1812: Untitled, Chapter 4

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Dora couldn’t sleep; a situation exacerbated by the usual thunderous snoring of her husband Donald on the other side of the bed. Every night, she found herself surprised that the racket didn’t disturb their eight-year-old daughter Alice, but it never did: Alice was a heavy sleeper, a trait which she had apparently inherited from her father.

She sighed to herself and tapped on her phone, its screen springing to life at her touch. She frowned at the sight of the clock on the screen: two in the morning; she had to be up in four hours to make sure Alice was ready for school, that breakfast was ready for everyone and that she was in a position to go out to work straight after dropping Alice off.

For the most part, Dora enjoyed being what she thought of as a “traditional” mother figure, albeit one who held down a job as well as effectively running the household. Donald would be the first to describe himself as “useless” around the house, and she didn’t mind too much; he was the one with the high-paying job, after all, so it was largely his money coming in that allowed the Miller family to continue to live in the manner which they had become accustomed to. Her income was a bonus on top of that; Donald had been initially resistant to the idea of her going back to work after Alice was old enough to go to school, but Dora had found herself so bored each day that she craved the opportunity to get out of the house and speak to other human beings that her office job offered, even if the work itself was considerably beneath her intellectual capacity. She eventually managed to convince Donald that it was the best for everybody involved.

At least the downtime in her job — and there was a lot of it — afforded her the opportunity to catch up with friends via text message and email; after an initial run-in with the company’s IT department over the use of company equipment to send personal messages, she’d confined these activities to her phone, and no-one seemed to mind that too much.

She’d known Magnus for a short while; they’d met by chance through a social networking website, and quickly become friends. Magnus didn’t seem to her like the type who made friends easily, but there was something about him that interested her; she knew quickly that he was someone who carried great sadness with him, but he often managed to push that aside and demonstrate a touch of cheeky humour of just the type she responded well to.

She could tell that he was attracted to her, and during some of the “down” periods of her occasionally rocky relationship with Donald, she’d contemplated seeing just what might happen if she allowed things to progress in the way he wanted. But she held back, even though she knew this might hurt him in the short term; he was going through a relationship breakup of his own, after all, and for her to be the “other woman” even as he suspected he had been cheated on would be somewhat hypocritical, to say the least. She didn’t want to put him in a difficult situation, and she didn’t want to break up her family life, either; it wasn’t perfect, not by a considerable margin, but it was holding together for now.

She was worried about Magnus, though. He had not taken the break-up well, and their meeting the other day had only confirmed to her what she had suspected: he was starting to lose his grip on rationality. She didn’t begrudge him his anger and sadness, of course — they’d had some long talks about how things had got to the state they were in, and she’d come to understand him perhaps even better than his partner had — but she was still worried, particularly after the strange things he’d described and asked her about.

The snoring was momentarily interrupted as Donald’s imposing figure rolled over in the bed, but quickly resumed. Dora sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she probably wasn’t going to be getting to sleep any time soon, stood up, walked out of her room and headed downstairs to the kitchen to fix herself a drink.

Decaffeinated coffee in hand — she had a weakness for it, particularly since Donald had bought her a capsule coffee machine a short while ago — she wandered into the living room and opened the curtains. Their house was right at the end of a cul-de-sac, and had a good view up the rest of the road. It made her feel like the lady of the manor, and she often enjoyed just standing here, looking out from behind the house’s net curtains, surveying the rest of the street and seeing what everyone else was up to.

Tonight, though, things were different; as she pulled back the curtains she paused and drew a sharp intake of breath, because she was really not expecting what she saw.

It was light. But it couldn’t be. She tapped on her phone and checked the clock again; sure enough, the hour digit still read “2”. There was no way that the street outside should be lit in such a way, but the evidence was right there in front of her.

She guzzled the last of her coffee, not caring that it was still a little bit too hot and burned her tongue, and put the cup down on the windowsill. She was confused and a little disturbed by whatever the strange phenomenon was outside her front window, but she was surprised to find herself more curious than frightened. So curious that, before she knew it, and as if something else was in control of her body, she was pulling on her coat over the top of her nightgown and squeezing her bare feet into a pair of shoes that she’d left by the door.

She opened the front door and looked out into the street. It was light, but there was something very different about this light to regular daylight. The sky wasn’t blue, for a start; it was pure, brilliant white and seemed to glow. This wasn’t the white of an overcast sky, either; it was as if the sky itself was glowing, bathing the whole street in a soft light that felt calm, but cold.

It was cold, too; there didn’t seem to be a breeze, but Dora could still feel a chill on her face as she stepped over the threshold of her house and into the front garden. She wasn’t sure where she was going to go, but something was pushing her onwards, out into this peculiar soft light. There was something out there; something beyond what she could see, and she needed to know what it was.

The thoughts in her head surprised her; she wasn’t usually the type to seek out mysteries or strange happenings like this, but there was something irresistible about this one. Perhaps it was simply the fact that it was a change from the drudgery of everyday life, or perhaps there was something more; she didn’t know.

She was halfway up the street by now, and she noticed that the end of the road seemed to fade into a pale haze, like a thick, impenetrable fog that was glowing from within. Still she continued to walk towards it; answers were inside that strange cloud, she felt, and she wanted to know what they were.

She approached the haze; it almost appeared like a wall, but she knew that there was nothing to it, and that she could walk right through it, should she so desire. And she did desire; she took a step forward and was instantly surrounded on all sides by the soft but cold white light that had been illuminating her street.

The fog — whatever it was — was so thick that she could no longer even see her arms in front of her, and it didn’t take long for her to feel disoriented. She could no longer feel the solidity of the ground beneath her feet; it was as if she had left her body and was simply floating in a void filled with light.

Perhaps she was; she couldn’t explain it, but she felt completely at ease here. It felt natural and good, though still cold. It didn’t feel like the warm, benevolent glow she had come to associate with the concept of “heaven” during her formative years; it was just light. A strange, calming light that seemed to be encouraging her to relax, to let it flow through her, to just…

Her eyes snapped open, and she blinked a few times. She couldn’t see anything at all. Had she gone blind? No; it was just the darkness of her bedroom. She recognised the sound of Donald snoring beside her, the softness of the mattress beneath her body, the warmth of the duvet she was snuggled under. All was as it should be. Her eyes started to adjust to the darkness, and she made out familiar shapes, and she felt at ease.

A dream, then, she thought, but a very strange one. Then she paused, her mind slowly recalling some of the things Magnus had said to her regarding his peculiar dream. Her experience — for the memory was still fresh and vivid in her mind — felt eerily familiar as she recalled the details Magnus had described, only in her case, it felt as if she had had almost the complete opposite experience. Darkness was replaced by light; fear by calm. What did it mean?

She rolled over onto her side, trying to get comfortable again. She felt tired and wanted to sleep; she could think about this more when the morning come, and perhaps even talk it over with Magnus. For now, she just wanted to…

She froze as her eyes alighted on the wall occupied by her dressing table.

Written on the wall, in letters that seemed to glow without illuminating the room itself, and in a beautiful, elegant cursive hand, was a single word: “HELLO.”

Suddenly, she felt afraid. The strange dream and the eerie, cold light didn’t feel quite so calming any more; now, they felt like a symptom of something that was very, very wrong indeed — with her mind, or with the world, she couldn’t tell. But it was frightening, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it right now in her all-but-exhausted state.

So she curled up into a foetal position, screwed her eyes up and tried as best she could to put the strange happenings out of her mind. It was not something she’d ever been particularly good at: her mind was particularly active at night, and whenever she tried to send a signal to herself not to think about something, her mind usually interpreted this as a request to think about it as much as possible. Sure enough, after a moment, she couldn’t hold herself back any longer; still curled up, she opened her eyes and looked at the spot on the wall where the beautifully written word had been.

Of course, there was nothing there; the wall was bare, and all she could make out was the rough silhouette of her dressing table.

Of course there’s nothing there, she thought. It’s just the last remnants of a dream. That’s all it is.