The carriage ride was long and tense, the man's pocket-lining growing hotter with each passing second. His grip on his oaken cane was deathly-tight as his mind calculated everything through once more. He took out the advertisement and looked at it again, wondering if this was going to be worth it. Contradictions ran rampant in his head as he read it thrice-over before ripping it into pieces. If mercy called for it... a quick shake of his head muted that thought. Peeling open the carriage window, the sounds of echoing bells flooded inside. They seemed to be resounding in every crevice of the streets, every fold of the pavement. Tennyson had died, and funeral ribbons and bands marked the streets. The day itself seemed to be dressed in a somber veil of fog and rain. Taking in a deep breath, the air was a smell of modern smarts: that this day marked an end to beautiful cricks and infinite daffodils. That space
After he excused himself from breakfast, she politely told Hansthat she was done, and excused herself to take up the opportunity to explore the house. Last night had seemed to pass by in a mind-aching blur, and it was only now that she could perceive just how vast and enormous the house was. She crossed back through the foyer with its tall crowned ceilings, the blue walls and pale yellow highlights reminding her of an endless sky above the sand of distant deserts. She cautiously walked through a delicately carved doorway into a spacious room with one lounging couch and a gramophone resting next to it. The rest of the room was empty with large paintings that adorned every bit of the walls. After a moment, it occurred to her that this must be some type of ballroom, though she had never been taught how to dance. Only happy people danced- in stories and fairy tales. She would ha
Amid the fog of her disenchantedmind, the days blurred together in smudges of grey and white. Sleep became constant torture, and the days were left to nothing more but trying to escape the torment. The morningswere spent walking aimlessly around the ballroom, pretending to look at portraits, or sitting by any window to feel something that wasn't hollow and deeply carved. This sort of weakness was so much easier- of pretending the past was all a dream. Walking around the house, she imagined that everything before she came here was a horrible nightmare. Living like thiswas like being those ghosts she had seen in town, those people ebbing and flowing like they were small pebbles on a beach. She could be a disenchanted lady of a vacant house instead of the scarred monstrosity she was deep down. As the month drawled by, she slowly came to sleeping on the bed, but somehow that made
She didn't even attempt to sleep that night. That red-shadedvoice murmured at the back of her mind;the neglected day-be-gone flickers of wordless recollections of childhood, of music and silence. It tore her to admit that before everything-at the forgotten beginning, in those distant moments-there were times that she used to relishin what she was- of what she was capable. The pale light of the moon was strong enough the cast a dull reflection of herself against the window, her eyes tracing over what was supposed to be her face- what was her face. She pushed her forehead against the cold glass, her eyes gazing deeply into their reflection like somehow she would understand herself if she had an outside perspective. The sky began to slowly lighten, the horizon bleeding goldthat seemed to push away the heavy ink night. For a moment, a flash
After that night, everything quickly fell into a lively, comfortable pace;their once stand-offish encounters relaxed and the forced contentment faded. He made the habit of waking up at night listening, his tactically worded questions all skillfully evaded at breakfast and dinner. Hansseemed ever more insistent that she eat red meats and get plenty of nutrition, which she couldn't complain about when crafted by such a skillful cook. It had been a week since the blood-stained event had taken place, and strangely, she looked all the better since then. Her eyes seemed to shine more and her smile had never been so light and frequent. On the odd days that he didn't vanish for his unknown business to attend to, they sat together in the study having pleasant, perhapsshallow, conversation. At breakfast, he made a casualcomment. &nbs
All that night, he couldn't sleep. The events of dinner replayed unrelentingly across his thoughts, of how drastically everything had shifted. One moment, it was as if he was seeing a completely different person- someone with passions and interests, someone who found solace someplacehe never would have expected. Despite living with her for months, he still knew nothing of her. His theory rekindled in his mind; that premonition that no matter how much he thought he was getting to know her, he would never actually know anything.Somehow, without a mask or gloves, she would always be able to hide those secrets. Those bloody, strange secrets. His mind danced around the distant scene of the blood soaking the entire floor like an ocean- the mortifying gashes that ripped down her back and vanished in an instant. Could someone in the genre of unnatural ever be completely secret-less? Or understandable?
The next morning, he awoke to the sounds of Hanssetting the dining room table. He had almost forgotten ofwhere he was until he felt the weight of someone on his lap, the scene of last night raw and fresh. He didn't know whether the heaviness on the back of his neck was for his sake or hers- chaos was ravaging his organs. Social etiquette, day-observations; nothing prepared him for thingslike this. Gently shakingher arm, Viera woke up and sat up smoothing her hair from her face.Her eyes were out of focus as she took a deep breath, her eyes closing once as she pinched her nose and let a wispy breath out. "I meant what I said, you know." The faintwordsalmost caused him to jump. For all he knew, she was atraveler between two worlds, and half the time he didn't exist. All he could do was nod, suddenly feeling like he
The days had fallen into a comfortable new twirl, breakfast becoming more animated and dinner a calming and peaceful atmosphere. Even still, he felt he had rather learned nothing of her- but that was until he started hearing noises in the night again, not the violent random sounds, they were faint words and cut off shouts. When she once seemed so alive and bright but a week ago, it was now like seeing an orchid wilt. Her hair looked dulland the movements of her eyes had considerably slowed. Nimbe and Hanscouldn't be more concerned when her cleared plates were more and more uneaten. At night, he made a habit of staying up and listening, wondering if it was some figment of his imagination. The half mumbled words slid under his door, and though he wasn't one topale at strange sights, he was part-way convinced that his house was haunted. &n