Page 43 of Scent of Desire
The melodious, sad lullaby of the wind blew my hair away from my face and made me struggle to reach my sanctuary. With every step I took, a squall pulled me back, forbidding me to trespass its sacred ground. The greenhouse seemed to be guarded by an evil spell.
After clearing my way in spite of the stormy wind, my hand froze on the doorknob. My nostrils flared. A wave of death crept through me.No.Something was different. The smell, it was rotten like the flesh of a corpse and ashes.
I wrenched open the door, and a scream tore me apart. “No!”
The piercing shrieks of the ravens echoed through the greenhouse in a scream that hurt my ears. They cloaked my flower in shades of black, like an army of undead attacking her. The windows were broken from the top, the scenery morbid and terrifying. It was the most macabre of fate.
“Go away!” I rushed toward the Devil’s Corpse, trying to make my way through the famished ravens.
There were at least twenty of them, devouring my flower with their stiff beaks. They fed on her carcass without pity, tearing her pretty leaves and blooms. They were soulless monsters, committing the most atrocious of crimes.
“Stop!” They didn’t listen to me but hovered around me to prevent me from stepping forward. “Please, stop!”
I finally fell on my knees, covering my eyes with my hands for fear of being scratched. The ravens were driven mad. I fought to take a last glance at the Devil’s Corpse, or the rest of it, despite the ravens circling me in their dark nightmares. I wondered why she didn’t defend herself with her traps and thorns.
“Why are you doing this?” I yelped, my voice breaking. “Fight. Please.”
It was almost as if she was inflicting this on herself.
She didn’t respond to me.
A shot of anger pierced through me, and I rushed like a madwoman through the unkindness of ravens. “Go away! Leave her alone!”
They clawed at me, but I leaped in front of the plant, protecting her like a shield. My eyes shut and bled with tears of blood on my cheeks. Their gurgling croaks made me deaf. The world became dark and colorless, smelling like shooting stars collapsing on the earth to become dust.
I curse you.
I curse you to go back to hell where you came from.
In the middle of this nothingness, I no longer felt the ravens’ wings flapping behind my back. Their howling dissipated to leave room for silence, and opening my eyes, I saw the ravens had retreated to the blue sky.
After that, calm reigned like the song of the dead after bloodshed. It was carnage. I turned to face the fallen plant. She wouldn’t survive.
“Why?” I touched her torn leaves, glared at her crushed blooms and at her roots emerging from the ground. “Why did you have to die… You could have defended yourself. Why didn’t you…”
I sniffed, blinking the tears away in a silent goodbye to the flower that had changed my life.
I faced this gloomy scene in silence, mourning the dead.
I stomped toward Radcliff’s office with dried tears on my cheeks. My eyes were bloodshot, my steps on the floor echoing in heavy clomps. The walls seemed to narrow as I approached, locking me in their pain. I hadn’t even had the strength to open the messages I had received on my phone yet. I wasn’t in the mood for happy birthday wishes and good news anymore. I wanted answers.
I slammed open the door of his office to find him enthroned to his desk. His gaze widened at the ghostly sight of me, and he shut off his computer and moved away whatever paper he was working on. He rose from his seat with a visible frown. “What happened?”
“The Devil’s Corpse.” I swallowed, inhaling deep. “She died. She was ripped apart. Eaten by ravens. They broke the windows of the greenhouse in their madness, and—” I stopped, my eyes stuck on nowhere, enslaved by the macabre memory. “They devoured her.”
“So, it happened,” he replied, as if that was something that was meant to be.
“Sorry?” My voice was tight, my eyes shooting flames of rage at the icy man in front of me. “What do you mean by ‘it happened’?”
“There was a legend about the Devil’s Corpse.” He reeled around to look at the murder scene from his window. “She chooses when she’s ready to die. And in doing so, she offers her flesh to animals who devour every last bit of her. It’s an offered sacrifice. She decided her time was up.”
“But that’s barbaric! Inhumane!” I spluttered.
“No one makes the rules of nature. That’s life and the price of death.”
I shook my head, joining him by the window. “This is stupid.”
“Or brave in a way. Perhaps it was a message.” Radcliff went back to his desk, resuming his activities.
