My Butler, His Master

27. Théâtre

-27-

Théâtre

Within the oblique chamber, the air was still, baring a staleness to it that Ciel could taste upon his tongue as he drew slow, steady breaths. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet, sending echoes throughout the room that sounded painfully loud in his ears. The boy turned his head, examining every dark crevasse within the room with extreme caution and thorough suspicion, as if every shadow within every corner and under every surface housed the demented toy that he was looking for. Ciel looked down, seeing the looming darkness beckoning to him from beneath the bed. Impulsively, he dropped to his hands and knees and looked around within the black void under the bed sheets, as if he could frighten the specter from it's hiding place. However, the blackness yielded nothing but fueled frustration, and Ciel sat up on his knees, scanning the room again with his piercing blue gaze, determined to pin down the doll's hiding place.

"Where are you?" Ciel said, his voice laced with bitterness, as he crawled over to a nearby table and ripped out a pile of hat boxes, determined to expose his target. As his search became more frantic, Ciel spoke loudly, as if he was addressing not only the lady of the chamber, but every other denizen who might be listening within the walls.

"Where is he?" He growled, pulling drawer after drawer out onto the floor, littering the room with miscellaneous garments and objects, "Come out and face me, beast!"

The little girl behind him watched from the doorway, shivering and eyes wide they stayed glued upon the frantic butler's back. She clutched her chest in a defensive pose, trying to suppress her pounding heart while preparing herself for any attack that would launch itself from the darkness. As she watched Ciel grow more desperate, tearing apart her room piece by piece, she bit her lip and offered her own shred of knowledge.

"The dolls can't move without music," she said, revealing her own precious secret with little complication. The boy stopped, and looked at her skeptically, judging whether or not she was telling the truth. Dahlia continued, her small voice trembling, "The Devil doll must have hidden itself somewhere so that you have to play for it to come out."

Despite the ludicrisity of the child's theory, Ciel had little trouble believing it, and gave this new information a thorough consideration. Looking all around the room, Ciel knew one thing to be certain, and he smirked with dark victory as he once again scanned the room for every possible hiding place, "That's perfect. If he can't move without music, I have nothing to worry about. I'll tear the walls apart if I have to."

He looked over at the fireplace, and saw his instrument of destruction, as it loomed like a shadow from it's rack against the wall. Ciel grasped the fire poker from it's resting place, and held it in both hands, looking about the room for his point of attack. His eye fell upon a particularly suspicious space of wall between the writing desk and the armoire, and he advanced upon it, wielding his tool readily with every fiber of his being prepared to tear that blank space apart.

Suddenly, he heard a loud slam from behind him, and the room became covered with a veil of blackness, with only the orange glow of the menacing fireplace to offer light to aid Ciel's vision. As he stood, poised inches from the wall with the metal weapon, he heard a piercing wail from behind him. Freezing, he listened as a defiant melody drifted around his head and turned it towards the source. A small shadow stood by the doorway, limbs moving back and forth conjuring the shrill music from a single violin.

"Dahlia!" Ciel shouted, "What did I tell you? Put that down!"

The little girl's eyes were closed, as her hands continued to work the instrument, filling the room with the eerie life giving melody. As Ciel advanced upon the girl to prevent her from her work, he heard a sound from the tabletop, a soft scratching sound.