Sarah Jayne Kelly
I sprinted through a labyrinth of hallways, the pads of my bare feet pattering against creaking mahogany floors. With each frantic step, I left behind a puddle of warm bath water, my linen nightgown and my unkempt hair, soaked. My chest burned, and my ribs seemed to puncture every desperate inhale. I wanted to stop, to lay the crown of my head against the dark wainscotting, but even the thought of resting lured the shadows nearer. Their spindly fingers skimmed over the hollow of my cheek, and I felt hands clasp around my neck. He was there.
His warm breath trailed down the nape of my neck as he showed me how to aim, raising my arms, his thumb firm against the diamond on my finger. I hesitantly caressed the trigger, and his fingers met mine, pressing down. Smoke wisped from the barrel, and the shock recoiled me back into his arms. Wafts of gunpowder mixed with the loamy aroma of heather and bergamot; it tickled my nose, and we giggled together. He celebrated my hunt, and before I could process it, I was pinned like a butterfly against the grass floor of the frost-sheathed Mooreland—wings exposed for all the earth to see. His rough hands hungrily grazed my skin, my flesh swelling out of the gaps between his knuckles. As quick as he was there, he was gone again, across the field collecting our game. I stayed lying, dew and soil smudged on my elbows and knees.
I gasped and lurched forward, my memory fracturing as the hands coiled tighter around me. No matter how much I wrung my skirt, the water returned and weighed me down. Ahead, familiar paintings distorted into beastly, contorted creatures that observed my frantic stumbles with drooling mouths. I couldn’t keep running straight. To my left, a door splintered open, and I barged through.
Floral wallpaper, feather pillows, and downy bedding had been waiting for me, but I didn’t dare accept the greeting. The room seethed with unwanted memories—the sight of my forearm with dark blotches of purple and the sound of his brash voice, ‘Oh, my angel. Clean yourself up before someone sees you like this.’
I choked and staggered forward. The floorboards that imprinted my palms and knees undulated into cold tiles. Mildew bloomed across cracked walls, swirling into a halo around our bathtub. My fingertips perforated the water’s delicate surface, and I staggered inside, allowing the warmth to consume me. I sank my head in and watched the mould on the ornate ceiling warp under the rippling water, the cloth of my gown billowing around my body.
The ceiling seemed to become engulfed by shadows. Startled, I tried to emerge from the depths until two hands, his hands, forced me back under. I screamed and attempted to pry away his grasp, but I was weak, and my voice wasted into gargling. Reality slipped in and out, and I watched the light dim and the bubbles fizzle away. Stillness.
Stretched before me was a twisting stone path, flanked by thorn-choked hedges and overgrown graves guarded by decaying angels—their faces contorted with horror and anguish. One with a dagger in her heart, another a hole in her head.
For the last time, I glanced back at the manor. Crimson red panelling, black shutters and arched bay windows. Once my home, now my purgatory. I wandered through the grotesque garden, wading through the thick, looming mist that pooled across the earth. Towering black gates stood at the end of the path, chained up, locking me away from the hazy wall of light beyond.
A whisper halted me, and I turned. A new angel, pristine and untouched, stood over a mound of freshly dug soil. Her hands floated at her sides, and her body hung loosely. I wouldn’t have recognised her without the tangled hair that wildly framed her face. I brushed my finger across her swollen neck. To him, she was a butterfly to pin, a plaything to wear out, destined to become a decaying angel. He made her that way. She was not the first. She would not be the last. Dozens of empty graves lay in the overgrowth, ready to be claimed.
Sarah Jayne Kelly is a 19-year-old aspiring author from NSW, who wrote her first “book” at just 8 years old. Now, in her second year studying English at the University of New South Wales, she hopes to finally begin publishing works and find her space as an emerging writer in Australia. She enjoys the gothic, the romantic, and the fantastical, often using nature as metaphors in her stories to address socio-political concerns.
More tantalising stories are waiting for you…
Return to Issue 3
Claws Out Literary 