The Yellow Wallpaper: A Sequel

As I creep around the wall and over John, I come to an awful realization. Surely when Jennie returns, and John awakens they will try to trap me again, even though little wallpaper remains. I have torn the wallpaper and am free now. They can't trap me again. I must get away quick!

Jennie rushed to the room where John stirred in the doorway. He pinched the bridge of his nose, shook his head, and then hurriedly glanced around the room as he remembered what happened. Once he figured out that his wife was no longer there, he carefully studied the room.

Jennie bent down to help him, but he pushed her aside standing up. "Where has she gone?"

"What do you mean? What happened?" Jennie inquired.

John shook his head once more and said solemnly, "I thought she would get over her illness, but when I came to this room, I was met with a locked door. When I finally got in, there she was, groveling around the room. She was talking crazy and it was just too much to bear."

Jennie reached to comfort him but again John shrugged her off. "We must find her."

James walked up the front steps to his sister's house expecting her and her husband to be home from their summer stay at the mansion. What he did not expect to find was the yard empty of their carriage and the front door ajar. He cautiously walked into the house peering around the corners and into the rooms hesitant of what he might find. In one of the rooms he saw the silhouette of a figure, a woman to be exact, lying on a bed. Upon seeing her clearly as the light illuminated her, he rushed to her side.

"Jane, dear!" He cried. Her clothes were stained with yellow, a bit torn too, and she looked quite ill. She roused from her sleep and seemed confused. "Where am I?" 

"Why, you're in your house! How long have you been here? And where is John?"

Jane looked desperately at her brother and shook her head. "I can't remember a thing."

Just then, they heard someone running through the house. John came skidding into the room and hurried over to them. "Jane! Have you been here this entire time?" John asked.

"She said she can't remember anything," James answered for her. John bent down next to his wife and examined her closely. 

Jane frowned. "How long have I been gone?"

"It has been four days! I searched the whole mansion and all the property. Once we gathered that you were nowhere to be found, we started searching elsewhere. I had just thought that perhaps you would return here and hurried right away." John explained. "I can finally be content now that I have found my blessed little goose," he smiled.

A look of disgust crossed over Jennie's face but went unnoticed by everyone else.

After John and James finished displaying their relief, they agreed that Jane should have something to fill her empty stomach with and then have a good, long rest. 

James rounded on John and demanded an explanation from him. He wanted to know why Jane had run off and why she couldn't remember what she did.

After John explained her strange behavior at the mansion, James snapped at him once more. "How could you let her get this way? She was to be taken care of!"

John fleetingly tried to defend himself. "I did what I thought was best. I believed she would become well again. I don't understand how she became so strange."

James decided he wanted to go and see the room for himself. Jennie offered to go with him while John stayed with Jane.

At the mansion, James glanced in every room but focused all of his attention on the room with the torn wallpaper. He studied every detail in hopes of finding the answer to his sister's strange behavior. He decided to go to the kitchen and get himself a drink to clear his mind. In the kitchen, he noticed a piece of a torn label on the floor. He picked it up and examined the letters. "BELLA- bella what? Where was the rest of the label?" He thought to himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a glass bottle with the same type of label, which was also torn. He grabbed the bottle and held the torn piece of paper up to it reading it clearly now. BELLADONNA.