Fenroth

Just the beginning of a longer story. Very busy this week with selling our house, but I wanted to share what I've written thus far.

Fenroth

Ever since I became house librarian at Crow’s Nest House, it has rained every day – two weeks straight. In the brief pauses between downpours, the skies have looked grim – rendered in bruised purples and charcoal grays. Thank goodness the house has electricity – generated by coal-fired boilers in the estate’s largest outbuilding.

I stand now at one of the library’s windows, as large, ice-cold drops smack the glass and blur the world beyond. Wind whistles through the drafty frame, so I button up my sweater and  rub my hands together. On my right hangs the most unnerving of this great home’s innumerable paintings.

In it, a tall, thin, robed figure, face hidden, deeply cowled, stands amidst a fetid, misty swamp – much like those that surround Crow’s Nest House for many miles in all directions. The waters beneath him are black, the bare branches brown, while, above, a dull, green-tinged sky brings the whole scene to life. He stares out from a canvas darkened by age and old candle smoke, and I imagine seeing the faintest glimmer of two malevolent eyes. But surely I’m imagining things.

“You do know the legend,” a woman says from behind me. I spin ‘round to face Lady Griselda, garbed in black, like all the other Mortmain women, after the passing of Lord Milton Mortmain two months ago. Griselda is the youngest daughter, and the only member of the family who reads avidly, is interested in both history and myth, and has deemed me worthy of conversation.

I smile as we stand there, beneath the warm glow of the ceiling bulbs.

“You must be unacquainted with our family’s many dark legends, Mister Cromwell,” she says. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be smiling.”

“I’m delighted to see you, Lady Griselda. On such a gloomy day, conversation alone would lift my spirits. So what are these legends? And do they center on this painting, in particular?”

Though the Mortmains are an extremely wealthy family, several of them are accomplished oil painters, though only within the family ranks. They have never shared their magnificent works beyond these walls. While they gather rents from their many tenants and fuel the local village economy, many of the Mortmains while away their hours painting landscapes and portraits of one another. But a few of them also dream up surreal, disconcerting visions that remind me of my own nightmares.

Fire-breathing demon children, immense moss-covered human skulls with one too many eye sockets, river wraiths dragging down hapless children to their deaths in an ice cold mere – the list goes on and on. The first time I laid eyes upon that part of the family collection, I nearly resigned my librarian position on the spot – that’s how much they haunted me.

“That’s Fenroth,” Lady Griselda says while pointing a bluntly nailed finger at the five-foot-tall painting. 

“He gives me the creeps,” I say. “Still, that painting has such depth – like you could just step into it and walk, then sink, into the swamp.”

“I’ve always thought so, too. It was painted almost two centuries ago, and, over the generations, it’s been hidden away in the home’s attic for stretches of time. Only the more adventurous members of our family ordered it brought back down and hung here or there.”

“So what’s the legend of Fenroth?” I say.

“If he speaks to you, then heed his word,” she says, her dark eyes glittering as the wind rises sharply and rain once again hammers the window.

“Speaks to me?” I say, as goosebumps rise on the back of my neck.

“Don’t take the word speak too literally. Many have witnessed inexplicable changes in this painting. The appearance of a crow on a branch, where one didn’t appear before, for example. Thus, the word speak should be taken symbolically. Divining what Fenroth is trying to tell you is the real trick. As you can see, he communicates in riddles.”

“Perhaps I’ll gaze into this painting a little less often,” I say. “After all, if I don’t look at it, I can’t find anything amiss.”

That night, after the wind calms and a dense fog blankets the estate, I tossed fitfully in bed, up here in my small but comfortable servants quarters on the attic floor, and endured one dark dream after another – all about the swamps around Crows Nest House.

I jump awake, awash in sweat, and, with the blankets thrown back, I’m chilled to the bone. 

It’s dead quiet. No more wind or rain. I hear my heartbeat in my ears, and each breath distracts me from sleep.

That’s when I notice a faint, greenish glow in my window. I crawl out of bed and draw near the glass. There’s an unnatural source of luminance out there – down at ground level. The green light suffusing the fog seems to move slowly about – currently just outside the library. That’s no lantern glowing down there, and I know at once that I must investigate.

Five minutes later, I enter the library, a small candle lantern in hand. I stride toward the windows, then slip and fall on the hardwood. I find myself sitting in a shallow puddle of stinking, fetid water.More such puddles – each of them littered with bits of old leaves, twigs, and what look like chunks of water plants, continue off into darkness across the floor.

Footsteps. Sopping wet footsteps, as if left by someone gushing swamp water from their trousers, their shoes. I follow the puddles with my eyes, when my heart seizes in my chest. The footsteps originate beneath that cursed painting – of Fenroth. 

I stand and rush to the canvas. My blood runs cold as I behold most profound change imaginable to this unnerving painting. Fenroth, himself – the sinister, cloaked figure who stands amid the swamp – is missing.

So I follow the line of puddles across the library. They lead me to a far corner, where a second door – usually kept locked – stands ajar. 

My heart hammers in my chest as I peek through the doorway and down the long hallway, where the puddles continues off into darkness. I follow them until I reach the orangery, where the puddled footsteps lead out of the great house through an open, glass-paneled door. 

Out on the lawn, I strain my eyes but no longer see the green light. So I extinguish my lantern, to better adjust my eyes to darkness, and continue on, stumbling here and there on tufts of grass. At last the greenish glow becomes visible again, though it’s now further off, and moving toward the swamp.

I follow as quickly as possible, and soon a reeking miasma fills my nostrils. The diffuse patch of green light soon resolves into a tall, thin lantern, with the edges of Fenroth’s sleeves clearly visible. My curiosity has replaced my fear, but then I realize that this is a very different situation than the one Lady Griselda described.

Yes, the painting changed dramatically, but Fenroth has also climbed out and off the canvas and is now leading the way here, in the real world. And is all of this for my sake, or Fenroth’s? Is Fenroth trying to communicate some message to me? Given the spirit’s physical manifestation, I doubt it. But perhaps I can witness some otherworldly event and relate it to Lady Griselda in the morning.

To be continued…