The boy sits up, rubs the moisture from around his eyes (for he has wept while sleeping). He gazes at the dim shape of the bathroom door and is afraid. Very afraid. He draws aside the covers and walks to the door. The trouser cuffs of his rumpled pyjamas caught beneath the heels of his bare feet. A boy no more than ten years, small and dark-haired, pale-skinned and strangely worn for one so young.
He stands at the door, as if fearing to touch. But he is puzzled. More- he is curious. He twists the handle, the metal’s coldness leaping along his arm. The shock is mild against the moist chill of his own body. He pulls the door open and the darkness beyond is more thick; it seems to swell into the bedroom, an expanded shadow. He shrinks away, unwilling to allow contact with this darkness.
His vision adjusts, and the inkiness scatters as if weakened by its own rapid growth. He advances again, passing through the doorway to stand shivering on the landing overlooking the staircase. To descend would be like sinking into the blackest of all pits, for darkness down there appears final.
Still the hushed whisper urges:
‘…Daniel…’
He listens for a moment more, perhaps wishing that the minor voice would also rouse his sleeping parents. There is no sound from their room; grief has exhausted their bodies. He stares into the centre of the darkness below, terribly forced to descend.
The fingers of one hand slide against the wall, as he does so, their tips wave over the textured wall paper. At the foot of the stairs he pauses once again, glancing back over his shoulder as if seeking reassurance from his spent parents. There is still no sound from their bedroom. No sound in the house at all. Not even the voice.
From ahead, at the end of the corridor in which he hesitates, comes a soft glow, a shimmering light. Slowly, step by step, the boy goes to the light. He stops outside the closed door and now there is a sound, a quiet sound. His toes, peeking from beneath his pyjama legs, which are now bathed in the shine from under the door and he studies them. The light is not constant; it flickers gently over the edge of his toes.
His hand grasps the door handle and this time there is no cold shock; this time the metal is wet. Or is it merely the wetness of his palm? He has to wipe his hand on the pyjama jacket before he can make the handle turn. He tenses his grip before turning. Then the handle catches and the door is open. He pushes inwards and his face is flushed by the glow.
The room displays burning candles: their waxy smell welcomes him. At the furthermost point of the room, resting on a lace-clothed table is a coffin. A small coffin. A child’s coffin.
The boy stares. He enters the room. His step is slow as he approaches the open sarcophagus, and his eyes are wide. The moisture on his skin glistens under the candlelight. He does not want to look into that coffin. He does not want to see the figure lying there, not in such unfamiliar state. But he has no choice. He is only a child and his mind is not blocked to unnatural possibilities. He draws closer. The form inside the silk-lined coffin is gradually shown.
She wears the black silken gown, a pale blue sash tied at her waist. She is not much older than the boy. Her hands rest together on the chest as if in supplication. On her neck lay two holes, causing his eyes to stretch. He stares at them, for a moment more, studying at their depths. He raises his hand and rubs his fingertips over them, as to feel the pain she is going through. The holes, so close together, look sore and red against her pale skin. The scabbiness of them causes him to shiver and move away. Dark hair frames her face and in her death she is almost peaceful, a sleeping, untroubled child; and although, in truth, she is perfectly still, it seems she suppresses a smile.
But the boy, despite his yearning to disbelieve, knows there is no life within that pallid shell. He is close above her. He wishes to speak her name, but his throat is constricted by the wretchedness of his emotion. He blinks, dislodging a swell of tears. He leans forward as if he might kiss her soft lips.
And she grins up at him, her young face no longer innocent, but guilty and experienced. And her hand stirs as if to reach for him. Her evil smirk gives him view of her knife stabbing teeth. The healthiness of her gums, contrasting with the unevenness of her teeth, causing a shock onto him, for her face so young. She needn’t drink, but thirsts for him, thirsts for the pain he could give in his final moment, thirsts for his tasty red blood that will fill her mouth and make her feel human for one instant in her outrage. She wants to give in to his visions, bend his neck, run her fingers over his sore tender skin, and then sink her teeth into him and drink form him.
For he knows nothing of her months of starvation, restraint, wondering. She has an unclean desire to suck his very soul form him, to make his heart rise in the flesh inside him, to drag from his veins every precious particle of him that still wants to survive. Wanting to slide her hand into his body, breaking the flesh so easily even with her delicate fingers, and close her fingers around his heart, bring it to her lips and suck it, like a fruit until no blood is left in any fibre. Feeding on it till even the colour of blood is out of it.
The boy is frozen. His mouth is locked open, lips stretched tight and hard, the scream begun but only breaking loose a moment or two later, a high pitched that cuts through the quietness of the house. His cry reduces, dissolves, and the boy’s eyes close while he seeks refuge as his absent-mindedness becomes inflexible…
