The Marriage Pact — Lillian Cheatham

Sometimes I have a dream, a queer, jumbled sort of dream, composed of fear, anticipation, and always it begins the same way. I am standing in a doorway, beneath a creaking wooden sign, which sways crazily above me, and the wind is so cold it seems to penetrate the cringing flesh to the bones. As it sometimes in in nightmares, I am compelled by an overwhelming sense of urgency, yet my feet are so heavy I cannot lift them across that threshold, nor yet step back into the unearthly coldness behind me… Ahead yawns a doorway, dark and somehow dreaded, and I feel again the tense I felt once before, as I fearfully advance, step by step, toward the faceless horror awaiting me there, toward the door beyond which lies the darkest part of my dream…

It is then that I always awaken, shaking with cold, my face wet with tears. But I suppose the part of my mind that senses I am sleeping recognizes the girl that I am in my dreams as a poor, fearful thing, terror ridden by ghosts and questions that no longer have any meaning. An I suppose that I seemingly my dream picks the right starting point, the place where it began for me, beneath that wooden sign with the wind as it punishing thing at my back.