Madeline

Part Two

 The hallway that I wandered through was dark, save for the great pane glass windows that provided a small amount of light to guide me. It was strange for even though I had lived in this house for years, I felt so lost within it now. It was noiseless, save for my own footsteps on the ancient wooden boards beneath my feet. Heathcliff had disappeared almost as soon as I had left the parlor and had run off in another direction.  For a strange reason I still wished he was by my side.  Every so often, I swore I felt like I was being watched by unseen eyes deep within the shadows.  When I reached the door to my room, I quickly entered and locked the door behind me.

The house had a strange eeriness about it that I had noticed ever since I had arrived.  From the coach that had brought me late this afternoon, I studied the estate. The house itself appeared to be shrouded in despair and anything that surrounded it seemed devoid of life.  I had then attributed it to the fact that we had no one left to care for it, no groundskeeper or gardener, but now I knew that it was something more.

With those troubled thoughts, I prepared for bed.  But I did not fall asleep for a long time. When I did my dreams were significantly disturbed.

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                I was standing at one end of the great hallway. Moonlight poured in from the windows and cast a strange radiance on the old portraits of Ashwood ancestors long departed. I felt an icy breeze that I saw rustled the dark indigo curtains though the windows remained closed. When I next glanced across the hall, she stood there. Madeline. 

                She looked nearly as she did the day I first met her; beautiful as a goddess of ancient myth, but remote and indifferent as her manner had always been. Her dark hair hung loosely about snowy shoulders that were not concealed by her white gown, and her rosy lips were drawn up at the corners of her mouth in a secretive smile. I could hear the music from earlier playing softly in the background, each key and note as sweet as the last. She then began to move towards me.

                She glided as if her feet did not touch the very ground and her smile grew broader. The bizarre wind I had felt soon appeared to take effect on her. Her raven hair lashed wildly about her face and her dress billowed out about her. As she drew closer the music grew louder until it was nearly a cacophony ringing in my ears that I could not cover with my hands. My cries were soon drowned out by the discordant sound.

                Her appearance became ghastly; her alabaster skin grew darker and darker until it was nearly gray. Her eyes turned an unnatural shade of obsidian as her mouth became nearly blue in color. My feet felt as if they were set in stone and I could not escape.

                Soon she was only steps away from me and I could see rivulets of crimson trickling from the shadowy orbs that should have been her eyes. She opened her mouth in a cruel mockery of a smile, revealing rotted teeth and a blackened tongue as a foul stench permeated the air about me. The smell of death and decay and rot. No longer was she Madeline, but instead the vision of a demon. With an inhuman shriek she lunged at me, claw-like hands grasping at my throat, scratching my flesh as she tightened her grip. Air would not enter my lungs which felt as if they were burning as I struggled in vain. As my vision grew dark, her appearance slowly seemed to return to normal, and as my eyes closed, with that secretive smile on her pink mouth, she placed a feathery kiss upon my lips, sealing my fate.

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                I then woke up gasping for air, clutching at my throat, my heart beating erratically. My eyes danced wildly about the room and from the corner of my eye, I believed I saw a white figure standing silently in the shadows.

                But with a second glance I saw that nothing was there. The clock then struck twelve.  Each beat of the chimes, sounded to me like the beating of my heart that soon stilled. I remained awake for nearly an hour before falling back into a fitful sleep.

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                Upon waking the next morning, I found dark markings spread out across my throat. They were small, crescent shaped bruises that ached dully. The rest of my appearance was not much improved. Dark shadows surrounded the bottom of my gray eyes depicting my fatigue and my hair was in a wild state that took much time for me to tame.

                As I dressed, I pulled the collar of my shirt over the strange bruises which left me unsettled. But, I chose not to think more of it for I most likely had been the cause of them when I had woken from the appalling dream.  Trying to banish the remembrances of the nightmare, I entered the hallway that was now lighted by the morning sky. As I made my way to the breakfast hall, my mood improved greatly and everything of the night before was forgotten as I entered the room.

                Alice was laying out platters of food on the table and smiled softly as I passed her. Her eyes told a different tale. They were rimmed red and I knew she had shed many tears.  I would have to speak to Arthur about his treatment of her. She had always had empathy, even when we were children and had reprimanded us severely through tears whenever Arthur and I had fought.  I,as a child, had always found it odd that she was kind to Arthur even though he was unpleasant to her on many occasions. But, she was one of the few that he could be sympathetic towards when he was in the mindset to be.

                Arthur himself sat at the end of the table, one hand holding the morning’s newspaper, the other resting along his temple. I could see that the effects of the wine had still not completely left him and he was surely still in a caustic mood, so I remained silent.

                “Good morning brother,” folding the newspaper, he regarded me with a wry smile as he studied my haphazard appearance, “Sleep well?”

               And that is part two! Thank you very much for those who have read this story so far! I know this is a shorter chapter, but this is after all a short story so I hope it was enough! I will try to update as much as I can throughout the week! Halloween is coming up after all! Reviews and criticisms are always welcome and appreciated! (: -The_Queenbee