The Demon Who Loved Me

Chapter-5

Arthur Huckley always doubted that the day he screamed was the day his father started hating him. He had been six then. A wee boy who was still interested in butterflies. His nurse had fed him and tucked him into his bed. Although he never experienced anything other than his nurse tucking him into bed, Arthur thought this was somehow not right. His nurse should not be the one wishing him good night, should she? It had to be his mother or his father. Or better both. He longed in his little heart for closeness with the two people who had brought him into the world. He was too young to understand the rules and norms of the system he was born into or his father’s disinterest in a son who had not yet learned horse riding.

That night was a normal one at first. The nurse had snuffed the candles, and the room glowed in soft moonlight the glass windows were letting in. She walked out of the room and quietly closed the door behind her. Arthur fell asleep in a second, as all the young boys ought to do. He woke up hours later, at 3 AM. He didn’t know to this day what had made him wake up. But when he opened his eyes, he was looking at a woman. She was sitting on his bed, staring at him, unblinking. Arthur stared at her through the haze of his sleep, and when the haze cleared, his fists were bunched at his sizes. Some survival instinct told him to not move, not provoke that woman. He lay there, every muscle in his body locked.

He saw strange people in the house before. In the nursery, in the garden, near the lake. They were always a good distance away, just standing or sitting there, staring at him. But they always went away when he blinked. He tried to approach them sometimes, but they always disappeared before he could even see their features clearly. This woman was near, so near that he could touch her. But Arthur had wanted nothing but her to go away. He blinked, almost sure that when he opened his eyes, she would be gone. But she was there, still staring down at him.

Her face was gaunt like she hadn’t eaten in months. Her eyes were impossibly big and pitch black. They looked like an abyss that could suck the whole room in. An abyss made of despair and sorrow. Her nose was broken and her lips were cracked. They formed a thin line as though she had no reason to open them. Arthur felt his own lips and tongue drying. He didn’t understand who or what she was. Just that she was something to be feared. But his curiosity soon won over his fear, and he opened his mouth.

“Who are you?” He asked. His voice sounded smaller and weaker than usual in the silence of the vast room. His father would have hated it. It was not always this silent, he thought. There were always those creaks and groans old houses made. But tonight there was not a single sound but his breathing and voice. It was as though the lady had sucked all the sound into her.

She didn’t answer. She continued looking at him like she didn’t notice him moving or speaking. When Arthur was sure that she was not going to answer, she spoke:

“I am a part of this.” She said. Her voice was brittle. Like crumbling paper in his father’s library. It was unpleasant to hear.

“Part of what?” Arthur asked, emboldened by her reply.

“This house.” She now answered immediately. “I am a part of its history. Like its walls and paintings. I was here, I am here and I will always be here.”

Arthur didn’t understand, but he nodded all the same.

“Are there others like you?” He asked, remembering the strangers he spotted in the house all his life.

“Yes,” She said. “Place like this. It has dozens of lives in its walls. Affected by it.”

“Oh,” He said. He didn’t understand any of that.

“You’ll soon understand.” The woman said like she read Arthur’s mind. She raised her hand, her skin so sickly that it was almost grey. Her nails were long, chipped at the end. “Your life will soon be a part of this place. Like your father and mother will be. He hates you. But he will do anything and everything to make you a Huckley like him. And then you will be bound here forever.” Her hand reached towards him, as though she wanted to touch his hair. And Arthur didn’t want that. He didn’t want the lady’s hands on him. He was dead sure that he would become like her if she touched him. His skin would turn grey and his brown eyes would turn into endless pools of black.

That was when he screamed. He screamed with all the energy a six-year-old could muster up at 3 AM. He shut his eyes, pulled the sheets over his head, and screamed. Then he heard the door open. But he didn’t dare open his eyes or pull down the sheet. Then he heard the hiss of fire and beyond his eyelids, he could make out an orange glow. The candles were lit.

Arthur was never told ghost stories. His father was not tolerant of his heir hearing all those silly stories. But Arthur knew in his bones that the lady would not be there when someone else- someone human was in the room. It was safe for him now. He peeked out from under the sheets and there they were. His nurse looking concerned, her mother looking sad as always, and his father looking frustrated.

“Why in the world are you screaming like a pansy?” His father boomed. Arthur sat up, leaning against his pillows. In the light, it was his father who scared him more than the lady with the strangely big eyes.

“I...I…” He stammered. Should he tell his father? Would he believe him?

“Don’t tell me you have seen a ghost. That’s the last stupid thing I want to hear from your mouth. Anyone heard of a future duke who is afraid of ghosts.” He didn’t say this as angrily as Arthur had expected. But it was still enough to stop him from saying the truth.

“I had a nightmare.” He said, finally. It was the closest he could get to the truth and the most plausible explanation. But he himself had not believed. The lady was not a nightmare. She was true.

“Fine, sleep well.” His father said with exasperation. He then turned away and walked out of the room. His mother looked at him and let out a long sigh. She brushed his brown curls back and walked out of the room.

“Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep, Master Huckley?” The nurse smiled gently down at him.

“No, I am fine.” He nodded his head enthusiastically. If only his father knew that he was scared and asked the nurse to stay with him, he could expect the disgusted stare the duke would give him. The nurse hesitated a moment, staring uncertainly at him, but then retired to her quarters after snuffing out the candles again. Arthur lay in the dark, staring up at the high ceiling. He knew it was over for this night. She was not going to come back any soon. But he was still alert, jumping at every little creak and groan. And somewhere in his fear, he fell asleep.

*********

That night proved to be just a taste of what was about to come. He started spotting more and more people in more and more sinister forms. He saw men with their limbs missing, saw women with bruises on their arms. They all stared at him, with the same look of despair he saw in that woman’s eyes. But he didn’t see the gaunt woman again. She was the single snowflake that had started an avalanche, never to be seen again. Sometimes, these people frightened him and he would scream, though he knew his father hated it and hated him for it. He couldn’t help it.

The worst thing was no one else could see those people, even if they were standing there in full sight. He was the only one, and he soon earned a reputation for being a freak. A boy who jumped at the shadows. The servants talked about it in hushed whispers. But the whispers were not so hushed when his father heard them. The duke tried to talk to his son. To tell him there were no ghosts. Only i***t children would believe in them. But what did his father know? He never saw the grotesque people with their piercing gazes.

But Arthur doubted his father started to believe him over the months. When he saw the suppressed fear on his son’s face, he no longer scoffed. His gaze became watchful. But the disgust still remained. He did nothing to dilute his son’s fears, nothing to understand what strange things were going on in his life. The distance grew until the father had become almost a stranger to the son. But the worst thing of all happened when Arthur was eight. He was playing in the garden, bouncing a ball against the tree. He wondered how amazing it would be to have a friend so he could play catch with him. At intervals, he watched his mother walking on the third-floor balcony in her wistful way, watching the sky and sighing deeply.

Then she walked to the railing, gripped it tightly, and shut her eyes. Arthur stopped playing and stared at his mother. He knew something profound was going to happen. She opened her eyes and looked directly at her son. And smiled. The brightest smile Lady Huckley had ever given her son. And then she flew. That’s how Arthur had always remembered that moment. One second, she was standing on the balcony, and in the next, she was airborne like a bird, and then she was free falling. The next second she hit the ground and lay limp like a sack of potatoes.

There was a huge uproar as the servants ran to the spot, all wide-eyed and pale. But little Arthur stood where he was. The strange people had gathered around the servants and stared at him. And then Arthur fainted.

********

She was always melancholy.

She became worse after giving birth to that poor boy.

He is still in shock, the poor lad.

Words of all kinds floated into Arthur’s ears. Words of pity. Words of how he had made his mother’s condition worse. And how he was not crying at the funeral.

The wall between the father and son crumbled, and an abyss replaced it. An abyss so like the gaunt woman’s eyes. The duke didn’t come right out and say it. But there was it, written on his face as clear as a day.

You did it; you freak. You and your strange people have done it.

Arthur started to believe it himself.