Me and my White Rose

I couldn't recall what happened after that. I stopped remembering my own name.

Mrs. Hiera came knocking at my bedroom door every once in a while, but I kept ignoring her for I knew all the servants weren't supposed to be out before sunrise.

I had a huge window in my room where I could see rivers and hills and forests beyond the glass pane. Right above the forest, which looked like wild bushes from afar, the round moon beamed like Wilson's face I saw that night. Hours had passed since that incident, and yet sunrise was still hiding. Was the sunrise also afraid of what might happen if it came out?

Another knock came when I was rolling around the floor like a cat in heat. It had a different tone from the previous ones. This one sounded rougher, a lot more aggressive, with a clear hint of anger. Desperation was also there, although not as clear as the others. It took me a while to realize it had been him—my father.

Still, I ignored his knocks.

He, too, wasn't supposed to be up before sunrise.

That was when I remembered this particular late tale brought by one of our elder maids back in my young days. She told me about the shadow people from the shadow realm. I had a hard time believing her story, and yet, on that damned moment, I began to feel streaks of light coming into my senses. Shadow people from the shadow realm… could it be that they were the ones roaming this castle at night when everyone's in their rooms?

The knocking started again, and it did not stop.

I shot a strong kick at the door. It did not subside. I knocked back. I knocked. I knocked. I knocked. Still, it wouldn't stop.

I shouted, "You took away my mother!" But it did not shout back.

"You took her from me!" I cried, but no one was there to calm me down.

My white rose. I needed her so badly. I missed her gentle hum and soft touch that could tame my raging heart. I felt that urgency kicking in again—that I must immediately reach out to her before I explode like a waterboarded infant.

I burst out of my bedroom. The alley was as dark and empty as it was supposed to be during the night. There were no signs of anyone's lingering presence there. I wept my sweat and made my way to the hall, where my white rose was.

By the time I stepped past the serving men's bedrooms, the air was soaked with a familiar scent, one that reminded me of the butchering room where they hung dead fish and squid. I felt my head turning, but all was too dark for me to see.

The hall was as serene as the beach at night, except there was no wave crashing under the moonlight, only glittering dust. I crouched under the long table, only to find the chamber agape.

The fishy scent came with the aroma of roasted pigs and woods. It was unbearably suffocating, and it only brought me to one conclusion.

It hummed, the chamber, luring me in like the song of a siren. And I, a desperate fisher.

The chamber was a sea of flame. There, my white rose stood. On her dim-lit face, curved a smile that could make the glorious moon jealous. Like the wings of a dove, her arms stretched wide, coaxing me to come to a place I could call home.

Her feet penetrated the ground, and she towered like a perfect monument buried in a mound of dirt.

Ah, yes. Dirt. I recognized that Wilson was among them, and I couldn't be any happier to witness what I did—that his face was half torn and his guts scattered all over. Somewhere around him was Mrs. Kevellyn, with her chest turned inside out, and then Mrs. Hiera, but only her pretty face remained.

They were all a little over-cooked.

I turned to look at my white rose and noticed a burnt head stuck in between her teeth as she lunged onto me with her lips blooming wide.

I smiled. Oh, I just couldn't hold myself from smiling.

Father was no longer in our way, never again.

My heart beamed, and I found that me and my white rose were not in the dark chamber under the long table anymore.

We were in a peaceful cottage house, where the blue sky extended above the puffy white clouds and green hills billowed like ocean waves in the distance.

We were home, at last, me and my white rose… my mother.