Excerpt of Dark Morning by Christopher Sharp

Chapter 1

Bella got sick two months after the wedding. The first sign that something was wrong came on a Sunday afternoon while she boxed up her bright new dress for its long, silent rest. It felt like such a waste to wear it only once, but she hoped to have a daughter someday who would be able to slip into it for her own nervous stroll down a long church aisle.

She had it laid out across their bed and busied herself gathering all of the pieces that went with it. The paisley high tops she wore were still under their bed where she left them when she unpacked everything from their honeymoon. The sequin encrusted headpiece hung on the edge of her dresser mirror. The satin veil that she nearly forgot to wear was on a wooden hanger she put in the back of her closet and the flowing white train that one of the bridesmaids tripped on as everyone got out of the limousine.

Tom was busy in the garage fixing something or inventing something new, which was his favorite pastime, so he never heard a thing. When she reached for the veil, a wave of vertigo hit her so hard the she felt like someone yanked her feet right out from under her. Dazed and light headed, she fell against the wall and slid to the floor, knocking over a pile of boxes that were stacked much too high. When the topmost box hit the floor a dozen ornamental perfume bottles spilled out, covering the floor in the tiny space. The sound of breaking glass echoed off the walls and the last thing she remembered was the sweet smell of too much perfume stinging her nostrils as everything faded to black.

Moments later her eyes fluttered open as she came to, nausea replacing the vertigo as she righted herself. She felt like something had sapped all her strength and couldn’t remember why she came into the closet in the first place. Nothing she had seen or done in her twenty-nine years would prepare her for what would happen as the result of her mysterious condition.

            In the beginning, she was able to tolerate the blackouts and memory lapses and hid them with ease from her new husband. He believed her excuses without question, but that didn’t last. Before the year was out, it got so bad that she couldn’t hide it anymore. When Tom finally found out the truth, the honeymoon came to an abrupt end.

Even with his constant attention, she never let on to what was really happening to her. She just let him believe that the fourteen doctors she saw over the course of the next year were incompetent because none of them could find a medical reason that would cause her symptoms. The endless tests she had to take and all the nights in the hospital away from her beloved would have broken a lesser union of two people, but not Tom and Bella. Deep down, she knew they must have been together in a previous life, the way he stood by her through her suffering. He never wavered an inch, no matter how bad things got.

When most people get to the end of their rope and there’s nowhere left to turn, they give up and accept their fate, but not Bella. Her family was from the Ukraine and had suffered some of the worst hardships in the last two hundred years that man could muster. They were rugged people, and never accepted defeat. So when Bella was finally diagnosed by someone who had never gone to medical school, “Someone from the old country” as her grandma always said; she was hardly surprised when she found out the true source of her pain.

Her great aunt, on her mother’s side, came to the US to visit Bella’s grandmother. When the old woman heard what was going on she asked her sister to invite the girl over to visit. Her grandmother lived in Connecticut and she and Tom lived in Rhode Island so it took some doing for her to get there. When she finally arrived on a Saturday morning the women were sitting in the kitchen eating some pastries and drinking tea.

“Whatever causes these symptoms my dear,” her great aunt said with a thick Russian accent. Her boney, ash grey fingers were busy unfolding a small piece of red silk cloth as she spoke, “Is not within you, but around you. None of those silly doctors you have seen were able to help you except to help you out of your money.”

“What do you mean Auntie?” Bella replied as she watched the old woman pull a small, clear obelisk shaped crystal from its covering.

“In your life, you have met someone that takes your goodness, your strength, your energy and feeding on it. In the old country, long time ago, my grandmother gave this to me.” Auntie put the stone into Bella’s hand. She felt the smooth sides of the pendant, and then held it up to a beam of sunlight shining through the kitchen window. The crystal cast a tiny rainbow that shimmered on the polished oak table in front of her, splitting the colors perfectly across the grain of the wood.

“Wow, look at that.” She said as she ran her fingers through the tiny light show.

 “There is a h*** in the top, I used to wear it around my neck, but this old woman doesn’t need such things anymore. My energy is long gone along with my beautiful blonde hair and sexy figure.” Bella laughed. The black and white photos she’d seen of her aunt as a young woman told a different story. She always wore a billowy sundress and babushka that hid her robust figure and plump cheeks.

“You wear it now; it will protect you from this person and anyone else you meet.” Bella reached around the back of her neck and undid the clasp of the silver chain she always wore. Then she slid the small end through the h*** in the crystal and put it back on her neck.

“Thank you so much, Auntie, are you sure this will work?”

“Of course it will,” Auntie said, raising her voice as she slapped the table with her hand. A steady stream of Russian burst from her lips and Bella’s grandmother intercepted the barrage and responded in kind. The two women went back and forth, arguing. She understood enough Russian to hear her Auntie say something about Bella moving and never coming back…