Calabella – Part 6

Then there was a loud knocking at the front door of the house and Calabella’s mother got up from her bed saying, “Who could be knocking at this time of night?” and, just at that moment, she heard Lilly, one of the servants of the house answer the door and rushed downstairs to see who the midnight visitor could be.

And then, to her surprise, Calabella’s mother saw two little, smartly dressed children, a boy and a girl, at the door, soaked through from the storm outside and shivering.

“We got lost”, said the girl, “In the woods and it got so dark that there was no hope of finding our way home again. Can we please come in and warm ourselves by your fire”.

“Oh you poor things”, said Calabella’s mother and she was about to rush over to them and drag them both inside when, suddenly, behind her, Calabella appeared, running downstairs.

“Don’t let them in mother”, cried Calabella, “They’re both monsters”.

But Calabella’s mother became angry
when she heard this and she chided her
daughter,“Calabella? How can you be so
unkind? These are poor children who
need our help”.

And, again, Calabella’s mother turned towards
the shivering children and was about to happily invite them in when, suddenly, a desk that was standing in the hallway, was picked up as if by the arms of a whirlwind and hurled infront of the door, barring the entrance completely, and this happened so unexpectedly and with such a loud crash that it made Calabella’s mother jump and let out a cry of fearful surprise.

“Don’t let them in, my love”, said a deep, familiar voice from behind Calabella’s mother and, turning round, she saw the ghost of Jural appear, “They are my wife Molygar’s evil, monstrous children; not human but Samphyres and, if you let them set a foot within your house then they will try and do terrible harm to you and your daughter”.

Calabella’s mother was amazed, frightened, confused and overjoyed all at the same
time to see the man who she had loved
and mourned standing, seemingly alive,
infront of her.

“I couldn’t bare to live among demons
and monsters anymore", said Jural, "And so I
took my life, praying to heaven and to you
for forgiveness and my vile wife did her best
to try and stop my soul escaping into heaven
with her dark demon spells and offerings but
my heart was too good and my love for my
daughter and her mother pure and noble and
there is nothing, no force of darkness, that
can keep a good soul out of heaven and now I
have returned to protect you both”.

But then, at the doorway, all saw a third shadowy figure materialize behind the two children, a woman dressed all in black with a pale, gaunt face and glowering, hateful eyes and, stretching her arms as if they were made of black plastiscine, her hands becoming large, hairy, grabbing talons, she tried to snatch up Calabella, and, though Calabella hid behind her mother, one of those huge clawed hands managed to seize hold of Calabella’s pony tail and would have dragged the little girl through the door had her mother not grabbed hold of her daughters two feet and pulled in the opposite direction.

Then, thinking quickly, Lilly,the serving girl fetched a pair of scissors from her sewing box and cut Calabella’s pony tail in two so that Calabella’s mother could pull her back to the safety of her arms and the wicked creature in black was left holding nothing but a length of plaited auburn hair with a bow of silk ribbon tied at the end.

Now the mystical flower in Jural’s lapel started to glow brightly, drawing its power from the love in Jural’s heart ; infact it glowed so brightly that it became as bright as if it were a small portion of the sun; so brightly that Jural and Calabella; her mother and all the servants had to shield their eyes from the glare but, peering out between his fingers, Jural saw the head of the golden rose become a lion’s maned head and its leaves and thorns become a lion’s long legs and clawed feet and the end of the roses stem become a long lion’s tail and then Jural saw that lion of blinding light leap upon his wicked wife and her monstrous children and devour them with jaws full of flame like teeth and, when the glare of the glowing flower had died down, Jural took his hand away from his eyes and saw the evil Samphyre and her children were now only three small mounds of dead white ash and the golden rose was lying harmlessly at his feet, its petals curled up so that it looked like a young, unopened bud.

Then, suddenly, so relieved was she to see the end of her father’s evil widow and her demon offspring, Calabella threw her arms around her father to hug him, forgetting that he was a ghost.

Nevertheless, to his surprise, the little girl hugged him tightly.

“I am alive again”, he said in disbelief, pressing his warm hand against the side of his face and feeling solid flesh, “Heaven has granted me a new life”.

“Then we can be a family”, said Calabella, “That’s what heaven would want”.

“Yes. That’s right”, said her father ,smiling down at her happily and holding her and her mother close.