Emeralda’s eyes

Emeralda

The Baudelaire Mansion had always looked sinister to me. Even in the daytime the house could surge a chilling sensation up my spine with its lonely demeanor and constant shadows. Sometimes it even felt as if the house could watch me, but I never truly it. The mansion was known in the village as the rumored haunted house nearby, causing rascal kids to often dare each other to break inside for a silly bet. What lies behind those brick walls is a cold, dark and relatively empty mansion. The peeling wallpapers are far more lively, holding countless paintings that the house owner, Victor Thompson, an old but still very righteous man, had painted throughout his lifetime. He was a landscape painter and made his fortune that way. While he painted from morning to night, I cleaned up his mess. I speny each day mopping his floors, cooking his food, and cutting his garden. Anything he needed me to do, really. We usually went on about our days in silence. Occasionally we would exchange a word or two about politics over dinner. I would mostly nod and agree with him, never dare to correct or say anything that would displease him. He wasn’t an intimidating man, but he was a man of power and money so we both simply knew our positions and had to play along. During the days leading to Mr. Thompson’s murder he had become awfully silent. Back then I thought it was plainly a sign of him being in his dotage, but then on the night before he died we had a highly unusual conversation down in the kitchen.

It was sometime during midnight when I had fallen asleep peacefully in my bedroom that I heard what sounded like metal falling to the floor. I quickly went downstairs, where the sound came from, and noticed that the lights were on in the kitchen, and inside by the kitchen table sat Mr. Thompson in his favorite suit. He was looking straight out into the air, as if he was focusing on something or someone. Under the chair in front of him laid the pair of scissors that must have caused the jarring sound.
“Mr. Thompson, what are you doing up so late?”
“Emeralda? I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“Of course not.”
“You see, I can’t go back to sleep. I had this dream about this young woman who was
looking at me from a distance—her eyes... they were dark, sort of like your eyes—and they kept staring at me as if they were telling me something, but I couldn’t hear her. I tried to reach for her, but when I did, she fell down to the floor, and then into the floor—and poof she
was gone—just like that. I thought it was strange because—it felt like I knew her, that I had seen her before, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, they do say we only dream about the faces we know and see in life,” I said as I picked up the pair of scissors from the floor and put them back in the drawer.
“I’ve heard something about that—” he went, but trailed off.
“Well, I thought I would come down here to warm up some milk, thought maybe it would help me fall asleep again,” he said and pointed to the stove, but there wasn’t anything on it. “Alright, Mr. Thompson,” I finally said “It’s late, so I will head back to bed. If you need
anything you know where I am.” I began to head out of the kitchen.
“I’ve been watching you,” he suddenly whispered, his voice quiet and craggy like it’s
never been used. I stopped in my tracks. “Sorry?”
He was looking into the air again.
“Mr. Thompson?”
“Hmm?”
“I thought I heard you say something about—”
“I just said sleep well,” he said in his usual thin, breathy voice. “Okay. You too.” I said then left the room.

I must admit I felt a bit unsettled and even scared about Mr. Thompson’s behaviour that night, but I’ve worked long enough with the old man to know that he didn’t like to be questioned. The night Mr. Thompson was murdered I had been away from the village. The old man had so kindly insisted I should take a day off which I had reluctantly accepted. It was sometime after midnight that I received a call from the local police officer. The neighbors had reported hearing a loud scream from the mansion and when the police had arrived they had found his bloody and slashed body in the living room. He had been murdered, but they hadn’t found any evidence or trace from the killer yet. I naturally went to the house immediately and offered to help the investigators with anything they needed.
I decided to stay at the house that whole week to fix all of the paperwork regarding Mr. Thompson’s death. As the days went by, my heart was beginning to grow more uneasy in that house. I wasn’t mourning the old man’s death. I had known he was seeing his last days. Nor was it a murderer on the loose that agitated me. What was causing me to lose my sleep and all my senses was the bizarre painting hanging in the middle of the living room. I don’t remember how this new painting got there nor was I even sure I had ever seen it in the first place, but no matter what I did I couldn't get the image out of my head. The painting was a full-length self-portrait of the old man himself in his favorite suit. It was vivid and realistic, almost too realistic, not like anything Mr. Thompson had painted before. Yet, something was different. His sunken brown eyes were not brown anymore. No—not the slightest. They were light blue and they held a stare as if perhaps he was warning me about something I didn’t know.It appeared that his painted eyes were somehow focused on me wherever I went, even in my sleep I would see those fearful light blue eyes staring back at me clearly wanting to tell me something. The image was haunting me, and soon I wondered if the old man in the picture was actually mocking me, if he could see right through my soul.


Mrs. Thompson’s

I knew her black pupils could see right through mine. Just as her eyes followed me with every step she took, my eyes followed her wherever she went. I could see her pain—it reflected mine. When I had first met Emeralda her eyes weren’t quite as dark, they were more brown and innocent looking. She was a rather small woman back then and always smelled of red roses. Since she was new in the country, I had been skeptical at first whether she could handle the job, but she was eager, learned fast and soon made a good maid for me. As all other
things though, this too had to come to an end. She must have realized, as I had done then, that this would soon be over.

On the fifth night that she had slept alone in the mansion, the bags under her eyes were darker and deeper than ever, and a bloodshot color had completely taken over her once Bambi looking eyes. However, she had stopped glancing over at me and instead wandered around the house with such purpose, such determination, Peculiar. It was as if she had come to some resolution. She went on like this until the seventh day when the night was so dark not the slightest shadow could be witnessed in the mansion. That night the sound of the heavy rainstorm outside overshadowed any creaking, scraping or crying in the mansion. That's the night she made her way to the living room. She walked towards me—slowly and purposefully clutching something hard in her small palm. It was the same pair of scissors that had killed the old man. When she stood just so she faced me eye-level she let out a scream—a loud shrieking scream that could haunt anyone for years to come. Then, she lifted the object in her hand and began stabbing me. Her dark black eyes were wild. I had never seen such anger—such passion as she carried in each cut. With each stab she caused me a fresh cut deciphered on her body, squirting out blood everywhere, but she continued. Soon, I wasn’t even sure whose blood mostly covered us. Eventually, when the last blood oozed out of her body a pleased smile plastered her face, and then she started sinking, sinking down to the floor, going further and further down and then even through the floor as if the floor was swallowing her whole. The smell of phantom slowly replaced the smell of red roses.

Skriven av: Shoti