The Dark Sister

When I was a boy, the Queen of Nimmerland gave birth to twin daughters.

The day is immortalized in my memory because it was the first and only time that warm, brown bread and sweet white rolls made it into the servants’ quarters. And freshly churned butter, sweet jam, and dried fruit. I can still taste the warm, belly-filling goodness.

I had no understanding of a mother’s desperate need to bear children or a king’s need for heirs to his throne. To me, the sisters spelled a decadent treat, a full belly, and leftovers for days to come.

Then, I forgot all about them.

Until today, the day they celebrate their sixteenth birthdays. In the public eye. With a pompous parade that sees them driven through our city in ornate carriages, drawn by a team of horses.

The Stable Master sent me to town weighed down by a sack filled with tack to drop off at the saddler’s workshop. As I push my way through the thickening crowd, I curse my master. Had he sent me a day earlier, or later, I would not be caught up in the hustle and bustle of what must be thousands of the King’s subjects, jostling for the best position to get a glimpse of the sisters.

Anger is simmering! I never understood the obsession commoners have with royalty. What have they ever done for us?

‘Warm bread and sweet rolls,’ a jester whispers from above my shoulder.

‘Just that once,’ I parry.

‘Hope... they hope for more,’ he retorts. ‘Keeps them going, you know.’

Guess a full belly is worth something to many.

It’s hot and humid with people bumping into me, giving me a too-close encounter of sweaty skin and rancid body odours. I am not squeamish, but I prefer horse manure over unwashed bodies. My peers tease me. Call me ‘Sire’ in high, mocking voices. The only one who doesn’t is Stable Master Kirk. All he does is cast sideway glances when he thinks I don’t notice. Almost as if he feels sorry for me.

I roll my shoulders, trying to shrug off the lingering unease of a fledgling perched on the rim of the nest; seconds from taking the inevitable plunge.

I hoist the bag with tack like a yoke across my shoulders and wend my way through the bustling masses. I only need to cross the main thoroughfare. Less than a hundred yards. I push forward and find myself in an empty space. In front and behind me are walls of people, parting like a coloured sea for a mythical man whose name I cannot remember.

but a burly man drags me across the deserted strip of road.

“They gonna drive ya down, lad,” he says not unkindly and deposits me in the crowd at the front, facing the road.

I have no idea what the stranger is talking about.

The ground vibrates underneath my feet. A low hum at first; a violent shaking seconds later. I turn my head to see a blaze of six white horses drawing a carriage made of glass. Light and airy – like the girl sitting inside, smiling and waving at the spectators. I hold my breath. She is the most exquisite thing I have ever seen. A porcelain doll. Beautiful, yet frail. To be admired – not touched. A deep sorrow descends onto my soul, cloaks everything in darkness, and almost forces me to my knees. So much beauty! So little joy.

The thunder of hooves ebbs away, and I stagger into the road. Heavy drumbeats thumb underneath the thick flagstones that pave the main road. Aftershocks. Caused by the thundering hooves of six white horses dissipating into the distance. I am wrong! The thunderous crescendo is moving toward me. All-consuming. Like a hurricane. I shiver; want to spin around and run. But my gaze stays glued to the bend in the main road. Time comes to a grinding halt. Inconsequential. It ceased to exist. Just like the crowd; the noise. Everything is suspended in the frozen flow of time.

A team of six black horses comes flying around the corner. Glowing embers for eyes; their manes and tails forged of blazing fire. Steam erupting from wide-open nostrils.

I stare. Cannot move. I am seconds away from being trampled. Mauled. My broken bones scattered across the street; bloodied flesh streaking the walls of the whitewashed houses. Houses with windows that seem to see.

The vacuum around me collapses, and I can move again. I fling myself to the side, pressing up against a green door. Flaking paint stings through the rough fabric of my shirt. My body and mind become hyperaware; notice every detail of the royal carriage that carries the second daughter.

‘The dark one!’ I remember hushed conversations in the market.

‘Milkmaids' and old women’s gossip.’ Master Kirk dismissed it, spitting out a glob of phlegm. And because I considered myself a good apprentice, I heeded his advice to ‘Stay away from the twaddling women folk and mind your own business.’

Until today!

Impossible to take my eyes off the black catastrophe that careened past me, leaving me shrouded in the aftermath of an icy wind that passed in its wake.

I blink, trying to reconcile what I just witnessed. The sisters. Each in their individual carriage. One light like the Summer Solstice. One dark like the abyss of Hel.

Try as I might, I cannot remember any details about the light sister. There is a sense of airy beauty and compassion. But it is the dark sister’s face that is stamped into my memories. A sharp profile. Burning eyes. Hair as black as midnight, yet iridescent like a slick of oil on water. Flowing. Moving. Cold. Ice. Freezing everything in her wake. Time itself seemed to stop as she flew past in her royal carriage that resembled a hearse. She has substance; is rooted deep in the earth. Too deep! Terror shoots through my very essence, and sweat breaks out all over my skin. I want to touch her. Connect. Feel her cold seep into me, through me, and into the ground, our blood thawing the earth, allowing life to complete the cycle.

But it’s a daft notion, of course. It is summer. The air is balmy, and a breeze moves through the alleyways, sweeps away the stench of decay and poverty and moves curtains that hung limply only a heartbeat ago.

Winter with its hardship is months away! My spirit lifts. But my mind can’t shrug off the mantle of frost and icicles the dark sister lay across my shoulders.

‘Stupid boy!’ her ghostly voice whisper-mocks. ‘It’s the load of tack you were supposed to drop off at the saddler’s.’

I jerk into motion as the heavy bag slides off my shoulders. I sigh and hoist it up again. A glance at the sun that’s on its descent toward the horizon tells me I am late.

‘Better get a move on, boy!’ Her snide remark, delivered in sweet sing-song grates.

“I am a man,” I huff, which earns me a scowl from a group of matrons . They look at each other and smirk.

The dark sister occupies my mind long after I dropped off the tack.