the haunted kingdom, Charles E.J. Moulton [chrome ebook reader TXT] 📗

There was a saltarello, a Neapolonian dance that had become fashionable just a few years ago in the courts of Medatlantia being danced.
Around fifty people were whirling around the room in furious formations. As to Belinda, she had jumped into the bathhouse in the cellar for a ten-minute bath. She had met Morgana there and talked for a while about Morgana’s latest discovery, a private in Zedrick's army she was hoping to get into bed soon enough. Belinda tried to tell her of what she had experienced herself, but the conversation led only to men. So she left and got ready to go to the party she was hearing from the open windows upstairs. At seven Belinda wandered in to the Grand Hall where people were nibbling on fruit, nuts, and peacock, ostrich, elk and drinking wine. Bantrard was there playing the lute. When Belinda came in Bantrard stopped playing and everyone stood up and applauded. Belinda was flattered by all this attention and walked about smiling at the people.
Then, as if on a given signal, she moved away from her own person and then saw herself from the outside. She seemed to be moving slower in some way. She turned around and saw Lucinda behind her other self, walking toward her in a black dress with white pearls, blood dripping from her teeth. She wanted to warn herself, but no matter how she tried she couldn’t make her other self hear her. Everyone was dancing, only Belinda was out of her own self and looking at a creature that wasn't there. Lucinda looked at her like a dog prowling up on a scared squirrel. Belinda could not move. She was nailed to the floor and nothing could help her take even a step away from this creature. The guests around her started moving slower and slower and suddenly the world turned blurry. Only Lucinda was a clear sight. The music was slower and deeper and Belinda had never heard anything like it before in her life. At once Lucinda started shrieking, her face melting, her red and blood-stained mouth turning into a half-moon and her eyes dripping away from its sockets. Belinda's eyes were bloodshot. She made the sign of the cross. Lucinda's face turned back to normal again and she looked at the girl, smiling.
"Who are you?" Belinda asked, seriously.
Lucinda cocked her head and shook it. "You ought to know better, young woman, than to ask me such a dumb question." Belinda didn't reply. Lucinda leaned forward and Belinda leaned back. Still, she could feel the stench of raw flesh from her mouth. "I am your aunt." She leaned back into her normal position and stretched forward her hand. Belinda looked at her hand. It was pitch black and little bolt of lightning were protruding from within its surface. Belinda did not take it, she just looked up toward her without emotion. Lucinda sighed. "Well, I would hope that we could talk ... Just you and me." Lucinda smiled a sickening smile and reached over to caress Belinda. She pushed away her hand and Lucinda smiled no more. "Such a stubborn girl. In fact, that was what a liked about you from the beginning. A nice challenge.”
"Have you been watching me?" Belinda asked.
Lucinda laughed and looked up to the ceiling. "I invited you to my nightmare." Belinda shook her head. Lucinda thought for a moment. "No, that's not true. The fact that I was shoved into a corner in Nocturania from this gorgeous piece of kitsch, as future men would call it, gave more room for ... good things to prosper, shall we say? Such a disgustingly good creature would never have been born under
my rule, you see ... So, in some bloody way or another, I invented you." Lucinda wandered around, among the slow Saltarello-dancers.
"Why have you returned after so many years?”
Lucinda took and deep breath and turned around, her voice dropping two octaves and her mouth turning into a hell-hole of fifty brown fangs. Drops of blood trickled down one of her middle fangs. She cocked her head and opened up her eyes widely. Belinda jumped back two feet. Her face changed back and she smiled and patted Belinda on the cheek. Lucinda laughed, sneering. "You don't want me as an enemy." Then Lucinda walked away a few steps. Then she turned around again and said: "I shall return to haunt you, Belinda. I will give you ..." She made a sweeping gesture with her one hand and snapped her finger with the other: "... little bits of information will reach you here and there. The more you see, the more you will understand. You are chosen." The last word was just a blurry, slightly odd dream for Belinda, for she fainted before she could hear more. It seemed to her she had experienced all this before. Before she could find out why this familiarity, she woke up.

Monday evening, April 27th, 1422 A.D.

Somebody was standing by her bed with a candle. She looked up. "Belinda! Belinda, my dear!" At first, she saw only the white wax candle on a golden candlestick. The hand holding it was rather chubby. The woman was clad in a white nightie and a white bonnet.
"Are you awake, my child?"
"Geena?"
She smiled, her face turning into a chubby net of wrinkles. "You've slept for hours, love."
Belinda yawned. "Where's Father?"
"With a few others down in the Alexander Room, drinking and talking by the fire."
Belinda sat up, put her head in her hands. "I just remember dreaming that I was ... it's all a blur. I ..." Belinda scratched her dark blond locks and shook her head. "... I remember everything becoming ... slower ... somehow ... I remember seeing ... Lucinda."
"Lucinda?" Geena asked, quietly startled. "Did you see her?"
"Yes," she confirmed. "what does that mean?“
Geena looked down and then her eyes wandered to the trees outside rocking peacefully in the wind. She sighed, her voice trembling. "It might be too late to stop her, but not too late to fight." Geena looked down and grabbed Belinda's hand tight, shaking it. Belinda was almost startled at the power of that fear in her hand. She looked up at Belinda. "Fight with all of your waking spirit!"
"I want to see Father!”
"Come on then!”

§

There was a steady soft-spoken murmur, a beaming smile, someone looking up from a fruit bowl, somebody waving at the sleepy princess. Belinda’s two other sisters, Eleonora and Maria were sitting on a lectus of wood and bronze with lions on it. It was covered in satin and silk and stuffed with wool and feathers. They were the quiet ones in the family and they were deep in a discussion about horses and cooking and men and cosmetic detail. There husband Martin and Marcus were sitting together on another Roman couch and speaking about war over a glass of pear mead and strawberry dumplings. The only son in the family was sitting with his Spanish wife Erica close by. Their son Lancelot was asleep, guarded by the maid Ruby. Maria’s son Fabian was sleeping in the same room as Lancelot. They had been playing war and had fallen asleep very soon.
Except for Lancelot, there were only adults in the room.
Belinda gave her father a warm hug.
“Hello, Father! Midnight festivities and nightly bliss?”
Her father nodded, walked over to the mid table and picked up a full tin mug of red wine. “Nothing like a drink after bedtime. None of us could sleep and before you knew it we were a crowd of night owls.” Alex raised his hand and stroked her cheek. “You look tired, pumpkin! What is the matter? Can I help?”
Belinda shrugged. “Nightmares,” she grinned bravely. “We are ships that pass in the night, my nightmares and I. Although this one scares me.”
She sat down. There was a profound silence in the room. Alex took her hand.
Belinda’s mother Sieglinde cocked her head and spoke, her lilt ringing well in everyone’s ear.
“Dreams mean nothing unless they mean something good to you.”
Belinda nodded and smiled insecurely. “Bless you, mom.”
Patrick was sitting with his wife Erica beside Sieglinde.
Spontaneously, Patrick’s estranged wife Erica let Patrick go and went to embrace Belinda.
There was a long hug and a sweet silence before Erica went to sit down again. Belinda blew her a kiss. Alex was quiet for a second, hugging his wife, noticing her sister Eleonora and her husband Marcus slowly drift in behind him, awoken by the noise. Her older sister Patricia came back from standing by the window and sat down next to her father. Belinda, standing in her white night dress with a large brown blanket around her shoulders cuddled up next to her mother. There was an odd atmosphere in the room. It was as if everyone wanted to know what Belinda had dreamed, although no one was brave enough to ask.
Patrick stood up, walked up to bronze cup, poured Belinda some red wine from a large gold pitcher and gave it to her along with some dark raisin and blueberry bread.
Belinda looked up and smiled. “Oh” she whispered, twinkling at her brother. “Thank you.”
She took a bite and munched away on her bread. Morgana could not hold the curiosity inside any longer. It popped out of her like a jack-in-the-box, a comet that suddenly appears in the sky in front of bunch of resting festival visitors. Sieglinde was just whispering something inside her daughter’s ear and Belinda giggled.
”Belinda?” Belinda looked up, a smile still on her face. She nodded. Morgana continued. “I never knew that you had so many bad dreams. I’m sorry.” There was a silence in the room. The entourage of family members knew that her dreams were a sensitive subject. They had caused her trouble before and would certainly do so again. Belinda smiled and drank her wine. She looked down.
“I just have not told anyone about them, that is all” Belinda whispered.
“If you want to tell us, you can.” her large bosomed sister softly whispered. There was a long silence again. “If you don’t want to say anything, that’s fine. I was just curious, that’s all.” Morgana looked down morosely, stood up and walked alone to the window. Everyone followed her with their gazes and someone sighed. “I don’t want you to hate me for caring about you.”
Belinda looked up and there was a look upon her face that was startled, full of love.
Belinda put down her wine and walked over to the window. They began whispering to each other. A few people looked away, but the one person that looked at them, kept looking at them, was their father. He saw Belinda conversing with her sister and he saw them embrace. They leaned against the windowpane, Belinda leaning her head against the window and giggling now and then. Morgana was telling her some story. It was a good sight to see the two of them friends again.
Sieglinde touched Alexander’s shoulder and the king looked over at his wife. “I’m just watching you watch them.” she said lovingly. “It’s like watching you when you saw Belinda for the first time when she first was born.”
Alexander smiled. “Hmm. Really? That’s nice. To me, Belinda will always be my little girl.”
”Come, Darling, into my arms” Sieglinde said and promptly he did. They had not sat there for more than a minute, kissing each other like a couple of young ones in love, when there was a cry from the widow. It was Belinda. She sounded upset. It was a very soft cry, but it was obviously