Arcanifacts: Ensanguined Tatters

In honour of my birthday (4/22), I received a very strange and unusual package from Karswell Manor...

My pulse quickened, and my blood ran ice cold when I first laid eyes upon this most curious artifact. Fashioned in the image of the Blessed Virgin, this vessel once contained Holy Water. Now, it holds the "Ensanguined tatters from Justine's shroud." An inverted cross dangles above the blood-soaked cloth within; a warning that the vessel's seal is never to be broken, lest the wrath of Alucarda's lover be awakened once again from her undead slumber. The fragrant sealing wax barely masks the pungent stench of the grave, and the vessel radiates a strange energy I have never before encountered.

I daren't even ponder the fiendish secrets that linger within, hungrily awaiting release...

"Ensanguined tatters from Justine's shroud."

The creator of this stunning piece of horror fancy is award-winning artist and author Scott D. Ryersson, the mastermind behind Arcanifacts which, loosely translated, means secret thing made. Ryersson set up shop in 2007 "to further explore his artistic obsessions with the arcane and phantasmagorical."

After seeing photographs of the arcanifact Ryersson produced for Karswell based on Night of the Demon, I was excited to learn that THOIA's spooktacular host had commissioned one for me, as well. Eagerly I awaited my gift, knowing nothing about it other than the Alucarda theme, and that a portion of the piece had come from Guadalajara, Mexico.

The ensanguined tatters from Justine's shroud now sit proudly beneath Alucarda's portrait, adding a touch more malevolence to my living room.