Photography by Svetlana Belyaeva click HERE for website.
Written for "Telling Tales with Magaly Guerrero: a Pantry of Prose # 7 Gothic Fiction
over at Poets United. & for the Sunday Muse # 71
Come join us!
I would fulfill my wildest dream of material possessions, that I might hear my soul wailing through marble halls. ~Muriel Strode
Written for "Telling Tales with Magaly Guerrero: a Pantry of Prose # 7 Gothic Fiction
over at Poets United. & for the Sunday Muse # 71
Come join us!
I would fulfill my wildest dream of material possessions, that I might hear my soul wailing through marble halls. ~Muriel Strode
312 Word Count 😊
Queen Margery
learned more of death than she did of life, when it came to all the queens
before her. The Castle Gerard was known
for its curse, and the strange death of all that walked its halls confirming
the truth in the rumors that spread throughout Garrison Town.
The Villagers that
resided outside Garrison lived in a certain poverty. Money was scarce and food scarcer, but no
matter how hungry the people remained, they preferred to live in their squalor
existence than high and mighty in the Castle of Doom, as some would say.
Margery had been
hearing the voices around her, not just from the people of town, but the other
voices, the ones that spoke in the halls at night. “What is wrong my lady?” asked Agnes her
lady-in-waiting, who took care of her every need. “You seem upset.” She added. Margery simply shook her hand at her to go,
knowing that she could not tell her, although Agnes truly knew.
The voices were
what killed Queen Beatrice, but not the way one would think. The voices drove her mad, and her madness
drove her to her death. Jumping off the
cliff of Laurel Manor. It is said that
the voices of all the elite that came before her are the ghostly voices that
whisper to the mad. Each soul is lulled
by the souls before to join them in their brood of greed and madness.
Margery felt both
attraction and disdain for the whispered words that made her long for darkness,
pulling her closer and closer to the edge of sane. She slipped away in the night feeling a hot
rush of pain and pleasure come over her, as she too jumped into the sea that
the voices told her was were her true fortune lied. Greed has always been a liar to those who are
its fool.
"Both attraction and disdain... pleasure and pain" she loses herself to the edge of madness, drowning in greed. Is the potential fortune worth the sacrifice of a life. How very haunting.
ReplyDeleteIndeed it has!
ReplyDeleteI really like the contrast between her emotions. As if she knows what's coming, and she knows it's going to be terrible, but she still wants it. I can't even imagine the guilt.
ReplyDeleteThis s a tale with a moral, so well told. I especially love the closing line. I think of the trumps...obscene wealth, and such unhappy people. Nothing to envy there!
ReplyDeleteWhat a neatly crafted story - I loved the spookiness too
ReplyDeleteYou've captured that feeling of being trapped: the queen by history and the peasants by the idea that something better is infinitely more dangerous than nothing. This makes me wonder how the curse came to be...
ReplyDeleteThe seductiveness of those voices. You told it well. Haunting.
ReplyDeleteThe voices makes me think of how mental illness that makes a curse more believable... and voices telling you to jump I believe can be such a curse through generations of wealth.
ReplyDeleteThe voices. Always the voices. A chilling story Carrie!
ReplyDeleteThank you for introducing me to Muriel Strade, the quote really speaks to me and is a great introduction to the story, Carrie. I love tales of curses and castles, madness, desperate, hungry villagers, and mysterious voices. I don’t usually get them all in one story, so yours really hits the spot!
ReplyDeleteI wonder too how the first monarch fell, and what sort of things the voices said to convince someone to inch closer to their doom.
ReplyDeleteOh, 'tis surely madness seeking madness.
ReplyDeleteI imagine those voices were maddening. Walking on the edge of sanity.
ReplyDeletePresumably the voices talking to you are some comfort to the dying whether they be real or in their own imagination. Still waiting for mine!
ReplyDeleteBeautifully told, and I love the moral pronouncement at the end.
ReplyDeleteOh she knows..but she still hungers, still wants it...Great writing!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this, Carrie. You have a knack for this!
ReplyDeleteYour Queen Margery learned too much. I wouldn't wish to die that way. I enjoyed the read, it was nice.
ReplyDelete..