Howl Your Appellations

Here to Help

BOEN OPEOR

The room, at least, had more stuff inside it than the previous room. I don’t want to remember too much of what happened but now I know for sure how dangerous Airies can be. They’re made by the faes malice and negative emotions, as I recall, does that mean that the whole cabin was engulfed in a large Airy? But why were things normal up until the Master Bedroom? I really still don’t know anything about what’s really going on. To think that I was completely oblivious to everything.

Soft suddenly disappearing like before we met should have been a warning to me. Soft, I wonder if she’s here. If she turned into furniture or something that I can’t recognize anymore I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it. It’s time to look around, she’s tough, something like an Airy would have a hard time with a cat like her, I hope.

I try to stand up, I still can’t. My meat leg’s too weak, too shaken by the experience. This was just like that night. I was too powerless to move and it caused so many deaths and anguish. It wasn’t entirely my fault but it’s not like I’m faultless either. I’ve gotta get stronger. I’ve been extremely lucky so far and by that I mean I haven’t died yet, so something, someone out there’s probably watching over me and helping me the best they could. Convincing the death gods to save me for later, I have a more interesting story to tell if I survive. Of course that’s probably a lie, but also probably not.

‘’Hear me death gods and all the elements of power, I will definitely be dishearten and even close to giving up, but I’ll make sure I survive. I’ll survive and I’ll make things that I can right, and there’s nothing you can do about it!’’ I yelp, just to get my blood pumping. I need a few more huffs before I can call out to Soft or anyone.

I try to stand again but I still couldn’t. At this rate I’ll have to crawl. My arms are considerably strong, I think I can manage at least. The moonlight coming in from the circular windows on the upper side of the wall, contributes to giving me ease. If the moon acquires passage inside the room, then it’s a hundred times better than the room I was in before. I wonder if the Queen really did hear me. I wasn’t lying, I’ll definitely get to her. I just need to find out how.

The room is most probably the study, or grandpa’s library. There towering shelves and desks for reading, almost cozy. The rooms are all connected somehow which means the next room would most probably be Queen’s room. I take a deep breath,

“Soft!!” I let my full voice out, “Soft, if you’re here come find me!” I instruct her.

If she got out of the room, she’d also be sent in this room. I hope she’s not injured, or worse.

“If you’re unable to move just try and open your eyes! I’ll follow the direction where gold glows.”

I hear no reply but I do hear faint shuffling. Little movements on the floor, as if something is muffling them, only every time there’s shuffling, I hear objects such as books tumbling or falling down. Maybe some books fell on her and she’s stuck. I’ll just have to listen to the sound.

From outside the window, occasionally, I could hear those large wings flapping again. In my room it sounded farther away, but here it sounds like it’s on top of the cabin. I hope Imus is okay. He’s their second so he’ll probably manage to fight off a large bird. In any case, Soft is my main priority right now.

Third time’s the charm and I could stand again, albeit like a new born lamb, but I’m slowly gaining my stride. I hold onto my bag tightly, this isn’t a dream, nothing seems to present itself as perfect yet. I’m not in an Airy so far, I. Am. In. The. Next. Room.

I feel my hands tremble. I walk past one dusty shelf and then, another. I look for something that’s out of place, something new. The room has been left abandoned for who knows how long. I can’t even guarantee if my grandfather actually slept in the previous room.

I walk, and walk until I need to take a turn, there are only three rows of these shelves but there’s four columns, desks are scattered around with lamps that don’t turn on. I take a right turn, this was the direction of the shuffling,

“Skshs Skhsk Skhsk” I hear it getting louder.And then, finally, I saw it:

A tall, slender woman with jet black hair and golden string tattoos on her arms, resembling the rings of a tree, carries Soft, her eyes golden and magnificent, on her arms as she was placing fallen books back on the shelf. She was wearing a beautiful silver silk dress I haven’t seen before. The details and embroidery were not of this world. Patching patterned silk on top of each other, as if their lower half were the petals of an unattainable flower.

“Queen?” I blink, not believing the anomalous beauty that I’m seeing.

The specter gasps and Soft jumps from her arms to mine. It was only a split second, between my looking away to catching Soft but the specter disappeared as if like the last snow of winter’s finally days. I look down to see if Soft was alright and there upon her mouth was a small shard of wood. Completely out of place.

I move her around a bit, in order to carry her a little better, and I notice that the fur that had turned white on her paws, had reached her stomach. Now she’s horizontally black and white. I don’t know what caused this, but I don’t think Soft’s in pain, but I can feel that she’s really, really tired. I remove the shard from her jaws, and let her sleep.

I don’t think this place has an elevator shaft, if it did, Soft would have lead me here immediately. But I have to make sure, so I continue to walk around the room slowly.

The books, are all so dusty that some of the dust even seeped into the pages and they’re hard to read. Shrouded in the dark with only the light of the moonlight from two small windows doesn’t help either. Which books do I take with me, or do I need to take any at all? A lot of them seem to be just fairy-tale, fable, and mythology books; books that are present in the library we have at home. I wonder why my grandfather collected these. The more I learn about him, the less I want to.

I’ve come full circle to where I first saw the strange specter. It couldn’t have been the Queen. She didn’t have the same presence as the glow from the previous room, so the strange woman must have been who this shard once was.

Among all the fae remnants, the one in my palm is the smallest and sharpest. It’s almost the perfect shape of a diamond if it isn’t closer to a trapezoid. Why, was she left here all alone? Was she just accidentally misplaced, or was she intended to be a display here too? I don’t think I’ll get answers but it’s not that important.

I try to do the ultimate sin and wake Soft up. One should never bother a sleeping cat but our circumstances aren’t normal, and she is important for our survival. I tottered my arms slowly in the hopes of waking her up. She didn’t seem to like that and tried to scratch one of my arms with her claws.

I’ll give her a few more minutes. I need to take a short break from walking anyway, the identical shelves can be a bit disorientating after a while. I take a seat and place Soft on the desk. Firmly held in my hand, the shard she picked up from who knows where. I spy it like it was a precious gem under the moonlight. If it wasn’t for the mysterious imagery of the lady earlier, I would have just assumed that this was just a chipped off wood from one of the shelves. Plus, Soft was carrying it so it must be important.

I stare at the shard and I can feel its gazing back at me. It’s as if I’m being invited to a silent conversation. I oblige.

“You know, I don’t know how long I was trapped in that trance. It felt like I was in there for more than a day. It felt good being in there at first, then when I started to find little gaps of reality, it felt horrifying.” I move the shard around, making it nod.

“Now that I’m out, I missed them even more. I keep burying myself inside my brain and troubles all the time that I get to miss out on the full experience. I’m not used to nice people, are you?”

The shard stays in place and I recoil a bit.

“I’m sure you’ve had people like that too. Even now the Prince is still mourning for all of you especially for his mother. You know, counting you and his mother, that makes 30 of you guys in total. It makes me sick that he took so many…so f*****g sick…”

I place the shard in my palm.

“There’s this piece that’s like the shape of thunder, and another shaped like a ship, one had so much splits and another was paler than the rest. I wonder if you could recognized them just by those descriptions alone… you’re the smallest on by far…I..don’t worry. I’ll take you back to them. You’ll all be together soon. I promise.”

The shard doesn’t change, nor glow, nor show the lady again. It stays completely still, almost completely content.

“If only you had Appellations, I could have called out to you. Then maybe you’d tell me and Soft where to go next.”

I feel a sudden tap on my shoulder but I do not dare to look. I waited for it to do something else, and a finger, then a hand extends over my shoulder. The golden pattern trails glisten like streaks from an angel’s halo. She extends her hand only so that she may tap Soft’s soft nose.

My cat wakes up, and the beautiful arm disappeared.

“Thanks for trusting me enough. Someday, I’ll definitely call out your name and thank you.” I move the wooden shard up and down in the middle of my thumb and index finger.

Soft opens her eyes and lights the room in golden spots. The library stays unchanged but Soft bolts at the top of the shelves and stares at the ceiling, looks at me, then points at the ceiling, indicating that something in the ceiling is the entrance to the final forbidden room.

I give myself strength, it’s gonna be hard trying to climb up a bunch of shelves with my prosthetic leg on. I haven’t done any climbing practice with it yet. Nevertheless, I climb the shelves with haste and only once did I almost fall. Soft tries to help but she’s a cat so there’s no much help she can do except show me paths and things that I can’t see.

I reach the top of the shelves finally, I could see the outline of the forest from outside the window. It shouldn’t be as dark as it is outside, in my room, there was only curious moonlight too. Was my room never normal after all?

Whatever the case, the forest seems calm somehow, because of the trees that veil everything. Soft pats my shoulders and shows me the way; she jumps up to the ceiling and disappears. In a panic, I followed in after her without a moments pause.

I reach the final room and it’s a whole new place of nature.