Edna Cotton-1906
Mike held them in his hands. Letters addressed to one Edna Diane Cotton. A notorious murderess from Derry's troubled and disturbing history. They were bundled together with a sinewy black cord, the envelopes stained a crinkled yellow. They'd been found hidden beneath the floorboards of one of the upstairs bedrooms of Neibolt house not long after Edna's death.
As he sat down to read them in his clocktower apartment, the History of Derry book open on his desk, he gazes down at the photo on the page; a scene of passerby along a street. As he stares, the pedestrians in the photo almost appear to move.
It was Saturday. The moon was a crescent sliver in the inky sky, barely visible among the silver of the clouds that streaked along the skyline. The lights from the street lamps blanketed Kansas Street in a soft yellow-orange shade as the few people out at this hour strolled under their glow, their shadows gliding along the blackened cracks of the roadside.
Edna clutches her coat to her, the chill of the early December air nipping at her nose, a soft glossy pink from the winter winds. She glances at the other pedestrians; a young blonde woman, most likely what Edna's French maternal grandmother would call a fille de joie, "girl of pleasure," a middle-aged man with a gray-streaked beard in a thick ratty heavy coat and a flat cap hiding something under his arm. She could only guess what. A bottle of alcohol. A gun perhaps. Maybe he's going to settle a score with someone.
While Edna's imagination ran wild, playing out different scenarios, an elderly couple enter her field of vision. This makes her pause, her brown pupils glued to them as they slowly pass, whispering and laughing quietly to themselves as they round the corner. They briefly stop, the man cupping his wife's face as he plants a kiss on her. They join hands and continue walking, looking very much love.
In love. Happy.
Together.
Edna's breath is visible misty clouds under the warm light of one of the lamps.
Joe didn't show up. Again. Now I'm walking home alone.
He was with Nicola. Probably.
Why am I doing this to myself?
She presses her coat tighter to her torso as she hears a woman's giggling drifting through the air. She sniffles as she spots the young blonde woman she'd seen, now arm in arm with a very tall man in a gray suit. They stop in the middle of the street, talking, being too far away for Edna to decipher what was being said.
Eavesdropping. Not very respectable. Her grandmother had scolded her once for doing it, but Edna had a natural curiosity. She was, otherwise, nosy.
The man sends a quick glance in either direction before he guides the young woman along by the hand into the tenobrous space between two buildings.
The edges of Edna's brows knead together at this.
Where is he leading her?
This young woman could be found dead in that alley tomorrow morning.
Edna promptly steps off the curb and crosses over, standing near the side of the building, hanging back, avoiding being seen. She waits and listens. More giggling and the sound of the two kissing.
What am I doing? There's nothing happening other than what he's payed for.
Feeling embarrassed, Edna spins on her heel to leave. As she hurries past the alley, hoping neither one noticed her presence, an orange-yellow light flashes in her peripheral. She pauses and takes a few steps backwards, tilting her frame to peer past the wall, making sure to stay hidden and to confirm that she hadn't seen what she thought she had; the light seemed to be emitting from the couple.
Her eyes widen in as she sees the young blonde woman's face just behind the man's shoulder-her pupils were like eggshells, her mouth, the crimson lipstick now smeared, hung open as she stood with the material of his suit crumpled within her fingers. The odd light was seemingly coming from the man's mouth.
And for a split second, Edna could swear she can hear screams, like voices deep within a tunnel. Screaming for help, crying, yelling in abject horror and pain. She's unable to look away, taking a sharp inhale followed by a gasp. Realizing it was coming from her, she clamps her palm to her lips, still unable to tear her gaze away. It was almost an out of body experience seeing this bizarre sight. Her brain unable to fathom what was happening.
Suddenly the light disappears and the man turns to look back at Edna, his eyes like two large shining gold coins. He lets go of the woman and she drops limply to the ground as Edna starts running, almost tripping, her heels nearly sending her tumbling forward. She ducks between two houses, her heartbeat thumping against her throat, he breathing loud and ragged.
She stays put. Closing her lids, she leans the back of her skull against the wooden side of the house. Just as her breathing slows down, she hears a rustling in the nearby brush. Panic sweeps over her as she looks to the bushes, seeing nothing but a large stray dog. White fur bright in the darkness.
She sighs in relief.
"You sure are clean, must not be a stray," she says as she steps out from the shadows to pat the pooch on his head. "Perhaps you have a nice clean home. In that case, you shouldn't be out."
With that, and with the bizarre scene she just witnessed dissipating from her thoughts, she heads back down the road towards her new home on 29 Neibolt Street. The dog watches her leave, its eyes sparking yellow as red stripes sprout along the bristly fur along its snout.
The following Wednesday, the day dreary and rainy, Jacob Frankel, a dark-haired child of ten sits beside Edna on the bench. The pads of his fingers on the keys of the piano, he dutifully plays the musical notes printed on the music sheets on display before them. It was mid-afternoon, and the lesson was almost over.
"Very good." Edna says, leafing to the next page as Jacob slowly finishes the final verse.
"Ready? One, two..." she says, pausing when she sees his eyes searching the room, his mien nervous.
"What is it?" she asks.
His dark, almost black pupils land on her a fleeting moment, before being drawn to the stairs.
"It's..." he begins, his hands dropping from the keys. "I feel a little strange when I'm here. Like, you know, being watched." He stops, his eyes turning up to gaze at her, his visage both worried and embarrassed to be admitting this. Edna touches the cameo on her white collar.
"I don't understand. Who do you think is watching us?"
"Just it feels like it. I can't really explain. It's just a feeling," Jacob continues as he presses down on a single key. "Becky, she sat in front of me in class..."
Oh, that's right. The murders.
She should have known.
It started late Summer with kids disappearing weekly. Rebecca Haigh had gone missing a week prior and an extensive search turned up nothing but the blue silk ribbon from her hair speckled with a few tiny drops of blood on it. Eventually they discovered a ribcage submerged in mud in the Barrens. Investigators figured it had to be her. One of Edna's students Abigail Macchi had vanished on the way home from her lesson and her rotting corpse was also found in the Barrens. Abigail's family were convinced it was an anti-Italian perpetrator.
Edna shamefully had almost forgotten about her. In fact, forgetting that these children-and occasional adult-have gone missing was a sin the entire town was guilty of. Almost as quickly as a family reports their relative is gone, another one takes their place. There is an attempt at a search and an investigation, but then nothing. They are forgotten.
But Jacob hasn't forgotten Rebecca. The boy was sharp. Incredibly preceptive.
Edna touches his shoulder. He flinches slightly. "I assure you there is nothing here. It's just a house."
Although, it wasn't to Edna. To her, it was something else.
Her paternal grandparents had left her a hefty sum upon their deaths within months of one another, enough to purchase the home. They'd had very little contact throughout Edna's childhood. Her paternal grandparents had cut off all contact with her father Morris after he took up with her mother Ida, who was the daughter of French immigrants; a sailor and a seamstress. In fact, his parents had met with her mother in secret to pay her to leave their son.
"Don't bother, I'm already leaving." was Ida's nonchalant reply.
Morris, fond of the bottle, was not the most kind-hearted man. After the initial blush of love evaporated and reality crept in, things changed. After a few incidents of him raising both his voice and his hand to her, including him violently slapping her when she asked him to paint newborn Edna's room, she took the two month old and left.
"No man puts his hands on me." Ida had told Edna growing up. Morris never made any attempt to see his daughter and there was no financial assistance. He'd relocated to New York and never returned, wanting to escape "the stink of Derry. The whole damn town reeks of death."
Ida left Edna in the care of her mother Claudia while she earned enough money as a seamstress. She made enough to rent a small room in a boarding house. They lived modestly, and at twenty five, long after her mother and grandmother had both passed, a lawyer turned up at her door, informing her of her inheritance from her paternal grandparents. The thought of refusing it crossed her mind. She'd not been good enough to associate with when they were alive. Why take it? But, financially, she was not in the position to refuse. And upon realizing she could buy her dream house, she accepted. The lawyer offered a simple explanation for her being put in the will; guilt.
Despite being rundown, Neibolt was a mansion. Too big for her, but she'd always admired it. Ever since she was a child, she would walk past it, often stopping to take a tour around to the backyard and admiring the beautiful stained glass windows of the second floor and pick some of the glorious sunflowers that grew around it for her mother to display in a glass vase on their windowsill at home. It's as if something had been beckoning her towards it her whole life.
The fact that she owns it now was a dream come true. She didn't care about the morbid ghost stories. The horrible things that had befallen people who lived in it. At one point, she was told circus performers had owned it, which would explain the theme of the stained glass windows; clowns and circus tents. Families never lasted long. Everyone always either moved or they died. She'd heard something terrible had happened to the circus performers...
But it was just talk. Townfolk talking on corners. Sharing stories as they bought their groceries as the clerk whispered that he'd heard something ominous from a friend of a friend. Mostly just exaggerations, no doubt. Nothing more. She's not superstitious. She'd met Joe Mueller, a prominent realtor, when she'd met with him to buy the place. They had started exchanging letters, before it slowly turned physical.
Jacob may have heard the rumors about the ghosts.
"You think...it's haunted?" she gently inquires, although she personally had yet to experience anything. her mother, who held a fascination with the macabre, had implanted more of a curiosity about such things rather than fear.
He shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe. But that man I saw in the attic window-"
"Wait, what man?" Edna straightens, alert, gripping him with both hands now. Jacob looks startled at her reaction.
"Some man in the attic window. He was looking down at me and Ma. She didn't see him though," he replies, his forehead creasing in puzzlement. "He was there but she didn't notice? It was strange. I thought maybe he was someone visiting you."
"No, there is no one here but me. Let's look." Edna declares as she rises to her feet, lifting her long brown skirt with her hands as she heads to the staircase, snapping up a kerosene lamp. Jacob follows as they make their way past the old clock with the roman numerals her maternal grandmother had gifted her.
She was certain he had to be seeing things. There was no one here but her. No sounds. No footsteps. Perhaps he'd seen a clown doll, like the ones in that room with the stained glass windows that she couldn't figure out what to do with yet. She couldn't bring herself to despose of them. They were oddly charming.
She was certain there was no intruder. It wasn't possible.
They stand just below the attic door, with Edna's hands on her hips. "I'm going up." she announces as she pulls the cord dangling down. The door loudly creaks as she yanks it open, cautiously sliding the ladder out.
"Careful Miss Cotton," Jacob advises. "I don't think you should be going up there." He takes a step back, as if anticipating her falling as she begins to ascend the wooden steps.
Edna gives a silent wave of her hand as she cilmbs up into the attic, a cold musty dampened smell rushing at her. She coughs as she holds out the lamp, charily making her way inside, and, as she suspected, nothing. The only thing she sees is a pile of small crates and an old hat box with a piece of crinkled cloth hanging over it directly in front of the window. The area was mostly bare and there was nowhere for any man to be hiding.
Stepping down, she points. "Nothing there. Just a piece of cloth in front of the window. That must be what you saw."
Jacob stares off a moment, blinking, rubbing his left temple. "But, I coulda sworn he had a face. Like hair and eyes and all that."
Edna shuts the attic door. "Well, your mind can play tricks. You maybe thought you saw it in the cloth. A pattern of a man's face and hair."
Jacob, now looking convinced and more than a little relieved, gives a tacit nod. "Sure, that could be it."
They resume the lesson, untl nearly two o clock, then he grabs his gray flat cap and coat and meets his mother Loni on the porch as she arrives to pick him up. As they walk along the pathway, he pauses and looks up at that circular window, spying three clown dolls, their hands pressed to the glass, their eyes focused on Jacob and his mother. Their red mouths distorted into unsettling grins.
"What is it dear?" Loni queries, squeezing his hand, following his pointed gaze, seeing nothing but an empty window.
"Nothing." he breathes as he hurriedly begins to walk, pulling his mother along with him.
That night, Joe appears under the blanket of darkness. He always came on Wednesdays and Saturdays, never in the daylight. Never when somebody could see. Somebody from his social circle. One of his wife's gossipy friends. One of his colleagues. With him, he had a large white flat box, wrapped in a soft pink paper and bow. Edna opened it, seeing a stunning sky blue dress with white lace trim folded neatly inside.
"I'm sorry," he blows a remorseful sigh through his lips. "I have to keep up appearances, you know. But, I'm glad you're not angry and didn't deny me the pleasure of your company. You are my tonic for the end of a stressful day."
"I know," Edna doesn't look at him as she removes the dress from the box and rises, holding it up to her shoulders. She hated the way they looked- like she was slouching. "I had to walk home on my own.""
"I know. I apologize. I couldn't get away."
Edna turns to him, the dress still pinned to her shoulders. "How does it look?"
"Beautiful," Joe says as he stands, touching her cheeks. "I told you though-"
"You don't really love her." Edna finishes, searching his blue corneas, trying to detect deception.
None. If he's a liar, he's a good one.
At least, that was what he'd said. Over and over for three months. Nicola was beautiful, with golden hair that cascaded along her shoulders that didn't slouch. She was wealthy, a lifelong resident of Derry's West Broadway. Edna had actually ran into her a few weeks ago in a drug store on Center Street. Edna, flustered, had told her that Joe was "helpful" in her purchase of her new home, and Nicola had seemed pleased at her gratitude.
Pleased and not suspicious.
"I told you I ran into her the other week. It was a little awkward.' Edna lets the dress drop from her shoulders, her chin falling against her collar.
"Telling her we've met was fine. She'll just forget about it. And if not, it will have no effect on us," Joe replies breezily. "At any rate, we've been careful. The people in this godforsaken town want gossip. I refuse to indulge them."
"You burned them right?" Edna asks. The letters she'd sent him could be found by Nicola, so Edna demanded that he destroy them.
'"It pained me to do so."
Edna gives a silent nod of approval as she turns back around to face a large square mirror hanging on the wall next to a painting of the Derry cemetary that belonged to her mother. She holds the dress back up to her chest as Joe approaches and places his hands on her fingers.
"It's cold," she says softly. "We need more kindling. I better go chop the wood."
The following morning, Joe exits before dawn. Edna makes herself a breakfast of toast and eggs and readies for the first student of the day, little Timothy Humphrey, followed by Dorothy Teel. Both had been escorted by a parent, none wanting to take the chance of their child being snatched up by whatever it was killing the children and being found mangled in the swampy Barrens. After both had left, she awaits Jacob.
And waits.
And waits.
But he and his mother never arrive. Edna stands on the porch, scanning either side of the street in front of the house, arms folded austerely. She didn't like to be made to wait.
A few hours pass, with a heavy rainfall beginning just after dark. As Edna is readying her dinner, there's a banging on the door.
"Who is it?' Edna touches her ear against the door.
"It's Loni, Jacob's mother!"
"Mrs. Frankel?"
Edna opens the door and Loni stood, her dark curls stringy and soaked, wearing a grimace of sadness and worry.
"Have you seen Jacob? He vanished out of his room last night. I reported it to the police, but they haven't done much. They said wait a few hours but it's been all day." Loni is almost sobbing. Edna gently guides her in.
"No I haven't." Edna replies as she tries to remove Edna's coat, heavy with rainwater.
"No, no please, just have you seen anything? I thought he'd come here." Loni pulls back from Edna's hands.
"No. He doesn't like it here. Just maybe he-"
"Ran away? That's what the police suggested." Loni angrily responds. "They said it's not unusual for a boy his age to run off. Asked me if we had any strife in our house. If his father and me had any quarrels," she pauses to wipe away fresh tears. "He was in his room, then he was gone. Just like that. I tucked him in and later I checked on him-something told me to, for some reason- and his bed was empty."
Jacob pulled the covers up to his chin. He was in that limbo right before sleep, but still awake. He's suddenly jolted by the loud creaking of his bedroom door, the moonlight making its way through the thin material of his curtains, highlighting a tall figure just by the doorway, peaking in. Jacob's eyes widen as he studies it; no features, just pitch blackness with orange molten lava pupils set within. The figure begins to move, float, rather than walk inside. Farrther and farther until its towering frame-a least seven foot-is standing over his bed, still pitch black and featureless.
Jacob is paralyzed, quivering fingers tighten along the comforter. An orange radiance then begins to emit from the being where the mouth should be, shining like a sun from within upon Jacob, whose scream is lodged in his throat, crippled by terror.
As Loni opens the room's door, the bed is now empty.
Edna wants to comfort Loni, but is unsure how. They didn't know each other well, only casually. She meekly pats the woman's back.
'You think," Loni says. "It's like what the Macchi family said? They think it was some bigot who took their daughter. Maybe it's because we're Jewish..." she trails off as her expression shifts to anger. "One of our neighbors-Mr. Floyd-said he didn't want a kike family living next to him. It could have been him or any of the other terrible people in this town. Why did we come here? To Derry? Nothing good ever comes out of it."
Edna shakes her head. Given the anti-French sentiment her own family had encountered, it was possible. One man aware of her ancestry had lambasted her once for having ancestors who "intermarried with injuns and treated them equally." Derry was not a place of open minded acceptance. Anything certainly was possible.
'Yes, I definitely think that is possible." is all Edna says as she continues to pat Loni's back.
Sometimes silence is the best comfort along with an attentive ear.
They spend a few more minutes together, with Loni sobbing, before she composes herself and leaves. Edna stands with her spine against the door, shaky hand to her chest. Her glance travels in the direction of her mother's painting, and for a moment she gawks at it. Something was a little different. Brows knotted, she walks over, standing just before it. There, right in between two headstones, was a freshly dug grave.
That wasn't there before.
Lifting a finger to touch it, she narrows her lids, leaning in closer. Maybe her mother had painted it, and she never noticed?
No, she didn't. Edna knew every inch of this painting. Had always stared at it, ever since childhood. That was not there before. It couldn't have been.
Or could it? Her mind, clouded with distress and worry, couldn't decide.
Feeling unsettled, she heads to bed. As it had been since she was eighteen, she had insomnia. It always struck when she was stressed or deeply unhappy. She opens the small drawer in the nightstand and removes a tiny bottle of chloroform and a handkerchief. Applying a small amount, she gently places it over her mouth, her vision soon falling black as her troubled thoughts fade out.
The next day, news quietly spreads that Jacob's body had been found in the Barrens, face up, his eyes gone, cradled on a cluster of mud-slicked rocks. At the funeral Edna once again tries to comfort a devestated Loni, who got up at the podium before her son's casket and ranted angrily about anti-semitism and how Derry is a "black pit of evil. I hope you all rot. This whole damn town deserves to burn to the ground."
Loni was dragged from the podium, weeping, her cheeks blushed with moist red. The shocked onlookers all piled out, with Edna swiftly making her way past the mourners.
As she arrives home, standing against the front door, her coat still on, she glances to the painting.
Another change.
Edna blinks back tears as she draws closer, she sees the freshly dug grave now holds a small coffin. Child-sized.
Now she knows that wasn't there before. She remains staring at it and that's when she spots something else entirely new; a face peering out from behind a tree, attached to it was a shock of orange hair. The partly-covered features sported garish red paint along its lips and a bright golden pupil fixed on her, and what little she could see of the body had odd poofy sleaves.
Like a clown. It was standing right near the grave with the child's coffin.
Unable to fathom what she was looking at, her mouth agape as she cups her palms to her trembling lips.
This can't be. This can't be happening. Nothing just appears in a painting. Mother didn't paint that. A clown. There was no clown in that painting before. There wasn't.
Then, the menacing figure behind the tree moves, stepping out with a bundle of red balloons in his gloved hand. The whole painting was now like a film reel, with the branches of the trees swaying in the wind and shadows swirling along the ground. Edna, shocked, opens her mouth to scream when she notices the small coffin opening and a dark-haired child emerging.
Oh my God, Jacob. That is Jacob.
Her scream never comes. She is too terrified to either speak or move, her feet like weights pinned to the floorbloards. Jacob steps out of his coffin, wearing the white dress shirt and black slacks he'd been buried in. The clown figure continues to wave as the boy, pale with obsidian sunken pits where his eyes should be, begins to walk towards her, getting closer and closer within the frame of the painting.
Edna finally is able to falter backwards, falling down, her hands catching her as she keeps her gaze glued to the boy. He is now closer, peering through the frame, his whole head blocking out the scene. His hands reach out, emerging from the painting, becoming three dimensional.
"Miss Cotton," he says, giving her a creepy smile, his teeth yellowed and rotted out. A faint odor of dampened earth comes at her, causing her to cough.
Still choking on the rancid smell, Edna leaps up, almost tripping over her skirts and races towards the stairs. She slams the door to her room shut and locks it. She staggers to her bed, falling onto the mattress, her face twisted in a visage of terror. A knock comes.
Please God, make it go away. Please make it go away.
This can't be real. Just make it go away.
"Miss Cotton," Jacob is on the other side, his voice now raspy. "I'm here for my lesson Miss Cotton."
The voice then changes.
"Edna, darling. Open, open." comes Joe's voice, cooing and soft, until it turns angry and belligerent "Open it you whore! Open it now!"
Edna, now sobbing and hyperventilating, scrambles for her nightstand drawer, almost unable to open it with her fingers, now having violent tremors. She grabs the bottle of chloroform and handkerchief just as the door is unlocked by a phantom hand and busts open. But it's not Jacob or Joe; it's that strange clown figure, tall and wearing a lurid grin, still holding the bundle of balloons. Now having a full-blown panic attack, she quickly dabs the handkerchief and presses it to her mouth, with the menacing clown now hovering over her.
Whatever this thing was going to do to her, she wouldn't be awake for it. With that final thought, Edna passes out, the chloroform bottle tumbling to the floor and shattering.
A thick throbbing throttles through Edna's forehead as she sits up, hair a tousled mess, coat still on. She groans as she looks around. Her mind is blank, empty of any recollection of what had transpired the day before. She remembered Mrs Frankel making a scene at Jacob's funeral, but not much else.
Suddenly, a torrent of memories of the night before come back.
A nightmare. A horrible, vivid, very real nightmare brought on by Jacob's death.
Tha's all.
She makes her way downstairs, the morning light golden along the walls, making the room look cheery, only emphasizing what Edna sees next; a trail of mud-slathered footprints, one a child's, the other much larger, boots perhaps, leading from the painting. Edna draws in a sharp breath, staring at the evidence that last night's nigthmare had been very real.
With that, she runs outside, making her way down the street, mind confused and frightened.
No, it wasn't real. No, Jacob did not crawl out from the painting. That clown didn't come into my room. No. No, it didn't happen.
But it did. You saw the evidence.
She made her way along Kansas Street, coming into view of the Standpipe, walking rapidly until there was a pain in her abdomen. As she walked, though, she swore she could hear the thoughts of the people passing her by, even the drivers in their Ford models heading to work. Snickering, whispering about her. Everyone on the whole street stopping to stare at the disheveled woman. Suddenly, everyone begins to stop and shout at her.
Whore!
Tramp!
Trollop!
We know about you and your dirty little secret! The whole town knows and they're laughing at how stupid you are. He'll never want you. You're just a slut.
The shouting becomes so loud and overwhelming she stops to pin her palms to her ears, crouching on the ground, head tucked down to her kneecaps.
"Shut up! Stop! Now! Stop it!"
The voices cease as a pair of large hands touch her shoulders. She glances up, bottom lip shivering, her dampened eyes meeting those of a tall auburn-haired man.
"You alright there, miss?' he queries as he helps her up. Edna instinctively backs away from him. There was something jarring about his face. His pupils were large and for a split second they seem to shift from silver, to gold, to sky blue. His mouth had an odd pout, his bottom lip jutting out as he grins at her.
"Yes, yes, fine." Edna stammers, unable to turn her gaze away. She continues to back away as he tips his black top hat at her.
"Be careful. People be disappearing left and right in Derry." the man says as he gives a slight wiggle of his brows. He then turns on his heel and walks off, whistling. Edna watches him for a few beats, hands clasped together at her chest. As he turns the corner, she speedily whirls around and down West Broadway. She comes to a wrought iron fence outside a white two-story house. She pushes it open and runs to the front door.
She knocks frantically and Joe opens. His wide eyes not looking one bit pleased. He steps outside and closes the door behind him.
'What are you even doing here?" he demands, his intonation not his usual smooth calmness.
Edna snakes her arms around his waist, touching her flushed cheek to his chest.
"Something terrible just happened." she whimpers into his cotton shirt. He grips her arms and roughly violently them. Edna looks at him with hurt.
"What are you doing here? At my home? You shouldn't have come here."
Edna stammers, taken aback at his attitude. She'd needed comfort and coming here was the only option in the storm of terror and anxiety roaring within her.
"I-I just needed to see you. Oh God, Joe something happened. I saw him. i saw Jacob-"
"Leave now. You must get out of here. Nicola is not home and you are fortunate she didn't see you." Joe cuts in as he roughly takes her by the upper arm and maneuvers her to the gate opening it. "Now Edna. Now."
Edna remains standing outside the gate for only a split second. Now somewhat lucid, she gathers herself and hastily retreats, realizing now the magnitude of what she had done. She had made a poor decision in coming. She makes only a single glance over her shoulder as she makes her way down the road.
Standing upon the roof of Joe"s home is the clown, a bundle of colorful balloons in his hand, waving. Edna only momentarily halts before turning and sprinting, letting out a hoarse scream that is drown out in the loud gust of wind that tears along the street.
Edna is sprawled along her bed, hands across her chest, staring at the ceiling. She had spent two weeks turning away students, lingering in her room, her insomnia at its peak, gnawing her fingernails almost bloody. She had not heard a single word from Joe. No letter, no weekly visits.
Voices. Only voices. Drifitng out from that room. The clown room. The one she now couldn't enter. Feeling those dolls eyes on her. She kept it shut and locked.
Still, she can hear them. Whispering and giggling and cackling.
And that clown that she kept seeing. Glimpses of him here and there. Sometimes only a blur of orange and white disappearing down the hall or up the stairs, taunting her.
It's another dreary rainy day as she turns away another pupil. That's when she notices the envelope sitting atop the mat in front of the door. Her heart skips a beat as she scoops it up, eager to read its contents.
At her kitchen table, she rips it open, the tattered paper scraps flutter to the ground as she scans the letter. As she takes it in, her pink lips quiver, a burning starting to bloom within the pit of her stomach. She clenches her teeth as she reads the words, written in thick bold letters;
Edna,
You realize the tremendous damage you could have done by visiting my family home? Had Nicola been there, it would have raised an eyebrow, certainly. My neighbors have already inquired as to who you were. I told them you were merely a transient. It is absolutely in our best interest that we no longer see each other. I simply cannot seek a divorce. What would people think? And a mistress would never make a proper wife.
I am simply sparing you any further hope. I am quite bored with this situation and you. Please refrain from any further contact.
Joe
Her chest was rising and falling rapidly by the time she finished, digging her nails into the paper, gritting her teeth tighter. She crumples the letter, storming over to the fireplace, she tosses it in the flames. They spark anew, her palms resting upon the words etched into the mantel, 'Good Cheer, Good Friends.'
The following day, her eyes sunken and discolored, she strolls along Center Street, wearing the pale blue lacy dress. Random passerby moving out of the way as she walks along in a daze. She stops cold as she spots Nicola step inside the drug store across the street.
Edna crosses and enters.
Nicola is at the counter, idly chatting up the pharmacist. She takes a small brown bag and turns to exit, waving goodbye at the bespectacled man at the counter. She promptly bumps into Edna.
"Excuse me, Oh Edna dear! How are you?" she says, a little taken aback by the purple crescents beneath Edna's eye sockets. They stand out against her pale skin. Paler. Nicola hadn't remembered her looking so sickly.
"I hope you feel well?" Nicola reaches out to touch Edna's shoulder. Edna stares at her blankly.
"No sleep is all. Do you have time for a cup of tea? I really need to have a word with you. How about at my home?"
Nicola looks surprised. She contemplates the offer a second. "Yes, yes, if it's urgent-"
"It is. Very."
Nicola nods, brows arched. They make their way down the road towards Neibolt. Nicola was doing all the talking along the journey. Edna remains quiet, only giving affirmative nods.
How she hated this woman. Her voice. Her mannerisms. Utterly annoying.
As they walk, they pass by the auburn-haired man in the top hat. He gives another tip of its rim. Edna sees him, but keeps her gaze ahead, mouth pursed tightly, a scowl forming as she continues to listen to Nicola.
As they enter Neibolt house, Nicola chirps, "I've never been inside here before."
Edna doesn't respond. She heads to the kitchen and makes the tea. They then sit at the table together, an odd silence draping over them, only broken by the clinking of porcelain.
"So, uh...that painting in your living room, with the cemetery." Nicola says.
"My mother painted it,' Edna says flatly. "She was fascinated by...dark things. She made her way on her own. No rich family or the like. Just relying on her own tenaciousness."
Nicola gives a nervous laugh. "Yes, my grandfather came on a boat from Ireland. He made his way with nothing but the clothes on his back."
Edna hums in response, gawking coldly at her guest. Nicola shifts in her chair.
"Dark things...you mean death? Death has always scared me." Nicola adds.
"Not me." Edna replies, suddenly more lively. "There's a comfort in how final it is. It's good to know it all ends at one point, don''t you agree? It gives you a peace."
Nicola pauses her sipping. "I suppose so."
"I need to go fetch something." Edna announces as she rises up and heads out the kitchen door, towards a tree stump with an axe pierced in its center. With a hearty yank of its handle, she pulls it loose and walks back into the kitchen. Nicola's back is to her, still holding her cup.
"Yes, there is comfort in death." Edna says as she swings the axe and strikes Nicola in the top of her skull, the blade splitting her scalp. Her cup shatters to the ground as Edna continues to swing repeatedly, each blow more harder than the last, blood splattering along the pale blue fabric of her dress. As Nicola is sprawled lifeless in a pool of ruby, Edna drops the axe, her blank mien still present, and leaves her home. She walks along Neibolt Street, people passing by gasp and point as Edna comes to a stop in the center of the road. A policeman exits his vehicle and runs to her.
"Ma'am? Ma'am? Are you alright?" he queries, grabbing her about her shoulders.
Edna gives a maniacal grin. "I am now."
Mike flips to a photo of Edna's execution, the crowd gathered round the gallows. Scouring the picture, just in the back of the sea of people, Mike spies a gangly tall man in a top hat, his mouth curled into a sly smirk.