“Why?”
Why am I asking? This is clearly all lunacy.
She doesn’t bother answering.
“Have you been feeling all right?” she asks instead. I hesitate. Did Dare tell her I’d gotten sick?
“Yes,” I finally lie. “Perfectly fine.”
“How about sleeping?” she continues. “Have you been sleeping well?”
No.
“Yes,” I lie again. “Fine. I don’t need any of your tea.”
She smiles again, her teeth ever grotesque.
“That wasn’t why I was asking. If you experience any… disturbances, do let me know.”
Disturbances?
She glances at me knowingly before she shuffles away and I wonder what exactly she knows about me, and how does she know it?
I watch her disappear down the hall and it isn’t until she’s long gone that I realize that I have chills and that goose-bumps have lifted the hair on my neck.
I rub my arms and make my way quickly to the safety of my bedroom.
No one can see me.
I’m invisible.
There’s a sheet and blood and water.
There are stones and moss and sand.
SeeMeSeeMeSeeMe.
But they don’t.
Everyone bustles around, their faces turning into blurs.
“Help!” I scream.
But no one listens.
No one cares because I’m invisible.
I don’t exist anymore.
I want to scream and howl at the sky, but it would do no good.
The night is a prison, a prison, a prison.
But the morning will kill me.
I know it.
I feel it.
I am.
I am.
I am.
I am lost.
And no one can save me.
Chapter 18
I’m restless.
So very restless.
So I get dressed in a modest outfit, something befitting of a Savage so that Eleanor can’t complain, slacks and a short-sleeved pink sweater. Afterward, I find Jones downstairs.
“Do you think you could drive me into town?” I ask him. His answer is immediate.
“Of course, miss.”
I wait out front for the car, and as we’re pulling away, down the drive, I have the oddest sensation… like I’m being watched.
The hair stands up on my neck, and I twist around to see out the rear window.
A curtain in the very top of Whitley falls closed, as though someone had been standing there.
As though someone had been watching me.
I swallow hard, and turn back around.
I’m in a car. No one can hurt me here.
That’s what I tell myself as we drive into town.
“Where to, Miss Price?” Jones ask me when we reach the outskirts.
I don’t know.
“Can you take me somewhere my mother used to go?” I ask hesitantly. Because I miss her. I want to feel close to her, even it’s just an illusion.
Jones meets my eyes in the mirror, and his are sympathetic.
“Of course,” he tells me, his gruff voice softening just a bit. “I know just the place.”
The car weaves among the streets, and eventually comes to a stop outside of a church.
With a plain brick Gothic Revival exterior, the church looms against the cloudy sky, sort of severe and imposing.
I’m hesitant as I peer out the glass.
“It’s the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury,” Jones tells me. “Your mother used to come here frequently.”
That’s a bit hard to believe, seeing how she wasn’t catholic. I tell him so politely.
“She was catholic, miss,” he insists. “And she did used to come here. I drove her myself.”
I’ll have to take him at his word, and I open the car door, stepping outside.
“I’ll wait, miss,’ he tells me, settling into the seat. I nod, and with my shoulders back, I walk straight to the doors.
Once inside, the demeanor of the church changes, from severe gothic, to lavishly decorated, firmly in line with Catholic tradition.
It feels reverent in here, holy and serene. And even if I’m not a religious person, I enjoy it.
The statues of saints and angels hanging on the walls are gilded and full of detail, including the crucifix of Christ at the front.
His face is pained, His hands and feet are bleeding.