18/11/2022 - The Lady In Chains
Reading time: 6 min
Photo Courtesy of Alessandro Laurucci
The helicopter dropped us just outside the village, bombed to the bones, and we were welcomed by an old lady who acted as the one in charge.
With me, Dalila, a PhD student with a history of mental conditions and Professor Brown, an arrogant man who dyed his beard white to look wiser.
We slept in a tent at spitting distance from the church—which was off-limits after dark—and chatted sharing a bottle of brandy to ease the night.
They called it “The Altar of Gifts,” and some thought it was the main responsible for ending the war. We were among the first to be sent there after the conflict and had gathered concerning stories from the locals.
During the occupation, soldiers would access the church, get to the altar, and come out changed. A few killed themselves. A few tried to assassinate their own leader. Almost all of them switched factions.
And now it was our turn to explore it.
“I hate tents,” Dalila said sipping from her mug. “They remind me of the year my uncle abused me.”
Both Brown and I looked at her, and noticed from her expression that she had not intended to share that detail about her past.
“I’m sorry,” she added. “I don’t know why I said it.”
“Don’t you worry, it’s the brandy,” Brown said, and I thought, yes, it probably was, but at the same time this whole area seemed to encourage honesty in a way I could not explain.
“So, that’s why you keep taking days off. You’ve got all my sympathy,” he continued. “And now that we’re in the mood of sharing, I must say that, ironically, I love tents.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m fucking one of my students. I’m not proud of it, my wife would probably cut my balls off if she ever found out, but we go camping a lot. Tents remind me of her.”
Dalila made a disgusted face, and Brown laughed. “Yes, I agree,” he said. “I wish I was brave enough to choose her over my wife. You know, I blame my dad. He was a coward, but he surely knew how to enjoy life.”
“At least you know what you want,” I said, and immediately regretted it.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have anything exciting or twisted going on in my life. I just feel a void, sometimes, but I can’t understand how to fill it for the life of me. Addictions don’t do it, my kids don’t do it, and I’m starting to believe it’s just the human condition.”
We got up at dawn and entered the church. Part of the front wall had collapsed, revealing the simple wooden vault, and we had to climb piles of rubble to get to the nave. Inside, a miracle seemed to keep the building up, and the smell of dust was so strong it formed cement in my nostrils. There were bodies of soldiers everywhere, and most of them seemed to have pointed their weapons at themselves.
The altar was right at the bottom, a hole in the wall behind it showed where someone had unloaded their machinegun.
In front of it, a sort of liquid barrier seemed to stand, vertical, like a screen, and as I approached, I saw a lady in chains on the other side.
She had a black dress, short hair and a strange scar on the shoulder, like a snake’s tongue, and she stared shamelessly at me.
“Do you see it?” I asked, and both Dalila and Brown jumped, as if they’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Yes,” Dalila said. “I see it. It’s so peaceful. I go first.”
She walked hesitantly over the broken steps, and disappeared behind the screen, while the lady in chains kept looking.
“What do you see?” I asked Professor Brown.
“I see my father,” he said, and I noticed his hands were shaking.
A minute later, Dalila emerged from the screen with a piece of paper between her hands.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a prescription,” she said, puzzled.
“My turn,” Brown said. He shoved his camera onto my chest and hurried in; the lady undisturbed by his invasion. When he emerged just as Dalila had done, he was holding an old pistol.
I let go of the camera, which broke on the floor, sure he was going to shoot us before committing suicide, like those other corpses all around us, but instead, he said in his usual arrogant voice.
“Well done, butter hands.”
“Where did you find that?”
“On the altar. It’s my old man’s gun. Now I see why they call it the altar of gifts.”
His face had changed though. He seemed to have just experienced an epiphany that terrified him.
I followed their example, reluctantly, and crossed that liquid threshold between me and the lady, but once on the other side, I saw that the lady wasn’t there. Where she sat, only a lock remained. I grabbed it, looked at it, and found nothing familiar, but as I walked back, a voice called inside my head, chanting “St Mary’s, St Mary’s,” over and over again, until I popped in the nave with the others.
We didn’t talk about what happened, didn’t ask any questions, and after the helicopter journey, we took three different taxis.
Years passed, and I never found out what the lock was for. I left the company, like everybody else, and moved miles from that God-forgotten place. I bought a house, though I couldn’t quite understand why I insisted so much on that one, and one morning, mowing the lawn, I discovered a secret basement.
I kept the discovery for myself, decided to make it my man cave, just as my old director called to inform me that Dalila had died from an overdose of anti-depressants.
I bought furniture for the basement, decorated it in secret, and one day I found out Professor Brown had shot his wife in the head and buried the corpse in the garden before fleeing to the Bahamas with his lover.
I grew concerned, but what harm could I do with a locker?
After my daughter reached the age for school, my wife and I had to choose the best one in our area, and there were two to choose from. The closer was the Baptist school. The other was St Mary’s school.
I couldn’t resist. That name had been calling me for all those years, and I wanted to find an answer for the locker, but even after she started, after we met the other parents, I had no idea what it meant.
One day the following summer, my daughter got a fever and I went to pick her up. Waiting in the hall, I saw her hand in hand with her teacher. A young lady, wearing a black dress, short hair and a strange scar on her shoulder, like a snake’s tongue.
And, finally, I knew. I knew what the locker was for, I knew why I had kept my basement secret and had filled it like a workshop, I knew why I had soundproofed it.
Looking at that lady, I finally knew how to fill that void.
About this story
Prompt: No prompt. I simply started from the picture.
Notes on the challenge
Each and every story published here has been written, reviewed, polished and published in less than 90 minutes. Which means you’re going to find spelling mistakes, ugly sentences and weird structures. I still hope you’ll enjoy them!
