This story is one of the November Writing Challenge entries chosen to be a featured story.
The kingdom of Verna had almost taken to bed as the last rays of peach struggled in vain against the dark coat of black the enormous sky was painting. Beneath it, the mighty lake of Orainn, with its crystal blue waters, lay still and silent. It was a sight to marvel when brightly colored butterflies fluttered their delicate wings with bold and vibrant patterns across its shimmery surface.
For innumerable moons, Mirabell had gifted this beauty many lockets, as was the ritual. The old Vernian literature spoke of the sea gods having a lust for silver; “Every single beauty comes with a prize,” it said. As the thread of generations wove further, people of all sizes, young and old, healthy and ailing, had fed the lake with silver lockets, many carved intricately with forbidden wishes and unfulfilled dreams. It was believed that the sea gods answered unheard prayers and granted tranquility to the lands at this cost. But Mirabell knew this was just the tip of the iceberg. People had shallow minds, crowded with many thoughts of lesser significance. They hardly ever questioned, content with literature pregnant with lustrous stories of the past.
Achievements came with sacrifices, glory came with gloom, but little did the average minds grasp. Most of all, their eye caught the superficial. Less minds never bothered to read between the lines. Round bellies and full houses left folks bickering over petty issues. They never questioned the death of young princes of every alternate line, never traced a pattern of disappearance of the blue bloods near the lake. So stunned were they by its beauty and so enchanted were they by the old legend that they hardly ever put their empty minds to any use.
Mirabell knew more; this was not the price. On her fragile shoulders she sheltered boulders of burden, and in her beating heart she held many secrets. She knew life was not as it seemed; it had a knack for being deceptive, veiled under the mask of simplicity. A sugar coat always painted the bitter truths. An eye for an eye. A stolen life for many breathing lives was what the hidden secrets of the palace taught her. The lake of Orainn was no ordinary one; rather, it was a passage to another world, a portal to a world of unknown creatures.
Mirabell knew keeping mum was for the best, for dark secrets hanging in the open would only weaken the foundation of the kingdom. And to this secret, she had lost her brother, the prince of Verna.
Beauty is illusive, a mask that beckons people to its proximity, but once near, very near, it explodes with its ugly nature — just as the Lake of Orainn. Most of the times, this dark beauty maintained its facade, hid under it the most monstrous creatures, also beckoning beauties but dark by nature. After every thousand and one moons, the full moon adopted a red tint; it was the lone witness to the opening of the belly of Orainn. Mirabell often wondered that it turned red as it beheld the sacrifice and the cruelty on part of these creatures. She thought that the poor moon wept tears of blood just as her heart dripped tears of longing for her dead brother.
The villagers were strictly prohibited from leaving their abodes at the night of the red moon. It was rumored by the guardians of Verna that anyone who gazed at the moon longer than a heartbeat would lose the light of their eyes. Rumors took strong roots in small minds. The fear of a colorless world kept the villagers in their houses. But rumors didn’t work on the royals, for they were aware of the reality of the myths. Learned minds had a curious web layering their minds. Mirabell wished her brother too believed in these rumors, wished desperately he never stepped out of the palace. But even if a loving sister could have been able to quell her beloved brother’s curiosity, she wouldn’t have been able to cut off the music flowing from the flute of these beautiful monsters, which was played to lull the mind of the chosen prince and summon him to the lake of Orainn.
Nobody knew what these monsters looked like, not even Mirabell. The palace was well accustomed to the sacrifices, so they stopped questioning any further. All that the walls of the palace depicted were half human, half fishes with golden flutes in their delicate hands and sharp teeth under plump lips. And they consumed him, consumed Mirabell’s brother, all at once, leaving nothing but his blood floating in the lake.