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TSEUQ by J.E.A. Wallace
I
Presumably
This castle is ancient
It looks old and tired and angry
In a tornado of snow
She stands still at its gates
Deaf and blind to all but her fear
The things that took
Her brother are in there
Claw-prints disappear inside
And his prints, smaller, dragged
The snowstorm fades
Then in the looming stone
Something claws and growls
She hears it clearer than herself
There’s a gap in its wall, presumably
II
There is no sun beneath the castle
Just the setting of the dying fire
And the feeding of its rise
Inside the muddy circle
That lies between the cells
Behind the metal bars of a brazier
The fire is as trapped as he is
The boy found by monsters
Picked up by the scruff of his grimy neck
And thrown in here for reasons
Unknown
But not unimaginable
He does not like waiting for sound
Everything is silence
Except for the crackling of his fellow prisoner
And the occasional scraping of his feet
Upon the dirt with its mysterious stains
But then,
What sounds
Could be good down here?
The clanking of keys that don’t belong to him?
The heavy footsteps of an approaching creature?
The scream of another poor sod in a forgotten cell?
The sound of his heart beating, for the first time, finitely?
Fear fills up his lungs like water
His fingers calcify to claws
He’s not sure who to pray to in this world
And then the silence is broken
By his sister’s voice through the wall
III
Between the walls
they move slowly
One noise could
bring the creatures
and neither the
brother or sister
know how to
outrun monsters
they’re especially
unsure how they’d
do it trapped
between enormous
slabs of stone so
they inch quietly
towards the tiny
hole of light so far
away but closer
than their home
which has moved
for both of them
from destination to
aspiration but they
keep their feet
careful like mice
and behind their
wide eyes a dream
IV
They shiver
At the threshold
Between the ghoulish shadows of the dungeons
And the ghostly banshees of the blizzard
“Where are we, Sis?”
Asks the boy (not unreasonably)
She does not answer
“How did we get here?”
Asks the boy (not expectantly)
She does not know
But the perpetually dissolving swirl hides possibilities
And the dry blackened stone holds none
On tenterhooks
They balance
V
It’s not like
She breathes and thinks
I haven’t stumbled blindly
Turning the voice in her head
Through something important before
Into a kind of beacon to focus on and cling to
Bollocks
He can’t find his voice
Flip flip flip flip flip flip flip
His heart is getting away from him
Bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger
There must have been a time when he wasn’t afraid
Oh
No
They each
Reach out
A cold hand
And find home