Lady of Sorrow (Ch.2: Lady of Sorrow)

Five years later.

     I had become published as a writer. Authoring the gothic genre in poetry and novels. I had written about my near-death experience and it drew local readers in. I happened to purchase an old Victorian home on the seaside cliffs of that small town in Maine, the property adjoining the very graveyard my ghostly body ventured, where that terrible fire of the chapel occurred. Now fenced off and vandalized with spray paint. The graveyard since the story of the accident has seen much loitering and vandalism of headstones. Empty beer cans and nips litter the crabgrass and weeds…

     Drifting into that nightmare, the beads of sweat on my forehead, my carotid pulsing, and unlike the dead, I gasp! It’s called PTSD and it’s terrible to live with. I awaken reliving the trauma, not memorizing.

     Having that nightmare for the umpteenth time over the years, I’m always drawn to that young beautiful woman, her body and face burned until charred black, and her scream! Horrendous! Everything after the accident was my near-death experience and therefore a dreadful nightmare. Recurring throughout the years I have to relive witnessing Jason’s body aflame and my compound fracture – right side femur. I now have a limp and it aches constantly as a reminder of when I was on the threshold of life and death.

     It’s important to note at the beginning of this chapter that the next series of events to occur, happened as I drifted back out of that nightmare and found myself, as always, before a cold, black fireplace before my couch. My laptop had gone into sleep mode, resting on my leg and the cushion. Those beads of sweat, my harsh pulse, putting more effort into breathing… then something new, something I hadn’t awakened to from that nightmare, ever. Thunder. But it was repetitive and I did not sense flashes of lightning through the parted curtains of my den. The thunder continued and intensified. I heard no rain battering the windowpanes nor the howl of any wind. But that particular thunder I thought I was dreaming but then I awoke…

     It was by the hand of a person knocking at my front door! I realized this when I snapped open my wet eyes and jolted at the hard knocking. I positioned my laptop onto my desk right there in the den and made for the door. Pissed off.

     As I swung open the door a wave of nausea hit me, and before me stood a beautiful, young woman in a green tank top and a jean miniskirt that were drenched, as was her long, black curly hair. She had heavy eyeshadow which smudged and ran down her face.

     Scanning my property, I noticed evidence of a torrid downpour very recently as I spotted her footprints in the deep mud leading up to my front porch. I said the only thing I could think of, “Are you in trouble, miss? Did you walk here in the storm?”

    Here she choked, and cherry-red bags under her eyes formed before she answered, “It’s a long way from Massachusetts to hitchhike and then walk.”

     My eyebrows gathered in perplexity, so I decided to ask her, “Miss, what’s this all about?”

     I hadn’t noticed yet, but she was cradling two books tightly against her chest. The pages were very damp and the covers warped at the corners and edges. She peered down at these books and gave a little shrug of her shoulders saying, “You’re the reason… I mean, your amazing work brought me to you.”

     I just have to admit here, I became intensely nervous immediately. I cautiously positioned my left foot against the door to act as a jam, and thought of the canister of pepper spray I had on a shelf beside the door to my right. Cautiously, I looked down at the two books and recognized one of them as my bestseller: GOTHIC FOREST. The other was leather-bound with ebony lacing, I could not make out a title. So, something made me relax save for the intense nausea, and I commented sarcastically, “Ah, I see, a fan who found my address and now she’s aspiring… wanting me to read her work, how flattering!” But for the life of me, I could not make out why I felt so intensely nauseated.

     She recognized my sarcasm and stretched out her hands appealingly to me, pleading, “Please Mr. Schacht! I’ve come a long way! It was a desperate decision for me to make… not like I had much anyway to walk away from.” She again choked and a torrent of tears streamed down her flushed face. As her hands were outstretched, I read the title on the leather-bound book: LADY OF SORROW, BY RAVEN.

     “Raven? I presume. Tell me, what do you want?”

     Her shivering hand came to rest on her book as she answered, “You have your life’s work and I have mine. I’m unpublished. No agent or publisher is getting back to me!” Here she became riled.

     So, to keep her calm, I said, “Look, miss, I am flattered. I appreciate all my fans. You cannot just come to my door because… because you want me to read your manuscript. It doesn’t work like that.” I was sure to keep my voice steadily calm. No facial expressions except surprise and the show that I was happily flattered. Next, I asked her, “Ok, Raven, if I turned you away here, where would you go?” What she answered, scared me…

     She turned her head and her eyes fell as a deep gaze at the graveyard which adjoined my property. The black ruins of the chapel served as a haunting reminder every time I looked over there. And it was there, where my feeling turned to dread, as she bared such a striking resemblance to the burning young woman in that nightmare. She said, almost in a whisper, “That graveyard, it’s so beautiful. I’m sure it’s filled with beautiful ghosts.”

     Then she slowly peeled her eyes away and gazed back into mine. Then she smiled the reddish bags under her eyes gone, the tears stopped streaming, her sudden overall aura was one of happiness.

     I stood there speechless. Finally, I said, “Well, look Raven. You have to leave. Do not come back. I don’t accept manuscripts from writers, ever. You must go or I’m calling the police and charges will be filed. Please, Raven.” I then happened to point at the graveyard, however, my intention was a gesture back towards Massachusetts, as I elevated my voice, “Home!”

     She again turned her eyes to the graveyard and said, “Home.”

     By that point, I was revolted by the interaction and I leaned back, slamming the door shut, grabbed the pepper spray, and kept my foot as a jam on the door. I waited a few moments before I parted the curtains on my door. And when I did, she was not at least in the frame of the window. Cautiously, I opened the door. And cautiously, I craned my head out, scanning the property and even the graveyard. But I had found she had vanished.

    I stepped out, pepper spray in hand. I walked the length of my porch which wraps around my Victorian home. No sign of the young woman. No sign of another car having been in my driveway. I scoffed and relaxed, walking back inside to my writing den.

     After replenishing the fireplace with fresh logs and the flames were licking the bark, the snapping of the fireplace was both relieving and therapeutic. Paradoxically, the sounds of fire both terrify and calm me. PTSD is a bitch!

     I took my laptop out of sleep mode and read what I had typed last night before that nightmare made its nightly return to my poor soul:

     “The suicides scream vainly to shut ears in the heavens…”

     I couldn’t remember why I wrote that or what storyline I had in mind, maybe it was the first line to a poem or maybe it was a story hook?

     The thunder returned as I entered my kitchen. Not the hellish knocking my visitor made, but booms from the heavens and the flashes of lightning were evident in my kitchen windowpanes. There was a strong gust and the old house creaked the panes were now battered by the bullets of the downpour.

     Onto the stovetop, my pan went as I was preparing breakfast. All-American bacon, eggs, and toast. Between five years prior, that nightmare, and the strange young woman at my doorstep, put me in a mood where I felt both restless yet unproductive since the morning was my prime writing time. Eating was all I had the strength and desire for and as I thought this, I realized that horrible nausea had vanished like Raven from my doorstep… hopefully forever.

     Then what happened next really pissed me off…

     The kitchen fuse blew! Off went my electric stovetop and my toaster. I heavy-footed through my kitchen to the basement stairs and down the sagging steps to the circuit breaker box. And as my fingers pinched the switch, I heard a powerful boom of thunder and a howling gust of wind as my front door slammed open. I swore I deadbolted that door after my strange visitor disappeared!

     My fingers rested on the switch as I listened. Listening more closely than I ever had in my life. Then the sound of the front door slamming shut and reopening with such force it had to of been by the stormy gusts or… by the hand of someone…

     Then just above me… footsteps. The floorboards were creaking just above me and giving a position, and whoever it was, was in my reading room. There could be no mistake about it. The storm, the gusts were now swinging the door on its squeaky hinges yet the footsteps felt like a silent thunder, a foreboding of something terrible. It was her, I thought. Then I realized my phone was upstairs on the kitchen counter. Think and action, I thought. So I cut the power to all the rooms including the basement.

     In the darkness, the footsteps above continued at a slow pace, and she made her way into the kitchen – which made me nervous as my phone was within reach of her and the door down into the basement was open. Then she paused in her step. And then the sound of her bolting out through the front door.

    Dim light penetrated down the stairs from the kitchen so I raced up the stairs and a tremendous sense of relief came when I saw my phone. But before I went for it, I scanned the kitchen to see if any knives were missing from their place. Only the butter knife on the counter I was going to use was out.

     My next move was to grab a knife and hold it as firmly in one hand as I would the pepper spray in the other, my phone I immediately dialed 9-1-1 and kept it on speaker in my pocket.

     I slowly made my way through the kitchen into the den and to the front door which was now shut. I parted the curtains and saw something that filled my very soul with horror… it was Raven… standing with her back to me… at the edge of the cliff!

     I dropped the knife and pepper spray pulled out my phone and as I could hear the dispatcher, I did not answer due to the shock. I ripped the door open and leapt over my porch steps towards Raven. “Stop! Stop! No! Don’t do it!” I cried.

     Her black silhouette then stretched out her arms and she allowed gravity to take her. I did not stop until I got to the edge and witnessed her body being tossed by the waves crashing against the jagged rocks like a rag doll. I fell on my knees into the mud and cried as the heavens themselves cried over me.

     Later, I watched members of the Maine State Police and the search and rescue teams do their work. There was a helicopter, and many officials. The media camped across the road from my home. And when the black body bag was hoisted up to the helicopter, I again teared up. Was this my fault, I questioned myself. Poor girl, I thought…

     A detective spoke to me asking many questions and I answered everything that had happened. “Have you taken a look around your home, yet?” The detective asked.

     “What should I be looking for?”

     “You mentioned she had two books with her?”

     I nodded.

     “We found nothing in the water but her, then again whatever she took with her could have been washed out to sea.”

     I somehow broke the line of questioning by stating, “I had no… premonition. None. Something like this would happen.”

     The silver-haired detective responded, “In my thirty years… whether it’d be suicide or homicide or even someone’s child kidnapped, the victims’ families or friends or even you – a witness to her suicide never see it coming.”

     “Who is she? Her last name I mean.”

     The detective’s eyebrows gathered as he asked, “It sounds like you know the first part somehow already? What is her first name, Daniel?”

     “Raven. On a leather-bound book she held, I could read her first name. But there was no last name written on it. It was like a journal.”

     “Hmm. Since she has no identification that we could recover, she’ll officially be listed in the report as Jane Doe. The name Raven will be listed as a possibility.”

     After allowing the authorities to scan every room and the detective and I finished up, I inquired, “But detective, if she remains unidentified, how or what will be done with her remains? I mean if no next of kin is found?”

     “In these very unfortunate circumstances, she could be held in a morgue for months, afterwards buried in an unmarked grave, or most likely cremated.”

      In retrospect, what I said next would set off a chain reaction of events, “To whoever it may concern, detective, I will fund her burial. With a headstone that says what I feel certain is her name: Raven. That is if no next of kin is found, sir.”

     “That’s touching, Mr. Schacht. She’s being transported to the county morgue. She’ll be there until… whenever. I’m sure you understand?”

     “Yes, detective.”

     That evening, I was dry of words to type on my laptop as I snuggled before the fireplace, freshly replenished with wood. My gaze into the fire, the cherry coals, the hell that I hope Raven would be spared. This thought came as I reread the words I typed the previous night. I decided to find closure for myself, if not for her, to finish what it was I was writing, instead into a heartfelt poem:

     With Raven Wings

With wings that dare to fly

through the storm of her life.

With wings that spread into the gales

and dare to cleave through her life’s storm!

With wings that carry a spirit of gold

had feathered her down into the sea.

With wings that spread again

to shoot out from the watery abyss of death.

With wings, she ascended

to the open arms of heaven…

where open ears and hearts

that endowed Raven with angelic wings.

     I authored it quickly. Perhaps because it was truly from my heart. And as the dawn of sleep was upon me, the twilight beyond my windows announced itself with my heavy eyelids. Again, another nightmare to endure. Another nightmare…

To be continued…