CHAPTER 35
Eddy awoke in a sea of blackness. Squeezing his eyes open and shut, he tried in vain to make sense of his surroundings, but it was futile. Peering deeper into the blackness before him, Eddy took a deep breath to awaken his senses.
His face was met with a wave of warm mist. Then another. This was comforting until Eddy realized the warm breath was that of his own rebounding off of something, but what he was not sure. His eyes began to dart back and forth, desperate to find a speck of light; a shadow- any sense of depth. But there was only consummate nothingness. The sound of his breath became upstaged by the heavy thumping of his heart. Eddy’s fingers tapped nervously at his side quivering before he reached out into the darkness.
Bump. 
The moment that followed seemed a like a lifetime. He reached out again, this time with knuckles in the lead, praying his digits would find something comforting.  
Knock.
Eddy’s senses crashed together in an emotional maelstrom as he realized his worst fear.  A plank of hard wood just inches from his face, the lid of a coffin. His eyes, still desperately looking for an escape now streamed with tears.
 ‘Oh God in heaven help me,’ he screamed.
His fingers ripped at the satin lining. Underneath he could feel the rough grain of pine. With oxygen running out, Eddy began to claw, desperately, at the wall separating him from the world outside. The lid of the coffin was either a doorway to salvation, or eternal damnation. 
 ‘Please!’ He sobbed. ‘I don’t want to die.’
Sssccccrrrrrrrraaappe. 
Eddy tore at the oblong box, now peeled down to raw wood. Jagged splinters impaled the tender skin beneath his nails. The physical pain was excruciating, and yet nothing compared to the mental anguish. 
The heartbeat was deafening now, pounding with hysteria. His heavy screams shocked only his ears; and Eddy knew these panicked gasps were for but an audience of one. No one could hear him from six feet under.
‘Eddy. Wake up, sweetheart.’ Her voice was sweet and soothing. ‘You’re having a nightmare.’ Eddy looked up to find his sweet, pixie-like mother sitting beside his little bed. It was a sunny, celestial dawn.
He took a satisfying breath and said, ‘It was so real.’
‘There, there, sweetheart. It’s alright, now,’ she said, offering a warm smile. It was the same expression she displayed in the tiny oval portrait he displayed on his bureau. With a gentle pat on the shoulder, Eddy was able to relax once again. 
‘I love you so much, Eddy,’ she said. Her big brown eyes removed any remaining fright. He was at home.
Then she spoke again.  ‘Remember me, son. Always.’
Eddy was confused. ‘What? Remember you? Mother?’
That’s when Eddy realized her lips hadn’t moved as she spoke, and yet he heard her so clearly.  She continued to smile with those adoring eyes that her adoring fans held so dear. After all, everyone loved the great actress Eliza Poe. 
But Eliza Poe was dead. She couldn’t possibly be here. With each beat of logic, the ethereal light surrounding her form became brighter until it enveloped everything including her. 
“Mother?!” Eddy called out. 
At once he gasped and sat up in bed. The only thing that had been real was the sweat-- that and the tears that pooled on his lower lid. There was indeed a morning light shining through the window, but it was hardly the heavenly glow of before. Outside, the city of Richmond was coming alive with the sound of morning. 
Eddy sat up. Tasting the beads of salt upon his upper lip, he tried to work out the details of the vivid dream. There was no doubt the woman who had shaken him from his nightmare was Eliza, but she’d been gone twelve years. Eddy couldn’t remember much about her beyond vague lullabies, or the gentle scent of gGardenias. 
Still, one memory was entirely clear. It was the foreboding cough, and the sound of the death rattle in her throat towards the end. That sound Eddy would never forget. Eddy took another breath, contemplating his nightmare within the nightmare.