Page 15 of The Curious Story of the Missing Lady
“There is a burning hatred in my heart at the moment, my wife. I fear it. ’Tis a foreign agent. A blight on my soul. I’ve never once in my life, in all my dealings with the world, felt such rage and vengeance. I tell you, I fear it.”
“You’re a man of great passion.”
“Yes,” he said. “And that, my wife, is the source of my fear.”
Chapter 9
Darkness ... and the smell of decay ...
These greeted her as she awoke and gradually became aware of the events that had occurred. No, they were not a dream, for a dream does not leave such terror in the heart and scrapes on the elbows.
His hands ... his filthy hands ...
Her dress was torn, thankfully only twice, and in respectable places. It was nighttime, that much was certain. And she was alone. She had not the capacity to judge whether that was a good thing. All she knew was that she was alone. Someone was smoking somewhere close by, a pipe of low-grade tobacco. She could hear footsteps. Below her? Above? She listened intently.
Below, for sure.
Voices – a man’s and a woman’s. More than that? She couldn’t tell. Nor could she determine what it was they were saying. She thought she heard laughter or tears.
She was on a hardwood floor. It was dry and splintered. She’d have to be careful. But there was a smell of wetness in the room. It didn’t make sense.
Light. But where did it come from? Ah, the window. It was small, of a size through which a baby would strain to fit, yet without a pane. It let in the moonlight, and outside was a smell that indicated recent rainfall. Yes, and so there was probably a leak somewhere in the roof of this place, wherever she was.
She pulled herself up off the floor. Her limbs ached. She held up her hand and touched the ceiling, mere inches above her head. She walked over to the window and realised then that she was barefoot. She felt the prick of a splinter in her heel, winced, and kept on.
She had to stand on her toes to see out. Moon shadows transformed trees into dark beings that skulked along the ground many feet below her. She was on the uppermost level of a house in the woods, a treacherous drop to the ground beneath it. Had she been able to somehow shrink herself down to a mite and fit through it, she’d no doubt plunge to her death.
Despair began to take hold of her, as she realised that this dreamlike place was indeed no dream at all, but a living nightmare prison.
But was it? There was a door on the far wall! She ran to it. It opened in on a small privy closet. She closed it and looked around, her eyes straining against the darkness.
I have to have gotten in heresomehow.
And there it was. Another door, mere inches from where she stood.
Nothing. Jammed shut as if barred on the other side. She pounded on it with her fists, great wracking breaths coming from her chest.
An idea struck her to remove her hair comb. She did so and turned it over in her hands. It was sterling silver, and she gripped it by its arc of paste stones so that the teeth jutted through her knuckles like a shining set of claws. With these, she clawed at the jamb, wedging the clip in between the door and the wall. The thing did not budge a fraction. She withdrew the comb and realised with dawning despair that the teeth had bent. She dropped it to the floor with a dejected clang, leaned against the door, and began to weep softly. It was then she noticed that the voices below had suddenly ceased, presumably upon hearing the noises upstairs. She didn't know whether to fear their approach or welcome it.
Fear overtook her, and she collapsed on the floor, thinking it was best to pretend she’d fainted in her effort to knock down the door.
She heard footsteps below. And then the sound was altered. Steps ... and they were approaching.
She shut her eyes tightly, trying in vain to steady her laboured breathing.
A sound on the other side of the door. The great bar that barricaded her in here had been lifted, and the door was then opened. The footsteps came towards her, heavy, like some lumbering beast padding across to claim its prey.
She lay still as a corpse, her breath slow and aching for a deep draw, those heavy feet pounding the floor in her ears, and her heart, threatening to beat a hole in the wood as it thumped its awful, urgent rhythm against it.
Chapter 10
She was aware of a dim, orange glow, and something very close to her face, and she fought the urge to peel open one of her eyes even to the merest slit. But then that thing, whatever it was, touched her face, and she reflexively jerked her head back from it. She opened her eyes just quickly enough to catch a shimmering glimpse of a handheld mirror retreating from her.
“So, you’re alive then, aren’t you?”
It was Garret who spoke these words as he hovered above her.
“Don’t come near me,” she uttered as she stared in stark terror at him.
