The House on the Ridge

Hope looked into Tillie's face. "Tillie?"

The little maid stood as still as a statue, her steel stiletto unwavering. She suddenly blinked her one good eye and gave her head a single shake as if she were waking from a dream. She looked into Hope's face and then up at Marguerite. She slowly shook her head twice and gently let go of Hope's arm, her knife slowly lowering to her side.

Marguerite's face hardened in anger and she snatched Hope's wrist cruelly. "I'll deal with you later, Blinky. You'll have to be punished for this." Her face lit as she said it, and Tillie flinched a bit. "The stiletto would have been quicker."

She started dragging Hope toward the railing, her mad strength easily making child's play of Hope's ineffectual struggles.

"She's just a little girl!" I dragged myself towards her, but a wave of sickness swept over me and I collapsed to the slate.

"Not for very long, soon she'll be just another little broken doll, like so many I've left behind." She said it wistfully.

A motion caught my eye, Tillie was trembling fiercely, looking down and turning something in her hand. She twitched oddly and whatever she was holding fluttered to the slates. She looked sharply up at Marguerite, her face twisted in hate, then hurled herself violently across the slippery tiles with a horrid bubbling scream.

Tillie slammed against Marguerite, tearing her away from Hope. As they reeled, staggering wildly across the rooftop together, I could see the long flashing needle of the stiletto plunging again and again into the madwoman.

They crashed into the railing overlooking the boiling river, then Marguerite hurled Tillie aside and began to laugh. Throaty, unhinged peals of laughter echoed up into the flame-lit sky. Dark blood streamed from a dozen stab wounds, running down her pale dressing gown in gory lines.

She reached down and picked up the dried circlet of flowers Hope had made for Tillie and looked at it. A small broken baby rattle had been tied to it. "Lavender, hyssop and sage. No wonder then she was able to resist me." She tapped the rattle. "Really Blinky? A soft spot for children. How hopelessly droll."

She tossed it onto Tillie, where she lay weakly on the roof beside me, curled up and weeping piteously, almost silently.

Marguerite smirked, looking down at her stab wounds, stark and black in the light of the full-risen moon. Like tiny gaping mouths, they slowly writhed as they closed and healed unnaturally. "You've ruined a perfectly good dress Tillie. I will certainly enjoy your punishment for this."

"Those Outside gave me real power. I just have to keep doing their bidding. Leave my little broken and burned dolls where they tell me to." Marguerite waved her hand almost casually and the leaping flames below suddenly guttered and died. She looked over at Hope and smiled as I pulled myself to my knees, struggling for breath against the waves of nausea.

I slowly reached up and clutched the medallion hanging from my neck. With a shock of awful burning pain, the delicate chain snapped, spilling from my grip and dropping to the slate. A wave of agony wrenched through me. "A witch?" I gasped it out as best I could. "You traffick with demons?"

Her mad laughter echoed again. "How very delicate of you. 'Traffick.' Yes, Dear Sister, I am Malefica, what you call a witch."

"Do you think...?" I choked against the horrible racking pain for a second. "... really think that you're the only monster in our cursed bloodline? Sister." It was hard to speak at all, hard to say anything. I leaned forward until my forehead touched the cool stone, feeling my gorge rise as blackness momentarily twisted my vision.

Dimly I sensed movement as Hope crawled to Tillie and hovered over her protectively. All concern and fear of Marguerite had vanished from her in a moment. I managed to open one eye and in the brilliant moonlight, I could see Hope mouth the word "mine" at me.

Marguerite caught the shift in her and looked down at me in puzzlement. "What..."

I felt my illness, my Curse, rush though me, a brutal storm of strength and fury and hateful joy, loosed at last from that awful bond of blessed and burning silver. I snapped my head up and watched Marguerite recoil in stunned shock from my bright yellow eyes. The lengthening muzzle and savage fangs made it impossible for me to say anything coherent anymore. I didn't want to say anything anyway; I could smell her delightful fear as she realized what I was, what I had become. Realized that she had no time for her dark magicks.

I launched myself at her in terrible ecstasy, bearing her over the railing to fall together with me into the dark angry waters below, my fangs ripping into her soft throat as my mind faded into that delicious crimson dream.

*****

My eyes blinked open and Hope looked down at me in unconcealed amusement. "You would wait until we've gotten you completely cleaned up before you awakened, wouldn't you Mother?"

I sat up slowly, the aches of my transformation making me move stiffly. The fingers and palm of my bandaged hand throbbed where the terrible silver had burned me. Brilliant rays of sunlight slashed in lines from the half open curtains. Tillie watched me warily from behind Hope.

"Where is she?"

Hope bore herself up proudly. "We buried what was left of her. It was very messy. You taught me well, Mother. I remembered to bury the head away from the body, as you told me had to be done with witches." She paused. "What remained of the head, in any case." She gave an exasperated sigh. "It was VERY messy. The tongue was gone, eaten, I suppose. So was her heart, if she even had one. I filled her mouth with cold iron horseshoe nails. Miss Tillie found them for me, she was very helpful."

I looked down at the clean white gown I was wearing. My medallion, neatly mended, hung close around the collar of the gown. "Thank you, Tillie."

The little maid gave me a cautious nod. Hope stared at me very seriously. "I shall be very cross with you if you eat her, Mother."

She opened our little jewellery box and looked over her great grandmother's collection of silver medallions. Gently pulling on her silk gloves, she selected one carefully, avoiding even the slightest possibility of it touching her skin. She was young yet, but someday it would be of paramount importance, as the burns on my hand reminded me. The Curse didn't pass to every woman in the bloodline, it certainly hadn't passed to Marguerite, but Hope had the irrefutable signs already. "This one feels right for her, what do you think, Mother?"

I smiled as she held it up for me to approve before she placed the protective medallion, a medallion of my own inherited silver, over Tillie's head. "Saint Hubert? The Patron Saint of Hunters?"

"She was a great help in finding you in the woods. I thought you would prefer to wake in bed than under a tree again, and she agreed most eagerly. She's not afraid of the dark at all. I held her hand to make sure you would let her alone."

Tillie fingered her medallion in wonder. Hope took her hand gently. "Never take that off. Ever. Most especially never in the full of the moon. It is the only protection against the Loup-Garou, the only true ward against Mother's... hunger."

Still holding Tillie's hand, she breathed in deeply and looked firmly into Tillie's eyes. "As in a few years it will be the only proof against mine."

*****

The moon-sickness had lost its grip on me once I had let it loose. My strength surged and I felt vital and fully alive.

Hope insisted on touring the grounds, cold though it was. Tillie, her enthrallment completely broken, was pleased to show us around.

She gripped Hope's hand tightly, certainly from fondness of Hope, but perhaps partly from fear of me.

As we walked we stared out at the forests, where, for just a day or two a month, I could let my curse loose with no fear of harming another, save perhaps deer.

As Father understood from living with my Mother, it was far, far easier to let it run, if only for a short time than to keep it caged for years as I had tried. Conall had loved me beyond reason and for him I would do anything, even suffer the miseries of suppressing my curse. But he was gone now, and I had to follow the best path for both Hope and I.

"Mother, watch where you step." Hope pointed down at the ground near my foot where a single brilliant purple crocus struggled from the grey dead grass.

I bent down, gently brushing my fingertips across the vibrant purple petals, seeing as I did, the reassuring promise of many more beautiful flowers pushing up from the dormant ground.

Spring was coming.

*

Post Production Notes

This was actually more difficult to write than most of what I write. There are conventions to Gothic Horror, many of which were not easy to write for me. I really struggled with the main character; I'm not a fan of weak or sickly characters and they are very much a convention in Gothic. So I had to find a way through this. I finally focused on why she could be so weak and it all fell together.

In the end this became a sort of written version of one of the old Hammer Studio "bucket of blood productions" many of us grew up with. The first half is all setting and atmospherics and the second half is full of blood, fire and fangs. I kind of picture Thomas being played by Peter Cushing, though you might prefer Christopher Lee.

Thanks again to the editors-all of whom are writers themselves and who donated time to help me on this.

Special thank you to all of the readers -- this has built into a full blown effort from a simple dare, all because of the incredible encouragement and support we've gotten here. The Missus and I have had a great time with it. Speaking of which, The Missus has been amazing as usual -- this one was really a challenge and she really defined the plot and the characters from the beginning.