So, I'm writing a novel, set in England about the 1900's.This is the beginning..
Prologue
Her hands shook as she gazed
at the heart, burned and scratched brutishly into the now scarred back door of
her home. Her safe haven. Inside the heart were her initials, D.S.G. Underneath
was the cross, signifying her love for another. Below, slashed deeper than her
initials, more boldly, were two more letters: S.B. A third letter had been
started, but apparently not finished.
Debra took a step back, her hard high heels making a dull
thud on the wooden porch below her feet. Her pink dress and brunette, curly
hair blew before her in the cold wind. Goosebumps rose on her bare arms and her
clasped her fists tightly together, pressing them against the bare skin on her
chest. The elaborate necklace, diamonds studded in pure gold, felt like a
snowflakes on her pale flesh. The winds blew harder as the sun sunk long ago
behind the trees the lines her property. She'd had her the young man whom had
given her a ride home in his carriage drop her off at the end of the rode, for
fear of the whispers of her sisters and scolding of her parents. She was old
enough to conduct herself in proper fashion, but they seemed to all consider
her a child, incapable of independence.
She was completely alone here. She had no suitors, her family was
already asleep. But how had the vandal written this on the door without their
knowledge, without them hearing? Surely their ever-attentive servant would have
heard the sounds of this destruction. Debra's reached towards the door, curling
albescent fingers around the brass door knocker. She brought it down twice on
the heavy, oak door.
She waited, trembling. She had always been afraid of the
dark, though she pretended to have left this phobia behind, in her childhood.
No the moon was hidden behind clouds, that uttered forth threatening thunder.
She grabbed the door knocker and slammed it against the door with more urgency
than before. Still, no one came. She had to get inside.
Debra took the door knob in her quivering fingertips, hands
too cold to grip it tightly. She turned the knob and pushed. There was no light
shining through the immaculately clean windows. The hour had slipped away from
her, but she knew it was quite late; everyone was probably already asleep. She
pushed on the door, but it didn't open. She turned the knob harder, wondering
if it were perhaps locked. It wasn't. She pushed against the door harder, and
it opened a bit, only to become jammed against something inside.
An irrational paranoia rose within her. Her breath was
short, eyes darting in the darkness. She put her back against the door and
pushed with all of her one hundred and twenty three pounds. The lace back to
her dress got caught in the splinters of the carving on the door, slipping through
the delicate fabric and scratching her porcelain back. She flinched,
repositioned herself against the door and pushed harder. It slowly opened
inward, the old hinges creaking with the pressure. It was completely dark
inside, with the exception of the opaque beams of light that battled their way
through from outside. The small bit of light caught a glimmer on the floor. The
servants were not doing a very good job keeping the place tidy. What had been
blocking the door.
Debra's family, the Godfrey's, kept a lantern and matches
on a small shelf,left, directly inside the door. Debra reached through the
partially open door to retriever the lantern. She struck a match, holding it to
the short bit of wick that was left. It would need to be replaced soon. The wick was stubborn, the wind fought to
keep it from lighting. The match burned too quickly, burning her tender
fingertips. She dropped the match. She shrieked as the floor beneath her feet
ignited in flame. The flame spread around the room in seconds, until it
surrounded everything in a burning, orange circle. The fire illuminated the
contents of the room.
Debra did not scream. Only let out a short, breathless cry
of horror and fear. Everyone who lived in this home, her family, her servants,
were lying on the ground, the persian carpet soaking up there blood, black in
the juxtaposition of bright firelight and and utter darkness. Their eyes were
open, wide open; their pupils were dialated in fear, creating the illusion that
in their last moments, their souls had escaped and left them as ghoulishly made
dolls with buttons as eyes. Their skin was flecked and splattered with their
own blood and the blood of those around them. The longer Debra stared, the less
human they appeared.
She was suddenly aware of a searing pain in her leg. She
looked down. Fire was dancing to an unknown, heathen beat by her toes. Her
stocking were beginnign to melt onto her skin. She took to quick stepped
backwards, unsteadily stumbling away. Her mind was blurred and all she knew is
she had to go, she had to get away. Through the open door she could see flames
begin to reach farther up the wall, consuming the floral wallpaper like an
emaciated child who's been handed a wealth of candy. Debra continued to step
backwards. The heal of her shoe caught between two floorboards. She twisted as
she fell backwards, trying to catch herself. Her ankle twisted taking away her
breath completely.
When she fell she had reached the steps to the porch. Her
weak wrists tried to stop her fall, but did nothing to impede her body from
crashing against the shape edges of each step. She felt a crack in both of her
wrists and pain comparable to that which was in her ankle shot up her arms. The
shoe which had been lodged in the porch came loose and she felt herself slide
down the stepped. The sides of her dress tore, leaving her flesh exposed to the
rough wood, It scraped her skin mercilessly. The side of her dress caught on a
nail that had been left carelessly exposed and when she tried to sit up the top
of her garment was torn from her defenseless body, leaving her in only a small,
white slip.
The fire began to make its way over the whitewashed porch,
leaving black fingerprints wherever it could. It grew in intensity, lustfully
swallowing the foundations of the massive home. It reached the sturdy pillars,
which supported the porch's high roof. Debra stared at the fire. It's heat,
drawing nearer with each agonizing moment, reached out and touched her numb
skin, flirting apatheticly with the innocent flesh.
She knew she had to move, but when she tried to push
herself back, away from the monster that wanted her, that seemed desprate to
end her, her wrists limply refused to do anything but send excruciating pain
through her, causing her to cry out in pain.
The tears began to pour down her pallid face, now smudge
with ash and masked with dark smoke. She lay back, unblinking as she watched
the flame killed everything she knew. She was going to die here. Just minutes
ago she had been knocking at the door to her home, a door, a door with her
initials carved into it, which was now dust and ash, floating into her lungs,
blowing away from the Hell this place had become. Now she was finished. How
could everything end like this? The tears running from her streaming eyes and clouded her vision
brought forth images of what was inside the house. Each of them had been killed
in the same way. Flat on their backs. A jagged heart carved into their exposed
necks. The initials beckoning to her on
the door called to her, she searched her memory for someone with a name
beginning with S and ending with B. But her mind was slowly shutting down. It
was only aware enough to tell her that somehow, this was her fault.
She closed her eyes and stopped trying to force air into
her empty lungs. Her stiff body conformed to the ground below her and no more
thoughts could manifest themselves in her mind.
The screams of the bellowing fire began to fade in her deafened ears.
Then she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She tried to open
her eyes, to see if this was really the end, if this was and angel or demon,
waiting for her to give up and follow them to eternity, but she couldn't. She
just felt two hands slip behind her scraped and bleeding back and lift her. One
of the hands positioned itself below her bent knees cradling her gently, but
firmly. It felt like when she was a young girl and her father would carry her
to bed after she had fallen asleep on the sofa.
A body bent over her protectively
and she felt it moving away from the heat. She opened her mouth, tried to
speak, but her jaw just went slack her
head leaned back against a firm shoulder.
With all the concentration she could summons she opened one
blue eye half way. Was this a vision, was she already dead? No, he was there.
The man from the dance she had attended months ago. The one who had watched her
silently, before talking to her for hours on end. The one she had gone to town
to meet every day since. The one who had become her secret lover. The one who
had taken her home. The one with the black covered carriage and the cobalt and
white horses. The one who was now
putting a scratchy cloth bag, that reached of urine, over her head.
