The Twelfth Night

Her eyes tightly closed, she willed herself back to sleep. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep….ten. No, still awake. She imagined the river waters, dropping her thoughts into them, watching them float away… but the river froze which only served to make her realise just how cold it was.

She kicked her now cold hot water bottle on to the floor and aligned her body with her husbands. Better, but it still wasn’t working. She wrapped the duvet closer around them and brought her wrists up to her nose and inhaled deeply, but the lavender scent had faded in the night, no doubt rubbed off on the duvet after countless hours of thrashing.

It was no use.

She slipped back the covers, careful not to disturb her husband and tiptoed to the window, to open the curtains and stare at the soft, familiar and somehow warming glow of the Christmas fairy lights adorning the house opposite.

Eyes stared hungrily back at her.

She yelped and shut the curtains tightly. Her imagination, no doubt, which was getting worse by the day, but her heart was pounding and she struggled to get her breathing under control.

She heard her husband stir and willed him to wake up, to protect her from her thoughts, but he just grunted and sighed deeply. The voices in her head screamed at her to go back to bed, but like the victims she had yelled at in the movies, she saw her hand reach back to the curtains.

The eyes bore into hers, now at eye level.

This time it was so dark outside, nothing but the yellows surrounding the pupils were visible. The creature was either so big it was blocking out the lights, or its continued presence was sucking all the energy from its surroundings. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t look away.

The creature’s pupils widened and all of a sudden her mind was still. For once, everything was clear. The eyes were somehow familiar. Intoxicating. Persuasive. She had to open the window.

“What are you doing?”

Her hand stopped mid air.

“It’s freezing outside, don’t let out the heat. Come back under the covers.”

She looked again out the window, but all she could see were the flickering fairy lights.

“What are you looking at? Are those kids hanging around outside the car again?”

He jumped out of the bed and gazed outside, but of course, there was no one there.

“This is the third night in a row” he said. “Next time, tell me if you can hear something before you get up, I may be able to do something about it” he chided, but he directed her to the bed, shut the curtains, then got in beside her.

With his body heat for comfort and the lingering clarity still calming her thoughts, she began to breath deeply and a few seconds later he too followed her example and slept soundly.

The eyes watched them from the gap in the curtain, unblinking.

‘Not long now,’ It thought.  ‘Three nights down, nine more to go. The twelfth night will come and with it, her soul.’