Egregore: A Gothic Horror Novel by Spencer Weedman

Author:Spencer Weedman [Weedman, Spencer]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2022-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3

The Third Day

DAWN ON THE third day following her husband's disappearance. She woke with something strange wrapped invisible around her forehead: a great purpose, some need to act, a drive. As if a horse were galloping away leaving Saundra tethered behind, she jerked up from sleep.

What changed?

Maybe it is the rising fog letting in hints of sunlight, or the nearness of the boys. Maybe it is acceptance of his death, a sunrise spilling blood over the horizon, or maybe it is the vague memory of watching a man’s silhouette pull bits of stringing viscera from its chest or—

Lying between her boys, she cycled through the infinite ways to reduce a clear morning into symbolic abstraction. Raising her shoulders to rest against the headboard, she tried to lift herself above the rushing mania and face into clarity. Head free of ghosts, she questioned the tangibility of the night before.

Days behind. Days ahead. Oscillations.

She lifted the coverlet to find a pair of dark eyes dazzled in the unexpected morning sun, Darrin. On the other side, Thomas had his eyelids tight against the waking. Saundra legged out over the foot of the bed and stretched into the room. “You two can stay in bed if you want.”

“Ok,” from Darrin.

Thomas’ response buzzed beneath the covers.

She left them in bed, sliding the door shut behind her. Of singular purpose, she stepped across the landing into the full glory of the day, pale blue and unyielding, staring down through the skylight as she skulked past.

Darrin’s room first.

The door stood half-open. She craned around its great wooden heft into the corner where the shadow had writhed. Nothing.

She slid the door shut.

Thomas room held bare corners and shifting daylight. Clean, no shadows, no man. With a mind for systemic elimination, she started top down, reaching atop bookshelves from tiptoe, inspecting each row of toys and books for anything manlike that might cast a shadow. Nothing. She moved lower to the small areas, beneaths and betweens, probing hidden places for projectors and paired figurines.

For a shadow is a simple thing: a light, a subject, and a medium to project upon. So far, though, the wall was the only piece of the puzzle she had solved.

Tossing the bedclothes, she lifted the mattress from its frame. Frustrated, she doubled back into areas she had already checked, rifling again through the bookshelf, pulling away leaning, or loose books. She checked the jutting edges of the door trim, ran her fingers along the glossy surfaces of dark wood. Still, nothing.

She returned to the corner where the thing from the night before stood. And a thought intruded.

A person is like a shadow, same three parts, same projection.

The light source is the mind projecting thought onto the body. The body, impeding and translating that thought, then projects an action into the world. It is all translation. Thought to action. A mountain turned on its side is a projection of light.

And the light shifted, lending severity to the texturing on the walls. She saw the imperfection first as an oversized shadow stretching from a peak in the stippling.

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