October 26

DRACONIA KEEP where Magic and Dreams Become Reality

October 26, 2007

A few years ago I wrote this story for an international story/poetry contest. I was thrilled that it received second place.

I'd love to hear your reaction.

Warning: mildly graphic.

Cabin Fever

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You already know my name, and I don’t know why I have to tell you

again. Nothing’s going to change anything. Even I couldn’t change it.

And anyway, it happened so long ago; what good does it do to go over it

now? You’ll never believe me, so what does it matter? It’s over.

That’s all that matters.

Fine, you won’t leave me alone.

As I’ve told you before, the loud silence started getting to me the morning of the third day of that snowstorm. I could handle it until then, but by then it started tearing at my

insides. The worst part was that I couldn’t get away from it. John

could go outside and work in the garage if he wanted, and he needed to

go feed the animals, but the cold kept me in the house because of the

asthma John’s smoking gave me.

That time, like after every big snowstorm, we couldn’t get out our

backdoor because of the snowdrifts from the hill behind us, and

sometimes the front door was impassable too because of the snowdrifts

from the hill across the road. More than once John climbed out the

upstairs hallway window to go out to feed the animals. At least he got out. I hate being closed in that house.

But how beautiful the snow is--how white and pure. They taught me white

is perfect like our blessed Lord. I didn’t mind the snow. Just the cold.

That house always frightened me. Standing over the town like a gothic

nightmare, the rambling rooms inside were a large impenetrable maze that

I was forever getting lost in--especially in the dark. The three wings,

all mirror-images of the other and the large spaces crowded in on me.

Hell will be like that house. Never being able to find my way out.

Growing up, all the kids taunted me to go to that house, and I

could never do it. No matter how much they laughed at me. We all knew

in its hundred plus year history--it had served as a private house, a

boarding house, a bordello, and a nursing home for the mentally ill

before it sat empty for years. Then we got it.

When I told my mother we were buying that house, she reminded me

of when she was the nurse there and the syphilis women and their

screams. I remembered her crying in her sleep back at them.

So from the moment I stepped out of the car at that house the

first time, the hair stood up on the back of my neck; the cold wind

echoed right through to my heart. I pleaded with John to choose another

house, but it didn’t matter.

“Marge, the house has everything that we could want--fireplaces, lots

of bedrooms for our kids. Even the library you’ve always wanted; I’ll

fill it for you, honey, and we can fill the bedrooms. And, in a few

years we will start saving for our dream home. For now, let’s just

enjoy this one. " My heart thumped, but I ached to please my new

husband.

Smiling up at his handsome face, I nodded, “Okay, honey. I’ll be happy

wherever you are.” I tried to ignore his rolling eyes and his fingers

biting into my arm. No one would believe me that he wasn’t the perfect

husband. He charmed everyone in those days--even my mother--and I was

proud to be his wife.

Oh yeah, you want to hear about the third night of the snowstorm.

That night I’m so tired, and the cold eats at my bones. I want to take

a bath, but I’d stay in there too long, and the water just gets cold

again. So, instead I stand as close as I can to the fire, but then

John yells in the crackling silence, “Marge, you dummy, you are hogging

all the hot air. How am I supposed to get warm?” Then, like every

night since Stacie was born, he fell asleep on the couch in his clothes.

After the first couple of months, I quit begging him to come to bed

upstairs because no sexy nightie or come on would bring him back up to

the bedroom. Finally, I asked him why he didn’t at least change his

clothes. He turned his cold blue eyes on me and said, “Why should I?

I’ll just have to put them on again tomorrow. Leave me alone, woman.”

It wasn’t long after that the footsteps and the breathing began.

Disembodied footsteps with labored breaths coming from right behind my

ears no matter which way I turned. Even lying in bed, the covers up

over my head, cuddling my little girl, I’d hear them breathing and their

continuous footsteps in my room and in the other wings. Every night was

a marathon, and I never slept all night because I couldn’t stand the

footsteps or the silence. At least I knew where they were when I could

hear their footsteps

Somehow I thought if John would sleep upstairs, he’d protect me from the

footsteps and the breathing, but he laughed at me. You mean to tell me

people are walking in here? Where are they? I don’t see them. I’ll

stay in the living room. Then he laughed that booming, hideous laugh

that echoed far worse than the footsteps.

My one sanctuary from John and the footsteps was the library, which only

held my mother’s Bible. There the breathing and the footsteps were

muffled as though honoring the sanctity of the Lord’s words. But on the

third night of the snowstorm, I couldn’t stay in the library because

John wouldn’t let me light another fire. Finally, the cold drove me to

go to the Blue Room, as Stacie called it, for some extra blankets and

more candles. I broke down and asked, “John, I can’t reach the

candles. They are way up on top of the closet.”

I watched his double-chinned, scruffy face close up, and his eyes froze

over. The Blue Room always reminded him of our long-awaited child--only

a girl--after two stillbirths. But finally receiving God’s blessing

didn’t stop him from making fun of her one night when she was almost

three until she’d gone upstairs like a big girl to get her Barbie

horse. When I stood up, he shoved me back down on the couch. She can

do it herself! But not even a pinprick of light pierced the darkness

as her tiny feet shuffled upwards. When she got to her room, her

agonized screams ripped open the air. John raced up those stairs with

me at his heels. With his arms wrapped around her, she whispered,

“Daddy, the dark breathed at me.” My heart clenched. Now my daughter

wasn’t safe either.

Now, even remembering wouldn’t convince him to help me go to the Blue

Room. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, you can get the candles. Use the

stepstool right there in the closet. Can’t you see that I’m listening

to the weather report?”

Quietly, afraid of letting them hearing me, I tiptoe up the stairs, just

as Stacie had. But the cold air breathes on me anyway, and it reminds

me that my little girl is in the cold ground.

At least she’s safe.

Again in the silence that night, I realize how loud our house is--the

creek of the stairs, the rocking chair in the bedroom that I rocked

Stacie to sleep in. The refrigerator, the washer and dryer, the

furnace, the puff of the gas when I turn the oven on. How the steps and

floor creak as we walk on them. And, how the cat snores on the

library’s only chair.

And the breathing. The never-ending breathing. In and out. In and

out. In and out. The noise jangles in my head, rumbles through my

body. The racket presses down on my chest until I think I’ll faint.

As I stand in her bedroom, the breathing grows into voices. At first I

think they are coming from the weather reports downstairs, but John has

already turned off the radio for the night. And the voices are heavier

than the silence like the breathing has been. They crawled through my

thoughts, their conversations wheedling at me, telling me how to clear

all the sin from my life.

Clean and simple.

Leave.

But I can’t do that.

I have to stay to take care of my husband.

The Church says divorce is wrong. I don’t want to go to Hell.

But this silence, the breathing, the footsteps, the voices are a hell.

And the snow outside is my River Styx. Uncrossable by any but the Dead.

But still I could hear laughter, their bawdy comments, and, worst of

all, the screams of the deranged women who lived there begging to get

out. Their cries drilling through the silence. My mother had told me

that they, especially the women with syphilis, would beg her to get rid

of the voices, to kill them because they couldn’t get away. The voices

chased them until the women collapsed in a fetal position in the

corner. There they might be safer, the women said.

Even my mother, a deeply Christian woman, who only worked at the home

for a short time, died begging me to rid her of the voices.

I think maybe the cold makes the voices stronger. Maybe they were there

all along, but that night

Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I forgot what I was supposed to be telling you. All

evening I begged John to sleep with me on the floor in front of the

fireplace in his room. The library is too cold. The voices too loud.

I can’t stand it. He screams, Sleep by yourself! and turning around

his fist cracks my jaw. He almost looks like he’d apologize, but with a

glare, he turns his back and lies down on the couch to sleep.

With the metallic taste of my own blood from a loose tooth--see, it’s

gone now--I sit there and cry without a sound. I don’t want John or the

voices to hear me. They do anyway. They won’t stop. They eat into my

brain the fears and the sins of the house. They beg for help! I didn’t

know how!

I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand being alone. I pull John off

the couch onto the sheets. I won’t let him destroy the couch anymore.

My mother gave it to me. He struggles, but he’s still half asleep.

He’s tangled in my white sheet. The voices drum on. Loud, boisterous

women. Whooping men. The voices speak when I see John’s pocketknife.

The first slice is lost in John’s sweet scream.

Thank you, God. He’s finally scared.

The second is louder. There’s only his rasping breath.

The third booms in the silence.

Even the voices.

Finally.

But, it’s too quiet.

The bloody sheets shroud his body. And the voices aren’t pleased. They

must be kept pure like the snow. But the silence won’t stop, no matter

how many times I cut him. The slashing at least keeps the stillness

quiet. The smell of the blood makes me want more.

When I finish his chest, his heartbeat stops, leaving more silence. I need more sound.

Any sound. I cut ever so gently through this fingers that tortured me and then through

the mouth that mocked me.

Finally, I stop slicing, and the silence is at last golden and pure.

How I loved that gift of God.

Before the snow completely melted, they brought me here.

So, there you are. You can turn off that tape recorder now. Telling

you again doesn’t do any good.

What?

What!

Footsteps? Tiny…footsteps?

NO! I saved you!

Dear God, no! Get rid of the voices!

I can’t stand them!

JOHN?!

Not you too!

Let go of me! Leave me alone.

No!!

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