The Woman in Glass update(Pg.12-19)

         Town had been a mistake, which didn’t surprise Warren all that much, save for the fact that it didn’t surprise him.  He had figured that the drive to town would be somewhat cathartic- as he neared town, the fog seemed to mostly burn through and the countryside had started to gain something a sweet beauty, and for a few moments he had seemed to forget all that had been troubling him; no more caskets, mutilated fiancées, ignorant friends and relatives and mostly no more nightmares or phantoms in the yard.

         But once he had arrived in town he became immediately self-conscious of the stares that the neighborhood became to cast his way.  He almost imagined he could hear their whispers muttered quietly as he moved through the small general store Rebecca had always shopped at- the wonderment at his disappearance, perhaps some morbid curiosity about how he was handling, whether he might snap at any minute.  He happened to pass by a mirror and saw that he looked painfully pale, and his stubble had returned slightly, and it wasn’t flattering.  He had never looked good with facial hair.  With his primary pair of glasses broken, he wore his spare glasses and they also were unflattering.  He also noticed he had stained his shirt with his morning coffee- his first cup since the funeral- and the whole thing made him look like an unhinged mess.  He still resented the stares, though.

         He purchased some essential foodstuffs and a carton of cigarettes, all designed to keep him from having to return to town anytime soon- perhaps next week, or if he were very lucky- the week after that.  He drove away from the store to the hardware place where he attempted to pick out a new window and some tools to fix it, something he knew he was somewhat inadequately prepared to do, only to discover that he had failed to make the appropriate measurements. 

         He bought a tarp instead to cover the window until he decided he’d bother to attempt it’s fixing again, something he figured would also wait a week or two.

         His last stop had been the liquor store, where the stares were at their worst.  He could see the thoughts flashing across the eyes of the clerks and other patrons- such a cliché, the grieving man buying up lots of booze.  He chose some decent bottles of whiskey, a bottle of cheap vodka, some rum and a six pack of beer.  He quickly paid for it, avoiding the eyes of the fat man behind the register, who seemed like he wanted to make some chatter- perhaps even ask him how he was.  The news of Rebecca’s murder had reached every town for miles, given the shocking details of the affair.  He thought idly that perhaps even some of the townsfolk might even believe he had done the deed himself, which was preposterous.  He felt some anger at the perceived insinuation, and it felt good to feel something instead of the constant blur. 

         And then, seemingly in moments, he was home.  The fog was already rolling in, and he could feel the rain coming in on the now steadily rising winds.  He carried his bundle in, already feeling that welcoming silence and emptiness that the house provided for him now.  And, just as it did outside, the fog in his head came back just as quickly.
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         The phone rang.  He had once again taken the staring at his cigarette, which was once again burning down without him.  He realized as soon as the phone broke his trance that he hadn’t even bothered to put away any of the things he had bought.  He answered the phone, and started to pack things away in their proper place. 

         “Hello.”  The word did not come out as a question, but a flat lifeless guttural sound.

         “Hi, Warren…it’s Claire.”  Already his sister sounded like she was near tears.  Warren felt as if he might begin to cry himself, if it weren’t the simple fact that he never did.

         “Yes, hello, Claire.” Warren replied.

         “How have you…no, that’s a stupid thing to say.  How would you be, honestly?” She breathed into the receiver, already making all of the familiar sounds she always made, the same little clicks of her tongue, the same sharp breaths that Warren had noticed since he was little.  Claire had become the emotional one, the passionate one.  She had moved away while he was finishing school, gone on to become a Lawyer.  Everyone around Warren was always more successful than him.  At least, he thought she was a lawyer by now.  She might have still been studying, he couldn’t remember.

         “So you’ve heard then.”

         “Yes, Warren, I heard.”

         A beat.

         “You should have called me.” Her voice sounded slightly wounded now.

         “I haven’t called anyone, Claire.  I’ve…been busy.”  Warren lit another cigarette.

         “You ought to quit those things.  I can hear you lighting one.”

         “Yes.”  She was silent for a moment.

         “Am I going to get anything from you right now, Warren?  Do you want me to call back, or should I come there?” She was trying not to get angry with him.  This was slightly surprising- he had figured she’d be crying by now, but instead she was becoming short with him.  He took a deep drag and closed his eyes.

         “No, no need to visit right now.  I’m still trying to get everything organized and under control.” He tried hard to control his voice.  Something about Claire’s surprising attitude change was affecting him.  It was odd, but not as odd as most things he’d been feeling these past days.

         “Under control?  Warren…” she sighed, suddenly starting to sound more like the sister he knew, “…you don’t have to go through this alone.  I love you, Warren.  I want to help you through this…we haven’t been much like family lately and right now that’s what you need.”

         “I…” he began, but quickly his voice deserted him.  The rational voice that dominated his life began to take over, fighting down the emotional surge that was threatening to undermine him, to drag him down into that deep dark place that he suspected he’d never escape. 

         “Warren?” The tears sounded like they’d begin any moment.
         
         “Claire, I appreciate the offer.  I know you want to help, but right now I simply need some time alone.”

         “Are you drinking?” She asked.  The question irritated him.

         “No.” Lies now, followed by more quiet from the line. “I’m doing…okay, Claire.  I’m hanging in there.  It’s hard, but I’m dealing.  Maybe you can phone in a few days, and we’ll discuss getting together.”  His voice became stronger, the great debater returning.  She sighed.

         “Alright.  I suppose we can go from there.  I loved Rebecca, you know, and you should have told me that she…well, that she was…” He could hear tears now, could hear the slight changes in her voice.  She would lie, try to hide the sounds from him, but he knew them as well as he knew anything.

         “Claire…Rebecca loved you, too.  She always loved it when you visited and called and all.  She was very fond of you.  We…well, we both are.” Warren inhaled a strong drag of smoke, burning his lungs.  Anything to keep that lump down.  He heard sniffing noises through the receiver.

         “I love you, Warren.  Okay?  I’m worried about you.  I want you to talk to me.  I want you to…” she inhaled deeply, keeping something in.  Something she didn’t really want to say.  He’d made her angry.  He shut his eyes tight, fearing tears might eventually force their way out.  His chest hurt, and his lungs.

         “I…look, I’ll call you in a couple days, Claire, when things are settling down.  Okay?” He kept the words even, controlled, precise.  He added a slight bit of what he was feeling to creep into the words, enough so that she’d hear.  No use punishing her trying to be the good sibling he couldn’t be.  He was never any good at being family.

         “I still think you shouldn’t be alone.  You need someone.”  Claire’s voice softened, but it was still slightly angry.  It was one last argument, a summation.  She was resting her case.  He finished the smoke.
         
         “I’ll call you soon, Claire.  I…well, I just need the space.” He said, instead of what really meant to say.  He meant to say he loved her.

         He also really meant to say “I need Rebecca.”
……………………………

         Groceries put away and a nice warm glass of whiskey in his belly, Warren ascended the stairs to put the tarp up over the window.  He whiskey made him slightly dizzy, but again it was nice, particularly after the conversation with Claire.  He was tempted to call her back at first, but the whiskey eliminated the need, calming his shaken nerves and sending him to the task at hand. 

         He entered the attic, warm and damp now; the window lay open like some obscene mouth carved into the wall, looking all at once pained and ridiculous.  He lazily and dizzily tacked the tarp over the window and sweeped the glass into a corner using his shoe.  He let it lay there impassively, a pile of pieces, a shattered whole. He looked at it for a moment and shook off the sudden feeling that immediately preceded his staring sessions- they had become so routine over the past few days that he now could feel them coming.  He turned his back on the pile and looked around at the scarcely lit attic, and smiling with a feeling of something like a perverse victory, he lit a cigarette.  He had a brief, naughty thrill like being a kid left home alone.  Rebecca would have killed him for smoking in her attic studio.  He paced around, his feelings now elevated from that oh so warm liquor in his system, and glanced at items left there; some brushes, unused cans of paint, old furniture.  Nothing held his attention for very long, igniting nothing in him save maybe for the preciousness of these things that had belonged to her.

         He then came across a brown tarp tossed over an easel.  He lifted the tarp curiously, tossing the cigarette to the floor and snuffing it under his shoe.  He peeked under at first, that feeling that she might catch him briefly cascading over him and then, like the cigarette she would have punished him for, he disregarded her rules that were now as useless as the shattered glass in the corner, and tore the tarp off completely.

         The painting had, to his untrained eye, been finished.  It might have seemed rough, albeit slightly, but he had seen finished work looker rougher than this.  The painting showed space- a great black void surrounding and diminishing the other figures.  There was one star near the right hand corner, seemingly casting pale and weak light onto the scene below it. 

         Starting at the bottom left, a silver staircase winded upward, a single figure walking up it.  Warren could only tell that this figure was a male, wearing a white shirt and black pants- very plain.  The face was unfinished, or so it seemed.  No eyes, no mouth or nose could be discerned from the orangey blob that made up the man’s face.  He was halfway up the stairs, walking towards a landing that exsisted in the center of the painting.  The landing floated on nothing at the top of the staircase, just more oppressive blackness. 

         On the landing, encased in a glass box, was a woman.  She was naked, though like the man’s face largely undefined.  There were the shapes of breasts visible, but only slightly, her body curvy.  On top of her head was long, flowing dark hair visible against the crystalline rear of the cage, creating contrast against the black beyond.  Her hands pressed uselessly against the perfectly rectangular glass that encased her.  There were no doors or windows or holes or anything on the box, and Warren suspected she might suffocate.  Her head arched back, as if she were wailing.  Like the man, she had no mouth to scream from.

         He looked at the painting long and hard, but not in the same way he had been staring long and hard at everything else- no, there was something else about this scene.  He was entranced by it, enveloped in it.  He looked down at the man, his figure so relaxed, as if he was in no hurry.  Warren figured that he was her savior, that he would let her out when he reached the top.  She was the princess in the tower, he was the white knight coming to save her. 

         He wept then, only slightly.  Small tears formed and fell from his eyes, betraying him at the sight of this image- so terrifying, so sweet, so beautiful in it’s misery and hope.  He let the tears fall for a few moments, and then they were gone.

         Eventually, he took the painting, easel and all, and carried it back downstairs.  He would hang it somewhere, he thought, something to remind him of her.  A painting that could be just for him, something she had never done for him in life.  He fancied, in a sort of arrogant way that surprised him but didn’t phase him, that maybe that was the reason for the painting- she had been painting it for him.  He fancied he was to be the white knight.  Who else would it be?  She had been trapped in her glass cage, and he had saved her- there in that dark place she dwelled.

         It wasn’t until later that two other things occurred to him.

         One was that the savior might in the end be too slow, and she might suffocate before he saved her.

         The other was that the man may not have been her savior, but her jailer.
……………………………………………………………

         He placed the easel and the painting in the den, and sat down in a chair with a glass of ice, his bottle of whiskey, his ash tray and cigarettes.  He poured a drink and downed it at once, staring as he did at the painting.  Blue light began to flash outside, followed by the frustrated roar of thunder, silencing crickets and other wildlife that had begun to intrude upon his revelation.

         Rain began to pour loudly, but this sound only seemed to calm him further.  He heard the water patter against windows, the roof of both the house and the shed, and on his car parked askew outside.

         He drank more, until he fell asleep.
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         More dreams came to him.  At first they felt familiar, if only in a vague way.  He grasped for it with his dreaming mind- the snow covered field, the outline of a street ahead of him.  There were storefronts.  It seemed so familiar.  He looked around, and saw that Claire was with him this time.  He felt good, to be with another person.  Claire smiled warmly at him, but her eyes were troubled.

         “What’s wrong?” He asked, feeling no need to be private here in this place.

         “It’s getting darker.” She said, flatly.  He looked up at the night sky.  He saw a single star, no moon, and flat never-ending black.

         “It’s nighttime.”
         
         “No, it isn’t.” Claire responded.  She started to walk towards the street ahead of them at the bottom of the hill.  For a moment he felt as if he couldn’t go down there, wouldn’t go down there.  Something he didn’t want to see was down there at the bottom of the hill.  Something that was supposed to be gone, not there waiting for him to see it.  Them.  But he knew he was a kid again now, or felt like he might be.  Claire was bigger than him, his big sister.  She would protect him from what was down there.  She walked ahead of him, not looking back.

         “Wait!” He protested, hurrying to catch up as he had done when they were younger.  He trudged through the snow after her in big puffy boots, his body warmed by the bulky snowsuit he wore.  Claire always walked fast.  He used to think it was because she didn’t want him around, that he troubled her somehow, that he made her less.  She always complained when he tried to follow her and her big kid friends, but when she came home she would always tickle him and play with him.  Claire loved him, and he adored her.  She would protect him from whatever was down there.  She didn’t slow, but he caught up to her.  She didn’t look down at him- and she seemed to tower over him here.  She reached out a calm, steady hand and he grasped it in his mitten.  Small crystal flakes seemed to drift harmlessly down to them.  The snow looked silver in the light of that single star above them.  She looked old, now, grown-up. 

Once again it rang false, his rational mind reminded him that she was only supposed to be a few years older, not like this.  She was grownup, and he was a child.  It made him want to cry, to wail and kick and scream like a baby because it wasn’t fair.  He felt frightened.  His hand slipped from hers, and she seemed to pick up speed in her long legs, her long blonde hair blew in wind that wasn’t there.  Her overcoat looked glamorous, her big black boots looked so impressive.  She stood so straight and tall, proud and powerful.  His hat seemed to cover his eyes, and he brushed it back.  His bright orange knit cap his mother had knitted him, before the bad things happened and she left them alone, he and Claire.  But she had been a child still then, why was she so adult now?

She was getting so far ahead of him now.  He ran as best as he could, but the snow seemed so deep.  He looked past her and saw the glass at the bottom, the walls of glass that hid what he was hiding from.

“Claire, stop, we can’t go down there.” He said, his voice high and whiny, shouting after her.  She turned towards him, looking even older, wearied.  Bags appeared under her eyes, wrinkles that shouldn’t be there.  He felt panicked now, confused.  He felt so young and stupid.

“Don’t be a baby.” She said, flatly, “God, you’re such a little kid sometimes, War.”  She rolled her eyes and continued strolling down the hill.  The snow seemed less deep, and she was making amazing time now.  He managed to fight his way closer, and saw at the bottom of the hill, a shape in the window, seemingly clawing at it.  Claire’s hair seemed graying now, her hands more gnarled.  She was too far, he’d never catch up to her.

The figure in the window banged weakly against the glass.  It was the woman again, the one he knew was lost.  She wanted to get out.  He feared it, feared seeing her again.  He could see her body now, white and pale.  It was wrong, her looking like that, but he couldn’t understand why.  He was only a boy, after all.  Claire stopped before the window, staring unmoved through the window at the woman that scraped languidly at her prison.  Warren stopped at the bottom of the hill, behind Claire.  He felt panicked now, unable to speak or move or cry out.  He wanted to call to his sister, to beg her to help him, to save him.  He needed her to be with him, not ahead of him staring uselessly at this oddity.  The woman behind the window pushed, and he heard a creaking sound, a crack.  The glass would give.  Claire would be taken by her. 

Warren swallowed hard, willing himself not to look.  But the glass cracked again.  The woman’s eyes could be seen in the light of the star above, and they were horribly sightless, glazed over white.  Her skin looked as if it were falling off, worse than he remembered.  He had seen her before, he knew he had now.  He tried to call his sisters name.  Claire turned, as if she could hear his thoughts, and the scream began to squeak harmlessly in his throught when she saw her.

Claire was dead, aged now beyond anything Warren could conceive.  Her skin looked like the lady behind the glass, sagging and useless, as if he could reach under it and pull it off like peeling wallpaper.  Claire’s eyes were white, too, and staring sightlessly at him.  She raised her hands weakly, ineffectually, as if to embrace him.  She took a step.

Behind her, the glass was rocked from it’s foundation, and it shattered on the ground behind Claire, and the woman stepped through.

Warren shrieked, and turned to run, but all that exsisted was that silvery hill, and the black void beyond.  And he felt their hands on him.

………………………………………………………

Warren awoke to the sound of his own guttural screaming, and leapt in his armchair, knocking a glass of whiskey to the ground, which shattered at his feet.  He smelt the alcohol wafting up to him, and stared with heavy breathing as the booze permeated the rug.  He tried to catch his breath, and a wave of cigarette cough overcame him, and he hacked and clutched at his chest.