Author's Note: This was a challenge from a writing group to which I belong. One of the writers was being haunted by the following sentence: And the whole world was nothing but rain and wind and the sound of horses' hooves. We all took up the challenge to write a short story to help our friend "exorcise that demon sentence". This is a little vignette that happens after the funeral in "Puzzle Pieces".
The Ghosts of Mourning
She rose quietly, moving easily across the darkened bedroom, stopping at the dresser. She opened the top drawer and reached in, taking out a small velvet box. Trembling fingers lifted the lid, pausing for a brief moment before taking out the precious item hidden within. She gently closed the dresser drawer before turning and walking to the closed door. Opening the door, she peeked into the hallway and saw only shadows. Assured that no one was watching, she slipped from the room, bare feet making no sound on the fine Persian runner that covered the floor.
Dressed all in black, she moved like the shade of a shadow within the darkened walls of the chateau. She paused briefly at the top of the second floor landing, lifeless eyes looking down to see the ever-present valet waiting at the door.
"Waiting for what?" she wondered softly to herself before darting across the dimly lit landing and into the darkness of the next hallway.
She did not see the startled valet jump from his seat, eyes darting upward to the second floor, his eyes catching a glimpse of movement. She did not see the valet sink back to his seat, his head going to his hands and his heart sinking even lower than his body as he realized he was seeing the ghost of a wish that would now never come true.
She would not have cared even if she had seen.
She continued to move quickly down the hallway, stopping, standing as still as a ghost outside one of the closed bedroom doors. Ears trained to listen for every little nuance heard the sound of soft weeping coming from behind the carved wood. She blocked out the sound and rose to the balls of her feet, running lightly past the closed door, a dark fairy dancing on the somber currents that enveloped the ancient stones and all within.
She glided down the side staircase, eyes always searching for any who would stop her. She did not know what drove her down the gray stones and out into the dark night but she had felt it nipping at her heels for the last week.
"Ever since …" she began and paused, the hand holding the item from the velvet box going to her abdomen. "Ever since …" She trembled in her spot, trying desperately to form the words that had sent her dreams spiraling downward into oblivion. She opened her mouth to try again to say the dreaded words but it was not the words that passed her lips but a scream that was startled out of the very depths of her soul. She turned to see the lightening flash that highlighted the very top of the steeple of the family chapel. It was like an accusing finger pointing toward heaven.
"I never meant to hurt you!" she screamed to the heavens, the wind whipping about her as the storm blew in over the gently rolling countryside.
The wind chased her down the stairs of the terrace, carrying memories of bright moments spent in scented gardens. Bare feet raced down the cobbled walkway as the sound of thunder tore through the darkness, echoing the sound of an explosion that had so recently torn through the woods. She ran faster and faster, unknowingly running down the main drive, relishing the sharp little pains that rocks cut into the bare soles of her feet, the sharp edges a strange echo of knife slashes torn through white linen. She did not look at the droplets of blood that were beginning to stain the path she left in her wake, little droplets so reminiscent of those that had turned golden strands into red, weeping tears.
And – suddenly – it was there. A shape in the darkness. A beloved horse and rider running away from her fears.
"Come back!" she cried out as she began to run faster and faster, desperately trying to right a wrong, to change the past.
To set her world to rights once again.
"Come back!" she cried as the thunder boomed overhead and the demons of grief and guilt snapped at her heels. "Please!" she screamed.
The spectral horse in front of her whirled about at her cry, hooves stomping on the gravel drive, sending Hell's fire sparking into the storm-tossed night.
"I loved you!" the figure atop the horse said, the hollow tone of its cry echoing the hollowness of the grave in which it now lay for eternity. The figure shook its head. "Why?"
"I … I …" she stammered as she rocked back and forth in her spot.
"Why, Christine?" the figure asked as it slowly vanished from her sight.
"Why?" the question hung in the dark night, carried on each raindrop that suddenly began to weep from the angels who watched down from their golden paradise.
Christine fell to her knees, too numb to feel the gravel as it cut through her black mourning gown and into the flesh beneath. She opened her palm to look at the Saint Joseph medallion that gleamed in each flash of lightening. "I am so sorry, Raoul," she breathed, raising her face to the rain that fell, still unable to shed her own tears at the death of her husband. "Please forgive me!" She closed her eyes and listened to the echo of her dreams that had raced away from Chagny three weeks ago.
And the whole world was nothing but rain and wind and the sound of horses' hooves.