shadows and stones - an original fiction series of gothic, horror, dark fantasy

I wake in a room I have never seen before. There is a door at my level only a few feet away. On the opposite side a window is open to the elements. A thin white curtain, the only decoration in the room, heaves and sighs in a slight breeze. I am the only occupant, lying in the center of the otherwise empty floor between the two exits. I don't remember entering this room or being brought here, and the more I try to remember, the more I find only a vague feeling of emptiness, as if I have lost something important. All I can pull from my memory is that I was hungry, very terribly hungry, and cold, and alone.

A scent of peppermint comes in on the breeze from the window, and simultaneously I hear a man's laughter from the other side of the door. He is laughing at something someone has told him, I am certain, for it has that feeling of a response. The sound brings another memory to the surface: the memory of Edward, my cousin, who should have been old, yet turned into a young man while driving a car. My cousin, who should have welcomed me as his invited guest, yet instead locked me in a tower without food or explanation. I think it is his laughter on the other side of the door.

Do I sit here and wait for him to come to me? Do I use the window to escape, or do I try the door? Perhaps it is unlocked. The lady or the tiger, I always hated that story. Another breeze moves the curtain, this time I smell pine trees. More laughter comes from beyond the door. I make my decision. Quickly I rise. I don't look back: I refuse to regret, refuse to reconsider. The knob feels chilly in my hand, but I take it firmly and turn. Expecting resistance, I am surprised when it moves easily: unlocked, a ready trap. "Damn you to hell, Edward!" I cry and pull it open, prepared to do battle.

"An inappropriate suggestion, under the circumstances."

I do not move to leave the room. Surprise holds me frozen in place. He…She…It…stands before me: the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Serene, surreal, it looks at me with eyes that are made of mercury with the infinite reaches of space for pupils. Slender, sexless, wrapped in lengths of gauze as fine as spider webs, the being in front of me smiles. Now I understand. I'm not dreaming nor is Edward torturing me in some new and twisted way. I am dead.

"I thought the gates were supposed to be pearly."

It laughs, the same laughter I heard through the closed door, yet more powerful, more musical without the barrier. "Everyone builds their own gates, child, just as they build their own walls and fashion their own prisons."

I am so tired. I didn't think you could feel tired after death, but I do, and I don't feel like exchanging philosophy or jokes with what I believe must be an angel. Somewhere beyond him is the unknown, which we must all face. If what the angel says is true, and it is a place of my own fashioning, then I know my father will be there, waiting for me with his crooked smile and unkempt hair. The longing to see him again is almost more than I can bear.

"Please, may I see my father?" I want so badly to be held, to cry in the arms of someone whom I know will love me.

But the angel is no longer smiling, and it has not moved to allow me entrance. "And are you worthy of Heaven?"

"What?" I know I haven't always been the best of Catholics, but I've never deliberately harmed anyone and I have always gone to confession regularly. In fact, I confessed only the day before flying out. How could I have sinned since then? As if reading my mind, the angel answers.

"Did you not lie to your mother, telling her you would call as soon as the plane landed? Did you not think ill of your cousin who brought you to his house? Did you not take the Lord's name in vain while in captivity? Was your heart not filled with anger and hatred at the moment you died?"

"You've got to be kidding!" I am stunned. Is God really so petty that He would deny me Heaven for such minor faults? "I meant to call Mama from Edward's, but he never gave me a chance to use a phone and he took my cell away. I didn't think ill of him until he locked me up and starved me to death! If I wrongly used the Lord's name, I don't remember, but I would have repented had I lived long enough to confess, and if my heart was filled with anger and hatred I am sorry, but I am not a saint, to love the enemy who brings about my death. Can God not forgive me when all of my choices were taken away?"

"Perhaps the Lord could, but I cannot." The angel is smiling again, but my stomach feels as though the bottom has just dropped out, leaving me hollow inside.

"I don't understand!"

"If you were to die, did it then follow that I too must be sacrificed?" I watch, horrified, as the angel transforms while speaking, hair sprouting all over, mouth and nose becoming a muzzle with sharp fore teeth. The eyes change from mercury into little black stones. I am looking into the face of the rat now, no longer small and fat in the corner of the tower, but human sized and hideous. He stands before me on his hind legs with a great gash in his belly from which his entrails hang in snarls. I remember the taste of his blood: I remember the tearing of his flesh.

I mouth a scream, the sound will not come. The rat lunges with its hand-like paws and I duck, but instead of trying to run past it through the doorway I turn on my heels and throw myself out the window. If I am truly dead, then the fall won't harm me and, perhaps, if I am wrong, then I will awaken and at least find myself back in the tower, on the cold stone floor with the rat's blood on my face.

My feet hit the earth lightly. The window had been on a ground floor after all. In front of me I see the beautiful greenery I had expected of England: rolling hills with grazing flocks, stately trees, and a tiny pond. Beneath my feet and to my sides though, it is different: the land is barren, the few trees merely twisted corpses clinging to lifeless mud, the grass brown and rotting. I hear the rat's nails scraping behind me as he climbs through the window. I run and discover the nature of Hell.

Where my foot touches the ground everything dies, the grass turns to dust, the trees twist away, the pond dries into a bed of dirt. Even the sheep, so fat and lively before me, are suddenly nothing more than bleached bones, hovering for a second as though still alive, before falling into heaps upon the earth as I pass them. I run harder, trying to somehow attain the taunting greenery ahead, but it eludes me like the proverbial carrot. Behind me the rat races without panting, dripping blood and dragging his entrails across the wasteland I leave in my wake.

Is this my punishment then? To be eternally chased by the creature I murdered, and to eternally chase the beauty of the earthly life I have left? "It isn't fair!" I scream to whomever can hear me. The rat laughs, mimicking my words in his raspy, tortured voice. I run faster, hoping my heart will burst. Maybe it will, but since I am already dead, will that change anything, or will I keep going with my broken heart trailing from my burst chest? There is a cliff in front of me. I decide to go over it. Who knows, maybe the rat will give up, or maybe he will use his intestines as a rope and rappel down to continue the chase. I don't really care anymore; I just want this to end.

My leap, which should take me over the cliff, ends abruptly as I slam headlong into a wall I cannot see. I pound my fists onto air as solid as the stone walls of the tower. I claw with my nails trying to climb it and leap to see if there is an end to it above, but to no avail. Bruised and shaken I lie at the invisible wall's base and begin to cry. Let the rat have me, let him tear me to pieces, I no longer wish to play the game Hell has devised for my torture. I just want to be left alone, to be dead in peace.

"Nothing good enough for you, eh?" It is the rat, standing only inches from me so I can smell the odor of his torn and sweaty body as if it were my own. "When you were alive you wanted to die: now that you're dead you want to be alone. Anything else you want, while you are at it?"

Anything else? I want my Mama to wake me and hold me the way she did when I was little and having nightmares. I want my Father to plead for me in Heaven, to pull me up there to be at his side. I want to go back in time and just let the rat eat me so at least in death it won't torment me any longer. I want to be like a wolf again, and rip it to pieces so it won't speak to me anymore. I turn away cowering against the wall. Hell has defeated me in such a very short time.

Then I hear the rat screaming. Warm liquid splashes over me, causing me to look down at the lifeless ground under my hands. It is darkened by blood spilled across it, and my arm is red from the tips of my fingers to the elbow.

In horror I look up to see the rat lying on its side while a huge canine tears at its body, throwing bits and pieces across the landscape. My wolf has appeared to save me, it would seem, or perhaps it is my beloved pet who died so long ago. Maybe Dad was right when he said Sasha would be waiting for me on the other side.

"Sasha?"

The canine turns when I call it, but it is not Sasha, nor is it a wolf.

"Noooooooooo!"

I cannot break through the wall, I cannot run away, I cannot even scream any longer. The eyes are only too familiar. The blonde hair a forelock draping down to the chin is one I would know anywhere. The face turned towards me is not that of any animal: it is my own. Smiling with blood coated lips, the me by the rat turns back to tear at the corpse again with hand and tooth. Bits and pieces fly through the air.

I don't want to see anymore. I don't want to be anymore. Trying desperately to stop existing, I curl up like a fetus and close my eyes. A hand touches my shoulder and shakes me. Have I lain like this for an hour, a day, a century? Does time really mean anything in Hell? Gently it shakes me again.

"Would you like a cup of tea, ma cheré?

I don't want to look. It will only be the other me and I can't bear to see the truth of my torment in such a graphic manner."

"Do not be silly, ma petite, the bad things are gone and the tea will be cold if you do not hurry."

The voice is not mine. A little bit deeper, it has a sensuous accent I cannot imitate. Nor do I recognize the foreign words, except to know they are not Spanish, which is all I understand besides English. I had thought there was no more hope left in me, but a little bit seems to have hidden deep in my soul. I find myself believing that if I just open one eye I will find myself out of Hell and into Heaven, or at least somewhere a little better.

"More of the latter, I would think. Now hurry please, it would be impolite for me to drink without you and I am quite thirsty."

I look. The cliff is gone, as is the rat's corpse and my doppelganger. A pretty table with a full setting for tea sits in the middle of a little field. Well-trimmed hedges encircle it all. Part of my mind recognizes I am in a formal garden, while the remainder tries to decide what the catch is to this new scenery. Suspiciously I glance down and find that now the grass below my hands is green, not dead as it had been before. Perhaps the rules of Hell have changed.

"Enough with Hell, come over and sit before we both expire. Really, children of this time are terribly morbid."

The woman is quite pretty, though not stunning in the way of fashion models. With her black hair piled in an elaborate style and clothing that comes from another time, she reminds me of an actress in a costume drama. Her full skirts rustle as she taps her foot impatiently in the grass where she stands next to the table. Suddenly, I feel very rude and boorish. I uncurl myself and hurry over to the table at her bidding. As I reach to pull out one of the chairs, I realize the blood is gone from my arms.

"Of course, mon lapin, you could not come to the table so soiled, could you." A little smile lights her face. "It would be most unappetizing."

I open my mouth to speak and realize it is the first time. I have not uttered a single word, yet she has been responding to what I think. Confused, I sit, allowing her to pour me a cup of tea and lay a sliver of cake upon the delicate china plate. Only after she has poured and served for herself do I feel confident enough to ask a question aloud. "Are we dead?"

Laughter rings like little bells in the air. "Ma cheré, I have never felt more alive in all my existence, though I think you have had better days."

"Then this isn't Hell?"

"Drink your tea, it will grow cold. Non, this is not Hell, nor is it Heaven, nor is it reality."

I obey and sip the tea. It is my favorite kind of herbal tea, just hot enough and filled with spices. Draining it quickly I reach for the teapot to serve myself with more, and realize I have seen it before. After a moment's reflection I remember: the service once belonged to my grandmother and now sits in the cherry wood cabinet back home. It's my Mama's pride and joy, and mine as well. I cannot imagine how it has gotten here.

"But that is precisely the answer!" the woman exclaims.

"The answer?"

"Oui! In your thoughts you have, as you like to say, hit the nail on the head! You thought you could not imagine, but that is exactly what you have done."

It's like a puzzle piece you didn't know you were missing suddenly turning up under your chair. "Then I am dreaming! I'm still alive!" Could I really be that lucky? I pray I am right.

"Non. To be dreaming, you must be asleep. You are not asleep right now, you have simply chosen not to return to reality."

"Are you saying I'm insane?" Confusion turns to anger. This is still a game that someone else is playing and I am still being treated as nothing more than a pawn. First Edward and his tower dungeon, and now, this woman with her strange pronouncements.

Unable to stay seated, I leap up and in so doing knock my teacup onto the grass where it shatters. Tears well up in my eyes at the sight of tiny porcelain pieces resting amongst the little green blades. Part of me understands this is not real. Part of me whispers that it doesn't matter, nothing is really broken. Yet the tea set has been a family treasure as long as I remember. I have committed a treacherous act by breaking a piece. Once again I fold to the ground sobbing loudly.

"Pauvre enfant, this is so hard to understand, I know, but you must be still and listen to me for a little while so I may explain." The woman stands beside me again, gently taking my arm to help me rise. "Now, pick up your cup and have a little more tea. We shall have chamomile now, it is more soothing."

To my wonder the broken cup is whole at my feet. Kneeling still, I touch it gingerly afraid it will shatter again. With it cradled in my hands, I return to my seat at the table. From the same teapot as before, she pours me more tea. I sip and discover it is indeed chamomile, lightly sweetened with honey the way I prefer it.

"There, rest and drink while I speak. You are not insane, but you are very close. Your sanity is the cliff at whose top you rested not so long ago, and only the core of you, which still longs to live prevented you from going over in your fear. Had you not called for me to kill your vision, you might have gone over and destroyed us both."

"I called you?"

"Oui. Did you not wish to be like the wolf again so you could destroy your pursuer?"

A chill runs down my arms. "Are you saying that what I wish for comes true here? Then where are we?"

"Where you always have been, ma cheré. We are inside you." She reaches out putting a slender finger on my forehead to illustrate her point, then sits back and smiles the sort of smile your teachers do, when they feel they have been demonstrating the obvious.

I'm glad she is silent, for I must think about this. If her statement is true, then have I invented all of this myself? The room between Heaven and Hell? The angel? The aspect of Hell itself? Was it all my subconscious providing to me that which I expected to see, believing I was dead?

"Oui, now you have the idea!" she seems as pleased as if she'd won a contest, clapping her hands in delight.

"Then this garden, the table, the tea set, and you are all part of my imagining as well?"

"Not precisely." Infuriatingly she pours herself another cup of tea before continuing. "Once you withdrew after calling me, I was able to borrow an image here, a dream there, and the occasional memory to create this little haven of peace. This," and she gestures at the table and our surroundings, "is indeed all from your mind, but I, I am quite different."

"How? Are you the key to all this? I'm tired of guessing games where I have none of the answers. Is this the result of Edward's starving me? Does he have something to do with you?"

"Edward?" For a moment she pauses looking thoughtful, then a portion of the hedges parts and several men step into the garden. Some of them I recognize: an image of my father, the high school teacher I had a crush on, my old boyfriend from last year. But there is at least one, a dark haired young man dressed in some sort of historic costume, whom I do not know. It is the two following him, however, who catch my attention most: one of them is Edward as he appeared at the airport, and the other is Edward younger, the one who tried to kill me.

"Those two." I say, pointing to the old and young aspects of the same man. I suppose she must have pulled these images from my memories and dreams as well. Nodding she confirms the thought even as she waves away all of the men but two: the one I did not recognize, and the younger Edward. Standing so close to one another I realize they look similar, as though they might be related.

"Oui, I suspected the resemblance was not chance. He does seem to like using that particular face. Still, we shall leave him for the moment, shall we not? He has a role in this, but it is not so terrible as you suspect. In fact, I think he has done rather well this time."

I let the implications of that comment slide. I am not interested in other women he may have tortured, at least not right now. "If these are all images from my own mind, then just what the hell are you?"

"Finally you have asked the right question!" She cries out, and the table disappears, leaving just the two of us alone on a patch of garden that is now surrounded by blackness. "This is tres dificile, so please, just be silent, and watch."

Questions are on the tip of my tongue, but she pleads for my silence with her eyes. Giving in, I look to where she points in the darkness. A room has appeared like a movie on a screen. It is a woman's bedroom, a fact that is obvious from the femininity of the fabrics and decorations. The furniture looks antique to me, richly carved and built of fine woods. In one corner, almost hidden by a washbasin stand, I see an elaborate doll bed draped in silk. At first it appears to be empty, then what I take to be a cushion moves and I realize a dog rests within it.

A sudden light from the door illuminates the scene momentarily. Silently, a woman, dressed in an elaborate gown and powdered wig, enters the room. I hear nothing, but I can see her lips move as she speaks to someone outside. Finished, she closes the door, locking it with a slow careful movement as though she does not want anyone to hear the key turn.

With the door locked she glides over to her bed. Gracefully, in spite of the voluminous skirts of her gown, she sits upon the edge. A gesture of her hand calls the dog from its bed to her side. Like any small dog bred to be a rich woman's toy, it rises slowly, making a theatrical of stretching and yawning. With mincing steps, like those of a circus pony, it hops from its bed. Prancing delicately it stops at her feet and sits up.

Suddenly the dog's body seems to blur, the outline shimmering unsteadily like heat waves off of concrete. Then in a single second it expands, shooting up to the height of a man. But not just a man's height, the shape of one as well. Melting away, the fur reveals beautiful dark skin and a cascade of rich black hair. I shudder with uneasiness as the newly formed man caresses her face. Though he is handsome, maybe even beautiful, there is something vaguely demonic in his appearance.

Burying his hands in the neckline of her bodice, he abruptly tears it in half. In moments she is as naked as he. His hands travel freely across her body as he pushes her back onto the rose patterned bed cover. It doesn't take a genius to know what will happen next, fortunately, I don't get to see it. Like a movie, the scene fades into another. Now I see the same woman, but she is heavily pregnant, sitting beside her bedroom window. She gazes with longing, first out into the night, then over to the doll bed, no longer occupied by anything other than dust.

Again everything fades and changes. Two young girls race through a garden. Like the woman, they are dressed in costumes from earlier centuries, though they do not wear wigs. The eldest, I think, might be only thirteen or so, the youngest around ten. They stop close to a white gazebo, hiding in the shadows where its occupants cannot see them.

Inside sits the woman, whom I recognize as being the lover of the demon. She is speaking to two young men, one of whom, I realize with a shock, is the man in the historic costume who had resembled Edward. The other is a plain looking man, but obviously well off, based on the quality of his clothes. Both men speak urgently to the woman as she listens respectfully. Meanwhile, the younger girl seems to be teasing the older, who looks at both men with blossoming interest and a little fear. I think, perhaps, they have come to marry her.

The images shift. Now the older girl, dressed more formally, is walking through the gardens with the familiar stranger. They are a beautiful couple and she leans on him trustingly, obviously very much in love. In the background stands the mother, approval written in the lines of her face. I do not need words to understand she has sanctioned his suit. When they have gone deep enough into the garden, away from prying eyes, they stop. The young man pulls himself away, speaking to the girl seriously. She seems to be confused, but intent in his words, until he backs away a few steps and lets go of her hand. In the same manner as the demon lover, his form shifts and melts away. Where he had stood a sleek rabbit appears, then it leaps up and becomes dove, which in turn becomes a butterfly that settles onto the grass where it returns to the form of a man.

The girl is terrified. He tries to speak to her gently and calmly, but she pushes away, striking him in her haste to be free. Frantically she runs back through the garden, only to fall weeping upon her mother's lap. The young man stays unmoving and I can feel his pain as he realizes he has made a mistake that cannot be changed. Meanwhile, in the bushes behind him, I can see the demon lover from before, an odd smile on his face.

Suddenly it is a wedding day. The girl is now marrying the other man who had sued for her hand. The scene shifts quickly to a bedroom, where the girl, a few years older, lies in a pool of sweat: she is giving birth. As the child slides out of her womb I see a little light passing from the mother's body to the baby. A last breath and the mother, a girl younger than myself, ceases all motion. The midwife pulls the bed sheet over her face, then carries the live and screaming baby to the father. Outside the house stands the dark young man who had frightened her away. A mixture of anger and sorrow fills his eyes.

The scene fades out and I now see a line of women, beginning with the girl whom I just saw die and ending with images of my mother and myself. Behind each of us stands the shadowy figure of a man, the first is the young man who turned into a butterfly and the last, standing behind my mother, is the elderly figure of Edward, while his younger version is behind me. A ball of light appears in the hand of the first woman and drifts from one to another until it rests in my own. There the visions stop, leaving us standing in the garden, once more alone.

I turn back to my companion. She is pale, almost transparent in the dim light of this place. The show must not have been easy to summon. Something else about her appearance strikes me as well. "You are the girl, the one who died in childbirth."

She shakes her head. "Non. She was only the first to carry me, and so I borrow her face."

"Carry you? I don't understand, are you the child?"

"Non. You saw her non-human father?" I nod.

"I am of him, of his seed, of his heritage. But in her I never awakened, never…" I watch as she struggles for a word. "I never Became."

"Became?"

"Oui. I was like a seed in the ground which has never received water to make it grow."

I make a connection. "The light, which passed from mother to child."

"Oui."

"Is that what killed her?" Once more I see the line of women ending in myself and the light passing from hand to hand.

"My mother is still alive. So was my grandmother until a few years ago. Weren't you in them too?"

"Over the generations I became less entangled in that which allows you to live. I was able to pass from one to another without harming those I left." Again the table and chairs appear, though not the tea set. She sits down, as though very weary, but I do not move to join her. I want answers, not comfort. "I have been waiting for so very, very long."

"Waiting for what? For me?"

"For one of your line strong enough to wake me, and strong enough to survive the awakening."

"And then what?"

"Then we will Become."

I know what the word means, but not what she means when she uses it. Taking a different path with my questions I hope to be led towards the truth. "And what is Edward's part in all of this. He is standing behind my mother and behind me."

"He stands behind all of you, watching and waiting and hoping not to make the same mistake twice."

It's like an epiphany. Like the light bulb you see appear over the character's head in a cartoon. Yet it is terrifying in its implications, for if my understanding is right and Edward is the man behind each of the women, it means he has been alive for over a hundred years.

"Longer perhaps," she says, reading my thoughts again, "Though he was not Edward then. I think he was called Jean-Michel, but sounds are so much harder than images." She looks even more tired now than before.

"Why does he watch? What mistakes did he make? And why did he try to kill me?"

"He watches as I waited, for one strong enough to bear the awakening. He made a mistake in thinking my first host strong enough for the truth of her heritage. Showing her too much too quickly drove her away. Had he waited, she might not have died.

"As for you, he did not try to kill you, not really. He must have decided you were the one, after all these generations, who could bear me, and so he pushed you to a crisis where the need for my presence would be powerful enough to wake me: to begin my Becoming."

"But what does that mean?" I plead with her; I need to know.

"It means you will be as he is, for he also has been awakened. He also has Become."

I feel like screaming, she is starting to sound just like my psychology teacher and I always hated that class. Turning my back on her I pace the length of the garden. There is a clue somewhere in what she has shown me. I run through it all again, focusing on the man who changed himself into a butterfly and has lived for so very long, and of the demon who fathered my distant ancestress, passing this problem on to me. Am I like that demon now, or like Edward? Is Edward also a demon, or is Edward like her, the child of a human and another demon, or even the same one? I looked to her questioningly, hoping for the answers.

"I have none to give, enfant. You must ask him if you survive. I know only that when we Become, you will change, but not change: be the same, but not."

"If I survive? What do you mean by that?"

"I have awakened, ma petite, but your mind rejects me, it wishes to cast me out and return to the way it was. But it cannot. Once awakened, I am in every part of you whether you will or no. So you must now make a decision, either to join with me and Become, or continue to fight me and remain trapped inside of your own mind for eternity."

"So if you win, I die?"

"Non, it is not a contest with winners or losers. I cannot win the way you are thinking because I have no strength but that which belongs to you."

"Then if I win, you die?"

"You cannot win either, for the same reason. It is impossible to defeat oneself and so the battle would continue forever with neither side gaining upon the other." This is why she is so tired then, I realize. Maintaining the images I have seen while trying to battle against me in a fight she is not able to avoid.

"And to survive?"

She rises and the table disappears once more. Standing before me, wearing the face of my ancestress, she reaches out, taking my hands as if to pull me towards her. "Join with me. Let us Become."

Become. Become what? The only way to know is to accept, and yet to accept is to change irreversibly. Of course there is always the chance I am imagining all of this. That she, and the story, and the battle are all just an elaborate dream, and I will wake in my tower cell, still not knowing why I am dying.

Yet if she is telling the truth? A butterfly drifts across my vision, laughing a little at the confusion on my face. Will I be able to turn into a butterfly as well? Did I really turn into a wolf or is this all just a dream? I picture Edward's face, the younger Edward, and I know I do not want to die without understanding who and what the bastard is. Maybe this woman can't win, and maybe I can't win, but I'm sure as hell not going to let him get away with this.

I don't wait for her to pull me close, instead I do the pulling. For just a moment I see her face lit up in rapture, then she melts into a blinding light, which surrounds me. As though I were a sponge I feel the light being absorbed into every cell of my body, into my very DNA. Then the world goes dark and I am falling through a vortex.

With an almost physical slam and a sudden gasp for air I am back in my real body and my eyes struggle open, awake at last.

episode i: journey into darkness - episode ii: tea party - episode iii: awakening
episode iv: the book of grief - episode v: paterfamilias - episode vi: breaking points
episode vii: the dark of the mind - episode viii: decisions
episode ix: momentary distractions - episode x: exorcising demons i
episode xi: porcelain visions - episode xii: the nature of jackals
episode xiii: exorcising demons ii - episode xiv: the invitation
episode xv: body & soul - episode xvi: mothering sunday
episode xvii: imbalance of power - episode xviii: interlude
episode xix: between life and death

episodes - gallery
free stuff - resources - links & webrings
author - guestbook - contact