It was only the first of innumerable calls, which interrupted her every half-hour as the evening wore on, in everything she did.
At first, it had been annoying, serving only to cause her anger to rise with every call until it had boiled over into rage. But as night began to fall unseen through the dark clouds and torrential rains, fear subsumed the anger, and began to take a vice-like hold on her heart. She had long since stopped heeding the ether's summons; the calls, like the first, were only short threats, but by different persons each time, as no two voices were exactly alike.
And still, it continued … And continued … And continued.
With every summon, she felt more and more like some unseen assailant was just beyond the front door, toying with her, attempting to slowly break down her sanity before delivering the killing strike. Several times, after having turned off all the lights in the house, she checked to make sure all the doors' locks were secure. She had even kept Needles by for comfort while she sat in her room, huddled in her bed, tormented even by the vast claps of thunder outside. They sang in counterpoint to the incessant, taunting call of the imse ether.
The rain-soaked hours ticked by with chilling slowness. Needles, aware of her fear, tried to soothe Mericlou by ferret-kissing her cheek with her tiny nose and tongue, but eventually gave up. By seven o'clock, Mericlou, paralyzed by fear, had curled herself into a fetal position. She shivered as the tears poured down her cheeks like the outside torrents of rain.
"Stop it …" she whispered as the imse ether incessantly, mercilessly called for her, it's summons blaring for her over twenty times in a row now, ten times, every hour. "Please … just leave me alone!"
She choked out several gasping wails as she held Needles close to her. "Aldrec … where are you?"
But she had to be reasonable. Aldrec would not dare come in this weather. There was no way to get here safely; the roads would be flooded over with rain.
And still the calling of the imse ether continued.
Perhaps she could cry herself to sleep, she thought desperately amidst the pounding rains and merciless summons of the imse ether. Maybe by the next morning, this would all have been a bad dream.
Please, God, she prayed at that hopeful thought, please … make it so.
She cried and cried, even more so than the day that her purse was stolen. She cried until she feared that her tear ducts would dry out. Her eyes already hurt from their constant, irritating flow, but the imse ether did not quit, and the storm outside was getting worse. Needles was becoming distressed; she paced back and forth on the bed, twitching her long whiskers apprehensively.