Healing Halia: Excerpt #1

My eyes shot open. I was gripped with fear immediately. I shook about fighting off an imagined attacker. But there was none.  I reached for my wrist as if a phantom villain were latched on but there was no one there. My heartbeat was deafening in my ear and I couldn’t remember what happened, but I was so sure that I was in danger. I felt the way one feels when waking up from a dream where they died. For a moment you can’t believe everything is all right and so you grasp your body as if it were going to fly away. Then usually the safety sets in and you know it was indeed a dream. Although there was no attacker in this instance, that feeling of safety never quite sunk in.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, or even what I was doing before I woke up in this place. There was an odd ringing in my head and sound didn’t seem to be traveling normally. It sounded like I was underwater somehow - like the air was thick and I was wading through it. I was having a hard time even keeping my eyes open as they blurred in and out of focus. I could not get my bearings at all. Fear continued to course through my veins and I was unable to move. After some time reeling in the fetal position my senses began to stabilize. The air still felt thick and the sound was muted but I could finally see straight. Now I could assess where the hell I was.

I noticed first that I was laying on a massive bed. At each of the four corners stood a large wooden post engraved with incredibly ornate vines and flowers. Thin red and gold curtains surrounded the bed. The curtains at the end of the bed had been tied open to the posts with gold rope. I scooted closer to the open curtains, reaching out my hand. Instinctively I wanted to touch the material, there was some pull it had. As soon as I touched it I pulled back in shock. I couldn’t believe my senses in this room.

“I must be going crazy.” I thought to myself.

Tentatively, I reached out again. The second time my results were no different. When my skin met the fabric I unmistakably felt a cool wave of water brush against my skin. It felt as if I had plunged my fingers into the ocean. But when I pulled them back they were still bone dry.

“What else was there to discover in this place? If I’m insane then this is an insanity I can get used to…” I thought to myself.

I looked around and saw that the bed sat on a raised platform of mahogany wood.

“This…isn’t….even….a…room….” I stuttered aloud to no one.

Scanning the room my mouth hung agape in disbelief. I stood on a raised platform with the bed that could easily accommodate 10 people by my estimation. The ten-person bed took up only 10% of the room. Above me were 15-foot ceilings that came to a point in the middle of the room where a large chandelier hung. Around the base of the chandelier sprawled an inlaid painting. Gold trim and beams accented the ceiling. Everywhere you looked there was gold filigree or renaissance style art. If I stared up for too long I began to feel dizzy at the amount of things demanding my attention. The entire right half of the room featured floor to ceiling bookcases. Half a room full of bookshelves should be an impressive sight, but these bookcases were vacant, no, hollow. 

The whole room curved in the same shape as the ceiling, creating a gentle dome. Along the wall at the edge of the bookcases sat a large wooden desk and a red velvet chair with a high back. The oddest feature of the room was a small turret in the left corner that held a golden claw foot tub. Although it was a rounded turret, there were no windows - just more wood panes and paintings. In the bathing area was also a large armoire and a full-length mirror resting on golden stands.

      “A bathroom in the bedroom? That seems odd. Everything here is odd though.” I pondered.

      Besides the windows and the bath there was also a distinct lack of a door. No escape. I wasn’t quite sure where to begin with this room. This was not a typical place to just wake up in. The empty bookshelves kept calling my attention so I decided to explore them first. Leaving the platform, I crossed the room. Again I noticed the unique passage of sound. Even the sounds of my footsteps were muffled, the echoes fell dead flat.

      At the edge of the bookcase I began to inspect the wood. It was a dark, nearly black, mahogany. The craftsmanship was brilliant. Upon closer inspection one could see small scenes masterfully carved in minute details all long the vertical beams of the shelves. The particular shelf I found myself in front of depicted a strange scene. A group of women stood in a grove in draped and flowing dresses. Each woman had hair to her knees that fell in wavy locks. Around the forest the wood was thatched, giving the impression that a fog rested over the women. On either end of the beam stood two hooded figures, each carrying a staff. I had never seen anything like this place. My family had been extremely poor and this place seemed lavish even for a wealthy eye. As I pondered the scene I once again felt the pull to reach out and touch the beauty before me.

My hand moved on its own. My fingers soon found the delicate crevices in the wood, but once again my hand instinctively jerked back. This time I wasn’t met with the sensation of water but rather as soon as my skin met the wood an electric shock ran up my arm and my whole body shivered. I looked down at my hand which was now curled into my chest like I were an animal nursing my wound. My fingers were still tingling as I inspected them for damage. There appeared to be no lasting damage to my hand even though the tingling sensation persisted. I couldn’t wrap my mind around why the bookcase had shocked me. I stood there puzzled and grasping my hand in frustration for a while before my gaze returned back to the culprit.

      On the shelf there now sat a single folded piece of paper. This whole place was beginning to feel like a dream.

      “A dream, that’s what it must be. Nothing more than a dream. Maybe I fell asleep in the woods again.” Telling myself it was a dream was reassuring.

      For the first time since waking up in this place I felt a little comforted. The normal response in a bad dream would be to try to wake oneself up. That’s not me though. I felt compelled to explore my dream world. Maybe somewhere I secretly knew that I wasn’t dreaming and I wanted to suspend the comfort the illusion gave me just a little longer. If I tried to wake up and couldn’t I would lose my one comfort. So instead I reached out and grabbed the paper.

      To my pleasant surprise the paper didn’t shock me.  I examined it and found that it was a form of basic parchment. Even basic parchment was still an oddity to me; I had only encountered such materials in the oldest and rarest texts I had read. My curiosity was palpable and I could resist no longer. I opened the note. I will always remember these words. The note read:

To the one previously known as Halia Mathers,

Death is on his way to see you.

Please make yourself ready.

My hands fell limp, causing the letter to drift slowly to the floor. Memories were now flashing in to my head like lightning. The graveyard. My sister. My birthday. Him. The cold.

      I fell to my knees at the weight of my memories. How exactly was I supposed to process this? It was me. It was me who reached out my hand. I chose and I didn’t even know what I was doing. What was I doing? Why did I choose to come here? Questions and self-loathing were bouncing through my mind. Answers. I needed answers.

      Desperately I reached out and grabbed the note from the floor. This small piece of paper held the only answers I had.

      “To the one previously known as Halia Mathers…” I read the first line over and over again. Silently mouthing the words. Then reading it aloud. I had almost grown accustomed to the underwater muffled sounds of my voice.

      “To the one previously known as…Halia…” The last time I said it was the time it sunk in. Previously. As in no longer. I had known it somewhere inside since I got there. I had known that I was not quite the same person I was. It had to be. I was dead. Or waiting to die. The next line proved that, didn’t it?

      “Death is on his way to see you.” Death only visits a person once in there life…usually.

      The last line was the most puzzling. Make myself ready? What did that even mean? How does one prepare themselves to die. My thoughts drifted back to my sister. She certainly wasn’t prepared to die. She was eight. She only got to see eight winters. Eight. Sure I had ten more years than her, but I still wasn’t ready to die. Death was my enemy. It was our enemy. Hers and mine. We had fought against death since the moment we were born. Each broken beer bottle and thrown bar stool brought us closer to our inevitable demise. She was buried in the ground, and who knows, maybe I was too. No one was going to mourn us now.

      As I sat there like a crumpled tissue on the floor that was honestly what made me most sad - the fact that no one would visit her grave anymore. There would be no more apples, no more treats, no more flowers, or tear-stained stone. She would spend eternity alone, while I was trapped awaiting my own death. A tragic end for the Mathers sisters. Life can be so cruel. We enter into this world and our fate is sealed. I thought back to the cemetery. I reached out. I did. But did I? Did I ever really have a choice in all this suffering?

      Didn’t matter though. Here I was anyway. The lavish room that had seemed so grand at first was closing in on me. Each passing hour the room grew smaller until it began to feel like a prison. I was serving the sentence for my own ignorance. There were no clocks on the wall, or windows, no sunlight. I had no way to tell how fast time was passing or even if it was passing at all. There was just silence.

      Prepare myself….maybe this was it. Death was “coming” but maybe it already had. Death is stasis. The isolation and stillness was torture enough, and so maybe this was the fate I was supposed to prepare myself for. Endlessly I theorized, torturing myself for what seemed like hours. I was reaching for anything. Any certainty, any answers. Anything.