Page 28 of Grotesque
June 13, 1812
They say the land is cursed here and that this is why we were able to attain such a large acreage for such a low sum. But how can something so beautiful be cursed? There is a large field in which Gerald has started construction of our new home. New builders come every day from Bristol to help. It’s going rather quickly, I dare say we’ll be in by the end of summer.
August 19, 1812
A gentleman came by this afternoon to view the property. He is a merchant of sorts. He was selling these hideous stone creatures from his cart. Gargoyles he called them. They’re supposed to protect the property they’re set to guard. I hate them, but Gerald has bought eleven. The one that looks like a dragon is being set over the front door, while the others will go on the balcony. I hate having them where I can see them from my bedroom.
September 4, 1812
There is a strangeness to the house that chills me. Maybe this is the curse everyone was talking about. In the daylight it feels as if I am being watched. The sensation follows me from room to room. Once I even felt its presence in the garden. But it is when night falls that it becomes more insistent, this constant weight, the knowledge that I am not alone. What scares me most is how keenly I sense itshunger.Gerald says it is because I am stilladjusting to our new home. He doesn’t feel the weight of it as I do.
Once I felt something grab me while I was sleeping. Gerald works long hours, and he was not in bed when this happened. How can a house be haunted when no one has yet to die in it? I know how morbid that sounds but there is something very wrong here.
Gerald has named the house Glamis Manor. He says it came to him in a dream.
I turned, scooting my back against the tree so I could face Glamis as I continued to read. I knew the feeling she was talking about. I could feel it crawling over my skin at that very moment.
September 30, 1812
I was right. Therehasbeen someone watching me, and last night, I met him. He’s beautiful. Lord, forgive me for saying this because I do love Gerald, but this man is the most beautiful I have ever seen. I know I should have been afraid of him but when I saw him standing at the end of my bed, I thought him to be an angel.
When I asked him if that’s what he was, he laughed at me. His voice was as beautiful as he was. He said he is of a divine power, something greater than an angel. I didn’t know there was anything above the angels, but I believe him. If you saw him, you would understand.
November 29, 1812
I’m sorry I have not written in some weeks. In truth, I have been too ashamed to pen these words. The angel – even though that’s not what he is, it is what I call him – has been visiting me every night. It started as a kiss upon our first meeting, when I was so awed by his beauty. Since then, his kisses have become more abundant, leaving decadent marks in the most indecentplaces. I’m blushing as I write this, but he kissed me between my legs. I’ve never felt anything like it. I didn’t know one could put their mouth there and feel such bliss. I am certain it’s a sin, but oh the feeling is so wonderful.
The angel tells me not to have guilt for what we do and so I try not to. But I can’t help feeling that I am betraying Gerald in some way. I can’t allow this to go on any further. Gerald and I are married, and marriage is sacred. I’ll tell him the next time I see him that this has to stop.
December 9, 1812
My angel hasn’t returned. Have I offended him in some way? Did he know I was going to tell him to stop? Now that he is no longer here, I feel like I am going mad without him. I want to feel his lips on mine again. If he returned, I think I’d like to put my mouth on him the way he did to me.Between his thighs.
January 2, 1812
It has been some time since I’ve written but so much has been happening–
A chill skittered across my skin, dragging my attention up. The sky was darkening. I lurched to my feet, kicking the box and its contents across the ground. Had I been reading all day? I looked down at the book clutched in my hand, my finger between the pages. I was already halfway through it.
I scooped up the photographs and journal and set them back in the box. I turned back to the bird laying in its plastic bag. The beady outline of its eye was pressed against the film.
“I’m sorry little guy.” I slid the bag into the hole. I hadn’t meant to forget about it, but finding Rosaline’s diary felt like I had already won the million dollars owed to me. No, not owed, gifted to me. Finding this felt like a gift.
I shoveled the dirt into the hole and gave it a solid pat. There wasn’t time for a prayer (do you pray for animals? I don’t think they have souls, so it probably doesn’t matter) and scooped up my new treasure before jogging back to the manor.
It wasn’t until I was safely back in the house that dread hit me. I looked down at the box I held. I shouldn’t have taken it. Yet I found myself gripping it tighter. The journal was proof – even if it would only be proof tome –that what I was experiencing was real.
As much as I was aching to keep reading Rosaline’s story, I knew I didn’t have much time. The sun would sink and then my stranger would return. I knew whatever Rosaline had to say was true, and so I could not let him get his hands on this precious diary. As the last bit of light faded from the sky, I tucked the silver box beneath the mattress of one of the back bedrooms. The diary I planted in plain sight in the library, betweenThe Divine Comedyby Dante and another nameless spine. I’d be back to finish Rosaline’s account of her time with the ‘angel’. And though my stomach churned with the knowledge of how her life had ended, a small part of me hoped the diary would contain the secret I needed to rid myself of the stranger, before I met the same fate.
Two days later and the nanny cams were installed and running. There had been no trace of the vampire since his last visit. A wave of disappointment hit me when four days rolled by without any sign of him, in person or on the footage. The only thing I learned was that I tossed in my sleep a lot, but there was no strange man creeping into my home, much less my bed, at night.
The more time he spent away the more anxious I grew. Perhaps the cameras were enough to deter him.
It wasn’t that I wanted him to come back: I was on edge, flinching at every sound. Yet a darker part of me was slick with anticipation. Fear did not outweigh the memory of how hard he had made me come. The sweep of his tongue between my legs was a visceral memory that had haunted me every night since the event.
By day five I was at my wits end, so I drove into town to get some distance. It was agoodthing that he hadn’t returned. It wasn’t normal to crave the attention of a stalker. It wasn’t sane.
As I pulled into a parking space by the water my stomach dropped. This was the early stages of the Macky madness. It had to be. I lowered my forehead to the steering wheel, banging it gently a few times in an attempt to knock some sense into myself.
