Author's Note: Thanks again everyone for the reviews! I'm so glad you guys like this story so much! Umm… oh yes, I'm starting school in about two weeks (September 2), so when that date comes around I should be updating about every week or two weeks on Thursdays. Savvy? Now, to chapter three!
Disclaimer: I have only borrowed "Secret Window" and I only wished I owned Johnny Depp. Stella Burnside will still and forever be mine.
Chapter Three
Images
Stella woke up early that morning due to her lack of sleep. She didn't feel tired, but the traffic in her mind was stubborn and refused to cease. Changing out of her T-shirt and cotton shorts, she pulled on a long, black cotton dress that had spaghetti straps and slits that went up to her knees. She brushed her hair and teeth before pinning back her bangs with two bobby pins on each side to keep them out of her face.
Making her way down the stairs, the house was already filled with sunlight and was comfortable. She made herself a mug of coffee and a bagel with strawberry cream cheese. She sat in the sunroom and opened up her laptop to begin her first story. Plugging in earphones, she listened to music as she typed a few paragraphs and stopped to think. She looked across at the lake and saw Mort swimming shirtless in the water. The drops of water sparkled against his skin, and Stella couldn't help but think how beautiful he looked right then.
Focus… focus… Stella thought desperately, but she just couldn't help but allow her eyes to wander freely toward Mort and the lake. He swam so gracefully through the water. He sliced through it like it was inferior to him and his body in the sun and water just made Stella's skin tingle.
Get a grip on yourself… remember how he was yesterday? Don't even think about going out there… DON'T GO OUT THERE… Stella scolded herself mentally, but her will power was zilch at the moment and she found herself walking outside and standing a few feet away from the edge of the water.
"Hi!" Mort exclaimed, walking up the shore with the sun on him and water dripping down his well-built body.
"Hi," Stella said with a smile. "Nice swim?"
Mort nodded. "The water's nice. Why don't you join me?"
Stella shook her head vigorously. "I didn't pack anything for any kind of water activity, sorry to disappoint you."
"You didn't need to anyway," Mort said pulling her towards the water.
"What're you doing, Mort?!?" Stella shouted as she pulled herself away.
"C'mon, live a little." Mort scooped Stella into his arms and began to walk deeper and deeper into the water.
"Let me go, Mort!" Stella demanded, trying to fight Mort off.
Mort just grinned smugly and continued on deeper into the warm water. They went so deep; it seemed Mort had lost touch with the bottom of the lake. Stella felt nervous and wanted to break away immediately.
"Um… aren't we a little deep?" Stella asked, clearly nervous.
"Yeah…" Mort said. "Just stay close."
Stella could feel his strong arms around her waist pulling her closer to him. Her heart began to race and her face burn. His skin was warm and smooth against hers and she thought shamelessly about exploring his body more. She felt Mort knew this since he tried to hide a pleased smile even though he was horrible at it.
"Don't worry, I don't let you go," Mort assured.
"Er, I can't swim, Mort…" Stella admitted sheepishly.
"I guess that means you should stay a little closer." Mort pulled Stella against his chest and she felt her heart jolt and a hot sensation spread through her body.
"I think… I think we should go back now… I have a lot of work to do… and it can't wait…" Stella tried her hardest to make up a genuine excuse for Mort to swim her back, but none we were working effectively.
"Are you scared of drowning?" Mort asked, smiling slyly.
Stella swallowed hard. "A little…"
"Alright." He seemed understanding and began to swim them back to the shore.
Stella tried to squeeze the water out of her dress and Mort just watched her. From the corner of her eye, she could see him eyeing her calves and thighs and her heart raced.
Just calm down… it's normal… he's a man… it's all normal… Stella thought. She felt like an adolescent teen who would get giddy over a guy staring at her from across the room. She tried to snap out of that trance, but could only shake off a little bit of the feeling.
"How about we get dried off?" Mort offered seeing that Stella was having trouble squeezing all the water out of her dress.
"That'd be nice," Stella answered with a smile.
She followed Mort into his home for the second time and found it homier during the day. Mort walked off to get towels and dry clothes. She looked around and it seemed Mort had his life completely under control and organized. How could she have possibly felt he was potential danger? Maybe she was just imagining it all last night. Stella just smiled to herself like she had made a stupid mistake and got over her fright of Mort by just standing in the heart of his sun filled living room. She paced around for a few minutes while Mort was gone and looked into an interesting looking mirror that hung over the fireplace. It was tall and its frame looked like a bunch of small antlers. Stella looked into the mirror and felt a weird chilling sensation sweep over her.
I don't understand… Stella thought.
She kept staring into the mirror and behind her she saw an image of a middle-aged man wearing a plain black outfit and black hat. He held a shovel in both his hands and seemed to be creeping more and more slowly towards her. When he got the closest he could get, Stella's image changed to Amy's and the man with the shovel and hat was just about to hit Amy over the head with the shovel when Stella gasped and turned around. Mort stood there, holding two towels and an oversized T-shirt.
"You okay?" Mort asked, walking towards her. "It looks like you've seen a ghost or something."
Stella shook her head. "No I'm fine…"
"Here." Mort handed her a towel and the T-shirt. "I can dry your dress for you, and the bathroom is up there."
"Thanks." Stella brushed passed Mort and through the door that Mort had directed her to.
When she opened it, she realized the bathroom was in his room. She felt a bit uncomfortable about being in the room of the man she was attracted to. She stepped inside and looked around. The window allowed a fair amount of light into the room and illuminated the hunter green wallpaper and brought little details to her eyes; details like how neatly the room was arranged and how neatly kept it was.
At least it seems he has himself organized, Stella thought, brushing her fingertips over the furniture. She sat on his bed and forgot the fact that she was soaking wet. She felt at peace for a moment until she realized she was sitting on an uncomfortable lump. She reached under the blanket and found a black hat… the same black hat that man in the mirror was wearing.
"Stella?" she could hear Mort ask as his heavy footsteps could be heard. The door opened and Mort had a puzzle look on his face. Stella hid the hat quickly behind her back before Mort could look at her.
"Uh, I… I'm really sorry," Stella stuttered, clutching the hat.
"No, it's all right." Mort hid an amused smile.
Stella frowned. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing… nothing at all." Mort just smiled again and left Stella.
Stella sighed and stuffed the hat back under the blanket. She turned quickly and went into the bathroom before she could do anything else stupid. She stood in front of the mirror, with her hands gripped the sides of the sink. Her heart was pounding and her head was spinning.
What… what was that? Stella thought. The mirror… the hat…
Was that how Amy got killed? Was that her killer? Shaking her head several times, Stella tried to convince herself that she was just seeing things because of Amy's murder. But that hat… Mort? No, it couldn't be. It couldn't be at all. She shook her head violently. She swallowed hard and began to dry herself off. Pulling the T-shirt over her head that went down passed her knees; she carried her soaking dress out and went down the stairs.
Mort sat on the couch, already in his dry clothes. He looked at her and just smiled. Taking the wet dress, he went off again and Stella tried to avoid looking in the mirror. She took quick glances at it, but refused to look in it for very long. Sitting on the couch, she tried to gather her thoughts. She pressed the palm of her hands against her eyes and wondered why she had seen what she had seen.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Mort asked, appearing above her when she removed her palms from her eyes.
Looking straight up at him into his eyes, she answered, "Perfectly okay."
Mort just nodded and didn't move at all. "What are you really afraid of?"
"Hm," Stella said pensively. "I guess it's any kind of attachment."
"Attachment?"
"Yeah, attachment," Stella repeated. "You know, how people come so attached to others that if they lose them, they could never function again or, how people constantly need other people by them to feel safe or to keep going in life… that kind of attachment."
"Ah, I see." Mort looked like he was thinking deeply for a moment before returning to the conversation.
"What about you, Mort? What do you fear most?" Stella asked, trying to sound daring, but couldn't.
"Betrayal." There was a bitter look in Mort's eyes that Stella had never seen in any person before. "When people you love turn their backs on you or when even… even yourself. Even when you turn your back against yourself."
Stella swallowed hard and added quietly, "I hope you don't take that from experience…"
"I have." Mort just smiled to himself like it was an easy sweep-it-aside thing. "I'm mostly over it anyway."
He had that same smile he had on just last night, and Stella's skin crawled with a prickly feeling. The smile soon vanished and he looked like himself again and the prickly feeling had disappeared. She sighed in her head and just watched Mort's eyes reading hers.
"Why do you fear attachment?" Mort asked finally, still not moving.
"I don't want to hurt," Stella admitted. "I made the mistake of attaching myself to one person and I've regretted it ever since. Sure, people will have to hurt once and a while, but the hurt of losing someone you've loved for so long is the greatest kind of pain… I learned that the hard way. I don't want to do it again."
"What about your romantic relationships?"
Stella felt uncomfortable, she didn't want to talk to a man that she was attracted to about her romantic relationships. It would seem odd. Not like Stella had many, but it only seemed polite to answer him. It seemed like if she didn't tell him, she'd feel bad after like lying to a child. "I haven't really had many, I'll admit, but they weren't very good anyway. Another thing I learned the hard way."
"What happened… if you don't mind me asking?" Mort's eyes were anticipating these stories and Stella couldn't manage to deprive him of them.
"They all lied to me and that's it," Stella said. "To make a long story short, that's how it was."
"Any man who would do that would probably be the most stupid."
"Thanks for the flattery, Mort, but you don't have to comfort me… I'm over it, too," Stella said quietly.
"I'm being honest!"
Stella could read it in his eyes, but she didn't want to believe it. All men who had her donned her unworthy and lied their way out of the relationship. Maybe she had picked the wrong men, but if that the case, it was her mistake anyway.
"C'mon, you have to believe me."
Mort's eyes were a bit pleading but still held that hint of genuine honesty that Stella couldn't avoid falling for. His face was coming in closer and closer… until Stella put a finger on Mort's lips.
"This isn't right," Stella said quietly.
Mort's hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her hand away. "Why not?"
"I don't know, I just feel it," Stella answered.
Mort just nodded and pulled away. He didn't seem disappointed, nor did Stella. He announced that her dress was dry when the muffled sound of the dryer finishing went off and left to go retrieve it. Stella couldn't believe that at that moment, she didn't feel nervous at all when Mort was so close. Maybe it meant something. She looked down at her hands and clenched them into fists.
Mort returned shortly with Stella's dress and Stella went back to the bathroom to change into her dress. She changed quickly and returned the T-shirt to Mort when she came down.
"Thanks again," Stella said gratefully as Mort lead her to the door.
"Don't mention it," Mort said.
They stood face to face for moment as Stella stood outside and Mort in the doorway. There was a moment of understanding and connection between them as they just stood there, looking at each other and speaking through the silence.
"Well, I'd better go. See you around." Stella waved and began to walk towards her house.
"Stella!" Mort shouted after her.
Stella turned around and looked at Mort with a puzzled expression. "Yes?"
"Do you… do you want to have dinner with me tomorrow night? Just at my house?" Mort asked.
Stella didn't ponder on the question at all and immediately answered, "I'd like that."
Mort smiled, showing his clean white teeth and disappeared into his house. Stella just smiled to herself and walked back to her house. She sat in the sunroom with her laptop on the cursor blinking at her. She couldn't concentrate at all. The only thing on her mind was Mort. All her dark feelings about him before at washed away and now she was purely attracted to this man. Sighing, she shook her head and tried her hardest to concentrate on her story even though her mind would drift back and forth to Mort.
Intrigue
After three hours of staring into the laptop screen, Stella managed to type only a few lines in a paragraph and she called it a day. She took a shower and prepared a small dinner of Caesar salad and garlic bread. While she ate, she thought of Mort without guilt.
Seems like everything's… going to be all right, Stella admitted to herself almost reluctantly.
Finishing her dinner, she washed the dishes in a daze and went up to her room. She read for an hour in attempt to get herself to sleep, but that didn't work. She continued to read, but it still didn't work.
"God…" Stella said as she got out of bed and went down the stairs to make herself a cup of tea.
She lifted the teabag up and down lazily as she went up the stairs to her room. She put the cup of tea down on her nightstand by her bed and before she returned to reading, she noticed the small vase on the mirror table had fallen down.
Stella sighed and went to pick it up. Setting it down, she looked at herself in the mirror and thought back to the mirror in Mort's house. The familiar chill ran through her and she tried to turn away, but couldn't. Her image in the mirror was beginning to distort and change into Amy's again. This time, Amy was pounding against the mirror and screaming, but nothing was coming out of her mouth. Stella could see the same man with the black hat advancing towards with the shovel.
Look away! Stella forced herself and she did. Opening her eyes, she looked into the mirror and saw nothing was there anymore. Putting a hand on her forehead, Stella breathed in and out heavily.
Again… but why?Stella thought. She put the vase quickly back onto the table and forgot her tea as she turned the light off to sleep.
All night, Stella slept with her back to the mirror. What did it all mean? It seemed she would keep getting haunted by these images every time she looking in the mirror. Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, she tried to sleep and eventually did even though she had drifted into a disturbing dream…
Intrigue
Stella stood in a room with these images surrounding her and flashing before her. The image she saw in the mirror with Amy was playing on one side and the other images were of the man with the black hat attacking other people she didn't recognize. As these images flashed before her, a voice with a southern accent spoke, repeating the same line over and over again.
"You stole my story…"
"You stole my story…"
"You stole my story…"
Stella's head spun at the sight of these images. People were being brutally murdered by this strange man. She closed her eyes, and opened them again to find that the images were still there.
"Stop!" Stella shouted. She didn't want to see Amy. She didn't want to see any of this.
"You stole my story…"
"You stole my story…"
"You stole my story…"
The man with the hat came out of one of the images with a screwdriver in his hand. He was advancing towards Stella with a stoic expression on his face. The screwdriver was already coated in someone else's blood and thirsted for more…
"Just… STOP!" Stella screamed.
