Everything spirals. Down the rabbit hole of light, down, down, sideways, slantways, through a corridor flanked by portraits of deceased, men and women of the past. They smile down, as she lies on a soft, damp bed, her fingers meshed in feathers. Her head is spinning. She fights the urge to throw up, in the gloom of the corridor, black feathers and maggots entwined in wine glasses. Disorientated, she lies, for what seems like an eternity, until her eyes grow accustomed to the dark.

She is not in her bed. She had come home from the party... Peter had taken her home, she’d run herself a hot bath and he’d left, though she hadn’t wanted him to. He’d carried her half of the way because she had cuts all over her feet from nettles and …lord how they had stung as she’d lowered herself into the scalding hot water, boil a lobster hot as she liked it best. Reliving the night, a huge grin on her face, she lay there in the flickering of the candle light, the soft ambience sounds lulling her to sleep, and now…she was here.

There is no reply when she calls into the darkness. There is a strange tug of a memory, as if she’d been here before. And yet, surely…

The first time Dinah had visited the dream world, a world unlike her ‘normal’ dreams, a world where pain translated to real life hurts, a world where even ordinary scares took on a malevolent, magnified horror; was as a child. The Dream Devil, lingering in the corner of things with all his promises for a better place, a safety away from the hospital visits, the dreary monotony of school. A world where all your wishes come true. He had imagined her circuses, toy shops, movie theatres, all she could eat in sweets and chocolate until she positively felt too sick to move. A distraction away from her mother’s early signs of depression, against Alex’s advances and terrorising in the school halls. But it was only that…a distraction. And as time went by, she realised, the irony was that real life was preferable to the horrors your mind created.  

Dinah had seen mirrors with demons inside and witches chased her with meat cleavers wanting to skin her alive, of corridors that pulsated and a darkness that went on forever. This place, it had no rules. It was limited to the scope of her imagination. But it was real. Once she had fallen through a large pool that swarmed with biting creatures, the last she remembered was screaming in agony, because she woke in bed, her real bed. Her body had bites and cuts too numerous to count, and she had the scars to show for it. No, this was not a game.  It was unexplainable, unimaginable, and she prayed every night she would not find herself there again.

Pushing herself up on her elbows, she glanced around timidly, the walls and ceilings covered in sparkling chandeliers and golden candelabras with black flickering candles. Their flames cast ghastly shadows, grotesque. And before she understands, her feet take her forward and she is running, to the end of the tunnel, down wooden staircases, tripping, gasping, faster, faster. Endless corridors of wood and stone that turn to slippery glass, the secret of the caskets of ice; and the doors that should not be opened.

Dinah races down the endless corridors but meets not a soul, turning and twisting in rooms made of mirrors, and panels that lead nowhere. Running for what seems like hours, in a horror house that breathes nothing but gloom and silence.

She drifts like a sleepwalker.

Where is it that we go when we fall asleep? It is when dreams turn to nightmares, when we hear nothing but the throb of our uncomfortable thoughts to stop ourselves from fearing the darkness.

She follows the voices deeper into the citadel. Left, right, right again, forward into the night. She could leave a gingerbread trail and still be unable to find her way through the extravagant maze of corridors…how big is this castle?

And there, towering like a great beast guarding its treasure, a door glittering with a power far greater and older than time itself. Dinah shivers.

Come my child…listen to our call….

There are five glowing cabinets, acquired over time, placed strategically around the room, ornamental props at a museum. The cabinets remain silent. No life at all, but the whisper of a breeze and their smiling, trapped ghosts. This is a place she has never been before.

Curious, she moves deeper into the room, staring into the strange, waxen faces. The mannequin’s skin is tight, petite hands clasped in prayer. Small lines on the wrists, intricate webbing of veins only slightly visible. Crinkles in the corner of the eyes. Nails like half-moons and a ring; rubies entwined in a gold band. Each cabinet holds a small square slip of paper. They are undergoing the process of decay, yellowed and dog eared; with a time, date, name and year.

Marian Mayworth, Sofia Carmichael, Josie Carmichael, Lucy Puller...

Sofia and Josie Carmichael's slip of paper both have the dates 1st of April, 1702. Marian's even earlier and Lucy's piece of paper is so crumpled and blotted with water stains, Dinah can make no sense of the letters and numbers. Digits that look like a 1, perhaps a 6 and an 8. The year 1868?

12.08pm, 5.13am, 4.49pm, 8.09am. It makes no sense. Alden has given the figurines names, and the times and dates? It could mean anything. Why go to this trouble to dress these mannequins, to give them a life, a history? With five slips of paper, come five identities. As she turns to the fifth casket, she notices the note propped by the leg of its inhabitant. It does not match her torn clothes, the earth under her fingernails. The cuts on her knees, her thick, flowing blonde hair. The dress is too elegant, for this girl has the appearance of having gone through hell and come back out the other side. The paper in her hand has its spiralling letters;

Alysia. 6.15pm, 14th of July, 2013.

From the corner of her eye a particle shifts, a swish and fall of black silk, the grand reveal. An empty casket made of glass. If she stands a little to the left, it becomes part of the walls. Casket number six is waiting for an occupant.

“It won't be empty for long.” Foretells the voice by her ear, wispy like the touch of a spider's leg. Dinah spins, but there is no-one else in the room.

She could flee, but instead she walks up to the one labelled Marian, the serene, sad eyes and downturned mouth. Marian…how familiar. What force is moving her, directing her hand? What spirits guide her fingers to reach for the key? It drives her forward with an eagerness so strong, she is but a puppet.

The key twists in the lock, and the glass door creaks open.

Dinah knows not, but she is somehow holding onto Marian’s sleeve, no longer in the casket room, but somewhere completely different and desperately old. The colours are sepia, eclipsed in shadows, as she follows the Dream Devil, a more youthful clone, to the crypt and the shaky path his torch cuts through the darkness. Here is the secret, but all is not as straightforward as it seems.  

There are three alcoves cut into the stone, but only one is occupied. There is no telling how long the corpse has been there for. The face has lost all colour, a pasty grey; and the eyes, the eyes are open. There is something perverse and gruesome about the scene. He talks to it as if it is alive, and they are not words of the insane.

“Not long to wait now. Once my father finds the jade missing, he will know what I have done. But it cannot leave the castle. I will bring you back. I will protect you.”

“Then you will wake me when the time is right? I have to know I am safe here-”

“Marian, you are safe. The others will join you soon. But you have to be patient, once the battle is at our door, the process will take longer to complete.”

“But you will complete it?”

“You have my word.”

Dinah watches as Marian lifts a lace arm to scratch a patch of hair, but it falls away in her hands.  

“Once the cabinets are here I can fix it.”

“Okay,” the girl agrees bravely; “I seem to have lost all appetite, no water can quench my thirst, all food tastes like sand. Is this what it is like when you’re dying? I’m terribly scared…”

“It will just be like sleeping, to awake to a better, brighter world of energy, passion and limitless colour. This first death is nothing. It is only the beginning.” As he bends to kiss her hand the images fade and Dinah finds herself once more, standing alone in the room of caskets.

She sinks to the floor and sits in the gloom, waiting, thinking, for the horrors to reveal themselves. Until she can muster the courage to continue. Death…it pervades the room, and the jade? The woman in the boat she’d seen in the vision- Marian, had mentioned the cicada. She still remembers how, with a soft sigh, the boats had glided into the distance. What web had drawn her here, now?

Finally, with a shaky breath, Dinah strides determinedly to another casket. This time, the door is harder to open, it creaks like a demented thing. Sofia, with her glimmering gown like diamonds, and a small, inconsistent sly smile on her lips. The eyes could snap open and she would lunge forward, twisting Dinah’s wrist in a cruel grip and laugh, crimson and bloodthirsty. Is it her imagination?