Despite my fidgeting, I hate the fact that I’ll need to drag others with my own paranoia. I’ve already assumed scenarios inside my head that if I tell them about that hooded figure watching us, or perhaps, watching me, I know that they’ll just tell me to cut it off.
Though I think that Shannon will believe me and ask me to calm down, and assure me that she’ll not allow anyone to do any harm on me… I don’t want to ruin the moment. I don’t want to be the one to bear the notion that I destroy such a perfectly well-planned trip to the Madame Tussauds just because of my own fright that we must return back to the hotel. As if I’ll also accept to be holed up inside for the next few days until we head out of London and back to old Edinburgh.
“Hey, Eira,” Shannon snaps back at me as she slaps me gently on my arm to cut me from whatever daydreaming I am deluding myself about. “Don’t you have any plans to have a picture of yourself? You’ve been too good to be my photographer, but it is making me guilty seeing that you don’t appear to be enjoying yourself.”
“Oh, about that…” I laugh, trying to cover up my dark thoughts and feelings within me alone. “I’m sorry. I’m just like still feeling under the water. What happened yesterday won’t even leave my mind.”
“Hmm… now that you’ve mentioned it, of course, it is also a question to me what actually happened yesterday,” she says, almost mumbling as she says the last words. “But then, come on.” She urges me with a broad smile again. “It isn’t like we’re going to be kicked out of here because of something like what happened in the British Library, right? After all, can’t we just amuse ourselves with these great works of art? Come over here.” She closes a hand around mine and drags me with her to the section where the wax figures of the royal family are. “After this one picture of mine, you go have yours, alright?”
“Shannon…”
“Eira, please! Even just one! Look! You can even sit later, okay?” she assures me as she carefully weaves through the wax figures of the royal family there and settles herself on the replica of the throne just beside the wax figure of the Queen.
“Be careful, will you?” I remind her.
“Right. Right. Oh!” She slowly sits on the throne with a wide smile. “I don’t even know what I am supposed to do! How is one supposed to sit on a throne? Is it acceptable to do this?” She crosses her legs and places her hands on the armrest with her back completely straight. “I don’t think that I’ll be a great queen myself!”
I sigh with a small smile. “You know that you’ll need to marry someone of royalty first to trouble that notion of being a queen, you know? And if that even happens, you’ll need to do it not because of the title, but because you love the man. Remember that that title had always been entwined with him.”
She giggles. “Don’t be such a prude this time, Eira. It’s as if I’ll really meet someone royalty to be one myself. Well, I might ask your opinion then if this is a good pose. By the way, don’t take a snap of the other wax figures yet. Just me first. On the throne. Let me imagine myself as one.”
Taking the camera and leveling it to my eye through the peep hole, I do the shot as Shannon had asked for.
“Let me see! Let me see!” she exclaims, hurriedly heading to reach me and see the picture for herself. As she inspects the picture, I notice that our other classmates are already farther away, leisurely taking their own pictures as well. “Oh! That’s good! Very! I’ll ensure to have this as my new profile picture once we return back to the hotel. Always a great shot from you, Eira. Damn… I don’t even need an Instagram boyfriend to have these amazing shots when I have a best friend to do the job.”
“Come on. Flattery will not make you scale any higher, you know that,” I say, giving her a pointed look as she slowly takes the camera from me. I slip my head from the lace of the camera as I take a hold of my backpack intently. “And certainly you’ll need to find an Instagram boyfriend who will not drag you to anything such as unluckiness compared to me.”
“Aww, don’t downgrade yourself that way!” she remarks as she slowly guides me through the wax figures and settles me down on the chair. “Don’t hunch, and take away that backpack for a second.” She helps me to remove the backpack and places it just by the side of the chair, in the view where it will be kept hidden by the shot. “I promise that it is all just one shot, darling. At least, you need to have a memory of Madame Tussauds without even thinking of having to worry that you drawing closer to the wax figures will make them melt.”
I arrange my glasses again and give her a press smile, finally slowly easing myself to sit on the throne chair just as Shannon makes her way to the position best to take the picture and her checking on for the camera’s specifications to make a clear and good shot. But then, on that small fraction of second alone, I start to feel every nerve in my body rush with adrenaline. The goosebumps return in every limb that makes me shake almost uncontrollably in both worry and curiosity.
This feeling is so familiar to the same one back then at the British Library, when I am holding the book and finding out that someone is watching me intently. And this time, with all the coldness that seem to linger, I start to feel that the only reason for it to radiate within me so harshly this time is because the eyes that watch me seem to be closer than before.
“Eira?” Shannon calls, her voice somehow inaudible as if she is calling for me from the other side of the water. But I know that she’ll not only call for my name if it isn’t because of her worry or curiosity.
“My dear girl…”
I freeze. Remembering how familiar that seductive voice of a woman is, whispering by my ear. I gulp in hard, gathering all of my courage to slowly turn in the direction of the voice. And just through my peripherals, I see the face of a woman with a hood on. The only thing that I can see of her is her pale cheek, narrow nose and her full red lips, with the rest of her face covered and obscured in shadows by her hood.
“You’re finally mine!” she remarks. Sinister. In triumph.
I scream.
I know that I scream.
And that I flail.
But I can’t even hear my own voice. Not even feel my own body fighting against. My vision even seems to be filled with brightness alone that the wax figures disappear, and that Shannon in worry over me, disappear.
Everything is enveloped in light, opposite to my struggle of the dark force that keeps me from shouting just as hands close over my mouth, and another pair closes around my legs, and then to my wrists, and then around me. The dragging continues that I close my eyes tightly in fear for a second. I immediately realize what a mistake that is; that doing that will not help squeeze whatever little courage I have with me back to reality.
And so, I open my eyes again as if to wield myself to wake up. But it appears that I am too far from waking at all. Since I still find myself in the nothingness of the light.
And my ears are filled with the dark laughter of the woman.
And my body tingle in anticipation to break free from those nasty hands closing around me.
Before I know it, my entire frame gives up with the struggle. My whole body suddenly surrendering.
And I allow myself to finally be enveloped in darkness.
To where this is leading me… I don’t have the slightest idea where.
Or rather, I do not expect that I’ll be arriving at such a place and at such a time.
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