MEMORIES

After her voice dulled to nothing but a croak, Isabella wasn't exactly sure how long she sat there, her back against the bathroom door, helpless and languid on the cold marble floor.

Her tears were now dry streaks marked on both sides of her cheeks. The glow of the morning light from the window embayed her, giving her skin a milky lustre. Her coal-black hair cascaded her back, sweeping the floor.

Her eyes were firmly shut as if to block away the images flashing in the canvas of her mind. 

The sneer that twisted her father's scar as he glared at her. The horror that darkened her mamma's brown eyes as she gazed at her. Silva's wide sorrowful gape as he breathed his last, blood pooling and darkening his hair. The disgust and hatred that turned Andre's blue eyes, darker like the depths of the sea. Nonna's look of shame before she averted her eyes. The intensity of Vera's stare as she cursed her. The vileness in the eyes of the servants, serfs and all who were there at the event.

Her delicate fingers, a barricade on her ears, in vain attempt to shut away the voices charging and blaring like an amplified record on loop.

"You really think that we can be, that I would love the daughter of the man who murdered my father and took me and my mamma as hostages." 

"Your excesses have become too much for me to bear. What if you died?"

"Your father might not have loved you as you wanted, but what about me? Are you so cruel that you would deprive a mother of her only source of joy?" 

"... other than a warm skin during cold nights, you are nothing to me. Don't ever forget that."

"Please, my lady… help… me" 

"I thought I knew my cara Nini, but this person who braced death for something as ficklesome as love, is unknown to me" 

"You are a murderer! A monster! I hope you burn in hell!"

Another streak of hot tears ran down her cheeks, salty against her parched lips missing with the snot she didn't bother to wipe. As the images and voices threatened to drive her mad.

"Please. Please. Please!" she begged. 

"Murderer. Murderer. Murderer. Murderer. Murderer. Murderer." 

Over and over again, that word bounced through her chaotic mind like a stone bouncing on the surface of a lake leaving ripples in its wake. Except hers left waves and storms in its wake.

"Arrrgh!" she yanked at her hair, and sloppily wiped at the mucus running down her nose, tears still spilling down her cheeks.

"Murderer. Murderer. Murderer. Murderer" 

"Please, I never intended for it to happen, please" she sobbed.

She should have known that with home just a flight away, these suppressed memories would reel and taunt her.

Nothing had been working. Not therapy, which she only had to attend once and decide that talking about it wasn't helpful. Not partying. Not alcohol. Not even drugs. She still found it hard to sleep at night, but this was more. It felt like in mentioning his name, talking about him, added with the thought of going back, triggered these glimpses of her past she desperately wanted to remain tucked away.

She hated them all, her cruel father, for forcing her to come to this place after what happened. Rosa, her mom, for not doing enough to stop him. Nonna, for bounding her to life. Andre, who she had several reasons to. But most of all, herself for all the stupid and terrible things she had done. 

Yet, she had kept the alarm clock Andre gifted her. Maybe the love she had for him overshadowed the hate she desperately wanted to feel for him. But one thing was certain, it was hard to unlove someone whom your heart once accepted wholly.

People look at her, even Laura, and wish they had her life. "It's all yours" she scoffed sarcastically at the thought.

They had no idea how much she wanted to exchange her shitty life for theirs. Surely none of them had been through half of what plagued her, and she would gladly accept their normal drama in exchange for this nightmare of existence.

"End it all. What are you waiting for, there's the knife?" A voice echoed in her mind, directing her gaze to corner that served as a kitchen, where knives glinted in the wooden block.

Shaking her head vigorously, she quickly asserted, "No. No. No. I can't do that" 

It wasn't the first time such thought caressed her mind, to finish what they hadn't allowed her to, that fateful night. But as much as she wanted to be free of it all, she couldn't. She was trapped.

As if on cue, the memory took hold in her ever flickering mind.

She was kneeling in the dimly lit underground chamber where her Nonna stood clad in a long scarlet robe fringed with intricate black stitches, obsidian jewelry glinting in the candlelight adorned her wrinkled neck and saggy ears.

Her Papa and Mamma flanked her, the latter in a robe just like Nonna's, but simpler and less bulky. Her father, in a straight robe, the color of the night slashed at the middle with red as dark as blood. Behind the trio, the Consiglieri and other members of her twisted family whom she was too in a shock to remember, stood in robes just like her papa and mamma's.

Red candles illuminated their shadows and sullen faces. A strange pungent incense hung thickly in the air. A golden stool held a silver tray containing a dark, oddly shaped bottle with a ruby cork, a small skull with ruby gems on its sockets, a black book bounded by a scarlet cord, and a bone dagger with a ruby pommel, nestled by her right.

"Wait a minute", she thought, as she recollected the stonewalled hall behind her, the steps leading upwards and the giant red door she had once asked her Nonna about during that time she had wandered off when she was just 7 during a vacation at Nonna's. The door had been closed that time and the thrill of discovering what laid behind had plagued her throughout the period she stayed. But here she was, dreadful of what had once thrilled her.

"What… Che cosa diavolo sta succedendo?(What the devil is happening?), Nonna, Papa, Mamma, what am I doing here?" She asked frantically, her eyes darting between the three in front of her and everywhere.

"Someone answer me!" she yelled in frustration when no one gave her a response. Mistaking Nonna's lips twitch as a hint, she continued in a much calmer tone, "Okay, okay, I agree that I went too far, and I swear I've learnt my lesson. Just get me out of here." 

And yet no one answered her. They kept looking at her with that grim expression on their faces.

"Haha, you've made your point, can we now go back home?" she had asked rising, "By the way, great prank everyone, you almost had me there. Whose idea was this, even managing to rope in Nonna. Complimenti!, so…"

A chime died away the words on her lips. She didn't know what time it was, but it had to be very late judging from that time she drank the concoction which was supposed to aid her recovery, but had been a sleeping portion, and the one hour drive to Nonna's estate, it was really late.

"It's time, let's begin. Isabella resume your position" her Nonna pronounced, calling her by name for the very first time.

Laughing nervously, she said "Oh Nonna, what a great actress you are, the very best in fact. But how long is this supposed to go on, I'm hungry"

"In ginocchio, Isabella!" Nonna snapped, the tone slicing through her like a cold blade as she brought her knees to kiss the red rug.

At Nonna's raised hands, a bone chilling hum rippled from the others. The gold ruby ring glowed on Nonna's finger and it dawned on her that this was no prank. It was real, as real as the thudding in her chest.

"Nonna, Papa, Mamma, ho fatto une errore, mi scuso" she pleaded again.

"Zitto!" Nonna's voice carried through the room, she had never heard her use such tone. It even shocked her that the raspy voice she was used to could rise to such pitch. 

Fixing her a stare that made her flinch, Nonna resumed, a devilish grin on her face, "You weren't supposed to know about this until later, perhaps after the death of your papa, but with your recent behavior and to avoid future mishap, you, my child must take an oath before Erebusa. Now repeat after me"

All her life, she believed they were Catholics. Her papa even went for confessions every Thursday at exactly 6pm. She had never heard of any Erebusa. And not that she believed in God or the Virgin Maria, but she was one of those people who believed that a point would come in their lives when a divine intervention would cause her to believe.

The deity, as she was explained later, was an ancient, forgotten goddess of the underworld, the patron deity of her family. Associated with darkness, protection, and the afterlife, she's said to reside in the Shadow Realm, a mystical domain between the world of the living and the dead. And all her family's success could be accredited to her.

With her eyes shut and tilted upward, her hands raised, Nonna chanted;

"Erebusa, madre oscura,

Ascolta il nostro giuramento,

Isabella, figlia della mia figlia,

Promette di vivere, di amare, di non dimenticare.

Con il sangue che scorre nelle vene,

Con il respiro che anima il corpo,

Isabella giura di onorare la vita,

Di non cercare la morte, mai più.

In cambio, sciogli i suoi peccati,

Assolvila dal peso della colpa,

Liberala da ogni maledizione,

Proteggila dagli sguardi malvagi,

Proteggila, o madre oscura,

Perché lei è tua figlia, carne della tua carne."

"Erebusa, dark mother,

Listen to our oath,

Isabella, daughter of my daughter,

Promises to live, to love, to never forget.

With the blood that flows in her veins,

With the breath that animates her body,

Isabella swears to honor life,

To never seek death again.

In exchange, loosen her sins,

Absolve her from the weight of guilt,

Release her from every curse,

Protect her from evil gazes,

Protect her, oh dark mother,

For she is your daughter, flesh of your flesh."

With a trembling voice, she had stuttered those words. The air had grown colder with each word as if coalescing into a palpable force, the flames of the candles and torches in their cressets flickered, casting eerie shadows that seemed to writhe like living darkness. 

Thinking it over after stating those damned words, she had almost made to rise when Nonna walked to the tray and to her horror slashed her palm with the bone dagger, crimson drops falling into the skull. Her parents followed, copying Nonna until everyone in the room had done so too.

Gripping her hand without her consent, even as she made to protest, her father had slashed her palm and fed the drops into the skull just like the others.

Her mamma took the skull and added the liquid from the oddly shaped bottle, before handing it to Nonna in reverence, her head bent in a bow while holding out the red glowing socket skull with both hands.

Nonna gyrated around the room, the skull raised above her head and shrieked, "Col vincolo del nostro sangue e il vino eterno, consacriamo il patto e la consacriamo a te o Madre oscura! (By the bond of our blood and the eternal wine, we sanctify the oath and consecrate her to you, oh dark mother!)"

To her utmost astonishment, a piercing shrill answered, reverberating through the chamber, shattering the air with its ear-piercing wail, and in a fleeting instant, the radiant lights that illuminated all were snuffed out, only to burst forth anew in a maddening whirl of light and darkness.

"Grazie mille, Erebusa" Nonna concluded, nudging the skull between her lips. She would have fought against the salty-sweet liquid entering her mouth, but she had seen and witnessed enough to drain her of every obstinate.

Nonna drank after and so did every other person in the room. 

"Rise, oh daughter of the dark mother". She didn't even flinch as her parents helped her to her feet. After that, the consequences of breaking the oath was read to her by her mamma from the black, scarlet bound book.

Like an engraving in her mind, she still remembered the words.

"If you attempt to take your life again or harm yourself, you will suffer a terrible curse, slowly losing your memories and sense of identity. Your soul will be trapped in the Shadow Realm, unable to move on, and Erebusa will taunt you forever with mares of your greatest fear and sins. And if she chooses to let you move on, you shall be reborn of the lowest rank or an animal if she deems it fit"

"Scarlet Brotherhood!" Nonna thrilled.

"Sangue e Onore!(Blood and Honor!)" They echoed as one, sealing her fate and confirming her fears. The scarlet brotherhood wasn't just a faction. It was also a cult as the name depicts.