The Spirit of Ravenshom House

Chapter 4: Strange Haloed Women Emerging From Trees

The click of the latch still rang in her head two days and 64 miles later as Daphne sat at a team meeting in her New York office. She didn't have much to contribute having already submitted her design and her mind was far away in Ravenshom's backyard where she had seen the lady in white. As time had passed, she wasn't sure of the form that she had seen that night but she was sure that she had seen someone. Someone ghastly and grim and non-human.

The meeting was dispersed and she was done for the day. She waved a good night at her colleagues and walked out the office doors.

Waking up Jerry that night hadn't been an option after the curdling screech she had let out. Jerry had to physically shake her a whole minute for her to finally stop shivering enough to breathe normal. Afterwards, she wouldn't leave Jerry's side not even for him to get to the kitchen to make her some chamomile tea. Jerry had held onto her as steadfastly as she did his arm the whole way to the kitchen and he had to make her tea solely with his left hand which come to think of it now would have been utter struggle for him.

Daphne sighed, her pointy Aquazzura heels rubbing on the tarmac as she crossed 41st street. The tea had worked, and sleep had knocked her out tired. And though the effects had dimmed by the next morning the white figure refused to leave her mind, scratching at her senses.

Jerry had sat by her side comforting her through breakfast. At first, he tried to cox out what Daphne had exactly seen. But explaining it out loud, she felt ludicrous. A woman in an overflowing snake gown trying to latch a window didn't seem like a plausible scene that would occur in the middle of a normal night and yet she couldn't deny it had.

Jerry, try as he might, couldn't understand. How could he? The white apparition hadn't appeared before him. They had to have been nightmares? They just had to be. She willed herself the thought. Willed herself the fact.

Sipping the coffee she felt restless. Her hands were itching, driving her to abnormalcy. She needed something. Something to work on. She didn't drive to the city that day, but shut herself in the new home office Jerry had so lovingly gifted her. Diving into the world of website designs and online campaign set-ups she lost herself, the memories of the night pushed to the back of her bustling brain. But the jarring white of the phantasm surfaced in the background on and off, like a broken record playing over and over, refusing to budge away.

When it was evening and the sandwich that Jerry had pushed through the doorway still lay untouched Jerry pushed his way in, tsked at her like an old judgmental granny and dragged her past the hallway, past the entrance to the garden out back. It was the other side of the house where she hadn't yet encountered any strange ladies in drapes and trying to elude the tension out of her shoulders, she breathed in the chill air of the evening that was fast approaching.

Minimalistic with grass all over, cut to an inch and not more, the garden had a row of maple trees forming an arch, sort of a fence that marred the beyond. In the autumn the leaves turning a bright red, the ground was a scarlet spread, like jam on toast.

Forced yoga was not exactly something Daphne dwelled in, unless she absolutely had to as the name rightfully suggested. Jerry had been the one who advised it. He hadn't so much as advised it than shove her harshly into it headfirst. Jerry was a constant and loyal follower of yoga and had a time reserved for it every day of his life. When Daphne had entered his life she had genially refused to indulge in the calming discipline. However, when an inexpedient client had thrown a fit over her design idea after she had put 50 hours of work into it without a cause, she had lost it. And that had marked the origin of forced yoga.

That day Jerry was able to calm her down, however not before she had poured a glass of lemonade down the miserable fool of a client's greasy head. After, in the three years they had been together, there were only two other instances where he had had to force yoga onto her. And now here they were. Two days into their new house with her having to stretch out in crane position.