The Dark Side of the Moon

Chapter 12-To Mourn

Something is not as it should be. Something is not right about this night. Something feels sticky and wet. Wake up. Wake up, Maria. I subconsciously urged myself, attempting to rouse myself from my slumber.

But it was as if I knew. As if I knew that waking would only bring suffering and perhaps staying asleep would make it all disappear. But I couldn't stay asleep any longer. I knew before I even opened my eyes.

I moved my legs and squirmed my hips around beneath the linens. Open your eyes, Maria. I ignored myself and squeezed them shut even tighter. But it was all wrong. Not as it should be.

Wait, why is it I am feeling a wetness?

I finally succeeded at pulling myself from that strange place between sleep and awake. My eyes flew open. Darkness. It was still night. There was a soft orange glow on my left from the dying fire in the fireplace. Robin lay next me, also on my left, buried beneath the covers and sprawled out on his stomach fast asleep.

This was how slowly time progressed for me in this moment. That I noticed small insignificant details. Too afraid to face reality. I blinked into the darkness and shifted beneath the linens. But I felt sticky and wet. Then I remembered why I had willed myself awake.

I froze. And my breath caught in my throat. My heart thumped heavily and I sat up abruptly, tossing the covers aside and thrusting my hands down on the space between my legs. My hands met with a warm thick substance and I jerked them back and peered down.

I gasped and shook with fear at what I could see in the dimness of the night. My nightdress clung to my legs by weight of it. Once white but now stained. With trembling hands I grabbed a hold of the hem and yanked it back. And I was petrified by the sight.

A deep, dark, thick pool of blood. Blood down my thighs. Blood over the sheets and duvet, soaked through my nightdress, covering my hands. I held my hands out, bringing my palms toward my face and stared at them. Trying to make my brain comprehend what I was seeing.

No. No, no, no, no! This can't be happening. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. I chanted in my head.

And then a pain gripped me so much so that I let out a scream. I turned to Robin and gripped his arm with a bloodied hand as he was awoken by my scream, "Robin! Robin!" I shouted to him trying to shake him from his post-sleep confusion.

Another pain came before I even I had enough time to recover from the last. I cried out and sobbed, unprepared to handle it's intensity. I had disappeared into my mind as the pain started around my back and tightened toward my front. I hadn't even noticed Robin had jumped to his feet and had lit the gas lamps and was standing at my bedside clutching a corner of the duvet that he had pulled away and standing frozen, eyes transfixed on the bed between my legs.

I dared myself to follow his gaze and reassess in the now more brightly lit room. It was bad. This is bad. This is not right.

"There's so much blood...Robin?" I whispered with a sob as he stared straight through me. Eyes wide with horror. Then quickly he dashed into the far corner and jerked the satin cord that pulled the bell down into the servants quarters. And disappeared into the shadows of the anteroom and flung the door open.

"Please wake the coachman, order him to retrieve the midwife, he knows where she lives, it is urgent, now go!" I heard Robin's strained voice demand of the guard from the corridor, followed abruptly by heavy footfalls.

Robin returned, hair askew and wild-eyed, still shirtless and rushed to my side, "I won't leave your side, Maria. Oh bloody hell. Oh shit....It's going to be alright."