White Gate Heart

• Chapter Twenty-Three•

I couldn't sleep that night. My eyes would shut, but refuse to drowse. An owl hooted outside my window and I shot upright, breathing heavily. Everything outside was so silent and mute. I listened for hoofbeats, hoping that someone was here to take me away. Anyplace was better than here.

When I had arrived home, I'd seen nothing of my Father. The servants had all retreated to their small shacks-of-homes, leaving me to the silence and nauseating feel of cold inside the house. I had crept up the stairs, cringing instinctively when the third step creaked. My foot hovered over the next step, my breath halted. Yet, no single person sped around the corner to yell at me for my late arrival, for running away.

I heard Father cough in his library downstairs. He had heard me enter through the door, so why wasn't he rushing in to speak to me? Charles had certainly explained our ordeal within the woods.

After what seemed like an eternity of anticipation, I decided to rush up the steps and sprint for my room. However, my route to my bedroom took a delay when I heard my brother's bawls and cries ringing from inside mother's room. Then I had remembered it all. Mother wasn't in the house anymore. The rush of death hit me and the air flowing through my lungs halted. My throat tightened, forcing me to cough.

This house was covered in a black veil, suffocating us all.

I pushed myself to take a step forward and swing the door open, my head swirling. Mother's room smelled like her rose perfume. A whiff of her daisy scented hair made me want to cry and my breath halted again.
Lydia and Thomas lay upon the deathbed, weeping heavily into Mother's purple satin sheets.
I watched them, unable to let the emotion flow out of my body.
Those sheets were made specially for Mother. I remember the day she got them as a birthday present from Father, before we moved and everything changed.

"Purple sheets?! What a terrific surprise! Why, only a queen would have such colors as these adorned on her bed!" Mother exclaimed with widened, childlike eyes.
"You are a queen, my dear," Father said softly with a smile. We all giggled and nodded with agreement. Mother rubbed her stomach gently, looking upon the unborn Thomas within her. All she could do was blush and laugh, a sweet melodious laugh.

Lydia's head snapped as my weight creaked the floorboards. Tear stains decorated her face, her eyes red and swollen with a sadness so unexplainable. I must've looked the same way.

Instead of her usual smile and greeting, her eyes squinted and she glared at me, daring me to take a step further. Thomas kept his head buried in the sheets, his knees pressed into the floor.

"How could you leave us?!" Lydia snapped, standing upright in anger.

I stuttered for words, anything. A small croak was all I could allow.

"You just had to run off at the most horrid time! You are so selfish and inconsiderate! All you do is think of your own well being and where you need to go! How dare you come back here," she spat with rage. I left my mouth hanging wide open in shock. Thomas had finally turned his head to look at me, but he wasn't taking sides in this one.

Lydia took my silence to an advantage, heightening her hurt and anger.

"You just had to leave at a time when we needed you! You left us back at the ball and never even told us you were headed home! For all we know you could've been kidnapped by some... some.. Yankee farmer!"

Not far off of a prediction there, Lydia.

"I couldn't handle being here, I'm sorry," I managed to utter. She only looked disgusted.

"Pathetic, selfish little brat! You ran off with your stupid farm mule, didn't you? You saw something awful and just couldn't even muster the courage to stick it out? You gave up and ran away? I suppose you're only back here to pack your things and go off again!"

"L-Lydia, I only needed to catch my breath. Mother is dead! Heaven's sake, can you not understand that? If I would've stayed-"

"If you would've stayed I would have a shoulder to cry on right now. Thomas would have someone to hold him tonight while the nightmare takes over all of us! We needed you Rebekah, and we didn't know where you were. Can you understand the panic we all felt? Where were you?!"

I felt tears push against the back of my eyes, wanting so desperately to race to the bottom of my chin and emit the gruesome emotion rolling and swashing inside me.

"I had felt sick and Charles had gotten me a carriage all the way back home. I got here and saw... Mother. I had to leave yesterday to gain stabler ground," I partially lied. How could I lie so easily? Was it apart of my mourning?

"You liar. Charles came home with us in our carriage, worried sick over where you were. He never told us about sending you home sick. As soon as we all found out you had fled, he went looking for you. So tell me the true story, Rebekah, or you can lose our entire relationship as sisters," Lydia threatened, tears streaming down her face. I cried, sobs racking my body. I felt her words sting my heart, cracking it open all the more.

If I told her, then the possibility of escaping from this place would be cut off; the very dream of it becoming a dead limb. I had to leave. Now that Mother was gone, home didn't feel like home anymore. Call it strange or rebellious, but that's what I felt at that moment, the moment Lydia threatened to shut me off and Thomas couldn't even look at me.

Something stirred inside me that night. I couldn't put a name to it.

So, I stared at Lydia straight in the eye, a tear flowing from my own.

"There are just some things you can't know, Lydia," I gasped out, biting my lip. I didn't know what else to say. If I had made up another story, she'd find out the truth. It was the best thing for me to say at that particular time.

Enraged, Lydia balled her fists and stomped.

"Get out!" she yelled, making Thomas cover his ears and wail.

"You of all people don't deserve to stand in this room, after scaring us then leaving because life got hard. If Charles had never found you, God knows if you would ever come back! So get out, leave us alone to do our own mourning. You do yours."

With that, Lydia pushed me by my shoulders and slammed the door. I felt aching pain in my chest, making me gasp for air. A knife was plucking at my heartstrings, embedding itself deep within its caverns.

I ran to my room, closing the door gently and fell upon my bed, silently crying into the sheets. My lip curled up and the tears flooded my vision. My head pounded furiously in pain and exhaustion.

So there I laid, for hours. I hadn't eaten anything for nearly two days at that point, and my life had changed so drastically.

While waiting for any sign of a rescue, I opened my curtains, letting the moonlight fill my dark room. I set my hands on the precipice of my bony hips, keeping them there for a while. A whinny pierced my deafening silence and I jumped. I longed to race out to the barn and bury my face into that mane, the mane that carried me through the forest and caught my tears.

I lay awake all that night, listening to the only noise: the sound of that owl outside my window. The crying and wailing had died down earlier. Hours had passed as I sat upon my sheets. I reminisced in old memories of Mother and Mark, of good times and bad.

The creaking of the stairway steps snatched me back from the memories; Father was coming upstairs. With haste, I blew out my beside candle and threw the sheets aside, hiding beneath them. I closed my eyes, trying to still their movement so to feign sleep.

I heard my door creak open loudly, its rusted hinges screaming, just like my insides. A shadow covered the light from the hallway candle, stopping above my face for a moment. Then, the door was shut tightly and I heard its lock click. My stomach dropped and my eyes were wide open now. I shot upwards, jaw slacked open.

Father had shut me in.