Who's Afraid of the Dark?

Chapter 1: Explanations are in Order

I listened. Hard. Waiting for someone to stumble upon me there, eavesdropping. I would get punished, sent to bed without supper. It was 1941 and I was 13. My dreams had started, however, when I was just 6 years old, just before the death of my father. I would go down and sit on his knee, ask him if it was natural to have these dreams? I dreamt of things no human would ever think was possible. A parallel universe full of the good and the bad, hideous crimes and monstrous criminals.

The first dream was on the eve of my sixth birthday, I remember it so vividly. I was walking down to the river, through the thick, green woodland; I stopped facing a stone carving that I had never seen before. I reached my hand out to see if the stone was as smooth as it looked and found that my arm was shimmering in the dappled sunlight. Yet when my hand got to the place where it would have met the smooth looking stone it met nothing, no resistance.

I plunged my arm into the supposed to be stone yet still met nothing. Soon my whole body was following my arm through the stone and then I was falling, through time and space. Through never ending darkness. I heard a scream in the distance and my eyes flew open, I knew the voice. I awoke then, screaming into the night.

There had been many since that night, I always woke up screaming, and my mother never heard anything. When I told my nanny about the dreams she thought that I must have gone insane with the grief of my father's sudden demise. He had after all been just fine. He had died peacefully in his sleep; I had found him dead when I went into my parents' bedroom on the morning of my birthday to wake them.

Like I said I was just 6 when it started and by the time I was 10 the dreams had become infrequent. I thought maybe I was finally getting rid of them. Alas I was terribly wrong, on the eve of my thirteenth birthday had, well not a dream. It couldn't have been a dream as I was not asleep. It was a vision.

My eyes went all blurry, and I was completely lost. I didn't know, when or where or who I was never mind how I had gotten there. I just waited. Waited for my vision to come into focus. When it did it did not show me home. I was looking at the same scene from the first dream except everything was covered in a sticky red substance and the smell of death hung in the air all around me. The stone was gone.

I came out of the vision to find my nanny stooped over me looking worried.
"Alba, are you ok?" she said looking over her shoulder at my mother who had just entered the room.
"What is all the noise in here? Alba, darling I just got your little brother off to sleep, now what is all the screaming for?" said my mother in her naturally warm voice.
"I was screaming?" I replied, confused. I didn't remember opening my mouth or using my vocal cords to scream "did I sound frightened?"
"Why yes dear, your eyes went blank and you opened your mouth as if in wonder then started screaming!" said my nanny going towards the phone "maybe I should call doctor Bree?" she added already dialing the number we all knew off by heart.

Nanny offered to take me to my room and get me ready for bed, so that I was ready for when the doctor arrived but my mother said that she would like to speak to me. She came in when I was tucked up and sat drinking a steaming cup of tea.
"Darling, how are you feeling?" she said softly, I knew that she was worried for my sanity but at least she did care about me.
"I'm fine mama," I was always taught to say it like that. Mama.
"Will you tell me what happened? Nanny just said that your eyes went out of focus and then you screamed," so I recounted my story to my mother, she listened to my story without saying a word, taking in everything I said.

"Are you absolutely sure that is exactly what you saw?" asked mama when I had done.
"Yes, I am positive!" I exclaimed, ecstatic that she actually believed me.
Knock. A quiet knock sounded on the door to my bed chamber and nanny popped her head around the side of it.
"Doctor Bree is here, he is waiting in the foyer," she said before excusing herself.
"Well I'll leave you to it then," said dear mama, she squeezed my hand and then left shutting the door quietly behind her. Doctor Bree entered a short while after. He examined me and then left telling my mother that I should stay bed rested and he would be around tomorrow morning with my medicine. When Doctor Bree left the room Nanny returned and sat down on the end of my four poster and closed the deep red curtains I had chosen to go up around them.
"Listen to me, Alba, this is important."

"Yes Nanny," I replied obediently
"That's my good girl, now listen you saw something and I don't know what but it wasn't normal, that much I could tell for myself,"
"What do you mean it wasn't normal?" I asked and obviously the serenity in my voice breaking a little, showing how scared I really was.
"Well it was very high pitched at first and I could only hear it when it got lower in octaves. Baby Alaric heard it straight away through."
"Nanny what would you say if I told you that no medicine could help me?"
"I would say: why would you say that?"
"Because I saw daddy, when I closed my eyes. Just for a second then all I saw was red and I knew...." my voiced had finally broken and the pain I felt was seeping out through it. My daddy, my hero. Gone.

"My darling I cannot change what you saw, but you can." And with that my Nanny left my room. I knew she was only in another room in the house but it felt like she had deserted me, my last ally had left me when I needed her the most. I felt the tears well up from inside of me and didn't bother to stop them from flowing freely.
Through my blurred vision I saw the picture of my dad, in his army uniform, holding me for the first time. Looking down at me like I was some breakable piece of delicate china. The first time I ever laid eyes on my daddy. The only person that I wanted with me.
I jumped a little as a knock sounded very gently on my door. Mama opened it and peeked in slightly. She rushed to me when she saw my tear stained cheeks.

"Baby don't cry," she pleaded. She stroked my hair away from my face. The only problem was I didn't know how to stop it; I didn't want to stop it. We sat like that for at least an hour though for all I know it could have been more. Me with my head on her shoulder just crying. Emptying out all my emotions that I had held on to since my dad had gone off to war and never returned. She shushed me and stroked my cheek and hair, comforting me.
"Alba, honey, I think it's time you knew," my Mama broke the silence in the end.
"Know what?" I managed to ask. I looked up at Mama and saw that she was looking at the picture on my bedside table. The one of Daddy laughing in his uniform when he had surprised both me and Mama by showing up at our picnic on the beach. It was my favorite photograph.

"Your father,"
"Daddy," I corrected her.
"Yes, daddy, well he umm... when he never came home..." she reached over and took the picture looking at it like it was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.
"Mama...what happened to daddy?" I re- asked knowi8ng only too well what was coming next.
"Darling, Alba, he's gone," I had to strain to hear her last word for it had gotten so quiet, quieter that a whisper. More like silence. I stared stunned at my mother. Surely she wouldn't lie about him not to me.
"No," I said as loudly as I could. No- one had ever been to tell us that daddy had died; the one thing I wouldn't give up on was the hope that he would come home and surprise us again, like the last time.

"You're lying!" I screamed at Mama. She had to be.
"Alba. Please," she was begging me to understand but I couldn't. I couldn't have lost my daddy. No I hadn't he was still alive. She was lying to me.
"You're a liar. I hate you!" I bellowed firing all my anger in Mama's direction. I heard her let out a small sob and then she got up, her elegant blue dress rumpled at the bottom trailing behind her and put the picture back on my bedside. Without saying a word she kissed my cheek and left.
"Mama, wait, I'm sorry!" I yelled after her but all I could see was the last trail of her dress turning the corner of the corridor. Regret flooded my system. I had told my Mama that I hated her but I didn't. I loved her and Nanny and Baby Alaric.

I turned and picked up the picture of my dad. I looked at it and realized what must have been going through Mama's head when she saw it. He looked so different. Like the person Mama married in the first place. Whole. I hurled the picture at the far wall of my room. Right then I hated my dad for not being here to hold me whilst I cried. I felt more alone than ever before.
The sun finally came through the open hangings around my bed. I was still sat up awake from the previous nights crying. The tears had stopped flowing at around three o clock in the morning but then I hadn't been able to sleep even if I wanted to. I looked around my room and noticed the shards of glass on the floor. The picture lay a few inches away face down on the floor. I closed my eyes only to open them again to the sound of the bedroom door opening very slowly.

A small gurgling noise came from behind the door. And head popped a round the corner. Baby Alaric. He crawled to the foot of my bed and smiled up at me, showing his gums as none of his teeth were coming through.
"Hello Ric," I whispered. I don't know why, maybe I was afraid anyone else would hear. I picked him up and sat him on my knee. He was warm and smelled like baby powder and bubble bath. I sat for a while before pulling on my dressing gown over my nightdress and slipping my feet into my slippers. I could hear Mama looking for Ric I picked him up and sat him on my hip. He wriggled to try to get free but I held him tight.
Walking down the corridor I could hear the sound of Mama's voice getting more and more frantic as her search for Ric continued. I silently shuffled down the corridor holding him as tightly as he would allow. When I turned the corner to the foyer I stood, just stood in front of my Mama and Nanny and didn't say a word.

Nanny was the first to turn, sensing me rather than seeing me.
"Oh! Alba, you found Baby Alaric!" she said rushing to me. She tried to take Ric but I wouldn't let her. Nanny looked at me and sighed.
"Alba give your Nanny Baby Alaric." Said Mama shrilly, she didn't look up at me.
"No." I answered with just as much coldness. I retreated back to my room and then locked the door and French windows to my balcony. I sat and played with Baby Ric until he started to smell. He needed changing and I had no nappies or wipes. I unlocked my door as quietly as it was humanly possible and slipped out closing the door to make it look like I was still inside. I took Ric back to his own room and sat him in his cot. He cried. So I put on his baby monitor and left. Mama or Nanny would come running in minutes.

When I got back to my own room I leant down on the back of the door and listened for Baby Ric to stop crying. He didn't after ten minutes he got louder. He was still bawling half an hour later and my head was pounding form the consistent noise.
I opened my door and ran to Ric's room. I picked him up and bounced him up and down. He stopped crying and looked at me. I took him to the Foyer to shout at Mama and Nanny and ask them what they were thinking letting little Baby Alaric cry in his room all alone. But when I got there no- one was in. I checked the parlor and the gardens, all the bedrooms and bathrooms as well as the kitchens and the basement. They weren't anywhere to be found.
I was alone with Baby Ric.