Dark Hedges

The Sorites Mystery

She laid on the chaise lounge, her clear eyes fixed on the white ceiling above her. Red covered her from head to toe: scarlet shoes, crimson dress, flaming lips and blood-like hair, all enveloping her in a cardinal tide. Resting against the chaise's white fabric, she became an effulgent fox against a snowy backdrop.

Ten minutes had passed since she last spoke. The man sitting in front of her imitated her silence and a disturbing quiet now reigned on the vexingly tranquil office, a creepy, almost sinister anesthetic that slowly became familiar to her, much to her chagrin.

The ticking of the clock on the far left corner of the room let her know her time with this man would soon finish and it'd be an entire week before she met him again. She knew she should make her time count, yet she found herself unable to speak. Not out of lack of topics to discuss; if anything, the amount of thoughts in her head was such, it threatened to drown her under the weight of unarticulated words. No, something else prevented her from speaking and using the man for all his worth.

Perhaps shame, perhaps fear. Perhaps the crippling sense that, no matter how much she spoke and confessed, no atonement would come her way. Or perhaps it was the man's forest green eyes and luscious lips that flustered her, rendering her speechless every so often. Perhaps his dashing smile, perhaps his strong, rugged hands, or perhaps his deep, authoritative voice.

Maybe it was the alluring combination of all that turned him into an addiction, a craving, constant and mighty, that she feared would prove stronger than even her.

Could she dare to put her hunger into words? Would her yearning turn out to be something real and true, something worth the risk of confessing? Or would all her heat just amount to the common thirst one feels at seventeen?

Alas, not the day to confess. Just as she toyed with ideas and what ifs, that shivery, domineering voice yanked her out of her precious thoughts.

"Renata? Our time together is about to end. Is there something you want to share before we part ways for the week?"

She cleared her throat, eyes still on the ceiling, and chose her words with surgical precision. "I've been having dreams. Nightmares really. The kind that make you wake in the middle of the night, screaming and drenched in sweat."

Mr. Wumjonp nodded, his black Montblanc dabbling furiously in his trademark burgundy leather binder. "And what do these nightmares entail?"

Renata closed her eyes and immediately saw the girl's bloody, screaming, raging face, clamouring for her head on a spike. She opened them again, leaving the visions behind but still seeing blood spatters in the cream-coloured surface above.

"I see Bianca Garrick, dead and covered in gore. And she's there to haunt me or kill me, I can't really be certain. But there's such hatred in her eyes. It's as if she's on a mission to end me and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Can't you fight?" Mr. Wumjonp asked, his eyes crashing against her above his rectangular black-frame glasses.

"No," she simply replied and her pores responded to her words, suddenly becoming very aware of their surroundings. "She grabs me by the wrists and prevents me from moving. She's too strong for me. She pins me down on the floor and climbs on top of me. She's screaming and wailing. Her blood and her spit fall on my face and I can't do anything to fight back. I just lay there, helpless and hopeless."

She finally turned and met him. Her ice met his foliage and that bright pool of green proved powerful enough to make her forget the haunting for a few precious seconds. The moment ended, though, and when Bianca Garrick's destroyed body appeared before his chair, grisly and decayed, faced crushed and body wrecked, mouth half-opened holding the spectre of one last blood-curdling shriek, Renata jumped back, startled.