Another week passes, and another chapter materializes, highlighting more about Frederick Waltzcrop in his secretive enclosure, his death chamber, but not enough to know exactly what he has brewing. I hope you follow his evil path to the end. He’s one of those “larger-than-life” creations that has a purpose, and a reason for everything he does. Finding out will be worth it, I hope. If you want, please share your thoughts on this story, the play, Waltzcrop, what you think, in the comments section below . . . I love to hear from readers. Here is a new banner or poster for A Play Demonic (The Queen’s Idle Fancy). Feel free to share this art with your horror story-loving friends. I like the tone, and that there’s a deep red (blood?) seeping there underneath the blackness—the yellow butterfly, to me, symbolizes captivity and death, a butterfly collection, where the butterfly has been pinned, beauty trapped by man.
“We are all demonic!”—QUEEN STORMAG
The art used for this poster was created by my father, George Bogdanovitch. You can find more of his work at www.bogdanovitch.com.
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To read A Play Demonic (The Queen’s Idle Fancy) from the very beginning, simply click HERE for Part 1. To refresh your memory from the last chapter, simply click HERE for Part 15!
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A Play Demonic (The Queen’s Idle Fancy) — Part 16
by
Justin Bog
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Mt. Erie knows secrets, and keeps most of them—dark times from the past grown over with new foliage, twisted vines, ferns, stumps of fallen trees, moss, decay. The entire town did as well. Deception Pass was named because of this tendency towards illusion, mist obscuring the bay’s opening, the roiling tide unleashing a whirling fury of water through the narrow pass, and Deception Pass Bridge became the main tourist stop, linking Fidalgo Island to Whidbey Island. Each year someone slipped from a cliff’s edge into the Puget Sound, or, with more than seasonal melancholy eating away, took his or her own life, leaping from the bridge itself, compelled by inner demons—a sadness, a depression, a feeling of nothingness overwhelming.
Frederick Waltzcrop embraced darkness, huddled, prepared, adding more to the initial drawings on the floor of his protected shelter. He walked this area hundreds of years previously, when only the Sammamish and Swinomish tribes hunted and battled for territory, desires and weaponry changing (the new, modern Casino chuffing and churning on tribal land), before Deception Pass was discovered and the town of Anacortes was incorporated. There were no pathways to the top of the mount then, but the State forestlands had blossomed under a green environmental initiative. In his shelter, now so bloody with Petey’s passing, he dug and the digging invigorated his ancient form. He felt the world’s passing of time as an almost physical manifestation, a strength waning.
Protected from the storm, the rain and wind, he opened the first, the true, book (the pages brittle as his own heart) of The Queen’s Idle Fancy, and stared at the memorialization page. Long ago, someone, some thing, had written Huffins Mackepeace there on the first page as a welcome, an honor, centered in spidery black ink, fading with the centuries.
Who had called him long ago? Who had called to Waltzcrop? Mackepeace now a lost shell, lost to time and hubris, and but a tool. Who had called him to this island? It begins there. Before the months passed into preparation, he had other chores to complete, the process was set in motion, but all the players hadn’t revealed themselves. He’d always been a patient being, methodical, seldom bored. When that happened, he (and Camoustra and Frenalto) moved on.
The shiny object blinked in the muted darkness, a flask, steel, one used for whiskey on a cold day, holding a fisherman’s medicine. It was exactly two feet down, underneath the first kill, buried, and as Waltzcrop loosened the flask from the hole, he wondered, only for a split second, about the person—the mortal—who had gone to so much trouble, who had brought so much curiosity to his doorstep, and he imagined a cold vengeance. In the end this wouldn’t matter so the thought fell back into nothingness, but not before he began to hum, sing parts of, an old song, not so old in the thick of time, a Rolling Stones song he admired, grew an affinity for. You Can’t Always Get What You Want accompanied his actions.
We decided that we would have a soda
My favorite flavor, cherry red
I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy
Yeah, and he said one word to me, and that was “dead”
I said to him
You can’t always get what you want
He opened the flask and soaked it in the puddle of blood on the ground, a few drops collecting there within. Capping the flask, Waltzcrop smiled before hiding it away in his inner coat pocket. All the steps in a row . . . blood of the first awaiting more blood, and Waltzcrop wondered who would win that honor.
cherry red
When Beltane came round again, the flask would be full, filled with the blood of the fallen, those unable to play their parts, the weak, the unnoticed, the forgotten, and they would be forgotten. No one would mourn or miss them, and Waltzcrop came to think he was helping them, each and every one. So far, over the centuries, and unfortunately, he had not been proven wrong.
I saw her today at the reception
In her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception
Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands
You can’t always get what you want
Waltzcrop filled the hole in his enclosure. He shoved Petey’s remains against the back wall, covered them with a few pine branches, fern leaves. He didn’t worry about someone finding Petey. Mt. Erie would keep his place a secret, at least for the next few months, camouflage the path. Anyone hiking this far from the main trail would begin to feel ill if they came close, dizzy, and, possibly, fall. Wouldn’t that be a shame? Waltzcrop didn’t care. That person, that innocent, would be mourned, monuments placed to scald everyone else with caution.
He walked out of the Heart Lake forest area heading towards town. The morning light filtered through the clouds as the wind lessened. The rain continued to fall, but it wasn’t raging. Cars passed him. Their drivers didn’t notice Waltzcrop hulking along there. He was barely there and his blurry form didn’t register. He had an appointment, a second meeting with his blacksmith, to make, and more coffee to drink.
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To read the next chapter of A Play Demonic (The Queen’s Idle Fancy), simply click HERE and begin reading Part 17!
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And that’s all for Part 16 . . . next time, we’ll get back to Roger Compish and see what he’s been up to, how the other members of the cast are doing after reading their copies of the play.
ever,
Justin
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I like the murder! But can’t remember who the blacksmith is.
I’m now very worried about your darkening thoughts, Ben hehe! Murder — the liking it part! More foul play to come by the time auditions roll around. The blacksmith is the character in the play whose daughter is taken by the queen, and the owner of the coffee shop is in Waltzcrop’s sites to audition for that part. Hoping it all gels together as the words unspool. Thanks for reading.