CHAPTER 5

"Ughhh, take it a little easier, Frank." Joe flinched away from the cloth dabbing at his face, surprised at the ice cold water.

"Shhh, Joseph, you're fine. Go back to sleep, shhhh." The feminine lilt of the voice washed over him, lulling him back toward welcome darkness. Not his mother's voice.

Iola? She never calls me Joseph.

He tried to shove the thought aside, but it grew, doubt expanding as shards of pain spiked through his skull. He managed to open one eye, but the scene before him did nothing to alleviate his confusion.

A serene face the color of porcelain smiled down at him, tendrils of white-blonde hair escaping a loosely coiled bun to frame ice grey eyes. Despite the unnatural silver pallor, she was lovely in a classic sense, an antique high collared lace blouse and cameo accenting a long neck. Joe realized with a start that his head was nestled in the grey skirts of her lap, the rest of him stretched along a sofa of crushed burgundy velvet that met ornate cherry wood trim at the upper edge.

"Amelia, pump me a fresh basin of water. Your brother's waking up."

"Yes ma'am." A slight girl of perhaps six or seven slid out of Joe's peripheral vision in a swirl of blue skirt and petticoats. For the briefest of instants her angelic countenance seemed to flicker into a skeletal grimace of grey skin and a dripping tangle of hair.

The woman's slender fingers skimmed over his hair and ear, the gossamer touch somehow leaving a stinging frost bitten trail in its wake. "Shhh, Joseph, you're going to be fine. You took a nasty stumble in the forest. Rest now. Shhhh. Ephraim, stoke the fire, but turn those lamps down. The light's too bright for him. Rest, Joseph. Everything's well now. Shhh."

Joe shook his head as much as he dared, trying to clear the cobwebs. He managed to focus a bit more as the oil lamps burned dimmer. Heavily flocked fabric adorned the walls and an embossed tin ceiling glowed above in the shifting firelight. A curio cabinet flanked each side of the marble hearth, overflowing with a bounty of toys St. Nicholas would envy. Brother? Think I fell down Alice's rabbit hole. It's so cold... There was laughing and... clawing?

"N-no." His tongue felt thick, reluctant to move. "Didn't stumble... I was in the woods and... they forced me down..." Joe gestured weakly in the direction the children had gone, the accusation sounding ridiculous aloud.

The young woman scooted from beneath him, landing softly on her knees beside the couch. She cupped his face in her hands before brushing a frosty kiss over his brow. "The children? Don't be silly. You must be having nightmares from hitting your head. Sleep, dear, you will feel well on the morrow."

Nightmares? Yeah, but I wasn't sleeping... "No. I can't stay here... need to get back to my brother..."

"Ephraim and Horace? They shall wait, Joseph. Shhhh. Sleep." She tucked a heavy flannel blanket around him, suitably cautious around his injured left side, before plumping a cushion below his bandaged right foot. "Shhhh, get some sleep. Shhhh."

The repetitive words wafted lower, imperceptibly replaced by the first strains of a lullaby. Joe bristled at the first notes, teenage indignation at being babied by a random stranger in full evidence. The longer she hummed, however, the more the car accident and disjointed conversation with Frank faded. There had been snow and a creek, hadn't there? A boy was there, reaching for him, pleading. A boy he should know...

The Victorian home around him solidified in his memory, his younger siblings clamoring around his feet in idyllic hours of childhood play, raucous laughter insinuating itself between the tired younger Hardy and an increasing hazy divergent recollection .

"Shhhh, Joseph, rest now. Shhh." The Brahms resumed and Joe began to doze, fond images of his youth on this farm easing the aches in his frame. Only the rare jarring glimpse of a lean brunette youth, so different from the honey blonde familiarity of his family, troubled his slumber.

Abigail crept closer to the sleeping teen, watching. She was glad Constance had retreated up the stairs; she would have never allowed Abby this near to the boy. Not until morning at least. Eventually her tiny form inched onto the sofa, her forearms resting on his chest. She traced a tentative finger down his nose, blatantly curious about the warmth she felt there. Constance was never warm.

"Will you play with me?" Abigail smiled, her query too quiet to have been heard, although she saw her breath ruffle the hair over his ear as spoke. "You have to play, brother dear-heart. The other times Constance brought you home you didn't understand. I didn't you think loved me anymore. I didn't want to make you go away again, you wouldn't play. Don't want to make you all gone again, Joey, but we'll have to. It's your fault, you know. Don't be scared, Joey. It won't take long, and then we'll play." Her finger traveled to the rim of his ear, smearing though the blood there before popping it into her rosebud mouth. "Come out and play."

Ollie Ollie oxen free...

Jack be nimble, jack be quick... Jack conked Joey with a candlestick...

The whispers seeped in, twisting his dreaming from warm melancholy to fragments of shorn metal and frigid cold. Little hands pawed at him, snatching at his clothes, surrounding him until the collective weight overwhelmed him.

"No... Don't... please don't..." Joe tossed on the narrow couch, the jumbled mental scenes forcing him back toward wakefulness. The blue eyes jolted open as he rolled onto the floor. Entangled in the thick blanket, he could only stare at the child of four who tumbled on top of him, her pale blue flesh oddly marred by a smudge of crimson across her lips.

"Did I wake you, Joey? Not yet. Shhhh. Not yet." The clear eyes hinted at an age she shouldn't possess. "Sleep, brother dear. Shhh."

Joe squirmed free of the encasing fabric, an inexplicable sense of panic welling at his little sister's endearment. Sharp pain lanced through his side as he sat up, only to multiply as his right foot met the floor.

Abigail wrapped small arms around his thigh, drawing his gaze downward. He recoiled from his blood stained clothes, dozens of tiny rips in the fabric ruby tinted and gaping. What happened? Oh yeah, I fell. A nasty spill...

He swayed, fumbling for the furniture arm to maintain his balance. Abby and the others had to help me home. But...

He was piecing it all together, determined to rein in the overblown fearfulness, when a fluttered kiss pressed into one of the exposed patches along his leg, Abigail quickly stifling a giggle. The preschooler's touch froze ice in his veins.

Joe automatically dropped a hand to stroke her hair, horrified at his urge to flee his own home, when he realized. Not a kiss at the only part of him his diminutive sibling could reach. A nip at his bloodied flesh.

"You're not... You're not... " Joe swallowed hard, false reality tumbling into an abyss. The room shimmered around him, cobwebs suddenly festooning the remnants of peeling paper and collapsed furniture. The parquet flooring was cracked now, strewn with the stuffing of rent teddy bears and shattered bits of china doll. Even Abigail's dress hung in tatters on a sunken frame. "Don't.. No... please..."

Another lap of her flicking tongue shattered his horrified revere. He lurched blindly for the door, the wind whirling as he broke her grasp and stumbled into the night. Not right, this place, Constance, Abigail... not... not... mine...

Voices came to him again, echoing from the trees.

Ashes, ashes...

The cock doth crow for you, Joe...

Ashes, ashes...

If you be wise, 'tis time to die...

To be continued...