I was surprised to have been promised so much
and told so little, but tomorrow would bring another
opportunity. I returned to my spacious quarters and soon
realized I was also quite tired. I put on my nightclothes,
put out the lamp, and fell to sleep at once.
When I woke it was very suddenly and was, I felt
certain, several hours later. I glimpsed my watch on the
nightstand and it read 12:15. I was still staring at it as the
hairs on my neck stood up and I began to shiver. My
breath came in rasps and my arms broke out in sweat. I
saw the watch quite plainly, but the lamp was out and the
fire had burned to embers. The room should have been
very dark.
I rolled over convulsively onto my right side and
found myself looking into the wide eyes of a beautiful
woman who lay next to me. I knew at once she was not a
living woman. Though her dark eyes were fixed on mine
and her lovely face was expressionless, her form wavered
and shimmered, and I could pick out pieces of furniture
that her body should have obscured. Moreover, the light in
the room emanated from her in a sickly yellow-green glow,
the color of absinthe when the bottle is lit from within.
She made no sound and only looked at me.
I was unable to move and now understood the
term terror-stricken firsthand. A moment later I became
aware of two smaller forms that I could observe through
her. I watched their own green glow focus and eventually
made out two young children, a boy and a girl, standing
beside the bed and looking beseechingly at the woman.
Suddenly she turned in the bed, still noiselessly, and
looked back at them. I was now watching her face through
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