You’re not very agreeable.”
“Says the man whose countenance may be the very thing that damns him to hell.”
“My appearance bears no consequence on my judgment, Miss Eyre.”
“That may be so, but your appearance bears heavy consequences on my eyes.” He tosses his head back, releasing a laugh so haughtily loud that it resounds throughout the room.
“You are quite clever, Miss Eyre.”
“Miss Eyre. Miss Eyre. By whose name do you fancy yourself calling me?”
“If you aim to suggest that you are not, in fact, Miss Jane Eyre, then I fear I must retract my earlier statement.”
“I fear you must.” He stares at me with unbridled amusement and it is just now that I begin to see the resemblance between this man and the mental image I have of Charlotte Bronte’s Mr. Rochester. His dark features and deep, set-in eyes give him a look of menacing cruelty, yet the spark in those very same eyes gives the impression that he’s in on some joke I’m not getting.
I glance around the room, seeing it for the first time, and take an unconscious step back. I gasp aloud in quite shock as I try to make sense of exactly what’s in front of me.
The room gleams with such a brilliant white that it nearly hurts to focus on any area too long. I’m standing in the middle of a room that may have been contemporary in nineteenth century England. Golden sconces adorn the pristine walls at regular intervals, pointlessly boasting flames – everything in the room produces its own light. There aren’t even shadows where shadows would lie. A large fire roars a few feet away in a fire place bricked in gold. It’s amazing, but not as amazing as the portrait hanging above the mantle.
“Where am I?”
“Where do you think you are, Lily?” I turn to him, wondering where his British accent has gone. He lounges across a gold trimmed couch that looks like it would hurt to sit on, watching me with mocking severity. In this position, he looks less like Mr. Rochester, and more like a potential enemy.
“I don’t know.” I sit on the coffee table, slowly. The movement proves to be more difficult than it should. What am I wearing?
“Of course you do.” I shake my head in response to this.
“I really don’t.” His sigh betrays his annoyance, although I’m sure it was never his goal to conceal it. He pulls himself upright and stares at me intently, his coal black eyes burning into mine.
“Come on, Lily. You recognize those people in the picture. Tell me what they are.”
“They’re my parents, but what does –”
“They’re dead, and this is –” A shrill and demanding boom cracks over head, soaking the room in the sound of panic. He looks up at the ceiling in frustration and mutters something, but I can’t hear anything over the deafening blare.
In the grand theme of this place, a wall appears that hadn’t been there before. This wall is nothing but glass panes and door ways. Through them, I can see the world as it should be, filled with color and darkness. The double doors in the center of the wall fly open, releasing a torrent in the otherwise placid room.
Without thought or word, I rise from my seat on the table and move towards the doors. What’s beyond them calls to me, stronger than anything I’ve felt before. The room disappears, leaving only the doors and the world outside them.