Chapter 21
At first it is a muffled sound, like that of a wounded animal. I hear it the moment I step inside the room. It soon becomes crystal clear.
I will not be here long. I have much to do. I may be a poor cartwright, but my marchioness awaits.
I am not alone in this room. There are others here. We are all part of something, fractions of a whole. They talk to me, to each other, but I don't hear them. I hear what happened here years ago.
I stand in the corner, close my eyes. The scene unfolds, like a stage play viewed through frosted glass, two figures forever mired in a dark and terrible vignette.
She is a shy girl, no more than eleven. She has long blonde hair, woven into a braid.
'Who are you? Are you a friend of my mom's?'
'Yes. We are old friends.'
'You shouldn't be here.'
'It's okay. I like your dress. It is very pretty.'
'Thank you.'
'I have a prettier dress. One made especially for you.'
'For me?'
'Oh yes. It is your favorite color.'
'Blue?'
'A very pretty blue.'
'Can I see it?'
'In time.''
'Where do you know my mom from?'
'We work together.'
'My mom doesn't work anymore.'
'This was from before. From a long time ago.'
'Okay.'
'Do you know the story of Eve?'
'Eve?'
'Yes. Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eve who was tempted by an apple.'
The blade removed from its sheath the creak of worn leather the sound of a little heart beating in fear—
'I don't want you here anymore.'
'I won't hurt you.'
'I want you to leave, mister.'
'Don't you want your pretty new dress?'
'No.'
The blade shimmers in the bright afternoon sunlight—
'I'm going to get my sister. I want you to leave now.'
The blade flutters and darts soaring high into the air—
'Eve.'
The neighbors say they heard one scream that day, an unearthly wail that cooled the blood in their veins.
I hear it, too.
It is a sound that began a thousand millennia ago, a red wind that has blown through the ages, finding cracks in the world, a breeze that became a howling sirocco here, in the soul of a killer, in the festering heart of Room 1208.