NOTES:
1. Some of these characters/situations belong to men much more talented, wealthy and British than myself. This is only a labor of love.
2. I'm not British, and honestly, I didn't try very hard to write like I was. I was more interested in challenging myself to finish a story, so I apologize for the half-hearted attempt to sound British. I am well aware of this failing.
PROLOGUE
The dishes were done, work shirts ironed and garbage taken out. The baby had been fed, changed and was now peacefully napping. All the daily chores were done. It was as good a time as any to kill one's self, Mary Ann Hooper reasoned. She didn't want to be a nuisance, so she had taken care of as much housework as possible. She knew her death would be a terrible burden to her husband, but she saw no other way out, she had to escape. For as long as she could remember, she had been haunted by death. She didn't know how to explain it, but death was everywhere she looked. Everyone had their own black pall of death. Like a dark mist seeping from their pores, peoples' deaths surrounded them, but no one else could see it. Mary had tried to explain it, but had never succeeded. It was too strange and ridiculous, utterly unbelievable. The few people she tried to tell clearly thought she was insane. Eventually, she stopped trying. She was tired of receiving only worried looks when she told others what she could so plainly see.
Sometimes she could tell if a person was close to death. Occasionally, she could sense what would cause their death. The first time this happened was when she was young and still living in the orphanage. Sister Theresa was always one of Mary's favorites. She was one of the younger nuns and smiled more than the others. One day, Mary realized that the dark fog that surrounded Sister Theresa was changing. There were other colors appearing and swirling in the mist. As days passed, Mary thought she could see shapes developing. Slowly, images began to form and eventually Mary could see a picture of Sister Theresa emerging from the mist. The nun was lying in what looked like a hospital bed, and then someone came and pulled a sheet over her head. Mary was terribly frightened by what she saw. She grew more frightened when she heard that Sister Theresa was going to have surgery to remove her tonsils. Mary went to her, crying, begging her not to go to the hospital. The nun was touched by her young charge's concern. She assured Mary that the surgery was routine and nothing bad was likely to happen. Mary became hysterical. Sister Theresa was frightened and had to call for help to come take the girl away. Mary was taken to the medical ward of the orphanage and sedated. Two days later, when Mary awoke, she knew that her beloved Sister Theresa was dead before the other nuns told her.
Mary only tried a few more times to warn people when she sensed their impending death. Every time it ended badly. Mary was never successful in changing the outcome and others became more convinced that something was wrong with her. So she tried to suppress her sense of death, desperate to ignore the darkness that enveloped others. She failed at this too. When she was eighteen, she left the orphanage and sought employment. A local florist took pity on her and gave her a job in his shop. She learned to arrange flowers in a pleasing manner and was able to earn a living. One day, she decided to eat her lunch outside the shop, enjoying the spring breezes. A young man walked past her, then turned back and came and joined her on the bench. Mary was very nervous; growing up in an orphanage had not prepared her for meeting men. She blushed and stammered as he cheerfully made small talk. He introduced himself as Martin Hooper and told her he had just started to work at the local hospital. At the end of her lunch, she excused herself and returned to the shop. The next day, Martin was back, and asked to spend lunch with her again. She agreed and soon it became a regular date. Six months later he asked her to marry him and she said yes. They were married a month later and a beautiful baby girl was born just before their first anniversary.
Mary always hoped that she could leave her death sense behind, in the first happy months of being with Martin; she even believed it to be true. She almost convinced herself that it was a childish delusion, the result of being abandoned as an infant. She was still telling herself this right up until the moment before her baby was born. But as her daughter emerged, blinking and screaming, Mary could see that her precious baby was wrapped in the same blackness that surrounded everyone. It was then that Mary knew she would never be free of this horror. Mary tried to be a good mother. She loved her baby girl and delighted in watching her grow. But try as she might, death surrounded her child like everyone else. Mary became anxious, always searching the blackness for some hint that death was soon to befall her child. The stress took a heavy toll, and Mary began to have other problems. She started to see other things, fantastic, terrible creatures that should not exist. Mary knew she was losing her mind. The creatures started to whisper to her, calling to her and taunting her. The monsters told Mary that they would take her baby to join them in their strange underworld. Mary could never escape the dark mist of death or the evil whispers of the monsters. Finally Mary grew so tired; she decided that death was her only escape.
After ensuring all the day's work was done, Mary prepared the pills and the wine. She walked through her small home one more time. She checked that everything was neat and was glad that it was so. Her last stop was in the nursery. Molly slept peacefully in her crib. Mary wondered if she wouldn't be doing the baby a kindness by taking her along on this final journey. It would be easy enough to do. There were plenty of pills. Mary hated the thought that her baby might suffer as she had. She didn't want anyone else to be plagued with this horrible sense of omnipresent death. It might be better if Molly didn't have to live with the same horrors that her mother had suffered. Still, Mary knew that Martin could never survive the death of his wife and child. Perhaps Molly wouldn't be burdened as she had been. Finally, Mary decided that she couldn't kill her daughter without knowing if she would share her mother's sense of death. Mary prayed that she hadn't passed this dark gift along to her baby. She stroked Molly's soft cheek one last time and said farewell. Mary walked to the kitchen, picked up the bottle of pills and then went to the living room. She took a seat, poured a glass of wine and began to swallow the pills. When her husband came home from work, he found his daughter crying in her crib and his wife's lifeless body lying on the freshly vacuumed carpet.