Ellie wanted to jump into bed and hide underneath the covers, the same as she always did, but something stopped her. She was so tired of running all the damn time.
Instead of going back to bed she walked into the hallway. It was dark and she could barely see a thing. The only source of light came from the fickle moon that shined through the arched window in the back of the long hallway.
Draped in this dark blue haze Ellie started walking. Her body was tense and her bare feet scraped the warm wooden floor. Every step she took brought her closer to Arthur’s frantic screams that came from beyond the hallway’s curve to the left.
Every move she made felt like it took her minutes, with Ellie’s only sense of time coming from the rhythm of her rapid heartbeat. She couldn’t escape the dryness of her throat, nor the tears of fear that ran quietly down her cheeks.
Finally she turned around the corner and saw that the door to Arthur’s bedroom was open. Through it came a warm light casting arched shadows on the wall across the room. The play of shadows showed people moving around, left to right, back and forth. A macabre dance accompanied by the tune of an old man’s agony.
A voice in the back of Ellie’s head told her to just go back to her room. To forget what she saw here. She could run again. She could just say she’d go to school tomorrow and hitchhike the hell out of here.
But the bigger part of Ellie wanted to know what was going on. What were they doing to the one man who had ever shown her kindness? Maybe she could help him.
You can’t even help yourself, a vile voice in the back of her head sneered at her.
Ellie ignored it and with determined steps she walked toward Arthur’s bedroom.
The moment she touched the door Arthur’s screaming stopped and Mary’s voice rose above the man’s frantic noise. “Good God, it was a bad one! He hasn’t been like this in a good long while!”
Ellie moved through the door opening and found Mary and two of the maids moving frantically around Arthur’s bed. The old man was pale and sweaty but he seemed unharmed.
Arthur whispered to Mary, “Was I….Was I dreaming again?”
His assistant nodded. “It’s okay now, Arthur. You’re back with us. You’re back with us now!”
Ellie heard the relief in Mary’s voice and only then did she dare to make her presence known. “What’s going on here? I… I heard noises?”
Mary turned toward the door and it took her exhausted mind a few seconds to register who the tanned, tear-stained face she saw belonged to.
It was Arthur’s weak voice that asked, “Is that… Ellie?”
Ellie saw the kindness in Mary’s sweaty face as the woman wiped a lost strand of brown hair from her eyes. “So you finally came checking, huh, sweetheart?”
Mary walked toward Ellie as she instructed the maids to take care of Arthur and took her by her shoulders.
“Come downstairs with me. We’ll have some tea.”
Ellie’s walk through the mansion was much more pleasant now that she was accompanied by an adult and the lights were turned on. It helped that Arthur’s horrible screams had subsided, of course.
Together they walked downstairs and into the kitchen.
As she sat at the kitchen table Ellie watched Mary fill the kettle with water and put it on the stove. The woman looked exhausted in her wide pink robe.
“The water won’t be long,” Mary said as she sat down next to Ellie. She was quick to put her arm around the young girl.
Ellie had difficulty admitting it but the warm arm around her tense shoulders felt like a sudden relief. The act of care, almost motherly in its execution, triggered a complicated mix of emotions. She decided to ignore it and asked with a voice tinier than she wanted it to be, “Mary? What’s wrong with Arthur?”
Mary took a deep breath and sighed. “Do you know what night terrors are?”
Ellie nodded; she did.
“Ever since Arthur’s accident a few years back, he has had them. They’re horrible episodes that can last minutes.”
Ellie was confused. “Arthur had an accident?”
Mary looked sideways at the girl as if what she was about to say felt like a transgression. A kind of rude betrayal. “Arthur doesn’t like to talk about it, but he was in a pretty bad car accident three years ago.”
Ellie said nothing.
“They come and they go, these episodes. But they haven’t been this bad in a while now. And, of course, you know how stubborn old men can be. He doesn’t seek any help for them!”
A deep sadness rose up from inside Ellie’s stomach and she couldn’t stop the tears from running down her cheeks again. This time they weren’t from fear but from a deep, dark despair that told her how absolutely worthless she was.
Ellie cried as she turned away from Mary. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? It’s my fault! It is! It really is!”
She loathed herself for causing the one person who had ever been good to her so much suffering.
Mary’s voice was soft but warm. As warm as the arm that refused to let go of the girl it was holding. “My dear…. Why would any of this be your fault?”
Ellie sniffed as she tried to choke down the tears. “He worries about me too much! He does! That’s why the night terrors are so bad now!”
Mary pulled the girl close to her chest and whispered, “None of this is your fault. None of it. He is happy that you’re here. We all are. You are welcome… and wanted… and loved here.”
Ellie heard words coming from Mary’s mouth that nobody had ever spoken to her. They filled her at once with both happiness and anxiety. Were these words true or were they just another cruel lie that would ultimately wound her?
Ellie couldn’t be sure anymore and as the water boiled over she decided that she would do better. She would be better.
And someday soon, she told herself, she’d be so good that Arthur wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore.
MEMORIES
A LOOK INTO THE PAST
(1712)
Beyond what would one day be the town of Brettville lay a field stretched out between the pines. Trees would not grow there, only around it, and wildlife avoided the luscious green grass in favor of the safety of the woods. Birds would sometimes flock over the field but they always dispersed quickly, the air drawn from their lungs by the stale and oppressive atmosphere. Not even the insects dared to venture very far from the shade of the pines toward the grass; whenever they did, their tiny exoskeletons got crushed underneath the invisible weight that lingered across the field.
The only sign of life was a massive oak tree that stood in the middle of the sea of grass. Cherokee legend said that the tree had never grown there. It had always simply been.
Some believed that the oak was as old as time itself. That it had seen the creation of the earth, and of the oceans, and that it had watched from a distance as the first lives were born from the primordial soup. As a silent watchman on an eternal duty of private judgment.
Whenever the sun graced the peak of the sky the giant oak would cast its terrible shadow across the field it called home. Reminding the grass surrounding it that it stood forever as an unwavering and terrible master. Betraying to all that had eyes to see that the field would never belong to them. The oak claimed its silent dominion without any effort, and no living creature would ever dare to contest its understated power.
And then came Man. The one species arrogant enough to consider itself immune to the extreme and untouchable by the laws that predated its own conventions. A species unapologetically drawn to the dangerous and the macabre, even if only to prove its own superiority.