The Dead Man’s Palace
V
Cecilia’s sleep hadn’t been natural,
once she’d succumbed to its embrace
it tightened around her, crushing
any lingering resistance and
suffocating her in subconscious torment.
Her mind hungered for something she didn’t understand,
feeling the blood in her veins
pulse with need.
She tried to move, but only felt
a twitch of a finger or a flicker of her eyelids.
She gave up, no strength left to resist,
and fell into dreams and memories
too revealing for comfort.
The Queen had died long ago,
Cecilia had never met her.
Her father’s wife had breathed her last,
never experiencing a child growing inside her.
But Cecilia existed as a whispered shame.
A witch had been summoned to cure the queen’s barrenness,
but instead she took the king’s seed inside herself
and Cecilia was the result.
The witch was comfortably settled in a guest room
while a mournful queen lost hope.
Her husband no longer needed her,
resented her useless existence,
but she loved him and wanted him
to think well of her.
So she waited, retreating from society
and staying in her chambers,
causing rumours to spread
that she was fighting a deadly illness.
When the witch’s labour pains began
the queen slit her wrists,
bleeding out her life.
The goodbye note she left her husband implored him:
Tell the world I died giving you an heir,
make the child legitimate using my name,
and be happy, my love,
in the way I failed to make you.
Sense rather than loyalty made the king obey.
The witch was paid well to revoke
any claim on her daughter, and left peacefully.
Cecilia was raised knowing nothing,
believing her blood was pure,
her future secure.
Any unusual signs around her she
dismissed as normal for her status.
Her nanny let her play whatever she wanted,
her tutor only taught her topics
she expressed interest in.
Servants were attentive to her every whim,
and women of her status clambered
around for the chance to please her,
no matter what she asked.
For her eighteenth birthday she demanded
every household carve a wooden gift in celebration.
The quality had varied, but it had been done,
without protest, and no one had
even questioned her decision to have it all
stacked together and set alight.
The bonfire had been mesmerising.
But the fire drew the witch to her offspring,
hearing more rumours of strange events,
like how the princess had commanded a guest’s daughter
to strip naked during a ball,
ruining her reputation forever,
all because her dress had been similar to Cecilia’s.
She disguised herself as an old woman
and called up to Cecilia on a balcony,
asking for money,
Cecilia ordered the maid’s around her
to throw down their life savings,
and only grew annoyed when the witch
asked for Cecilia’s own money to be given.
So she cursed her own daughter
to prevent a future calamity occurring.
Cecilia had demanded she guide her to the dead man,
and it was during that journey
she learned of her real legacy.
Her mother had left her at the palace’s door,
no hesitation or concern,
and as the year of solitude passed
Cecilia began to understand.
The dead man drained her life,
he drained her natural magic.
Her mother wanted her to become ordinary,
and then shackled to a corpse.
She vowed she would win,
she would overcome the curse and
bend this man to her will.
She would make her mother pay
and all would love and obey her,
as they should.
Her exhausted body craved power,
a power she felt the corpse possessed,
and once she woke up, she would take it,
never letting someone manipulate her again.
But when Cecilia finally woke up
everything had changed.
Scribbled Thoughts 