Once upon a time, i put a very rough, very.... uncouth and strange version of Three Piles of White Ash. Here's the finished, and edited version of the story:
Three Piles of White Ash
1479, Spain
Curtained in long lashes and eyelids shadowed in black, the woman’s eyes were closed. She lay on the floor of the forest, the dead, leafless trees stretching into eternity before her. Her bloodless face the palest white and a ruby red cloak covered her body. Her long, dark hair, tangled with twigs and leaves, fell about her face. Lips the color of fresh blood whispering to the grey sky, suck approaching as quickly as the whispers she spoke.
Her name was Lorita, meaning sorrowful.
His name was Ricardo, meaning ruler.
He watched her seemingly lifeless body, waiting for her to breathe. She whispered, but breathed not. Impossibly still, laying as a corpse without breath. Ricardo gasped as she sat up. He watched, enticed by her dazzling features to look onwards. He admired her beautiful face. Lorita looked at him through her closed eyelids, but that vision failed to satisfy her curiosity, for the sight blurred and blackened. Opening her eyes and standing up, she expected to see him turn and flee. Ricardo’s face remained even, watching her. Lorita saw his face, his closed eyes and bloodless skin.
They were the same kind.
The urge to run consumed them both, but their feet remained still. Ricardo approached her, touching her head that hung from her neck awkwardly, like a dead person. He touched the skin around her white eyes. Lorita responded by touching his eyelids, swerving her head in an uncomfortably disturbing manner. The two otherworldly creatures thrilled at the burn caused by their touching skin, ignoring the black burn marks that smudged their hands and faces.
Lorita watched with fascination as Ricardo opened his eyes. She looked into the cool whiteness that lay between his eyes. Lorita reveled in the touch of his dry tree-like fingers. Lorita laced a hand through his dark hair and ran the fingers of her other hand along his red lips. She noted his neck, which hung as if he’d broken it. The moon rose in the background.
As their doom approached, the two interlocked their gaze, not seeing the end draw near.
“Fire!” Lorita screamed in a voice laced with a thousand voices. “Burn!” She began seizing haphazardly, her white skin turning black as if she where being burned.
“Ahhhh!” Ricardo screeched with the same unearthly voice, holding his hand in front of him. “Moon!” Then he, too, began to burn in the light.
The moonlight turned the world white, bathing it anew and ridding it of evil spirits. But at dawn the next morning the town’s hunters found two white piles of ash on the forest floor. The scent of burned flesh was intoxicating. Who, they wondered, or what could have possibly been burned without our knowing?
In their fright, they approached their pastor, Father Abella.
1472, Rome
Sent to a small village on the southern tip of Spain, Father Abella was a bitter man. The demotion too grave a pain to consider. He quickly befriended a monk and nun had entered the Holy Orders together. He resented the parishioners and his superiors for this demotion, cursing them a thousand times for their stupidity. His arrogance alienated the parishioners as well. Father Abella had two pleasure a day, praying matins with Sister Lorita and vespers with Brother Ricardo. Father Abella came to love his companions, until, in 1478 at the dawn of the Spanish Inquisition, he discovered they practiced witchcraft. He reported their treachery and watched as soldiers broke their necks and burned their bodies.
1479, Spain
Father Abella had become even more bitter since the loss of Sister Lorita and Brother Ricardo. He, as an educated city-priest, disliked the common folk, thinking their intelligence inferior to his own. When they approached him, begging him to bless the forests, he told them only what they wished to hear. But Father Abella did not believe the words he spoke, he did as they asked and cursed them for it.
The morning after Father Abella blessed the woods, the townspeople excitedly went to Father Abella’s rectory to determine if his blessing was successful. However, Father Abella was not in the rectory. Upon searching the town and roads, Father Abella was pronounced missing. The people glanced at the forest in fear. A few brave men dared to enter the forest. They did not find Father Abella, but they did find three piles of white on the forest floor.
Fini. :) Fare thee well, Cherrios.
A.
