No birds twittered their cheerful tunes, no sunshine cascaded through open windows; instead, Vita lurched awake as the darkened undertones of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata slithered their way into her peaceful dreams. Groaning in discontent, she slipped off of her bed, groggily staring at the blue paint flaking off her bedroom wall. Accustomed to the sound of dismal piano melodies or feeling the reverberations of the organ rumbling in accordance to the funeral marches splaying across its keys, Vita slipped on her bathrobe and made her way to the hallway. She never once looked back, but if she had, she would have noticed her bed was perfectly made, as if no one had slept in it.
Her dreary walk down to the kitchen was accompanied by the ever pleasant decorating style of a woman heavily influenced by Victorian era séance parlors. There were large, claw-footed cabinets against the printed wallpaper that looked vaguely like the snarling maw of some beast, and were filled to the brim with such oddities as: small rodents’ skulls, tarnished silver candelabras, various voodoo dolls from many of the world’s cultures, and great tomes of decrepit black magic books. Vita had drawn the line at the shrunken head her mother had nearly bought.
Creeping her way through the desolate corridor, much like the flame of a candle flickers and dances its way through the overbearing darkness, Vita’s footsteps, somewhat masked by the bunny slippers, kept in time with the great grandfather clock as she gazed in boredom at the multitude of eerie china dolls propped against various pieces of furniture and flower vases filled with dead roses strewing their wrinkled petals onto the table tops. She skirted past the countless portraits of deceased relatives her superstitious mother insisted upon displaying throughout the house. Perhaps if they weren’t entombed in the shadowy blackness of an unknown background, which accentuated their gaunt, pale faces with nary a smile nor twinkle of the eye, Vita wouldn’t mind them so much.
The final notes of the song resonated in the still air, when suddenly the sound of breaking glass shattered the spectral calm of the house. Dashing past the clouded mirrors that hung on the wall, barely keeping track of the shadowy and vague reflections of herself captured briefly in the confines of the looking-glasses, Vita called out to her mother in alarm. Flying around corners and through doorways, she ignored her surroundings; and so too, did she ignore the new canvas with dull, painted eyes framed in oily golden hair (so much like her own) that hung at the tail end of the Mortem family shrine.
Skidding into the living room, Vita was accosted by the sight of her mother morosely regarding the stained glass window. By her feet was a picture frame with glass protruding from the sides. Vita, ready to demand an explanation, was interrupted when Cornelius (their black cat) jumped out from the shadows, hissed in her direction, and promptly ran out of the room. Curious about the cat’s newfound terror toward her, Vita looked up and watched as her mother stumbled haltingly out the front door. Throwing all modesty out the window, Vita pursued her in all her slipper-footed glory. She had but a moment to notice that, unlike her mother, no breath fogged out of her parted lips. Then she was off in hot pursuit.
The dark pines by the dirt path loomed above her head, long spindly arms draping themselves across the grey sky. Shivering slightly from the frigid air, Vita sped up in an attempt to reach the rapidly retreating form in front of her. Out of the darkness between the trees, she thought she saw glowing eyes and phantom faces leering at her in glee. Her feet slapped harshly at the muddy ground as she ran for the assurance of a warm hug. She stopped dead in her tracks and let the vague shadow of her mother spirit away, spirit away closer to the wrought iron gates of a cemetery.
Dread pooled in her stomach as she hesitantly entered the moss encrusted grounds. Eerie stone cherubs followed her movements with their sinister stone eyes. She was startled out of her trance by the dull drone of the church’s bells, and the multitude of ravens launching themselves into the sky as a result; their inky black wings blotting out what remained of the sunlight before rain poured down from the heavens. Vita clutched her arms around herself and frantically sought out her mother with terrified eyes. Seeing her kneeling under a weeping willow, Vita weaved her way through headstones and mausoleums before stumbling backwards into a puddle. Before her was a newly erected granite slab with the words, Vita P. Mortem: Born June 21, Died October 31. This was followed by a quote from Edgar Allan Poe, “the boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” Vita’s mother was sobbing too much to notice the apparition behind her dissolving into the mist.
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