Yesteryear Fiction

Leering from the Past
By Edgar Gloucester


“Where are you, Cordelia?”

“Lost.” Came the tired response. “I don’t know. Lost in someone’s dream, I think.” A swallow. “The past. . . it’s reaching into me, I can feel its burn, I-” A pause. “My god. My god, Goneril, they-”

“What do you see? Cordelia!?”

“Fire.” A shake of the head. “Swords, an arrow, blood.” A gasp, wet with tears. “So much blood.”

“Focus, Cordelia. You have to focus.” A pause, a quickening, a thousand images of flashing steel, flying blood. “Neither Regan nor I can hold the spell much longer.”

“I can’t, Goneril! I can’t!” A shuddering gasp, eyes darting for eyes, fear. “Oh god! The pain! The pain!”

Sitting in the dusty antechamber stacked high with wax effigies and marble busts of forgotten ancestors, the three sisters snapped back to reality as the spell broke like a rubber band pulled too tight. Regan’s vivid green eyes locked with Cordelia’s innocent blue gaze instantly.

“Did you see him?” She demanded. “Did you see our father!?”

Cordelia swallowed, shook her head. “That’s the eighth time, sisters.” She breathed. “Maybe he wasn’t there. Maybe it really was the Welsh after all.”

“He was there.” Goneril said firmly, eyes as hard as diamonds. “He killed mother, and we’re going to keep looking for him until we prove it.”


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Things change, times change, but elements of art stay the same. (EG)