The Devil's Bride | ✔

Chapter 1

I stared at my reflection in the mirror placed in the corner of this dimly lit room. It was a vast space, with a bed enough to fit four people occupying its center, a dark burgundy coloured rug, as soft as fresh flower petals and the curtains matching the ambience of the room, covering the window, preventing any light from seeping in.

The wallpaper, again a dark brown color, with a touch of red here and there, toned down the already dull room into an even darker space.

It felt like a cave, a den, a hiding place.

Though, it was still better than the dorm I was earlier living in. The candles lit in the holders placed on both sides of the mirror and around the corners of the room reflected upon me.

I trailed my hands from my breasts to my waist, up and down on the dress hugging my body. The fabric, a little rough under my skin left soft tingles on the tip of my fingers as I exhaled. The embroidered black gown I had on, was centuries old, and yet it was a perfect fit, as if it was made for me, as if all this time nobody else had been able to get into it because it was waiting for me. I stroked my neck and the area below it which was exposed to the eye, pale, white and pure, just how it should be.

The gown which was nothing less than a sort of an old Victorian royal dress complimented my body like nothing else, I could see it, I could feel it.

The bodice was stiff against me. The lace on the neckline caressing against my skin sent shivers down my spine each time I brushed it. The sleeves, dragged down to my arms, exposing my shoulders were puffed, ending at my wrists. A narrow satin ribbon was tied around my waist below which the flawless gown touched the floor. My hair was splayed on my back, voluminous with delicate, dark curls in them.

Haunted eyes, my eyes, stared back at me. I was the perfect bride to be, just how the Devil liked it, they’d said. There was only one thing missing, the veil. A knock on the door made me gather my thoughts and step away from the mirror into the light facing the intruder.

“Adele, it is time,” Mother said as she stepped in taking in my form completely.

She wasn’t our mother, not by birth, but that’s what everyone here referred to her as, that’s what we’d been taught to call her. Saintswood was everything and nothing. To some, it was a school, to others it was an orphanage, when in truth it was neither. What happened in Saintswood, stayed in Saintswood, the outsiders could do nothing else but guess, and they did. As some of them liked to call it, we were a cult.

While the devotion towards God was praised and favored by all, devotion towards the Devil was frowned upon. But here, we’d been taught that both, God and Devil were equal, and that one must have complete liberty to pick one’s path and the object of devotion.

Mother picked up the veil which was placed neatly at the corner of the bed and motioned towards me. While she fixed it with my hair, she whispered to me, “Worry not, child. The Devil is gentle to its devotees and even more so to its brides.”

That was what I’d been told a hundred times before, at every point in my life, and I believed it, I did. No one knew exactly when or how Saintswood was established. Its founders were anonymous, so was the truth about its history.

However, what we did know was a fable advocating that the founder was a woman. A woman, epitome of beauty and grace, filled with divine aura, someone who had been an admirer of Devil her entire life, a lover. And when the Devil repudiated her professions of love, she’d lost her mind. She wept for days, months, years, until she took a vow.

She vowed that her deep affection for the Devil would not die with her. She vowed that for the years and generations to come forth, her followers would offer the Devil a bride, over and over again, every year, until he accepts one.