CHAPTER SONG: "Uninvited" by Alanis Morissette
Emmy dreamt that night... her mind's only escape as her body lay sedated beside Erik.
She dreamt about what she really wanted to happen that night she had arrived back at her apartment.
Exhaustion threatened to make her collapse as she threw her luggage next to her bed and went to shower before unpacking.
Before she knew it, she was on the couch in her living room in her most comfortable pajamas as she stared in a blank trance at the flashing TV screen, not even following the plot of whatever sitcom she was watching.
The show transitioned to a commercial break and a sudden knock at the door made Emmy jump from her position on the sofa. The sound was a tired pounding against the wood of the door, like whoever was on the other side was at their wit's end for what they were looking for.
While she initially should have been scared, she stood up and made her way to see who it was, her sock-covered feet padding on the hardwood floor, her tangled hair sticking out in chaotic curls as she allowed it to air dry naturally.
Emmy grabbed the doorknob and turned it, not even bothering to look through the peephole to see who was waiting in the hallway.
In her heart she knew...
He had come for her.
The door creaked with a loud squeak as she opened the door and looked upon the unexpected visitor, a disbelieving smile gracing her lips as tears came to her eyes.
Lance Corporal William Schofield stood before her, handsome and tall as ever in his freshly pressed brown uniform and parade hat. His eyes of ocean misty blue beheld her like she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. Even though she felt the complete opposite, jetlagged and messy in her sweatpants...
His deep, soft voice spoke her name with such gentle reverence that she knew his love for her never wavered as he had vowed to her whenever she had expressed doubt in his affection.
"Emmy..." He murmured to her, his large hand reaching out to her cheek. As though he had to touch her to confirm she was really there in the flesh before him.
Before his fingertips could stroke the curved warmth of her face, she reached up to his uniform collar and pulled him through the threshold, closing the door behind them both with her foot.
Will's tender gaze never left her face as both of his hands caressed her cheeks like her skin was textured of the most delicate blossom petals, his fingertips moving down to adoringly trace her jaw-line, his thumbs petting her chapped lips...
Emmy's own fingers played with the velvet cropped hair at his nape, standing on her tiptoes to accommodate her petite height against his towering, strong frame.
"Have I finally found you, my love?" His whispered tone of voice echoed in her ears as his forehead leaned down to touch her own, their noses brushing. The corporal's long fingers left her flushed face to stroke her drying ribbons of hair, relishing in the silken strands of chocolate threaded feminine beauty.
"Yes, I'm here, Will. I never wanna leave you again." Her voice lowered into a whisper, her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers interlocking together. Her heart broke as she saw a pair of sparkling tears drip down his sculpted cheekbones and she wiped them away.
"A dream." He spoke in the same tender volume that made her fall in love with him. His patience and kindness toward her when she had needed it the most...
"Awaken then." She told him sleepily, fighting back a yawn as she closed her eyes, leaning her head against his pectoral, listening to the reassuring bass of his heartbeat, the rumbling of his lungs within his chest.
Will kissed the top of her head, his nose burying into her knotted hair as he inhaled the floral fragrance of her soapy shampoo. His arms enfolded around her waist as she looked up at him with her trusting green eyes of gorgeous jeweled brilliance.
"'Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear it, sight. For I ne'er saw true beauty 'til this night.'" William recited the iconic line of Shakespearean prose as though each word was scribed to be spoken in the cadence in which he crooned them to her, truthful and sensual with each syllable a declaration of his unbreakable love for her.
His fingers ran through her voluminous hair as she smiled up at him with her trademark endearing blush, tempting him to kiss both of her cheeks with adoration as he smiled down at his beloved Emmanuelle. She pressed the tip of her finger to his own lips as his eyes wordlessly admired her reaction to his quoting one of the most romantic lines in English literature.
"That's the best you could come up with, Corporal? You're making me wanna fall asleep standing here." She was unable to with-hold a genuine yawn as her mouth widened for an intake of extra oxygen as her eyelids blinked open. She wobbled against him as a wave of tiredness made her legs buckle.
Will raised his eyebrows in that British way where she couldn't read his sudden stoic expression, yet she saw his lips turn into a subtly teasing grin as he chuckled at his Emmy. He bent down and swept her up off her feet, one of his arms cradling her knees and the other underneath her back as she instinctively enfolded her own around his neck and shoulders.
"Let me take you to your bed, darling. You must rest." Will's voice gently told her more as a concerned request rather than a domineering command.
She was too wiped out to protest being carried as she leaned her head on his shoulder, pressing her lips against his chiseled jaw and she nuzzled his warm neck. Listening to the heavy steps of his boots against the hardwood floor of her apartment, she closed her eyes, reveling in the familiar safety of William Schofield's arms as he took his time walking through her modest apartment. With his lither and sculpted musculature of his athletic body, she always marveled at how easily he could carry her and not make her feel like a burden.
Emmy's safe haven and shelter was in the strength of Will's arms, protecting and hiding her from all her fears and insecurities...
His lips brushed her forehead as Will made his way to the bedroom, cradling her to his chest, his arms holding her like they never wanted to release her from their hold again. He whispered in her ear as he stepped through the doorway of her bedroom. "I believe that quote Shakespeare wrote it for you, my Emmanuelle. Juliet holds not a candle to your beauty; for there is no comparison."
She blushed a cherry bright red at his words, already missing the feel of his arms as he carefully placed her on the bed, making sure she was leaning against the pillows. Emmy kept ahold of his hand as he leaned over her, his fingers lovingly swiping away stray strands of brunette hair from her face.
"Sleep without worries, my angel. I'll remain by your side to watch over you and guard you whilst you dream." Will stroked her blooming pink cheek with the back of his fingers, his softening gaze locked on her face as she fluttered her butterfly wing eyelashes, her body rising from the pillows as she reached up with her own small hand to Will's parade hat, removing it from his head and setting it onto the bedpost.
He stared in silent adoration down at Emmy as she leaned up and pressed her lips to his in a most passionate kiss, heated and all consuming in their reunion. Will's larger body began to gently set Emmy down against the pillows as he drew back, hovering over her, allowing for their eyes to meet again as her fingers reached to unbutton the collar of his uniform... then unfastening the buttons of his jacket, one by one.
Neither of them needed to speak to communicate what was about to happen. He removed his outer uniform layer, revealing his tunic, before leaning down to imprint kisses along Emmy's chin, her jaw... and ever so gently on her porcelain throat, earning him the heavenly sound of her pleasured moan in response to his adoringly worshipful touch.
Her fingers stroked through his waves of brown hair as her corporal continued kissing a trail from her neck and down to her bosom and she could hear the purring growl building in his torso.
"My only love... my Emmy..." Will hummed her name like a song of seduction in between each kiss upon her skin, his hands gripping onto her upper arms without being too tight.
"Will... my Will..." Her melodically raw voice whimpered his name in bliss repeatedly with every kiss he bestowed on her...
All that was separating them melted away; all that existed was their love... nothing and nobody else.
.
.
"Will..." That one unmentionable word from sweet little Emmy made Erik alert instantly. Throughout the hours into the approaching evening, he laid by her side as she slumbered on, still under the influence of the sedative in her bloodstream.
Her delicious lips were open, exposing her tempting mouth with her white teeth and pink tongue...
He held her petite hand up to his face, basking in her involuntary touch, reveling in her fingertips tracing his clean shaven jaw. Then, he placed her tiny fingers into his mouth, aching to taste her as the small moans emanated from her throat.
And then, she said that one damned name. This slavering, pathetic boy she preferred to him... after all he had done for her and promised her.
Erik softly growled in burgeoning rage toward her still, impassive face as she remained comatose and unaware of the potential danger she lay in the path of. His jaw clenched with frigid anger as one of his hands continued to grasp hers, while his other hand lay upon her bosom to feel her heartbeat.
He could hear her inhaling of sharp breaths with the sexuality of her dreams... she dared to center them around another man whilst he had remained ever devoted and faithful in his vigil and care for her after she had fainted.
The nerve of the little philandering harlot!
Her heartbeat had never felt so intense and racing underneath his palm and Erik narrowed his eyes like a focused hunter on her own closed eyelids, seeing the movement of her eyes as she dreamt. Even the loveliness of her long lashes on her cheeks couldn't distract him...
He released her hand from his, raising his fingertips toward her face. He felt the restless twitching of her lids and petted her lashes, walking a tightrope between all his conflicting emotions.
His other large hand clasped around her slender throat, so fragile and thin, like a toothpick in his grip. Her esophagus constricted as she gulped in unconscious reflex; Emmy's lips closed in a frown as her aroused moans began to cease as his hold on her throat tightened and she began to convulse and cough as Erik smiled with a sinisterly perverse grin on his face that she was finally submitting to him in her vulnerably numbed condition.
"Good girl... so beautiful." He whispered with a slithering snarl, basking in the power over her, such domination even as he loosened his hand around her neck.
Lovely Emmy appeared to relax into a more calm and subdued sleep, her luscious mouth closed, her rosebud petal lips ever enticing in their pink sweetness, her eyelids relaxing in their movement...
Sleeping Beauty herself, flesh and blood incarnate...
And the domineering devil within him still yearned for more from the motionless seraph in his bed.
His little bride wouldn't continue dreaming about another man, not while he was still living! The mannequin clothed in her soon-to-be wedding dress glowed in the forefront of his mind as he imagined her body adorned in the gown designed for only her glory.
And his entire being trembled with the need to no longer delay the inevitable.
Erik sat up against the pillows and carefully gathered up his prize into his arms, cradling her in his lap like he had wanted to earlier after dressing her in the lingerie. Her stocking-draped legs lay along his thigh as he held her like a child in the arms of a parent; Emmy's graceful neck and her head lay cushioned in the crook of his elbow.
His fingertips dared to open her sealed eyelids and peek into the cloudy green of her stunning orbs, blank with sleep as she silently dreamed, no sounds arising from her except for the breathing within her lungs. Her glorious chocolate hair spilled down from his arm in long ribbons of floating wonder...
Erik watched the sun outside begin to dip behind the trees from the barred windows. Iron bars of the strongest metal meant to contain her inside rather than keeping intruders outside. His free hand stroked along her curled magnificence of hair, seeing his small reflection in the scarlet ruby of her tiara crowned upon her head.
And he began to form his plan for tomorrow.
She would be in that dress and say the vows binding everything she possessed to him by the rising of the sun at high noon. And come sunset, their wedding night would commence.
Whether she consented or not... 'Til death would they part, even if Fate or God Himself protested the union.
Erik watched as her head turned to one side, her eyes remaining closed and her lips slightly opening again as she moaned, perhaps beginning to awaken from the sedative.
Then, thankfully he was proven wrong as she sank back into the sea of sleep. She had at least a couple more hours left until she fully woke up.
Despite the heaviness of his own eyelids fighting to stay open, Erik leaned over her innocent face, his shadow darkening her pale blushing aura. His index finger traced along the breakable bone outlining of her jaw and down to her tiny dimpled chin.
He leaned her head back further as far as her vertebrae allowed, exposing the length of her delicate throat. The tip of his finger explored the smooth flesh of her chin's underside... then traveled agonizingly slow down the white column of her elegant neck.
Erik's nose brushed Emmy's as his finger made the same journey up her throat in the identical pace of seduction and he hoped she sensed his sinful caress as a prelude to how he would take her in the consummation of their marriage.
How he wished he could witness her dreams and turn them into the nightmares of his own making. His fingertip stayed at the border of her throat and chin as he kept her head tilted back, the fingers of his opposite hand entangling into her hair.
His voice whispered in an ominous baritone of foreshadowing as his lips hovered barely a centimeter over hers. "Tonight when you awake from your slumber, you'll eat the pomegranate from my hand and lick the juices from my fingers. And tomorrow, I am your Hades; the dutiful slave to your heart's every desire, if only you'll give yourself to me..."
Erik's tainted lips met the purity of Emmy's in a lustful kiss, his wine soaked tongue meeting hers inside the depth of her widened mouth. He had missed the taste of her fresh fruit...
She moaned again as his mouth separated from hers and his thumb petted her bottom lip, a stimulated shiver racking up his spine and a predatory growl sounded from his chest. He smiled down at her threateningly as he imagined the startled horror in her eyes as his face would be the first thing she would see when she finally resurfaced from the whirlpool of oblivion.
"My exquisite Persephone..." He murmured to the anesthetized Emmy, his voice lowering into the deepest octave of seductive intent, his glacial eyes never leaving her heavenly lifeless features.
And his fingers continued their touching of her throat, up and down in the same invisible trail along her smoothness, as Erik fantasized of at last keeping his precious emerald locked away in his vault.
.
.
May 22nd, 1917
Lieutenant Joseph Blake sat on the train on the way back to France, dozing in and out of half-consciousness as he tried to organize his muddled thoughts. All the distant singing and camaraderie around him faded as he sat inside an unoccupied booth, watching the nighttime countryside pass by through the window.
He thought about everyone who had become close to him in the last several weeks...
Ever since he had met lovely Emmanuelle... amongst all the good people who had helped him through the worst time in his life, the whole span of grieving between losing both his brother Thomas and beloved mother Catherine.
He missed all of them... Will and Molly, and sweet little Cecelia and Giselle.
And Myrtle. He thanked heavens above that one of the neighbors agreed to care for her, especially with her growing pregnancy with her puppies. He wouldn't forgive himself if she had a complication whilst he was away and she was left untended to.
His aching, broken heart urged him to pull out the photograph of Emmy from the front shirt of his pocket along with the letter she had penned for him in her spiraled handwriting. He had read it over numerous times every day since receiving it, imagining her sweet voice reading it aloud to him almost like a melodic lullaby.
Despite Joe's attempts to keep his memories of her on the cheerful side, a majority of his dreams about her had been dark and foreboding.
Most of them being where that fateful stormy night she had stayed with him and his mother and he carried her sleeping form up to his childhood bedroom to rest... the following morning, she would be gone.
Often it would be where she would've been stolen away by lecherous Erik Baumer and Joe would race down to the wire to save her. And always he failed... he was always too late by a small measurement of time.
And Joe was haunted by the vision of Emmy and Erik standing before a priest, her face reddened with quiet crying and Erik's impatient proceeding of the vow recitals as he insisted to the pastor that Emmy took him for her husband despite the protesting and begging of the young woman and the groom restraining her from escaping the altar, grasping her hands tightly as he forcefully pushed a small gold ring on her tiny finger.
He would break open the door after she wouldn't respond to his pleas for her to answer him from the bedroom and confirm her presence.
And nothing but silence on the other side.
Exhaustion overtook Joseph as he leaned his head against the seat and dreamt of being back home, searching for his dearest one.
In his dream, he found the bedroom empty, but the window wide open, the heavy curtains blowing in the gentle misty breeze outside as a grey fog clouded the front yard and all of everything beyond.
The bed had been perfectly made, no wrinkles at all in the blankets or pillowcase. The nightgown she had slept in, borrowed from his mother, was laid out neatly on the bed railing. A nauseating dread coiled around Joe's stomach as he bounded to the window, his hands clenching onto the sill.
He yelled her name with all his strength and desperation, praying she could hear him. His vocal chords throbbed in irritation with the efforts he took for his voice to carry out so far into the gothic void.
"Emmy?! Emmy...! EMMY!" He screamed like a madman, his cries for the woman he loved echoing into a mocking unresponsive silence. "Emmanuelle..."
He panted out her full name in a helpless whimper as he quickly backed away from the window and sprinted downstairs, heading for the modest stable to saddle up steadfast Satine.
He knew this was foolish, racing into unknown danger on his white horse like a prince to rescue the fair maiden... but he didn't care about practicality when the girl he cherished with all his withered soul was in jeopardy.
Joe sat tall and high in the saddle as he tried to see through the thick fog surrounding him for any sign of her, his hands clutching tightly onto the reins as he set his trust into the ivory furred equine to help in finding Emmy.
The filly knew the young woman's scent and could sense her rider's stress.
"C'mon, old girl. Let's find her." He turned Satine in one direction, following his instincts to locate sweet Emmanuelle.
He called her name again, over and over as he urged Satine into a trot, then a canter...
The horse suddenly began to slow again into a walk as her ears perked every which way, listening for something Joe couldn't hear with his own hearing.
A piercingly shrill scream shattered the calm of the fog and Joe's heart stopped beating until the resounding cry echoed into a deafening hush.
"No..." Joe muttered to himself as he spurred Satine into a gallop, kicking at her sides to urge the horse in speeding up. "Emmy!"
The fog mercifully began to clear up and allow him improved visual for him to see where he was as he followed the way her scream emerged from. The ebony haired soldier looked around for any sign of her. The dark chocolate splendor of her curled tresses, her maroon purple dress skirt...
And then, at last he saw her...
She lay in the grass, pale as unsullied snow, her eyes closed and body completely still.
Joe flung himself from the horse and sprinted to her side, carefully taking Emmy into his shaking arms. "Oh, my dearest one. Emmy, can you hear me?"
He stroked her cheek, feeling the chilling absence of warmth in her face as he held her head to his pectoral, tears of mourning and rage soaking his eyes, pressing his quivering lips to her dull muddied hair.
"You're too late, Lt. Blake. She was already dead before you arrived here." Another male voice made Joe lift his head in alert, his arms protectively holding Emmy close to his chest.
Although Joseph hadn't met the man himself before, he knew immediately just from the malice and cold disposition in which he spoke.
It was Erik's disembodied voice in the air, contemptuous and vile in his triumph over taking away Emmanuelle Hunterson from him.
"You...you bastard! You couldn't have her... so you bloody killed her." Joseph couldn't see the man he so wanted to make answer for the death of the woman who showed him pure compassion and strength when he needed it most.
"Just so... and don't bother letting your anger get the best of you. Killing me won't bring her back. Not even all the love you possess can revive her. She'll never open her eyes or smile at you ever again." Erik's taunting egged him on. "At least you can tell her how you truly feel now that she's dead."
Those final two words rang in Joe's eardrums as he kissed Emmy's icy forehead, then her butterfly wing lashes. Erik laughed a villainous chuckle at the grieving soldier's sentimental affection for the expired woman... then his voice was heard no more, carried away to vanish into the fading fog.
Tears streaming down his stubble covered cheeks, Joseph Blake stood on trembling legs and gathered up the dead girl in his arms, rocking her close to his chest with her head resting on his shoulder as though she were only sleeping.
And he carried her all the way back to his home, Satine loyally following close behind. There was silence when there should have been the soft sound of her breathing in gentle slumber, her lips and nostrils blowing puffs of minty breath against the bare skin of his neck, making his blood pressure rise with desire.
So he talked to her the whole way back, reciting Romeo's lines to Juliet as the naïve and impulsive hero bereaved his seemingly deceased wife in her familial tomb.
'Romeo and Juliet' was a "guilty pleasure" of hers, as she had humorously described to him...
And each verse he crooned to Emmy's frozen features only served to shatter his heart into even smaller irreparable pieces.
"'Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty; thou art not yet conquered...'"
His recitation was flawless, never a slip or hesitation of any verse, his rough brogue of a voice clear with each word directed only at her...
Joseph was near the conclusion of Romeo's monologue by the time he arrived at the house, and he delayed finishing the scene for her until the moment was right.
He had to give her a proper burial underneath the cherry blossom orchard.
He took her into the parlor and placed her on the chaise before dressing her in the ivory nightgown she had worn the evening prior. It was the warmest and most comfortable of the nightdresses his mother had owned.
Joseph tenderly brushed her limp strands of hair, long and silken of glorious ribbons even in death. He washed her skin ever so attentively with a bath sponge and warm water. And he patted her dry, then placed a white bed-sheet over her body, tucking it around her so that she was bundled up to her chin like a newly born infant.
He wanted her face to be the last thing he saw of her.
His fingers weaved through her hair as he leaned over her inert body...
And he concluded Romeo's lines for her.
"'"O here, will I set up my everlasting rest; and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace...and lips, o you the doors of breath, seal with righteous kiss; a dateless bargain to engrossing death.'"
Joseph bent down to her palely fair face and lovingly kissed her unmoving, breathless lips. A chaste yet sensual display of his decimated love for his dear one... his best friend.
He carried her out to the orchard, settling her down underneath the tallest and most imposing tree where she would be shaded from the harsh sun and sheltered from the violent rain storms and blizzards.
Pink blossom petals drifted down from the tree, likened in its own weeping for the lady as he dug a small grave for Emmanuelle Julia Hunterson. She deserved her final resting place in the most beautiful memento of his life where flowers would sprinkle upon her as she lay in ageless repose.
After the grave was dug, he set the damned shovel aside and held Emmy in his arms one last time as he knelt before the hole, taking one more glance at her face.
Not even death could destroy her beauty and goodness.
With a departing kiss to her ashen mouth, he whispered those three words he vowed to never say aloud to her. "I love you."
And he laid her into the grave, his vision blurring with more tears and he made sure she was situated as easily as possible, like he was tucking her into bed. He readjusted the sheet around her, making sure she was all covered except her lovely face... then his calloused fingertips gave her bloodless cheek one more stroke as he spoke his farewell to her.
"Sleep, my sweetest angel, fairest nymph; dream of all that brings you happiness. When you wake, you'll live in paradise eternal. And my boundless love for you will guard your soul forever."
Joe reached down and placed the last folded section of the white sheet over Emmy's face and hair... and buried his own soul alongside her body interred in the earth's clay as the thunderous sky took her spirit.