LITTLE GRIM

11 THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS . . .

ACT NINETEEN IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

Into the night breaths are stolen - the curious animals watch in the shadows, eyes with diamonds trained on the scene unfolding before them. The skies above the misty-eyed fox cubs seeking refuge from the cloudbursts in the bushes and the premature deer peering with tender eyes from behind thick trees, they are painted a deep red hue as unbelievably beauteous as that of a blossoming rose, yet too, holds the same nauseating shade as that of blood. Grasshoppers call for their friends in an idyllic tune and the tender paws of the rabbits that crawl are tickled by the dewy grass below them. Lush life has blossomed in the summer dew, in the glistening licks of the first sun, but inside the castle dust pumps austerely through veins accustomed to silken blues; rushed footsteps and a gut-wrenching scream - and that is when Pearl knows.

Just like the tide, the memory remains there in her pretty head. The memory clings to her like a second skin in sentimental sugar she tastes whenever her tongue peers out of her mouth; affection the glistening bitterness upon her flesh. Akin to those images carved in her brain of her friend and of her old life, spent laughing under warm skies and watching innocuously as the skyline melted into the sea with sweetly freckled noses pressed together. She remembers when she was but a flower of sharp thorns and soft petals, with her mind a forest of solitude - where she slept in flower beds and swam in saccharine seas of fantasy. With quivering hands how her would thump eagerly in the beauty of her youth, now her breathing is unsteady and her bones rattling - the time has come.

She remembers the times before nightfall when her father oh so endearingly would tell her of how dreams do come true if you chase behind them in the way a child would a dainty trail of fireflies. With vigor, with might. But she surmises that perhaps he had misspoken and the terrors of the night do, instead. The death of Pristine has granted her relief. And yet the now the strings of her heart - oh so delicate ones - quiver, piercing her flesh. The macabre of the blood that stains her hands is nothing soft, tender, a lovers lips upon her heart, but more a burning honey light of venom that quivers when the moon turns and shimmers of the verdant valleys. She does not feel as a god, sweet in age and deft of mind, like a blooming flower and, too, the little serpent beneath.

Another howl of two lips, tulips, crafts a whole universe of blackness and a few melting stars - it settles in her spine and pools in the valley of her chest. A shudder.

A few hours later Pearl is more granite than girl as she sits by the Prince's side and wavers under the eye of the queen; divine may be the way she speaks, but golden thrones are never not built on blood and saccharine vowels grant no armor. Humans lie like the stars do and Pearl has felt the venomous wetness of a tongue of constellations far too many times to let the facade she has carefully constructed - out of shreds of her own decaying flesh and her quiet resolve - slip down so easily.

"Lady Pristine was . . ." Evangeline mutters lowly and Pearl watches her carefully. She does not understand how a man could ever hurt her the way Prince Helios had done so shamelessly; by Gods Pearl knows she could waste so many words on the beauty, the delicacy, that wound around her complexion with such refinement; honeyed monologues about the sunsets in those eyes of hers and sonnets about her willowy figure. The roses blooming on the soft expanse of her lips naturally. "Lady Pristine was a maiden fair and true. I can't fathom how one would ever want to harm her."

The Prince arises his gaze - eyes like teeth that bite the flesh on Evangeline's bones. "None of us can comprehend the evil that must burn in one to slaughter another so mercilessly." Pearl almost lets loose a chuckle; then perhaps if my flames are so bright, she thinks to herself, the ice that envelopes your shallow heart will finally melt.

"The question, of course, is who," the King begins, furrowing his eyebrows. From time to time Pearl intently studies him closely and believes he is made of missing muscle; darkness seems to know him well but yet he is gentle with every precious vowel he spills. His wife seems the one of untamed fury and not a single unsaid secret; his wife seems the one that burns, and perhaps she keeps him warm in a way it is most endearing. "Who, it may be, that sliced a dagger between our ribs so slowly, so silently."