The House

Chapter 44 - Day 5: Fever

"I think you have a fever; you're burning up."

My eyes are glued shut, I try and try to open them, but my eyelids won't give up the hold they have on each other. My head weighs a ton, and it is pounding. My body is aching, my nose is blocked, and I have apparently swallowed some barbed wire.

When a moist cloth gently dabs at my burning eyes and sweeps over my brow, I finally get my eyes open to look up into David's worried face.

"Wh..." I try to speak, but my voice is covered in rust and refuses to work. I greedily sip from the glass of water David brings to my lips. He is holding my head in a position to make it easy for me to do so.

"You caught a cold," he tells me, stroking my cheek after replacing the glass on the bedside table. I'm in the big bed in my room, and I'm not naked again; I'm still dressed in the comfortable track pants and snuggly hoodie I put on after my bath. I'm not cold, I'm actually a bit too hot, and I lift my arms to throw the duvet off.

"Don't," David says, trying to cover me again. "You need to stay warm."

"Too hot," I whisper.

"Are you wearing anything under the hoodie?"

"Yes, a T-shirt."

David helps me take the hoodie off and tucks me in with the downy duvet again. When I settle back into the comfort of the pillows, and my eyes drift closed against the throbbing pain in my head, a terrifying memory sparks my drowsing brain back to life, and my eyes fly open, staring in horror at David.

"Why did you stab me?!" I croak in a broken voice, trying and failing to shrink away from him. I am so tired, my entire body is on fire, and every move I make is as heavy as if I'm trying to move through thick syrup.

"Stab you?" David exclaims. "Why would I ever stab you?"

With some effort, I slowly run my hands over my chest and stomach, remembering the searing, cold fire slicing into me over and over, slashing the life out of my body. There's no pain under the palms of my hands.

"I'm not stabbed..." I whisper, turning aching eyes to look at David's concerned face.

"Of course not," he says, laying a cool hand against my hot cheek. "What happened, Belle? You were charging the painting, and then you just stopped and stared at it and shouted something, and when I reached you, you were frozen, your eyes wide, your mouth open as if you were trying to scream. I spoke to you, but you didn't respond, not even when I grabbed your shoulders and tried to get you to look at me... and then you collapsed. It scared the shit out of me."

My mind is swimming with images of flat black eyes in a frighteningly angry face. Features twisted in rage, long hair floating around his head as if the man was underwater. He was both there and not there, but those knife wounds felt so real. Did my period start? It's not time yet, and the cramps are usually just one solid wall of pain rather than distinct gut-tearing stabs. Besides, I felt the first one in my heart, not my stomach.

"Did you see him too?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"See who, Belle?" David is looking really scared now.

"A man stabbed me. He had long hair and a terrifying face."

"The man from the painting?"

"No, no, it wasn't him. The man from the painting is kind and gentle," I explain, my voice fading in and out hoarsely. I'm really not enjoying speaking. "This one looked like a zombie or a drug addict or someone suffering from a bad illness, and he was just seething with rage."

I remember David talking about tapping into old feelings in the house to explain the interesting way we woke up yesterday. Did I tap into someone's rage so completely that I saw him and felt him stab me? Maybe he wasn't stabbing me, just like it wasn't me kissing the Frenchman in my dream.