Charlotte Cosgrove is suffering, and strange things are happening, but is it truly real or something she's conjured in her mind?
PART III - HIM
It’s another miserable post-lunch session of retching. Charlotte can’t figure out what was disturbing her intestines–so far, she stayed away from salad, and sandwiches, and now leftover spaghetti which had been fine for dinner the night before was coming back in a vengeance. Maybe she just needed to cut out gluten altogether.
She rubs her stomach with a groan after involuntarily evicting most of the offending spaghetti.
Charlotte had been having one hells of a week–suffering artist's block, calls from her family checking up on her which she sent to voicemail most of the time, her husband not reaching out whatsoever, and this search to find something she could eat that didn’t make her feel sick on top of lingering moping, pangs of self-doubt, and internalized guilt for not being productive or completely truthful about her marriage situation. She was stressed, sad, and exhausted, and had been having a hard time getting to sleep at night.
Her phone buzzes and she expects it to be another text from her mother or one of her brothers; she looks at the screen and nearly can’t believe her eyes!
It was a text from Marshall!
Charity Gala tonight. Mother would like you to be there. I’ll pick you up at eight-thirty.
The Cosgroves owned an old neoclassical theater downtown they rented out or threw soirees at. Charlotte loved the place and historically had always loved attending the parties and balls held there. She of course wanted to go, but she also did not. She felt that way often as of late regarding her husband. She loved him but she didn’t. She wanted to see him but she didn’t. Her feelings seemed to be in a perpetual limbo of sorts.
She was also pricked with anger at his casual audacity, which was no surprise. He just assumed she would go with him and didn’t properly ask her if she had plans already! But then it was even more infuriating, that he knew she wouldn’t be busy because he knew her well enough to know if she was feeling sad she would hole up and stay home.
She leans over the bathroom counter and starts hastily typing a response before she thinks better of it and deletes it all. She can’t be leaving receipts of their fallout. If his mother, for some reason checked his phone, it would be all too easy to know, then it would spread, then even more people would be bugging her about it.
It was hard to admit, it was embarrassing but it was harder to pretend everything was all right when it certainly wasn’t.
She instead slumps onto the low table at the edge of her bed and types out an answer.
What about you?
Context please?
Would you like me to be there too?
She frowns and waits as the ‘typing’ notice at the bottom of the text goes from active to not, and back again.
I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t
Liar.
Adrianna probably hassled him enough about it that he relented and why would he refuse to invite his own wife if he didn’t want his parents to hassle him even more about how his marriage was going? She could just imagine her father-in-law complaining to Marshall about how he doesn’t spend enough time with her. This ball would put the nagging at ease for a while.
She sighs, she may as well get ready–she doesn’t want to offend her in-laws.
The process of getting dolled up is…a process but she has always enjoyed it. She liked picking out her makeup and putting together a look–she is, after all, a visual-oriented person.
Makeup was sort of like painting anyhow.
She goes for a deep, ruby-red shade of lipstick and a slightly smoky eye shadow and puts in her contacts.
On some level she wants Marshall to notice her, to see what he has been missing if he would just allow himself to notice.
His Sashka or whoever must be really pretty, and the thought only strengthens her self-doubt as she stares at her figure in a mirror’s reflection.
Then she notices there’s a small gap in the material of her slip and curses. She doesn’t have time or the material to sew it up.
She doesn’t have another one.
She could just not wear it or…
Her eyes land across the room on the strange pin cushion that she had settled on her dresser for the time being.
She thinks maybe, she could just use one of the pins to hold the material in place, it wouldn’t be too discernable.
She plucks a pin from it and tries to get the gap to close.
A small hiss sounds from behind her.
Startled, she whips around only to find tendrils of smoke circling around the pin cushion.
There's a new, sharper, hiss with each tendril that appears and billows into a cloud.
The smoke, mist, or whatever it was–it smelled like damp sand; the beach after a tropical rain.
Why was that so specific?
She couldn’t recall ever experiencing such a sensation, yet it was her first thought upon having the vapors thread into her senses.
It was dark and light and filled the room. Where was it coming from exactly? What was it?
Through the haze, she can see a figure appear and her better sense to be scared starts to take over. But instead of running, her curiosity roots her in place as the shape becomes clearer.
A face.
Eyes as black as coal under an unimpressed pair of thick brows.
Lips pierced thrice and moving with a voice as deep as a chasm spilling from them yet she can't focus on the words.
Not that they make sense anyhow.
It's a…person? So suddenly and inexplicably, sitting on her dresser and staring her down.
“Reffus ot eno eht si ohw em llet.”
Charlotte stares agape. Her mind spinning in circles with questions so fast she can’t catch any at all to ask.
“Reffus ot eno eht si ohw em llet,” they repeat, the voice so low it causes her to feel a chill.
Finally, she draws a breath she has been holding and manages a question, “What are you even saying?”
Not:
‘Who are you?’
‘How did you get here?’
‘What just happened?’
‘Is this real life?’
Or any number of other important questions she could have asked!
She feels her body tense apprehensively with every movement they make–a small, knowing smile that tells her nothing. Narrowed eyes, a slight tip of the head.
“It’s been an eon since Amassa sent me to aid a foreigner with their troubles,” their voice finally speaks words she can understand, yet still makes no sense to her.
With the rustle of grass, they slide off her dresser and onto their feet. The movement wholly reminds her of a snake–graceful and fluid.
They are intimidatingly tall. She tries not to stare; there is a lot of…skin–and they have intricate tattoos inked up both arms that look stunning; she wouldn’t mind studying them more if she had the time or a mind that wasn’t concerned about a stranger in her home.
“Please leave, you…you..shouldn’t be here,” she manages to find her voice and says while backing away from their advance until her calves hit the low table at the edge of her bed.
“I’m exactly where I should be–Amassa doesn’t make mistakes. You called on her for help, I am her tool to help you. So, tell me, who is the one to suffer?”
Charlotte gasps in sudden clarity. She must be having a psychotic episode! That’s the only explanation to why a rando appeared out of a smoky mist, half-naked, and is talking words she doesn’t even know or can make sense of!
Oh fuck, oh fuck, this was bad.
She can’t go anywhere if she is losing touch with reality. She had been shut-in for the last two weeks and was withdrawn, despondent–between bouts of moping and cleaning.
And worst of all she felt nauseous AND stressed.
She turns her back on her overactive imagination and snaps her eyes closed. Covers the ear that the figment is trying to speak into.
Trying to drown out the baritone saying something about being embedded with the spirit of the earth and taught the knowledge of elders and the ancient darkness of magic.
Then as suddenly as it all appeared, there was quiet.
Peace.
Her eyes open.
The presence of them is gone, thankfully.
She dares turn her head to confirm and all she can see is the small pin cushion doll lying on the floor next to her. She drops to her knees and leans over it, studying it with a shaky breath.
“What the hells?” is all she can ask herself and the universe, “What in the actual hells is happening to me?”
Her phone buzzes again.
Marshall is asking if she’s ready. He is almost there.
She doesn’t want to go out. She doesn’t want to be around people when she is like this.
But, she doesn’t want to be alone in her house anymore either.
Maybe she needs to get out—because her mind has been idle and apparently needs to be around something more stimulating than daytime soap operas and a pint of ice cream that won’t upset her tummy.
She hasn’t even picked up a paintbrush since before the wedding.
She slips into her dress, rolls the pantyhose up her legs, and straps her heels around her ankles...
...and still hasn’t touched that odd little pin cushion...
...but she doesn’t want it in her house either, so she hesitates briefly before snatching it up and stuffing it in her purse.
Marshall is waiting for her at the end of the sidewalk, looking handsome as ever in a black suit.
It reminds her of the time he picked her up in a limo for the high school prom.
He was the only teenager who could swing one without having to pool his money with friends and share.
He gives her an interested eyebrow arch that makes her feel a bit weak in the knees, as he opens the door for her.
He can be a gentleman in all the ways that matter except one.
She still feels a bit shaken from her episode and has to be called back to the present by another buzz of a text. One moment she was on her street and the next they were halfway across the city.
She blinks. Isn’t he sitting next to her? She turns her head and sees him sitting back in his seat, giving her a Cheshire cat smile.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asks with a frown, and his smile dissipates as he types out another text with his thumbs.
This is ridiculous, why isn’t he speaking to her?!
Her phone buzzes.
You told me never to speak to you again.
She had forgotten about that and was even more surprised he remembered and didn’t just ignore her request because he was Marshall Cosgrove and could do whatever he wanted.
Another buzz.
But If you want me to talk to you, I’ll gladly do so.
So, is this why he hadn’t called or stopped by once since they’d come back from Twikkii? She did remember flinging some angry words at him that day on the beach. She was right in doing so, she wasn’t going to apologize for that.
She wouldn’t be lying if she said she liked the silence but she knew it probably wasn’t good for her. Who is the one to suffer? That question posited by the entity from her head wouldn’t stop running through her mind. It was her–she was suffering, in so many ways.
So much of her loathed him.
So much of her still wanted him to be in love with her the way she had been with him.
By nature, she was not a vindictive person–she always chose to be the one to suffer rather than let it happen to others.
She finally texts back without looking at him again, before turning in her seat so her back is to him.
His phone buzzes.
Before their wedding, he would have reached out for her but is at least wise enough to recognize by her body language she doesn’t want to be touched right now.
He can gift her the most expensive jewelry, the fanciest clothes, the prettiest flowers, and the most delicious chocolates but it all amounts to nothing if he can’t give her his love.
That’s all she ever wanted from him anyway.
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