Reflected sorrows

Chapter 12

She could now hold it in her hand. The cool metal, soaked by rain that was now beginning to dry like metal sets, never truly leaving as the molten copper rose through the air, spreading cold warmth over a world that never truly felt kind. For a fleeting moment she knew everything was safe- for a moment she held in her hand nothing but a torch among the twilight – how she wished that light could stay for a little longer. She sensed a danger lurking in the back of her mind and as she stood, cowering before the gate like a shy animal before a looming rifle, she thought she saw that face again; it was bloodied now. Its sores had burst, making its complexion a sight for sore, sore eyes. It was like the face was... Melting. A grotesque sight among the emerging light. It was mocking her terror with placid eyes. She knew that face. She knew that voice. That voice knew her. But it said nothing. It should have said a few words; but her sister's face was burned enough into her mind already; she was glad, in a small corner of her mind, that the figure hadn't spoken. If she didn't hear the scraping voice, it couldn't haunt her as she slept, as she spoke with dear friends, as she returned home with warmth of joy burning wretchedly in her heart. But it was uncanny – she heard the whispers of the trees around her in the darkness, and the crackles of thunder forming. Or perhaps it was the swishing of the figure's blouse intermittently wavering in the wind. A wind she did not feel. This was a kind of stale peace. She could feel its complacent gaze over her with weakened but still focussed strings filled with doubt. She felt... Calm. But apprehensive – the girl was there. The girl was her sister. She turned, and there was a door within those eyes.

A door that opened beneath her grasp. She glimpsed what lay inside; it was filled with a house. Her house. She could see grey walls that were filled with the same sound of dripping water – the same incessant melody that kept her awake during the nights where she felt alone. She felt her hands along the wall; but this was not the same. She could not hear her heartbeat in the background when she listened with an apprehensive hand. She saw strange, eerily staring dolls around every corner. And she immediately turned away, casting glances, concerned and dreary, toward them, but something about them made her want to veer away. Need to run. To flee. Why did a sense of sorrow seep over her skin. Suddenly the room felt too hot. Suddenly there was a dull undertone of cold glares under her skin. And she turned a corner only to see a mirror; she saw a girl that was not her; the complexion she saw was drenched in blood that spouted from pores, purple and surrounded by yellow like old paper from all the books in the library opposite. The sores bled inky-purple blood, as if the ink on the page had spread with tears, and there always lay a door in front of her. One that she could never get close enough to open; one that no one ever dared open. She didn't know why. It looked like the door she had prised open from the girl's eye, but she saw its colour was dull. Its paint was peeling. She rushed toward it, wanting with all her heart to be rid, but before she did a darkness obscured her vision and she fell right before she could see its handle between her fingers twisting.

And in that moment, she saw the ceiling. She saw the walls. She felt the drip, intermittent and unrelenting, of water onto her hands. It mocked her as she leapt up and saw her shivering complexion, with sweat pouring from crevices she couldn't see and a shudder passing down her spine as she gazed into her reflection. She... Something was wrong here; she felt shudders of a fever passing over her weary form, through her spine in a grim, inevitable path of dreary misfortune. Everything was shrouded in a cold, stale warmth like feathers that weighed her down as cruelly as forests engulfed in rain ever pouring. It felt off and uncomfortable; like a fireplace burned with an icy mass of stalactites that sent shivers down her spine. Was this normal? What had her malady led her to believe? She put her hands in front of her eyes in bewilderment and gazed out of the window on the landing, her heart thumping audibly like the footsteps of the forsaken souls of the dark, dark underworld as she made her way over to it; this house seemed unfamiliar... Where was she? She could see from the window rugged nature, trees wavering and tumbling to the ground in a faint daze of brooding storms. She watched as a tree shivered and danced to a grim melody, a shudder passing through her leaves as she swooned, a man, in the form of another tree, with leaves and tendrils once so phlegmatic, but now wilting and furling into ferns, rushing into the sepia-toned photograph as she fell, her head hitting the ground and a milky, sickly, deathly haze hanging over her eyes, closing like curtains. He could not have saved her. She could not have lived among that sepia, foreboding world as she cascaded down to the ground, wind whispering menacingly in her ear. She could not have risen. That awoke a deep-down sadness and inescapable woe within her. It felt as if she were watching a photograph play out. As if she were watching the poisoned queen fall and not rise again. As if that painting was here and now alive, its gaze full of a mortifying energy, dull and rhythmic like the footsteps of forsaken souls thumping in her chest. She watched as other trees, emerald pillars of light, torches in a dark, unlit cavern, fell, torn up from their abodes to fall to the ground in a dreary contemplation. What a sad life to live, woeful even among the dreary, gloomy fog that seemed to coat everything in foreboding mist of unquestioning.

There was a pounding in her chest, and a viper tore toward her, tightening benevolently around her chest and choking out of her all feathers and hope. They looked upon her in disdain and mocked her as she writhed, acrimoniously speaking wretched words toward her, insidious and shadowed in hate. The vipers were choking her, and she could do nothing but watch as her corpse was consumed. She shook her head; she was clearly overreacting to a feeling of dread. Surely it was just the lights flickering in the halls; surely it was just the lightbulb that just broke. But she knew deep down there was something more – she just cast the sensation away, watching as it squirmed away from the cold chains, lathered in watery regret. All she needed to do was go back into the hallway. She had promised herself she'd listen to the desperate pleas of her family and meet once more. Perhaps it was all she needed to wake the monstrous being from its slumber, seeing once again a misleading light going down into the basement. She took the steps at long last, feeling still the steps of forsaken soldiers as she walked out onto battle with broken gazes, shattered with looming regret and grief for lost souls who they missed. Then she saw the pile of letters was more towering than when she left it. It had one letter that lay buried at the bottom, in neat, swift handwriting. The handwriting of her dear mother, who she knew so well; she plucked it like the string of a cello in the endless chasms of silence from the dank floor and scanned over the letters with a blurred sight. No luck. It said only it wished to speak personally its condolences but did not speak of a specified date. She sighed, trenchant words rising like the bubbles of a witch's brew in her mind. She searched them endlessly, her exhausted gaze, laced relentlessly with lassitude, accursed her, and she went to bed with a sour and dreary taste in her throat.

The screams of wind awoke her, and she saw the stairs upon her perch among blankets and cushions that were spread thinly, as if it were entrails over an operating table as the patient writhed. Tendrils of string were lying limp over her chest, as if they had once been a blanket, but had faded over time. Immediately she found herself begging to return to the mansion. She felt tendrils crawling from the bricks and the trees whispering among themselves, calling her name. Celeste... Celeste... Celeste... She wanted it to leave, like a character in a relentlessly woebegone play as they perish. She needed a rest from the endless terror and waning of terror, only heralded by fear pulsing through her veins. With, aching bones, she cast it aside and felt over her arms, her legs, her now soaked through and grey corset that she had once barely been able to endure, her rugged dress, covered by a coat that she didn't remember putting on, and they were all soaked with a cold, nightmarish sweat that carried a stench of childhood; a spoon with bitter, strange medicines toward her. Water trickled from the ceiling, and she imagined it was doubt and remorse crawling like undead creatures, bloodthirsty and unrelenting, claiming such an innocent heart. She just needed to find the right letter, to find the details of when and where. She just needed to know more than anything- that they cared enough to find her a time. That they hadn't forgotten. She leapt up despite the ache in her chest and endured the agony from the cruel malady that was consuming her sanity slowly but surely. And she made her way toward the letters stacked up high, not giving the window another glance as she passed it.