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I lay in bed trying to capture some sleep yet it was as close to me as the stars of the cloaked sky. As I lay there, memories came back to me that I had thought lost for some time, memories that I had cast away into false erase so long ago in my youth.
These memories where that of once having true family, those who actually cared about me in the past; having joy, knowing how to feel and not having to resort to something else to feel anything at all; having someone there to understand and to hear me; having a normal life. Then…those memories lead to hellish recollections of the past that had taken away my normal life, those horrid torments that seemed to have come from the Grim Reapers skeletal mind.
I became immersed with rage as they came back even though I tired with every once of strength to push them away, but I could not. I began to remember screams, the mournful call of the nightingale, angry tears, and the words of hatred that the scythe of the Grim Reaper had brought onto my Old Family and myself. I remembered with a painful clarity when Shadow’s cloak had swallowed up my sister never to return her again and took my soul with her. Pain started tearing my heart, anger started to burn my lungs so I could not breath, sadness smothered me with a fine silk so I could not see or breath. And then I fell into sleep after all my strengths had been pulled from my grasp, I began to dream the day it all happened…
“Mira? Mira where are you?” called a woman with curly black hair, she stood in the middle of a meadow trying to find her two children, “Jacobin? Jacobin? Children where are you?” she called again in an echoing voice. This woman was my mother, her name was Jane Frost, and the darling of our town, and the one every one came to for advice on any matter. She was a beautiful woman with long black curly hair, a petite complexion and fair skin
“Here we are mother!” called a young woman with bright blue eyes (My mother’s eyes) and long black hair. This was my sister Mira, she was the second most kindest person I had ever known, she looked like my mother, “A literal replica of your mother” my father would always say. Mira had hopped out of a section of tall grass after she heard my mother calling out with worry
“We didn’t frighten you did we mother?” I said as I appeared next to my sister, I was nothing like my sister, my hair was red and my eyes were green like grass. I was an image of my father, Jack Frost. I had his lanky form and seemed to be silent more often than not. I was told that someday I would fallow my father’s footsteps into the law, how I laugh as I remember. If they had only known
“Now Children, don’t do that again! You know what time of the day it is! Now come on you two, we have to get home to meet your father,” said my mother as she sighed in relief, the last time she would ever do so
“Yes mother” we groaned together my sister and I as we started toward her
“Come on now, help me load these things into the car” said my mother as she started collecting dishes and placed them in our willow basket
“Oh mother, I’ve just remembered, I saw the most beautiful roses by the river that would make beautiful posies for tomorrow’s visit, could I go pick them?” said Mira, how I wish I had gone with her, if not to save her than to maybe go with her. That day Mira wore a new dress of blue silk with black embroidery on the skirt and matching gloves as well, my mother wore something similar yet in a deep purple while I wore my regular clothes.
“Alright but make it quick dear, night is soon to come upon us” said my Mother as she looked at her shadow thinking my sister was safe as long as the sun was up, but demon men follow no time, they come and destroy when they will it. There had been rumors of a man who came when night had fallen and took people into the shadows never to return them again to the light, particularly young women like my sister; they said he was demon who did unholy things to those he took away. My mother fearing for my sister had made us always come before night fell.
“Thank-you mother, I’ll be as quick as I can,” said Mira and off she went to the river to pick her roses while the sun still stretched slightly in the evening sky
“Jacobin, hurry up so we can leave as soon as your sister comes back” said my mother rather flustered, we picked things up fast but still my sister had not returned by the time the sun had started to fade away and the starts started to appear
“Mother, Mira’s taken too much time, shouldn’t we go look for her?” I said as I saw worry cloud my mother’s bright eyes
“Yes we should, come on,” said my mother as we went through the familiar path down to the brook, we saw no sign of Mira on the way down until we got to the riverbank. That’s where we saw her gloves on the ground along with some roses, a piece of her skirt lay there in a small puddle of something dark red, we saw the ground where she had stepped on and we saw the places where someone had stepped behind her, the signs of struggle. “He’s taken her,” said my mother in a small whisper, she sank down onto the ground as if she where a marionette with its strings cut
“No…no! He could not have taken her! Maybe she tore her skirt on the thorns and pricked herself on one of the stems” I said pathetically, “Mira, Mira! MIRA!” I yelled with all the force in my lungs but no answer came. I searched frantically in the tall grass to see if she was hiding again like before, but I could not find her. It became darker still until I saw something amongst the cut roses, a note, I opened it and read the sinister message it held
Pretty creature, so innocent and clean
Time to show her what men really mean
Time to show her what darkness really is
Time to show her what sadness really is
Time to give her some sin
Time to make her trash for the bin
Time to stain her with more than tears
Time to make her mother’s fears come to life
She is mine now
He had taken her, what my mother had tried to guard us from had finally reached us in one violent swoop. Some how I had pulled my mother into the car and coxed her to drive us home where I called the police; they were at our home as quickly as they could and started actions to retrieve my sister. My father came home an hour later and what he was informed of what had happened he went crazy and started looking for my sister on the streets, anywhere he could think of. I dreamt of all the anger and frustration that had accumulated in my home as we tried to find Mira, I dreamt of the song my sister’s pet nightingales had sung; I remember all the yells and reprimands my mother had given me, in her need to find someone to blame for what had happened, until several weeks after the abduction of Mira had occurred.
We had been called by man who was in charge of finding my sister to a morgue, we had been called to identify a young woman who had been raped and tortured, one of many girls that had been found to be on the list of abducted people in the past few months, “I know that this might disturb you to think that this might be your daughter’s fate, but I need to know if this is her” said he with a grim face as he saw my mother’s face
“I know,” said my mother in a voice barely more than a murmur, my father could not speak, and neither could I for that matter. We stepped inside the chamber where the bodies where housed and lead to a table where there was a body covered by a white sheet
“Please know we do not wish to put you through this ordeal, we’re just trying to narrow down our search” said the man just before he lifted the sheet and revealed the face of my sister. She had bruises on her face and she had died with her eyes open, and air of fear seemed to have been the last thing she saw, for her eyes had become frozen in it.
My mother fell into tears and my father just stood there as if he had become dumb, and I let only a few tears spill from me. Then I became completely numb from that moment on in my life. Then I awoke
Dawn was about t rise when I sat up in my bed, as the dream started to slip away from me, glad of this I started to examine my left arm. After the numbness had blanketed me I started resorting to scratching myself until the skin layers were peeled way so as to feel something, because even pain is better than nothing, they told me this conditions was known as self-mutilation but I didn’t care what it was, I just knew that this was a relief to feel something again. Of course, after trying to “make” myself feel pain so many times did leave scars on arm and wrist, something Mira had always said she disliked.
I never stopped talking to Mira, even after she had died. That was another reason why I slept in this bed and not one of my own; I was hospitalised in a psychiatric hospital soon after Mira had died because I started seeing her, well a ghost of her, in the middle of the night. She had pointed out to me who had taken her and what he had done to her, she spoke of her life on the other side, she told me so many things and she listened to me when I was sad. Yet no one believed me when I told them all who had killed my sister, they said he was too much of an upstanding man to have done that, that I was raving like lunatics.
Dawn finally rose high, my doctor came. He had a habit of rhyming when it came to young women, in rather ominous ways that matched the kind of rhyming I found in the note.
“well Good morning Mr. Frost, I see your up early” he said, His name was Dr. Castle and looked as if he should be in one of the beds himself. Mira had told me that he had been the one to take her away
“Dreams started again” I said, it had been more than three years since Dr. Castle had killed my sister and now I was seventeen. All the time people thought I was the crazy one, if only they knew that a mad man was the one who was caring for me.
“Oh but we’ll be able to fix that” said he as he prepared some tea for me, “Drink this and they’ll go away” he said
I took the cup but did not drink, “Why did you kill my sister?” I asked simply as I threw away the tea
“She tempted me Mr. Frost, now go back to sleep” he said with all the confidence of not being discovered, for who would believe a lunatic like me. I ignored his command and rested my back against the headboard, seeing that I was not going to comply with his instructions he left, but not before leaving a note on my nightstand
I killed your sister and there is nothing you can do
Because who would believe a lunatic like you?
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