The Beholder

Everything was ready for the ritual.

The sacrifice was to be held precisely at 12:01am. Duchess said we were to silently pray during the first heavenly minute of the new year so as to show gratitude to Our Savior before asking for more. “We are to be humbled by our allowance to live and breathe His life,” she said, “and once absolved we may beg Him for another year’s blessing.” I think she said that. In reality, she told the Countess and the Countess told the Baroness, who then told the Dames who told the Ladies who told me. But I imagine that is exactly what she said, and I imagine she said it with a voice as rich as velvet; Velvet as smooth as her hair which glistens like a sheet of fire-hot slate. I’ve never seen her face; only a quick red glimpse from behind between black-robed shoulders as the others escorted her to the Waiting Place.

The Ladies adore Duchess. They chitter fondly as I lay their plates for Feast. “Duchess is so beautiful,” one girl with a meek voice sighed wistfully. Another chimed, “She’s so tall and slender.” A chorus of ornate jewelry clinked as heads nodded in admiration. The last meal of the lunar year, Feast held a royal sense of formality. Evening gowns, jewelry ordained with precious gems, aged wine, gourmet dishes, and a timely start at one hour before the sacrifice is the revered tradition. “And so strong!” The mumbles of agreement swelled.

“So strong.” A single voice cooed when I reached to light the candle in the centerpiece, the grace of her register and her palm on my arm both soothing and startling me. My widened eyes found hers of amber, and the chatter halted. Still cradling my arm, she gently strokes a vein with a maroon coffin-shaped thumbnail. “Isn’t he?”

Another tender palm, another dulcet voice. “Oh yes, so strong!” I never thought such warmth could freeze me. Ladies do not speak to the Help, a rule especially punishable when broken the other way around. I look cautiously to the Ladies seated across from me. Eye contact, a less punishable but equally discouraged offense, excites them; these stunningly gorgeous women I’ve never allowed myself the pleasure to look upon light up at the mere suggestion of my compliance. I turn to face the Lady with the burning amber eyes, mouth parted to speak something, anything, and she tilts her head encouragingly. Her sleek, merlot hair gathered extravagantly at the nape of her neck reflects a flicker of the candle flame.

“Go ahead, love.” She just barely lingers on the vvv in love, offering the vibration to me as a hook in a pond and I bite, emerging immediately and almost subconsciously with a thank you that she could not have heard had she not been listening. But she was, intently, as was the rest of the table who giggle peals of joy at my concession.

The Baroness hits the gong; the reverb of eleven deep, murmuring strikes signaling a prompt beginning of the Feast and straightening my spine to a more rigid attention than usual. I pull my focus from the amber-eyed Lady to the Baroness. Her gaze scans over the High Order table hosting her own empty chair as well as that of the Countess, sweeps then over the Dames and extends to the sea of Ladies. I feel as though her eyes caught on mine the way a fingernail catches on a loose thread of a sweater; swiftly hooked, swiftly removed in one fluid motion. My eyes dart reflexively to the Lady, my Lady, but I cannot see her. The Baroness inhales; a collective gasp of a hundred drawing breaths fills the room as she does so. A twelve-second pause stands, one for each month, pregnant with wishes and prayers and hopes for the new year, until simultaneously freed through blood-red lips.

“Amen.” The Baroness returns to her heavily adorned chair, her hips barely rooting into the cushion before a despondent scream erupts from the Waiting Place.

Duchess?

Heads turn quizzically, forks suspending first bites of succulent food, highly decorated hair flicking every which way while confusion blooms into fear as it is so oft to do. I step to the side when I feel the sharp breeze of the Countess whirl past me, her outreached hand honing in on the gold-plated door handle. Indiscernible whispers twinkle throughout the dining hall once she disappears behind the aged mahogany; some nervous, some curious, some eager.

"You."

She reappears as quickly as she had gone, shaking with fury, her arm still outstretched but this time targeting my own, gripping it with a force so intense I began to question the judgment of the Ladies who admired it mere minutes ago.

The Countess pulls me through the door, claws her fingers over my shoulders and whips me in front of her like a shield in tandem with the slamming of the door. Duchess is knelt rigidly before the sacrificial alter, tension apparent through the milky pale skin of her arms propping herself above the floor, her deep red-carpet hair rolling neatly down her back and onto the stone beneath her.

“The sacrifice is gone,” the Countess growls into my ear, and I find myself thinking fondly of the amber-eyed Lady. “Find it.”

She glided around me and swooped her robed arm around Duchess’s shoulders, aided her to her feet and led her out of the room, once again hardly allowing me a glimpse of ruby between midnight fabric. I stand alone on the clammy stone. Echoes of the heavy wooden door chase around the circular room before dying into an even louder silence. Ancient brass candelabras loom over me, their flames lapping at the dark air. I rotate on my feet, slowly, scanning the curved wall for any opportunity for escape. My eyes pass nothing but the door I had been so rigorously pulled through. Struck with an idea, I run my hand over the icy stones embedded in the wall. Perhaps, as in the books I read in younger years, one of these stones hides a secret passage.

Inspecting each rock, crawling low along the floor and reaching high above me, I hear a celebratory cheer burst from the hall, distorted by inches of old wood and stone. Filled with a newfound sense of urgency, I honor an instinct to look above me and there, dangling above the altar, a rope with an indistinguishable glisten at the end. I hoist myself onto the altar and find my footing, my ears unable to ignore the muffled chanting emanating from the other room like a growing heartbeat. My fingers find their grip around the gleaming object.

A cross. Flickering orange and red as it accepts the light from the candelabras. My choices now fueled by desperation, I grab ahold of the cross and I do not think. I pull. My efforts are met with resistance but there is movement detected; something succumbs to my supposedly strong arms, so I pull harder and harder and my knees take me lower and lower until I am nearly flat on my back, my breath labored and my arms shaking.

All at once, with a resounding whoosh, the stale air of the altar room clears and is replaced by a wafting of gourmet dishes and the chanting rings clearer and I feel eyes on me, hundreds of eyes, two of them amber.

The door is wide open. My stomach drops and the rope goes with it, the mahogany doors slowly creaking shut until a delicate palm sporting maroon coffin-shaped nails rests firmly against the wood. Voices speak in unison, rhythmically, reminiscent of chanting, finishing what sounded like the final sentiment of a prayer.

“… AND THANK HIM / IN HIS GRACE / FOR SENDING A STRONG ARM / TO GUIDE US TO SALVATION.”

A gong rings out and a tall, slender figure adorned in the richest of reds begins to walk ceremoniously toward me, long merlot hair fluttering loosely behind her with every step. Her fingernail, attached to the hand not holding the door, strokes the blade of a twisted dagger strangely seductively. Behind her red robed shoulder, I catch the sickly pale faces of the other Help, weak hands barely holding dessert trays steady.

At the twelfth gong, my body freezes into the stone of the altar. I am too weak with incredulous fear to rise. The jagged blade approaches my throat but my gaze is fixated on the intoxicatingly amber eyes of the beholder and, in the silence that fills the next 60 seconds, I feel warm.