Mistress of Shadows, Full version

   The House of Ulalume was a dark and powerful clan that ruled the gloomy region of Valdemar, a province of the Hallowed Orman Empire; the aristocrats of the Empire were at best a rather sinister lot, but even among them the House of Ulalume was dreaded by all.  Otranto Ulalume, thirteenth Count of the line, was a stern and implacable man, ruthless and ambitious; his son, Lord Politian, was of a similar stamp, and Otranto's brother Lord Ulric, a sly, subtle schemer and an expert in poisons; the Count and Lord Ulric had plans for the marriages of their children, and this is where my tale begins...

  Count Otranto also had a daughter--the Lady Morella, his pride and joy, a slender, quiet, exquisite maiden of eighteen Octobers, with skin as luminous as moonlight upon snow and hair of such an utter blackness that it seemed to darken any room which she happened to enter!  Morella's blood-red lips rarely smiled, and her large, glittering emerald eyes seemed to pierce you to the very soul; although of a quiet demeanor, there was an aura of indefinite yet undeniable menace about the Lady Morella, and the servants of Castle Ulalume feared her silent, reproachful gaze more than her father's roar!  As her mother and aunt were both dead, Lady Morella was chatelaine of the castle; her father and uncle doted on her, her brother tolerated her and occasionally teased her (from a safe distance), and her cousin Orfeo worshipped her.
  Orfeo Ulalume, Lord Ulric's only offspring, was a pallid, weedy youth of sixteen with a weak chest; he was painfully in love with his cousin Morella, and while such an incestuous passion did not offend the decadent mores of the Valdemarian nobility, it nevertheless met with the disapproval of Orfeo's father and Count Otranto, who were arranging marriage alliances for their children.  Lady Morella loved to toy cruelly with her lovesick cousin, leaving the door open when she bathed or changed clothes, or arranging midnight assignations which she never kept; Orfeo led a miserable life, but at least he was in daily contact with his infernally beautiful tormentor...her father's plans, however, threatened to change all that.
  
   The Emperor's nephew, Archduke Fortunato, had recently made overtures to Morella's father for her hand; so upon the morning after her 18th birthday, Count Otranto broached the subject at breakfast.
  "His Grace the Archduke comes to marry you in a fortnight's time, my poppet!"
"Indeed," said Morella, heaping sugar onto her porridge; Count Otranto bristled at her quietly sardonic tone, but pressed on in what he considered a cheery manner.  
"He is eager to meet you--a fine, bold, handsome rogue--killed two dragons, and not yet thirty!"
  "I like dragons, Father," his daughter murmured, and rose from the table---the servants gave her a wide berth as she stalked out of the banquet hall, and Otranto angrily bent a fork in half.
   Lord Ulric, upstairs in his son's apartments, was faring little better:  "Come out from under there!" he snarled, glaring under his son's bed.
  Orfeo crawled out, and his father yanked him to his feet, beating the dust-bunnies off the boy's somber velvet clothes.
  "The Lady Psyche Zenobia will be joining us for luncheon, along with her aunt the Duchess of Penumbra!  I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you make a good impression on them both!"
  "I don't want to marry Lady Psyche, Father...I love Cousin Morella!"
"What does love have to do with marriage?  Just be kind and courteous to Lady Psyche, and pant after your cousin another time!"  Lord Ulric slapped his son on the back, and winked; "And on your wedding night, close your eyes and pretend it's Morella you're straddling!  All cats are gray in the dark, you know!"
  Orfeo winced at his father's coarse laughter; Lord Ulric went to join his brother, calling for wine, while his son went searching for Morella as he always did.
  He found her in the wine-cellar, sitting on a cask of Moontillada and brooding silently; "We could run away together," he murmured hopefully, kneeling before her.
  "It will be more interesting to meet His Grace the Archduke," she replied with a gleam in her eyes that made Orfeo shudder; he'd seen the same expression on Morella's face just before the castle chaplain suddenly choked to death on his own tongue during a particularly boring sermon.
  "That won't stop our fathers; they'll find another suitor...O, why don't they let me marry you?" cried Orfeo, burying his face in the deep purple hem of Morella's silk gown; a discreet cough caused him to leap to his feet in terror, but it was the wine-steward:  "I beg Your Ladyship's pardon," he bowed to Morella, "but your father sent me for a cask of Moontillada..."
  The Lady Morella hopped off the cask and gave it a kick; "Take this one," she said, and swept up the stairs, her cousin trotting doglike after her.

The Duchess of Penumbra arrived at noon with her niece, the golden-haired and azure-eyed Lady Psyche Zenobia; the seneschal of the castle greeted them with all due ceremony, and conducted them into the main parlor where Count Otranto and his brother awaited.  The seneschal opened his mouth to announce the visiting ladies, but no sound came out---Lady Psyche shrieked and hid her angelic face against her aunt's shoulder as the Duchess clicked her tongue in polite dismay.
  "Oh, deah!" she drawled, frowning down upon the sprawled corpses of Count Otranto and Lord Ulric; bloody froth dribbled from their twisted mouths, their spilled wine-goblets still clutched in their hands.  The Moontillada they'd imbibed was found to be tainted with malignant grape-blight, a most venomous fungus; in vain did the wine-steward protest that so exalted a vintage as Moontillada had never before been infected with grape-blight.  He was braided on the wheel for his carelessness by the infuriated Politian, now Count of Ulalume, and grandiose funeral arrangements were made for the late Count and his brother.
  "I fear we must postpone your wedding to the Archduke, little sister," observed Count Politian on the eve of the obsequies; it was late afternoon, but the new Count was in his finest hunting attire, preparing to go out riding in the company of his favorite groom.
  "I am not marrying Archduke Fortunato," said the Lady Morella; "Besides, I'm sure he's much more to your taste."
Count Politian's face reddened; "I am head of the family now, and I intend to see that you obey our late father's wishes!"
  "Happy riding," she murmured as he stomped off to the stables; Count Politian and his companion rode out into the woods, but when they returned after dusk, Morella's brother was slung over his saddle, his head a bloody pulp.
"His horse ran wild," the handsome young groom sobbed; "Stung by a wasp, I don't know...my lord Count was thrown against a yew tree!"
  Naturally, no one believed that tale for a moment--Politian Ulalume was far too accomplished a rider to suffer such a mishap--so the groom met the traditional fate meted out to servants who killed their masters {fed alive to wild pigs} and three ornate coffins were borne into the lordly tomb of the Ulalumes.  The Lady Morella, now Countess Ulalume, led the funeral cortege, her arm draped comfortingly about the shoulders of her cousin Orfeo, who could not hide his blissful smile at her uncharacteristic solicitude.  He didn't even acknowledge the presence of Lady Psyche Zenobia, who departed in high dudgeon right after the funeral feast.  "That witch can have him!" she was heard to exclaim; the following morning she was found dead in her bed, her body ravaged by thousands of brown recluse spider-bites.  Hers was a closed casket funeral, which the Ulalumes did not attend.

The Feast of All Ghosts, falling barely a fortnight after the funerals of Otranto, Ulric and Politian, was the occasion for a grand gala ball thrown at Castle Ulalume by the Countess Morella; if any of the hundred or so guests thought it impious to throw a party so soon after the obsequies, they kept it to themselves.  The wine served at the refreshment tables was Moontillada, which made some of them rather uneasy.
My lady the Countess looked truly haunting that night; casting aside her usual black or dark violet gowns, Morella Ulalume wore a magnificent dress of deep electric blue with gold-trimmed bodice, her pale neck and shoulders bare; she glided eerily among her guests, accepting their salutations with a somber nod, her dark emerald eyes staring into space like those of a cat...she danced with only two or three men, and one or two ladies, but not once with her poor cousin!  Lord Orfeo Ulalume stood over by the tables, gazing at her with hopeless longing and nibbling at the hors d'oeuvres.
  At length, the guest of honor arrived--the Archduke Fortunato of Siluria, third in line to the Imperial throne!  Into the ballroom he strode, tall and broad-shouldered, square of jaw and keen of eye, with a well-groomed head of rich brown hair and perfect teeth!
  Doffing his crimson cape, Fortunato handed it to Orfeo and dropped to one knee before Countess Morella, taking her hand and kissing it with courtly reverence.
  "My beloved Morella, I am at your side at last!" he announced; to the horror of all present except the Archduke, who did not know her well, Morella smiled back!
The seneschal of Castle Ulalume, who had unflinchingly witnessed the dark deeds of three generations of the clan whom he served, collapsed in a fatal apoplexy at the sight of Morella's smile; everyone shrank back as far as they could from the Archduke as he rose to his feet and took the Countess in his arms.  "Shall we dance?" he grinned, and at Morella's nod the orchestra hastily began playing Danse Macabre.
  The Countess and the Archduke were the only couple dancing--everyone else hung back, watching with a dreadful anticipation as the gallant but not-very-perceptive Fortunato chatted pleasantly to the silent Morella Ulalume..."You needn't worry about our wedding being postponed, my dearest; we shall elope to my chateau in Siluria!  A quiet ceremony in the Cathedral, and then off to sunny Bar--rrhmmmbbllgg..." the Archduke blinked in bewilderment as his esophagus began to swell up!
  "You look as though you need some air, my dear Archduke," Morella remarked quietly; his eyes bulging, Fortunato staggered back, clutching at his throat...he fell to his knees, then on his left side, convulsed a bit, and died.  
Shuddering, Orfeo brought Morella a goblet of punch, which she impishly poured over her cousin's head.

  No more suitors came to Castle Ulalume once the demise of Duke Fortunato became public knowledge; unfortunately for the eligible bachelors of Valdemar, Countess Morella began stalking them!  Purely for amusement, it must be assumed, for she never married...her playfully malicious flirtations provided a double amusement in both the terror they inspired in her quarry, and the agony which her hapless cousin endured.  Poor Orfeo would pine away and start coughing up blood as soon as Morella started pursuing some unfortunate swain; she would not stop until the object of her predatory affections was dead and Orfeo on the point of collapse, whereupon she would nurse him back to his usual state of ill-health.

 As Countess of Valdemar, the Lady Morella ruled over a fairly large tract of farms and villages, towns and manor-houses--Castle Ulalume itself was more of a community than a mere household, with over seven-score servants of varying degree and their families, all of whom walked as if on eggs in the presence of their dread mistress.  She disliked noise, particularly the chatter of crowds; after several horrific incidents which took place in the villages during Countess Morella's first official tours of inspection, the commoners quickly learned to keep squalling infants and rowdy children out of earshot.  One or two medical historians have advanced a theory that she may have suffered from that morbid acuteness of the senses known as "Usher's Malady," but none of the accounts I have studied make any mention of her ever being ill.  It is my personal belief that the Lady Morella simply preferred peace and quiet, and solitude...was there a shy, lonely girl behind that aloof and forbidding façade?  I like to think so, although the chilling series of sorcerous deaths and mutations which punctuated her progress through her domains would appear to argue otherwise.  So dark, in fact, was the shadow cast by this taciturn young woman that after her first year as Countess, the Emperor sent an Inquisitor to Valdemar to investigate the disquieting rumors which had reached the Imperial ears.

 Otho Pompilius was his name, a portly, arrogant toady with an itch to make a name for himself; he descended unannounced on Castle Ulalume with an Imperial edict and a retinue of thirty Guards, and began issuing subpoenas!  Lord Orfeo was highly indignant at this intrusion, but the Lady Morella seemed totally unconcerned--indeed, she seemed quietly amused rather than offended by Pompilius's overbearing manner.  Otho set up his court of inquiry in the very ballroom where Duke Fortunato had perished, and one by one the Castle's servants were summoned there to answer the Inquisitor's blustering questions.  It was an exercise in futility, of course--not one of them dared to even hint that their Countess was anything other than the most gracious and beneficent of mistresses, as loving and gentle as a mother to them all.  In frustration, Pompilius went the rounds of the various farms and villages, from whence so many lurid reports had come of mutated children and peasants cursed skinless; but apart from the usual percentage of inbred freaks, no evidence of wanton cruelty could be found, and the simple folk were unanimous in fulsome praise of Countess Morella Ulalume.
 
 Naturally, Otho could detect the naked fear which lay in back of such loyalty, but as Inquisitor he certainly could not disapprove of that; certainly the commoners of Valdemar went about their lives with a pleasing humility and productivity...so, with an air of surly acquiescence, the Imperial lackey returned to the Castle, where he had one more task to perform.
 "His Imperial Majesty is concerned that neither you nor your cousin have made suitable marriages, as yet," he remarked after dinner, on the eve of his departure.  "Naturally, the Emperor does not wish for the ancient and lordly House of Ulalume to die out--"
 "I formally ask His Majesty's permission to marry my cousin the Lady Morella!" Lord Orfeo blurted out, unable to contain himself; he shut his eyes tightly, fully aware that Morella would make him suffer for his outburst.
 "What's this?" sputtered Otho Pompilius, starting from his seat in theatrical outrage; "An incestuous passion in the halls of one of the highest families of the Empire?!"
 "Pray forgive my poor cousin; he is often subject to such fits of lunatic babbling," replied Morella, her voice silky and serene.  "No doubt he has been listening to idle tales about the Crown Prince and his sister."
 Otho's large mouth shut tight with an audible snap--the inappropriate relationship of the Emperor's only son and daughter was supposed to be a state secret of the highest magnitude!
 "I do hope you will have a pleasant journey back to the Capitol," Morella added, and that was that; Pompilius departed with his retinue early the next morning, but he never made any report to the Emperor--a hornets' nest dropped onto his head as he rode beneath a grove of lemon trees, and the portly Inquisitor died in agony from a thousand vicious stings.  Whether or not the Emperor suspected the subtle hand of Morella in this latest fatality was never known, for only a fortnight later His Imperial Majesty succumbed to a violent apoplexy upon catching Crown Prince Roodrik and Crown Princess Madaelyne in the palace pantry, smearing apricot preserves all over each other!  Roodrik VII was duly elected to the throne, the deciding vote being cast by Countess Morella, and no more busybodies were sent to annoy her.

 All this was scant comfort to Orfeo Ulalume, however; "He was right about one thing," Morella remarked icily as soon as Otho Pompilius set off on his fateful ride toward the lemon grove.  "You have a duty to carry on our line, cousin!  We shall find you a suitable bride as soon as possible."
 Orfeo fainted dead away.

   The nearest neighbor of Castle Ulalume was Squire Sylvestre De Vere, an honest knight of modest wealth and standing; he had one child, the Lady Clarice, a conventionally pretty lass of seventeen with rosy cheeks, flaxen hair and freckles...Countess Morella sent Squire De Vere a terse note informing him of his daughter's betrothal to her cousin, and a command to send her to Castle Ulalume without delay!  The squire knew better than to disobey, and the terrified girl was bundled forthwith into the waiting carriage which had brought the missive.  Lady Clarice had been to Castle Ulalume before, of course--she and her father had attended the Feast of All Ghosts at which Duke Fortunato of Siluria had met his unseemly demise, so naturally the girl was more than a bit apprehensive at the thought of living in so sinister a palace, but she put on a brave face and alighted from the carriage as it stopped before the Castle's massive ebon portal, which opened to reveal the Countess herself!  Clarice made a deep courtesy, and was alarmed, but oddly comforted, when Morella greeted her with a sisterly kiss.  Orfeo Ulalume was nowhere to be seen.
 Countess Ulalume escorted Lady Clarice into the grand and sinister halls of the castle, her pallid fingers gently stroking the nervous girl's flaxen tresses.
 "I regret that my cousin will be less than an ideal husband for you," murmured Morella, her dark green eyes piercing Clarice to the very soul; "He is sickly and morbid, and persists on being hopelessly in love with me, but I feel certain that you will be a good influence on him...Orfeo, remove that silly thing at once," she frowned as they entered her cousin's apartments--Lady Clarice gasped and clapped her hands over her eyes, for Orfeo Ulalume was standing on a chair beneath the chandelier, a noose around his scrawny neck.  "Stop being rude, and greet your bride-to-be with a semblance of decorum!"  
 For all his faults, Orfeo Ulalume was a kindly young man, deeply sensitive to the feelings of others; he removed the rope and hopped down, kissing Lady Clarice's hand and apologizing profusely for his poor manners.  Morella left them alone to get acquainted, and by dinner-time the two young people were good friends, which was more than could be said of many victims of arranged unions.  They were married on the following Saturday, with all the notables of Valdemar in attendance, and the feast which followed was both lavish and free of fatalities, unheard-of for any social event hosted by Countess Morella!

  The wedding night at length arrived, and Lord Orfeo and his bride found themselves alone in the bridal chamber; the stammering groom took Lady Clarice by the hands, gazed earnestly into her forget-me-not blue eyes, and said the last thing a bride expects to hear: "My dear Clarice, I don't want you to feel lonely or neglected, so if you happen to take a handsome man-at-arms as a lover, I will quite understand..."
 With a deep sigh, Clarice left the bedchamber, wandering forlornly through the darkened corridors until Morella came out of the shadows and stood beside her on a balcony which overlooked the deep forests which surrounded Castle Ulalume.
 "It's no use, my Lady...he is under your spell, and always will be," said Lady Clarice, a single tear falling from her cheek to the ground far below.
 Countess Morella held out a crystal goblet, filled with a smoking crimson liquid which smelled of woodland berries and fungi; "Drink this," she commanded softly, and Clarice shuddered as she took the goblet in her trembling hands.  She gazed into Morella's unfathomable emerald eyes, nodded, and drank the bittersweet cordial at a draught--the world spun around, and she gasped, clutching at her throat---

 Orfeo Ulalume was sitting up in his bed, reading a book of his own love-poems to Morella (never so much as glanced at by her)--he let out a shriek as the door slammed open and a shapely specter stalked up to the foot of his bed, wrapped in a moon-pale shawl of samite.
 "Morella!" he gasped, and nearly fainted as she flung off the shawl, standing gloriously nude before him!
 "Fool!  Are you satisfied, now?  I have poisoned your silly bride...now take me, if you dare!"
 "Y-you poisoned her?!?  No!  O, Morella, you shouldn't have....ohhhhh, Morella," moaned Orfeo, leaping forward--he embraced her and dragged her to the rich purple carpet, his maddened heart pounding with terror and bliss as he covered her slender body with hot kisses, his years of pent-up passion boiling over at long last...all his shyness and despair gone, Orfeo ravished her until, at the penultimate moment of cross-eyed ecstasy, the spell broke and he found himself embracing a happily-panting Lady Clarice!
 He swooned in her arms, and thus was their union consummated.

   After that night, having broken the ice, as it were, Lord Orfeo performed his conjugal duties with more enthusiasm than he had thought possible, and he and Clarice proved to be a happy couple; about a year or so later, Lady Clarice Ulalume gave birth to a healthy son, who was christened Quentin.  The Countess Morella stood as godmother to the infant; hitherto infamous for her impatience with children, Morella treated little Quentin Ulalume with an intensity of affection which pleased his father, but disturbed Lady Clarice for no reason that she could guess at--nevertheless, she found herself filled with nameless misgivings, but alas! she could confide her fears to no one, for in spite of their happy marriage, Lord Orfeo remained as devoted to his cousin as ever.

 ...before I go any further, I feel obliged to warn the reader that from this point on the history of Countess Morella Ulalume ceases to be merely ominous and descends into the realms of Horror...

   Not long after the birth of Quentin Ulalume, the decrepit Orman Empire suffered its inevitable dissolution---in the capital, a howling mob of too-long deprived citizenry stormed the Imperial Palace and looted it bare, lynching the feckless Roodrik VII and his lascivious sister; the Parliament attempted to form a Republic, but the various principalities of the defunct Empire went their own way for the most part and became fully autonomous states.  The sleepy, haunted realm of Valdemar remained the same as it always had been, and Countess Morella's implacable dominion was unchanged.  
  She was by this time taking less and less interest in day-to-day affairs, leaving them to her terrified staff of obsequious magistrates while she became fully absorbed in the renovation of the grandiose tomb of the Ulalume family.  This ancient sepulcher, a church-sized mausoleum which stood in somber and splendid isolation in the woods about two miles from Castle Ulalume, was becoming crowded; the Lady Morella made more space by disinterring the moldering bones of her ancestors and placing them in ornate urns which took up much less space than the traditional sarcophagi.  These she ordered demolished, clearing a grand space in the center of the polished granite floor--even the remains of her father, brother and uncle were exhumed, cremated, and deposited in urns which were reverently placed in newly-carved niches in the walls of the tomb.
  In the center of the Ulalume Mausoleum, there was now set in place a magnificent seven-foot long sarcophagus of polished obsidian, almost as black as the Countess Morella's midnight tresses; fully three feet wide and four feet deep, it was topped by a slab of flawless white alabaster, into which the following inscription was engraved in letters of gold:

                                  MORELLA
                                COUNTESS ULALUME
                             REQUIESCAT IN TENEBRAE

  Only a fortnight after these renovations were complete, all of Castle Ulalume celebrated the first anniversary of little Quentin Ulalume's nativity; his aunt/godmother presided over a sumptuous banquet for the entire household in the great dining hall, complete with entertainments the like of which she had never before permitted in her presence--minstrels, fire-eating mountebanks, jugglers and acrobats and dancing girls! Tiny Quentin bounced excitedly in his high chair, shrieking and tossing handfuls of cake with his chubby fists until at last he fell asleep and was bundled off to bed by his nurse; the revels continued, rather more quietly, until the clock struck eleven, whereupon the Lady Morella suddenly rose to her feet and the banquet hall went silent as death.
 "Go to bed at once, all of you," she intoned softly, and glided out the nearest door--everyone hastened to obey, whilst Orfeo and his wife followed Morella at a respectful distance.
 Orfeo Ulalume's thin face was wreathed with worried lines: "What is wrong, my dear?" Lady Clarice whispered in his ear.
 "I do not know...I thought she might be going out to the Mausoleum again," Orfeo murmured, his doglike eyes following the slender specter of his cousin as she stalked slowly up the main staircase; "I have been worried about her, of late--she never seems to eat or sleep, always locked in her room or out at the family tomb."
 "All the work is done out there, you said--she ate a little, tonight," Lady Clarice reassured her husband.  She had long resigned herself to the fact that Orfeo's heart would forever be crushed under Morella's dainty foot.  "Come, dear--let's look in on Quentin before we retire."
 Her husband smiled wanly, taking her arm as they proceeded up the stairs; Morella was nowhere to be seen as they made their way along the second-floor corridor to the nursery door--which, to their surprise, was locked from inside.
 "Abigail, let us in," Lady Clarice called, tapping softly on the paneled door; instead of a reply, the anxious parents heard a horrible gurgling gasp from within, followed by a dull thud!  As Orfeo wrestled in vain with the bronze doorknob, his wife bit her fingers in dread as she heard her son's cry--followed by the sound of breaking glass!  She and her husband hurled themselves bodily at the door, which presently gave way, and they stumbled into their son's nursery, now a chamber of horrors.
  Upon the thickly carpeted floor lay Abigail the nurse, strangled to death by her own hands--Quentin's cradle was overturned, empty, and the window smashed open from the outside; frenzied, Clarice ran to the sill and wailed aloud as she beheld Morella's dark form floating away into the night, bearing a small bundle in her arms.
"My baby!" screamed Lady Clarice---Lord Orfeo's face turned a whiter shade of pale.
 "She's taking him to the Mausoleum," he muttered, and ran pell-mell down the stairs.  By no means as proficient in sorcery as his cousin, Orfeo Ulalume had nevertheless learned a great deal at Morella's feet, and he knew with horrific clarity what Morella intended to do with his baby boy.
 
  "The blood of the Ulalumes is richer in magical properties than other mortals," Morella had remarked dreamily to him a few days earlier, as they stood in the mausoleum inspecting her newly-installed sarcophagus; "Were I to drench the slab of this sepulcher with Ulalume gore by the seventh stroke of midnight under a waning gibbous moon, it would not only preserve my body, but also make it possible to revive me from the blesséd sleep of death..."
 Recalling these words and trembling for his son, Orfeo Ulalume sprinted to the stables---only to find all the horses gone!  Countess Morella had anticipated pursuit; grinding his teeth, Orfeo ran as fast as he could for the mausoleum in the woods, his ears straining to hear the approaching chimes of Midnight.  He was by no means an athlete, but terror and love for his baby boy spurred him onwards; even so, Orfeo was gasping and retching by the time he reached the sinister vault of his ancestors.  The massive bronze doors were open, and he staggered inside.
      Countess Morella did not even pause in her low, musical chanting as she watched her feeble cousin collapse inside the great octagonal chamber; clad in a long white linen mantle embroidered with scarlet runes and sigils of power, the beautiful sorceress stalked slowly widdershins around her polished obsidian sarcophagus, a wicked-looking dagger in her left hand.  She was not alone.
Orfeo Ulalume's tongue clove to his palate in horror as he saw his infant son sitting on the center of the sarcophagus lid--little Quentin was gazing with all the solemn curiosity of a baby at his weird new surroundings.  Nine tall purple beeswax candles on brazen tripods stood all around the sarcophagus, casting a ghastly light on the entire ominous scene.
 "MORELLA!  Take me instead!!" Lord Orfeo implored, rushing forward--he froze in mid-step as the tip of Morella's dagger hovered a bare inch from his son's chubby neck.
 "You and I both know that a virgin's blood is more efficacious," Countess Ulalume coolly replied. "Now go, dear cousin...you are much too sensitive to witness this; I must bathe my tomb in blood at the seventh chime of midnight.  Go, Orfeo!  You and your simpering wife will doubtless breed more children, in time."
 "I can't let you do this!" Orfeo cried, gathering himself for a desperate leap forward, but Morella smiled and her cousin felt his entire body going rigid with paralysis; the bell tower of Castle Ulalume began to strike the Midnight Hour, and Morella gently laid her right hand on Quentin's head, raising the dagger aloft.  ONE, TWO, THREE, chimed the great bronze bell; FOUR, FIVE, SIX---TWANG! A crossbow bolt zipped past Orfeo's left ear, and he shrieked in despair as it struck Countess Morella just above the left breast!  She lurched forward, the seventh chime sounding, and gazed down at the alabaster lid of the sarcophagus as her blood splashed wildly over its cream-pale surface--Lady Clarice, dropping her crossbow, ran forward and snatched up her baby.  Her husband, freed from the spell, also dashed to the tomb, but his arms seized Morella as she collapsed. TEN, ELEVEN, TWELVE, rang the bell.
 "Don't leave me," Orfeo sobbed, but Morella's emerald eyes were already fixed in death.

   There was no funeral service for Morella Ulalume, Countess of Valdemar; her maidservants washed her body in water scented with night-blooming jasmine and dressed her in her finest black velvet gown.
 Count Orfeo Ulalume, his hair suddenly streaked with gray, followed her bier to the mausoleum where she had died the previous night, and watched with wild eyes as the attendants lowered her exquisite corpse into the black obsidian sarcophagus.
 "Do not close the lid...leave it ajar," he commanded, lighting the nine purple candles with a trembling hand; "That will be all...leave us, and close the mausoleum door behind you."
 It was nearly dusk; Orfeo had spent all the night and most of the day poring through his cousin's personal collection of necromantic scrolls, grimoires and runic tablets until he'd discovered an ancient, tattered, mold-stained palimpsest preserved betwixt two panes of glass in a gilded frame. This parchment he carried with him in the funeral cortége, and now he laid it reverently on the mausoleum floor before laboriously pushing the massive lid of his cousin's sarcophagus until it lay athwart the open mouth of the tomb at a sinister angle.  Climbing into the sarcophagus, Count Orfeo lifted Morella's body and laid it at full length upon the alabaster lid which had been baptized with her blood the night before.
 This is what you intended, all along," he whispered, gazing through tears at his cousin's serene, pallid face.  "You never intended to harm Quentin...only your blood was precious enough to drench your tomb!  And you knew that I would restore you...O, Morella!  If I do this, w-will you finally love me, as I have always loved you?"
 Orfeo Ulalume winced even as he uttered his heart-cry, half-expecting even now to hear her cruelly mocking laughter; with a boldness he never dared show when she was alive, Orfeo pressed his mouth to Morella's, his tongue gently prying her cold lips apart...forcing himself to break away, he retrieved the ancient parchment, stood at one end of the lid just behind Morella's head, and began to read aloud the strange words inscribed upon the tattered palimpsest.  Midway through the incantation, he set the framed parchment beside Morella's head and drew a pen-knife from his pocket; with a gasp, Orfeo slashed open the palm of his left hand--he pressed his bleeding wound to the fatal wound in the Countess's chest, then held his bleeding hand over her open mouth as he completed the incantation.  For an endless moment he stood there, watching her mouth fill with his blood...and then, with eerie suddenness, Morella's glassy eyes opened wide!
 Gasping, Orfeo pressed his bleeding palm to her lips, letting her drink--tears of joy (and pain) filled his eyes as Morella bit into the wound, sucking avidly; gradually, her eyes lost the dull sheen of death, the emerald fire returning...Orfeo stared in awe as the wound in her bosom slowly closed up and disappeared!
 "Aspidistra be praised!  You have returned to me," Count Ulalume sobbed, falling to his knees beside the sarcophagus; the Lady Morella Ulalume slowly sat upright, staring fixedly into the darkness as her slightly unhinged cousin kissed the hem of her black velvet gown.  At length, Count Orfeo pulled himself together; "Come, my beloved...let us return home," he smiled, rising--Morella slowly reached out and grasped his proffered hand with ice-cold fingers, and he helped her to the floor, wrapping an arm around her as she took her first tottering steps.  She pulled his hand to her mouth, continuing to lap at his blood as he escorted her out of the mausoleum.
 "We must not be seen," Count Orfeo muttered, more to himself than to Morella; enough of his sanity remained to warn him that the servants of the castle would go mad with horror at the sight of the revivified Countess--he was also painfully aware that his wife was deeply displeased at his extravagant grief for the woman who had attempted to sacrifice their son.
 "Poor Clarice...she simply refuses to understand," Orfeo sighed, and staggered, feeling suddenly dizzy; gently, he pulled his hand from Morella's lips.  "No more for now, my love."
 Morella was walking on her own by this time, and her elegant saunter had returned; Orfeo gazed adoringly at her as they made their way back to the castle.
  "We shall conceal you in your apartments--the perfect place!  No one will dare go in there," he murmured, opening the floor-length windows to the drawing room; as they entered, Orfeo Ulalume experienced the long-desired thrill of Morella wrapping her arms around him!
 "O, Morella! I've waited so long for this," he sobbed in her embrace; "Come, let us go up to your rooms...we will not be discovered there--M-Morella? Wh-what are you---
YAAAAAH!--urrrllggh..."
 The scream and horrid gurgle reverberated out into the hall, where it was heard by several servants; already on edge by the events of the past two days, they hung back in the unholy silence that followed, until four of the boldest entered the drawing room.  Count Orfeo Ulalume lay by the open window, his throat bitten open, his pallid body drained of blood.  Lady Clarice turned very pale when they broke the grim news to her, but she took it bravely; the official cause of death was 'attack by a wolf,' but the Widow Ulalume had the bronze doors of the mausoleum welded shut as soon as her husband's corpse was interred within.
  And so Quentin Ulalume, last of his accursed line, became Count while still in diapers; he grew to childhood with no memory of his father or of his sinister godmother, a happy but sheltered child, never out of the sight of his anxious mother or his attendants, a sharp-eyed governess and a grave, learned tutor.  He was a relatively normal boy, seemingly untouched by his heredity or his environment; curiosity was his strongest trait, natural in any growing child but rendered more keen because of the strictures placed upon him by his ever-watchful mother.  When not at his lessons, Quentin loved to explore his home, but many locked doors thwarted his inquisitive forays; out of doors, the diminutive Count of Ulalume was always under close watch--yet at the age of five he proved clever enough to give the servants the slip, and (to his mother's horror) made a beeline to the great Mausoleum, as if by instinct though no one had brought him there since his harrowing experience as an infant.  When found and brought home, little Quentin shrugged when the frantic Countess Clarice asked him how and why he had made his way to the place.
 "I heard a voice, singing my name in the woods," he replied innocently--the Widow Clarice gasped audibly and made him promise NEVER to go there again.  This naturally made Quentin even more eager to penetrate all the mysteries around him.