The night sky was a black canvas sprinkled with dots of white, each star fighting to shine brighter than the other. Jean-Baptiste stood in the empty hallway by the door to his eldest son's room, listening to the conversation between his two children. At the mention of a grandma with 101 cats, he revealed a slight smile, withholding his soft laughter that wished to escape from his lips. Suddenly, in Jean-Baptiste's vision, the candlelight seemed to get brighter causing him to close his eyes in agony. He felt as if someone was hammering against his head with great force.
Cough! Cough!
Cough! Cough!
Covering his mouth with his handkerchief, he coughed violently, almost falling to the ground. Supporting himself with the wall, he turned to see that his daughter had already left the room and was now staring at him. She looked at what was supposed to be a white handkerchief, but was now a white covered in red smears and splatters. Jean-Baptiste saw where she was looking and crumpled the handkerchief, moving it away from his daughter's gaze.
"Good evening, Father," Marie-Anne said.
"Yes, hello Marie-Anne, my daughter. How is–" Jean-Baptiste burst into a fit of grating and violent coughs, cutting his sentence short. "...my apologies…how is Charles?" he asked.
Jean-Baptiste saw a slight change in his daughter's expression as if she was concealing something that tried to surface on her face.
"Brother is quite alright. With a little rest he'll be back to norma…to his old self. Now please excuse me father, I must go and deal with the extra plate at the dinner table," she said, quickly rushing to the kitchen.
Jean-Baptiste reached out his hand wishing to converse longer with her, only to lower it back to its normal position. He noticed that the hand he was going to touch her with was covered with his blood. He could never begin to think of touching her with that hand. With a slight creak of the door, he gazes at his son sleeping on the bed of emerald green sheets. Before he closed the door, a whispered goodnight escaped his lips followed by a quiet turning of the doorknob.
Sitting inside an empty study, he held a black book filled with black pages and no sign of written text. Jean-Baptiste blew on the candle flames, leaving him in a dark room. Then as seconds passed, he began to hum a tune that seemed to originate from ancient worlds, causing what seems to be white text to appear on the black book. It was words that were written in a language that he couldn't never come to understand: taⁱriš upa aiiah vouru-kašahe. After failing to even comprehend what was written on the book, he lit the candles, causing the text to disappear once more. After locking the journal in a secret compartment behind his library shelf, Jean-Baptiste left his study. He walked across the empty hallway dragging his feet to reach him and his spouse's bedroom. There, he saw Marie-Marguerite lying on her side of the bed which is facing the window. Jean, who was already in his sleeping attire, slipped inside the folded blankets facing the wall opposite to his wife.
"Dear, you are going to sleep?" asked Marguerite, who wasn't sleeping this entire time.
"Yes. Are you not going to sleep?" Jean replied.
"I wish to, but I cannot. Stress has stolen my sleep. Gabriel isn't eating his meals unless it's Marie-Anne who delivers them."
"Gabriel…perhaps he is sickly. The changing season does cause illnesses to easily manifest," Jean-Baptiste put forth.
On his tongue he felt a unique taste, a taste he had learned to get acquired. A taste of saying that the sky is red when it is evident that it is blue. A taste of saying the family pet, a spirited joyful pup named Pierre, had been gifted to a kind noble. When in actuality he had found the small, stiff body beneath an oak tree, its fur matted and life stolen from mange. It lies beneath the rose bush to him. And to them, it has found a home of walls painted in gold. A taste of belief that his son needs to be strong in the way he is also. A taste of speaking a name of a son whom his wife worries about but whom he has never known. A taste of a lie. Jean-Baptiste has learned to lie. Every night he tucks himself into bed, covered by sheets of fabricated blankets, which is why they never protect him from the cold.
"Good lord! I hope that my baby boy is not sick!" Marguerite cried.
"He will be fine, trust me. He is only hiding away in his room because he doesn't want to cause the rest of us to catch his sickness if he has one," he consoled.
Jean-Baptiste thought to turn and hold his wife in his arms, only to decide against it. Whatever ailment that has his life, he did not wish for any of his family to be on the receiving end of its hand. He could only sit there, staring at the wall with poorly polished brown wallpaper, while his wife's cries filled his ears. Maybe if he had told her that there is no Gabriel, this situation wouldn't have reached this point. Maybe his children would act less coldly if he told them the truth about their pet. Maybe, was all he could think of. Maybe he wouldn't be here now, lying on a bed of lies he decided to treat as truths. On that night, on every nights to come, Jean-Baptiste will know of no other place of rest, but this bed he has made for himself.
Jean-Baptiste awakes in his dream still intact with his lucidity. He is seated at his family dinner table but it is now a long marble table. A tapping of the table resounds in his ears and a mysterious dark figure is seated on the other end of the table. Jean is taken aback, as this figure is seated at his usual seat as the head of the Sanson family. The figure sat with both feet crossed on the table top, golden eyes piercing through the darkness.
"...quite dark in this room of yours, executioner of the lord," the figure bellows.
The room is filled with a radiant golden light as Jean-Baptiste feels his eyes burst into flames. Jean-Baptiste falls to the floor as he writhes in great agony. Through his throat tearing screams, the sound of barefoot stepping on pure white marble echo through a large white marble hall. The figure slowly approaches Jean-Baptiste and its feet stop their journey inches away from his face. Jean-Baptiste lifts his head and through blurry tear filled eyes he could make out muscular bare legs, an exposed pelvic area and torso of the figure.
"Executioner…"
The figure sinks his fingers through Jean-Baptiste's hair, tightening its grip. He winces in pain and desperately claws at the figure's arm to no avail. The naked figure launches a knee to his abdomen and forces him to kneel. In the same breath, it pulls his hair forcing him to gaze upwards towards it.
"...the years have made you brazen. A heretic dares to stare so intently at the Lord's believer?" the figure snarls. "This brazenness is a rot. It spreads. We see it in the heir—that fearful, flinching thing you call a son. Time is not your mistress that you could idly have sex with and simply ignore after."
Jean-Baptiste could not bring himself to speak, he couldn't speak. He felt as if there was boiling hot water being poured into his throat. And he was also captivated by this sight. Maybe in awe or in fear of the naked woman that towered above him. Her hair is pure gold that reflects the light tenfold. She releases her grip of his hair and wipes her hand over the table top as if she had just held something that is beyond filth.
"Are you at the stage where amnesia is setting in? Need I remind you that your worship of that thing is not accepted by our Lord but only permitted. You, that woman and your progeny belong to His will. Your home stands not as kindness and understanding of your blasphemous ways— it is mercy. The Lord grants you life in exchange for you being His sword. Yet…" her face darkened as if suppressing a deep hidden rage within. "...yet you fail to simply polish a knife. You birth a mere chipped blade and expect mercy?"
Jean-Baptiste's body begins to shake as an indomitable force holds his body stiff in place. He crashes into the floor, his bones beginning to ache under the pressure. His screams are hidden by the sheer amount of force pushing him downwards.
"Executioner. From this moment henceforth, the usual envoy of the church to monitor you heretics shall be me. And I assure you, the fact you are not a mere paint splatter on this floor at this moment, is due to the Lord's mercy."
…
Jean-Baptiste gasps into consciousness, his body aching deep in the marrow. His breath ragged and painfully pulled. He slightly touches his throat and his body sears in pain.
"Honey," Marie-Marguerite yawns. "Why are you up this late?
Marie-Marguerite's eyes are filled with visceral horror at the sight of her husband. His throat is covered in red blisters and purple bruises are painted all over his arms. Jean-Baptiste flinches from her touch, turning his head away. His voice is a rasping, ruined thing.
"A dream. A fever. It is nothing. Go back to sleep, Marguerite."
He says, not with comfort, but an almost shivering cruel finality. He reaches for the bed sheets and moves them up to his throat, his movements stiff with more pain. He cannot afford her scrutiny. He slowly lies back down and turns to sleep facing away from his wife, with the terror of her seeing the truth, or seeing him in such a state. Jean-Baptiste watched the flame dancing inside the lantern be overpowered by the light of a brighter light evading through the window. He could not sleep. He could only lay there until the sun ushered in a brand new day.