Callie
“Antonio, open the door,” I said, sounding frantic. “Stop playing games with me. Please, Antonio, open the door.” I started banging my fists against the door. “I hate you,” I screamed. “Antonio, please just open the door. Let me out. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll tell my father whatever you want. You can speak to him. You can deal with this. Just stop doing this to me.” I could still hear the sounds of the lullaby. What the fuck was going on? Was he playing a recording next door just to play with my mind? “Antonio,” I screamed louder and louder. I was sobbing now. It had all been too much for me. I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. I couldn’t deal with it. Then all the lights in the room went out. My heart stopped. “Antonio?” I questioned. I could hear footsteps outside the door. “Antonio.” But whoever was there didn’t open the door, and they didn’t come in. I took a couple of steps back. I looked around. I needed something to hit him with.
I didn’t care if I knocked him out dead. I just needed to get out of here. I took a couple of steps back, and then I remembered the golden candelabras on the mantlepiece. I walked over and grabbed one in my hand. I could hear someone playing with the locks. I stood there frozen. I didn’t know what to do. The door opened, but I couldn’t see anything. Something dropped, and then the door closed back again quickly. “Antonio,” I screamed, running to the door. “Please don’t do this to me. Please. You know I can’t deal with this. I can’t. Please, if any part of you ever liked me, you’ll let me out, Antonio, please,” I said over and over, but he didn’t open the door again. The lights flickered back on, and I blinked and looked around. Antonio or whoever had opened the door dropped a brown box onto the floor. I bit down on my lower lip. I wanted to know what was inside, but I was scared to find out. What if it was another horse’s head, a dog’s, a cat’s, or even a rat’s head?
What if it was a bunch of cockroaches or spiders or snakes? I couldn’t deal with that. I didn’t want to know, but my curiosity got the better of me. I walked over to the box and picked it up. I held it gingerly, waiting to see if something was moving inside. It wasn’t. I carried the box over to the table and placed it down. I bent my head to the box and sniffed. It smelled normal, not like a rotting carcass of meat. I knew I needed to open the box. I needed to see what was inside. Maybe there’d be a key or something or, I didn’t know, a way to get out, though that was wishful thinking. If Antonio wanted me to escape, he would’ve just left the door open. I took a deep breath and opened the box. Inside was an envelope. “That’s it?” I exclaimed, lifting it up. I stared at the front. It just said, “For you.”
“Am I you?” I muttered out loud. I assumed I was you, but why didn’t he just put my name?
I opened the envelope and then stared at the piece of paper. My name wasn’t on it. Instead, there was a lot of writing typed up on what appeared to be a typewriter. I read it out loud quickly to see what it said. “‘Once upon a midnight dreary,’” I said, my mind flickering with a memory of something. I started over again. “‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.’” I stopped. Where did I know that from? “Focus, Callie, continue reading.” I knew I was going crazy, speaking to myself, but I couldn’t stop it. I continued reading. “‘Over many a quaint and curious glory of forgotten lore.’”
“No, Callie, that says, ‘curious volume,’ not ‘curious glory,’” I chastised myself. I wasn’t sure where I’d gotten glory from. “Where do I know this from?” I bit down on my lower lip and quickly read the rest of the verse to see if that would help. I read the line aloud, “‘Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore.’”
“Oh my gosh, it’s ‘The Raven,’” I exclaimed. “It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, ‘The Raven.’ But why is this in the room? Why is it in an envelope and in a box?” I bit down on my lower lip. I didn’t understand why Antonio had given me a written version of the poem “The Raven.” I tried to think back to our conversations. Had we ever discussed Edgar Allan Poe or anything about ravens? Not that I could remember. I took a deep breath. I felt like I was going mad—absolutely bonkers. Nothing was making sense—absolutely nothing. And the worst part of it all was that I wished Antonio was here to hold me, which was crazy and sick because he was the one that had me here in the first place. “You really are one of those stupid women, Callie,” I told myself off as I sat on the bed. As I sat there and looked around the room, I started needing the bathroom again, but I was scared to go back into that small bathroom. I was afraid that I would hear my mom’s song again. I didn’t want to hear a female voice singing.
I didn’t want to be reminded of my mother at that moment, but I knew I had to go. I was going to have to be brave. I stood up and made my way toward the door, but then I paused. I looked over to the mantlepiece and stared at the painting sitting to the right. “Was that a raven?” I spoke out loud and rushed over to the painting, my heart racing. There was a painting of a raven in the room. That had to mean something. I looked at it to see if there was anything on it that would give me a clue, but it was just a regular painting—nothing special about it. It didn’t even look like it was done by a master. I was about to go back to the restroom when I decided to lift the painting off the wall. I turned it over and gasped as I saw that it was torn at the back. I touched it gingerly, scared that something nasty might pop out, but what I found was that there was a little hole.
I slipped my fingers in and pulled out a photograph. I stared at the photograph. My head was pounding now. “What the fuck?” I said under my breath. It was a photograph of my mother sitting in a dark room, and she was holding a newborn baby. That must have been me. I’d never seen the photo before. My mother’s face looked stressed, but I supposed she would’ve felt that way after childbirth. “Oh, Mama, Mama.” I started crying. How I wished she was here to tell me everything was going to be okay.
Then the lights turned out again. “Antonio, stop it. You win, okay? You’re driving me crazy. You’ve officially driven me crazy. What more do you want from me?” And then, a recording started, and I recognized the voice. It was Don Roberto Marchesi’s. I stiffened and pressed myself against the wall. Was he the one responsible for this? I pressed my lips together. He was mumbling about something, and then he started laughing, a nasty cackle I recognized all too well.
“If only that bastard knew I got his wife pregnant. That’s what he gets for sleeping with my wife. He doesn’t even know that we have a child together.”
My jaw dropped, and I felt sick. I fell to the ground in shock. What was he saying? Was Don Roberto Marchesi my father? It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. I’d kill myself if that were true, if that meant that Antonio—
No, I couldn’t even think about it. This was some sort of sick, twisted game. They were in it together. They were trying to drive me mad, and it was going to work because it hadn’t even been a day. And already the mind games, sounds, smells and everything was getting to me. I did not want to do this anymore. I just wanted to give up.