The Castle Rose by Tabitha Caplinger

Author:Tabitha Caplinger [Caplinger, Tabitha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blue Ink Press, LLC

Refrain: Bastian 1923

Bastian twisted an imaginary band on his finger. It was missing, possibly lost or stolen. He wasn't sure which, but it was gone. It was only a phantom now, like he was only a phantom.

It'll be done tonight. That's what Octavian had said twelve nights ago, as Bastian was about to take the stage. If he had known it would be his last performance, he would have ended with a different song. If he had known he was about to disappear, he would have run to Catherine and begged her forgiveness.

But he didn't know.

He had bowed to the final applause and exited stage right. He had stood in the back alley for hours waiting for Octavian, waiting for some sign it would work, that it had all been worth it. As the moon had sunk, giving way to the dawn, it had occurred to Bastian that he hadn’t coughed in hours. That hadn’t happened in weeks. He had inhaled a long, deep breath of the new morning air and it had filled his lungs without sputtering back out in raspy heaves. He had been made whole.

Except he wasn’t.

He had rushed back inside the theater looking for someone, anyone, to share in this miracle, but it was long vacant. He had jogged through the front doors and out onto the quiet street. Only a handful of people were still meandering about; vagabonds, paperboys, late-nighters, and early risers. He had started toward his favorite diner, knowing Jack would be there early to make a fresh batch of biscuits. Making a right at the corner, he had then run right into a large man with a patched jacket.

But not into; through.

Bastian’s heart and stomach had seemed to switch places. Panic coursed through his veins, making his skin tingle and his head throb. Erratic breaths pumped in and out of healed lungs. He had scanned back and forth, looking for a reaction, a face expressing equal shock. There was none to be found through his blurring vision. The man in the patched jacket had just kept walking as though nothing at all had happened to him. This wasn't possible.

Yet it was happening.

It had happened.

Twelve nights ago.

It didn't matter how many people he had tried to speak to, touch, or scream at since—no one noticed. No one flinched. They came, and they went. Police came and went. Then no one came again. Alone in the dark, Bastian crumbled, folding over into himself. His mind unraveled and tangled all at the same time as he desperately tried to make sense of it. There was no sense in it though.

Catherine was heartbroken.

Octavian was gone.

He was dead.

Except he wasn't. Was he?

Bastian sulked around the empty tables of the theater that had become his tomb. Where else could he go? He had no place of his own anymore. They had emptied his tiny flat of his possessions—of any sign that he had ever lived there—in mere hours. His body trembled. A moan started in the back of his throat, growing into a growl, and emerging as a roar.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.