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Tortured dreams

Dreams of a young girl plagued Cynthia's nights.
The girl had short blonde hair tied back with a black ribbon, and wore a white, knee-length dress.
She waved to Cynthia while standing in a cemetery next to a reflection pool.
Cynthia woke up drenched in sweat. She couldn't remember what happened next, but always woke up to chills running down her back.
"Damn," she said and flung her legs over the side of her bed.
The dream nagged at her as Cynthia got ready for work. Her house was devoid of decoration, no pictures of family. The only picture she saw was the one of that girl in her head.
She put on a gray skirt suit, paired with black heels, poured coffee in a travel mug and dragged herself out the door to her car.
She gently placed her briefcase and purse on the passenger seat and turned left out of her driveway instead of right, for a change of pace.
Maybe I'll feel better, she thought. A change of scenery, that's it, she reasoned.
She turned on classical music to sooth her jangled nerves. While stopped in traffic, Cynthia hummed with the radio and glanced to her left.
The cemetery in her dream was just visible through neatly trimmed hedges.
Her hands went cold as she gripped the steering wheel harder. She'd been to the cemetery once as part of a service project to beautify the city a few years prior. But she'd forgotten about the cemetery, having never driven near it since.
The large obelisk and smaller stone with a cross that was always behind the girl in her dream stood directly in front of a reflection pool on a small hill. Chills started in her scalp and ran the length of her spine.
She jumped as the motorist behind her honked his horn.
"Shit," she said. "I'm going!"
With one quick glance back at the cemetery, Cynthia accelerated back into traffic and shook away the thoughts of her dream.
She arrived at the museum five minutes shy of being late. She click-clacked onto the restored terrazzo tiled main hallway, thinking of the research project she was scheduled to begin that morning.
Cynthia glanced at the historic photos on the walls as she breezed toward her office and stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed a blonde girl whose hair was tied back with a black ribbon.
"You've got to be kidding me," she whispered.
"About what?"
Cynthia yelped at her assistant, Frances', interruption.
"This girl," Cynthia pointed at the five-by-seven inch photo. "This girl has been appearing in my dreams for the last several weeks."
"Well, you know what they say," Frances said. "Your brain can't make up faces, so all the faces you see in your dreams are people you've met or seen in passing."
Frances stared at Cynthia for a minute waiting for a response, but Cynthia didn't have one. She only stared at the photo.
Frances walked away and Cynthia followed.
With a dull day of initial research, Cynthia thought of nothing but the photo of the girl.
Luckily, she had organized the museum's digital archives in several formats, including by size. She typed in "5x7, single portrait, girls."
After a few minutes of scrolling, Cynthia found the portrait. With a single click, the short history behind the picture appeared next to it on her computer screen.
"Minnie Hoffman, age 9, portrait at St. Mary's Institution, 1886," Cynthia read aloud to herself.
The cemetery Cynthia passed that morning was the former St. Mary's Insane Asylum cemetery.
Cynthia avoided the route near the cemetery on her way home that evening. She did everything to avoid thinking of the cemetery, Minnie's picture and her dream.
But, as Cynthia made a cup of tea after a late dinner, she suddenly remembered the final part of her dream.
Little Minnie stood alone in the cemetery, waved and looked down at the reflection pool, showing her own reflection and a second reflection standing next to her.
Cynthia nearly tripped as she ran to her computer and remotely accessed the museum's digital archives. She typed in "Minnie Hoffman, age 9," and found an 1886 article about Minnie and Margaret Hoffman, twin girls who were committed to the asylum in 1885 after they tortured and killed their mother.
"One year after the grisly death of Florence Hoffman, officials revealed the girls claimed their mother had tortured them for years," read the article. "The girls snapped, officials added, and planned torture for their mother with an intent to kill her for the strife and terror she caused them."
Cynthia slowly raised her hand to her mouth. Tears in her eyes, she fruitlessly searched her apartment for some sort of solace from this horrifying tale. She blinked the tears away and when she reached for a tissue, a figure to her left made her jump.
Minnie stood next to her kitchen counter, a faint glow around her and semi-transparent. Margaret, with a white ribbon in her brown hair, stood near her sister, hands clasped in front of her white dress and her head bowed.
"Cynthia," Minnie whispered, and shook her head. "You don't have to look so scared. We thought you'd be happy to see us."
Cynthia shakily stood up and backed away from the fraternal twin ghosts.
"How do you know who I am? What do you want?" Cynthia asked.
The two girls walked in pace with each other toward Cynthia. Malice gleamed in Minnie's eyes, but Margaret kept her head bowed.
"We've been watching you since you visited the cemetery. You're so kind, but sad. You so want a family," Minnie said, her voice dripping with poisoned honey. "We just want a mother who will treat us well. We think you can help us know what that's like."
"But you're dead," Cynthia said, stupidly.
Minnie ignored her stunned remark and continued, "My sister here would like to know what it's like to be loved, to be held in a gentle manner and not slit from ear to ear."
Cynthia gasped as Margaret raised her head. Margaret's jaw dropped, but not from surprise. She could not keep it closed because of gashes from each side of her mouth leading to her ears.
"You see, our mother was not kind. She tortured us daily after our father died. She blamed us for his death, calling us evil children, claiming we pushed him," Minnie said, anger burning in her voice. "As if two four-year-old girls could do that. After Father died from a fall, Mother's mental stability collapsed. She had always been a bit ill, but she snapped after that."
Margaret bowed her head again. Sympathy flooded Cynthia.
Tears again flooded her eyes as she looked from Minnie to Margaret and back to Minnie. Cynthia sat down in a plush chair in her living room, motioning the girls to sit with her. They slowly walked in pace with each other to Cynthia's side. She patted her lap and the girls each sat on a knee. Cynthia ignored the chilling cold the ghosts emanated and placed her hands on their backs.
"When I was little," Cynthia began, looking up at each of them, "I did not have a family. I grew up in foster care, moving from home to home, never knowing who my parents were. I often had abusive foster parents and would run away, only to be found by the police and brought to another family."
Minnie and Margaret stared blankly at Cynthia, unmoved by her story.
"You must meet us at the cemetery of St. Mary's in two hours," Minnie said quietly. "There, we will inform you as to how you can help us."
The twins stood and walked toward Cynthia's kitchen and through the wall.
Cynthia checked her watch -- 9 p.m. She shook her head and had a bad feeling about going to the cemetery. But the desire to help these girls rest was too tempting.
At 10:45, she put on a sweater and headed out the door to her car. She turned left out of her driveway and headed toward St. Mary's cemetery. She parked on a side street and slipped through a gap in the hedges. Mist hung in low spots of the cemetery, but Cynthia quickly recognized the obelisk standing on a hill a few hundred yards away. She made her way to the reflection pool where she saw Minnie and Margaret's ghostly figures standing, not bearing reflections in the pool.
As Cynthia stood a few feet from the figures, Minnie turned her head to stare with a malicious grin.
Before she knew it, Cynthia was walking into the reflection pool and unable to move.
Minnie flew to Cynthia, clasped her hands around Cynthia's throat and shoved her head into the water. Cynthia struggled, flung her arms wildly at Minnie, to no avail.
Cynthia lost consciousness and her body floated, face down in the pool.
Her last dream was of Minnie and Margaret running toward her, arms stretched out. Minnie's malicious smile was gone, replaced with pure joy. Margaret's face was pretty and scar-free, with a delicious twinkle in her eyes.
Cynthia knelt and hugged them.
"I'm so happy to be your mother," she said to the girls.
"We're so happy you're here," Minnie said, "to keep us safe and happy forever."

This photo was the inspiration for "Tortured Dreams."

1 comment:

  1. Hi Anna! I found your blog through the Platform Challenge on writersdigest.com. I started reading your story, and I really liked it, but my poor old eyes really had trouble with the font. It's a beautiful font for headlines, but is hard to read in dense body copy. Good luck with the rest of the platform challenge, and keep writing!

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