Chapter 10-Specters

After a long awaited time, I was finally drowning in the sweet sea of slumber.

I kept waking up, for brief intervals of time, but the weight of tiredness on my eyes was much too heavy to resist.

I slept through the night, my mind fortunately devoid of any dreams, and then through the following day as well, except when Madame Giry came to hand me my medicine and food.

The night approached, and still my sleep hadn't deserted me.

But they say that the darkness is a sanctuary for reveries and nightmares, alike, and the one's nearer to you come to take refuge within your mind, at night.

I was back in the cellar. I couldn't breathe. Black terror erupted within my heart, and spread through my veins to the rest of my body.

I was lying on the floor, face down. The sudden eruption of dust from the chimney, lacking the assistance of any probable human factors, had made me scream and try to run to the other side of the room. Instead I tripped and fell quite close to the chimney, itself. I felt helpless, exposed. Emily's story was not just a made-up tale, there was something very evil in here, I could sense it.

I did not want to look up. But I had to.

His eyes were open.

From a noose attached to the ceiling, he was hanging. His body swayed from side to side, hanging limply, a trickle of blood seeping through his mouth.

It was the kind of fear, that paralyses your senses, kills your voice, kills any means through which you could express your terror. It was painful.

And then, his lifeless eyes turned to me.

My body seemed to move of it's own free will. It struggled to crawl to the other side of the room, away from his sinister gaze.

I backed up against the wall, pulled my knees to my chest, and buried my face between them.

Please, someone. Please come and get me. Please.

And then, a horrifying noise emerged from the corner of the room. It was like the noise that father's gramophone made, when the record stuck, and kept repeating until somebody changed it.

I slowly lifted my head up from my self-embrace.

Now, there was nobody in-front of me. No dead body hanging from the ceiling.

My eyes slowly made their way to the corner of the room, from where the malignant sound was coming.

He was there, his back against me. The clothes that he wore, were like the ones I saw people wearing in old paintings from the turn of the century.

The sound kept emanating from where he stood.

Then, it stopped.

The silence and apprehension were more torturous to bear than the broken sound that had previously been ringing through the cellar.

You can see him, my mind whispered to me. You can see a dead person. A ghost.

And then I heard another sound, slicing through the deafening silence.

It was a whisper. Under normal circumstances, the sound would have been improbable to catch, but the sheer ferocity of fear and quietness in the air, made it elementary to decipher the sinister words.

"Are..."

"You"

"My"

"Daughter?"

My heart turned cold.

"Are you my daughter? Are you my daughter? Are you my daughter? Are you my daughter? Are you my daughter? Are you my daughter? Are you my daughter? Are you my daughter?"

The whispered words of the specter were like a demonic chant. My eyes blurred from the tears that invaded them.

I soundlessly cried and prayed to God for forgiveness.

His chant went on for some terrifyingly long minutes.

Then silence invaded the air, it was as sharp as a knife piercing through my being.

I felt aware of every part of my body.

He had started turning towards me, so I hid my face in my against my knees, again.

It was quiet once again, I hoped that whatever and whoever that man was, had gone away.

I willed to lift my head once again, my mind screamed against the action, but it was inevitable.

I lifted my head and saw his face, inches from mine.

"Rose, Rose!"

Awakening from the dream was painful. Just like stark terror, stark relief and change of circumstance, given so suddenly, can be strenuous and painful to experience.

Meg was leaning towards me, holding my hands.

"You were crying and screaming in your sleep, Rose", she said, gently.

I lifted my bandaged hands to my cheeks. They came away wet.

"It's a good thing that mother told me to sleep with you. You were having a nightmare, I assume. What did you see, Rose?"

"I don't remember, Meg", I lied.

I looked at her worried form.

"Meg, it was just a dream. I am still in need of some more sleep. I will be fine, you can sleep, too." I was exhausting the last supplies of my self reserve.

Meg slowly went to her bed, and I laid down as well, to enact my deceit.

After she had quietly rested in her slumber, I stole out of the room, as fast as I could.