Chapter Text
1939
Eleanor had always been prone to nightmares, vivid and vicious. There was always so much running, hallway after hallway, through door after door. Stairwells that led to nowhere or somewhere they should not have or buildings that felt abandoned even when they looked new.
And the constant of them all, was a figure in a long, plain red cloak, fingers like claws where only the sharp tips would show out of its sleeves. It would chase her in different forms, sometimes with wretched worn bat like wings, or it would simply disappear only to reappear in front of her. Others it would simply — float, the tips of its bare mud covered feet barely touching the ground, moving its way towards her, taunting her. The smell of burnt sulphur always cloying her nose and stinging her eyes, flashes of a silver blade dripping in blood would make an appearance every now and again and a high pitched wail that sounded desperately hollow.
These nightmares would never fail to awaken Eleanor and have her running to her parents bedroom, where she would wind up sleeping for many nights after. And this pattern would continue, more or less, until the day she turned thirteen.
It was the first time she remembers praying, and meaning it. Tremulous words spilt through panicked sobs as the hooded figure behind her pulled at Eleanor's hair from the top of her head, knees scraping through the dirt as she's dragged and shoved head first into a basin of blood. It felt thick and cool against her skin as she shook her head to and fro, attempting to heave herself upwards to no avail, she barely felt the iron grip at her hair as panic set in and her mouth opened against her will.
Eleanor awoke screaming, kneeling at the edge of her bed, head bent over the side and looking into the dark of her bedroom floor. Heaving herself backwards she fell onto her side and cried as she curled into a ball, arms over her head and eyes squeezing shut as she forced herself to breathe through her thudding heart and hot tears.
At thirteen, for the very first time, she prayed in desperate whispers, words stumbling and slurring and panicked. The feeling of hard dirt stuck on her knees and images of the wide golden basin filled with blood came unbidden in her minds eye, a thick coppery smell stuck in her nose and Eleanor desperately turned these memories away.
Her prayers simply turned into a litany of "make it stop, make it stop, make it stop—" until she fell into a restless, but dreamless sleep, still tightly curled with her arms over her head.
She never heard her mother make her way up the stairs of their home, having heard a distant yell from the porch stairs she was sitting on, never heard the gasp of surprise or the choked off scream as she reached the top of the stairs and was startled into a backward fall that broke her neck.
Her body laying still and quiet at the foot of the stairs until it was found in the early hours by Eleanor's father.
Eleanor woke once more to screams.
Only this particular scream stayed etched in her memory. Playing in the quietest of moments, like a record player stuck on those first few seconds, frozen in time.
Her life was never quite the same after that night.
In fact, nobodies lives within the British Columbia interior were the same after that night as Eleanor soon discovered that cold morning, kneeling at the foot of the stairs, staring in horror as her father cried into her mothers pale neck.
Her eyes stuck on the collar and right side of his flannel, soaked in blood, some parts dried, some parts wet. His exposed arm coated in flecks of red and a bandage wrapped around his hand.
Her head slowly raising as a figure entered their home through the open front door, limping its way in, hunched over itself as it dragged its right foot awkwardly angled. It struck Eleanor then that this figure had no discernible detail she could see, it had a vague form of clothing but nothing she could make out clearly, even its exposed lame foot had no real detail to it, like a badly formed clay figure.
"Papa, papa," she choked out in a whisper, her throat feeling raw and swollen inside.
And just as she reached out to touch her father, her father begins to laugh. It starts as a soft giggle that mildly shakes his shoulders, face still hidden away towards her dead mother. And the giggles soon turn into booming laughter that has him hunching over the body, still clutched in his arms.
Eleanor stared at him in a sudden numbing daze as the figure closes in on her father, a hand that isn't a hand reaching out towards him.
Echoes of laughter ringing in her ears.
That year would pass in a blur of motion and non-motion. Eleanor would remember arriving at her Tia Pela's house in the dead of night, a single small porch light illuminating a small dark green door that was open halfway. Her Tia Pela standing half inside, hand on the porch railing, her dark face shadowed and eyes grave as they tracked Eleanor through the car window. She would remember the hooting of an owl coupled with the cicadas as she left the car with nothing but a large satchel and small suitcase that had belonged to her mother… but nothing as clear after that.
Eleanor almost always woke up in a mess of sweat and tears, heart pounding from an unceasing chase from that figure that seemed nearly formless and shape shifted itself into things she could not name. Sometimes she could swear she would see a cloaked figure in the orchards, right in the light of day walking straight for her.
She tried to make sure to rarely be alone, too afraid of the things she was seeing, wondering if her dreams would meld into reality because of those things. Often time spending hours in the kitchens with the wives of the field workers as they cooked meals for days. Allowing their bustling and voices to drown out her own loud chaotic mind and smells of bread, spices and coffee to settle her nerves. The ladies often teasing Eleanor for being so quiet or studious as she was rarely without a book in hand.
Eleanor supposed this was true, though if they only knew that there was nothing quiet about her on the inside.
"You look so pale, just like a porcelain doll Nora!"
"Oh it's true! You should spend more time in the sun darling!"
"No! Don't tell her that! We have to limit how much time we spend outside remember?"
"That's true. How about sitting on the rooftop then?"
"Oh honestly Clara, nothing but nonsense from you as per usual. Don't listen to a word Clara says Nora dear. She has absolutely zero sense in that head of hers."
"Hey!"
Eleanor stayed quiet and never said anything to these women as they jested and gossiped. Over and over they would attempt to rope her into conversation but Eleanor couldn't bring herself to return the chatter. She felt mute and awkward. They acknowledged her existence over and over, but she still felt unreal to herself.
But their chatter was a great comfort to her and so she always let it wash over her as she sat in the middle of a hot kitchen on a warm humid summers day.
Eleanor would walk as if in a constant daze that she couldn't seem to snap out of. She would hear her Tia speak to her, Eleanor would smile, watch as her Tia took her cold hands into her own warm ones and squeeze. But it all felt distant. Like she was seeing this happen through a thick lens that happened to belong to this body she was simply hosting.
In some ways, it was like she was living underwater, where movement felt sluggish and noise was muffled. Where nothing looked quite right, and wasn't that fitting?
She would remember bits and pieces of her short stay with her Tia Pela, the whispers about her missing father, her mother's funeral, her home being mysteriously burned to the ground. All of which were events that may as well have taken place to someone else as Eleanor was only present in body. Her mind swathed in cotton and static as arms were always leading her somewhere to be. Even her heart seemed frozen, no longer a weighted receptacle for pain. It all felt so far away, like time had stopped except bodies kept moving like puppets on invisible strings.
The strange beings that appeared and disappeared, but no one could agree on what they looked like. The mountain paths and roads were no longer safe to travel alone and people kept going missing for days because the landscape would suddenly change.
The Emergence, the people called it, though usually in nervous whispers. Afraid that having given it a name, it could come calling.
The workers also spoke about whether or not her Tia Pela's orchards were beginning to have signs of The Emergence. Apparently two field workers had run off after being confronted by two beings who looked exactly like them during picking hours. Only for the other three workers that had been present, to say that they hadn't seen anyone else.
Nobody could tell what was real anymore it seemed.
Eleanor had always dreamed of an elegant and elaborate wedding. It would take place in the church gardens of her hometown and a faceless and nameless shadow figure would be standing at the altar, waiting as she walked down the aisle in her grandmothers wedding dress full of intricate bead work of various birds in ivory and delicate lace.
Family and friends that she's never had or known would all be standing with smiles and love in their gazes. Her father would be at her arm, whispering terrible jokes or making up gossip of the guests to help her nerves. Her mother standing at the front, hands clasped together and a knowing grin at her father's antics. Her Tia Pela, standing next to her mother, a small smile of pride and love.
She was going to marry the love of her life. Just as her mother had. She was going to have someone to share all of lifes moments with and more importantly, she was never going to be alone. She would not be left behind, left with the terrible nightmares and that haunting presence that hardly gave her a moments rest. And if she was lucky, she would die first so she wouldn't have to know the pain of losing them and reacquaint herself with the aching pangs of loneliness once more.
And maybe, just maybe, the figure which haunted and hunted her, would finally disappear. She would be free and death would no longer feel so close at hand.
Yet as time went by, the nightmares grew in its intensity and her daydreams of a beautiful wedding full of love and warmth would corrode itself into stormy skies, empty seats and a father that had long since abandoned her. And her grandmother's beautiful wedding dress splattered in old blood stains as she looked down at herself and the faceless, nameless shadow figure suddenly felt less loving and more dooming, like a maw of a void that hungered.
It became so that Eleanor no longer knew when she was dreaming or simply day dreaming, as the dream suddenly changed and warped into something she did not want.
Thoughts disjointed and her fears growing lives of their own.
One early morning, a fog would set in and Tia Pela would forbid anyone from leaving the house grounds. All windows and curtains to be shut and boarded up. The old carriage house would be set up as temporary sleeping quarters that night for the field workers, as there were not enough rooms in the house and the fog had rolled in too quickly for them to go home.
The headline of the daily paper had caught Eleanor's attention as she sipped at her coffee that morning, "NIGHTMARES BEYOND MEASURE"
"They really couldn't have thought up a better headline?" Tia Pela scoffed as she cut that mornings sweet bread into various pieces. "It's been some iteration of monster or demons for weeks and telling us things we already know but no actual useful information or news."
"Have you seen anything Tia?" Eleanor asked.
Tia Pela nods her head. "I saw your Tio out in the orchards on that first terrible night when it all began." She paused in her cutting to clean the knifes edge before resuming once more, "He was just, standing there, looking out through the trees in his favourite blue satin suit. And you know of course that he's been dead now for several years. It should not have been possible but there he was, right at dusk, and he - it - said nothing. Did nothing."
Tia Pela shook her head and heaved out a sigh. She put the knife down and covered the sweet bread with a cloth. "And you know what? My mind knew that what I was seeing wasn't right. But my heart," she lifted her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes as she used her other hand to lean forward onto the table, "my heart Eleanor, your fool of a Tia just wanted to go over there and wrap an arm around him and lay my head on his shoulder. Watch that sun go down together just one more time."
Eleanor watched as her Tia was taken away by memories, eyes unfocused as she opened them slightly. Tia Pela had married quite young and had adored her Tio from the moment they met. They quickly left Spain after they married to start a new life away from their families who were not happy about their union. That had been twenty two years ago, and nearly three years since Tio's death.
Eleanor wanted to reach out and squeeze her Tia's hand like she had done to her so many time since coming here, but Eleanor just couldn't bring herself to. Her body still felt frozen and foreign, where even her own wants got lost in the translation.
"What did you do then?" Eleanor asked gently, quietly as she could.
"Nothing." Her Tia immediately says, eyes still unfocused. "That was not him and so I did nothing but walk away. But some evenings, right at dusk, I'll still see —that thing— standing in the orchards. Always looking at the sun. Always in that damned suit."
Eleanor hears the longing in her Tia's voice, a sadness in the words. And suddenly, the only things ringing in Eleanors mind are the broken wails and a body at the foot of the stairs.
She puts her tea down quickly and harshly onto the saucer. Startling both herself and her Tia from their dark musings.
"I'm sorry Tia."
Tia Pela looked at Eleanor with a tremulous smile, a haunted look in her eyes. "Don't be darling. It is a torture, but in a way, the sweetest kind."
Tia Pela was found dead at the very edge of her orchards, closest to a large pond of water that was home to several koi fish that had been brought over by Eleanor's Tio before he died.
Although many of the workers attempted to keep her at bay, Eleanor pushed through them and ran towards the body laying on the ground, a navy dress covered in grime and mud, a few dead koi fish circled the head like a halo. Her Tia's usual tightly pinned bun was all askew, the mess of hair hiding the side of the face. With trembling hands, heart pounding and mind violently quiet, Eleanor reached out to move her hair aside.
It did not escape her notice that many of the workers turned immediately away, hands lifting as if to ward away whatever came into view. Except that nothing did.
There was nothing except a smooth concave where the ridges and hills of a face should have been, there was nothing but smooth skin concaved inwards, clean and without the mud or the grime of the rest of the body.
Eleanor suddenly felt frozen, as if time itself had stopped as the noise around her lowered into a soft radio static and the thudding of her heart grew into a roaring crescendo. She could feel her chest tighten, her mind stuttering and throat full of a scream that should have spilled out in a violent shake as her mouth opened,
— wrenching wails echoing — nononono
the scream never came, instead it lodged itself at the back of her throat like a ball of stone.
She is lifted up and taken away, nearly dragged as her legs couldn't seem to hold her steady, she wasn't even sure she could feel them. As they carry her away, she catches sight of a red so deep, it clashed and shone like a beacon in the crowd. In between the trees of the orchard, right in shadows stood a familiar figure. A familiar red cloak.
"N-no. No." Eleanor choked out, breath catching at every inhale. "No. No no no no— Tia."
Ripping herself away from those dragging her through, she collapses into the dirt and finally, the scream tears its way out.