Believe - Ghost Story Contest Entry
Title: Believe
Author: booksrgood4u
Genre: Umm...spooky
Word Count: 1, 534
Rating: G
Summary: Ummm....I stink at writing summaries, but here goes: In which rumors of ghosts fill the halls of Attolia. There short and sweet, and not very informative. Anyway, told from the perspectives of Relius, Irene, Gen and Sophos. I'll have to work on that XD
Author's Notes: So, this is for the Ghost story challenge. This is not the idea I originally had, but I started writing and this is what came out. I know, I have such a wonderful strategy, don't I?! Special Thanks to my beta and cheering squad, 1221bookworm, and as always, to earthstar_moon for running these challenges. And apologies to tiegirl for giving her husband Teleus such a hard time XD
“There was one more rumor my spies picked up,” Relius told his queen just as he was rising to leave his meeting with her. He was not officially her spymaster anymore, but he still had informants and access to information that was of interest to his queen. One did not suddenly stop knowing things. “I did not mention it before because it is quite trivial, but I thought it would amuse you, my Queen.” Attolia arched an eyebrow.
“Go on, Relius,” she invited, and Relius, grown more confident in her good humor these days, went on.
“There have been rumors circulating amongst the servants lately that the palace is haunted.” Relius watched Attolia’s eyebrow arch even higher.
“Haunted?” she repeated, one corner of her lips tugging up slightly. “And where did this rumor come from? Has my staff suddenly been overrun by Eddisians?” Eddisians had quite a reputation in Attolia for being highly superstitious. Relius had never bought into any of that, though, and he knew that his queen did not either.
“Not Eddisians, I believe,” he answered sharing his queen’s slight smile. “Simply a few servants with overactive imaginations.”
“Yes, of course,” she murmured.
“I’m certain the rumors will run their course in a few days,” he reassured her.
“Well, they had better,” Attolia said, starting to rise herself. “I’ve grown quite accustomed to being the most frightening thing in the palace.” The words might have been chilling to another person, but Relius, who knew his queen’s every inflection, recognized this for her frosty sense of humor, and smiled along with her.
“You really ought to be more careful sneaking about the palace at night, my King,” Irene addressed Gen when he slipped into her room that evening. She didn’t turn to look at him or to see his his smirk. She didn’t need to, it was there in his voice.
“And why is that, my Queen?” He responded, mimicking her tone.
“Relius tells me that my palace has recently become haunted by ghosts. You should be careful.” She did turn now, to watch his expression. Gen arched an eyebrow at her, his smirk still in place.
“Surely you don’t believe in ghosts, Irene,” His smirk began to grow into a grin.
“No.” Irene answered firmly. “I do not. I do, however, believe in husbands, with penchants for causing trouble in my palace.” Her eyes narrowed, trying to discern whether her remark hit home or not, but Eugenides’ face remained as unreadable as her own.
“I’m glad to hear that you believe in me,” he said, his grin growing. “I’ll tell you what. If I happen to see this ghost in any of my travels, I will have a word with it. I’ve grown quite accustomed to being the most mischievous thing in this palace. And don’t you be scared of it. You know I’ll keep you safe.”
Irene tried to glare at him, but her heart wasn’t in it, and Gen laughed.
The next morning, the King sought out his guard commander. Waving off his sparring partner, he approached Teleus.
“Your Majesty,” Teleus greeted him neutrally, which was better than usual.
“Teleus.” Eugenides voice was firm. “I would like to know what strategies the Queen’s Guard employs in defending Her Majesty against…supernatural beings.” Gen took great pleasure in watching the emotions cross his guard commander’s face. First, alarm that his queen was in danger, than offense that his king would imply that he was not doing his job, and finally anger when the reality of the ridiculousness of the question sunk in. Gen grinned as Teleus reined all those emotions in and asked stiffly through clenched teeth, “To what is Your Majesty referring?”
“Ghosts, Teleus,” he answered loftily, “Surely you’ve heard of them, even in Attolia.”
“Surely Her Majesty doesn’t believe that ghost exist,” Teleus’ words were polite, a stark contradiction to his tone.
“She didn’t believe that the Thief if Eddis could come and go as he liked, but he did anyway,” Gen pointed out in an infuriatingly reasonable voice.
“The Queen’s guard is not in the habit of making fools of itself chasing shadows!” Teleus had apparently given up on the pretense of manners.
“I’m very sorry to hear it, and I know Her Majesty will be sorely disappointed to know that her Guard protects her only so far as their dignity allows.” Gen shook his head and turned away, turning back when Teleus said, “Wait.”
“Yes, Teleus?” the king arched an eyebrow.
“It is possible that this being, reported to be a ghost, might possibly be an intruder and a threat to Her Majesty’s safety.” Gen could see how much it galled the man to admit it.
“My thoughts exactly, Teleus,” he answered, adopting the irritatingly reasonable tone once more.
“I will look into the situation. We will keep Her Majesty safe.” Gen’s face was suddenly serious.
“I believe you. Her Majesty is in good hands.”
So as soon as the guard finished training, Teleus went to his queen to inform her of the guard’s devotion to her protection, and their policies against intruders and their intention of protecting the King of Sounis and Queen of Eddis who would soon arrive. This seemed to please her, if confuse her a bit, and she assured him of her complete faith in his service to her. The Attolian Guard’s new vigilance was picked up by Eddisian informants and reported to the Queen and her new husband, along with the rumor of ghostly activities. So the King of Sounis was not taken completely off guard when the King of Attolia turned up in his room one night asking if he’d like to go ghost hunting.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Sophos said groggily.
“Says who?” Gen demanded, “the Magus? Come out with me anyway.”
‘Out’ apparently meant the secret passages and hidden rooms of the palace, since, as Gen explained, looking over his shoulder at Sophos, his guard commander had squealed on him to the queen out of spite, and he was walking a very fine until he thought he could get away with leaving the palace again. ‘Ghost hunting’ apparently meant nothing except showing off the palace and chatting like friends rather than kings. They ended up in a room Gen referred to as ‘the conspiracy room.’
“It’s for hatching evil plots,” he explained, sitting on the floor of the low-ceilinged room. “Or talking about your wife.” Sophos grinned and launched into a litany about how wonderful Helen was, which Gen countered by telling him every humiliating story from their childhood he could remember, and a few he made up, and Sophos defended his new wife valiantly. He was interrupted in the midst of a passionate defense by Gen’s elbow hard in his ribs. Sophos peered at Gen through the dark and could see him holding a finger to his lips. Sophos took the hint and listened, and stifled a gasp when he thought he heard a whisper. Suddenly feeling foolish, he turned and glared at Gen.
“Very funny, Gen, everyone knows there’s no such thing as ghosts,” he accused, but the look of alarm on Gen’s face made him stop and take another listen. There were voices. Hatching plots just as Gen said - it was a conspiracy room after all. One voice whispered of overthrowing a king, and another voice whispered that poison would have been better. They would have been kings by now if they’d used poison. Sophos held his breath, and knew that Gen did the same. He knew they were both thinking of the rumors of ghosts. Something grabbed Sophos’ arm at the elbow and he nearly panicked, before realizing that it was only Gen, tugging him to his feet, dragging him towards the nearest escape, running down a hidden passage. Gen didn’t let go until they were far from the conspiracy room, leaning against a wall to catch his breath. Sophos joined him, and Gen glanced up at him a bit sheepishly.
“Sophos, tell me I was hearing things,” he said between gasps of breath.
“No, I heard them too,” Sophos answered. Gen laughed a bit nervously, and straightened up.
“We must both be overtired, then” he said, regaining some of his usual self-confidence. “Let’s get back to bed.” Sophos agreed wholeheartedly.
Gen delivered Sophos back to his bedroom and left, telling him to sleep well. As if either of them would. He then started his way back to his own bedroom, so Irene wouldn’t know he’d been out and about, but abruptly changed directions, deciding he’d rather not be alone after that disturbing incident. He could deal with her questions later.
“I thought I wouldn’t see you tonight,” Irene murmured sleepily. “I thought you would be out gallivanting with Sounis.”
“Not gallivanting,” Gen whispered, getting settled, “Ghost hunting.”
“I see. Did you find any?” Gen doubted she would believe him if he told her, and he had fought for so long to get her to believe the things he told her, so, he decided, to preserve his credibility, a lie was definitely in order.
“Of course not, Irene,” he said into the darkness. “No one believes in ghosts.”
Thanks for reading to the end, I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!!
~booksrgood4u
P.S. Also, my apologies to the lovely ladies over in the Conspiracy Room on Chatzy, which I sincerely hope is not haunted...is it?