The rain fell hard as the moon hung in the obsidian sky like a chandelier. Bramble Manor stood resolute over the dark village of Black Brier. The village, founded on partial truths and gossip, sat at the edge of the cloaked woods surrounding it like a crescent. The only way to leave was down an unkept dirt road through an opening in the black woods.
The Baron of Bramble Manor, short and portly with black hair like the twisted roots wrapped around the foundation, lived in the east wing of the home while his new baroness lived in the opposing west. The village had several ideas why they never chose to sleep together in the same wing, in the same room, in the same bed.
“She’s crazy!” a villager cried. “Who would sell their soul to be with someone like him?”
“Maybe it’s a lavender marriage,” another suggested. “She never took interest in any man before.”
“She didn’t exactly come from royalty. She probably thought this was her way up,” a third concluded.
There was always someone ready to share their views and opinions with somebody. In Black Brier, it was all about what you knew and what you could convince people you knew. Rumors and information carried their own weight like currency.
The Baroness sat in the corner, comforted by a single candle lit with scarlet flame for her own solitude. Sitting erect and upright in her gaudy wicker chair, she wore a white nightgown gifted to her by her husband on their wedding night.
“You look your best in white,” he told her as that sentence repeated in her mind, like a ripple expanding, creating space.
It didn’t help that she was pale as a drowning corpse. Whenever she roamed the halls at night, the village would be flooded with rumors the next day of an apparition wandering the manor.
“Maybe it’s the old Baroness coming for revenge.”
“I bet it’s The Baron’s mother coming back to disapprove of his life choices.”
The Baroness’s frail arms laid plainly on the rests of the chair, her body anchored to it as she looked out the slightly open window, listening to the rain as it continued to plummet like someone was pouring from a metal watering can in the sky.
“Why are you thinking in the dark?” a concerned voice whispered.
The Baroness looked at the closed door of her bedchamber. The lights remained off in the hall and the shadows tamed. There was no movement from underneath the other side of that door.
“Don’t worry. Your husband is asleep. Why are you thinking in the dark?” the ominous voice spoke again.
This time, The Baroness saw the candle flicker slightly. She leaned over toward the light as if she were a goddess watching over her own creation. It only could have been the candle and its flame speaking these words of curiosity. As the voice spoke, the small fire pulsed a dark, scarlet sphere.
“I have watched you for several nights now as I have watched over all the baronesses of the past. You are the only one who has ever stumped me.”
The Baroness, first startled, leapt from her wicker throne and lunged for the door.
“Don’t worry,” it continued. “I’m not here to hurt you or insult you. I just want to ask you questions.”
After being flattered by the flame’s curiosity in someone like her, as her own husband didn’t seem to possess, The Baroness sat back down as she rested her hands kindly on the roughness of her knees.
“Why are you thinking in the dark?” the candle asked for a third time, insistent to get his answer.
“I do my best thinking in the dark. It is the light of the sun that clouds my judgment. Here, I am free to feel and think. Everywhere else, those decisions are selected for me.” The Baroness replied, as she would have in everyday conversation.
“Why don’t you leave then? Surely, there are darker places than these.” The voice asked, interviewing her.
“I have imagined what has been beyond those woods ever since I was a girl. Every time I tell myself I am ready to leave, something keeps me tied here.” The Baroness declared.
“Is it because of the way your mother left?”
“She didn’t leave. I know what the village says about her. She would never leave me like that,” she defended.
“What if I told you that you could leave tonight? I can give you what you wish. What you long for.”
“How?” The Baroness asked, clearly intrigued.
“Extinguish me,” the flame pleaded.
She remained puzzled. “But I have been putting you out every morning with this,” The Baroness said as she grabbed a brass candle snuffer and held it in the air like a wand. “And lighting you again every night.”
“Brass keeps me bound. It is your lips that must set me free. Extinguish me and you may leave tonight. Extinguish me and I can give you a way out. Just like your mother always wanted and never got.” The flame spoke convincingly.
The Baroness bent over the side table and stared deep into the glow. She swore she could see a little face that winked at her. As she pursed her lips together and let out a small gust of air that radiated heat, the flame flickered its scarlet flare rapidly until it finally went out, fully gone. Smoke from the candle rose up in a spiraled mist. Even the moon took notice and started to dull its lustrous shine.
A blanket of darkness started to pour into the room from underneath the door and through the open window. The black slivers wrapped around the baroness like smoky tentacles, stained her nightgown, and walled a veil over her eyes. The shadows waited, needing permission to come alive. Her eyes rolled black like two uneven pieces of coal as her body fell like a pinned voodoo doll.
The Baroness called for the flame but there was no answer. She screamed for her husband, but he remained asleep in his own morbid dreams as her shrieks bellowed throughout the halls, not fully reaching anywhere.
The Baroness’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness quickly, but her body wasn’t prepared for it to wither in the cold stillness on the floor as her mind feasted on fading shadows and devoured thoughts.
As her eyes began to close, a tall, red-haired man picked himself up from the floor and ventured toward the door. He marched through the gates of Bramble Manor and strolled down the unkept dirt road of Black Brier toward the opening in the black woods, humming a melodious tune in the dead of night.
