Reflected sorrows

Chapter 3

She smiled to herself but try as she might the colour would not return to her cheeks; she no longer felt this was a fun game, a thing to do with expendable time. Somehow the scare had left her white as a sheet- it simply had not happened; oh, but surely it had been a trick of the light! But she knew, with an all-consuming dread, that she had not been seeing things. The eyes of the paintings were just too much of a coincidence to ignore. She could feel their glares even now, lurking in the shadows and engulfing the world in trenchant woe sharp enough to slice through even the most imperturbable widow's veil of grief. She felt their sting incessantly on her skin, quivering under their hostile glares. With a start, she looked behind her, gazing upon the carpets and finding among the mottled fibres nothing but strings of childhood dreams trailing off into the shadows. She didn't feel right; something always lurked in the shadows- but, in all her melancholy, she could never shake that dreadful sense of terror. With little hope burning in the lantern she carried in her hand, she took tentative steps into the shadows of looming bookshelves and yelped out at any moment, any sound. She felt unsafe, she needed to leave.

So, with the glare of the lantern illuminating only a little and leaving the rest of the world drowned in a darkness that was almost an impenetrable veil- a curtain always closed. Then, taking her eyes over to the corner of the cavernous room she had moved on into, she gazed upon the sprawling walls, their tendrils of vines crawling up as if to call for help, but never reaching the top before they perished too to the unrelenting veil of sorrow, and falling mute before even a dry, croaked scream escaped; they yelled, but one by one as they called out in desperation they all fell, and were tossed aside and coated in a blanket of anguish. Like trees felled before the woodchopper's axe, the blade cackling raucously. She turned to the emptiness that seemed to drown the room- it had nothing but a chest of drawers that lay in the same spot as in the previous room. There were deep indents in the floor, and her eyes, as they cast around the room, seemed only to be drawn to this one, uncanny object. So, foreboding creeping over her skin and eating it away until all that remained was a skeletal branch, she peeled away her cautiousness and took a few steps towards the small item; one drawer was open and askew, and she watched as it tilted to the other side, a groan of discontent and age escaping its shrivelled wood; there lay nothing inside but a ravenous hole, swelling and writhing in wait for something to be placed inside- it pulsed ominously, calling to her. She placed her hand closer to it, a strange chill emanating from the rotting wood as if pushing her away, wishing that she leave before she see something no one was ever meant to see with such unpolished and unarmoured eyes. Against her better judgement, however, she went on, her hand quailing and her fingers unfurling into talons as she got closer and closer. It lay there, taunting her as she reached into the hollow chamber. But as she placed her hand against the wood, she only felt the cold, decayed stories of childhood rotting away. There must be something of interest- a historical find, perhaps; but instead, as she frantically searched all the drawers for something, searching under it and grasping around the top for any sign of life. But nothing lay there but a single sheet of paper, written on in swirly, untidy handwriting.

Dear Father, you must have seen the new arrival. She's not like the others- I don't quite understand why she'd different, but it must be something to do with how she wants to meet horrors she can't imagine. How her eyes search for danger. I'm worried that we scare her. I see her mortified face when she sets her eyes upon me; and it's not good. I know that there's something strange about her eyes. I may be insane, I fear. You must visit one day, for I think you'd like to watch her with me- she's a curious mortal, and she's not going to run. I believe she will stay. Perhaps listen to our stories as we listen to hers. But do not give up on me father, for I will always try and lure you back; you cannot stray too far from our reflection. If you do, I fear the worst; I must go now. Good luck.  

That was it; a short letter. She grasped its pale sheets in her hands, trembling as she reached a hand down in her pocket and placed it there, feeling its coarse paper scraping her skin. Then, as it had before, the hand of ravenous emptiness returned, and she closed the drawer. It was 12am, she saw. She could almost hear the ticking away of the seconds as she gazed around the room; There had to be more to see than a single, rushed letter. But that was it, the tendrils that restrained the structure from falling also veiled it with a potent mist of ravenous emptiness, and so she gazed upon the walls once more, once again feeling the oppressive weight beginning to push hard against her back. But she couldn't have found a completely empty room; hollow of life and with no soul in its insidious gaze. The walls were a red sea interrupted by the tendrils of vines crawling through the scene- just like the brush strokes in that artwork, unfriendly and milky like the mourner's tears and yet so precise; disconcertingly so. And she could feel the eyes of those blue, milky deaths glaring upon her through the crumbling walls. She could not take their deathly gazes anymore; she ran for the door. Up the steps, her vision obscured by cloud in every step and engulfing her world in a veil of confusion. Through the halls and past those dreadful eyes, with wind whistling past her in a wailing howl. But as she gazed at the door, having it set in her sights, and went to fling it open, she found only that it slammed shut, shattering a plank of wood from the door and leaving it to fall to the ground. She could see only a glimpse of moonlight for a moment, and the world was plunged into darkness, her lantern engulfed in shadow. All light and colour was sucked from the scene, as if the outside had swallowed it up into gaping jaws.

Then she heard a voice ring out behind her- a voice all too familiar.