Chapter 2- dreams

I woke up gasping, sweat covered all my body and my head was soaked in it, I sat down violently like a spring, and the lack of air was suffocating me. I panted, and I touched my face and hand. Eye and hand still missing. It wasn't a nightmare. It really did happen.

I, however, felt weight in one side of the bed, somebody was sitting there.

-Shhhhhh…. Someone whispered.

-Who is it?! My voice was somewhere between rage and fear.

A candle lit in my room and I saw her. I saw the most perfect vision I could have hoped for.

-Hush Edward… go back to sleep, I'm here….

-JANE, JANE?!- I shouted, my whole body launching itself against her.

-Shhhhh…. Calm now… - she put a finger in my lips

I was too agitated, I couldn't understand anything.

-How, How?- I cried out

-It doesn't matter how, I'm here now. – a candlelight showed me her face, she was looking at me with her eyes filled with tenderness, and showed me the sweetest smile I've ever seen.

Every time I tried to touch her, she kept me apart. I was so ecstatic, confused, overwhelmed.

-Why did you leave me? -I said, a lump forming in my throat.

-I had to .

-Why?

-To save you. – her little fingers touched a thread of hair that was covering my face, she put it behind my hear.

-You thought you'd save me by leaving me? All the contrary my elf, you condemned me to hell. Living without you is hell Jane.

-I saved your soul. – her voice was soft but firm.

-Damn my soul! I'd happily sell it to the devil himself if he'd let me be with you forever. – my voice was rising.

An eerie silence enveloped the room.

-Jane?

-Yes?

-Save me… how?

-You are a good man Mr. Rochester, even if you try to convince yourself otherwise. You had done bad deeds, as has every and any other man walking on this earth, but you are a good man. You almost condemned your soul, and mine, by marrying me while you were still married to another woman. The biggest sin wasn't bigamy, it was deception, dishonour and robbery. – her voice was calmed.

-I understand deception, I never meant to deceive you Jane, know that. But tell me, what would you have done if I had told you the truth from the beginning? Would you have fallen in love with me as you said you did? Would we have had those days full of bliss where our love was professed to one another? No, I don't believe you would have… You would have left me, as you did when you found out.

More silence.

-Why dishonour? Why robbery?- I was puzzled, and hurt. I never meant to harm my Jane.

-Dishonour because you would have destroyed your name, and mine. You as a bigamist, and me as the mistress of a wicked man. People wouldn't have cared whether I knew or not about your wife, all they would have cared is that I married a man while he was still married to another woman. I would have been thrown out of society to become an outcast. And, if we would have had children, they would be fruit of a fraudulent union, would be scorned and destitute, as I would be.

-Never Jane…. You would have NEVER been humiliated. I would have killed anybody who would have done that. And our children… they would have had the world at their feet. – again I felt a rush of tears accumulating in my eyes, and my voice breaking, but I tried my best to keep calmed.

-See? More sins… now we could add "murder" to the list. – she added, with a sarcastic smile.

I sighed.

-What about robbery Jane? What do you mean with that?

-You would have robbed my soul, Mr. Rochester.

Robbed your soul? Are you mad? – I frowned, that statement made absolute no sense to me.

-No, thankfully I was not, and am not. The fact of me fleeing from you attest to that.

By making me your mistress, by me giving into your pleas, I would have lost my soul, to you. You would have taken my pride, my honour, everything because of your own selfish reasons. I didn't have an impediment, and my love was pure and true. You wanted me to become your wife, and in the process, ruin us both in front of men, but worse yet, in front of God. You would have taken my spirit from me, with lies and manipulation. Those schemes are not done in the name of love, but in the name of lust and pride.

-Are you saying I don't love you Jane?

-No, I know you love me.

-Then why are you judging me thus? You have already condemned my soul to eternal fire when my only sin was loving you.

-Don't you see it Edward? This is all the contrary. I saved you. You and me.

-I still don't understand… you say you saved me, and yet I feel more doomed and abandoned than ever In my life.

I began feeling weak, all the agitation had drained me, I felt tired.

-Shhhh… you'll understand Edward. Someday, you will.

-Don't go….- I whispered.

-Shhhh….. her hands touched my head, and lulled me to sleep.

-I love you – I said, barely moving my lips.

-I love you – she replied, and then complete darkness again.

The next morning, when I woke up, I opened my eyes and hoped to see her sitting next to me. Of course not. It was a dream. I couldn't see anything in bright daylight, only some sort of gleam, worse yet at night…. But Jane, my Jane, her spirit had come visit me! I hadn't imagined, or dreamed the whole thing, I felt her, I smelled her, I touched her….

Again a growl followed by a shout escaped my mouth, then I collapsed into the bed and began crying, the force of my grief was shaking my entire frame. I was hopeless…