The Glimpsing (33 page)

Portia had led Gabrielle up a lengthy staircase that terminated in a hallway leading in one direction.
 
She took her past a small table topped with an arrangement of orange and yellow flowers until they arrived at the first entry on their right, a very handsome door made of dark oak wood trimmed in black.

Facing Gabrielle, Portia said, “Here we are.”

Gabrielle turned and stared at the door blankly, feeling somewhat apprehensive.
 
It was ironic that for so long she had wanted Portia to show her this room, and yet now that she understood the reason Portia had kept her out, that she had tried to commit suicide here, it was the last place in the world she wanted to see.

Portia faced the door, extended her arm, and then grasped the doorknob.
 
She cast a final look over her shoulder back at Gabrielle, a look that suggested even she understood the gravity of what she was about to do, and then turned the knob.

The door swung open slowly, in some sense mystically, and with that came the gradual revelation of Portia’s long-concealed bedroom.
 
Gabrielle watched it, at first in consternation… and then in wide-eyed wonder.

Portia waded inside, her heels politely knocking against a very glossy hardwood floor.
 
She had proceeded all the way to the vanity before realizing that Gabrielle had not followed her inside.
 
Turning, she looked at Gabrielle, who was still standing in the doorway.
 
“Is something wrong?”

Gabrielle shook her head.
 
She spoke, marveling, “No, not at all.
 
It's just so… so beautiful.”

Portia grinned.

Gabrielle wandered in, peering around the bedroom with all the bemused awe of Alice in Wonderland.
 
This was nothing like what she’d expected.
 
The bedroom just seemed to explode with rich, vibrant colors, most of them very sensuous shades of red, gold, and black.
 
Portia's bed, an ebony monstrosity, was arrayed with so many large and inviting pillows that Gabrielle actually felt like running forward and plunging into them.
 
The
vanity, which sat not far away, gleamed in the room’s warm amber lamplight, its gold-trimmed mirror peering at her like a giant's eye.

“I can't believe this,” Gabrielle gushed.
 
“It’s amazing.”

“Thank you,” Portia replied kindly, using her hands to lift
herself
up onto the vanity and letting her feet dangle.
 
She winced as the hilt of the stiletto jabbed the small of her back.
 
“Not what you expected, I take it?”

“Not in my wildest dreams,” Gabrielle replied, still gazing around.

Portia grinned again, but it quickly faded.
 
She became somber, and her eyes drifted a bit. “This is where it all happened.
 
Where everything… changed.”

Noticing the shift in Portia’s tone, Gabrielle ceased ogling and turned concernedly toward her friend.

“You know, I bought this house when I was only eighteen years old,” Portia said.
 
“I was so anxious to be free; had so many plans.
 
I originally wanted to make this a guest room, since it was a little smaller than the others on this floor.
 
Once I got moved in, however, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.
 
It stayed empty, until I discovered Collin's affair with Susanna.
 
Then I used it to do all of my painting.”
 
She pointed to an area a few feet in front of Gabrielle.
 
“I set up shop about right there.”

Jack was peering through the closet door, watching as Portia sat on the vanity.
 
He could not see Gabrielle, but he could hear her.
 
That excited him, but he remained troubled.
 
She had not been brought here by accident.
 
Nothing Portia did was by accident.

“That’s also where I fell from my stool,” Portia continued, “where I landed in my blood.
 
I can still remember its smell; that pungent odor.
 
As I told you downstairs, it wasn’t long before I saw her.
 
”

“You mean the woman you painted?”

“Yes.
 
She was laying right there, on the floor, where you’re standing.”

Gabrielle glanced down.
 
She felt like she should move, but did not.

“I don’t recall much after that, but when I woke up, blood was everywhere: all over the walls, the doors,
the
drapes.
 
It was as if my body just stood up on its own and began trying to claw its way out of here.”

That visual made Gabrielle very uneasy.
 
She did her best not to let it show.
 
“It’s… hard to believe something so tragic could have happened in a room this beautiful.”

“Yes, I'm sure it is.”

“What made you turn it into your bedroom?”

“After my incident, this room became very special to me.”

“Special?
 
After what happened here, I wouldn’t think you’d ever want to come back.”

“You may find this strange, but I see a certain beauty in what took place here.
 
No less beautiful than this room is right now.”

Gabrielle frowned.
 
“Portia, you almost died in this room.
 
There’s nothing beautiful about that.”

“It wasn't the dying that I found so beautiful, Gabrielle.”
 
She peered up at her.
 
“It was the waking up.”

Gabrielle balked.
 
If the comment was a joke meant to provoke mortification, then it could not have been more effective.

Portia asked, “Have you given it any thought?”

“What’s that?”

“Dying.”

Gabrielle eyed Portia sourly.
 
“Not lately.”

“Do you fear it?”

“Doesn't everyone?”

Portia smiled.
 
“I guess so.
 
And for very good reason.”

Gabrielle stared a Portia flatly.
 
She had an urge to ask the woman what she meant, but chose not to.
 
Something in her actually feared what the woman might say.

Portia said, “You know, when I was a child, my mother used to talk to me about dying all the time.
 
She used to tell me that just before you die, you see it.’”

“See what?” Gabrielle asked.

Portia blinked up at her.
 
“The other world.”

“What other world?”

“The one that lies just beyond this one.”

Again Gabrielle had no idea what Portia meant, nor did she wish to pursue the matter.
 
In fact, she was intending to change the subject, but Portia spoke up too quickly.

“As a child, you can imagine how much that terrified me.
 
When I should have been thinking about boys or Barbie dolls, I stayed up half the night thinking about my own death, what I would see when it happened.
 
My mother would always try to comfort me, telling me that as long as I followed God, I didn’t have anything to worry about, that what I’d see at my death would be more wonderful than I could possibly imagine.
 
The problem was that I didn’t always feel like I was following God, and, as such, I was truly terrified of what would I’d see.”
 
She paused, sighing. “But by the time I’d reached the
middle of high school, I’d begun to doubt my mother.
 
I began to believe that when you died, you just died.
 
Meeting Collin certainly didn’t help things; he only encouraged my disbelief.
 
And when my mother was committed to the Bedford Asylum, I saw it as proof positive that everything she’d told me was just wild-eyed superstition.
 
There was no world beyond; no wonders above, or horrors below.
 
But, ironically, it was Collin who helped me find my way back to the truth.
 
Catching him with Susanna changed everything.
 
It led me here, to this bedroom, where I laid in a pool of my own blood, closed my eyes… and saw everything my mother tried to warn me about.”
 
Portia’s eyes welled with tears.
 
“I never should have doubted her.”

Gabrielle looked on, greatly distressed by what she was hearing.

Portia managed a chuckle.
 
“My God, you should have seen it, Gabrielle.
 
It’s worse than anything you can possibly imagine.”

Gabrielle unconsciously raised a hand to her stomach.

Just then, Portia's cell phone sent its melodious chime into the air.
 
Portia turned, pulled the phone from a vanity shelf, and checked the number.
 
She answered: “Yes?”

Portia listened for some time, glancing a few times at Gabrielle before finally turning her back.
 
She then whispered something to the caller, something stern, then covered the mouthpiece with her hand.
 
“I'm sorry, Gabrielle.
 
I'm going to have to take this downstairs.
 
Do you mind?”

“No, of course not.”

Portia hopped from the vanity and began out of the bedroom.
 
“Feel free to have a look around,” she said, passing Gabrielle.

Gabrielle nodded.
 
She listened as Portia marched down the hall and descended the staircase, her heels tapping into the distance until only silence remained.

Gabrielle sighed heavily, relieved that the call had taken Portia away.
 
She cared dearly for her friend, but found her discourse both heavy-handed and disturbing.
 
She seemed to be suggesting that she’d seen something of the afterlife, perhaps even a glimpse of hell itself, and that begged a number of questions.
 
But those needed to be answered at a later date, certainly not today, and certainly not here in this bedroom.

Trying to take her mind off things, Gabrielle slowly walked forward, reached out a hand, and let it glide along the bed.
 
Jack was peering through the gap in the closet door, hoping, even praying that Gabrielle would come into view.
 
Seconds later, she did just that.

She was gazing upward, those tremendous brown eyes trained on something near the ceiling, probably the elegant moldings that lined the room all the way around.
 
He was overwhelmed with joy when he saw her, and that doubled when, for just an instant, she actually looked into the closet and seemed to peer at him.

But all too quickly she had moved toward the back of the bedroom beyond sight.
 
And that left Jack with a sense of loss so profound that he was moved to tears.

Now at the rear window, Gabrielle passed a hand into the maroon curtains, letting the sheer material glide through her fingers.
 
She then wandered to a nearby dresser and picked up a small music box.
 
She popped it open, nodded to its delightful tune, then snapped it shut.
 
She had turned and was just beginning toward the vanity, when she saw something that stopped her cold.
 
Oddly, something was protruding from its surface.

She stared at it, frowning in confusion, and then slowly began to move forward.
 
As she came closer, she saw that the object was the hilt of a stiletto knife, but that was not what left her stunned.
 
It was the three large letters the stiletto had been hammered through.
 
The letters were:

G A B

Her stomach sank sharply.

She passed a hand along the lines of the letters, feeling their rough edges and digging her nails into the grooves, which seemed unusually deep.
 
They’d been carved in a disturbingly jagged fashion, as if the mind that scrawled them had been poisoned by rage.