The first moon: The moon of betrayal
And the snow fell. The moon was a blade of silver on the night sky, just a small curved line drawn on the black, which now lit all that blood. Now, that all the fires had been put out and the stars were nowhere to be seen as if they had hid not to see the stage, and only the moon stood in her place, newborn as well, shining on the snow, reflecting on the blood, as if the whole world was made of silver and crimson.
There was also black though.
She walked across the street of the small village, with an insane smile carved across her alabaster face, without showing any signs of feeling the cold, even though her black dress was the only thing she wore. The curves of her young body were drawn beneath it and she finally felt without any guilt that she was desirable, very very desirable. Blood dripped from her fingernails and her lips but that didn’t matter much. The whole village was drenched in blood, the walls of the houses were painted red and the ground was covered in red mud. But new snow was falling.
And Antelia was laughing. She was laughing because she was right, in the end she had been proven right even though none had believed her. There was an angel , an angel of her own and he had come for her. She stopped and looked at the night sky. The snowflakes were falling, thousands of small white kisses of a black cloud to the red body of snow beneath her. She swirled along with them, laughing like a little girl…and why not? She asked herself. She was barely older than a girl, a young woman, almost a teenager, with the tenderness of her age stolen, now cruel and cold like marble, beautiful and threatening like the clouded skies, above.
Things were not always like this. Sixteen winters ago Antelia was the newborn sixth daughter, the last child one of the lords of this mountainous region whose main occupation was war. Antelia didn’t remember much of her father. She had never really come to know him. She remembered him more like a picture, a picture of a man who left her mother’s bed just before dawn broke, and rode, as she and her siblings, watched him , to the troops waiting to lead them to battle. And simply, one day he didn’t return. Neither he, nor her brothers. Maybe that was why her mother wandered lost, like a mad woman murmuring prayers like all that country in which while the men fought amongst them had been surrendered to the wolves of the cloth. Those, who did not have to fight, those who were free to sell false hope to the people, those who had fallen to the depths of depravity and now laughed, on those who softly sent off to the other world. However, concerning Antelia, loss, was no excuse. No excuse for her treasonous mother who had delivered her to their arms without even looking back once. No excuse no hesitation, no remorse.
Given the mental state of her mother the girl had grown in a deeply religious environment. She could remember the statues and images in the temples, those perfect, wonderful forms with the ideal bodies and unearthly features, filled with peace and beauty and above everything, the shapes of angels.
Those who were pictured perfect, to yield flaming greatswords with great eagle-like wings spread to crush the evil that always fell before them, defeated in the form of a slain dragon or demon. Those were the male angels. She also remembered the female ones, which seemed to her creatures dreamed of. They looked like women but their great wings were always folded over a suffering body, and the wounded warrior was the most common motif. They were there to heal to comfort and relieve of wounds and weariness. This was the society into which Antelia grew. Men fought, and women prayed and tended to the wounded. The only ones with a long-term profit were the priests. That was the world that she loved as a child: away from cruel and cold reality, the heavenly world of angels and celestial creatures. She was just a little girl who loved the angels. A child who had been taught that earthly passions were a sin, and she had to hide and detest her own body. A child who adored the angel, those passionless forms, so perfect and beautiful, so fake, and yet to her…so desirable.
Years passed and the grew to a young woman. She didn’t have the female angels’ wonderful blonde hair although she dreamed of being like them as she was growing up, hers was black like the night above the world when the clouds hide the moon and the stars, like her eyes two lakes for enchanting sirens to bathe in. Antelia didn’t look like an angel but she was beautiful, very beautiful, and she had started to notice it herself on the looks of others, on the looks of boys that lingered a little longer upon the curves of her body.
She started too, to harbor such thoughts, and hated herself for them-for this corruption as she called it. She was certain that angels, entertained no such thoughts.
And the days passed. More than once she had been seen in the temple of light, by the village’s curious eyes, to sit on the feet of some angel’s statue and daydream, daydream nonstop as curious whispers that she didn’t hear spread.
Snow fell outside the castle, and covered the world below. No fires were visible, from her window. But in her room, as the last pieces of coal burned low Antelia fell another fire building low in her belly. The dream was so vivid, that she could still feel it. She could still feel the male angel’s strong hands caressing her, while she herself caressed the wonderful female angel’s curves herself, and tasted truly heavenly pleasures.
Those cold, small hours, the only thing that sound be heard above the world was the snow falling on the rooftops, on the streets and over the far forest. Even perhaps the song of the wolves, making peasants and lords wrap themselves tighter to their blankets when everything fell silent. Yet, one of those nights, that she jumped up from sleep hot and wet after a dream wilder than the others, it seemed to her that the moaning of the dream had come to life. Still, those were not the voices of the angels that had joined her in heavenly torture.
As she soon found out these wear human moans coming from her mother, and a man, a lean, old man, as she saw from the door’s opening. The last thing she saw was the hieratic uniform thrown casually on the floor, the last thing before she fell asleep again the moonlight.
Slowly, the snow stopped and the moon bathed the world under its cold light. Antelia thought with a smile that the angels should fly on moon beams. Then her eyelids grew too heavy for her, and she lost herself on wet dreams till the first light of dawn.
With the image of her mother being mounted by the priest she wandered in the village the next day. Having now realized the hypocrisy of teachers and teachings she looked at the world with different eyes. There she found what she had been looking for. She had seen him before, looking at her like enchanted as she passed by, but she had always avoided his stare. He was a handsome boy about her age, (sixteen or so) perhaps a little younger he, and already he had begun to look like a man. He spent the summers working in the fields and the winter he used to help with whatever he was needed, mostly cutting wood to support his family. He was much inferior to her of course, and she was the daughter of a lord, that was what she had been taught. Well…she thought with an ironic smile, she had been taught a lot of things. She gave him a smile full of promise and his heart fluttered, but it almost stopped entirely when she went to him.
She had taken him by noon. In the end it was nothing special. Nothing like what it would had been with an angel, which of course he wasn’t. And of course the news for the two of them in the old barn spread quickly. The news became rumours, the rumous were discussed extensively and through the filthy mouths of priests and old wives those became terrible whispering campaigns of a witch who would seduce the virtuous young men of the village, a heretic which would lead them to hell. None spoke openly of course, but everyone knew it was about her. Everyone, including her. She didn’t care of course. They were stupid, inferior, a bunch of scared animals, peasants only worth of how much they could produce for the lords. For the lady, she silently reminded herself. She was now, the only heir to her family’s fortune, land and castle. Still, things were not going to be so simple.
Months passed. Her young lover was taken away, at the order of his family and the church to serve in some fortress of the clergy. Little she cared. During the day she luxuriated in old forbidden tomes of her family, while her nights, she reserved for the angels that visited her in her dreams.
Unfortunately this time of bliss was about to come to an end. In the absence of a Lord to rule the province, the priests easily manipulated the population through the power of fear. And at Antelia’s territory, one of the worst had come. A rabid dog, who howled as if he had been kicked, spitting as he spoke, watering his greasy beard, and stunk of filth and sweat beneath his woolen coats. He started to preach every day against her, and against her mother, managing to slowly turn the villagers against the witch as they called her.
And when the raging mob reached the castle gates, the only thing her mother could think was to slap her hard across the face for the mess she had brought her in.
“Look what you have done!” she screamed “We are going to lose everything!”
Antelia watched as her mother started to run half-crazed through the old castle’s hallway. “You will repent!” her mother finally told her, as if she had found the solution. “You will beg the church for forgiveness, and everything will be alright…you will be imprisoned for a while in a monastery somewhere of course but…”
She turned furious at her mother at that but she didn’t have time to say much. Something hit her in the back of her neck and she blacked out. She could not remember much of what happened later. The mob took her and delivered her to the priests. Then the people left the castle since they had taken what they wanted. Everyone was happy. The castle had been saved, and her mother was unharmed. She remembered waking up in a dark room she couldn’t recognize, and the moonlight crept through the window. She remembered seeing religious books next to her. She tried to open the door but it was locked. She heard laughter of women and a man’s voice. In a while she heard keys turn and a woman opened the door.
“Awake at last?” she asked with scorn “There are books of the faith over there.” She said pointing at the books next to her bed, so different from the one in the castle. The woman added something else but Antelia didn’t listen. She was now fully aware of her situation. She had been trapped so easily. She would never leave this place, and her idiotic mother would leave Her fortune to the church, content to leave her daughter to the care of the church. Her lover would see to that.
She wondered for how long they had been planning that.
“Father Ir will later come to speak with you, if you want to make a confession…” This woke her up. She attacked the door, but she was a moment late and the heavy oaken wood kept her away from the nun. She started pacing up and down the cell like mad. She didn’t even look at the moon shining above, neither she heard the wolves howling away. She only listened to her heart beating a terrified rhythm, like a trapped animal’s. She finally, was overcome by exhaustion and fell asleep without realizing it.
Father Ir, didn’t even have the courtesy of waking her up. She woke up from her hand trying to muffle her, and of course of the terrible bodily odor of his pressing against her. The girl opened her eyes and tried to scream but the only thing she managed was to growl. Not that it mattered much. She was a heretic, a witch and her word would be against that of a priest. His other hand grabbed her breast. She felt shame and rage and scratched him deep across the face. He once more proved his valor, hitting her with the back of his hand.
“Filthy witch!” He screamed at her and she realized that his breath was even worse. “You will regret this you who…” his words were cut abruptly as she spat him on the face. He looked at her with the eyes of a rabid animal but at least Antelia thought, she had shut him up.
“Get up and go to your nuns, you dog!” she screamed at him and for moment it seemed that he would do it, so fierce the girl was. However and since she was only a girl, he managed to hold to his nerve and stayed. He fell on her with all his weight, and tried to hold her hands down with his. Unfortunately for him he was drunk on holy wine, and the kick in the crotch caught him off guard and made him curl like a beaten dog. He tried to grab her again but this time, Antelia was prepared. Her hand went to his face aiming straight for his eye. The eyeball rolled through blood to the cold floor and father Ir screamed. After that she attacked him again like a furious banshee, scratching at his face going for the other eye. It didn’t take long, before she crushed them both beneath her foot. Leaving the blood-soaked blind priest behind, Antelia started to leave when she remembered the insult that she had suffered.
She, whom normal folk didn’t dare to cross eyes with had almost been used by a filthy drunk. She wouldn’t have this. She started strangling him and at the same time digging through the fat of his neck with her nails. She welcomed the feeling as she stabbed him. Finally it became apparent she wouldn’t have to strangle him. She pulled her out, and father Ir tried to scream but couldn’t do much. After a while he stopped moving entirely.
They found her, a little while later, drenched in his blood, trying in vain to find an exit from that place.
“FOR THE INDISPUTABLE AND PROVEN CRIME OF THE MURDER OF REVERENT FATHER IR…”
The herald was shouting. The mob was shouting. The holy executioner was silent. The whip went up and down relentlessly. Antelia tried not to scream.
“FOR THE SIN OF WITCHCRAFT…”
The whip kept rising and falling.
“…OF CORRUPTION…”
More strikes of the whip.
“…OF DEMON WORSHIPPING”
Now her blood drenched the cold stone prison floor. Every drop could be attributed to a fall of the whip. The herald took his eyes from the gathered mob and turned it to the window of her torture chamber.
“ANTELIA RELIKAI YOU ARE HEREBY SENTENCED TO DEATH, INSIDE YOUR CELL IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE GOOD PEOPLE FROM YOUR EVIL MAGIC”
The whip hit again, and for the first time she broke. She screamed. She no longer could hold her tears. Everyone wanted her dead. She was completely alone. And the whip stopped. They took her broken body and chained her to the wheel they had made. They tied her to the wheel and laughed when she moaned in pain. A feminine young man, a pupil of father Ir, hit her in the face. Behind the gathered representatives of the clergy a window showed outside to the cold, dim day, the snow that slowly started to fall, slowly at first, but soon became a storm. They put her on the wheel, with growls and curses, but she didn’t speak a word. Her whole body was in pain, her whole existence suffered and she just wished that It would be over soon. She started crying, a suffering sixteen year old girl, and they started to talk of tears of redemption, and discussed if her soul could finally be saved. She didn’t even have the strength to spit on them as she had done with the other. Then the wheel started to turn and the pain came. She tried to weep but even sobbing hurt as the wheel was crushing her bones. And in her final moment of sanity, it seemed to her unbelievable. Unbelievable, that everyone had abandoned her, astonishing that no one would help her, incredible that her own mother had done nothing..not even that boy…and no angel…How was it even possible that an angel would let something like that happen?
And that was what hurt her the most, more than the wheel, more than the knowledge of her impending demise, more than the humiliation of torture, and her burning tears.
And for a anguishing moment she was her again, that little girl that loved the angels, that girl that had grown up at the feet of statues, without any friends since everyone was inferior to her, that girl who now was alone, and missed the nights, when they took her on their wings even if that was just a dream. That moment, when her sanity collapsed, was when she found which betrayal hurt her the most, and as she lay dying she found the strength to look in the blizzard outside and scream through bloody lips:
“WHERE ARE YOU? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?”
And for the first time, something, seemed to have heard her.
The blizzard’s song changed. It seemed to all present that through the wrath of the wind they could hear wolves howling…but of course, that was impossible. It was the wind. It had to be the wind.
They would die with that thought.
The figure that rose behind them seemed huge. No features could be distinct but two burning crimson eyes, even though it had the general shape of a man. He entered as mist, and simply materialized behind them without any sound. They felt his presence when the holy symbols they wore melted leaving deep burn marks on their skin. Two were cut in half before they could utter a word, while one’s chest exploded to the indifferent gesture of the creature. Father Ir’s student tried to leave, but in his panic he stumbled. He tried to rise, and as he did, his eyes fell on that storm-spawned nightmare. Antelia did the same unable to believe her eyes.
There he stood, a young man of devine beauty, although his eyes shone crimson, and his long hair were silver-not grey or white but silver like a blade, silver like a moonbeam. He was huge, very much larger than a normal man.
“Back!” Screamed the other “Stay back demon!” The creature crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat. He smiled as he grabbed him , he smiled as he spoke.
“I am no Demon” he whispered in his low, hypnotic voice. He sounded like an angel that would whisper her in her dreams. “I am Endymion.”
He then drunk his blood. He kept drinking, even after he was completely dry, like a century old paper. Then he tossed the body aside, and it was crushed, and shattered like a dry leaf. Then he forgot about him.
He went to her.
He released her from her shackles and took her in his arms. He felt her breathing become faster as he touched her. She was trying to say something.
“Hush” he whispered. “Speak not.” He added in his strange archaic accent. “It will hurt you.”
Now her tears flowed freely. She looked at him through her bruised face and wondered how anyone could be so beautiful. She tried, to raise her broken arm to caress his hair but she couldn’t. Endymion took it and kissed it.
“Are…you…an…angel?”
He leaned towards her and touched her with his lips. Her skin was burning. His was cold as the earth. She didn’t care. She was lost in his eyes.
“Not any angel” he whispered smiling softly. And gently added: “I am your angel.”
It seemed to her the blizzard howled like a wolf.
But that was impossible.
Her mother died a little while later. Antelia held her while the beasts she had called from the mountains ripped her body to pieces. The woman screamed, but hadn’t given an answer to her question yet.
“Why did you betray me mother?” she had asked. She didn’t wait for an answer of course. There was no answer. Antelia screamed the question once again, but simply laughed when she saw her mother was no more in condition to answer any question, justified or not.
The castle was hers by right. She kept on terrorizing the province throughout the coming years. As Endymion had said, she killed a few so she wouldn’t have to travel far to feed.
“where are you going?” she asked. Her wounds had all healed since she drunk his blood. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long! Take me with you!”
Endymion smiled. “The time is not right yet. You will come to me.” He caressed her face and kissed her lips softly. Antelia felt the earth move beneath her feet. “The children of the night will help you.”
“I’ll wait for you, when the time comes. My little girl.”
He turned his back to her, and became one with the storm, and he was gone.
Three years passed. Never before she had seen such a storm. She could hear the wind screaming like a wolf. And she laughed merrily, for the time for her to leave had come. No longer would she need of the cattle.
Midnight come, not a soul was left on the village.
The blizzard had silenced, but it would start over, to cover the red with fresh snow again.
Somewhere near, a small girl who loved the angels, swirled and laughed at the dance of the snowflakes.
She had heard the call. Far away, across white-gowned forests, the first moon, was showing the way.
