Aeonian: Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty

As I was reading, as the night wore on and still I remained with the book, open-eyed, a willing stranger to sleep, I heard the whispering voice once more at the door.

Outside I could hear the rain falling, and at first I thought the whisper was a part of that noise, but then it came, creeping further and further into my thoughts, calling to me.

“Come to me,” the voice called, mingling with the sound of the rain beating on the windows of the house, and with frothing waves beating the shore. “Come to me, you will be mine… you are mine…”

For a moment, I felt the urge to obey the voice so strongly within me that I could barely draw breath. I wanted to get up, unlatch the door and step into the world of dominated obedience, to be taken in the arms of the creature who awaited me, to be ruled by his wishes and by his voice. I gripped the little statue, the little doll in my fingers. Hard and solid against my palm, it cut into my skin and seemed to bring clarity and order to my thoughts.

I rose from the chair, the cold pot of coffee and a half-empty cup of black liquid at my side. I pushed the blanket from my legs and walked softly to the closed wood-framed glass window-door of Martha’s room and pulled back the curtain.

I gazed into the darkness. I felt as though I was in a dream, as if I drifted in the thoughts and images of the unconscious. The darkness outside matched the darkness within, as I looked up and into one of the most beautiful faces I had ever seen. It was that of a man, with red hair which shone russet in the light of the stars. His high cheekbones and pale skin met large, almost violet blue eyes and he looked down on me with a smile of confidence and glee. For a moment, I stood transfixed, staring at the unbelievable beauty of his face. It was a face that most women, and men, would have cause to stare upon with lust or with jealousy, and all people of the world would feel wonder, and it was a face which I knew, I seemed to know, not only from the pictures in the attic, but from my dream-like experiences in the gardens of this house.

“Bartholomew,” I whispered, putting my hand to the glass window which separated this wondrous creature and me.

“Come to me,” the voice whispered again, but his lips did not move. Again, I felt the pull, that urge to do as he said, to open the door and go to him, to obey. It was easier to obey, to surrender, that I knew. But I gripped the little doll in my hands, and from the poppet there seemed to flow something, like a force-field, a barrier, placing itself between me and the power of his voice.

“I am not yours to command,” I whispered, and watched with satisfaction as an ugly snarl washed over his handsome face. There it was, his true face.

He looked at me, narrowing those violet eyes, and then looked down at my hands. He snarled again, and a more bestial noise than I would have thought possible from the throat of a human came echoing from his body. I should have been afraid of that noise, perhaps I would have been if I had not still this power radiating from the graven image in my hands. But instead, I smiled at him, which seemed to enrage him further.

“Come to me,” he commanded aloud, and the urge, that impulse to obey, hit me more powerfully than ever. I stumbled; my hand reached out for the latch. I was losing my hold on the power within me, the power to control and be the master of my own will, and then, a hand closed over mine. I stared at the hand, not jumping with fear as I should have done, but staring in mute amazement. The fingers were long and slender, pale and delicate. My gaze ran along the dark sleeve attached to the hand, and up, into a steady and calm face at my side, to eyes which were looking at me.

I had never seen a picture of her; her face had never been recorded in the family portraits of the house. Why would they be? She had only ever been the governess. Her face was hazy, indistinct, I couldn’t make out more than her eyes, but I knew it was her.

“Philomena,” I said, and she nodded. She looked at Bartholomew staring through the window, and he hissed to see her. She looked back at me. I could barely make out her features, light and shadow seemed to dance on her face, obscuring her features. Her eyes were dark and large, her hair a soft shade of brown, pulled back to cover her ears in a bun at the back of her head. Her gown was dark and functional. That was as much as I could make out, but it was her. She regarded me for a moment, and I dropped my hand from the latch. Then, in a swift motion which I made no effort to resist, she took a step towards me, and her insubstantial form seemed to meld with mine. She stepped inside me, as though her spirit had become a part of me.

We turned to Bartholomew, and words not spoken by my lips, but which sounded in my mind, came forth. “Go from here, and do not return,” said the voice of Philomena from within me. “This house is not yours, your power no longer rests here.”

“The girl is mine,” he replied, another snarl rumbling under his words.

“No, she is not.”

“I will have her.”

“She will be safe, within the protection of this house.”

“She will come to me.”

“She will not. Your time is done here, your power fails. Leave this place and do not return.”

“I will have all that I had once, and more… through her.”

“She is not your instrument, any more than I was.”

Bartholomew smiled, a nasty little smile. He put his hand to the glass of the window. “I will have all that I had once, and more,” he said, his voice echoing in my mind, then he turned and dissolved into the darkness of the night as if he had been swallowed.

I stood there a moment, a conjoined spirit of myself and of a woman who had been dead for more than a century. I stood calmly, watching the creature outside vanish, and Philomena stepped from me again.

“Do not heed his call, do not listen to his pleas… do not leave this house in the cover of the night. He wants you, as once he wanted me.”

“What does he want from me?” I whispered to the phantom standing before me. I peered, trying to see her face, but it was insubstantial still, as if I saw her through fog.

“He wants you, he needs you, but you must not let him take you.” She looked down at the poppet in my hands and smiled. “Brown made that for me,” she said, “keep it with you. It will bring you strength.”

“What if I cannot resist him?”

“You must… you must, or all is lost.”

“What do you mean? What will be lost?”

“I can say no more, my time is short. Read the journal… it will lead you to Anna. Only she can truly teach you what you must know, for the future, for the past, for the preservation of goodness and the destruction of evil.”

The first lights of dawn started to stretch over the sea. Through the window I saw a haze of red light as it began to burn into the skies. And in front of me, even as the dawn came, the figure of Philomena began to vanish before me.

“Please,” I said urgently, “Don’t go. I have so many questions.”

“Soon you will have answers,” she said. “But they will not be answered by me.”

With that, the phantom who had saved me from the creature in the darkness, vanished, right before my eyes.