Helga's Journey: A Story of Forgiveness by beauty and brains
Chapter Notes: Chapter one of my first Gauntlet Challenge.
Helga could hear the dull thud of her feet as she walked cautiously down the dank corridor. There were no pictures, no framed posters, nothing but blank rock, enclosing on her from both sides. A blue torch sat on the wall next to the black door that awaited her at the end of the corridor.
The young woman watched in slow motion as her hand reached out and grasped the cold handle, turning it with a deafening squeak. Pulling it open, her eyes were met with total darkness, and cool air blasted into the corridor, pushing her blonde curls away from her face. She took a deep breath and walked into the black abyss.
After shutting the door behind her, blue torches flamed to life at once, casting an eerie glow over the circular room, whose ceiling was as high as a cathedral’s. There were many doors, all black as charcoal. A mechanical clinking began to vibrate around the room, and suddenly the entire wall was spinning. Helga’s eyes were streaked with the haunting blue of the torches long after the rotating ceased.
In almost a dreamlike state, Helga walked to the closest door and pulled the knob around, opening the heavy black door and peering inside. The walls were alight with glitter. Every corner was glowing in the milky light. A large dome, almost like a glass egg, sat in the middle of the room, and Helga approached it, fascinated. Inside was a small raven, black as night. As she watched, he began to sink back down to the bottom of the dome, growing smaller and wetter as he went. Then suddenly, he was incrusted inside a bird egg.
“It couldn’t be an eagle or a hummingbird. It had to be a God-forsaken raven,” Helga muttered disgustedly. She walked past the egg, completely ignoring a large hourglass filled with golden sand. Her thoughts were consumed by Rowena Ravenclaw, the witch whom she had dubbed her sister in spirit, and who now she wished only a gruesome death. The reasons were far too horrible. Rowena had betrayed Helga. She had ripped her heart out for all to see, leaving it bare upon the ground. The black haired witch, who carried such poise, knowledge, and beauty, had stolen the one thing Helga had ever wanted so badly she would kill for it. She was the cause of her pain. She would pay…soon.
There was another plain black door on the other side of the large glowing egg. Helga bypassed it, ignoring as the raven grew back into its prime age. She held out a hand, and once again noticed how slowly her hand made its progress to the handle, almost as if in a dream. When her hand connected to the silver handle, it began glowing a luminescent gold, flowing through her hand and into her arm, until all of her body was alight. Her mouth hung open in astonishment as her body lit up the Time Room even more so than the egg.
A heat started to take place in her fingertips, and it grew to a tingly itch that ran up and down her arm. When she gasped and tried to pull away from the door, though, it was as if her hand was pasted to it. The door would not release her. And she understood that the only way to go was forward. Closing her hazel eyes, Helga took a deep breath and pulled the door open and rushed through the doorway, slamming it behind her.
When Helga opened her eyes, she found the entire world had turned upside down. Her eyes flashed wildly all around her as she tried not to panic as the blood rushed to her head. Far beneath her, courtroom benches lined the wall, tall enough that if she reached out her hand she could touch them. The entire room was bathed in a brown, dead colour.
Frantically, as Helga’s brain started to jostle back to life, she reached behind her to take a hold of the handle to the room she had just left. But she found that there was no door. It had disappeared into the wall, leaving her no choice but to remain in this room, stuck to the ceiling. She turned her head quickly, searching for a way out without having to move her feet, for she was scared that if she were to part her foot from the ceiling, she would plummet to the stone floor beneath her.
Her large eyes locked onto another black door, this one garish and caked in rust, straight across the room from where she was hanging. Helga knew she would have to walk across the ceiling, her pounding head a strong reminder of that. Her breath quickened as she began to slowly lift her right foot. She found it was very reluctant to part, as though it had been glued down. With as much courage as she could muster, she closed her eyes once more and completely lifted her foot away and placed it slightly in front of her.
When Helga opened her eyes, she found that she had not plummeted to the floor below her. But she also realized that it would take much too long to reach the door, and she didn’t think her poor head would be able to take much more.
Gulping air, Helga resolved to do the first crazy thing she had done in a long time: she ran. Each time her foot left the ceiling, it was as though she was asking it to come unglued. She made it though, and was panting uncontrollably when she reached the newest door. Grabbing the black knob, she pulled with as much strength as she could, and the door squeaked loudly as it opened for the first time in a long time. Taking a deep breath, Helga stepped through into the next unknown room.
The door opened into velvety blackness. It pressed upon Helga’s eyes like a blanket. Stepping away from the door, she felt her feet lurch beneath her, and she stumbled, feeling the old stone steps crumble away. Quickly, she stilled her movement, and lowered herself into a sitting position, precautious on the cracking floor. Her breathing was coming in short gasps. She began breathing deeply, and noticed how the room seemed to pulse eerily with her breaths, as though it was completely in tune with her.
Helga strained her eyes against the darkness, and at first thought it was only her imagination as the room came into focus, but slowly she began to make out the rising stairs and a huge, ancient archway. The room swam in a faint blue and green colour, but Helga noted that there were many shadows flitting around the edges of the room. It scared her worse than the dark.
Suddenly, she felt a brush on her shoulder, and she uttered a soft scream. Whipping around, though, she found no one, only a retreating shadow. It slithered away and began to rotate the room with the others. Helga shivered as she watched their circle. Thinking of a way to distract herself, she looked around the bluish room and noticed the archway again, which was holding a long curtain, tattered and ripped. The curtain, which was more like a veil, was blowing gently, moving on its own accord, just as the shadows.
Curiously, she approached it. The veil whispered to her. “Helga…Helga.”
Instead of utter terror, a warm sensation embraced Helga as she strained her ears to the veil. The room changed. It was no longer a dark, cold room of moving shadows. It was a warm, sunny gold room, where the very air breathed peace and tranquility. She suddenly had a very strong desire to touch the veil…to step through it. Why, she could not explain, but explaining didn’t really matter to her.
Just as she stepped onto the base and reached out a hand to hold the veil, a voice reached Helga, and it seemed to come from the veil itself. It bathed her in warmth and tenderness, and tears of joy filled Helga’s eyes as the room mirrored her, colours blooming on the walls.
“Helga, its Godric. How have you been?”
Helga felt the tears stream down her face as his voice floated out and surrounded her. It had been nearly two weeks since she had last heard him. He had past from this world into the next, leaving her all alone, for two whole weeks.
“Godric,” she whispered, preparing to launch herself through the veil to be able to reach him.
“No, Helga, you mustn’t!” His command stopped her in her tracks, and she dared go no further. Instead, she stepped away and back onto the crumbling stone floor.
“You cannot reach me here. I am but visiting this place, waiting for you, and then I am to continue on my way.”
“Godric,” Helga cried, “I have missed you so.” She brushed tears away and listened hard.
“And I have missed you more than you know. But I also know that you cannot continue on with this train of hatred that you old against Rowena. For then, when it is your turn to pass, you will not be in the same place as me. And I won’t have that.”
Helga began to sob openly, and she felt as though Godric’s arms were embracing her. She did not know how Godric was speaking to her, but she did know that this was the veil many spoke of in legends as the point of which people hover in when things had not been settled on this world, but when they were, the spirits would be on their way to a place no living person knew of.
“But Godric…How can I ever forgive her for what she has done to me? To us?”
“You must find it in your heart, Helga, and I know that there is room enough for Rowena again, for I know how large and loving your heart is.”
His words surrounded Helga and seemed to seep into her soul, and she knew in her heart that he was right, as he had always been right. Helga nodded, and then replied, “Godric, I will try my hardest.”
Godric spoke again, “And Helga, wherever you go, and whomever you love, know that I will always love you, and I shall never stop, and I have not stopped in death.”
Helga smiled a smile which radiated her love, and she said, “I will always love you, Godric, no matter who might come after, if ever someone does.”
“The way out is around me. I know we will see each other again, Helga. Let your heart guide you.”
And with that, the room changed back to the dark place it was, and shadows flitted around, whispering, and Helga knew they were lost spirits, waiting for the right person to come along. She spotted the door around the archway, and ran as fast as she could to it, not once looking back at the veil.