Shadow’s Serenade

A blast of wind surges into the room, and I sit up, shuddering. The velvet shades twine themselves, moving among each other as the wind yells. The ancient wooden windows squeak, a update of how this hacienda holds on to its final breath. The ancient, uneven sleeping cushion moans as I move, and my feet twist at the coldness of the floor.

The moonlight washes the room in a blue shine as I look for my shoes, but they are no place to be found. Unshod, I tiptoe over the room to the window, holding the window ornaments in my hands. I reach for the entryways; a sharp blast hammering into my confront. My eyes sting, and as the cold wind rakes over me, I see the valley spread out in the distance—towering mountains approaching over a dim lake. The moon’s pale, frequenting light gleams on the water, stowing away the whispers of long-forgotten souls. I capture a see of something—no, someone—a man standing close the shore, scarcely perceivable in the separate. My heart pounds in my chest, and I twitch back some time recently pummeling the windows closed. Had I envisioned it? Or had the spooky figure? I near the ancient Spanish-style sheets that squeak beneath my hold, pulling them tight, but my unease waits. When I turn back, the entryway is open. I gaze at it for a long, breathless minute.

A shadow darts past the entryway, slipping through the split. The figure moves unobtrusively, floating between rooms, heading toward the yard. The shadow glints, briefly lit by the warm shine of far off lights. I solidify. A cold shudder falls through my body as I keep in mind my brother's body found solidified by the lake a few weeks prior. I think back to the frequenting stillness of that morning. Father had found him, inert in the sharp water, suffocated by the exceptionally lake that had continuously been so beautiful—his final asylum. My brother had continuously come domestic late, as well, after meandering in the night, sneaking in with the same liquid movements, a man hung in shadows, ever removed indeed whereas among us. And I had attempted so difficult to disregard how his life had unraveled, how Papa’s pride, his trusts for the beneficiary to the family title, had come to nothing, expended by the weight of my brother’s appalling end.

Now the shadow flashed in the light light, reminding me of the final picture I had of my brother's inert, bloated body pulled from the water. The chill of the past clung to my skin, cold like the night discuss, thick with melancholy. But this evening, more than any other, it felt as in spite of the fact that the phantom of my brother had come to visit.

I held my breath, feeling the weight of it all, and ventured forward, reluctant but drawn to the entryway, the shadow still pulling me toward anything held up in the dark.

A chill creeps over me as I step out of the room, the cold discuss tearing through the dividers of the hacienda, our family domestic. The cobblestones exterior are smooth with dew, gradually turning to ice underneath my feet as I walk toward the light. It glints like a passing on candle. The dividers of the hacienda linger over me, tall, overwhelming with age. The stone is congested with greenery, ivy inching into each cleft. Eras have lived and passed on in this house. My father acquired it from his father, a put thick with history, layered in memory like the cemetery where we buried my brother—an legacy of distress that rests underneath the ground, like the bones of our ancestors.

My arms embrace firmly against my body, shuddering as the warmth starts to blur. My room was once open to the patio, confronting the cross roosted on the primary entryway. But that was some time recently. After my brother’s passing, Dad bolted the entryways, boarded us in. His fixation to ensure us developed more grounded each day, particularly when I turned eighteen. Our lives developed quieter—fewer individuals, less visitors.

I tiptoe through the lobbies toward the patio, in the center stands a extraordinary christmas tree—one that towers higher than the moment floor of the hacienda. The blessed messenger at the best is screwy, its wings until the end of time off-balance. The poinsettias brightening it are a dim wicked ruddy. This christmas tree has been passed down through eras. My great-great-great-grandfather planted the pine. He built our hacienda around it, He said it brought life into our family. The roots sprawling profound into the soil, carving through the stone, weaving like ancient creepy crawly legs underneath the establishment. It appears to observe over us, developing bigger each year. As a child, our grandma would caution us to remain absent from the roots, swore its roots would swallow us entirety, and drag us down into hell if we got as well close.

My father proposed to my mother over its towering branches. And when my granddad lay biting the dust, he asked my father to carry him and put him beneath the tree until his last breath. It supported him, as it had supported the small brother my mother lost. Her womb would not halt dying; her shouts resounded through the yard that night, suffocating out everything but her torment. The roots appeared to drink the blood from her, as if the soil itself were retaining the life she seem not give.

I approach the fire still burning from the Noche Buena party. The visitors, once an luxurious swarm, have gone. It was no longer the fantastic occasion it once was. We had as it were been joined by a adjacent farmer and his family, counting their eldest son—the boy Dad needs me to wed. With my brother’s passing, my flexibility to select cherish kicked the bucket with him and the greatness of carrying out my father’s bequest fell on to me.

I feel the fire's warm gnawing at my confront, but the cold seizes my bones. Snowflakes drop delicately, murmuring as they meet the fire. I look for something to put out the flares, and as the water hits the logs a wiped out smoke rises, gulping me. I step back and drop onto the ground. The fire crackles, taunting me. I thrust through the roots of the tree, the twigs snapping underneath me. As I lie there, the earth breathing out an odor of rot, my eyes capture it—his blessing. Tucked inside the roots, wrapped in a dark cloth like a grieving hanky it gazes back at me, relentless. My breath vacillates as the memory resurfaces.

Papa had chosen him— Alejandro, the idealize coordinate for our family. Mami had clarified it to me that morning, her words cold as the rosary clutched in her hands: “Es un buen hombre, hija. He’s a great man, the words breaking my dreams of adore and supplanted by obligation.

When Alejandro arrived that evening with his guardians, I scarcely looked at him, my confront hot with hatred. His gift—small and wrapped in cloth—hung fumblingly between us. “For you, Victoria,” he said. His voice was calm, understanding, indeed kind, but I drawn back. Mamá chuckled it off, taking it on my sake. “My girl is shy,” she said with an humiliated grin.

Later, amid the posada, I saw the blessing once more. It stood out against the dynamic colors beneath the tree, its dark color looking more like a burial service advertising than a Christmas show. Blame stewed in my chest, but I pushed it to the back of the heap, decided to disregard it. Alejandro pardoned himself to bed early, delaying by the tree to look at the blessings. His eyes waited briefly some time recently he looked at me and said, “Feliz Navidad”, his tone warm however incoherent.

Now, there it is, still holding up, like it continuously had a place in the shadows. Gulping my pride, I come to for it, my fingers trembling, but it was as well distant into the roots. I begin slithering on my stomach and elbows through the bent roots, the soil oozes a debilitated smell—a blend of decay and damp rot. I thrust forward, creeping closer to the blessing. My fingertips brush the surface, and fair as I feel the silk touch fingers, the roots seize me.

They fix around my midriff, and the soil tears open underneath me. With a sickening jar, I drop, dragged down by the roots into the profundities below.

My body crashes difficult against the soil, but my chest rises, my breath shallow. The discuss smells of sap and debilitated sweet rot, clinging to me like a thick haze. The ground appears to breathe as in spite of the fact that lively, breathing out a damp, foul fragrance that fills my lungs. Around me, the dividers beat, clammy with an unnatural life. The soil moves, moaning as if it can feel my nearness. Among the spiked, yellowed bones of long-forgotten things implanted in the dividers, I capture locate of something faint—a black out blue light glints from the burrow ahead, calling me forward.

I don’t need to go, but the spooky gleam inclinations me ahead, the sound of something—or someone—waiting fair past. As I step forward, the contract burrow opens into a tremendous, frequenting space. It's not a room—more of a expansive cave-like space, which some way or another carries the ghostly likeness of a amazing assembly hall. Over water, scarcely unmistakable, swells like a dim, fluid reflect, its surface broken as it were by the delicate, moderate trickle of water from some place over. In the center, a chandelier hangs moo, its precious stone beads solidified in mid-fall, gleaming with a spooky, wiped out green shine. They flicker like rain captured in ice, each feature flashing with unnatural light as if caught between the living and the dead.

The discuss is thick, overwhelming, with the fragrance of clammy soil and rot, but some way or another, it still holds an verifiable beauty—an charm. My eyes are drawn to the chandelier, my feet moving of their claim agreement toward the captivating locate. Each bead shows up to suspend time, like minutes held in unceasing stasis.

Then, from the shadows, a voice cuts through the stillness—a whisper, delicate but verifiable, pervaded with a weight of antiquated truth.

“It’s the lake.”

I turn. A figure materializes from the haziness, venturing gradually into the dim light. A man—his boots making no sound on the smooth, damp stone floor. His coat is profound ruddy, like the petals of a dried poinsettia,vibrant however blurred, as in spite of the fact that it has ingested centuries of time. As his confront catches the black out light, I freeze.

He looks like a nutcracker, there is something bizarre almost his presence—handsome, unnervingly idealize, like the phantom of a memory I can't review. The discuss chills advance, pulling me more profound into this ghastly world.

“We are beneath it,” he says, his voice moo and resonating, as if the water itself carried his words. He focuses upward, and I take after his finger to see a angle swimming by, I can’t move—my body paralyzed, like a ballet performer caught in a music box, turning unendingly in somebody else’s control.

He stands some time recently me, brilliant and otherworldly, his figure enlightened by swoon moonlight sifting through the moving waters over. And there I am, sunk in mud and grime. However, when I see down, I see my robe is no longer the basic white texture I wore to bed. It has changed into something both radiant and unsettling—a outfit manufactured from the quintessence of the lake itself.

The texture is an glowing midnight blue, undulating like the surface of still waters cloaked in moonlight—serene, however harboring untold privileged insights underneath. The skirt blooms outward with unnatural totality, rough like waves smashing against spiked rocks, halting at my knees in uneven, worn out edges. Sleeves path from my arms, their stream delicate like water’s surface but solidifying to the touch, as if permeated with the cold chomp of overlooked winters. The fabric sparkles, not with natural excellence, but with the smooth, ghostly luster of something submerged—something untouched by the warmth of the sun.

Veins of debilitated green, like shriveled vines, crawl over my chest and shoulders, their rings establishing into my skin as in spite of the fact that bolstering on me. The fragile vines turn with an nearly conscious starvation, making it inconceivable to recognize where the dress closes and my substance starts. I raise trembling fingers to my head, drawn to the weight there. My fingers brush against what feels like glass, smooth and sharp. A crown rests upon my head, its raindrop gems dangling like solidified tears, sparkling with a noxiousness that feels lively. The pressure on my scalp burns as in spite of the fact that it, as well, has ended up portion of this unusual, unholy change.

The nutcracker steps closer, his cleaned boots taking off no impression in the grime. His grin is both kind and brutal, carved onto a confront as well smooth, as well immaculate, as if made of porcelain. Tenderly, he takes my hand and pulls me toward him. “I’ve been holding up for you, my love,” he whispers, his voice a serenade wrapped in fog and rot. I solidify as his hand fixes. My breath catches as he starts to murmur a cradlesong, the tune moo and sleep inducing, pulling me assist into the shadows.

As I move with him, my skin prickles—not from the sensation of touch, but from the sensation of rot leaking into my veins. His hands feel like dead wood, cold and fragmented, pulling me more profound into the reviled move, his eyes sparkling with the pale light of the moon.

"Stay with me," he murmurs, his voice both wonderful and frequenting, like wind whispering through an purge church. The soldier’s confront gleams in the moonlight, but the shadows drag at it, like a veil coming fixed. His eyes glimmer with that spooky, unearthly light, cold as the water that encompasses us. I’m not in control. The music comes from no place, and however all over, encompassing us like an old tune caught in the dividers of this underground put. The nutcracker’s body floats with an unsettling beauty, the shadows underneath his cloak obscuring with each step, until he is devoured by the night.

Death.

That’s what he is. The truth hits me like a surge of cold discuss. His look appears to melt as he inches closer, his pale confront presently twisted with rot. Behind his grin, there is no delicacy, as it were the honed edge of something old and contemptible. The truth snaps into my intellect as his split lips talk with a moo, throaty hum.

"I’ve held up for you… until the end of time," he murmurs, his voice scratching against my exceptionally soul.

I scream—but my mouth fills with water.The floor underneath us moans, as if the soil itself is lively, moving in dissent. Abruptly, everything is dim, no longer moving, however strangely still. It’s a lake. A choking, profound lake.

I wheeze for air—though, unusually, it doesn’t appear to matter if I breathe. The choking weight on my chest keeps me paralyzed as I drive my eyes open. I flicker, disoriented, feeling my body twitch free from the cold profundities. My vision flares as I break through the surface. The light that speared over the water sparkles faintly against my skin, coating me with cold clarity, like a awful sign pulling me to shore.

I’m dragged, limp and dribbling, onto the dark sand. Alejandro. His confront, obscured by time but clear in the diminishing light, drifts over me. Without a word, he places his coat over me, his warm skin rubbing against mine, and lifts me with ease. I tremble in his arms, mindful that my body, shuddering from the cold, feels not at all like me, like I’m a few rotted husk lost in this world.

He carries me back, his steps reverberating delicately in the winding down light. When he comes to my room, he sets me down carefully close to the crackling fire and feeds the blazes. I feel warm on my skin, but it does nothing to warm my bone chilling body. No warmth can reach me underneath the layers of this curse.

His eyes—those same eyes—flicker in the firelight, and something irritates me in their profundities. The delicate, moderate move of the fire mirrors the exceptionally movements of the move from below—the turning, the shocking turning of misplaced souls moving eternally.

I turn absent from his look, the weight of his nearness overwhelming in the air.

And there it is.

The gift.

Sitting, calling on the table like a trap, its weight overwhelming in my hand as I recover it. With shaking fingers, I peel back the dark cloth.

The nutcracker.

Its confront is solidified, like porcelain, as well culminate, as well pristine—it is me. It wears the dress I’ve been constrained to wear—the unusual wedding gown—and indeed the crown that stings like thistles on my scalp.

And there, underneath the doll’s idealize shape, is the note.

To my bride to be.