Hungarian Rhapsody
By
Sephera Giron

CHAPTER ONE

 

Lively music made by strings and tambourines echoed in the distance. Barely heard, yet still discernible, distant vibrations tingled through her flesh. Hester cocked her head, peering into the darkness. Through the darkness, she had a vision. A waking glimpse of a dream half remembered.

It had always started the same way. She couldn’t pinpoint the time the dreams started, but they had ebbed and flowed throughout her life as a friend or confidant. Sometimes when she found herself back in the dreamscape, she sighed with remembrance. Other times she would look around herself with horror, pondering release from the cloying moistness of night sweats.

There was always the lure of the music. It haunted her, tormented her, yet teased her to follow it. Taste it. Touch it.

The music filled her blood, giving her the urge to dance, to spin, to feel the freedom from the long, heavy fabric of her dress as it spilled out around her as she swirled. Yet amongst the joyful beat moaned the mournful wails of violins. Discordant melodies would fill her dancing feet with dread. She couldn’t stop dancing nor could she wallow in the haunting sighs of the music.

The people who made the music were always just out of reach. Out of sight. They flitted in the corner of her eye as if dashing from one spot to another. Sometimes she emerged from the desolate darkness into a clearing where a bright campfire crackled. Other times she would remain in the darkness, taunted by random, flashing glimpses.

When the fire flames crackled, she danced in the orange light. Faces laughed and leered. These were the well-worn faces of strangers. Mouths curved in mocking laughter as yellowed teeth glinted in the firelight. Dark eyes were slits as faces crinkled. Age meant little as the harsh lines of life ringed faces of both young and old.

Once, a hand had reached out to touch the hem of Hester’s dress as she danced. A rush of heat had warmed her ankles and spread up through her legs. It fanned out across her pelvis and her senses quivered. Her nipples grew hard as she experienced the longing of her own loins for the first time. Adolescence had arrived in a nightmare.

The dreams from that point took on dark, ominous undertones. The music not only stirred her blood but her whole existence. Her very being throbbed with the passion the music inspired in her.

Young Hester was often found spinning in her room, her eyes still shut while her ears listened to distant music in her dreams. She had been told by her mother’s seedy friends that it was sleepwalking and she would outgrow it. She longed for the days that the agony of yearning, of throbbing groin and aching heart would end.

Yet, they never did.

They shifted as she matured. Ideas that seemed strange once were passe´. Old familiar thoughts were saturated with a new vision. The yearning ebbed and flowed and reinvented itself, tumbling through her emotions in an endless cycle.

As she grew older, she grew more aware of the dreams in her waking life. Instead of the dream fading upon awakening and being gone by breakfast, she hung on to snatches of its images for entire mornings. When she took wine with dinner or even after a hard night of work, she found her thoughts unearthing the nocturnal ramblings of her subconscious.

She stood, staring out at the darkness once more, only this time she wasn’t sleeping. She was certain she was awake.

She stood on a stone patio, a massive affair that spread out to the edge of the hill that led down to a pond. The patio was decorated with large planters that held crawling plants that wound around a wroughtiron trellis and granite pillars. Along the edges of the patio were benches and little tables for those who wished to take breakfast or tea out of the cloying, festering embrace of the dank house.

A few stone steps led down to the pond in which swam koi. Vidor was quite superstitious and demanded that koi of a certain number and color were kept in the pond at all times. The idea was that the fish would attract good luck and prosperity. Hester wondered if he had always been rich and always had koi.

Sometimes during the day, birds would swoop down to bathe in the waters. Hester liked to watch them but she never did for long. There was a fountain in the middle of the pond that had always disturbed her. It had been hand carved out of marble and imported from Italy. The design was modeled after a painting. There was a large mermaid in the center of the fountain. Water spilled from her nipples into the shells staggered below her. Around her massive tail were curled tiny gargoyles who leered out with unblinking stares, their bodies intertwined with each other in terribly lewd positions. Hester had thought it was the strangest fountain she had ever seen. Of course, she hadn’t really known how rich people lived until recently.

The pond was surrounded by hedges that were clipped into various animals. In the daylight, the roaring lions and crouching tigers were magnificent art. At night, the hedges created ominous shadows ringing the pond. Hester was desperately curious about the music yet the creepy figures made her reluctant to venture forward.

Beyond the pond and the hedges, spread even more property. There was a small expanse of woods and then a field. The hedges were the only barrier between the estate and the rest of the world.

The music came from the distance, possibly beyond the field.

That night, the pond was almost as far away as the music. The moon was only a sliver in the night sky and the candles from the house didn’t illuminate much beyond the windows.

There was no one around for miles. At least, there shouldn’t be at this time of night. There had been nobody around when she had ventured out earlier on the horse she had been given. Her ride had been long and lonely. How she enjoyed being away from her former life, yet, she found herself with huge amounts of time with nothing to do.

Vidor was locked in his chamber, doing who knew what while the staff slept or busied themselves with personal tasks. She wondered why he kept to himself so much. Didn’t he grow lonely out here in the countryside with no one around?

No visitors were expected for quite some time so the music couldn’t be coming from any of Vidor’s friends. It shouldn’t worry her. Nothing should worry her in this mammoth place.

Yet she didn’t feel safe.

Her days on the street had led her to trust her gut. Events were never as they seemed on the surface. Behind hearty smiles lay fangs ready to snatch at any morsel that came within their reach.

Though things at the manor were perfectly fine on the surface, there was something not quite right. The grotesque statues both inside and outside the house did nothing to settle her unease. Even in the daylight, the manor had a chill that never seemed to go away. Couple that with the strange smells that floated through the corridors and she didn’t know what was worse sometimes: sitting in the house in the dim light or being out in the daylight staring at that hideous fountain.

Her employer was a fair enough man, a little odd but surely no threat. He had never coerced her into any action where she wasn’t comfortable. She had thought that it was pretty much certain that she would be expected to perform specific favors to earn her keep. But so far, she saw less of Vidor then she had at the tavern.

The staff all welcomed her, but she hadn’t spent enough time with any of them to really get to know individual personalities and concerns. She figured she had plenty of time for that. It had only been a bit longer than a fortnight since she had come to this place.

Her time at the mansion had been short and she was still reeling from the whirlwind of events that had led her there. There had been no time to think and digest; to fully comprehend the events that led her to be living in the lap of luxury.

How could luxury be so cold and foreboding?

She had always thought the rich lived in bright light and shiny things. Everything in the mansion reeked of decadence. From the decadence of the human body to the decadent mocking of religions. Sometimes Hester thought that if she hadn’t been going to hell already, being amongst such unsettling images was likely to leave a stamp of their own on her soul.

There was the mystery of the forbidden rooms.

What was harbored in those rooms and did it have anything to do with the music she heard? She couldn’t possibly imagine how one could be connected to the other.

She could only imagine the rooms held great treasures or perhaps had belonged to a deceased wife or mother. The place was so creepy that she could imagine a mummified relative or even a shackled enemy awaiting some kind of tortuous fate. Hester knew that Vidor wasn’t the type to harbor either. There was no point in worrying about a bunch of rooms; people were entitled to their privacy.

The uneasy feeling had nothing to do with that. It was quite ineffable really. Like trying to pluck a dandelion seed from a spider’s web, her thoughts eluded her. It was as though she had a black void where certain memories should be hidden.

The vague sense of unease followed her out to the edge of the patio where she listened to the distant music, her foot tapping along. The music soothed and mystified her. She yearned to dance and found herself spinning around, laughter escaping from her lips. She whirled and laughed, a childlike giddiness filling her.

She slowed down and held on to a wrought-iron trellis to catch her breath. She stared out at the fields and thought she saw the distant crackling of a makeshift campfire.

She guessed that a carnival must be coming to town, for surely gypsies, travelling around the English countryside, wouldn’t make camp this close to a private home. Or maybe it was a gypsy carnival. Hester ran back into the house to find a lantern. She lit it and wandered out to the patio again. The quickest way to the field was to go past the pond and through the small woods. There was a path but that wasn’t what concerned her.

She had to walk past the fountain and the hedge animals.

The music taunted her and she knew she had to stop being foolish. She stepped carefully down from the patio.

Slowly, she made her way past the creepy hedges. She didn’t dare look up as she passed under gaping mouths and snatching claws. She stared at her feet hoping that there were no flickering shadows between her and her goal. A stray branch caught her dress and she fought a moment of panic believing the hedges had come to life to devour her. But she soon saw the branch sticking out from the leg of a lion and hurried on by.

The wind changed and the music was easier to hear. Her slow, cautious gait quickened until she was hurrying along a dim path in the woods. Then she screamed as a hand grasped her. The darkness allowed her the faintest gaze at features and she vaguely recognized: Mrs Headly, the housekeeper.

‘What are you doing out here alone?’ The woman grabbed Hester’s arm and dragged her back through the woods and past the dreaded animals. Hester cowered as she imagined glowing stares mocking her as she was led back in shame.

‘You can’t venture out into the woods at night,’ Mrs Headly said as they returned to the parlor. ‘There are so many wild animals. And there are other creatures out there too.’

‘What kind of creatures?’ Hester asked as she watched Mrs Headly pour tea from a pot that was standing on a silver tray. As she handed the cup to Hester, Mrs Headly frowned.

‘It’s not for me to say much, save don’t try to find out. Stay near the house at night and all will be well.’

‘I can understand that,’ Hester said. ‘I’m so used to the city that I forget that there are dangerous animals around out here in the country.’

‘Don’t you forget it.’

Mrs Headly stood up and brushed off her apron. A few tell-tale wood grasses clung to it. ‘I have chores to attend to so enjoy your tea.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Headly.’

Once the buxom housekeeper was gone, Hester turned her attention back out the window. If she squinted her eyes and used her imagination, she could see the gypsies dancing and laughing. Dream or no dream, there were gypsies in the fields that night.

A carnival was probably in town. It had been a long time since she had been to a carnival. She fingered a little locket with a blue stone and many glittering crystal shards that she always wore around her neck.

Maybe she could convince her employer to let her take an afternoon off to go see the carnival for herself?