The Power Read Online Free Page A

this the effect of my illness? It was all together confusing and upsetting so I turned from the looking glass, and I bathed. I had carted three large buckets of steaming hot water to the old wooden tub that I had dragged into my room. I could see the steam rising, and I could not wait to slip into the water and lavish in the heat as I scrubbed away the day’s dirt and grime. I scrubbed my hair, face, and body, and soaked for a good while, lost in my thoughts and recalling the dream from the night before with such vividness that I wondered if perhaps I was obsessed. I could not shake the thoughts from my mind. Who was the woman who had visited me, and how had I conjured her up in my dreams when I had never set eyes on her in my life?
    “ I rose from the bath, drying myself on a clean piece of cloth and went to the mirror to brush out my damp hair. Staring at my face, I did not recognize myself. Where once a filthy, little servant girl had stood, now stood a tall, regal beauty. I touched my cheek; it was soft. My lips seemed fuller, more fleshy. My eyes sparkled with color and spoke of things I did not comprehend. I had changed, I realized. Overnight, I had changed. Perhaps had grown into a woman? I wasn’t sure what exactly had happened to me. I just knew that I felt and looked incredibly different as if I had indeed been reborn.
    “ “After death comes a rebirth.” I could hear her soft-hypnotic voice in my head say.
    “ Feeling out of sorts and a bit frightened I threw my brush at the mirror, and it came crashing to the floor with a loud, shattering noise. Glass spun out, catching me in the arm and slicing through my skin. I winced at the slashing pain. I saw the jagged cut torn across my forearm. I picked the sliver of glass from it with ease. I watched as the blood slipped from my wound and something within me seemed to come alive in that moment, something unfamiliar and animalistic. It beat inside me, growing and growing as I watched the blood river over my arm. Subconsciously I started to lift my arm to my lips, but then something else inside of me screamed that I shouldn’t. Jumping up in my fear, I grabbed a rag and wrapped it tightly around the throbbing wound and wiped my arm clean. I dressed quickly, and ran from the room and down the dark halls of the basement. I ran not knowing where it was that I was going, but knowing that I could not stay in that demon room any longer. It was possessed, I told myself, or perhaps I was. Whatever was happening to me was so frightening and unsettling that I felt I was losing a part of myself forever.
    “ I ran to escape myself. It was futile, but at the moment I didn’t seem to realize it. And then a sound stopped me. It was a familiar sound: the butler’s cat, Tabby. It meowed and came from the shadows, brushing up against my legs. I bent low and scooped up the fluffy cat, pulling its warm body against me and holding it close, thinking that it would aid in ridding me of my fears. But then I heard it again, that strange tune in my head beating to the slow, soft beats of the cat’s heart. I shook my head in denial. I slid down the dirty wall with the cat in my arms, stroking it swiftly and listening to its soothing purr.
    “ I tried not to listen, but I could hear it beating in my ears, the soft beat of the loving animal’s heart. It trusted me, I knew that it did. The cat had been my only companion since Miss Gail had left me, but the thoughts raging in my head betrayed the animal. I was hungry, but it was a different sort of hunger. Not the kind that you feel in your belly, but something that I felt pulsing within the heart of me. It grew more powerful by the second. I closed my eyes against it. I pulled the cat tighter against me, holding it with a death grip as if I thought the cat could ward off any evil spirits that might try and harm me. Suddenly, the cat hissed as if sensing danger. It clawed at my arms, tearing into my skin, but still I held it there, wanting