Saturnalia (SAMPLE)

chapter six: a tour of the cold

The pretense of food always warms the soul to new experiences. The promise of companionship brings down the guard one should never have let up.

Drawn with a curious passion to Kairie Felling's presence, Iyan found that he could not refuse her anything. Whatever she asked of him, be it a simple question or a small favour, he found himself rushing to complete without hesitation. After their small lunch, she requested of him to show her around the "haunted abbey" she had heard about some time before her arrival, presumably from the captain of the ship she had boarded to reach Saint Ivry. Initially, this request filled Iyan with such a swell of dread as he had known only in his dreams and states of confusion, post sleepwalking episodes, but the flutter of her eyelashes, the swirling of her elvish hair, and the tender excitement in her breaths broke him before he could contemplate too many ways to refuse her.

So it was, a few minutes after their lunch was complete (Kairie now in possession of a hand-crafted thermos, filled with a fruity and aromatic tea), that Iyan led her towards the dreaded Kenton Abbey. He wished bitterly that the post office had been open today. It was a rare day indeed that its doors were barred to guests, but if he had known its unavailability would result in him traipsing around the dark halls of the abbey, he would have gladly taken an extra shift to hold the office open.

"Watch your step," he warned, guiding her foot over the threshold of the abbey, once they had made their way inside, "for any number of rodents and the like roam around now."

"I'm not bothered much by critters," came the unfazed response. Bravery is all fine and well, Iyan thought to himself, until you find a rat has taken an unhealthy fancy to the soles of your feet...

Upon walking up to the abbey, the sky appeared to grow darker, and the wind felt keenly as though it had gained in velocity. The sun was but a faint memory, though, Iyan wondered if this wasn't merely some dramatic response to his extreme unwillingness to explore the place of his nightmares. What if, perhaps, the bath of reaching limbs was down here, waiting patiently for his return? How terrible he would feel, then, if Kairie had perished to the supernatural grasp of death in a place he alone had led her to! There was nothing to do, however. She was headfast and seemed unconcerned. Was she somehow aware that what lay within was nothing to fear? Was she better equipped for the mysteries of abandoned old buildings?

Regardless of what Kairie was thinking, Iyan had pushed the front doors open, and now they were descending the steps into the darkness. He at least had the sense to light a candle from the altar in the worship room, though his light trembled as they made their way onward. He revealed and described the various rooms they passed, voice dropping to a whisper the further in they walked.

"The bedrooms, ma'am, unused in some forty-odd years." Pushing past him, Kairie stuck her head into one of these rooms, squinting into the heavily cloaked sleeping arrangements as though suspicious of the choice of sheets.

"From what I've gathered of your excitable beliefs," she said, once the candle had been snatched from Iyan and waved about the curtains, "whoever it was that lived here last... they seemed to have a drab taste in palette!" She giggled in her high voice and turned back to Iyan. "Do you not agree? Should the inhabitants of so important a station not been the very models of rejoicing and excitement?"

The hair on his arms prickling uncomfortably, Iyan could only concede, though not without some explanation.

"The last Lady who lived here," he said, walking up to and running a hand softly over a dust-laden pillow, "she died most suddenly, and it threw the Lord into a terrible state, it's been said."

"I suspect a bit of colour and light would have improved his mood." Forcing himself not to cry out in protest, Iyan fervently reminded himself that the circle of life and the response to it were handled quite differently where Kairie was from, though his heart still clenched in pain as he thought of his uncle, who would likely never smile again, nor be so frivolous to the memory of his wife as to decorate the house.