White Roses - ReVamped

Chapter Ten: Castles in the Sky

Pushing open the doors, the world disappeared for a moment. Cherry wood colored the inside the hallway with orange lights somehow making people look better, and paintings covered the walls of the hallway. In the paintings, shapes twisted and the colors expressed emotions even though I couldn't make any goddamn sense of the shapes. It looked like something I might see with faeries to be honest.

"What do you think?" I asked as Drake flew in front of me. His arms folded over one another before standing straight in the air.

"I smell rotting flesh."

Oh great.

I took a big whiff. I couldn't smell anything. I walked down the hallway.

 I could hear music, but my legs tensed and refused to go in.

"I don't like it," Drake said. "We should leave."

"We can't."

"Jorge will only be mad if you end up dead."

"You can scare off anything that really wants to kill me. What faerie smells like a rotten corpse?"

"Gravediggers."

Gravediggers stood about the size of a black bear, but had grey flappy skin. They liked hanging around graveyards. I'm not sure if it was because they liked eating corpses or just liked death in general, but I never really stuck around to find out. But why would a gravedigger be here?

"Gravediggers can pretend to be human?"

"Not that I know of."

I stopped at a picture on the wall. He actually framed one of my photos. It was of the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid looked at her prince from far away. Her back sat toward the camera.

"The Little Mermaid?" Drake asked. "A bit on point for you, isn't it?"

I looked back at him. "Huh?"

"You being in love with the human boy and him not loving you back."

I shrugged a bit. "How do you know it's my work?"

"I think you're the only human who would show how scales from the tail went up to the shoulder blades," Drake said. "But it is rather beautiful."

That's the nicest thing Drake has ever said to me. 

"That is my favorite piece." A voice said.

I looked over to see a tall, pale man. Drake gagged. The tall man wore his hair long and let it rest on his shoulders. I saw the veins underneath his skin. He stood at over six foot and seemed to be skinny like he didn't eat enough, but not so skinny that I would want to take him on in a fight if I had to. His jaw bones stuck underneath the skin and looked like might break through at any moment. Red outlined of his eyes and his  long nails looked like glass. 

"You can feel the longing in the photo," he said as he looked back at me. I stared at the dark brown eyes and felt my heartbeat slow. 

Ba-bump. Ba-Bump. Ba-Bump.

"Matty, he's a rotting corpse!" Drake said.

The man smiled as I said, "Henry?" My heart still beat slowly.

"Yes. It's good to meet you, Miss Lee. I've been wanting to meet you for a very long time."

"He's a corpse. A walking corpse. Can you at least look a little frightened?" Drake hissed. What am I going to do? Scream and run?

"Uhm, glad to hear it. This had to be one my earliest pieces."

"Jorge likes to brag about his favorite students," Henry said and offered his hand to me. "Let's go." I dropped my hand in his.