Wildness and Words

He is a survivor from the old stories. I found him on the corner of a lake, reading Vonnegut’s Bluebeard. Middle-aged and handsome, he looked toughened in a world-weary kind of way. It seemed he had packed away all his things so he could return to the world outside of those stories — to my world.

Initially it was his deep-set eyes with a faraway look that captivated me. I found myself hoping to break the old spell, if any existed. Later, it was his smile that drove all my fears and distractions away. In our second month together, he gave me a dazzling smile as he held an apple from his orchard in each hand. 

“Here, taste them!” he said, and I obeyed. The luscious taste of the crisp, sweet apples tingled my tongue. I lay down beside him by the glistening waters of the lake, throbbing under the vigorous sun.

He would often disappear for days during the rainy season, perhaps to visit the different worlds he had left behind. But inevitably he would return, brimming with knowledge and silent torments but untransformed. Then he would sit in the tall grass beside the lake, weaving daisies into my hair and tracing dark roses onto my skin.

But nothing ever lasted long, I knew.

***

On a brilliant, cloudless morning in late April, he made me his starry-eyed bride and took me to his home. Old moss covered the red roof of the house; it smelled of stagnant time. We walked through his overgrown garden and orchard, doused with decaying, dull dew, and I heard the heavy thumps of my heart as I stepped onto that shrewd wilderness of his heartland. 

The house appeared small on the outside, but inside its overwhelmingly large, unending corridors and tall windows dwarfed me. A stillness and subtle darkness roamed there, wafted on the air with a moldy scent. 

On the threshold, he unclenched my palm and handed me a dusty, heavily bejewelled key. 

“A final test,” he murmured. He put his back to me and set a hand on the worn knob of a thick wooden door. Then he turned, gave me his dazzling smile again, and said, “You can wander anywhere in this house, except for this room. Do not ever open it, if you love me!” 

I, excited by his claim to me, dared not ask “why” on my first day as his bride.

As I have come to know, love and obedience make a heady concoction, but its effects don’t always last. Soon, he started disappearing again, sometimes for months. The sweet wood of the deep, long halls, so full of immaterial darkness, would torment me with thoughts of the ornamented key. 

Initially I suppressed them, calming myself by stating that everyone has secrets. But one day, I could take it no longer. I opened the room. Inside I discovered stacks from floor to ceiling of innumerable books. Wooden stairs in the center of this immense library led upward to yet higher, uncountable stacks, yet every book sat in its place, neatly categorized and maintained. 

I started looking forward to his disappearances. Each time as soon as he had left, I would lock myself in and devour the words. It’s been three years now, and he still doesn’t know. Meanwhile, I have transferred the cottage to my name.

Because nothing ever lasts long, I know.

If you enjoyed this piece, take a look at a few others MockingOwl has available!

• In Between – Poetry
• The City of Dr. Moreau – Dark Fiction Review
• Almost Paradise – Nature Fiction
• The Wilderness Between Us, Part 1, & Part 2 – Romance Fiction

Dr. Neepa Sarkar

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Dr. Neepa Sarkar’s collaborative monograph will be published by IBIDEM Press by the end of this year. She has a Ph. D in English Literature and has taught in the Department of English, Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru and has been published in History Today, Middle West Review, Irish Studies Review, De Gruyter Press and Lexington Books, Anodyne Magazine, Within and Without Magazine, Curious Blue Press, Shot Glass Journal ( Muse-pie Press), Marathon Literary Review, Wingless Dreamer Publications, Metonym Journal, Canyon Voices and Shiuli Magazine.

Find more of her work on Wordpress and Substack.

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