Kingdom of Thorns

“Charly, whatever is wrong with you?” Harry plucked the still-burning cigarette from the crumpled bedsheets and stubbed it out in the crystal swan Charly kept by her bedside. He studied her face; she had gone pale and her hands were trembling as she held the heart shaped locket away from her body like it was a live wire. She wasn’t the kind of woman to tremble and faint, which is why he loved her. That, and she didn’t think women should ride side-saddle.

“What did you say about the locket Harry? Exactly please.”

“I just said that it looks like an heirloom piece worn by the Irish immigrants who tried to make a go of vineyards in this area in the late 1800s. Most of the vines were ravaged by phylloxera. Nasty little creatures. No way to get rid of them once they get a hold of your vines. But why does the locket upset you so?”

“Harry, this is going to sound completely mad, but I think I’m being haunted!”

Harry looked deeply into her grey eyes that were wide with fear and confusion. He saw she was serious, and listened to her story without a word.

“Last year, when we interred Lester’s ashes, you recall that he wanted them put up with the graves of those poor dead children that no one knows a thing about? They died in 1876 and their mother, their Irish mother, has been visiting my dreams for months.” She poured several shots worth of Bombay Sapphire into a glass and knocked them back without mixer or ice. She grimaced and continued. “Their mother weeps and wails at me, and begs for her mourning jewelry. She wants this locket, and how on earth do I return something to a dead woman?”

Harry pried her fingers from the locket and studied it. “What’s inside it, Charly? And how did you come to have it?”

She shuddered at the recollection. “One of the workmen who put the lava stone over Lester’s ashes, damn that man and his dying wishes, found it in the tall grass and gave it to me, assuming I had lost it. It gave me such a funny feeling, all at once it felt dear to me, so I slipped it on. I can’t get it open, not without breaking it. Oh god, if I break it I’ll never be rid of her!” She gripped his hand in both of hers and wept.

“Sssh Charly, we’ll get this locket back to the bereaved mother. Why did he want his remains put in such a lonely place again?” He chose his words carefully. She was fiercely protective of her dead husband, which is why he could never truly call her his love. Who could compete with a dead man?

“Because it is a lonely place, and he thought that the children were lost and lonely. For such a strong man, he had a strange and tender heart. One day we were riding our horses up by the gravesites, and he told me that he wouldn’t mind if I put his ashes up there with the children, so they wouldn’t be lonely any more. I can’t talk about this tonight, pour me a drink and hold me until morning.” She held out her glass and almost smiled. Harry refilled the glass and stroked her dark hair until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

In the small hours, she woke him with her sobs. She was so deep in the dream that he had to shake her awake. “Charly! Charly, it’s just a dream, dear!” It took several long and fearful moments for her to become fully awake. He implored her to share the dream, to break the spell.

“It was the mother again. She’s so sad and angry. She’s been fighting her way through the blighted vineyard to get to the house, and blackberry bramble thorns have torn her gown and her hands and, oh god, her face! I begged her to tell me how to make it right, so she won’t come to this house! I must go and bury the locket in the ground between her two children’s graves. Then she can rest.”

When the sun rose, Charly brewed coffee as dark and oily as her troubled mind. She had the locket in a cigar box, no longer willing to touch it. They made their way up the hill with shovels and trepidation. Harry had wanted to do this for her, but of course she wouldn’t hear of it. Sidesaddle.

Charly and Harry stood before the graves. Neither one of them spoke, but there was an unspoken horror that the mother was watching. They took turns digging a deep hole between the children. Charly whispered, “I’m sorry” and put the cigar box deep in the ground. Her hands shook and the box spilled its cursed contents. The sun glinted off the golden heart, and Charly stifled a scream with her balled fists. She leaned over and reached into the hole. When her fingers touched the locket, the ground split open and she was swallowed. She was swept up in a whirlwind of dirt and insects and bones. She could hear Harry call her name, but she was lost. Pale fingers wrapped and around her wrists and pulled her through to the other side, the land of death.

“Open your eyes ma’am! See what you have taken!” Charly open her eyes and saw her. The mother. The scratched, shrieking wraith. The shadow side of love. She pried the locket open with broken fingernails. Whisps of golden red hair spilled from the locket and she let loose a howling laugh.

“Come home children, come to mother!” Before Charly’s horrified gaze, shadows rose from the graves, shadows with burning eyes. They turned to Charly and opened their mouths wide in rictus grins. Charly shook her head violently. “No, darlings, the woman has delivered you to me. Trouble her no more.” And in the next instant, the shadow children merged with the mother, and they were all borne up into the sky.

It took her hours to crawl out of the hole. “Harrryyyyyy!” she wailed, but there was no reply. Exhausted, she finally reached the top. Harry was nowhere to be seen. Not at first. Then she spotted him drowsing in the dead grass, she could just made out his boots. She crawled to him. “It’s over sweetness.” She took his hand and held crumbling bones. She backed mutely away, almost stumbling back into the hole. Harry was a skeleton, his bones crawled with small green insects. Phylloxera. No one was there to tell her, but she knew.

She clambered to her feet and looked around her. The natural world had withered. Where there had been lush grapevines, now angry blackberry brambles resided. Even the berries had wasted away, leaving thorny remains that surrounded Charly as far as see could see in every direction. “No. It’s not true.” She swung the blade of her shovel like a machete and tried to hack her way through the kingdom of thorns to find her house. She was lost. The thorns ripped her clothes and skin, her hair was full of brambles and those damned hungry bugs. The muscles in her shoulders screamed with exhaustion. When she finally found a clearing, she found herself facing the gravesites and the shattered earth and the hole.

She sat in stunned silence; she didn’t know for how long. She slept, or fainted, and was unconscious for some time. Her dreams of the mother were different now. The mother smiled, and said, “You can keep the locket, love. It is all you have left. Thank you for my children.” She held the locket out to Charly. Charly took it with trembling hands, and it opened. This time, hundreds of tiny pearls poured out, like a river of tears. “Do you want to wake up, or do you want to join our ragged family?” Charly nodded sadly. The ground opened again, and she let herself fall. Thorns scratched her all the way down, and she welcomed them. Green insects filled her mouth, and she swallowed them. She landed with a bone-breaking crash at the bottom of the hole. She slept.