I wrote this story two years ago. The feedback I've gotten so far is that I should go into counciling. I wonder, is really true? It still doesn't have a title, so if I could get some suggestions on a title also, that would be fantastic.
The wickedly curved half moon cast its light harshly upon the
mansion like reflected light from a sword. Shadows slipped across the
sides of the building's stone exterior. The turrets jutted up into the
sky like claws from a reaching hand trying to rip open a stomach just to
feel the warm blood course over their hand. The silver light fell
sharply on the floor of the room, illuminating the edges of a stain on
the carpet. A rusty brown stain. A tattered shawl lay beside it,
decaying into dust slowly. Beneath that shawl lay a child. A small
child, skeletal fingers just toutching the edges of the stain. It may
have been asleep if it weren't for the fact that it was lacking flesh.
Flesh which had long ago turned to dust by the passing of time. The
grating of seconds and minuted and hours and days had erroded the soft
tissue into dust surrounding the body.
Another figure sits in a dust covered chair in the nursery. It is
not of this world, yet it sits, doomed to stay here forever in htis
nursery, bound to the child and the shawl and the stain. Doomed and
boutnd to stay here forever, and remember, of that night, so long ago.
Doomed forever to remember those events, unable to let go.
It was spring, 1892 on a warm quiet evening. The days were
getting longer and the nights shorter. The sun had set and it was
getting time to put the children to bed. Louisa May walked up the stairs
to the nursery to tuck in her children and kiss them goodnight. She was
remembering the events of the day with each step. How her son Brady and
his father had played in the water at the beach and she had sat on the
sand, watching them and laughing while she held her newborn daughter,
Tess. They had walked back from the beach to their mansion. It wasn't a
long walk and her husband had bought them all ice cream which they had
enjoyed on this strangely warm spring day.
They arrived home and Brady went outside in the back to climb
trees. Tess was put down in her cradle upstairs in the nursery. The
cradle had belonged to Louisa's grandmother. It was a beautiful piece of
art. Faries and flowers danced along the sides while the sun rose on the
headboard and the moon set on the footboard. It rocked slowly back and
forth on carved wodden vines, polished smooth from decades of rocking.
Louisa's husband was down in the study. She had sat curled up next to
him on the couch while he read a book in the afternoon sun.
The sun had set and Louisa May had fallen asleep on the couch
next to her husband. She woke when the clock on the mantle chimed 7:30.
Her husband had disapeared and she was alone in the study. She had left
her comfortable position moments before and was now at the top of the
stairs. She walked down the hallway to the last door on the right across
from the servant's stairs.
Louisa opened the doorway, and there was her husband, eyes
glinting with madness. He was leaning over the cradle, bloodstained
knife in hand. His face was split by a grin of pure insanity. What is he
doing?! was the first complete thought to scream through her head. What
happened?! was the next. Neither question had time enough to be answered
or even asked. Louisa acted on her natural maternal instinct. She flew
at her husband, knocking him to the ground. He flung his arm up to
defend himself and she landed on him, impaling herself on the blade. She
looked into her husband's eyes and saw grief as pink bubbles popped on
her lips. She saw then, it was not madness in his eyes, but light
flashing off tears. It was not a grin of insanity, but a grimace of pain
that split his face. He pushed her onto her back on the floor and pulled
out the knife. Pink bubbles continued to pop on her lips as she
struggled to breathe. Her head lolled to the side, and there, behind the
cradle, lay another person, dead, and it clicked. He was protecting us, was
the last thought she had before she died.
He watched her take her final shuddering attempt at a breath.
Silent tears coursed down his cheeks. His six month old daughter and
wife were both dead. He had killed his wife. He had held the knife up
when she flew at him. He had let her fall on it. He had killed his wife.
The shock of it settled in. He couldn't breathe. His wife's blood was
staining his hands. It was still dripping from the wound, the gaping hole
through her torso. The knife was still in his hand. It gleamed wickedly,
sickeningly, in the last remaining whisps of light before dark. It
beackoned to him, calling him, telling him it was fine, saying it needed
to be put away. He lifted it and looked down the blade, the razor sharp
blade. How long will it take? he thought. How long before I die?
He plunged the blade into his heart. It didn't hurt much at all.
In fact, it didn't hurt. It felt glorious. He slumped to the floor as
the little boy crawled out from his hiding spot.
Brady crawled over to his father and proded his shoulder, but his
father didn't wake. Brady shook his father, but still, he didn't wake.
He didn't even stir. Brady continued shaking his father. He called
"daddy, wake up," but to no avail. Sobs and cries welled from his lips
like water from a fountain. Tears fell from his eyes like sand in an
hourglass. Screames became blocked up in his throat like kids trying to
get through the door at recess, and still, his father didn't wake. He moved to his
mother, but she too, would not wake. His hands became sticky with the
blood, but neither woke.
The constable showed up, called in by a loud racket int he
mansion. He entered the room to find a servant trying to comfort Brady.
He saw three bodies, two leaking blood, the third, his neck snapped
behind the cradle. The bloodstained blanket and infant's body in the
cradle were enough to turn his stomach. Brady was lead away and the
bodies cleaned and burried. The mansion was closed up until Brady
came of age. For now, he was put in the best care money could buy.
Three years later, Brady disappeared along with the few
possesions of his parents he still had. A few memories and a shawl given
to his mother by his father when Brady was born. A shawl that she had
worn all the time. A shawl that now covered the small skeleton of a
child. A small child, skeletal finger just toutching the edges of a
rusty brown stain on the carpet on the floor in the nursery while a
figure watched, sitting in a chair, doomed to stay there forever and
remember because she couldn't, wouldn't, let go.
