Stroke of Midnight
= Chapter II =
Kitty snuggled into her warm pillows, moaning softly. She could hear murmuring.
"Hmmm...That's nice Petey, but 'm sleepy..." The murmuring stopped. She sighed and rolled over.
A loud male voice, sounding as if it came from a distance, echoed through the room. "Anna?"
Kitty bolted up in bed and shrank against the headboard, trembling violently. The voice died as soon as it had called the name and silence fell. Kitty remained frozen, waiting for anymore sounds coming from the other side of the double doors. She was expecting a rattling boom from them like in The Haunting movie. But it remained dead quiet.
Cautiously, she eased out from under the covers and tiptoed to the doors. She reached forward, about to check if the hallway was really empty. She couldn't open the doors. Kitty pulled harder, anxious now. She knew she hadn't locked the doors when she came in. Maybe they had locked automatically when she had closed them.
She turned back to the room, attempting to sort her thoughts. The fire was still reasonably bright, so she couldn't have been asleep for long, less than an hour probably. Nothing else seemed to have changed. The mirror on the bureau was reflecting the fire's light and casting golden flickers about the room. It was relaxing.
Yet, as she looked closer Kitty thought the reflections didn't look right. The wavering shapes didn't match the twisting flames in the fireplace.
"What in the world?" she said as she approached. As she grew nearer, the shapes became more clearly defined, forming themselves into red-golden words. Kitty's mouth dropped as she stared at the words forming a couplet.
"Ancient ghosts
Have much to tell.
Solve the puzzles,
Break the spell."
"I'm dreaming. This can't be real. The mirror is talking to me," Kitty said quietly. It was just too uncanny. And yet…she had seen those shapes in the graveyard, and heard that voice outside of her door. This couldn't all be nothing more than a dream. Whether or not this was some eerie dream, it had her attention captured. She moved even closer, expecting the words to disappear any moment. Instead, the surface changed again to reflect something that couldn't have otherwise been seen in the mirror outside of these strange circumstances. It was an image of the bedside table on the opposite side of the bed.
Curious despite the almost supernatural nature of what was happening, Kitty turned and moved around the bed towards it. It looked just as it had when she first entered the room. There was only one drawer. She tried to pull it open but found it stuck.
"Why is everything so hard to open in this place?" Kitty mused, feeling annoyed. Finding a sharp letter opener lying on the floor she jammed it into the small gap, wrenching the drawer open.
"Ow! God!" she cried. The cut on her finger oozed bright droplets of blood. Kitty sucked on it furiously, peering into the drawer and hoping that whatever was in there was worth the sting.
It was empty except for several scraps of paper. Feeling disappointed and more than a little cheated, Kitty shuffled through the scraps trying to find something. Nothing could be found. That's when she noticed that the scraps had writing on them in faded ink. She eagerly pulled them out and tried to decipher what they said.
She soon realized that the pieces belonged to two different sheets of parchment. Kitty managed to put the first light yellow sheet of parchment together, and then leaned in to see it better. It was very old: the edges were frayed and crumpled, and the ink had faded. Several moisture spots marred the writing, making it only just possible to read. With eagerness she proceeded to assemble the pieces, hoping that the letter wasn't written in a foreign language. Thankfully, the script was a neat, curling composition in English. The farther Kitty read, the more intrigued she became.
Dear Remy,
I have done my best to forget about you, yet still your voice lingers in my mind. Each time we meet it gets harder and harder to part. This is why I must ask that we never speak again.
It was a mistake to let my feelings for you grow into anything more than childish affection.
I wish there was some way for us to be together, but we both know this can never be. Please let me go, and I will do my best to do the same. I wish you the best with your future wife.
Truly sorry,
Anna
Kitty's romantic writer's mind was racing. Here, in this letter alone, she had found an all new story and a love triangle at that. Her thoughts flew back outside. Anna had been the name on the headstone excluded from the graveyard, and the name that the voice had called for. Could this be the same Anna? She turned to the next letter to see if it revealed any more of this newly uncovered story. It seemed like a rewrite of the first letter; it was much shorter.
Dear Remy,
This will be the last letter I write to you.
Only pain lies ahead for us and our families if we continue this any longer. The arrangements have been made. You must follow through. I wish you the best with your future wife.
It would be best for us not to meet again.
Anna
It seemed that Anna had still been unsatisfied by this result for it too had been torn apart. Kitty stood again, mulling over her discoveries. Her eyes fell on her notebook that still rested on the bedside table. She pulled it out and gently placed the letters between the pages. She began to write.
When I came here, I didn't expect my idea to be given to me like this. The mirrors are speaking to me, and I've found letters sent to a man named Remy by a heartbroken lover. I know that this Anna is the owner of that headstone outside. Now I just have to find out what happened.
Closing the notebook and replacing it to its former spot, her eyes caught the mirror again. It read "Keystosecretsarestoredlocked." When she looked closely, the picture of the bedside table had been replaced with the picture of a locked jewelry box.
Looking around, she found the match to the picture sitting on the window seat across the room. Kitty hastened over and sat down. It was a pretty work of art. It was carved from a red-brown wood as smooth as glass. The lock system was rather like the one on the door outside, except instead of tiles there were patterned rings. These were mismatched, but Kitty knew how to do this now. She rearranged the rings until the pattern matched. She was rewarded by a soft click and the lid slowly lifted.
Inside the box, resting on a red silk cushion was a single dried flower bloom. Kitty recognized it as a Rose-hip, and also as the same type of flower that had been on the bush beside Anna's grave. It was a perfect bud, the dried petals preserved as if it had been cut from the branch only hours before.
Enchanted, Kitty reached out a tentative fingertip to touch the beautiful thing. She was utterly unprepared for what happened when she did.
April 14th 1864
The day was perfect, quiet and peaceful. Spring sunshine bathed the well-trimmed grounds of the castle. Birds sang and the delicious scents of the blooming flowers painted colors in the air. The window was opened in one of the upstairs rooms, allowing the cool breeze to lift the gossamer curtains from stagnancy, sending them dancing over the room in rippling flutters. A fire flickered in the hearth to negate any unwanted chill from the comfortable bedroom.
Sitting on the window seat was a solitary girl, the breeze gently lifting her auburn and white curls away from her pretty face. She wore a simple cream-colored dress, offset by her emerald eyes and necklace.
Despite the beauty of the day, this girl's mood was anything but bright. The castle was quiet and devoid of any others, they had all gone out on a hunting party, but she preferred it this way. If she was alone then she would be able to sort through her turmoil of feelings and emotions.
Anna reprimanded herself. She knew what she felt and what should be done, but it was too painful to face. She looked down at the blank sheet of parchment below her porcelain hands. She knew she was taking the coward's way out: writing a note instead of facing him like she should. But she just couldn't. Anna knew she wouldn't be strong enough to look into his mesmerizing eyes and say what needed to be said. So instead she tried to escape the inevitable.
Tears fell unwittingly from her eyes as she wrote her first attempt. Finishing it, she examined it and then tore it apart. It showed too much of her true feelings. If he caught even the slightest hint of hesitation, the tiniest notion that she wanted nothing more to belong to him and him alone, he would pursue her, the consequences be damned. That man had always been too stubborn for his own good. So she tried again with a fresh sheet.
The end result of her second attempt was still not enough. Leaning back against the window sill she closed her eyes, thinking about the years they had known each other and everything before. Anna couldn't see her life without him anymore. Yet now that was what she was being forced to face: to see the man she loved be wedded to another. But she had no choice in the matter, and she must accept it before it broke her.
Her eyes dried now, for she had no more tears to shed, she began her third attempt. This time, she allowed her emotion and feeling pour into this, displaying her regret but also her firm determination to follow through with the fate neither of them wished to meet.
Finishing she read it. She smiled bitter sweetly. This was the one. She sighed, trying to hold on to the faint closure she felt, little comfort though it was.
Anna's ears caught the sound of hoof beats approaching, and laughter. The castle inhabitants had returned and she would be required to attend dinner. Anna gently folded the letter and placed it in the pocket of her dress. Before leaving, she strode over to her mirrored bureau. On it was a vase that held a single flower, her flower. She smiled, remembering the first flower her beloved had ever given her.
Drawing the flower from the vase she broke of the long stem and cradled the perfect bud in one hand. Walking back to the window seat she drew her jewelry box toward her. Anna laid one kiss on the soft petals before placing the bloom upon the cushion. She then closed the lid and strode purposefully from the room, never once looking back.
The Present
The moment Kitty's fingertip touched the flower bud it dissolved into a cloud of magenta sparkles. Just then a great boom of some mighty clock just about shook the castle, followed shortly by the accompanying chimes of many other smaller clocks. Twelve strikes began to toll. As the midnight hour was declared, a pale blue-white light grew in the center of the room.
Kitty slowly backed away from the window seat, watching as the light grew brighter and larger, until it formed a distinct human shape.
The pale woman she had seen outside the cemetery who she was now sure was Anna, sat herself on the window seat, staring down at transparent parchment held beneath her hand. Her face was melancholy and torn. Kitty could feel what this apparition was feeling. She felt sadness, longing, desperation, and indecision.
The shade leaned over and began to write. When it was finished the ghost appeared unsatisfied and shredded the letter. Her second attempt met the same fate. On her third try, Anna's image at last seemed appeased. She placed the finished letter in the pocket of her dress. Kitty continued to observe as the image retrieved the Rose-hip flower from a nearby vase and placed it in her jewelry box, blessing it with a single kiss. The vision then turned and began to leave the room. For a brief moment, Anna's pale eyes met Kitty's. The young author gasped and shivered, the emotions she was feeling intensifying greatly. There was no recognition in the phantom's gaze as her head turned away once more and she faded from the room.
Kitty remained frozen. This was incredible. This kind of thing only happened in the kind of books she enjoyed writing. She still wasn't sure if she was dreaming or not, but whatever this experience was, it was vivid enough for it not to matter much.
She had found her story; the only question she had to ask was whether she was willing to pursue it or not. Kitty felt an instinctual apprehension, her body telling her that this wasn't natural and she should avoid where this might lead. But her curiosity and writer's mind and heart were telling her that this was the opportunity of a lifetime. She knew too much, and if she backed out now this story would haunt her for the rest of her life. She glanced to the mirror and saw the new words formed on it. "FollowAnna."
With an intake of breath, Kitty fetched her flashlight from her desk, slipped on some warm boots and approached the door the ghost had disappeared through. The key was in the lock. She knew it hadn't been there before. Her hand rested unsure on the handle for a moment, before with a surge of will, she pulled the door open and stepped into the hallway.
Her story had truly begun.
