SHE IS IN the woods in the bright light of summer, standing outside Janet’s cottage. The garden is alive with insects, bees buzzing from flower to flower. The butterflies are huge, the largest she has ever seen, their colours vibrant. Janet’s dog is lying in the sun by the door.
Her mother emerges from the cottage, smiling. She is wearing a luscious green gown. She walks through the garden towards her. As she approaches, her dress merges with the surrounding green of the garden. She disappears.
He is beside her, the man she is to marry. He is tall and handsome, but his eyes are closed. He opens them. In the dark shining eyeballs is a reflection. She does not know if it is Satan or the pricker.
She cannot understand how she is looking through the library window, two storeys up. She realises that she is hovering like an insect twenty feet above the flower beds. She is elated by the feeling of lightness. She looks inside the room. Cant and her sister sit at a table looking down at a large black book. Cant points to a passage with his finger and looks at Rosina. She stands up. She stares out of the window. She does not see her.
Rosina lets her gown fall to the ground. She wears no undergarments. She stands naked in the room, the minister watching her. From outside she screams at her sister to put her gown back on, to leave his company. She does not hear her. Cant approaches, his eyes enraptured. He removes something from a bag. It looks like a small wand. She realises it is a pin, about two inches long. Rosina is expressionless, staring out of the window. The minister is beside her. He raises the pin, placing it on the surface of her breast. She screams at Rosina to run. She does not hear. As he inserts the pin into the soft flesh, he turns. It is not the face of the minister. It is Him. It is the countenance of Satan, black, handsome, all-consuming.
She was awake again, the dream or vision fresh in her mind. She remembered where she was. The desperate cries of the prisoners, the endless stream of obscenities were audible again. She wondered if they had stopped waking her. She was sure that she had slept. Perhaps they had given up. Then the image of Cant came back to her, his black gowns, the Bible, the pin – the Devil. Cant was the Devil. She must warn Rosina, somehow.