Chapter 20 - The Mercy Cage

The twentieth chapter in our novel, in which Emily hopes to escape the horrors of the grave, but can she?

Emily - New York City, 1945

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Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7 // Chapter 8 // Chapter 9 // Chapter 10 // Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 // Chapter 13// Chapter 14 // Chapter 15 // Chapter 16 // Chapter 17 // Chapter 18 // Chapter 19

My hair dances freely in the water, the last of its pins having lost hope. The water is nice enough, but its hum enrobes me in the way only sound can. A catch in my chest pangs and breaks my lull. I, reluctant, gently push against the porcelain to lift myself and take my next breath. My eyes open and I have to blink them closed again to shield them against the light- it couldn’t possibly be day. Why is the room so bright? As my face breaks the surface of the tub’s water and my eyes adjust, my bathroom is gone. Confusion (luckily) greets me before panic. I fill my lungs in a vibrant white tiled room. The water still covers my ears, like a cushion, and I realize the hum of the water from the faucet has ceased. All seems still- but for whatever just shifted in my periphery.

Instinctively, my eyes fall towards the blur and I see from the depths below me a reaching- groping-, quivering, soil-caked hand with fingers like spider’s legs. Before a whimper can escape my lips the hands are upon me from within the deep and pulling me back under. A scream escapes with the air I’ve just taken, but it is silent and I can’t be sure if that is because of the water smothering it or if it’s been taken from me. I thrash against the hands and fight to surface to no avail until they allow it. I gasp in the air hungrily and snap my head towards where the hands had just been. I see, floating? No- not floating, dancing; a strange  woman in simple white night clothes across the room from me. She twists, rising and falling in beautiful spirals. Her gaze falls to mine and she seems as taken aback as I. Her dance pauses and I realize I am no longer in the tub. I am standing- when did I stand? The tub far from me in the room now, I stand closer to the strange woman than before, and I see my chemise and knickers no longer have the soil stains from the garden. My body feels as effortless as my hair in the tub. It seems to move on its own, instinctive or as if as directed. My hand lifts and reaches, I see the strange woman’s hand reach for mine, her face as curious as my own. When they meet, a charge surges through us and we are floating together- not floating, I remind myself,  dancing- spiraling, both lifting and falling;  not with one another but as one creature. As she falls, I take her weight and she lets me twist, this creature that lifts and moves through the tile room.

My mind blanks, comforted here. Her presence is soothing. I feel she understands what happened in the garden. It relaxes me. The corners of my eyes see echoes of our dance surrounding us- or are they others? Other sad, scared creatures that have found themselves comforted here in this white tile room? I spin and find myself seated up in the tub, the strange woman and the others gone like smoke. I sit as before and let my hips slide to my feet, lowering me comfortably under the water. When my head settles on the bottom of the tub, I open my eyes and once more see the warped ceiling of my bathroom. A dream. I must still have to breathe. I move to lift myself to the surface and feel resistance. My body stiffens and my eyes crane up to see a hand held firmly against my forehead, a hand belonging to a figure robed in black that stands above the tub. This time my scream rings even through the water.