Black and White
It was twenty years ago when my mother first told me the story of Rebecca Dearling, the young sprightly friend of her youth. I was about fifteen years old and full of unanswered questions. For all my life we had lived next to the strangest house that ever was. Its dark windows and boarded up doors made me fearful of what may be inside. It’s interesting as you grow up you realize different things that before you hadn’t noticed. The house had long since been empty and forsaken. No one had ever wanted it because of what happened to the pretty blonde girl who one day happened to cross the threshold of a nightmare.
* * *
Rebecca Dearling and Wendy Clay were the dearest of dear friends; everyday was an adventure. Rebecca, who had white-blonde hair, was the leader of the two, with Wendy close at her heels.
They happened one day to notice a strange house in their neighborhood. The barren yard and dark windows made chills run down your spine whenever you looked at it. The blue exterior paint was cracking and the color was beginning to fade to a dingy gray. No one had ever said anything about the house at the end of the street. People revered it as empty and forlorn.
Rebecca was in the need of a great adventure, and, when she saw the house decided to see for herself what was inside it. Wendy was unsure but didn’t want to let her friend down and so followed her up to the door. The paint on the door was peeling away from the wood surface. The brass door knocker hung gloomily as it hadn’t been used for a long while.
Tentatively Rebecca grasped the door knob and turned it slowly. The door creaked open revealing a dark empty room, lit only by the light coming in the windows.
There was a dust covered sofa in the middle of the room facing a great fireplace, above which a large dusty portrait of a beautiful woman hung. Her curled blonde hair graced her shoulders. Her bright blue eyes stared out of the portrait, penetrating the dusty room. In her hands she held a white flower upon which a spider lay awaiting its prey. On the mantle were 5 urns, all of them black except for one that was pearly white.
Many strange artifacts hung from the walls. Old tribal masks stared down at the two girls as they made their way across the room. A long spear also hung on the wall.
There was a door on the far side of the room. They slowly pushed it open and went into a small kitchen. An old wood stove stood there, near the door to the back door. The girls approached it and were shocked to that it was hot and burning. They backed away, not sure what to think of it.
They went back into the other room. All of a sudden, they noticed something fluttering near the ceiling. It was a white moth. It hung there for a moment before making its decent to a white flower on the windowsill. It gracefully fluttered down and landed neatly on one of the flower’s petals, but not before a spider, unnoticeable to the human eye, sprang, killing it with its gruesome fangs. The girls watched on in horror. The deceitful spider had concealed itself from the innocent moth and lured it in.
As Wendy continued to watch the spectacle, Rebecca had continued exploring the room. She opened another door and found a staircase leading up. She called out to Wendy, who turned about; as she did so she knocked over an ancient vase that fell shattering on the floor. Spiders went everywhere. Wendy shrieked and ran to her friend.
Rebecca began walking up the stairs, but Wendy was hesitant and unsure. She eventually followed going up the creaky staircase. It was dark in the stair passage. She could just make out the reflection of her friend’s white dress.
They made it to the top of the stairs and found a dark passage with four doors proceeding from it. They walked along, the floor creaking beneath their feet. Rebecca opened the first door on the left and slowly went in. It was a large room. A great bed stood against one wall, a large dresser against another. By the window was an old rocking chair covered in dust.
Finding nothing of interest in that room, Rebecca continued to the next door on her left. The girls went inside. There was no bed in this room. In fact the room was rather empty, except for one solitary chair by the window. They walked into the middle of the room and stood there contemplating what they were seeing. Of all the rooms they saw this was the only room in which little dust was visible. The wood floor could easily be seen. The windows were clear and could easily be seen through. The only thing that took away from this neatness was a spider web in the corner of the room.
Suddenly, the door behind them closed. Both girls turned around and held their breaths. In the shadows they could make out the shape of a man, old and bent. He gradually crept out of the shadows. He made his way towards the girls, who were backing away. Swiftly the man leapt at them grabbing them about the mouth. He pulled them jauntily along across the hallway into one of the rooms on the right. He threw them on the ground and shut the door. Quickly he lit a lamp and stared down at the girls.
His face was old and wrinkly. He wore all black and loomed over Rebecca and Wendy. Silence possessed the room.
Rebecca finally got up enough courage to break it. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Me?” the old man replied, “I should ask who you are! Barging into my house and disturbing my peace! How dare you come here and ruin everything!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry about the vase, sir,” Wendy exclaimed, “I didn’t mean to, honest.”
“White!” he muttered, “White is not allowed here! White was her color! Not yours! Oh, Madeline!” With that he sunk to the ground and wept. Rebecca’s heart went out to him.
“Oh, sir, don’t cry,” she said comfortingly, “We’ll leave and never come back. We promise.”
“She was my light,” he said mournfully, “She gave me joy. When she went away I couldn’t survive; her face haunted me. It was an accident, my dear, dear Madeline! I was out of control! Oh Madeline! Their faces were too much, for you were in all of them! Why did I take you away! Your white, unblemished face, the white gown you wore at our wedding, the white flowers that you so dearly loved! No one shall were white as long as your memory lives! Black will be my color, the color of my mourning, the color of my children! But red shall be the color of those who wear thy sacred color!”
With that he turned on the girls and slowly pulled a knife out of his pocket. The girls got up. They made a dash for the door. Wendy reached for the door knob and flung the door open. She ran down the stairs as fast as she could. She leapt over the broken vase and out the front door and into the street. She slowed her pace and turned around, expecting to find her friend right behind her, but she wasn’t there. She started back toward the house, calling her friend’s name, but stopped when she heard an ear-splitting scream come from the upper story of the house. She stood in her tracks and waited, hoping, praying that Rebecca would soon appear in the doorway.
Design
Poem lyrics of Design by Robert Frost.
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
Genius No.1
