tap-tap.

The butler announced Max's arrival. The man came into the room in a hurry, his face red with exertion. "Sorry, sorry," he muttered as he went around Cilla and Philip to sit down. Ann's eyes flashed to his bulging satchel, then away. The quiet hiss of something pouring out onto the floor went unnoticed in the clamor.

"Let us begin," the butler said. "Once dinner is through, a carriage will escort the Lord and Lady back home."

Cilla and Phillip looked at each other, eyes shining in delight.

"What of Lord and Lady Dane?" Ann asked.

The butler smiled thinly. "They are with us in spirit," he said.

Six servants stepped forward from behind the players' seats. They lay down covered dishes with precise, matched movements, and withdrew back into the shadows.

Max cleared his throat. "Will you join me in a prayer?"

"Oh, what now," James moaned, his voice muffled. He was still face-down on the table.

"Go ahead," Ann said. The others muttered in agreement, some more reluctantly than others.

Max bowed his head. He stumbled over the one and only holy text he had memorized during the duration of the game, his hands cupped piously under his chin. The other players copied him. Ann, too, bowed her head.

Very carefully, very slowly, she lifted the edge of her mask.

The flower tucked in her hand glowed softly, although not as brightly as it had when still in bloom in Lona's haunted gardens. Ann swallowed it quickly. The petals were strangely chewy, putting her in mind of things she'd rather not consider. Like those swaying heads she'd seen in the stead of flowers as the garden burned.

Philip rose with a clatter. Cilla rose with him, their chairs tipping back to smash against the stone floor.

Ann's tongue burned, the whole way down into her tonsils. She clutched her throat and coughed as if trying to spit out a lung. The others were in much the same state. James managed to cough himself clear off his chair, which would've been more humorous had he not dropped hard enough to crack his elbow.