Fantasy Flash Fiction Festival

Indira’s End
By Dominique Boller ( nikkey76)

Indira sang softly to her six children in the nursery overlooking the snow capped mountains of Bavaria. She cried as she looked out of the French windows, because this would be the last night she would spend with them.
Indira tried to keep the sound of her foot steps low as she slipped out of the children’s bedroom through the book case passage way and down the stairs leading from the play room of the nursery to the atrium of the back garden. It was January and the first snow squall of the season left a blanket of powdery snow over the forest behind the castle. Even though it was nearly midnight the full moon’s brilliant light reflected off the snow, making Indira squint as she crept out of the castle. The snow was fresh and deep.
She had not taken a coat and her boots were inadequate for the snow but she could not feel a thing.
“I must make it to the crypt.” she said to her self. Indira thought of the tall dark haired man she overheard talking about the children with her husband. There was to be an exchange tonight at the family crypt. Indira was worried that Christophe might sell her children in to slavery. Christophe hated children, and where most men would have thought three sets of twins and a healthy beautiful wife were a blessing, he felt quite the opposite. Christophe Nava was the one of the wealthiest merchants and land owners in the province. He was also the cruel. Shortly after marriage he banned Indira from walking freely around the castle. She and any children born to them would inhabit the eastern wing of the castle and her husband the west. She was to make no attempt to contact him without his consent. If he wanted to speak with her he would summon her. Christophe openly stated to his friends and colleagues that he would gladly pay anyone to “get rid of that woman and her children”. Christophe hired midwives, nannies, and governesses with one goal in mind, to kill the children. “He’ll know I am gone soon and he will hunt me down. I have to make it in to the forest to the crypt.”
The moonlit clear sky helped light her path. The wild creatures of the forest must have had pity on her because they paid her no mind as she briskly walked through the forest. After fifteen minutes or more of walking she reached the Nava family crypt. She pushed the makeshift door aside and slowly made her way down the winding stone stairwell.
A single stone tumbled down the stairwell after her. Indira turned swiftly, but saw no one. “Don’t follow me go back!” a child’s voice called out. Indira’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach, it was as she’d guessed Christophe was attempting to sell one of her children. She ran quickly down the stone stairs to the floor of the crypt. Indira looked around at all the stone figures on the floor and in the walls. The moon made a pool of light that shined into the middle of the crypt. There was a shuffle and out of the darkness, under heavy cloak was a small dark figure.
“I told you not to follow me!” The figure said nothing but, Indira heard a child’s voice in her head clearly. The child like figure approached her. Indira back up slowly away from the threatening little figure. A small arm reached out of the cloak. Indira recoiled at the childlike hand stretched out before her.
“You don’t know what your doing! You’ll regret this!” she yelled.“Why are you doing this? What have I done to deserve this? Please, have mercy. I can’t die here, not like this. Please.” her voice was softer now as though with every word she grew weak. Her breath grew shallow. Indira mouthed something like a prayer, but her voice increasingly weaker could barely be heard. Indira staggered as she tied to make her way to the side of a child’s tomb. The child like figure had its arm still out stretched to Indira and was now no more than a foot away from her. Her tears fell and for the first time an audible cry arose form her .The small figure lifted one finger to it’s lips and said “Shhhhhhh!” At that moment Indira screamed and her lifeless body fell on to the floor next to the child’s tomb.
The small figure made its way out of the crypt and as a child to its parent the tiny person in the menacing dark cloak held up its little hand to the very large and dark shadow of a beast. The large creature gently grasped the hand of the little figure. The two slowly made their way back to the castle.