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Darkling
I love Imogen. I love her. And I sense that I was meant to. I love the way she pats her hair and adjusts her skirts just so, the way she bounces into the room, all of a flutter, like a tiny moth. There is a degree of elegance and poise in her demeanour that one seldom encounters in the modern world as far as I can see, and she has a way of laughing that reminds me of rainwater on a spring day. Her manner is necessarily aloof but then again, I think she takes every opportunity to smile towards me. She cannot be wholly unaware of my presence; indeed she cannot. And with each passing day I become more convinced that she cannot truly love that pretender, Carnaro.
Look at him; silly peacock strutting arrogantly back and forth across the room. I listen to his diatribes on issues political and scientific. He holds forth as if he were a true man of the world – that popinjay! What makes him think such stuff would interest her? She is young and wants to laugh and dance. But she sits and gives attention to his sermonising. No doubt her breeding dictates a degree of politesse.
I adore this room. The furnishings are expensive. Some of them I chose myself, but their colours are less vibrant than before. I see my garden there in summer bloom through the French windows and catch glimpses of the hallway through the doorway to the right. In this way I watch the world come and go.
“Do you think we might go out tonight?” Imogen smiles straight through me and arranges a wisp of auburn hair that has tumbled from its restraint. Her green eyes are deep set and her skin is milky pale. But no; her gaze is fixed some distance beyond me.
Here he comes to put his arms around her. I see him over her shoulder – almost as he sees himself.
“You know I have accounts to see to, dear.”
I hear Arturo in his voice. I see the old Carnaro in his face. He looks at his own image, not at his beautiful wife -- in just the way Arturo used to do. Cannot he see how I despise him and his glib modern ways? Cannot he feel the singeing heat of my animosity? How can he refuse her so small a thing? I would give her everything she desired and all the world besides. I could never bear to hear her sigh from a moment’s boredom or see one tear fall from her precious eyes. I would have only smiles from Imogen, were she mine. I love her.
Could I but project my hatred all in a single instant of eternal rage, I might burst through this silvered hell; reach out my hands from within the mirror and place them about his selfish throat, as I did with Arturo, as I did with Borlianti and Stephan.
I know I must bide my time -- await the appointed hour to work my dark art; but it will come.
I watch her walk away disconsolate and take up her book to read. I watch him return to his dull papers, and they remain silent.
At length that time comes as it always must, when they turn off the lights and I am left alone -- here in the dark, without a room until the morrow; for I live in borrowed light as all we darklings do. Try as I might I can see nothing. They take the light from me each night and I have nought left until the dawn. My world collapses into two dimensions and I become mere surface, and here I wait.
But I remember a time when flames danced brightly in this room and still there is fire in my soul. Soon now, very soon, I will find a way to make her mine while he looks on despairing from this treacherous glass, as I have done these many, many years.
