Dead Ringer

Belgravia London, England, 1895

       I have awoken to death.

       This was my first thought upon opening my eyes. The emptiness of my surroundings pressed upon my chest like an iron mallet. I had been robbed of my senses. I could not feel, hear, touch, or smell anything.

       My initial reaction was utter panic. Had I been in an accident? Was I now deaf, blind, and paralyzed?

        I tried to feel for vibrations, but found none save for my rampant heartbeat, thudding with bewildered anxiety. This led me to only one conclusion: simply put, there were no vibrations to find. I could not hear nor see anything, because there was nothing to hear or see. I was surrounded with silence as dead as a corpse and darkness blacker than a crow’s feather.

       I had not known that such a void existed of this world. Where was I?

       My right hand, clenched at my side, unfurled and skittered over my flat stomach and narrow hips, coming to rest at my collarbone. Something skewered my finger, which came away bloody. I jerked it off, then let it return to gingerly feel what had pricked me.

       The pad of my finger traced the object, gentle, waxy curves and flared edges, then explored the stem. A rose, I decided. A fully bloomed rose rested upon my breast.

        None of this made sense. What was I doing here, in dark, in silence? Why did a rose lay upon my chest? I could not comprehend this.

       My thoughts hesitated, then flew back to the last thing I remembered. I had been at my wedding. A flurry of colors, elegant ivories and dusky pinks and faded violets, accented with the floral scents of roses and freesias, peonies and lavender, and of course my favorite flower, the delicate lily-of-the-valley. It should have been a happy day; my family had taken every care to fulfill the most inconsequential of my whims, whether out of guilt or as a bribe to make me more pleasant throughout the whole ordeal. If so, they failed miserably.

       Both of my parents had been jubilant at the union. My pompous father was delighted at the prospect of his daughter obtaining a title, which would thereby increase his own social status. My soft mother had been teary-eyed, as usual, with joy at the happiness that would undoubtedly befall her daughter.

      My brother William and sister Katherine had hopes that I might arrange a marriage for them with an equally affluent match, a task that would be well within my means as the wife of a respected lord. Both Katie and Will were as shallow as a puddle in the ocean of life, as their primary desires were to have a high social standing in life.

      Of course, I shouldn’t even have been engaged at all. I was the youngest child, therefore I should be lucky if I were taken into a convent to become a nun. Few fathers could afford the expense of three dowries. Fortunately- or perhaps not- my father had met a wealthy young man of Romanian descent, one Lord Antonescu, and invited him home. The lord had met me and was, in his words, ‘quite taken with the girl’.

      I found this difficult to believe, as I was hardly considered charming. I failed to be the gentle, unassuming girl our society exalted. Rather, I was considered by many to be entirely hopeless. As my tutor had once phrased it- whilst fleeing our home in such a haste that he abandoned all his possessions- I was a “hellcat with the insolence of a street urchin, temper of a lion, and ill-humored wit of a soldier’s drunken dream.” Thus all the world, in particular my mother’s twittering peers, were relieved that I wouldn’t encroach on their carefully constructed ideals for long, as I would soon be exiled to an Austrian nunnery.

       But alas, my mother’s society friends were deprived of that happily awaited day, for apparently Lord Antonescu saw something he liked in me. I was no dark beauty like my mother, but I was comely enough. Long honey blonde hair flowed down my back, framing an elfin heart-shaped face. My amber eyes and pale skin were unique, though slightly disconcerting. Perhaps unusual beauty was treasured in Romania, or perhaps he was intrigued by my fierce nature. Maybe he liked challenges; it would take great finesse to sculpt me into anything presentable.

       Regardless, my parents were overjoyed that a man of such noble standing desired me, and the unthinkable occurred. The money meant for Katie’s dowry and Will’s inheritance was bestowed to me.

       I was hardly grateful for this sudden twist, though. The lord unnerved me. His face was pasty white, though I supposed it was handsome enough, but there was something sly about it. Cold blue eyes appraised my every breath, and each word that left his ruby lips rebuked me, imprisoning my will every bit as much as iron chains would.

      On this wedding day, I had walked up the aisle with the grace expected of a girl of my standing, despite my reluctance. At the alter, the pastor and wedding guests had beamed up at me. I heard one ancient crone exclaim, “Now there’s a girl who’ll live happily ever after. A right princess in a fairytale.”

       Up there, in front of man and God, I had to suppress a snort of disbelief. As I saw it, this was the end of my freedom, and therefore of life. The old hag couldn’t be more wrong.

       After a few trite words of nonsense about love and commitment, the time for vows arrived. “Do you, Lord Lupei Claudiu Dragos Antonescu take this girl to be your own?”

       An icy triumph shadowed his face and rang in his voice as he answered. “I do,” he swore, his gleaming teeth flashing at me.

      The pastor turned his gaze to me. “And do you, Wilhelmina Rosemary Knight, take the lord as your husband, to serve and to obey?”

        Mina, I mentally corrected. My name is Mina. But I couldn’t find the words. My thoughts were as soggy as pond water. How could I consent to this? To share my life- and my bed- with this dark stranger? More importantly, with a man who clearly planned to tame me and curb my spirit, break me down until I was merely a memory? How could I agree to such a fate?

        Suddenly the walls began to contort in strange ways, rippling and flexing. The floor started to shift, and I was unbearably warm. My breathing was constricted- no doubt by that damn corset they’d strapped me into, blast it- and I began to sink into the quagmire the floor had morphed into.

        So I had fainted, then. Shouldn’t I be at home? Why weren’t my family and doctor surrounding me with cool cloths?

       My hands reached up to explore my surroundings. I was lying on a gentle cloud of silky fabrics. I was wearing a stiffly starched dress of the finest material, one I didn’t recognize as my own. And above me there was-

        My fingers froze. Inch by inch I forced them to feel all the way down the side. There were nails.

        I forced my mind to summarize what I already knew. I was in a small enclosed box, nailed shut. My dress was formal and unfamiliar. I had a rose on my breast. And now that I thought about it, I was feeling rather short of breath, the stale air becoming unbearable.

        I was in a coffin.

       My scream pierced the silence, startling me. The noise was a banshee, a woman burned at the stake, a man being tortured. The anguished shriek that leapt from my mouth was inhuman and utterly hysterical, a sickening, wordless scream of pure horror.

       I had been buried alive!

       My hands stopped investigating the space and started clawing at the lid of the coffin in a frenzied attack. My nails scraped trenches in the wood, grating on my nerves, making my whole body shudder. My knees came up and fought at the coffin, at death. I screamed and scraped, an orchestra of nails-on-blackboard and the music of a battlefield. My voice grew hoarse until the most I could do was whisper my note of terror. My fingernails bled, the warm blood trickling down my arms barely registering, and my body could twitch no longer. Finally, I could do nothing more. I was too weary even to panic.

       My hysteria had ended forcefully. I lay there in my quiet, sightless bed of death, and contemplated how I would go. Would I suffocate or starve first? Would it be peaceful? Would it be painful?

       I touched my fingers ruefully, still raw and seeping blood. It was a shame. I had always had long, graceful fingers, perfect for the piano playing I so adored. My white hands would dance across the ivories, spinning tales of unceasing vengeance or heartbreaking love. Usually my own compositions, but I also had a few favorite composers- Chopin especially.

       Chopin. I remembered the hours I had poured over his life stories. I knew nearly every detail about his life- and death. His last words were, “Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won’t be buried alive.”

        Oh, sweet irony. If only I had the foresight and wisdom to say the same to my family in advance.

       My thoughts lingered on my family. Would they miss me? Mother would, I was sure. Father would miss the social station and prosperity I could have provided. Will and Katie probably hadn’t yet noticed my absence. And Lupei? What of my fiancée?

       A slow, wondrous smile crept across my face like the dawn of time. I am a fool, I thought. A bloody, oblivious fool. How did I not see it before? This was a miracle, a blessing, a gift from heaven above. Death meant escape. Death meant I would win. Death mean… I was free.

       Never would I have to sell my life away! Never would my will be compromised or bent to that of another. My life always had been and would forever be my own. In burying me alive, my family had unwittingly given me what was more important to me than wealth, love, music, even life- they had given me liberty.

       A small laugh sounded like music as it reverberated off the mahogany walls. “Free,” I whispered aloud, savoring the beauty of the word. “I am free, forever free. Free! Free, free, free!” The word became a song more exquisite than the most poignant of piano pieces I had played.

       Suddenly my body quaked as something thumped the coffin. Astonishment crept into me, along with the distinct feeling of disorientation. Unless my judgment was severely flawed, I should be a dozen feet underground, packed on all sides by dirt. What could possibly have jarred me so?

       Another thud shook me, then another and another. Abruptly, light spilled onto my lap and face; my eyes, in darkness for so long, were shot with pain long after I shielded them with a hand. The odd taste of clean country air flooded my senses, and the unfamiliar feeling constricted me. Voices erupted into ecstatic cries.

       Gradually, my eyes adjusted, and I sat up. I was, unbelievably, aboveground. Sitting in a coffin, yes, but definitely alive and back in the world of the living. A cavernous pit was next to me, along with the abandoned coffin lid, still marred with my fingernails’ attack. Around me swam familiar faces. My mother, in a swathing of black lace, tears forming salty tracks down her face. My father, looking relieved yet composed, standing next to her. Katie was giving her most flirtatious, most irritating smile to an strange man holding a shovel, and Will looked confused. I almost pitied him, his expression was so completely incompetent.

        I blinked in puzzlement. How had they known I was alive?

       “Miss Mina?” The man with the shovel who, I now saw, wore tatty clothing and dirt, spoke. The grave digger, I realized. “Miss Mina, I hears your bell, see, and I knows you be ringing cause you alive,” he confided to me in hushed tones. “And your momma be here visiting, your daddy too, they be hearing it, sos I dig up you and here you be.” He nodded at the small bell on the pulley that was attached to the coffin. I knew that many people had them installed in our modern era to prevent my very fate, premature burial. I must have jostled it when I flailed about in my initial panic.

       The full magnitude of what I had done ran over me with the force of a runaway carriage. My freedom, lost again! I would live, and be forced to marry that Romanian viper, again!

        Tears streamed down my face more furiously than my mother’s joyous ones. I was being thrust into shackles, and this would last forever. No escape this time.

        “Oh, the poor, poor dear,” I heard my mother murmur as the gravedigger helped the weeping me out of the coffin with an awed bow. Sobs wracked my body, making my shoulders shake and chest convulse. “Oh, our dear Mina, such an ordeal! But she’s so happy to be alive…” Mother beamed through her tears.

        I almost laughed. Oh yes, I was ecstatic. Couldn’t she tell?

        “But how to tell her…?” my father trailed off.

        The tone of his voice alerted me at once, and my weeping ceased immediately. “Tell me what?” I asked sharply.

         My mother gazed at me with uncertainty, but Father stepped forward and cleared his throat, awkwardly placing a hand on my shoulder. “Ah…my dear,” he began, the endearment sounding forced on his tongue. “I regret to inform you that your fiancée, the Lord Lupei Antonescu has…left us. He suffered heart failure at the shock of your…ah, unexpected and, apparently, false death. He has passed on, I’m afraid.”

       I followed his gaze to a headstone not far from mine, one that prominently displayed the lord’s name, birth, and death dates.

        I took a deep breath of air, and suddenly the sun seemed somehow brighter than before. Tears leaked out of my eyes once more. Sweet freedom! Liberty was truly mine at long last! Life had not deserted me after all!
“Far too much a strain,” clucked my mother. “The poor child is simply wrought with despair. Oh, what an awful shock after such an awful trial.”

        A laugh did escape my lips this time, but I masked it with a dry sob. All the while murmuring to myself, “Free! I am free!”

        My mother wrapped a thick shawl around my narrow shoulders and ushered me away, insisting on getting me home at once, away from “this vile place”.

       I watched the gravedigger depart and then started after my family. The last to leave, I glanced over my shoulder one last time.

       The bell above my fiancée’s grave was ringing, the tiny chime rocking back and forth like life depended on it.

        Smiling, I turned away and said nothing.