After Life

I was famous. While I had been a person of only moderate renown prior to my death, my seedy demise and the subsequent goings-on cemented my reputation as a man one shouldn’t dismiss.

In life, I had been a viscount. A very handsome, wealthy, unmarried viscount. I had a taste for the finer things in life, for all the good that had done me later on. Hmph.

But to get to the point. I had decided, at one particular gala, that the married baroness of some stodgy fellow or another was the most comely woman I had ever seen. Typical of myself back then, I had shortly called on her at her estate when I knew her husband was away, hoping for, at the least, some mild flirtation. The encounter had proved to be far more than I had bargained upon.

Though I had intended on merely heated, scandalous flirtation, the baroness had easily seduced me. As I lay unclothed in her bed, she had disclosed to me what she really desired: a willing accomplice to her husband’s murder. I grew more and more horrified as she revealed to me a detailed plan to assassinate her husband, making me the instrument of his demise!

I saw easily through her machinations as a power-hungry, greedy woman who was looking for a patsy. I fled from her boudoir, hoping only to never see the evil seductress ever again. Technically, now that I reflect back on it, my wish was granted. Perhaps I should have been more specific.

Nary a week passed by before my castle was set upon by the baron and his forces, claiming that I had forced myself upon his wife! Unprepared for such a fiasco, I was easily captured. The baron subsequently beheaded me in front of my own people, then placed my head upon a pike as a warning to all other sinful ravishers of women. He also took it upon himself to take over my acreage and homestead. Hrmmm…

Needless to say, despite being dead, I was none too pleased with the situation. Unlike most others, I simply couldn’t let it go. I refused to leave my castle in the hands of this idiot brute, this puppet of the vile baroness. Thus, I began my haunting.

Immediately following my death, I had very little area in which to roam. I was stuck, more or less, within the bailey by the castle’s entrance, though I had the full range of the forebuilding, the entrance stairway, and the gate house. However, I couldn’t even reach the curtain wall initially. It was as though an invisible barrier prevented me from leaving the area adjacent to where I had been killed.

Perhaps I should have started off by saying that I actually died quite some time ago, as it’s rather pertinent. You see, with each passing year, on the anniversary of my slaughter, my territory, if you wished to call it that, increases in size. As the years have passed, I have finally regained access to the entirety of my castle, as well as a fair portion of the grounds. But that is not the only change time has wrought.

Beginning the moment the last breath of life left my lips, I was determined to exact some manner of vengeance. I experimented constantly with ways to harass the baron and his underlings whenever they moved to enter or leave the castle proper.

I soon discovered that the easiest thing I could do was manifest a chill in the air. Similarly, I could create a small area where a sense of foreboding and unease would overcome any of the living who walked through it. But with time and practice, I soon learned far more.

Once I had access to the castle, I learned to move smaller furniture, along with decorative and kitchen items. My first crowning glory was when I upset a candelabrum and burned most of the dining hall’s furniture to ash. Though I’d miss my lovely tapestries (some imported from Asia Minor!), it was worth it to see the fear reflected in the eyes of all who came to the castle thereafter. And I only improved from there.

Eventually, I learned a rather pathetic, shadowy form of temporary visual manifestation. I found that weather was somewhat of a variable when it came to my abilities. I caused a pageboy to wet his pants on one particularly foggy, gloomy evening. After that, I delighted at hearing the rumors spread.

The baron ceased visiting the castle entirely, and the staff began avoiding areas I had been spotted. Though it was draining, I once managed to juggle my decapitated head at the poor statesman who was trying to sleep in my old bedchambers! He had left the castle that very night!

Over the centuries, word of my continued, spiritual inhabitance of my castle spread. It stroked my ego to no end when visitors came just to see me! Eventually, the castle was mostly abandoned, but people still came to call upon me. When I saw fit, I’d scare them right out of their knickers!

I learned that, recently, my castle has been designated a historical site. There are even tours given by tour guides! My favorite part of the tour is when they review with guests where I was killed. The story they tell is wrong, (I certainly wasn’t in love with the baroness, far from it), but it still pleases me to see them come year after year. It’s kept me from wanting to do anything else; I’m just so good at it!

But this year, after all this time, something has changed.

Notes

Behold, a new story!

I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think so far.