Evelyn Klebert

Well it’s Halloween, undeniably my favorite holiday. What you might not know is that I have a long standing tradition with my best friend since, well 7th grade. Every Halloween we write each other a Halloween story.  So this year I’ve decided to share mine here.  If you’re more than ready for things that go bump in the night, here is part one of Reconciliations.

*********

“There’s nothing to be afraid of my child.”
But a cold chill seemed to sweep throughout her bedroom, perhaps from the open window. And she shivered in response, but it passed by unnoticed by her mother who sat beside the dressing table.
Mannette Bijou pulled on a long lace shawl that hung loosely off the small wooden bench that faced the long oval mirror in front of her.  Her reflection seemed like a stranger, pale, thin, eyes wide, blue, marked with the shadows beneath from her restless nights of the past several weeks.
“I know it seems sudden, but if you remember I was only fifteen when I was married and you are on the edge of your seventeenth birthday.”
“And how did you like it?” She asked with a pronounced hollowness in her voice.
Even in the reflection of the mirror she could see her mother’s face blanche at her question. She sat perched precariously beside Mannette on the bench, her blonde hair in sharp contrast to her daughter’s long dark locks.
“I,” she hesitated. And Mannette knew as she instinctively knew so many things that it was something her mother never allowed herself to consider. “I made the best of things.”
“And is that all we have to hope for? To make the best of things?”
She saw her mother’s face harden knowing again instinctively that the walls had gone up and there would be no point in pleading her case. Marguerite Bijou had spent her life doing what was expected of her and she would brook no resistance in passing that mantle down to her only surviving daughter. “You’ll be the mistress of a great plantation.”
“And take Lanelle’s place?”
She didn’t believe that her mother’s face could pale any further. But she was mistaken. Marguerite stood up abruptly and crossed the room to the other side, standing by the open window.  But again Mannette noted that she seemed unfazed by the chill that her daughter felt was so palpable in the room.
Her mother turned her back to her as she looked out onto the darkened grounds of the Bijou plantation.  “Why would you say something so hurtful Mannette?” she whispered.
Mannette had swiveled round on the bench but still remained seated. She didn’t have the strength or inclination to comfort her mother. Her mother who had been complicit in arranging this torturous future for her. “Richard loved my sister, not me Mama. To force this marriage after her death. . .”
“There was an understanding between families made long ago. It was agreed upon.”
It was fatigue, fatigue that had settled so heavily around her chest. It had come with the sickness that had swept through the countryside nearly a year ago.  It had taken the lives of so many, on their plantation alone a third of the workers, a fourth of the house staff and in their own family a younger brother and her older sister Lanelle.  It had been so strange; she’d felt keenly as though she too was meant to go with them. She’d fully expected it and she suspected that everyone else did as well.  She was ill for weeks and even Dr. Aubrand had confirmed her suspicion. She hadn’t the strength to survive but somehow against all odds, against all predictions, she had, although at times in an odd disconnected way she felt as though she really hadn’t. “A cruel contract Mama, a loveless marriage.”
And then Marguerite had turned on her heel to face her directly with a cold, shrewd expression. “Poor little fool, my fanciful little fool. Thinking that such a thing is unusual. My sweet daughter it is rare that marriage is anything else.” And then she took a swift few paces across the room to the door. Without glancing back at her daughter she said rather sternly, “Get some rest, tomorrow is your engagement celebration.” And then she was gone, closing Mannette’s door behind her with a distinctive snap.
And another chill almost in response to her mother’s exit passed through the room. She wasn’t at all sure when her mother had hardened so.  She would like to say it was at the loss of two of her children the year before. But Mannette was certain it predated that - and now in recent days she’d begun to wonder if it had always been there. Perhaps in the past she’d just taken more lengths to hide it.
Possibly it had been the defense of a young girl thrust into an unhappy life so young. And she wondered if that too would be her fate to become distant, cold, removed. But even now on the threshold of her marriage it didn’t at all feel possible, not at all real.
She heard a sound from outside her window, an animal - an owl perhaps, but it was too deep, perhaps a coyote from the nearby forested lands. She pulled the shawl more tightly around her nightgown and peered outside moving the light sheer drapes aside with her hand. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked down. It felt almost like a painful clutch in her chest.
Below her window, further out on the grounds there was a man looking up at her, almost like a statue standing beside a beautiful white horse. She stared down at him from her second story bedroom and suddenly he motioned her down with his hand, beckoning her to join him.
Swiftly she closed the window and abruptly sat down on her bed.  Surely he would leave if she ignored him.  She didn’t recognize him but he must be from one of the neighboring plantations. Perhaps a visiting relative, a man who was clearly a stranger to her, but just a glimpse of him had elicited an odd warmth in her heart penetrating the coldness that had remained present since the sickness. With great fatigue she lay down on the bed closing her eyes without extinguishing any of the lamps in her room. And she dreamed.

“Mannette,” it came in a whisper.  But she heard it clearly, loudly in her mind.
“Mannette,” light but insistent. But no one was in her room. She awoke alone, the echo of the whisper reverberating in her mind. The chill wrapped all around her, and of the two oil lamps in her room one had burned down to nothing, while the other remained, though barely a flicker. She pulled the lace shawl tightly around her as the whole room now felt like ice. As did her skin. Was she dreaming? Or had she just awoken from a heavy slumber?
“Mannette,” again the voice called, a woman’s voice delicate but unyielding. It called; it pulled, insistent. Without thought she headed out of her bedroom door, bare feet although the wood beneath felt like her skin, chilled, cold. The hall on the second floor of the great house was darkened. It must be late she thought to herself but she continued onward, down to the other end where her feelings led her.
She passed the turn that led down to her parent’s suite, but continued onward, past the twin’s rooms, her two older brothers, and then past Gregory’s room, her younger brother who’d been taken along with Lanelle the year before.
Losing him had been a blow but her parent’s had raised the boys and girls separately, so there was not that degree of closeness that she had experienced with her older sister, that bond.  The two of them were like survivors of a passing storm, clinging to each other while all was chaos around them. Lanelle had always understood the difference in her younger sister, but shielded the world from seeing it.
She had coached Mannette in deception and protected her from her parent’s expectations. All her young life Lanelle had participated in the world while Mannette continually felt pulled away from it. Her visions she confided to no one but her older sister who compelled her to keep them secret.  Compelled her to use artifice to convince everyone that she was not who she was. And then she had gone leaving her on her own to assume the mantle of family responsibility.  More than once she had prayed for deliverance, prayed for escape.
She stopped in front of the black oak doorway at the end of the long hallway. It had been a year but nothing had been changed. One day her mother had taken her inside briefly insisting she go through her sister’s things and take what she wanted, but it had been impossible — the emotion, the feelings so tangible to her; she’d run sobbing away down the hall.  Her mother hadn’t understood. But that was not surprising. They didn’t exist in the same realm and her interpreter had left the earth.
Shakily she turned the brass doorknob and let the door float softly open.
She expected darkness but there was none. The room of her sister was illuminated in a soft glow. And more surprising than that it felt warm to her, beckoning. With eyes downcast she walked inside and felt the door behind her close by an invisible hand.
She moved forward, cheered by the glowing fireplace against the white plaster wall. She didn’t look elsewhere but simply moved toward it holding her icy hands before it to be warmed.
“You’re chilled,” the gentle voice whispered behind her. But she didn’t turn round. She just focused on the warmth that was seeping through her fingertips.
“Mannette,” it whispered. But she wouldn’t turn round, out of fear, out of obstinacy.
“It’s your fault,” she rasped shakily. “It’s your fault. This should be your life, your marriage. I didn’t ask for it.”
“I’m sorry dearest one,” the voice consoled in an echo.
Her throat filled with tears, how could she be so selfish, how could she be so angry at her poor dead sister. “I didn’t want to live,” she whispered. “I never belonged here anyway. This was your world.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s true enough.”

And then Mannette’s eyes opened into the darkness of her room. She sat up in her bed. Both oil lamps had burned down into nothingness. She breathed in deeply still smelling the embers of the fire in her deceased sister’s room. The wind flapped through the gossamer drapes and she crossed the room and looked out the open window. He still stood beneath, the stranger with the white horse, not motioning now, just staring up at her. She backed away hesitating for a moment, then decisively pulled on her black boots on, grabbed a cloak from the armoire, and hurriedly headed downstairs.

Copyright © 2009 by Evelyn Klebert

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.