Face of Death, Part #2

As i opened the door the sound stopped. I stepped lightly inside letting the light from the hall fill the room. Mellinda was bound up in her blankets quietly sleeping. Confused, i untangled the covers lightly and pattered her hair. I had never been in the room before, it was quite lovely. Her furniture the walls even the covers on her books where all white. There was a mural roughly painted on the wall. It looked very out of place amongst all the white. Birds where in mid flight, rabbits mice and even a Tabbie cat where sitting in line along the bottom. A great black horse was standing in the background, and a group of small squirrels sat in the corners. There was something a little odd about it all, they all looked a little unhappy, if it was possible for animals to look unhappy. And in the darkness of the room, lit only by the pale light from the hall they seamed to move, to look back at me. But that wasn't all. The white shag rug on the floor had been folded up at the corners, and as i looked i saw more paintings. These of people, or more to the point people's faces. Men with glaces and beards, women in bonnets like nannies, an elderly lady of some distinction and a few gypsy children of different ages. They too looked at me, their faces stung with horror, mouths wide, eyes wild and pleading. No wonder poor Mellinda covered them with a rug, i don't know why she didn't just move rooms, she could have had mine if she wanted to be so near her mother. It was so disturbing in that pale light, all the animals and faces looked as if the where moving in sadness and horror. I pushed down the edges of the rug, gave Mellinda a kiss and hurried from the room feeling deeply disturbed. The next morning i found Mellinda in the kitchen helping herself to a steamy bowl of porridge and offered her my bedroom. Her face changed, in the blink of an eyes her soft cheeks pulled down, her pink lips tightly pulled up over her teeth and her blue eyes turned blood red, a blink later and she was her charming self again. "No, but thank you," she said politely. "It's my room, and those painting are mine, I took them and you shouldn't try to take them from me." Although it had been her usual polite and musical voice, the threat and anger that had filled her face for a split second coloured my understanding. She took them, they where hers, don't try to take them away. Got it, i didn't dare push the subject, instead I turned out of the kitchen hurrying off to Mrs Roderick to give her morning medications.......