Gothicana

CHAPTER 6

Corvina

The aftermath of learning that little legend had been a thoughtful silence. Ethan had insisted that it was just a story, a piece of oral history that had been passed down student to student, a legend to explain the mysterious disappearances of people. Jade had agreed, even as she’d swallowed and fidgeted, her body unable to comply with her words.

They had gone for di

She’d never been afraid of ghosts, never really encountered any. Her mama had told her they were real, that they were good and bad, helpful and harmful, and that she needed to be aware of that if she ever encountered one. Corvina never had, and she didn’t even know if she believed her mother about it. All she’d had were the voices, and those whispers in the dark didn’t scare her; they were familiar. At least, they had been.

But something about this story unsettled her. Maybe it was the voice she’d heard in broad daylight in the woods, or the constant flickering of light in the corner of the room wherever she was. Something about this legend u

Hours later, she did her prayers and turned off the light, still unsettled. Jade had gone with Troy after di

The tower began to settle in for the night with some groans and creaks. A cloud of bats flew outside her window on their way somewhere, nocturnal and creepy. Shadows weaved around the room from the little light outside. 

Something made the hair at the nape of her neck prickle. Suddenly alert, she lay on the bed silently, keeping her body still as her mind tried to understand what was going on.

A flicker.

She watched quietly as in the corner of her room, the one where she’d lit the incense, the smoke flickered softly, once, twice, before the shadows and smoke began to sway together.

Phantom ants crawled over her exposed arms.

Clutching her blanket to her chest, she watched as the smoke took a shape and drifted away towards the door. She closed her eyes, shaking her head.

No, it was an illusion of light, or perhaps even her mind playing tricks on her.

‘Find me.’

The soft, feminine voice echoed in her head, followed by that ugly coating on her tongue and that rotten smell. Heart pounding hard in her ears, Corvina opened her eyes.

The corner was as it had been, undisturbed, lit by the moon. The ants had fled her skin. The coating had washed off her tongue. The scent had gone as quickly as it had come.

Who the hell was this voice?

**

Corvina left her bed as the first light of dawn filtered in through her windows. Sleep had eluded her the entire night, her mind warping around questions and theories of everything odd that had been happening in the few weeks she’d been there. She’d tossed and turned the whole night, unable to relax her brain long enough to grab a few minutes of sleep.

She needed air. 

Taking a quick shower and do

Hooking on the pendant she’d made herself, a silver star on a long chain that nestled between her breasts, along with her ribbon choker, she put on the white feather danglers in her ears, and felt ready. 

Grabbing the biscuits she’d taken during di

Descending the castle stairs, she escaped into the fresh, dewy morning air. The dark woods beckoned, the chill biting her skin. She hadn’t gone into those woods in over a week, both because of the voice and because last time she’d been spotted coming out with the silver-eyed devil. But she needed to go into those woods. She didn’t know why, couldn’t explain the reasoning behind it for the life of her, especially knowing she shouldn’t go there.

She had to.

Starting down the incline, feeling the wind blow over her wet hair, she headed towards the left of where she’d entered the woods last time, not wanting to end up at the lake again.

The foliage thickened around her as the castle disappeared from the view at her back. The air felt heavier, somehow more sinister with the knowledge of everything legends said had happened in the woods decades ago. There was a natural order to the world, a system that could not be inverted. Taking a life was u

She walked on, seeing the thick, roughened barks of tall trees, lush with dense growth, webbing through the overhead sky like splinters, cracks in a glass barely holding together jagged edges, ready to bleed anything it touched.

She didn’t know if she was overly sensitive or had an overactive imagination or both, but after learning of the legend, she could feel something different in the air around her skin. It was entirely possible that she was imagining it. She didn’t know. Her own mind was unreliable. 

Minutes later, the woods cleared, making a natural path towards what looked like some old ruins. Corvina made her way towards it. A lone, broken wall of stones crumbled to the soil, roots winding themselves around it, binding it to the bosom of the earth.

Corvina walked slowly to the remnants of the once-tall wall, taking in the open area. It was squared off by two stone walls, one with a tall arching window still intact. The other two walls were completely missing. Instead of the third wall, what looked like a broken gargoyle tipped over the far left, a dried, crusted fountain with something resembling lion heads screaming up at the sky beside it.

A tree stood right beside the gargoyle, a tree unlike any she’d ever seen before. In the middle of a thicket, it was the only tree without leaves, its branches naked and weathered and browned, webbing out into the sky in a scary, twisted shape. But that wasn’t what made Corvina pause. It was the eye carved into the trunk of the tree, one single eye so realistic it looked like the tree was watching her, the eye moving as she moved. It gave her the creeps.

Turning around, she came to a stop at the rows of crude, unmarked stones on her far right.

Graves.

A shudder finally stole over her.

The cawing of a crow broke her out of her trance. She watched a crow – not the one who’d been with her by the lake, this one was larger – perch himself on one of the stones.

Shaking herself, she smiled at the crow. “Hello,” she spoke softly, crumbling one of the biscuits in her hand and trailing it on the wall. “Aren’t you fearsome? I met your friend the other day by the lake. Surprisingly, I don’t see you guys on campus at all. Why don’t you come to the university area? Is it because of other people? Or do you have a nest in the woods and like to stay close?”