The Fear Dissertation // A Jonathan Crane Dark Romance

60

I'm hiding in the closet.

I'm doing exactly what my brother told me to. I'm behaving. I can hear him screaming, hear the sound of him dying. And still I obey. Hand pressed to my mouth. I don't dare move. I don't dare make a sound.

I wait in the dark.

Time stretches before me, never ending. It could be moments or days or weeks. The serial killer could still be in the house, or he could be long-dead by now. I wait so long, it feels like I ought to be an old, old woman. My skin wrinkled and sagged, my mind long wasted away in this darkness.

The closet door opens.

My parents smile at me. I blink, my eyes burning as they adjust to the light.

For it is light. The house is filled with sun. It's a warm spring day, and my mum wears her favourite dress with the blue flowers, and my dad has his favourite hat on his head.

"Come on, Sienna," Mum smiles. "Let's all have some lunch together. It's been such a long time."

"Where's Warren?" I ask.

"He's just downstairs," my dad says. Shakes his head fondly. "Playing with that damn remote controlled helicopter again. Come look, he's crashed it twice."

My heart swells with joy. They're not hurt. They weren't killed. It was no more than a dream. An awful, terrible dream. Elated, I go to step out of the closet. I go to join them for lunch. For an eternity of sandwiches and Warren trying to navigate his helicopter. My family, once more.

But something stops me.

I feel it deep in my navel. Like a hook, an unyielding cord, anchoring me in the closet. Refusing to let me go.

I frown. Suddenly cross. I pull against the strain, expecting the cord to snap, but it only holds me tighter.

"Sienna?" Mum asks me, concerned. "Sweetie, what is it?"

Sweetie. The word echoes through my mind. Reminding me of something. Urging me to remember a dream I've long forgotten, long awoken from.

I look down at my feet. Everything inside me goes still. I realise my heart has stopped beating, my chest empty. Almost painful.

And there's a single black feather on the ground. A crow feather.

I bend down and pick it up. Turn it in my hands.

I remember something I've long forgotten.

I used to find these all over the house as a kid.

It breaks and shatters something in my mind. There's no way it's possible.

I hear somebody tell me, it's the spirits.

I see a scarecrow. But it's not the figure that guards the crops, not the one that broke into this house and killed my parents.

He looks more like an angel, with glacial eyes and carved cheekbones. A burlap hood. He takes me in his arms and holds me until my chest doesn't feel so empty, so alien anymore. Until there's a flutter inside it once again.

Until I release a sharp gasp, and squeeze my eyes shut.

I join the blackness of the closet once more, but this time, it's okay. I feel the hook and the cord and realise they're connecting me to him. He's the one refusing to let me go. And I don't know where I'll be when the closet door opens again. But I know I'll still be in his arms, and that makes everything okay.

Somebody outside the door begins to cry.

I tolerate it. My chest aches for it. But it stirs something deep within me, some instinct I cannot yet understand. It demands that I open my eyes. That I push open the door.

I don't want to. There's a serial killer out there. The dead bodies of my family.

But the crying continues and I can't bear it any longer. It rips at my skin and stirs maternal feelings I've never before possessed. If I were a planet it would be my sun, and I would forever revolve around it, obeying its laws.

I keep one arm wrapped around the Scarecrow, holding him close.

With the other hand, I open the door.