Rosalind: Book One

12-Agnes

Twenty little spiders

skittering on the floor.

Look up to the ceiling,

there are twenty spiders more.

They creep and burrow

and burrow and crawl

down the fireplace

up the wall.

Black eyes hypnotize me

into my skin they seep.

I close my eyes

while Transylvania gently weeps.

They say that when a person dies their skin turns pasty, white as wax. Their hair turns dull. Their lips go blue. But that was not true for the lord's beloved.

When Calla fell to the cold, stone floor and forty blue spiders slipped under her skin, the death that came to her was unlike any kind anyone had ever seen. Her hair began to shine like polished onyx, delicate waves encircled her head like a halo. Her skin now resembled porcelain, a smoothness and texture reserved only for the finest dolls. Her fingernails remained long and clear but now appeared glass-like. The scent around her was not that of tombs but of a garden in full bloom. The aroma of roses and honey-scented orchids wafted around Calla. Though her eyelids would never open again, not until the last spider swallowed down the very last bit of her heart, Calla's green eyes would remain as bright and emerald as the finest of gems.

Lord Caspian knelt over his beloved wife's unmoving body. Rough fingers hovered over Calla's delicate features and the fullness of her lips, they moved down the slopes of her neck and paused on her jugular. Try as he might, he could feel no beat of her heart.

Caspian brought his face towards Calla's, like an animal he sniffed at her hair. But somewhere inside him, there was still a man. He nuzzled the smooth part where Calla's shoulder meets neck and breathed her in.

Caspian's hand moved to Calla's belly, rested there while something inside him raged. His long nails curved absentmindedly and dug into Calla's nightdress and skin. Caspian notice he had ripped at the paper-fine flesh of her stomach. A thin ribbon of blood appeared and seeped through the white nightdress. Calla's blood dared Caspian closer, dared the monster to give in to the madness.

The silence in the lord and lady's chambers was suffocating. The snow outside muffled every sound. When Agnes's eyes flickered open the world was already white. The old handmaid lifted herself up in a seated position and for a moment was confused as to why she was asleep on the floor. When she laid eyes upon her master, the events of the previous night came rushing over her like a tidal wave, nearly knocking her back.

"Our Father, who art --" Agnes whispered, her hands clasping in prayer. Her words stolen away by the side-long glare given to her by Caspian.

"Look what He has done," hissed the lord.

Agnes reached for the cross she wore, the one she always kept hidden under the collar of her high-neck dress. She stopped mid-motion fearing Caspian would pluck it out of her hand were she to grab hold of it. She would not allow this beast to take something so holy from her. The cross, though a simple one made of silver, had been passed down to her on her tenth birthday, a family heirloom that had hung around the necks of the Vauclain women for eight generations.

"Look what He has done," hissed Caspian again when Agnes remained silent.

The sight of Caspian frightened her, but not more than the sight of Calla unmoving.

"Who, my Lord Caspian?" Agnes asked with a tremble in her tone. "Look at what whom has done?"

Caspian lunged for Agnes yet stopped before he knocked the old woman over. "Your God!" he thundered.

Agnes's heart was racing so quickly she was certain it would burst out of her chest. But she'd been around the lord and his temper for far too long to take to her heels like a child. She drew in a breath and tried to calm the tremor in her voice. "My God had nothing to do with it." She looked him square in the eye. The beast Caspian had become stared back, his chest heaving with sharp intakes of breath. "He did not do this, my lord." 

"Then whoooooo?" Caspian's voice boomed throughout the manor as he tossed his head back. His arms raised into fists above his head. ''Who did this?"

Agnes rose as quietly as she could. Tears stung her eyes. "My lord. You," she whispered, "you did this."

Caspian glared daggers at the old woman but he dared not strike her down. All these years Agnes had run the house like a well-oiled machine. Kill her now and there would be no one left to take care of him.

Enid and Felix were laid to rest in the woods behind the house. Lady Calla was placed in a coffin made of glass and put to rest in the crypts of the manor. Agnes said a prayer for every one of them. She prayed their souls would find a way out of the wretched manor and find the path leading them towards Heaven.

Later, when Caspian vanished into the night, Agnes set off to find the wolf that Enid had seen in young lord Troy's bed. 

Why Christine?

Q- Why another poem?

Me- To give it that children-are-narrating feel. Plus, I like poems.