Johnstown Castle - part 8

...and we will be forgiven, for our devotion bested every love and every care...

Her juvenile warm body turned cold suddenly. Loretta was still hanging on my arms up against the wall when her hands let go of me and her head sunk. At first I was just speechless for she was completely limp and I didn’t know what happened. But it wasn’t until after I noticed she wasn’t breathing that I thought to scream and realize that I was holding a corpse. In panic I dropped Loretta and let her fall on the floor - I could hear her spine crack. The air was cold once again and I felt my lungs cramp. How could this have happened? Could anyone catch me in act?
I turned my head to look at the clock only to find it was gone. Instead there was a white rose nailed to the wall just where the clock used to be. Then someone screamed giving me a fright and making me look around. Loretta’s body had vanished. Terrified as I was I didn’t know what to do and in my confused state I stumbled on something and fell. There was nothing I could do or grab onto to prevent me from falling. Thus I fell into darkness and everything faded away.
I was in my room, in my bed and I was cold. My body was so numb and frozen that it didn’t seem to be my own. After opening my eyes and raising my head I understood that the dream was over, but I noticed that the doors to the balcony were wide open and, just having disappeared behind the curtains, a woman in a white laced gown had taken her leave.
The rest of the night I spent staring at the balcony and the wall where I dreamt I had violated and killed Loretta. I thought of what I would have discovered had I only taken pursuit of that woman. But I didn’t as I was barely able to move then. Having at one point closed the doors and lit a fire in the hearth I burned my sheets to hide the traces of me and my visitor. That woman was a complete mystery to me. I didn’t know who she was, how she had gotten in and why she had come to me anyway. Was it then me who had been violated instead of Loretta? Why would someone come to me while I was sleeping? Everything was so perplexing I lost all sense of time. And deep in my thoughts as I was, I didn’t find that sense again until dawn.
“Good morning, Mister,” I heard Loretta say from behind the door then. Grey daylight was illuminating my room and the clock which hadn’t disappeared after all suggested it was nine in the morning. There was still a little fire in the hearth but the bed sheets had disappeared almost completely. A look in the mirror let me know I looked not bad at all but a little pale and sleep deprived perhaps. “Good morning,” I replied and walked to the door to open it and let her in, meanwhile considering whether I could or could not do to her what I had done in my dreams.

To be continued…