Hollow Queen

The night sky was something that I was familiar with despite the protests that my body made every single night. It always began this way. With a whisper, a voice light and taunting, luring me out of bed and into the forest that loomed beside my home.

It began the night after my tenth birthday. I was fast asleep, swimming in a sea of ​​blankets that prevented the cold December air from getting in. It had started with a buzzing, almost like the static that came on before someone turned on the speakers in the town. I was sure I was just dreaming and rolled over, snuggling deeper in my sheets. But soon the buzzing became a humming, a hollow song that sent a chill down my spine rousing me from my sleep.

Tentatively, I opened my eyes, but nothing was amiss. The candle that my mother left on was still burning bright, illuminating the space around me. I hadn’t had a chance to clean up after the small family gathering we had so there were still remnants of wrapping paper scattered around the floor. I sighed, mentally scolding myself for believing that there could ever be someone in my room, much less someone humming. But even then, it didn’t stop the small shiver that crept up my spine.

I was just about to go back to bed when I saw it. From the corner of my eye, I saw a small amount of movement, it looked like some sort of cape, velvet, and black. The movement seemed to wake something in me, and soon I found myself closing my eyes.

My mother had told me stories growing up, about the brujas that used to live up in the mountains. How they would steal children from the village in the middle of the night, luring them into the forest to never be seen again. Every story was different. They had been said as cautionary tells, something to get me to behave when I was throwing a tantrum, but a small part of me knew that there was some truth to the stories she told. She never knew it, but I saw the way her eyes shone with fear and wonder, her hand traveling to the base of her throat where her rosary lay.

It took me a moment to realize that not only was there someone, some thing , in my room but that it was singing a soft melody. It took me a single moment to realize what the song was, and the more I paid attention, the louder the voice grew. Soon the faint murmurs turned into an eerily honey-toned chant.

“Luna lunera. Tell him I don’t live from suffering so much. Tell him that next to me he must return” it sang over and over. It was as if the words were wrapping around me, suffocating me with this sense of dread I just couldn’t get rid of.

I had tried with all my might to resist the words as they encircled me, coming closer and closer to where I was sitting in bed. I had shut my eyes with a force so great that it left me seeing white.

You’re okay ... It’s not real. It’s a dream I would repeat it to myself as I placed my hands over my ears. This was the mantra that I chanted as I tried to shut the voice out.

“Niña de la noche.” It would say. “Night child, get up.”

I shook my head then. My body was shaking from fear. Don’t listen. Don’t listen to it. My thoughts screamed at me. Maybe if I ignored it long enough it would eventually leave me be, maybe then I could run to the safety of my mother's room. Where I could hide under the covers, pressing myself closer to the safety that was my mother.

But it looked like luck, or wishful thinking was not on my side. Because the more I tried to ignore the voice, the louder it grew. It was almost as if my defiance fed whatever it was that was by my side.

The song grew louder and faster. It was almost deafening. And it wasn’t until the song reached its peak that it all stopped.

I was still clutching my head when I felt it. The quiet was eerie enough not to notice. I was so relieved that the voice had stopped. I was still afraid, but slowly, and a bit reluctantly, I let my hands fall from my ears, and slowly brought them up to rest over my face. This was the only way that I would open my eyes, with my hand covered over my face, shielding me from whatever it was that lay just beyond the barrier of skin and bones.

I peeked out from under my hands and let my breath trail out of me in a rush of gratitude and happiness, because before me stood my bedroom. It was the same as it was before I had fallen asleep. The full moon was high enough in the sky to illuminate my room. The pile of books on my bedside table, bringing me comfort as I let myself fall back into bed. I was just starting to drift back to sleep when the energy began to shift in my room.

What was once a warm and welcoming room turned cold. I clenched my fists at my sides. I refused to open my eyes, even as the temperature began to drop. I began to shiver, and even with my eyes closed, I could feel my breath coming out in puffs.

“Night child, open your eyes. See what you have created” It was the voice again, but this time the taunting gave way to something nicer, smoother. Something that sounded a lot like love.

It was the fondness in the way the voice called out to me that had me open my eyes, albeit reluctantly. But it was the moment that my eyes focused on the shadows at the foot of my bed that suddenly made me wish I had kept my eyes shut.

The shadows before me began to shift and move, modeling themselves into these things. Things that I had no idea could even exist. There were three of them, all pitch black and alarmingly big. At first, they seemed to resemble bear cubs, before I noticed their lanky and weary form. They were some sort of dog a mix between domestic and wild, but they looked much harsher. Something that formed in the deepest darkest parts of someone, in the worst parts of me.

But even then, there was something about them that made me want to reach out to them. The one on the far right had these alarmingly blue eyes. They reminded me of the ocean or the river bank that was just a few miles away from where my family lived. He seemed to be the smallest of the three. Then there was the one on the outer left corner. His eyes were as red as coals. They shun with an intensity that reminded me of my mother, fierce and unwavering. It stood up tall, its head held high as if it knew that no one would dare come near it, that it was better than whatever was around it, he reminded me of a king.

But the one in the middle was the one that caught my attention. His head was bent as he sniffed at one of the wrappings left on the floor. It let out a small huff as it moved it aside, it was almost as if it was disgusted by it, by the mess around it. These things acted like humans, but nothing could really prepare me for the moment when it raised its head. He was looking around my room, taking in the surroundings. But even then I could see the gray of this creature's eyes, it was like watching a storm take place inside of the small confines of my room. They were all beautiful. Beautiful in the sense that they were dangerous, meant to be watched from afar in the wilderness.

It wasn’t until they heard a gasp escaped my lips that they noticed I was sitting before them. Their lips pulled back to reveal their strikingly white canines. A low rumbling began to grow as it transferred from the creature with the red eyes to the next until all three were growling along together, the sound like thunder before a storm.

They took a step forward, ready to pounce. It was the middle creature, the one with the alarmingly gray eyes that stood and stared. Its eyes never left mine, not even as I saw it tilted its head, almost as if it was asking me a question. One that I couldn’t decipher.

It only took a moment, but it was all it took for them to jump at me, their jaws open wide, ready to dig into me. I held up my hands, trying to cover as much of me as I possibly could, a scream ripping its way out of my throat. I braced myself for the pain, for the moment when those creatures would tear me apart, but it never came.

Instead what I found were the tendrils of black smoke, a small silver chain sitting at the base of my feet. Attached to it was a pendant with an oval shaped onyx stuck in the middle. The carvings around the stone wisped around it like the smoke that had begun to seep back to the stone itself. It was beautiful, breathtakingly so, but I knew its origins and that unsettled me more than the monsters that had somehow manifested themselves around me.

I was still looking at the necklace as my mother ran into the room, her breath was labored. She took one look at me before wrapping me in her arms. “Anastasia, my love. Are you all right?”

I couldn’t move, so instead, I let her hold me, stroking my hair, as she sang the lullaby that always put me asleep when I was little. The exact same one that had haunted me tonight. I didn’t dare move, frightened by what had happened only moments before. So I just sat there, wrapped in my mother’s arms, as I clutched the pendant in my hand so tightly that the cold stone bit into my palm, reminding me that I was alive. That whatever had happened in the safety of my room was no nightmare, that I had somehow created those monsters. That they were somehow an extension of me, and somehow that frightened me more than the voice that was still ringing in my ears.

“Night child” it sang. “You belong to us.”