A/N- Hallo all. Long time no see? Um, just wanted to put this out there and then say that I'll definitely have more time to write over the summer...? Also, this turned out weirdly compatible to "Another One," which I wrote a couple years ago... or maybe one year ago... college is hard.
She couldn't remember the dream later. All she knew was that she was small and she couldn't do anything the way it was supposed to be done and she was going to be in trouble. Then someone was trying to pin her arms to her sides and she struggled and fought and panicked until she awoke and remembered that she was a wife and she was an adult and realised that Marius was only trying to hold her. He held her and he told her shh, shh, it's only a dream and can you tell me about it? But she didn't want to talk about it and she couldn't put it in words and why would he ask that anyway? She let him hold her but wished he would loosen his grip and then she pretended to be asleep and he finally let go and she was free again.
The next morning he asked her about her dream. She kept her face blank and told him she didn't remember. Why was he so interested in the dream? Marius looked hurt and said that he was only trying to help. She nodded. Of course, poor thing, and it wasn't his fault she had been so alone. She forced herself to smile and tried to forget.
It was sunny that week. She could always hear children calling out to each other in the streets. She had called out in the dream; she remembered that now. She had called out to God. She had called out and there had been no answer. She didn't like to think about the dream. Forget the dream.
She was not hungry. She tried to put bread into her mouth and tasted nothing, just a texture clogging up her throat. She put it down and stared at the gilded edge of the plate for a moment. When she lifted her head, Marius was watching her.
He was trying to make his face look so innocent when he looked at her like that. She found herself wondering if behind the simpering glimmer in his eyes he was thinking about the dream, thinking about how pathetic she had been.
Stupid, she told herself. Don't be stupid. He knew nothing of the dream. And it had only been a dream.
She could hear a baby crying from somewhere–was the window open?—and she closed her eyes. She could feel his gaze on the top of her head, could feel him judging her and knew that he wasn't saying anything because he was angry, because she had disappointed him. She hated herself. Maybe if she could lie down for a moment…
She could still hear the crying baby outside and realised suddenly that everyone at the table had fallen silent. Please, someone tend to that child. She might have said the words out loud. When she looked up again his brow was twisted into a question. Had he asked her a question? She left the table and hurried up to her room, head pounding.
She lay in bed and stared up into the darkness. Something was waiting in the darkness. She could feel something watching her, something angry with her. She had done something wrong. Marius was snoring. Would he protect her from it or would it hear him and come nearer? She didn't want to close her eyes.
This time when she awoke the dream disappeared at once. This time she knew that the heavy weight on her waist was his arm. This time she only started, then closed her eyes again when she felt him move at her side. He pulled her tighter and she wondered if she could suffocate from being so trapped.
The next morning he said nothing. The next morning he only looked at her with concern and asked how she slept. She said fine. She smiled. It felt wrong to smile. It felt like she was lying when she smiled.
But maybe, maybe she could pretend to be happy and then she really would be. It had worked when she was younger, when she slept alone in her big white bed and when her papa did not ask so many questions and Toussaint had rarely said anything at all. She forced the smile back onto her face and pretended to be happy, but the sounds of the children laughing outside and the crying babies tormented her.
It was part of the dream, too, she remembered, the sound of a child crying upstairs, a little boy. She did not know why it was so certainly a boy, but it was. A crying boy, a crying baby, and she was alone and there wasn't anything to help either of them and she had done everything all wrong, wrong, wrong.
She was exhausted. The dream waited for her in her room, tall and angry and looming over her bed. She dozed off on the divan in the library but still she could hear the baby crying somewhere above her, somewhere on the streets. A heavy book sat on the end table, some thick law book, one of Marius's stupid books, and she wanted to throw it out the window, wanted to throw it and hit the baby that wouldn't be quiet, wouldn't be quiet when she was trying to sleep. She thought about reaching for the book, thought about sitting up, but she didn't want to move her arms. She couldn't make herself move her arms. The air in the room was pressing down on her, on every inch of her skin and through her bodice and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe and now she felt her lungs straining but they wouldn't fill. She flung herself to her feet but the room was spinning and she knew she was going to die, she was going to die and she couldn't reach the door and she was going to die here and she needed to apologise to poor Marius because it wasn't his fault, it wasn't his fault she was going mad, she was mad and she had gone mad and she couldn't breathe.
When she woke up she was in her room again, in her bed, and Marius was leaning over her, leaning over her with concern. She saw the concern first, but when she saw fear she knew, right away she knew, she knew that he was afraid of her, not for her. She closed her eyes again and wanted to sleep. She wanted to sleep without the dream this time, but the minute she closed her eyes she heard the baby crying again.
Marius's hand was on her forehead. His hand was cold but her face was burning and it felt good. He said something but the roaring and the crying baby upstairs drowned him out. Close the window. Someone needed to close the window. It was hot and she needed the window closed because if she heard that baby again she'd go mad. Another voice in the room, the voice of the old man, the old man saying to leave it, something about a woman's instincts and she would do it herself if he left it, just left it and let the woman's instincts take over and Marius was agreeing. He still had his hand against her brow. He wasn't moving it. He wasn't moving. He was treating her like a child, treating her like some kind of fragile freak who might lash out and destroy him, but how could he think that? How could he think that of her? This is a phase, just a phase; she only needed one more chance. She needed to be left alone. She was never alone anymore, not like she used to be. She was not used to this.
She awoke again and she hadn't had the dream. Someone had left a plate on the end table but the thought of eating any of the food made her feel even worse. She closed her eyes.
The house was silent. Blessedly silent. The house was silent and Marius was not here, was not in the chair or lying with an arm draped over her waist. Where was he? Didn't he care what happened to her? Didn't he care that she was upset and alone? How could he leave her when the dream was waiting, the dream was waiting and if anyone had looked down they would have found her hiding place and she would have been punished; they would have made her pay for being so pathetic, for being so useless. He didn't care what happened to her, didn't care that she was upset and miserable and alone. There was so much to do and she couldn't do it. She was too small, too weak, too frightened.
The shriek of a child cut through the roar in her head. The curtains were parted slightly and she could see that it was night outside; she didn't hear the murmur of voices in the street below or the clatter of wheels on cobbles. It was the child from her dream, but it was in the house. If the child could get in, could the horrible shadow, the hulking beast that wanted to punish her for her faults, her failures? She pushed herself out of the bed, stumbling as the blood rushed through her head, ears ringing. The baby was in the house.
There was no one in the hall. She could see a flickering light from behind the door of Marius's study. Had he given up on his mad wife, given up on her because it was no use, no use trying to reason with her now, now that she was hopeless and mad? Nothing for him but his law books now, his law books and maybe one day when his poor mad wife was in bed with the dream coming after her he would go to a park and find someone else, find someone who wasn't mad and didn't feel this flush of anger hissing through her veins. She moved by the door without making noise, without attracting his attention, though the cries of the baby from her dream would have drowned her out anyway. She was in her nightgown. When had she changed into her nightgown?
It was coming. It was more than the dream, more than the fear and the guilt. It was the figure from the dream, the massive, looming creature with a voice like the scream of a train pulling into the station. It was going to beat her, going to find her because the baby was crying and that was bothering her, was something she should have fixed, something she should have stopped, should have stopped the baby crying. She had thought the stairs were wooden but there was a carpet over them and the walls were painted and there were portraits. She clutched at the handrail as the floor pitched to one side. Quiet him, make him be quiet! Another step up, then another and the stairs were gone.
Everything was different than it should have been. There were doors on either side of the hallway, doors, rooms she would have to clean, fires to light and bedsheets to wash. She was going to be in trouble for wearing such a soft dress, a soft dress that wasn't hers, wasn't like the dresses she should have worn, belonged to the other girls, something she stole. The baby was still crying and she could hear it behind one of the doors, the door on the left, the second door from where she was standing.
The room was too nice, too nice and too much she would have to clean. She would be in trouble because this was not the right furniture, not what she should see, something wrong. A basket under the window, a basket in a little frame, pink silk sheets swaddling the child, the child who was crying with arms jerking back and forth and a gaping black mouth and eyes bunched up in fury. If he wasn't quiet she would be in trouble, she was going to be beaten and left for dead in the snow and the cold and how her shoes used to pinch her! She shushed the child and he ignored her, didn't listen though she was shushing him and now she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, too heavy, not the skinny, bent master and not one of the girls, heavy like hers, like her tormenter, coming because the baby wouldn't stop crying, wouldn't be quiet and the customers were complaining and it was her fault, her fault, serving girl, failing. She put a desperate hand over his mouth, startled for a second when she thought she saw the long white fingers of a lady, but the baby cried and his breath was hot and his mouth was wet and she withdrew her hand and wiped it down the front of her stolen dress and knew it would be her job to wash it and return it so that the girls wouldn't know what she had done, stolen the dress, but still the steps came closer and a man was calling out for her and the child was crying and crying in her ears. The taffeta, close the black hole of its horrible loud mouth so that she wouldn't hear, wouldn't come in here, wouldn't know that she couldn't silence the child couldn't silence the baby taffeta pink taffeta silence it quiet it still it sit still be still be quiet be quiet
the door opens and a man comes in and he cries out and comes after her and she screams and runs from the crib the silent crib and the man stares and shouts at her and she cries and cries because she doesn't know what to do and the table with the crossbar isn't here to hide and she did it wrong did everything wrong wrong wrong and he comes at her and she feels herself falling before he can take her to her mistress to be beaten be punished but everything else is still and she can't breathe as she slips into blackness