Escaping Hiraeth

Prologue

After the darkness murmurs the secret

And the shadows rise in wild sway,

Its doomed dark laughter says the unsaid

And the death’s flourishing in the wildest way.

Red mask of demise kidnaps the lover

The forbidding blackness is calling from within!

***

There, right before my very own body it stood - enormous and vain, magnificent and grotesque, menacing (yet strangely lovable), startling, macabre and extraordinarily beautiful. Dark and mysterious the castle was, built with greenish bricks and stones, in which moss had flourished because of unimaginable old age. Pitch black towers with gothic spires and columns sent bittersweet shivers all the way down my spine.

The gloomy tops of the steeples were tantalizing, yet absolutely picturesque and surrounded by the silvery-grey light of the queen of the night. The moon shone down on them, like a melancholic goddess, like a silver, icy sphere in the dark, magical sky. It seemed like a consciousness existing around us all from the dawn of time, keeping its glass eye on our dull everyday lives…

Yet everything seemed much more enchanting now, right at this moment, at the pinnacle of the mystery’s flourish, achieving the deepest fears of the human soul; fear of the unknown. Centuries ago, when I was still breathing fresh air, I believed that mysteries were those unchangeable things that gave meaning to life, the reason to observe, explore, live ! Passion for mysteries was the sweet spice of usuality.

It was Halloween. The day I had been looking forward to for the past 364 days. The day for which I have been impatiently waiting. It was the night when the gone came back. It was our one and only chance of the entire year.

After I had beheld the unimaginable outer world surroundings, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had been waiting all year for this, and this cycle had been going on for centuries. What would a few more seconds mean?

I could not wait anymore! I was burning with my very own tale as old as time…

And I almost flew as I made my way over the bitter cold, ancient stone staircase, toward the large oak door of the castle, located on the boundary between the living and the dead. As I stood there, it slowly creaked open. I felt every inch of my body shaking; trembling with even more suspense from the moment I entered the hall…

I found myself absorbed in the deepest and darkest of mysteries that I thought could ever exist. Almost every year, I ended up fitting in quite well – I wore a mid-century dress, much like that of a baroness: deadly red with pitch black ornaments on it. No matter on how many Halloween it would come, the sight never failed to amaze me. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever witnessed - dozens of phantom figures danced, swayed, spinned and strolled their way through the castle halls gracefully and stunningly. Their silhouettes were almost transparent, and they seemed very much like… memories – amazing, painfully familiar, yet coldly distant, hard to catch, beyond one’s grasp, like a quick thought crossing the mind. Their feet were barely touching the red wood floor – They were shadows, the reflections of one’s life on the earth.

So was I.

They all were wearing mysterious Venetian masks, picturesque jewelry, and colorful gowns with the valuable ribbons and bows swaying elegantly in the air. The whole scene, was warmed by the huge crackling fireplace in the center of the wall, in which the reddish flames were floating upwards, and quickly disappearing into the dimly lit, almost dark corners of the ceiling.

The hall was unbelievably large, with glorious ornaments, arabesques, drawings and paintings of prancing nymphs, pans and cupids with blonde curls and deadly red lips on the walls and ceiling. The hall was lit with hundreds of candles placed inside golden chandeliers which were attached by silvery ropes hanging down from the ceiling…

Suddenly, one ghost inside the castle’s dancing crowd, parted from the glorious figures, slowly approaching me, with a silver mask on a face of mystery, wearing a dark green suit from period times – as emerald green as fir-trees under winter’s white blankets – with a slight smile curling on the edges of his lips. Slightly bowing, he drew his right, veiny arm towards me.

“You have come. May I ask you to the dance floor, my love?”

He grabbed my hand, and we both started to dance the Halloween waltz as a shadowy organist played the “Danse Macabre”. Our favorite tune.

And it was then that I realized that even after so many centuries, I would never get used to it. His deep voice, his lovely smile, his soft touch when he asked to dance.

“I was about to think you would never ask”, I laughed.

“You also said that when we first met, remember? I have lost the count of years… when was it?”

“When the earth was still young and the darkness had not yet kidnapped the daughter of light…”

“Quite true that is, I must say. I have almost forgotten what it was like to breathe fresh air and sense the sweet whisper wind’s chill against my skin- your cheeks flushing from the warmth of late October’s sunsets when the sun gilded its golden way behind the surrounding hills…”

“Shakespeare told me you were much more eloquent than me, darling. By the way, where is he?”

“Right there, swaying slightly at the fireplace, dazed in thoughts, as if he will forever be able to deliver his thoughts to the living again.”

“He will. At least - let him have hope. If the Halloween works wonders, gathering as all on the boundary of the day and night…”

“Then we might have another variation of the tale as old as time, you say?”

We both laughed with slight irony in our tones.

***

There was another source of light inside the ballroom. From the gothic window of the magical castle one could behold the Halloween moon, obscure and grey, shining down on the gathering of phantoms – that one, bittersweet time of year when one could escape the hardships of hiraeth* and it was possible for the tale as old as time to flourish again.

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Hiraeth* - Welsh concept of missing something dear to one’s heart: e.g. longing for home.