Page 19 of Fragile Wicked Things
Auntie stared at Rochester, breathing deeply. "Yes, sir. Follow me," she told Thomas, but as she started to walk away, she looked back hard at Rochester.
Back in my room, I paced about, thinking over what had transpired earlier, pieces of conversation repeated in my head. Things came to me then of what I should have said, wanted to say, and hadn't. As I tried to sleep, these thoughts lingered in my mind, marred by a fitful slumber full of nightmares broken by the storm raging outside. Rochester was suffocating me in this house, and sometimes I thought it worse than Lowood. I awoke panting, mouth gasping for air, my body sweating, my gown wet with perspiration.
I threw the sheets off, rested momentarily and then walked to the balcony door. The handle was cold to the touch, more frigid than usual for this late October night, and the moment I opened it, lightning flashed—and there she stood, illuminated—a red-haired woman with long, curly hair. Her skin appeared porcelain, her eyes a magnificent blue and her lips ruby red. She was beautiful.
Her appearance startled me at first. I hadn’t been told of any other guest at Thornfield, and when I was about to ask her name, she pounced on me and thrust me back against the balcony door. She snapped my head back with such vicious force that the glass pane behind me cracked, and I tasted blood in my mouth. I had bitten my tongue. My breath came in heavy pants, and my eyes stung with tears.
With her body pressed firmly against mine, I was paralyzed beneath her hold. Overcome with fear, I could not scream. A whimper escaped me. I felt dampness in the back of my head where it stung with pain.
Her fiery hair tickled my face while her tongue reached out to lick my neck, moving in tiny circles, delicately making her way to my breasts. She inhaled me and let out little moans in between her gentle kisses. Tears blurred my vision. A laugh escaped her, yet it sounded so far away, projected out as though coming from the grounds below. Her lips pressed hard against mine, and her tongue darted in, licking up the blood from inside my mouth.
She pulled back from me, and when she opened her mouth, I saw her teeth were jagged and sharp. Finally, I screamed. This time, it was I who startled her, and she jumped over the wrought iron railing to the ground below and scurried off like an animal, losing herself among the oak trees. Terrified, I ran back into my room, locked the balcony door, and turned to find Rochester standing in my room. Shaken, I nearly screamed again.
"What is it?" he said.
"There's someone out there. A red-haired woman. She jumped down and went into the woods."
Rochester didn’t move. His nose wrinkled. "You’re bleeding."
I reached out to pat the back of my head and pulled my hand away, blood smeared on my fingers. How did he know?
"Stay with Catherine," he said. "Lock the doors. I'll take a look outside."
In Catherine's room, I locked the door behind me, searched for a weapon and found that the poker would do.
"What is it, Jane?" Catherine sat up in bed, startled by the commotion I had caused.
“Someone was on my balcony." One door in Catherine's room led to her bathroom, another to her closet, and the third to an unknown location. "Where does that door lead to?"
"The attic." Although I knew the woman had run into the woods, I could not assume she was alone, and it was possible that a threat lay behind that door.
"Where's Edward?" said Catherine.
"He went into the woods after her."
"Her?"
"Yes, a red-haired woman with sharp teeth and when I screamed, she scampered away like an animal."
Catherine fell silent and looked down at her hands, turning them over.
I wasn’t sure what I had come across. The red-haired woman looked no different from the creatures in my childhood nightmares, excepttheyhadn’t been real, and I always awoke, albeit with the gut-wrenching belief that their existence was undeniable. This time, I had been wide awake. Still, I wanted to reassure Catherine. "Don't be afraid. I'm sure she's long gone."
"I thought I dreamt her all those years ago."
I stared at Catherine, worried this would traumatize her.
"Edward. Edward," she whispered.
Someone was at the door, twisting the doorknob and pushing against it. I held my breath, hands tightening around the metal in my hands.
"Open the door." It was Rochester. When I let him in, he spoke and kept his gaze on me. "There was no one there, Jane. It must have been a nightmare at this late hour."
"I was awake. I had awoken from a...."
"Nightmare?" Rochester lifted an eyebrow and looked at me as though I had made his point for him.
"No, the nightmare woke me up, and when I went onto the balcony, I found something horrible outside my room." I thrust my bloody palm at him. "Look, she hurt me."
