Page 21 of Gothikana

The corner was as it had been, undisturbed, lit by the moon. The ants had fled her skin. The coating had washed off her tongue. The scent had gone as quickly as it had come.

Who the hell did this voice belong to?

Corvina left herbed as the first light of dawn filtered in through her windows. Sleep had eluded her the entire night, her mind warping around questions and theories of everything odd that had been happening in the few weeks she’d been there. She’d tossed and turned the whole night, unable to relax her brain long enough to grab a few minutes of sleep.

She needed air.

Taking a quick shower and donning one of her thin black sweaters and a long dark maroon skirt that flared when she turned, Corvina lefther wet hair to air-dry. Adjusting her crystal bracelet that her mother had made for her when she was four — with an obsidian, a tiger’s eye, an amethyst, a labradorite, a red garnet, a malachite, a turquoise and a moonstone — she settled it over her pulse, letting the weight and the warmth seep into her. It had always been an anchor for her, something Dr Detta had told her she could train her mind to use to focus and settle in times of stress. Her mother had said it was for protection and for amplifying her elemental sensitivity. She didn’t know about that, but she knew it made her feel better.

Hooking on the pendant she’d made herself, a silver star on a long chain that nestled between her breasts, along with her ribbon choker, she put on the white feather danglers in her ears, and felt ready.

Grabbing the biscuits she’d taken during dinner, she swiped on a deep maroon lipstick that matched her skirt, and picked up her bag, walking out of her room, leaving her slumbering roommate behind.

Descending the castle stairs, she escaped into the fresh, dewy morning air. The dark woods beckoned, the chill biting her skin. She hadn’t gone into those woods in over a week, both because of the voice and because last time she’d been spotted coming out with the silver-eyed devil. But she needed to go into those woods. She didn’t know why, couldn’t explain the reasoning behind it for the life of her, especially knowing she shouldn’t go there.

She had to.

Starting down the incline, feeling the wind blow over her wet hair, she headed toward the left of where she’d entered the woods last time, not wanting to end up at the lake again.

The foliage thickened around her as the castle disappeared from the view at her back. The air felt heavier, somehow more sinister with the knowledge of everything legends said had happened in the woods decades ago. There was a natural order to the world, a system that could not be inverted. Taking a life was unnatural, something against the very basic cycle of life and death. An act of such severity tainted the energy around it.

She walked on, seeing the thick, roughened barks of tall trees, lush with dense growth, webbing through the overhead sky like splinters, cracks in a glass barely holding together jagged edges, ready to bleed anything it touched.

She didn’t know if she was overly sensitive or had an overactive imagination or both, but after learning of the legend, she could feel something different in the air around her skin. It was entirely possible that she was imagining it. She didn’t know. Her own mind was unreliable.

Minutes later, the woods cleared, making a natural path toward what looked like some old ruins. Corvina made her way toward it. A lone, broken wall of stones crumbled to the soil, roots winding themselves around it, binding it to the bosom of the earth.

Corvina walked slowly to the remnants of the once-tall wall, taking in the open area. It was squared off by two otherstone walls on either side, one with a tall arching window still intact. The fourth wall was completely missing. What looked like a broken gargoyle tipped over the far left, a dried, crusted fountain with something resembling lion heads screaming up at the sky beside it.

A tree stood right beside the gargoyle, a tree unlike any she’d ever seen before. In the middle of a thicket, it was the only tree without leaves, its branches naked and weathered and browned, webbing out into the sky in a scary, twisted shape. But that wasn’t what made Corvina pause. It was the eye carved into the trunk of the tree, one single eye so realistic it looked like the tree was watching her, the eye moving as she moved. It gave her the creeps.

Turning around, she came to a stop at the rows of crude, unmarked stones on her far right.

Graves.

A shudder finally stole over her.

The cawing of a crow broke her out of her trance. She watched a crow — not the one who’d been with her by the lake, this one was larger — perch himself on one of the stones.

Shaking herself, she smiled at the crow. ‘Hello,’ she spoke softly, crumbling one of the biscuits in her hand and trailing it on the wall. ‘Aren’t you fearsome? I met your friend the other day by the lake. Surprisingly, I don’t see you guys on campus at all. Why don’t you come to the university area? Is it because of other people? Or do you have a nest in the woodsand like to stay close?’

As she spoke to the bird in soft, soothing tones, she watched him tilt his head at her before flying to the wall and pecking at the crumbs she’d left. He looked up, cawed again, and began to eat. Another crow flew in, hopping on the wall beside the first, and gobbled up the biscuit.

Corvina crumbled another in her hand and put it on the wall as another crow, the one she recognised from the lake with his slightly bent beak, flapped his wings at her and ate.

‘What place was this?’ she mused out loud, crushing the last of the biscuits in her hands and giving it to the birds, one of whom took a large piece between his beak and flew away, probably to eat in peace.

Brushing her hands off, she turned back to take in the ruins. They were older than old. They looked ancient. Her eyes swept over the area, going to the graves on the right, and a pile of junk she could see beside it. Intrigued, she crossed over to it, the sky grey overhead, the soil soft beneath her feet, tendrils of overgrown grass brushing against her ankles along with a low layer of mist. The grass got longer the closer she got to the graves.

Corvina looked around at the stones, counting as the wind caressed her hair.

One, two, three, four… fifteen.

Fifteen unmarked graves.

Did the school know about them? Had they been the ones to put them there? And if so, then why were they unmarked? Unless they were the students from the legend. Could they be? Fifteen of them?

Mulling over the questions assaulting her mind, she crossed the small graveyard to the other side, her eyes on the pile of what looked like broken furniture and debris in one pile, intensely damaged by the elements.

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