There is a crack on the glass of the kitchen window. My breath fogs against it when I peer out, and it blends with the coiling swirls of mist that shroud the trees just outside, the shadows lying strangely still in the stifling, windless night.
The old house creaks in the silence, but not with my steps. I take care to skip the second stair to the upper floor, because the wood is old and lets out a heavy groan if stepped on, and make sure to walk on the left side, hugging the wall, my hands slipping into the faded reddish-brown stains that bleed into the wallpaper.
For a moment, when I stand in the doorway, my feet are cold. As if the frozen stream laps at them again.
I take another step, and warmth seeps back into me.
The room is painted a soft blue, unlike the green he promised me.
As green as your eyes, he had said, spinning me around the empty room, laughter filling the air as my skirts swirled around my legs, the material soft and silky. And as bright as your laugh.
He is sleeping, an arm curled around the woman who lies beside him. Even in the dark, I can see that she is pretty; her dark hair is pulled into a loose braid with just a few hairs falling out and framing her face.
I know my fingers are cold when I trace the line of her cheek – so soft, so supple – down to the jaw – so sharp, so angular – and reach the little rosebud lips that are slightly parted, her breath leaving in small puffs.
It would be so easy, I think, and I see the curved nail on my finger come to a rest right atop her sternum. She shifts, uneasy, but still deeply asleep.
But she is not my goal.
He promised we would live together.
He gave me a ring. It still hangs under the shirt that almost falls off my shoulders, cold and clammy.
The wind picks up, and the piercing howl through the crack in the window jolts him awake.
I smile.
He does not.
He turns pale, paler than my own skin when I found myself waking in the lake, a thin layer of frost over my face. His mouth opens and his eyes dart around anxiously, and I know he cannot see me, but he can feel me.
He can feel my cold grip around his throat, just like his on mine as he dragged me down the stairs, my head leaving those stains on the wall.
The wind howls louder, whistling through the window, and I step back. The fear and horror and terror and rage that fill me stay contained. I will make him feel it before I finally take him. He will walk into the water by himself to join me, at the end of it all.
I put another crack in the window before I leave, just to be sure.
Design by Neenu Elza
Article 19 