Read Revenence (Novella): Dead Red for Free Online Page B

about in the trunk, although she was unable to resist donning a red-jeweled tiara before burrowing in.  Her hiding place was private and cozy, yet bright and sunny through the translucent fabric.  She heard Irish music start up from downstairs, followed by cheering and rhythmic clapping.  Daphne tapped her toes lightly together in time with the music, her feet clad in her white, spring-time dress shoes.
         Although she knew that she would later regret missing out on playing with the other children, she couldn't bring herself to leave the delightful room and all of its contents.  She spent what felt like hours basking in the sunlit trunk.  After a very long time, she heard a voice that confused her at first, coming from outside of the trunk.
         "How's that, Scarlet?" a man asked.  "You like it?"
         Daphne furrowed her brow, questions formulating in her mind.  Who was Scarlet?  Who was the man  in the room in the room with her, and where did he come from?  She decided to ignore the voice, keeping her head buried in the starched, netted petticoats around her.
         "Yeah," the disembodied male voice said, "I gave her a little something extra...keep her from wanting to puke from the H, plus make her a little more sedated.  Oh, and a hallucinogen thrown in there."
         Daphne heard a second male voice in response to the first, although it reached her ears as a muted murmur.
         "Oh, yeah," the first voice said.  "She'll be fine.  Trust me.  I know what I'm doing."
         Daphne realized that the music had stopped.  All of the festive sounds were gone.  The birds, the chatter and the gently babbling fountains, one with a mocking, silent Pan.  All the sounds were gone, other than the two men speaking to one another.  The smells were different, too.  She no longer detected the smell of fresh air through the fabrics surrounding her, or the smell of corned beef, cabbage and fresh-baked Irish soda bread.  She now sensed a vaguely musty odor, like being in a basement, along with cigarette smoke and something else she couldn't put her finger on, something that smelled vaguely hot and metallic.
         She felt, more than ever, that the safest thing was to stay inside the trunk, to keep her head concealed within the layers of fabric.  She wished her legs weren't dangling out, but she was more comfortable sitting perfectly still than drawing attention to herself by retracting her feet into the trunk.  She breathed deeply, internally attempting to will away what she was certain to be bad guys outside of the sanctuary of her wooden container.
         As she cowered, she became aware of a creeping sensation on her lower back.  She panicked, thinking there must be something inside the trunk, some kind of insect or spider.  Her eyes flared wide open, though she repressed the urge to scream.  She still wanted to avoid detection by whom or what ever it was standing in the guest room, outside the trunk.  As the sensation continued, slowly tracing a path along her lower back ribs, she attempted to move slightly in the hopes of ceasing contact with whatever tiny creature was beneath her.  She found, however, that she was unable to move or shift at all.  She froze up in her terrorized state, her breathing slow and shallow.  After several seconds, she succumbed to the psychological stress, and her consciousness shut down.

     During one of Daphne's few sexual encounters, she had realized that she seemed to have a love/hate reaction to having her back touched.
         It was after she had been released from the mental health center.  Another former patient, Jacob, had convinced her to contact him after her release.
         "Look me up," he told her just before he was discharged.  "You only got a couple months left, yourself.  Promise?"
         Daphne had agreed, having forged a friendship with him over the past few years.  They were both quiet people who appreciated