Freeing Charlotte

There’s something about midnight that always makes me more sensitive to Charlotte’s presence. It may be I’m starting to feel tired at that point, or maybe it’s the witching hour that’s to blame. Every time I walk into her room, it’s as though she directs my gaze past her blue upholstered chair to the window overlooking the next building and the parking lots and trees in the distance. If I walk further into the room, I feel my gaze redirected past the warped mirror on the locked door to the window in the nook of the room; this one looks out over another building and a bicycle shack.

Neither view is inherently beautiful. Instead they are rather strange considering the hour and the emptiness of it all. The sparse street lights and bright parking lot lights make the desolateness even more apparent. Yet there is beauty in the strangeness. I’m unsure what Charlotte wants me to see, why she keeps pulling me to look out the windows. And the likelihood of Charlotte explaining it to me is slim. She isn’t much for talking.

Despite my curiosity, I never linger long. While Charlotte is a familiar and comforting presence—akin to that of an old friend—there is another in the room. This one radiates from the corner near the warped mirror, surrounding the red upholstered chair. It lives in the corner, and its presence spills across the rest of the room. Even in the middle of the day, I avoid that corner. That spirit has a tendency of wrapping around you like a giant fist, sending chills to your very center. To my knowledge, it doesn’t have a name. Unlike Charlotte, who is known across the campus, this being seems to go unnoticed by most.

I wish I could say I’m the brave sort who faces down evil with steadfast resolve. I’m not. If I’m alone in Charlotte’s attic room, I leave as soon as I feel its tendrils closing in on me, bidding Charlotte a good night. A seek of guilt grows a little more every night this happens. Guilt at not being the brave heroine I admire in books and movies. Guilt at leaving sweet Charlotte alone, again, with that sinister specter. Guilt at not being astute enough to understand what Charlotte is telling me. What is the significance of the view out each window?

But Charlotte is clever. She sees in me something I have not yet discovered. More than someone aware of her presence, she sees someone to help. Someone to finally free her soul.