I had become much better at finding my ways around the Manor, which meant I was with my unaware sisters in a flash. There, my discoveries evoked a lot of unrest and distress…obviously.
‘Are you POSITIVELY sure, it was them?’ Annie asked, who, after a good beauty nap, had also awakened profound anxiety in her.
‘One hundred percent positive.’ I spoke in a sober tone. ‘They can’t be dead, can they?’ I had completely forgotten about the orange-mirror episode as the latter one frazzled me considerably more.
‘Ghosts! Zombies! Vampires! They’re the undead! I want to get out of here before they kill us!’ Roxanne practically shouted, and went to pack her things in haphazard frenzy.
‘Stop! You’ll only be endangering yourself further. The Aunts don’t know about my wandering…if they knew all that I had seen, then we’d be in trouble – and we’re practically in the middle of nowhere – so let’s just pretend we don’t know anything till we can find a way out of this place!’
Having said that, there was a large creek at the door, and the knob turned slowly; we all clustered together, sure it was one of the Aunts, but it wasn’t, it was Joe. Heaving sighs of relief, we all asked where in the world she had been.
‘Exploring,’ said Joe mischievously. ‘And you won’t believe what I’ve found out.’
Gauging her confidence, I challenged her, ‘Is it any where near as shocking as the three of our Aunts dead, interesting?’ Then when she looked at me with a look of surprise, I told her all that I knew. Joe’s tone turned grim and she felt the trepidation seize over her when she narrated all that she did.
‘There was a large door that was locked. It smelt of a thousand carcasses rotting away…with their flesh slit off and exposing the raw of their insides…’ She spoke slowly…while Annie and Roxy made faces of disgust, Del, twisting her nose as if psychologically aware of the heavy bloody stench.
‘And there were scratches on the door…but apart from that the entire passage was empty. There was also a very small keyhole…kind of like a spike, really…’
Instinctively, I held out the key. ‘That’s probably it!’ Joe pointed. ‘What do you think is behind the door?’
Feeling the need to find out more, I tossed the key and caught it in my hand, and clenched my fist tight. ‘Only one way to find out.’
Joe, grinning from ear to ear, nodded. I got up from the floor and said how it had to be done quickly then. We reached for the door when Roxanne caught my arm and expostulated on the increased risk of all these endeavours, but we couldn’t leave any more unanswered questions hanging in the air.
We slid through the opened panels in Joe’s room that she had put back. It was a long corridor with no doors on either side, and nothing but the big black door beckoning us at the end. I held out the key and inserted it in, giving a silent crack, as Joe held the torch against it. ‘Perfect fit’ I mumbled. The heavy stench was oppressive, and weighed down on us like a bloody massacre. I pushed back the door, and held the torch against it, drawing back in revulsion.
The whole room was full of brutally mutilated corpses. There were heaps and heaps of bloodied bodies stacked together on the floor, that had been showered in a massive sheet of red, with the features of their faces gone – as if they had been twisted like cloths, in extracting every bit of life they had. They were useless, and remained stagnantly decayed. The walls had freshly slaughtered bodies of women hanging, as their bodies weren’t decrepit, and the areas around their eyes were cut out. Joe, who had distorted her face in absolute horror, backed away and dared not move – terror had too powerful a grip on her to let her proceed any further. I held the torchlight with all the firmness I could conjure, and walked inside. Three slots were vacant on the wall, as if some bodies were removed. I further realized that the bodies were only ‘skins’, and that they were hollow on the inside. Their entire skeletal bones had been scraped and scooped out from them, leaving the empty vessels. I recognized some of the faces from the pictures I had seen, and understood the ‘odes to the dead’ were for the dead locked and concealed away in this forbidden chamber. There was a huge mirror at the front of the room, of course blotted, with spots of blood on it, but what really directed my attention towards it was the sudden ‘clinking’ noise that could be heard, and to my horror, as the light I directed towards it, was because of the zigzagged crack that appeared at the corner.
‘We have to get out of here!’ I screamed, clutching the door and struggling to lock it with the key that kept sliding from my sweaty hands. ‘They’re coming!’
Joe was in a state of shock, and upon shaking her head to come to terms with the necessity of rushing out of the corridor, ran as fast as I did towards her room. ‘Who’s coming? What’s going on?’ She cried.
There was no time to think, we just had to get back to the rest. The coast was clear so far, I thought, but just when we entered the girls’ bedroom, Aunt Cora, Sora and Nora were already there.
‘Oh you dears! Where were you?’ Aunt Sora began, sashaying her long sanguine nails. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost!’ Her white face was staring at me.
‘Umm…no, err, just…’ I began, but stumbled miserably.
‘Carr, the Aunts have come to wish me a happy sixteenth!’ Annie broke in, gleaming.
Realizing the circumstances, I quickly glanced at my watch; it was 12:04 a.m. I quickly looked up. ‘Right! Joe and I came rushing in to wish her! But look – we’re four minutes late.’ I glanced back at Joe, who was still breathing heavily and contracted my mouth asking her to play along.
Getting the drift, she quickly threw her arms around Annie and wished her a happy birthday.
‘We have arranged for a special celebration of Annie’s birthday tonight.’ Aunt Cora cooed, clasping her hands together. She then turned towards Aunt Nora, who was by the window looking at the moon, and then nodded affirmatively towards Aunt Cora. Her excitement could not be contained, for some reason.
‘Tonight?’ I asked concernedly, while Annie grinned so much I felt sure her jaw was going to drop. ‘Tonight…we’re all tired. Let’s do it tomorrow.’
Aunt Cora, who had been smiling at her sisters, stopped short and looked me in the face. ‘Dearie, we are GOING to celebrate tonight, Annie darling?’ She held out her arm to Annie, who came forward and nestled by her shoulder like some, little bird. ‘You’re not tired, are you?’ She immediately shook her head. ‘Oh…’ Aunt Cora began, stroking her face. ‘You are so, so beautiful…’ She said dreamily. Annie smirked and added, ‘I know!’ But Aunt Cora kept caressing her, which disturbed me. She began to run her fingers through her golden-peach hair, and said, ‘Adelyn wouldn’t have stood a chance against you. No…you ARE the one.’ Her eyes shone. I could see Annie get a little uncomfortable herself.
‘We have prepared a special surprise for Annie…’ Aunt Cora spoke, as she twirled around with Annie, still very close to her. ‘A gift. Come with us…’
‘We’ll come too.’ Delilah asserted, that was hushed by the glare Aunt Nora gave to her, while brushing past them and joining her sisters. ‘This one thing, is a gift of ours, to not only An-nie, but also to Adelyn. We’ve been saving it for so long’
This wasn’t going well, so I chimed in, ‘we would love to know about the generous gift you have undoubtedly been saving for Annie. Mom had told me, before the’, stopping short, but continuing after regaining myself, ‘she told us to always stick together. Surely YOU of all people would want your sister’s last request to be carried out.’
Annie agreed with me earnestly. Whatever awesome plan was in store, she needed an audience to display it in front of. ‘I won’t go without Carr!’
Aunt Cora looked at me slyly. ‘Very well. Only YOU may accompany us then.’ Annie looked happy, while the others, disappointed.
The Aunts turned to go, still clutching Annie closely. I seized the moment and quickly grabbed Joe; the others came closer to me as well. ‘I need to get Annie out of there! I think I have a pretty good i
dea of what’s coming up next!’ Roxanne and Delilah didn’t understand, and I knew Joe would explain the rest, so giving a serious glance of reliance, I ran to catch up with the party of the dark. I heard the door lock itself, and knew they had been trapped in the bedroom too.
They were making their way to the second floor, and as I guessed correctly, to the library. Annie kept asking them where she was taken, but was ignored. Throughout this little journey, all I could think of were those nasty nightmarish bodies…and what exactly was going to happen now. As expected, we entered the library and into the small door…I was about to see the prohibited room finally, too.
It was...a lair. There was a big black cauldron in the middle that cast a light of dirty yellow in the entire room. There were also spots of blood on the floor around it. As soon as we entered, I felt something funny tug at my mouth; like something sewing it’s way between my lips. I brushed them with my finger, hoping the irritation would cease. Looking towards the Aunts, they had gathered around the cauldron, with Aunt Cora leading Annie to a long wooden desk, by the hand. They glanced at the moon once more and back at Annie, grinning for all. It was a full moon. Aunt Cora, then held Annie by the arms, and spoke. I felt myself unable to proceed forwards, for, my feet had stuck to the floor and my mouth was immobile. I had been bewitched. I just stood from a distance and watched it all unravel, helplessly.
-- CHAPTER 11 --
The Transformation
Refraction of Beauty Page 12