Maison Diable

The Picture

The room I had stumbled into was completely dark. I leaned against the door and closed my eyes, taking a moment to catch my breath. My heart was still racing and I could feel a dull, throbbing ache at the back of my head that foreboded an agonising migraine. When I was certain nothing was going to follow me into the room I opened my eyes again and fumbled for the lighter I kept in my pocket at all times.

My hands were still shaking and it took a few tries before I could get it to work. The tiny flame was not enough to light up the room, but it was just enough to see my immediate surroundings. It was my luck that there was a dresser just to my right, and on it, covered in countless dusty cobwebs, was an ancient candelabrum. The candles in it had been used before, but were still big enough to be useful.

I brushed off the thick layer of cobweb and dust and picked up the candelabrum. I lit the candles with care, my hand still shaking a little. There was a faint stench as the first wick caught fire. The small trail of smoke stank of sulphur and decay, and had it been stronger it would have been nauseating. I found myself thinking of long-forgotten tombs and rotting human flesh in abandoned corners of the world, where demon gods had been worshipped and dark rituals were common.

I held the candelabrum as far away as I could and began to explore the room. I glanced over my shoulder regularly to check the door, but there were no more sounds to be heard outside it and it showed no signs of opening of its own will any time soon. There was little furnishing in the room. By the door was the dresser upon which two more candelabra stood, and against the wall on the left of the door there was an ancient wardrobe, its ebony wood richly carved.

The left wall had to be one of the outer walls of the house. It was hidden almost entirely behind thick, red curtains and I knew that  there were windows behind those. I left the curtains as they were and looked at the wall right across from the door. A lone chair stood in front of a small fireplace. Next to it was a small table, upon which lay an ageless leather-bound book. There were numerous vases filled with dead flowers on the mantelpiece, and many more all along the wall on both sides of the fireplace. I suddenly felt as if I had entered a strange shrine or unholy sanctuary, and the portrait above the fireplace did little to subdue this new queasiness.

It was the same woman I had seen in other images around the house, the woman I had come to label as the Bride for a lack of a name to put to her face. Even in the feeble light of the candles I could see that the colour of the portrait had hardly faded over time, which made me wonder if the curtains had ever been opened after the portrait had been put into this room. I approached the portrait and raised the candelabrum a little to get a better view of it.

She was a pallid beauty in a deep blue dress, painted with great attention to detail from the chest up. Her dark hair had been carefully arranged into perfect ringlets, and her pale blue eyes were looking out of the picture. I had to shake off the feeling that she was looking directly at me. Her lips were an alluring shade of red, curved only slightly upwards with the hint of a smile.

I realised then that this woman was at once the woman of the other pictures and yet a completely different one. These were no gentle, loving blue eyes- rather they were cold and calculating, perhaps even slightly menacing. The slight upward curve of her lips marked a certain cruelty, a wickedness that could not wholly be hidden by a beautiful face.

It was almost like the picture of Dorian Gray, hidden away safely out of sight... only this version of it had been enshrined- worshipped even- before it was forgotten, but its subject had not apparently tainted the picture beyond the first signs of evil. I wondered if Basil Hallward had experienced a similar mixture of dread and anxiety, or if he had simply been wholly overcome with terror in the face of the beast.

I looked over my shoulder again, but the door was still firmly shut and the subject of the picture was not in the room with me. I looked at the picture again, fascination and fear joining together in an uncomfortable dance through my head. I could not decide if this perceived cruelty was a trick of the light, or something to do with the artist's particular brush stroke. This wickedness, I decided, was only an impression; either the artist's or my own- a strange fancy put into my head, perhaps caused by the feverish dream I had stumbled into upon entering the house.

I finally looked away from the portrait and found my eyes drawn to the small book on the little table. I picked it up and brushed off the thick layer of dust it had gathered over time. I set the candelabrum on the small table and sat down on the chair, worried at first that it had become too fragile to support my weight. It creaked a little, but it was still strong enough to support a grown young man.

There was no title on the cover. It was a simple book that might have been deep blue or black in a distant past, but had now faded to a dirty grey. There were some dark stains on it, but I couldn't tell what they were. I opened the booked and leafed through it, trying to determine its nature before submerging myself in the details of its content. The handwriting was even and elegant, suggesting that it had belonged to someone of privileged birth or at least advanced education. There were little drawings here and there, hastily scribbled pictures of symbols and signets, perhaps, or something more arcane.

The language was familiar but strange. The words had been spelt to go with the author's whims rather than any set convention, and it was sometimes as difficult to work out what the word actually was as it was to work out what it meant. I had started to read somewhere halfway and was working through it very slowly, looking away from the text only occasionally to check on the candles I had lit.

It seemed to be an account of the writer's travels, a journey in search of an explanation of something which the author described only briefly as occult. I was certain, somehow, that the writer had to be a man, although the text gave me no real reason to think so. He detailed strange events and even stranger rituals, illustrating his story with related symbols.

It became clear to me, as I read on, that this man had been in search of a very specific ritual, an all but forgotten kind of magic the purpose of which I could only guess at. With every page I turned I felt my hackles rising more. This was more than a magician's journal, this was a description of the way to the very Gate of Hell, a detailed account of a man setting out to sell his soul.

I shivered and put the book aside. The room somehow felt colder now, and I had the feeling I was being watched. The door was still closed, however, and I was alone. I got up and paced up and down the room a few times to get warm. There was a faint stench I had not noticed before, a foul odour of rotting petals and brackish water. I could not shake off the feeling that someone was watching me.

I stopped underneath the small chandelier in the centre of the room and closed my eyes, listening intently for anything that might betray the presence of something more than me. There was no sound at all save my slow, steady breathing, and perhaps the beating of my heart. I had expected to hear the wind outside, or vague scratching sounds at the door. I had even thought there might be the creaking of floorboards, but the house was quiet.

When I opened my eyes again she was looking directly at me. The picture had not changed, but there was something about it in the dim light of the candles that made me feel absolutely certain that she was watching me. I tested this theory by moving around the room, keeping my eyes on the picture the whole time. It did not matter where I stood. Her eyes were unmistakably fixed on me the whole time.

I picked up the book again and leafed to the last few pages, hoping that I could find some clue about the picture in it. The last entries were written hastily, as if jotted down in fear. There were dark smudges on the pages which obscured some of the words, and I knew without a doubt that it was not ink. The writer spoke of strange creatures now, twisted and wicked things that stalked his dreams and stayed even long after he had woken up.

Every new ritual was a further descent into an abyss of madness and despair. I could almost hear the loud boom of great iron gates shutting, or the agonised screams of the damned, and I could almost feel the heat and smell the dirty smokes of the inferno; taste the blood and the sweat and the tears of the unlucky souls held there.

The last page was written in the hurried scrawl of a madman, and told how the writer met Lucifer himself in the depths of Hell, and how he made a pact with the Devil. It was a testimony of sheer depravity, a nauseating desire for revenge that had urged the man on, but what he wanted to avenge and who he wanted to wreak his revenge on, were still unclear.

I closed the book and put it down, feeling sick from all I had read. I sat down slowly in the chair and took a few deep breaths, all the while eyeing the fireplace suspiciously, as if it could open up a passage to Tartaros and swallow me whole. There were definitely sounds in the house now; faint whispers outside the room, footsteps in the corridor, and howls outside the window. There was a soft rustling, and when I looked up at the picture she was no longer in it.

She was standing underneath the chandelier, holding a candlestick in her left hand and a small vial in her right hand. She regarded me coolly, quietly, as if I was an animal she wanted to study. There was no sign of the sadness or the fear I had seen in her before, only a calm sense of determination. She turned away and moved to the ebony wardrobe, then passed right through it and vanished.

There was a soul-rending wail, then something that sounded like loud coughing and went on to become a rattle until eventually it faded away and all was quiet again. I had not moved from where I sat, and now I was too terrified to move. I was shaking, could not compose myself. For a while I simply sat there and trembled, then I slowly started to calm down.

I looked up at the picture. She was in it again, perhaps she had never been gone from it. She was still watching me, and it seemed as if her lips had curled upwards a little more, as if her smile had become a little crueller. I snatched up the candelabrum and got up, then I stalked over to the ebony wardrobe. It wasn't locked and opened easily as I tugged at one of the doors.

Inside were rows and rows of jars, vials, and jugs, all filled with strange herbs and liquids that I could not identify. There were ivory pins, obsidian daggers, and strange idols made of an unfamiliar red stone. There were bright blue feathers next to small bowls made of brass, and a few books written in a script that might well have been older than the world itself. In one glass jar, hidden away in the back, was what looked like a human heart in formaldehyde.

I slammed the door shut. The carvings on the door danced before my eyes, spinning and whirling to the rhythm of a demon's drums. Each carving was an elaborately made portrayal of some satanic rite, from brutal human sacrifice to the devouring of the world by a many-tentacled beast. I shuddered and turned away.

And all this time the woman in the picture was looking at me, her wicked eyes agleam. I closed my eyes to hide from her gaze. I was no longer sure I was awake, or sane. I had long since abandoned the notion that there was a rational explanation for any of this. I tried to collect my thoughts and piece things together. If the bride wasn't a victim, then who was?

~*~

This chapter is set towards the end of the story, and while it is incomplete it has been edited and polished a number of times thus far. I wrote it before finishing the opening chapter because the image of what I wanted to do with this part of the story was clear in my head and it was time to write it down. It set the tone for the rest of the story to me.

In case you were wondering: no, I don't really write my bigger stories in chronological order. I start with an idea, work on the opening (sometimes the ending I want to work towards), and then I write down whichever bit takes shape first. Obviously not everything ends up being used or fitting in, but I like to play around with ideas this way. It may not be the fastest or most efficient way forward, but for me it is the most creative one.