Submission (#34) Approved

Dredging in the lake water, there isn’t much to discover beyond piscine residents and penny-sized snails, resting unaware. In the deep, one might stumble upon the madwoman herself, embedded in the mud as if she believed herself a forgotten, discarded treasure.

Treading on land is another story. There is a room, in a tavern maintained to blend with all the other establishments beside it, framed by tight alleys and a paved road, lined with failing streetlights. A lonely room, not forgotten, but a room rarely visited by any anymore.

Behind lock and key, and an unusual, pervasive aura, a space not exact to the era, filled with letters and sheets carpeting the floor, formerly flowing curtains meticulously sewn shut, its umbilical cord of twisted thread draped to the table’s shut drawer. And boxes. A hundred or so empty jewelry boxes tossed within the fabrics, their painted, sanded, waxed selves. Treated wooden, metal, marble walls. Walls cracked, snapped, dented in. Hinges half removed and swinging from a nail with a needle’s width.

Empty and empty, the pages emptied full of puddled ink, bringing them to a state of opaque frailty as the two ingredients meshed, set together through hundreds of years. A covered mirror, off-white edges splattered in black.

On the ceiling, pinned wings. Transparency clear as tinted glass, layering like sequins against the even surface. Forewings, hindwings, pierced, mindful of each’s venation. Lined, evenly spaced between one another. No exoskeletons, and no such evidence.

A cautious hatred or sincere reverence might be inferred of the culprit.

God, she hates bugs.

Reward	Amount
Cinder	350