Posted on: 2008-06-25

Authors’ Note: As we know Margaret D has an aversion for boards without posts, we decided to write something to pay homage to our Queen Code Gerbil, and thank her for all the wonderful work she's done in setting up our new message boards. Happy New Message Board Day, Margaret D!!!

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland during elementary school recesses would have supposed her to be a future heroine. Her person and disposition were all equally against her. Whereas the other girls in her class would surround the kickball field sidelines to flip their ponytails flirtatiously and smile at the boys, Catherine always kept the bleachers warm and ignored them all, preferring the company of a good book while listening to her mixed tape of Wagnerian opera.

But from fifteen to twenty-two she was in training for an operatic heroine; she read and listened to all such works as heroines must read and listen to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives:

From Verdi, she learned her goals in life:
"Free and aimless I must flutter
From pleasure to pleasure,
Skimming the surface
Of life's primrose path."

From Mozart, she learned when addressing those who vexed her she ought to use powerful language, such as:
"Revenge cooks in my heart,
Death and despair flame about"

From Puccini, she learned to wait for a love that was:
"Light as a blossom
And yet everlasting
As the sky, as the fathomless
ocean."

And from Wagner, (that master of masters!) she learned how to make pleas against powerful gods who were also her father:
"Was it so shameful
what I did
that you punish my misdeed so shamefully?
Was it so base
what I did to you
that you so profoundly debase me?
Was it so dishonourable
what I did
that my offence now robs me of honour?"

So far her improvement was sufficient--and in many other points she came on exceedingly well; for though she could not sing arias, she brought herself to listen to them; and though there seemed no chance of her breaking curses, being born of gods, or even being able to contract consumption, she maintained a rather curious reputation and questionable health, staying up into all hours of the night coding, subsisting herself on tea and pop-tarts, and spending a lot of time talking about Germany.

It was perhaps a bit tragic that such education, such a fantastic fate was wasted on a girl stranded in suburban Baltimore, but when a young lady is to be a heroine, the banality of forty surrounding suburbs cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a tragic hero in her way.

Or she could fly to Germany. And because this is a modern tale, that is exactly what she did.

The unexpected largesse came in the form of an e-mail; specifically, from a Wagnerian mailing list to which she subscribed. Discounted tours of Germany were being offered to Wagnerians under the age of 30; would-be travelers were promised an opportunity to visit the paths once traveled by their favorite composer, to admire locations that had inspired his work, and to live and breathe the air that had given such genius his life.

In the face of such tempting delights, Catherine did the unthinkable. She turned her computer off.

(But only so she could pack it in her suitcase to take with her to Germany.)

They arrived in Germany on a bright and sunny morning, and were immediately whisked off to Schwangau for the first leg of their trip, which was to include a private tour of Neuschwanstein Castle. Catherine was all eager delight — her eyes were here, there, everywhere, as they approached its fine and striking environs. She had come to be happy, and she felt happy already.

Such delight must have made her look prettier, for she caught the eye of her neighbor, a clean-shaven young man with floppy hair and dressed like a pirate. "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" he asked.

Catherine understood just enough German to respond, "Yes."

He seemed to be about four or five and twenty, was rather tall (which was rather handy, as Catherine was quite tall herself), had a pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not quite handsome, was very near it. His address was good, and Catherine felt herself in high luck.

She happened to glance at the right hand he'd held out to her in greeting. A band of twisted gold encircled his fourth finger. It entranced her in a way she'd not felt before. She yearned for it. So focused was she on the ring that she almost missed the remainder of his introduction. "I am Henry," he said. "Perhaps, when we reach our destination, you'd like to join me for a spot of tea?"

Silly girl, she told herself. She'd had Der Ring des Nibelungen on the brain. And, of course, she smugly told herself, she knew better. "I would love tea," she told Henry.

He was an amiable man, well-informed, with moderately admirable musical tastes and rather lovely mastery over German. She found herself wondering if this man could contend with the Love of Her Life, Ian Bostridge. When he sent that rakish grin her way, she supposed that he could.

She found, however, as she sat next to him on the bus as they left Neuschwanstein Castle, that she could not take her eyes away from the ring. It tugged at her like a Siren’s call.

The torrential rain started. She heard the thunder in the distance.

She looked at the ring again. She was being silly. Of course she was.

However, when their bus got stuck in a ditch, she had to start wondering. Could the ring be cursed?

Whoever was not in possession of the ring would desire it; whoever possessed it would receive unhappiness and death. The words wound themselves through her brain, chilling her to the bottom of her hyperactive, beating heart.

The passengers were asked to exit the bus so that their driver could ascertain the damage. Catherine quickly gathered her belongings, eager to set some distance between herself and the ring. But it was not to be. As they waited in groups outside the bus, she saw Henry approach her. "I wanted to make sure you were well," he said. "The rain is beginning to turn into a bit of a deluge. Perhaps you would like to seek shelter under my cloak. There is plenty of room."

Under different circumstances, Catherine might have accepted. Might even have been pleased. But the twisted gold of his ring flashed tauntingly at her in the grayness of the storm, reminding her of her fears. "No," she managed. "I thank you. But I think I will stay here."

His gaze narrowed as he was clearly trying to figure her out.

Just as she was trying to figure him out.

Maybe the ring superstition was a silly one, but she wasn't going to chance it.

It was a pity, because his cloak was quite lovely and his hair was quite floppy.

"I'll be all right," she asserted. "You...you should see if anybody else could use it, though," she said, trying not to sound too desperate to send him away.

If he identified her reluctance to be in his vicinity for another nanosecond, he was too tactful to call her on it.

He turned and walked towards an older couple.

Catherine steadied her breathing. Told herself it was all right.

But when lightning struck a nearby tree with a loud crack and flames erupted even despite the deluge Catherine could not keep her courage; she turned and ran into the woods.

It had been some time since Catherine last exercised so vigorously. Computer programmers were not used to such robust activity. By the time she realized what she was doing - running aimlessly in a foreign forest whilst screaming like a soprano hitting her high C note - she was quite out of breath.

She bent over at the waist and rested her hands on her thighs. It took several pants before she was able to get her breath back. Raising herself, she looked around. "Where am I?"

Either the rain had stopped or the trees were so thick that even water droplets could not penetrate through. It was very dark. A frisson of fear ran down her back as Catherine realized how alone and lost she was. She turned around and tried to find her way back, but no matter where she turned, everything seemed to look the same.

She glanced at her watch and noted that the time had stopped. Catherine hoped it was from water damage and not some other mysterious force. Either way, she was lost without even time as a frame of reference. She estimated that she had been gone for over an hour by now, and with each passing second, hope of finding her tour group dwindled just a little bit more.

Giving up, she sat down in the small clearing. "Why?" she asked herself, pounding her forehead into her open palms. "Why did I let my imagination get the better of me?" Emitting a groan of frustration, she looked up. And found herself shocked.

Not two feet in front of her, a sword was embedded in a trunk of an ash tree. It was craziness. It was coincidental. Complete and utter madness. First the ring and now the sword? As the scene from Die Walküre came to mind, Catherine muttered that she had clearly had too much Wagner in her trip already.

She was ready to laugh everything away when the sound of a snapping twig had her turning around.

"Catherine, are you all right?"

The sight of a wet pirate may have sent many a girl to a swoon, but it was Henry with the weird ring and he was scaring her. "I-I..." she stammered, retreating back. She felt her back hit the ash tree. "That is-"

"What the heck is the matter with you? You shouldn't go running into the woods alone! Come on, let's get back to the others."

The pragmatic side of her assured her that her fears were silly. However, she found herself very resolutely announcing her refusal. "No. I don't want to go anywhere anymore. Not now. I'm...um...tired. I'm going to stay right here, and wait for it to stop storming. I'll be found," she asserted.

Lightning gleamed off the ring. Catherine took another breath. "So, ah...I'll be ok. You should go back and tell everybody I'm all right."

Henry pulled a hand through his wet locks of hair, and looked at her, exasperated. "I don't know how to get back, I was following you. And I can't leave you here alone. It's unsafe."

Not as unsafe as his remaining here with that ring.

"No, I'm perfectly fine," Catherine trilled the lie.

"Well, I don't think we should separate. I'll wait here with you," he said sternly.

Catherine bit her lip.

"You look really scared. Have you always been terrified of thunderstorms?"

Catherine debated revealing that she knew what he truly was: a doomed man who was destined to bring destruction and despair to everyone around him. But she wondered if, by revealing her knowledge, he'd just whip the sword out of the tree and simply kill her with it out of some strange destined prophecy. She'd have to gain more information on the situation first, before she rashly brought her doom upon herself. "Y-yes. Ever since I was a baby," she said.

Henry sighed, taking his cloak off. "Please, just use this? I'd feel like a selfish idiot if I kept this on while watching you shiver in the cold like that."

Catherine gingerly touched the fabric. A cursory inspection yielded the knowledge that the garment, aside from being gloriously gorgeous, was actually quite pedestrian; there seemed to be no enchantments on it. And so she pulled it around her quivering shoulders.

They settled onto the tree stump, careful to avoid sword sticking out of it. Catherine angled her body so she would not have to look at that ring. "It's getting late," Henry observed.

"How can you tell? The entire forest is dark."

"It was well into the afternoon when we left the castle."

"I suppose you're right."

"Are you hungry?"

"Do you have anything to eat?"

"No."

"Then that was a pointless question, wasn't it?"

"Are you thirsty?" Henry pulled a silver flask out of his back pocket.

Catherine gasped. On the face of the flask was the carved image of a dragon, which invoked darker memories of the dragon that lurked in a forest with a much-coveted Nibelung treasure. Without thinking, she grabbed at the sword and yanked it out of the tree. Later, when she rubbed at her sore shoulders, she would reflect upon how she had nearly pulled her shoulder out of its socket. For now, adrenalin and fear gave her the strength to do what she needed to do.

Henry watched with petrified fear as she swung the sword and arched it in his direction. He watched with horror as she brought the sword down. Then, he nearly fainted as the sword came down over his hand. As it was, he wilted with relief when the deed was done and he realized he was still whole though his flask was not. Catherine had sliced the flask in half, cutting a line neatly down the middle of the image of the dragon.

His relief was short-lived. Springing to his feet, he towered angrily over her. "What have you done? Are you crazy? What was that all about?" His hair flopped over his eyes and he brushed it back furiously.

Catherine took a small step back from the dark anger piercing her from his eyes. "I - I - I thought the flask was filled with poison."

"Poison?"

"Well, I -"

"You're crazy. That was water. Our only sustenance. Why would you think it was poison?"

The supersaturation of confusion and fear in his eyes wrenched her back into the reality of the situation. She'd just attacked a man with a sword. With it came the realization that the sword in her hands was bulky and extremely heavy. She dropped it to her side, awkwardly. "I-haha..." she said. "It was this game my siblings and I played, back in Baltimore."

"With swords," Henry said, doubtfully.

"Well, not with swords. But with sticks."

Henry considered her warily. Catherine tried to keep an innocent look on her face.

At length, Henry relaxed his shoulders. "Intense game," he remarked with false ease. He chose to lean against a tree trunk a few feet away and watched her warily.

Glad of the cover of darkness, Catherine turned away from him to withdraw more into his cloak, hoping she could hide from her imagination. Stupid imagination, getting her in all sorts of stupid trouble.

Now cognizant of the fact that he was in fact sitting in a copse of trees with a certifiable loony, Henry kept to himself. Gone was the camaraderie. Gone was his charming smile. Instead, his eyes, so hauntingly light and startling in the dim light, were focused on her, the mistrust in his gaze quite palpable.

Catherine shuddered and sank to the forest floor, leaning against the stump now to support her head. The man clearly didn't trust her. She had to regain his trust by showing she trusted him. To expose herself in a vulnerable state, such as sleeping, would do the trick.

She leaned back, closed her eyes, still feeling his gaze upon her.

Minutes passed. Her mind drifted. She'd only intended to pretend to sleep, but somehow she fell asleep. Her dreams were a mosaic of mirages. She was a princess wearing a pink dress. Somehow, somewhere she knew that was wrong. Catherine had never worn anything but black pants; she loathed dresses, let alone the color pink. But in her dream, she wore pink and she liked to twirl in her dress. She lived in a castle, much like the castle they'd visited that afternoon, and she was happy. She actually sang her happiness.

A wind blew through the forest, and her dream turned chilly too. There was a raging storm in the background and a dragon banging at the wooden drawbridge. Not knowing any better, Catherine lowered the bridge and walked across it. She was struck by two things. One, the dragon had eyes the same color as Henry's. Two, a twisted yellow band encircled the scaly claws of the dragon's right paw. At the sight of her, the dragon licked his scaly lips and emitted a small flame of approval. Catherine just knew he was imagining how she'd taste impaled on a wooden stake and paired with spargel.

She took a step back. The dragon advanced. From nowhere, she unearthed a sword. Hurling her arm back, she was poised to throw it as a javelin, aiming for the dragon's heart.

"Stop!" the dragon roared in a fiery breath.

"What? Why?"

"We're twins."

"What?!" Catherine looked down. Her eyes widened with terror and disgust. She had turned into a dragon. Her formerly beautiful pink dress had burst into a million tiny swatches that covered her now scaly teal skin. She was disgusted. She was horrified. She was afraid.

Catherine jerked herself awake. There was sunlight; it was morning. "How could this be?" was a question still on her mind. When she realized she was no longer asleep, she hurried to pat herself all over. There were no horns. No scaly ridges. No tail. Just soft, smooth, human skin. The relief was immediate and welcome.

In the distance, light from Henry's ring glinted mockingly back at her. And that's when she knew. It was that ring! The source of all evil! The reason for their bus accident, for getting lost, for having her frightening dream, for everything that had gone wrong since they left Neuschwanstein Castle. With only the thought to rid the world of this evil ring, Catherine scrambled over to Henry's side, still on her knees, and began to work earnestly to free his finger from the manacles of darkness.

The ring was shoved tight onto Henry's finger, and it seemed the harder she pulled the more snug it became. The pinch startled him out of his own sleep. When Henry awoke, it was to the sight of Catherine's backside. Under different circumstances, it might have been a welcome sight, but that was hardly the case here. She had his hand clamped between her legs and she was pulling and tugging and yanking, and it hurt.

He set his booted foot to her backside and tried to shove her away as he pulled himself back. Catherine may have looked frail, geeky, and weak, but she was determined, and crazed. She was a woman possessed. She yanked harder. He tried to pull his hand away from her grasp without losing the ring; the woman was willing to break his fingers to get at it.

With his fingers pressed back beyond the point of tolerance, Henry howled, and pulled hard as Catherine kept her fierce grip on the ring. It came off his finger, scraping the knuckle raw.

She let out an inhuman cry of victory as she held the ring over her head. Determined that no other person should suffer the ring's curse, she pulled back her arm and threw as hard as she could.

The ring did not fly away twenty feet. It didn't even fly away ten. However, it did end up in the lake that they'd neither of them seen the previous night.

The plop noise it made as it dropped into the water was rather unceremonious, and more than a little anticlimactic.

Henry took advantage of Catherine's surprise, shoving her down to the dirt, his eyes wide with anger. "Are you completely deranged?!"

"No! You are, to keep that thing around!" Catherine shouted back. "Help!!! Help!" she started screaming.

Henry clamped a hand to her mouth. "Oh, you have nothing to worry about here. I'm going to be miles, countries, continents away from you after this. But first, you have to tell me why the hell you took my dead wife's ring and threw it in the lake!?"

Heroes and heroines don't always get together, and in stories written about tragic operas, perhaps it is best that they don't. After her sleepy haze wore off, Catherine realized the horrific thing she'd done. Henry would have nothing from her, not an explanation for why she was so completely crazy, not even remuneration for the lost relic. Once they were found, he got himself to the nearest airport and flew out of the country, determined never to date or communicate with women ever again. (He eventually changed his mind when he met a lovely, neurotic cheese farmer from Wisconsin . . . and it's very well known that cheese farmers from Wisconsin are perfectly safe.)

Catherine turned over a new leaf, however. She was ready to start a practical life, with practical goals. Sure that her passion for Wagner had been the cause of her madness, she gave up all Wagner recordings when she got home from her vacation, even her beloved Solti.

She took a job with the NIH, tabulating data on dead people, maintained a healthy bank account, and focused on developing healthier tastes, like Mozart. She even started watching baseball.

That's how she met John Thorpe, fellow Nationals fan. "So, what do you do?" she asked him as they got in their seats on their first date.

"I play the flute for the National Symphony Orchestra."

Catherine's eyes widened. "Really? Is it a magic flute?"

Unfortunately for Catherine, some lessons could never be learned.

The End