Painted Roses

The Burial Gown

"Perhaps the red dress," Rosalia said, holding up the dress in question and turning towards Yumiko who sat at her vanity table, debating between two beautiful hair pins that had just arrived from her home country – just in time for the ball.

She looked up; looking at the dress in the reflection of the mirror then shook her head.

"Oh no, red is not a pure colour, I would choose a pale colour," she replied. "We can't have people thinking badly of you."

Rosalia rolled her eyes, throwing the dress aside. "People will think what they will regardless of what I wear," she said.

"Yes but there is no need to help them. Why not the pink?"

"Not at a ball that so many debutants shall be attending. I'll be lost in a sea of pink. In that sense, red would stand out. The mature shade of the Pink Family."

Yumiko chuckled slightly. "Mature does mean old however – you don't want to be seen as old."

"How rude, suggesting such a thing."

"You are in your twenties after all."

"You needn't remind me," Rosalia said, looking at the dresses that were spread out on her bed and noticing one at the very bottom of the pile. She frowned, pushing the dresses aside until she unearthed the dress.

It was a pitch black gown.

Ugly was the only way to describe it. The lace patterning was jagged – it could have been torn actually. The sleeves billowed from the wrists but the velvet of the dress was so heavy it would weigh the arms down to no end. The neck was high and extremely tight. The stitching was coming apart. The bodice panels were uneven. The skirt didn't even reach the floor when held up to her height.

It was the dress a – very unfortunate – individual would be buried in.

She owned one black gown and it was a mourning dress. She had only had to wear it once since she had got it, for the funeral of the eldest child of a friend. Even as a mourning dress however, it was a beautiful gown.

This was not her dress. The style didn't even appear to come from her lifetime.

"Yumiko," she said, turning around and stopping.

She wasn't in her bedroom.

She stood stock still for a moment, looking around, slowly pulling the dress closer to her chest, like some type of ugly comfort blanket.

She knew where she was but she didn't know why she was where she was.

She was back at the well.

The crumbling castle loomed in the near-distance, the entrance to the gardens some metres away, the wall of the well just visible beyond the archway. She stood by the lake, sunset rays falling across her and setting the smooth surface of the water on fire, reflecting the burning clouds above, the water lilies that sat on the lake glowing in the light.

"Mr. Frog?" she called, looking back towards the well. He had returned to the well, hadn't he? It had almost been a week now. If he was still here, she could find him. "Hello?"

"Help me."

Rosalia looked around at a sound that drifted on the wind. Hoarse and old, it sounded like a voice, once that had been screaming or crying for a very long time.

"Please.... Help me."

There, again, she was sure she had heard it, a male voice.

"Make it stop... Make them stop."