How to Win Over the Chittering Queen

A short story.

After a decade slaving away on the factory floor, I have only just enough savings to travel to the Capital and rent a room for a month. A month is all I need.

The king has been put to the fire and the dukes and duchesses of old have been brought low, cast out onto the streets to shiver and beg like the rest of us. The Chittering Queen has changed things. She crawled through a crack between worlds and tore down the unnatural hierarchy, leaving a gap for me to rise through the ranks and become someone.

She needs human advisors, does she not? She needs to know who else ought to be ripped apart, and I know the people who have been left unpunished. The factory owner who broke apart the union. The pompous lawyers who did nothing when my daughter died. The duke who snatched my father’s land. Her minions map out our realm and report back, but only someone like me can help her comprehend our culture.

I nurse the viciousness that has sprouted inside me. What can I offer a queen that has everything? Art feels like the only answer: a grotesque blend of both our worlds that will prove to her I am worthy.

The basement I rent in the capital provides no view of the city, but I stroll through the streets and admire the Queen’s handiwork. Entire city blocks have been warped. The walls mould over with greens and pinks, and within I can hear discordant chirps and rustling and the sound of a hundred insect wings beating. Most of the Queen’s minions are no bigger than a hand. Sometimes a few skitter out and their translucent bodies take flight, leaving behind green miasmic plumes. The cobblestones are sticky with their excretions and I have to dart about to avoid dirtying my boots.

I seek the son of the duke who stole what should have been my inheritance. In taverns I cosy up to the fools with rebellion brewing in their hearts and extract from them the whereabouts of the old leaders. The duke is dead, I am told, and his eldest son, a mere teenager, is now solely responsible for his terrified siblings. What will impress the Queen more, I wonder - depriving the family of their eldest and strongest, or plucking out their youngest and most vulnerable for my art?

I spend a week stalking the family. I even exchange idle chit-chat with the eldest son at the run-down bakery he frequents, although I do not eat the speckled bread on offer. Nothing is left untouched, the young man moans. He hopes the resistance can seal the crack between worlds and thus starve her powers.

A few nights later, I catch him staggering out of a tavern, having eked out what little pleasure he can now that his wealth has been rightfully taken from him. We have a tussle, but after I smother him with a concoction of my own creation, he is rendered powerless. I hoist him onto a cart and trundle back to my basement. 

Once there, I tie him to a wooden board and get to work. He does not know why he has been chosen, and I do not explain. If my neighbours hear his muffled screams, they don’t dare take action. 

His skin puckers when I smear it with mould I have scraped from buildings. I stitch insect wings to his arms, gathered from the corpses of the Queen’s minions I have chanced upon. I pray she sees it as a glorification and not as a sacrilege. Finally, I pierce the soft flesh at the base of his mouth, through which I position the mechanism from my daughter’s music box. The drum sits on his tongue, the winding key juts out below his jaw.

The blood loss is too great and the boy perishes, although I suspect the Queen will appreciate a corpse even more than a live specimen.

My masterpiece complete, I haul his body to the palace - a once shining jewel, now blackened and decayed. As I approach, I realise it is not merely mould that covers it, but thick vines that pulsate like arteries, and a pungent dark liquid that seeps through unseen gaps. The place is unguarded, its appearance deemed all that is necessary to ward off intruders.

I tremble. The palace exudes power. I have shrugged off the old shackles of morality and social order, but making an offering to the Queen is a step into the unknown, and a reward is not guaranteed. But what alternative is there? I have spent my life cowed, contorting myself to suit others, never daring to ask for anything in return. Together, the Chittering Queen and I can reform this world.

One of her creatures beckons me with its spindly limbs. I follow, dragging my art behind me. The air grows humid, and thick vines cross over the windows, blocking most of the light. I can hear high-pitched chirps from all around, and every few seconds the ground quivers. I realise the vines are not mere decorations, but an extension of the Queen’s body. The deeper into the palace I go, the denser they become, creeping through floorboards and bursting through ceilings.

In the throne room, I find the Queen’s writhing mass. Her seaweed green limbs slip over one another, and tangled far above my head are features from the kingdom’s previous ruler - a slimy throne, a broken statue, and a wriggling advisor riddled with holes.

Chittering sounds drown out my thoughts. I don’t know how much time passes until I manage to shout over the cacophony.

“I have come to pledge my allegiance to you, my Queen.” My voice is not as stable as I would like. “I offer up this gift, a young human I have transformed for your pleasure.”

I prostrate myself before her and await her response. The chittering quietens for a moment.

“Very good. I accept your gift.” Her voice is deep and slick. A limb lashes out from the mass and picks up the boy’s body. “I welcome you into the fold.”

In front of me, limbs part and form an archway. Beyond, there is only darkness. Something oozes out of it like ink and pools around my boots. The Queen sits atop the crack between worlds, I realise. Why would it be here? What did the old king do to rend reality? 

“Come into the fold, friend. Come.”

All other thoughts are banished. The chittering becomes harmonious as I sway on the threshold. I do not know what the future holds, but I hope that I get what I am owed.

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I’ve had very little focus this week so this took me far longer than it should have. Still, I’m pleased with the end result. It’s unlikely I’ll write a second story this week though.

I’m never sure if this type of story falls under horror. I think of horror as having lots of moments of high tension and trying to evoke fear and dread, but I aim more for a quiet discomfort and perhaps mild disgust. Is it closer to horror than fantasy?

What are your thoughts on How to Win Over the Chittering Queen? I’d love to hear what you think works and what doesn’t, or how it could be improved.