The Velvet Cage

1957

As soon as “I do” escaped Evelyn’s lips, a distant, unrelenting scream cut through the mansion. It yanked her gaze from the garden to the pointed arches and spires looming over the attic. Evelyn searched for the source, her frantic golden eyes darting inside her skull. Her hands stiffened in his grip but Mr. Ocellious remained still as a stone. Not even the breeze provoked his hair. He watched as her face fell from grace. Under his emerald eyes a crooked smile tightened.

After being locked in the dungeon for a week, Evelyn’s wedding dress was as grey as her existence. Every night, Mr. Ocellious appeared in dark velvet robes with a matching dress tailored to her frame. Undress, he’d command. His cat-like eyes narrowed on her cage, watching every move, waiting to be inspired.

“Stop!” He shouted on the seventh night.

Evelyn froze with the dress hanging off her shoulders. Mr. Ocellious studied her mannequin pose. Evelyn locked her eyes on the cold stones beneath her feet. Mr. Ocellious reached out to grab a lock of hair and twirled it around his finger. With his other hand he wielded a longsword. Air lingered in her lungs. He raised the blade. Her body an earthquake. Fear flooded her veins as the sword came down. Evelyn was frozen, waiting for life to drain from her corpse. But when she looked up, a fistful of her auburn curls suffocated in his grip.

“It’s time,” he said.

Evelyn finished dressing before linking arms with the man who would carve her silence into wood.

“Welcome to the family.” Ink surged in his eyes, his head cocked to the side. What had once been a dazzling smile now flashed patches of putrid yellow. The air grew cold, a stitch crept up her spine.

Mr. Ocellious steered Evelyn up the damp steps until they came to a dark hallway. Vaulted ceilings dripped with intricate moldings above their heads. Large windows traced with stone bars, to the left. Door after door after door on the right. They twisted and turned down misshapen corridors, their only light the dim flickering flames of the chandelier candles.

They came upon towering double doors. Gargoyles perched atop, their fangs daring her to run away. Her body burned under the heavy velvet frock. Smothered skin begged for air. Angry welts blazed across her chest. With a finger inside the collar, she pulled. A growl of fabric stung the air.

“Don’t!” He shouted.

Evelyn jumped, his sharp tone crashing down the empty hall. Mr. Ocellious clenched his bones and tightened his fist around her lifeless curls. With the tip of his sword, he lifted her hand from the collar with care then slashed the blade through her skin.

Through the doors was a magnificent theater filled with delicate curtains and cushioned chairs. Evelyn sat in the front row. Dead center. Hundreds of empty seats swallowed her surroundings. It's where she sat night after night watching Mr. Ocellious put on a peculiar production with his prized collection of marionettes. Each custom doll took centerstage, each worthy of a Tony. Margarette was his favorite, but he punished her like the others when her strings got tangled.

By the two hundred and eleventh night, Evelyn had proven trustworthy of roaming the velvet-trimmed prison alone.

“You’ve earned this freedom.” He sheathed his sword. “Don’t let curiosity steal it from you.” His hand was paralyzed on the handle.

She smiled just so, bowing her head.

Evelyn waited until Margarette filled the air with her flawless vibrato. Mr. Ocellious would be enthralled, giving Evelyn time to explore the forbidden wing.

Music raged on under Evelyn’s feet. The crescendo – Margarette’s big finale – was just around the corner. In front of a tiny hidden door in the attic, Evelyn summoned the will to turn the knob. She knew he would throw her back into the stone-clawed basement, but she had to know where the scream was coming from. It invaded her dreams. Called her name. Spun her around.

The tiny door squeaked open into a dusty room. A woodworking station sat frozen in time with tools askew, blocks of wood, piles of sawdust. Evelyn picked up a half-made doll, its unfinished face somehow staring back at her.

The theater had grown quiet. She put down the doll and hurried to leave but something held her feet to the floor. Near the back of the room hung a marionette in a white dress. Something familiar about its hair pushed Evelyn to take a closer look. It's painted face. The features. They were hers. It was wearing her wedding dress. Mesmerized, she reached out to feel its curls. As her skin grazed their silky curves, the doll’s head lifted, its eyes trapping Evelyn where she stood. A whisper filled the air. Run.

But Evelyn couldn’t breathe. Flecks of red misted the doll’s tiny white dress. She looked down to see Mr. Ocellious’ sword jutting from her torso.

~ ~ ~

2017

Mr. Ocellious struggled to hold onto Yelena as she kicked and screamed the whole way to the oubliette. Iron bars alone could not contain such a wild beast. Her creamy bridal gown scuffed on the stones, shredding its beauty and her body. This feral fight hadn’t happened since Margarette. He had saved her from a life of labor and linen songs. Her ingratitude a thorn in his side. It took Mr. Ocellious the better part of millennia to tame the storm behind that one’s eyes. He imagined Margarette and Yelena together on stage as he dragged her into his depths. Perhaps she was the challenge he’d been waiting for.

Yelena landed hard, bones clacking beneath her. It wasn’t until dust hit her lungs that she knew she lay tangled with skeletons. Yelena looked upward as Mr. Ocellious slammed the hatch.

For weeks on end, Yelena sat in complete darkness with her new friends. She played with their bones and argued with their skulls. With each lowered bucket of bread and water, she etched another day on the wall with stones. On the twenty-first slash it occurred to Yelena that no one was coming for her. When she left her old life behind, she didn’t leave a family. She tapped out on a psychological boxing match. Yelena left like a breeze in the night. No footprint. No note. But the darkness she abandoned had tracked her down.

On the twenty-ninth slash, a latter lowered. Black souls climbed splintered rungs. She emerged into a dim, flame-lit room where Mr. Ocellious waited.

He pulled her through torch-lit halls where they came upon a row of cells. At the top of one, a ray of sun broke through a crack. It's golden hue warming the cold, musty air. Stopping before the last cell, he opened the iron gate. From a fold in her frayed dress, Yelena produced a stone sharpened into a blade. Slicing it across his face, he stumbled. Yelena pushed him toward the cell, slamming the gate and turning the key. Mr. Ocellious howled, his hand through the bars demanding she come back. Beyond his crimson fingers, a dark, empty passage flickered with her passing breeze.

Yelena ran up the stairs, down the crooked hallways, turning left then right. Finding the door, she tried every key. Click!

Tears traced through the filth on her face as she soaked up the sun, her grimy toes in vivid green grass. Just as she found the garden to pluck a black rose, a scream cut through the cool air. The same scream after saying, “I do.” Yelena turned to run for freedom but the bush reached out, snagging her delicate skin with thorns. The rose fell from her grip with the drip drip drip of fresh blood.

Yelena turned to face her prison. As she made her way back on feathered feet, Wisteria vines and ropes of ivy followed in a hush. She crossed the threshold, keys still dangling, when Sycamore roots busted through the foundation of the foyer. They followed her all the way to the attic, the scream Yelena’s guide. Behind the tiny door was a woodshop. At the back hung a marionette bride with her likeness. When Yelena lifted the doll from its hook, a stream of lights shone on an endless row of doll cages. “Gallery” was carved into the beams above the entrance.

The first doll hung loose and wore a flowing black velvet gown. Its golden embroidery glimmered through her thick red hair. The nameplate beneath her read:

Margarette - 1257

Some dolls bore taut strings, others collected centuries of dust. Whispers of agony swirled through the air, sending sawdust to fall like mist. Their cries grew into deafening chants until a sharp silence cut their voices like a knife.

Margarette’s voice began as a needle prick and grew into a sword slicing through the air.

“The scream,” Yelena whispered.

Yelena took Margarette in arms with as many marionettes as she could carry. Vines swirled up and around their cages, shattering them into pieces. Yelena ran as fast as she could to the outside world. The moment her feet touched garden grass, Margarette and the others transformed through a cloud of charcoal dust into their human forms. There she stood in a sweeping velvet gown, rivers of red waves cascaded down her back.

“Margarette?” Yelena gasped.

She stood in the garden with a quivering lip. One hand held her stomach, the other on her cheek.

“I am called Aldrea,” she said. “Ocellious unstitched my soul and scrawled his name where mine once lived.”

Yelena’s heart shattered in her chest while Aldrea wept centuries of pain. Some of the other women leapt with joy while others gaped into the abyss of freedom. Aldrea ran her fingers over her alabaster face. Pink lips parted in awe and her sorrow subsided. She felt her breasts. Stroked her dress. Felt the wind drift through her hair as she whispered.

“Thou kept me in shadow. Centuries of sorrow undone. The ache of his sword hath died.”

Behind them, stones crumbled off the side of the house. Yelena watched as vines and roots consumed more of the mansion. The women exchanged glances, their eyes in agreement.

Running back inside, they gathered the marionettes by the armful, destroying their cages and sending them into clouds of coal. More danger appeared each time they cut the strings of another puppet. Still, they climbed the walls and shifted the rubble, cutting their exquisite clothes and scraping their precious skin.

On the last run, Yelena held a doll with auburn curls under her arm. The moment the sun hit her grain, the pain of being stabbed ceased and Evelyn’s dress was as white as when she said, “I do.” Thousands of women stood before Yelena. Laughter shook the earth as they rediscovered their limbs. Tears soaked the soil, skin caressed skin, curls bounced. Yelena, in her raggedy dress, bore witness to the brides. Before her stood a sisterhood. A family. Behind her, the mansion of Eidric Ocellious turned to dust.