Mysteerie Manor II

Maryanne woke during the night, long before dawn. She had been restless, with haunting nightmares that were on replay. She gave in and went to the kitchen for a cold drink of water and stood by the window looking over the yard, while the cool liquid quenched her thirst. A sudden rustling and a flock of large birds swept down onto the back yard and landed. There must have been at least twenty or more. They looked like Ravens and not Blackbirds, as had been reported recently. Maryanne was familiar with Ravens since she was a young girl and had completed a biology project on a pair of them, so she knew more than most. The yard was covered with the beady eyed Aves. She opened the door and they immediately took flight, causing a loud whirr as their wings flapped against the eerie moon-lit sky. A ghostlike -figure appeared in the yard when the birds ascended into a black cloud of feathers. A tall, white-haired, man shrouded in darkness, stood in the yard, his beady eyes peered; shining, glowing and frightening. She tried to communicate with him but unable to speak, she cautiously backed away and ducked into the house. The dark visitor seemed to vanish into a mist and was gone. There were no signs of the stranger or the birds. She pushed the door closed with a forceful slam and locked the deadbolt, but couldn’t help look again, through the window into the yard. It had become quiet and still, as if it were nothing at all. She was thinking of Poe’s famous poem, The Raven, and a phrase in the poem came to her thoughts; ‘Quoth the Raven’, “nevermore.” “What are you doing up at this hour?” Mario startled her. Maryanne turned around in panic, and a mask of shock had crawled over her pallid face. “Hey, it’s me, Maryanne. What’s wrong? It’s Mario.” Maryanne stood frozen with fear until Mario put his hands on her shoulders. She was absorbed in a nightmare, colliding with reality. When she recognized Mario, she came to her senses. It was not the dark stranger. “I had horrible nightmares and got up for a drink of water, and when I looked out into the yard;”...she went on to describe the ghoulish man and the birds. She had calmed down but was still shaking from the abhorrent aberrations that she had experienced; not sure whether it was real or her primed imagination. Mario was bewildered as he glanced into the yard to see that it was quiet and no one was apparent. Maryanne began to question it as well, thinking she might have been sleepwalking. Mario agreed. He escorted her to bed and she climbed into the pile of covers that had been mangled during her bizarre nightmares. He pulled the covers up around her and she quickly descended into a deep sleep. He was quite surprised, because Maryanne was a light sleeper and once wakened it was usually difficult for her to relax. By then it was almost dawn and Mario brewed coffee, and plucked the paper from the front porch, after he heard its proverbial thud when it was thrown against the door. A story about Jennifer Bennett’s murder had taken top billing, since the young coed had been killed in a savage act of brutality only days ago. It was on Mario’s top precedence. He vowed to capture the brutal killer, whatever it took. Mario had been working close with homicide and he was going over the current research on his laptop, when Maryanne entered the room looking like a ‘second hand rose’. “Morning.” She yawned as she picked a mug off the hook, filled it, and sipped the morning pick-me-up. “And to you as well. I thought you’d sleep a little longer after the disturbing visit from your unwelcome guest.” Mario tried to make light of it. “I was probably sleepwalking, though I have never done it before. Or at least I don’t think I have.” “I hope it was only your imagination, and not a recurrence of the Valencia ordeal.” Mario responded dubiously. “Hmmm. Very strange.” Maryanne looked out the window and then opened the door, ambling into the yard. “Checking out the yard just for the hell of it,” she explained to Mario. Donning a pair of fuzzy slippers, her favorite robe and hair mangled to the extreme, she shuffled across the porch and down the stairs. There on the railing of the deck, was an unusual amount of bird droppings and several black feathers, of which she collected a few. She walked across the yard where many more feathers and bird-droppings dotted the landscape. She was positive they were of Raven derivation. Hurrying back up the stairs, she pushed her way into the kitchen, holding the feathers