And Her Skin Smells Vanilla
I have never thought that I should do it…But the fact is that I have, I need to do it. I can’t explain this feeling which exasperates me! I have to walk, I need to walk. I hate this house, I hate this room. Oh yes I hate all the things that I can see around me. From the door to the mirror…that dreadful mirror!! Why is it still here?? Why?? I said that mirrors have to be broken!! Why is it not broken?? No Lily, no, you can’t get angry, the doctor says that you can’t get angry. Maybe…Yes, I think that I can try to break it with the candlestick.
The house was nestled in a wood, its façade was overgrown with ivy and the wind which managed to pass under the door made her shudder. The house contained only three rooms: the main acted as lounge, dining room and chamber, two others were respectively the kitchen and the bathroom. Furniture was dark, almost black and the parquet on the ground, covered in the centre with a sublime groundsheet seemed very ancient. On the walls, there weren’t any paintings, only the tapestry, made mouldy here and there recovered it. Lily had a deep-skin beauty, with her eyes which had the same colour as the sky by a sunny day and with her blond and curly hair; she looked-like an angel. She was tall, bony and waxen. She was wearing a white dress and was barefoot. Some maintained that she was doomed to die, others that she had already died and that she was a ghost.
She was groaning just as if she was out-of- breath, her heart began beating faster and faster in her breast, petrified, she looked at the mirror. When her eyes were finally able to get lose from it, Lily ran towards a desk and caught the candlestick rapidly. She threw it on the mirror and with a noise of broken glass; her face which was reflected on its surface vanished. Lily cleaned up the floor which was covered by the pieces of the mirror and when she put it into the dustbin; she saw that blood was streaming over it. The young woman wasn’t disturbed by this sight. However, she closed her eyes and then turned on the cold-water tap and passed her bloody hands under it.
Lily, close your eyes. They have to stay closed. Don’t open your eyes Lily…
She asked Catherine, her maid to apply a dressing around her hands. Lily had always refused her to go away even if having a maid in this little house was just stupid. When she finished, Lily sat in front of a chimney. While papers were still burning, she took an album and started pulling photographs out of it and throwing it into the fire. She was giggling. The sun was high in the sky but the black window curtains had been drawn so that the light couldn’t enter the house. Looking at the flames, Lily seemed very nervous. We could read and guess in her glance that something worried her, something important which had made her shiver for several days. She had decided not to sleep any more for fear of having a nightmare but she was exhausted.
Lily, you have to get prepared, don’t be afraid Lily. Don’t worry Lily. It will be easy. Four hours left. Your dream is about to become real.
She started playing the piano, the music was melancholic and tears appeared in her eyes. It was their song. They danced for the first time with this song…Queen had always been her favourite band and she still had the lyrics in her memory: “Love of my life, you hurt me, you broken my heart and now you leave me, love of my life can you see, bring it back, bring it back, don’t take it away from me because you don’t know what it means to me.”
Fredrick I miss you. I am so sorry Fred, I can’t forgive me. I hate me. Oh yes I hate me!!
When the clock rang midnight, Lily who was reading the Bible in her bed rested the book in her bedside and got up. She opened a window for the first time since five years and she remained motionless for several minutes just staring at the stars and at the moon. She was sat on the windowsill and caressed her hair with the fingertips. She knew that she wouldn’t survive. She had decided it for three months, she had to die. She took the Bible, started pronouncing some prayers and then threw it away in the chimney. She slipped a dagger, a piece of paper, a pen and a scent bottle into her handbag and then, she pushed the front door and made a step towards the outside. It snowed. The air was icy and Lily who just had her dress had the impression that someone stabbed her. She moved in the path and walked towards the forest. The noise of branches falling under the weight of the snow made her startle repeatedly. The flashlight she held in her left hand allowed her to see in several metres in front of her.
I only have to follow the way… The way…until my death… It is a perfect night to die. Fred you will be proud…oh yes, you will be proud…
Lily knew that she was quite near from her previous house. Her heart was in her mouth and with her frozen hands, she tried to get warm. When she arrived in front of the garden, she toddled along the grass. She could see some light throughout the window but nobody could see her because of her white dress which blended into the snow. Nothing had changed. The grave was still here.
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The police siren had woken the neighbours up. At 0:30, the policemen had received a calling from Mary Dimmons but they had bad judged the importance of the situation. When arriving in front of the house, they understood. On the grave, Lily was dead. Her eyes were opened and her body was white because of iciness. The dagger, covered with her blood, was still set in her heart and the flakes fell down slowly on her shoulders. One of her arm was caught on the Holy Cross of the tomb.
They started interrogating Mary, the only witness of the drama; she said that she was Lily’s sister.
-What have you seen exactly? Asked a policeman
-I have already said it to your colleague; I have heard someone screaming outside in the garden so I have run as fast as possible. But it was too late, while I was in the front door, I have seen her on her knees and then…
Suddenly, one of the policemen shouted that he had discovered something. It was a letter written by Lily. He read it slowly. Everybody was chocked.
Tonight, I will be free. But before leaving this life and this world, I want to tell you the whole story…my story.
I loved Frederick, I was eighteen, and he was twenty. We were a really beautiful couple, everything was perfect, we lived together in this house. But after three years, he betrayed me. I couldn’t accept it. He said that he loved a woman, that he wanted to live with her, that she was pregnant. I was so angry that I killed him. You thought that it was an accident that he fell in the staircase. But I pushed him. But the rest of my life was a nightmare. I hate me, I can see my face. So I break mirrors, I close my eyes when using water… I miss him. I can live without him anymore. I have to join him. I have to die. Have you found the scent bottle? Oh yes you have found it. Please, I want to be buried with him, but before I want you to pour it over my skin. Vanilla is his favourite perfume.
Goodbye. Take care of you.
Lily has been buried for two days. Now she is with the man she loves. She wears a white dress and her skin smells vanilla.
