Storymania - The Resurrection Of Amelia D. Taylor by Jacqueline P Ervine

The Resurrection Of Amelia D. Taylor (5)
Jacqueline P Ervine

“I have recently taken up the hospitality of a young man. And he has books about resurrection in his possesion.”
“Is it just that you are curious?” Matilda asked her.
“No.” Amelia stood quietly for a long moment, contemplating what she should do to explain herself. “I’ve been having…occurrences. I can’t quite explain it. Like premonitions.”
Matilda sat in her chair, listening intently. Her eyes were closed and the smile that had once been on her face faded away to a thin line.
“Explain these premonitions to me, please, Amelia.”
“Well,” she began. “One night I had been sleeping, and I had this awful dream. And William was in it.” Amelia paused again, regathering her thoughts. “I confronted him about it the next day, and he couldn’t quite explain it either.”
Matilda nodded.
“William is the man you have been staying with, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. Nothing I could have gotten anything out of, amyways.”
Matilda nodded again.”So you want to know what resurrection is.”
“Yes, please, Matilda.”
Matilda tapped her fingers on the table.
“It’s like this. To resurrect basically means to “bring back.” In the dark arts resurrection is formally known as bringing someone back to life, or reviving someone.”
Amelia’s expression was twisted.
“But, that’s impossible.”
“Not necessarily. To resurrect someone you have to get viable parts or else it won’t work. You also have to do it correctly. In most cases of this, it involves the murder of one or many individuals, Amelia.”
She stood there, dumbfounded. The only word that really got to her was murder. Murder, Amelia. You’ve taken up hospitality with a murderer.
“Thank you, Matilda.”
Matilda nodded and Amelia left without another word. On her way out, she didn’t stop to look at the trinkets on the shelf that beforehand, had filled her with interest and amusment. The sky outside had been painted over with orange and gray, And amidst it all was always the faint tinge of red.
Amelia looked at the pocket of her black cloak. She reached inside of it and pulled out a gold necklace with a locket dangling on the end of it. She opened the locket and moved her thumb over the gold engravings. “There’s a bit of hope in every bit of dispair.” Amelia smiled brightly and unhooked the clasp of the necklace. She pulled it back behind her and rehooked the clasp, letting the locket hand over her chest.
She headed back into the now thinning crowd. She wondered what she would say when she got back to William. Hello, William. By the way, I found out you’re a murderer. She shook her head and kept walking. As she walked, she took of the black cloak and folded it over her arms. So now she knew. She knew what resurrection was. And now with this knowledge left more and more questions. She knew where to get the answers. It was just a matter of obtaining them.

Chapter 12

William sat at the table quietly with his head in his hands. He had been talking to himself for what seemed like hours now, in nothing but utter distress. “Where is she. Where is she?” He noticed that Amelia had been gone for some time now, and he noticed that some of his books were missing. The ones he was hoping she wouldn’t find.
“She didn’t even look that interested. She was more infatuated with the doll than any of the books.”
He had seen the nothing wrong with the basement. All of Carolina’s possessions safely where they should be. The only thing not there was Amelia, and that worried him most of anything. She found out William. You stupid, stupid man, she found out about all that you’ve done. Those thoughts angered him. He couldn’t help but get frustrated. Is she really that desperate for answers? That was the one question that angered him most of all.
From outside, William could hear light footsteps coming up to the door. He looked out the window to see Amelia, standing patiently at the door for it to open. William composed himself, then slowly opened it. He smiled at Amelia, but her expression didn’t change from the sad, confused look. She walked into the house like she was floating on air. She seemed somewhat dazed. She said not a word to William, and walked down into the basement.
William watched her as she walked down. He knew what was wrong. He just knew it. He waited patiently for her to come back up the stairs, but she never came up from the darkness. She didn’t even bother to turn on the light so she could see her way. William leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. The silence he dreaded surrounded him as if being in a room full of people.
Out of the silence, he could hear Amelia singing silently to herself. What he could also hear, what it seemed, was a second voice. Whispering the words to a venomous lullaby along with her. Someone holds me safe and warm. Horses ride through a silver storm. Figures dancing gracefully across my memory.
Far away, long ago. Hear this song and remember soon you’ll be home with me. Once upon a December.
The lullaby from so long ago, that he had tried so hard to forget, came back to him in a deep rush of misconception. He really didn’t get it; why it was Amelia who had been so different from everyone else. William figured, if he hadn’t been so eager to rid himself of the lonliness held inside he wouldn’t have ever gotten into this mess. Inviting woman after woman into his home for a nights visit, each time, his simple plans turning into a disaster. He blamed Laura, after all. She killed herself and the only thing William actually had to look to anymore.
He and Amelia did share something in common though. They had both lost something held close to them unexpectedly. Gone forever, and not coming back, nor ever leaving. No matter how hard you try.
This silence will end you William. Talk this mess away. You’re smarter than her. Use that to your advantage.
He looked into the basement, the utter blackness. The soft whispering had stopped, and he wasn’t sure if Amelia had fallen asleep or if she was still contemplating with herself.
“Amelia?” he called down to her. He received no response.
“Amelia,” he called again, “What are you doing down there?”
He still got no reply. He leaned off the wall and pulled on the string hanging above the doorway. He walked slowly down the stairs, and saw Amelia sitting on the bed with the porcelain doll in her lap. The music box was carefully set on the bureau.
He walked over and sat next to her. She didn’t look up at him, nor acknowledge that he was there. She stared at the doll, her eyes dark and dilated. The silence of this moment was more fierce than that of the moments before. It pierced him like a hundred needles, and he couldn’t bear it.
“What were you doing that you were gone so long?” he asked.
Amelia replied to him in a small voice.
“Erronds.”
“Were they sudden? You didn’t tell me you had---”
“Yes,” she said curtly, “they were sudden.”
“Amelia, is there anything you would like to tell me? Something that is bothering you?”
Amelia felt somewhat enraged. Pathetic. She looked at him blankly. She didn’t want to express fear, nor anger.
“I think you are the one who needs to be telling me something, William.”
She’s got it. She’s got it. William just looked at her like he didn’t know what she was talking about. He gave her a questionable look instead of saying anything, afraid that she would sense the worry in his voice.
Amelia set the doll aside and stood up. She crossed her arms and hung her head.
“William, William,” she sighed. She looked at him sternly. He cought her eyes and was instantly locked on them. Just the intensity of her stare was enough to make him go cold. “You’re a filthy liar. Nothing as I thought.”
“Amelia what are you talking---”
“You know what I am talking about,” she interrupted. “You’re hiding something from me! Besides that, something you aren’t at all proud of.” That made her think. “Or are you? You think you’re brilliant because of this?”
“Amelia, calm down and just tell me---”
“You tell me!”
“Amelia…”
“William!”
He shot out of his seat and grabbed her shoulders, trying to force her down. She slapped him and pushed him away.
“You little---” William stopped himself. Amelia took hold of his shoulder and tightened her grip.He winced in pain. Her finger tips turned white from gripping him so tight. She forced him onto the ground and leaned close to him, keeping the intense stare between them.
“Say it William. Say it.”
“Say what.”
“Say it. ‘Amelia, you little wench’.”
“Amelia…”
She tightened her grip and he let out a small cry in pain.
“She didn’t die in the fire, did she?”
“No, no…” William muttered quietly. His words came out shakey and almost in a cry.
“She was still alive when you found her.”
“No, no…”
“And you killed her!”
“No…”
“You killed your only daughter!”
“I was trying to help her!” he screamed to Amelia. “I was trying to save her! She was still thriving on the bit of life left in her…and I was going to save her.”
“Then why is she dead?”
“I-I don’t know,” he stammered, “Something went wrong.”
Amelia and William knelt on the floor in silence again. Finally, questions she had been eager to ask were being answered. But she wanted her thirst for knowledge to be quenched. She wouldn’t rest until she knew the story.
“What is resurrection?” She let go of his shoulder and he fell back, rubbing his shoulder.”
“It’s basically bringing someone back. Not completely…they can’t be dead. But…You can, in some ways, renew someone.”
“What’s the downside to this?”
“You need a live candidate to donate the parts you need.”
“Who in the…” she paused, “Who would have donated what you needed for something like this?”
“The hospital provided me with formaldehyde. And as for the body parts…”
“Go on.”
“Murder was necessary.”
“What parts did you need for Carolina?”
“Skin.”
Amelia thought for a moment. She thought of someone skinning another human, and it brought back memories of the day she found her mother had died. The doctors wouldn’t see her. They wouldn’t let her know what happened. All she knew was that she didn’t die from a fever. She could remember so clearly the sheet that had been draped over her mother. She could have sworn the sheet was red. But then, as the doctors had been ushering her away. She saw the puddle of red on the floor beneath her mothers bed. And the thought hit her like a train off of it’s tracks.
“Who did you kill for the skin you needed?”
William tried to remember her name. But all he could think of were the first two.
“Isabella Grace. Blonde woman, small, weak. She was sick and dying when I got to her, but her skin was flawless.”
Amelia stood up. She grabbed the doll and held it to her. Tears immediately flooded from her eyes and down her cheeks. William stood up as well and turned to face her back.
“Amelia, are you alright? Is this not what you wanted to know?”
“Not all of this…”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Amelia looked at him, not directly, but so that he could see her eyes. See her pain. Feel her pain. And he did. He felt it deep, and he almost knew what she was going to say next.
“You killed my mother…”
William felt his heart skipping beats. He had no clue. He had no clue the woman he murdered had a child of her own. He searched his mind. His brilliant, dumbfound mind for words, but he couldn’t find any. Him and Amelia stood in silence. And in silence, they welcomed the cold night.

Chapter 13

Amelia sat awake on Carolina’s little bed. She was well aware William had gone to his room filled with guilt. She expected such, and she probably would have felt offended if he hadn’t. They hadn’t said a word to each other. They stood in the basement for moments apon moments, silently hoping to themselves one of them would comfort the other. Amelia felt however, at this moment, that nothing William could have done would ease her pain. Her sorrow. Her agony, and all of this from just one moment. One moment of distress. So now at this moment, she felt restrained. Her lungs and her heart felt restrained. Her heart wouldn’t beat. Her lungs wouldn’t breathe.
Amelia’s eyes were wide open. Her face was flushed and shadowed in a look of, what almost seemed, scorn. Her skin was cold, but she could feel on the inside a deep burning. She stared at her hands. Hands that everyone had. That some people, she supposed, used for more diabolical things than most.
Amelia glanced up at the darkness that surrounded her. For the first time of the night, she noticed that she hadn’t touched the porcelain doll. She turned around and scanned the comforter for the doll. Right where she left it. Amelia picked up the doll and held it up. She looked at the eyes of the doll. They almost looked sad for her. But Amelia frowned at the doll. A picture of Carolina came into her mind looking at the doll. She thought of her, and William, and what William had done to her. Amelia whispered to the doll in a condemned voice.
“You did this.”
Amelia threw the doll across the room, and it landed with a loud shattering sound on the wooden floor. Amelia wasn’t necessarily sure if she should have done that. She didn’t think twice. But she did it. That doll that she was so infatuated with, shattered on the floor in a hundred pieces.
It almost relieved her. Just knowing that the doll was gone. She wouldn’t have to see it and think of Carolina. She figured, if she wasn’t thinking of Carolina, she wasn’t thinking about her mother.
Amelia layed back and closed her eyes. She told herself, in her mind, that she would go to sleep, and when she woke up everything would be fine. No more death. No more…any of this.
Yet, as she slowly drifted to sleep, one thing kept popping into her mind. She generously shoved it away, but it kept shoving back.
Carolina is still in the house.

Chapter 14

William paced around the room, swearing quietly to himself under his breath. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold pocket watch. He clicked the tab at the top and the cover of the watch flipped open with a small pop. One-thirteen A.M. The hours had gone by like eternities. All he wanted to know right now was that Amelia was alright. He wouldn’t say a word. Just look to see if she was O.K.
William walked out of his room and into the kitchen. The house was still and quiet, as it had been so many times before. Yet, there was an eerie chill of the silence the house held at this moment that made William oh, so curious.
He walked through the kitchen, feeling his way through the darkness with his hands. When he ran out of furniture to use as a guide, he ran his hands along the dining room walls. Reaching the end of the small room, he tripped over the leg of a table and fell onto his knees.
Clumbsy?
William stood back up, brushing off his trousers with his hands. He started walking toward the door to the basement. He would just take a quick peek. No conversation necessary. When he got to the door, he reached for the doorknob, but even before he could touch it, he heard mutters and whispers coming from behind the door down in the basement. He pressed the side of his face against the door, and even quieted his breathing a bit. He could just barely make out the small voices.
You broke it…trapped.
William listened still. He couldn’t understand what was being said, but he could make out some of the words. The voice continued in the same phrase for a few minutes, then broke into what almost sounded like crying.
I just want…Home.
The whimpering softened, and the voices stopped. William leaned off the door some.
“Amelia?” he said almost to himself. Just like they ended, the whispers started again. This time, the voice sounded almost threatening.
Get out. Out. Out.
William pressed his face to the door again, even closer this time than last. He heard a small giggle, wich seemed almost inappropriate at the time. There was another giggle, then a small voice broke into a song.
Ring around the rosie…Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down.
William pushed himself away from the door and twisted the door knob. The door swung open and he looked inside. No one was down in the basement as far as he could tell. He walked down the stairs, holding tightly onto the railing. He could see Amelia, sitting up in her bed asleep. He didn’t however, see the porcelain doll with her. He didn’t think anything of it. William grinned slightly and turned back around to walk back up the stairs. As he walked out of the dorway, the door slammed shut behind him. He made a puzzled face and turned towards the door. For a moment, he just looked at it, then he knocked for no apparent reason. William twisted the doorknob again, but the door had been locked from the other side and he couldn’t open the door.
Again, William heard a little giggle.
“Amelia?” he called.

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