The Music Box: Chapter Forty

Emily woke from a deep sleep, rising slowly from its inky depths. Although her body felt tired and heavy it seemed also to be floating, so soft and warm was this giant bed with its mountain of pillows and fresh soft sheets. A solitary lamp burned low and gently on a table across the room, spilling just enough light for Emily to slowly register where she was. This back-and-forth travelling was disconcerting, disappointing her each time she realised where she really was. But for some reason she trusted Minerva and knew she had Emily's best interests at heart, so wouldn't be putting her through this if it wasn't important.

Emily puzzled over what her dreams might mean - where they really just dreams, or was there more to it? What was she seeing in them - a guess at what was happening in her world, or a glimpse of events as they really were unfolding?

Having lost all track of time, she had no idea how much had already happened that she didn't know about. Her visions suggested that Crouch was still in the early stages of his plan, but she could not yet tell how long there was between what she was seeing and what was happening. While her mind turned all this over, a soft knock came at the door.

“I'm awake - you can come in.”

Was this Oscar or Bernard, coming to annoy her? Mind you, they had been far less annoying since Minerva came into the picture. Emily figured it must be the spell she had over them - not literally, of course, but no less powerful. There was something in their voices that spoke of their lovelorn lonesomeness when she was around. They had each other for company, but so exhaustingly silly were they both that being in such close proximity must surely wear thin at times.

The door slowly opened and she felt a moment of dread, half expecting to see Mr Crouch come through - either as himself or as her. But, instead, a female figure appeared, drifting in as though on a thin cushion of cloud. Minerva!

Emily saw her picture of her host was eerily accurate in almost every detail. Although the lamp offered only a feeble light, Minerva seemed to shine with an inner-glow that radiated from the inside out, emanating from her heart.

So in keeping with her picture of her host was this walking, breathing form made flesh before her that Emily doubted she had imagined her at all, deciding the image must have been projected by Minerva into her mind’s eye.

“Close,” Minerva said. “How you are seeing me is based on how you first imagined me to be. That's how everybody sees me. To Oscar I am far shorter and rounder, to Bernard my hair is bright red like it’s suddenly burst into flame. I become an ideal upon which many become fixated - it's not all it's cracked up to be. I could try explaining it to them, but I'm afraid they would be too busy soaking in this self-sketched picture of perfection to pay any attention at all.”

Emily thought about this, wondering what it must be like to live every day in such a way, for everyone to meet you to think you are someone entirely different to who you really are.

“So what do you really look like Minerva?”

“Well that's the thing. There is no real me that is any truer or more me than any other. Since I myself cannot see me, there's no reason anyone's ideal is any more accurate or closer to the truth than any other. I simply am what you see and I in turn see what you see, in my mind, and become that.”

Minerva sat gently on the edge of the bed and took Emily's hand. Her fingers rested under her palm and stroked the back of her gently with her thumb. Emily saw her fingernails were quite long and blood red - just as she had pictured of course.

“Now Emily, we should talk about what you saw during the night. I suppose you must be quite upset by it all and I think you are terribly brave going through with this. You must be wondering why it is I can't simply send you home straight away. The trouble is, with Crouch taking over your form, it is a highly delicate situation. We can't just send you back without working out how to get him out of there. You need your body back, but as long as Crouch is in your house, it's going to be very difficult.

“Now tell me - from what you have seen, have you had any ideas for how you might be able to return?”

Emily racked her brain. She hated to go back through it all, to feel the creepy way Crouch filled out her skin, a grown man in a child’s body. She was taken to the moment her front door swung upon, remembering how she had strained her ears to see if anyone was nearby, but woke up before she could find out. She worked her way backwards, back down the steps, down the lane, down into the High Street, back to Crouch’s shop where she had seen him walk out in her body, back to the moment that he had picked up the music box and tried his hat on, both taken from his slumped body –

“Mr Crouch!” Emily shouted, surprising herself with the force of her exclamation. She looked up at Minerva with large round eyes, her voice keeping its urgent edge.

“While he is off pretending to be me, his body is just sitting there. That’s where I have to go back isn’t it? That’s the only way I can have a form. I have to be Mr Crouch if I want to have any chance of ever being me.”

Minerva nodded, Emily seeing her beautiful face was drawn down sadly.

“It really seems to be your only shot,” Minerva said.

“By the time he has finished with being you, who knows what he will have done. When he returns to his body, he really doesn’t have any use for you anymore. I shudder to think what that could mean for you.

“As your dreams have shown, he has already begun. We don’t know how far he has gone, or anything that has happened since he arrived at your home. We could stay here and see where your dreams take us, but I fear that by the time we learn any more, it won’t be anything that we ever want to know.”

“Well that’s it then, I must go now. I have to return and I have to take over Mr Crouch. But that must be easier said than done - how on earth do I do it?”