Chapter Two

Again, poor thing still has no name.

I sat at the small table in the library. Sunlight beamed in from the large glass windows that were spaced throughout the room. My burgundy dressing gown was open, showing the burgundy nightgown that was underneath. I’m aware I have a specific color palette.

Grant cleared his throat.

I did not look up at him and instead continued to eat my breakfast. Dean had made eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast as well as freshly squeezed orange juice. I stabbed at the breakfast meat.

“My Lady, I have the newspaper for you!” Ellie said.

I looked up to see her walk into the library carrying the basket she took with her into town; it was full of parcels and a twine-wrapped newspaper.

I smiled.“Excellent, Ellie, thank you,” I said.

I stood from the chair and walked over to her.

“My Lady, you’re dressing gown it’s--” she said.

“It’s what?” I said.

“It’s open,” she whispered. She blushed profusely and looked away.

My eyes widened in that way when people see an unnaturally adorable dog. I smiled at her while taking the newspaper from the basket.

“I’d think you’d be used to it after two years,” I said. I gave her a wink and tapped her shoulder with the newspaper.

She dropped the basket.

Grant did an eyeroll where the eyes quiver into the tops of the eyelids for a few seconds; it was one of my favorites.

Ellie blushed some more and dropped to her knees to put all the parcels back in the basket. She was a very small woman about five foot three, which made me stand nearly six inches taller than her, a year or two younger than I was, with brown hair and beautiful green eyes.

I was about to reach down to help her when Grant came over.

He cleared his throat. “Your breakfast is getting cold, my Lady,” he said.

I turned to face him and bit down on the twine dangling from the newspaper. I quickly raised my eyebrows and walked back to the table, the newspaper hanging from my mouth like a dog.

I turned slightly back to see him looking down, holding his head in his hand as if his brain might explode.

Fantastic.

Grant helped Ellie put everything back in the basket and I sat down to read the paper.

On the second page, the page that held all the relevant announcements pertaining to nobleperson activities, was a name I had not seen in a very long time.  

Scenes played in my mind’s eye as I remembered. The matching ribbons we gave our dolls, the lemon bars we’d beg the cook to make in secret, and the fantasies we dreamed about handsome princes falling in love with two girls and all of them living happily ever after right next door to each other. The space in my chest tightened.

“My Lady?” Peter said.

I looked up. It always made me confused when I saw him indoors, he was the gardener, he should burst into flames the minute he walked inside.

“Are you lost, Peter?” I said.

He wrung his white gardening gloves in his hands. He held his head down, as though he were embarrassed about what he had to ask me. He gave a small laugh. He was a very tall man, taller than I was, also around my age, but had the nice physique of someone who spends their time doing work outside.

I waited a few more moments. Peter looked at everything in the library except me.

“Peter, what is it? You can ask me anything, it’s alright,” I said.

He finally got closer to his target by looking at my plate. Then he finally looked at my face.

“Ma’am, would it be possible for me to have the afternoon off today? There’s a maid I’m seeing and she just arrived, her superiors gave her the morning off, and she wants to know if I’ll go to town with her and I know it’s short notice but I promise I’ll have every-”

“Peter,” I held up my hand, “of course you can go,’ I said.

He smiled so wide and was hugging me before he understood what was happening.

I hugged him back.

“Peter!” Grant said.

Peter looked at Grant, then looked down at me. In his arms. In my open dressing gown. He stumbled backwards never getting past the first two repeated words of what was sure to be a very lengthy apology.

“I think I’ll go to town today as well,” I said.

I looked down at the paper. There was always a chance of bumping into people.

I enjoyed carriage rides. The gentle rhythmic rocking and the passing scenery always brought me to a meditative state that helped me escape. Grant knew enough to remain quiet; not that the man ever said more than a sentence every half hour.

I was daydreaming particularly hard today.

The images of schoolgirls playing had not left me. The light laughter we had that sounded like Christmas ornaments tinkling together floated in and nestled itself right inside my ears; it underpinned everything else.

My daydreams were slowly replaced by the ugly feeling I got whenever I got in town. Carriage rides, I enjoy, but actually being in and having to interact with the people in Charonshaire, I did not.

The city was set up in a grid-like fashion that made the whole thing very efficient and very entropic. People walked the same paths day in and day out, never veering from their routine. People with families and happy lives, all worried about things that meant absolutely nothing. It made me claustrophobic.

“Where would you like the carriage to stop first, my lady?” Grant said.

“Bakery on the main street,” I said, faintly. I was still staring out the window, lost in the vulgar emptiness of it all.

Grant conveyed my instructions to Dean, who also served as the carriage driver.

“Dean,” I shouted, “since we’re here, you’re more than welcome to pick up whatever ingredients or things you need for the house.”

“Way ahead of you, Charlie!” his voice came from above as he banged his fist on the ceiling that reverberated throughout the inner space. I smiled.

Grant was holding his head in his hands as the carriage softly rolled to a stop.

“Finally,” he said.

Grant opened the door and went out first. He held his hand out to me but I was already getting out of the other door. Carriages rolled by, people walked and now stared at the strange woman who emerged onto the street by herself.

Grant walked around the carriage, the look on his face saying he was most displeased.

I looked up at Dean and winked. He hid his laughter with his hand.

Grant escorted me back to the sidewalk.

“My Lady, please. Be careful,” he said.

I ignored him. I was lost in looking at the main street. The air seemed more intense here than last time, not ripe with the promise of Autumn or the festivals that were abundant this time of year; it was thick, like jam, this fear and tenseness that thrummed in every pedestrian and shopkeeper I saw.

They were all connected by it; by these subtle black lines I saw that ran from heart to heart. They were all afraid of the same thing.

I don’t remember reading about anything in the paper.

“Dean, “ I said. I looked up at him as I ran the three feet to the driver’s seat of the carriage.

“Yes, ma’am?” he said.

“See if the news office is planning to run a special edition,” I said.

“What for ma’am?” he said.

I looked around at the cat’s cradle people were creating by this binding fear that held them.

“Something’s wrong, “ I said, “find out what it is.”

Dean straightened and his voice got very deep. “Yes, ma’am.”

I nodded at him as he put the carriage in motion to find the news office.

I turned around at Grant. “Shall we?”

The bakery was crowded with people: maids buying baked goods for the usual autumnal parties: “Oh, my mistress absolutely adores the apple cake!”, hostesses who didn’t trust their maids with that discretion and were picking them out for themselves: “I can’t even fathom how someone could place something so important in the hands of someone who has never tasted good food in their life”, and then there was me, who was shopping for me.

The pastry case was just as crowded with seasonal goods and every variation of sweetbread and confection with cranberries or apples. Women were lined up against the pastry case waiting to give their order while others waited near the shelves looking for actual baking ingredients.

The woman at the register was small, maybe five foot four or five, very petite, with blonde hair that was almost white. She wore her hair half up with a navy ribbon; that hairstyle looked like a grown up version of something I remembered a long time ago.

The woman turned around. It was her.

My eyes widened so much I felt like every feature disappeared off my face. I pulled Grant in front of me and used him as a shield. He was very patient and let me use his body to block me from sight.

“My Lady?” he whispered.

“Shh,” I said.

I peered over Grant’s shoulder and saw her walking through the store with the bakery parcel in her hand and then leave.

I grabbed his hand. “We’re leaving.”

“But the pastries, my Lady!”

The entire reason why I went to town was for the small hope of running into her, now that I had, I didn’t want to see her. It was more I wanted to test the universe to see how small it really was, but I didn’t actually expect or want to win. So when I was granted my victory over fate and chance, I quite simply wanted to ignore the whole thing and go home.

But I couldn’t. I saw her name in the paper, the christening of her third daughter was in the societal announcements.

This Sunday, the Bowman family is proud to invite close friends and family to share in the christening of their beloved third child, Julia Rosalyn Bowman. Mr. Philip Bowman and Mrs. Mary Bowman are both prominent members of St. Francis and they hope their contributions will help keep the message spreading throughout Charonshaire and the surrounding towns.

Mary Bowman. It used to be Mary Masters. I loved how alliterative her name was. It flowed off the tongue so easily, especially for a young girl. It had a lilting lullaby-esque quality to it. Then I heard it changed to Bowman and it became something bleak and adult.

Mary and I had been inseparable until her family moved to the neighboring township. We were seventeen and the move was a colossal blow to my identity and our friendship. But we were determined to not let distance make us ghosts to each other. We wrote each other constantly, making our poor couriers specially deliver our messages at all hours of the night. Then her letters started mentioning this man named Philip and how handsome and romantic he was. Her letters became fewer and farther between, until the last letter I received from her: a wedding invitation. My parents and I went. It was beautiful, like something out of a fairy tale.

An eighteen year old girl does not yet have the emotional capacity to understand that lives shift and priorities change and sometimes that leaves you out. Instead of being happy for my friend, I took it as a deep personal insult that she had forged along with her dreams of happily ever after, while I was forced to nurse the awful wound that’s left when you realize how tenuous friendship is and what happens when it’s gone.

She had already begun to weave those empty relationships with her neighbors, people who hardly knew her but who were wishing them the best of luck and not to hesitate to call on them if they needed anything.

Seeing her name in the paper made me realize I needed to apologize for not trying harder to be her friend. Seeing her in person now, made me eighteen again, that same scared and hurt young woman who lost her best friend.

But I’m not eighteen anymore, I hadn’t been for nearly ten years now.

Grant and I followed a few feet behind her while I tried to work up the courage to tap her on the shoulder or call out her name.

I was about to take back control of my vocal chords when Mary stopped in front of St. Francis Cathedral to speak with a priest that was standing on the steps.

I stopped and Grant stopped with me. They were about twenty feet away and I didn’t dare walk closer. I walked over to the nearest building and leaned against the wall. I positioned him in front of me so that I was mostly blocked from sight.

“My Lady?” he said.

“Not now, Grant.”

I needed to focus and to block out as much of the ambient sound as possible.

I concentrated on Mary and the priest until everything around them became hazy and blue ripples softly undulated around them. The magic sharpened my hearing with pinpoint accuracy and dropped me into the middle of their conversation, like a radio that’d been tuned to the proper frequency.

“Is everything set for tomorrow, Father?” Mary said.

“Yes, Mary, everything has been taken care of and arranged,” he said.

She looked down. She seemed tentative about continuing her conversation, weighing her options and which possible outcome would be the best depending on what she did right now.

“Is there something else?” he said.

“I’m nervous, Father, with everything that’s been going on. I don’t want anything to happen to my family,” she said.

The priest put both his hands on Mary’s shoulders in a loving and comforting manner.

“Mary, my child, it will be fine. Continue praying and God will bless tomorrow. Everything will be alright,” he said.

Mary looked relieved, but not completely. Her motions became fluid again, but her body didn’t relax.

She turned and walked down the steps. Something told me that whatever Mary was afraid of happening was tied in with the same fear I saw earlier; she was connected to it also with her own black line.

I pushed on Grant’s back.

“Time to go,” I said.

“Mary Bowman!” I shouted.

She turned around.

“I still like Mary Masters better,” I said.

Her face was a beautiful mix of happiness and nostalgia. Tears started in her eyes before she reached me and enveloped me in a hug.

“Lottie? Oh Lottie! How are you? How are things? We have so much to catch up on!” she said.

We stood there in each other’s arms, not wanting to break the last bit of the hug. We hugged again. My chest expanded and filled with warmth.
“Will you come to the cafe with me?” she said.

“I would like that very much.”  

I turned to Grant. “Grant, see if you can help Dean, if you would. I’ll meet you both in front of the bakery in a few hours,” I said.

See if you can find out what’s gotten people so afraid.

Be alert, my lady.

Grant nodded and bowed, giving Mary a smile before he left.

“He hasn’t changed a bit, “ she said with a laugh.

“Well, maybe a bit,” I said.

We walked arm in arm to the cafe across the street and sat at a table outside.

“I read about your daughter’s christening in the paper,” I said.

Mary beamed. “I can’t believe this will be our third christening, but I’m so happy. I don’t think I necessarily want any more children, but God will give what he thinks is best,” she said.

Her family had always been religious and Mary was raised like a good Catholic girl, but she had never shared her family’s fervor; that seemed to have changed as well.

“I’m sure you have a beautiful family,” I said.

“I don’t know how I got so lucky,” she said. “Isaac has become very interested in painting  and is actually quite talented while Elizabeth is just the most adorable little girl. They’re all off at their Grandmother’s for the day so Philip and I could come to town and finish up some last minute things before the christening. Philip is off at the tailor’s to have his suit altered before tomorrow and I’m picking up some things for the reception afterward,” she said.

The things she cared about were so happy and light. Her life had been filled with love, joy, children, and happy tears. We couldn’t have experienced things more differently.

“Enough about me,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face as if to wipe away the images she’d created to make room for mine, “what about you? How are you doing?”

I stared at her. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have happy tales of my child’s first words to regale her with or how my child acted up at school but I stood up for their creativity. I didn’t have anything to share.

“I’m fine,” I said.

She nodded and leaned forward. She expected me to keep going. She expected me to tell her at least about my husband.

“I brought on a new maid about two years ago, her name is Ellie. Very nice girl, very shy and proper which means she gets embarrassed on a regular basis, but she’s getting used to me,” I said.

Mary looked confused and leaned back in her chair.

“Well, what about your husband? What’s his name? What does he do? Tell me everything,” she said. She perked back up again.

She was desperate to find something to be happy about on my behalf. If I told her the truth of everything that happened in the five years since we saw each other, she would throw up and run screaming back to the priest.

I sighed and met her eyes. “I don’t have a husband,” I said.

Her shoulders slouched. “Oh you poor thing, I’m so sorry. When did he die?” she said.

My head slung down. I looked back up with a pained expression. “He didn’t die because he never existed. I never married,” I said.

“But, but surely that can’t be true. We’re the same age, Lottie, you should’ve married nine or ten years ago.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“What happened? I refuse to believe you had no suitors, you’re beautiful and come from a good family. Were men frightened of your smart mouth?”

I laughed. “No, I think it was the rumors,” I said.

She frowned and nodded. Mary was a good person and knew her way around a polite conversation, but I was more than another polite and empty aristocrat with which to talk about generic fodder. Even so, she would never bring up that subject unless I did.

“I’m sorry I haven’t kept in better contact since the funeral,” she said.

“Life has a way of bleeding and blurring the day to day things together and before you know it, five years have gone by,” I said.

“Then you’re not mad at me?” she said.

I placed my hand on hers. “No,” I said, “I’m not mad at you. We were dealt very different cards, you and I, and that’s not your fault. I have no more room for hate and anger.” I already have them in spades.

She looked down and started to sob. I took advantage of her moment of weakness and her pique of nostalgia.

“Mary, I couldn’t help but notice you speaking to the priest back there. You seemed...troubled,” I said.

She jerked her head up. Her eyes became almost feral, darting around, suspicious of everyone that passed. She was terrified someone was listening.

“Not here,” she said.

“Where then?” I said.

“Come with me,” she said. She took my hands and pulled me up and we crossed the street arm in arm again.

“Where are we going?”

“To St. Francis.”

I stopped. She walked a little farther before turning around.

“Is something wrong?” she said.

“No, nothing,” I said quickly.

I stared at the church. The large, looming building that had its own presence. I hadn't set foot in a church the past five years, I had no idea what would happen.

Calm yourself. Nothing will happen, the voice said.

Are you sure?

It laughed. You humans have such strange fantasies about us. Again I say, nothing will happen.

I walked to meet Mary and took her arm again, “Lead the way,” I said.

We walked into a large and impressive high-ceilinged room, rows of dark wooden pews with bibles laid on them, stained glass windows, and a red carpeted aisle leading up to the front of the room where the pulpit was.

There was no one here.

“Here I know we’ll have privacy,” she said.

She walked a few rows up and sat down in the middle of the pew. I joined her.

To say I was uncomfortable would be a gross understatement and misrepresentation of the entire situation. I was damned uncomfortable. I was nervous and sweating and I kept expecting to burst into flames or to have the stained-glass version of Michael come to life and smite me with his sword.

The demon’s voice laughed in my head.

“Will you tell me what’s going on now?” I whispered. It seemed the right thing to do out of respect even though we were alone, but also a small portion of me thought the smaller I kept my voice the more undetected I could go in this place.

She looked around once more.

“Promise me you will not breathe a word of this to anyone,” she said.

“I promise,” I said.

She calmed herself and took a deep breath. Whatever she was about to tell me was requiring serious mental preparation on her part.

“There have been strange...attacks recently. In the neighboring townships,” she said.

Charonshaire was like the center of a wheel, a hub in the center of five townships that created a circle around it. Mary lived in Cereshire,which meant she was referencing Nydra to the West and Ganyford to the East.

She was playing with her hands trying to dispel some of the nervous energy that knotted inside her.

I sensed that she needed to be guided through this conversation; she was not going to immediately open up and tell me everything I needed to know. I had to ask her questions and be patient as I led her through this.

“What kind of attacks?” I said.

“Kidnappings and murder,” she said.

I rested my arm on the back of the pew. We were facing each other now and I was staring hard into Mary’s face. She would occasionally look me in the eye, but not for very long.

“You said the attacks were strange,” I said. I hoped she would take the offering and go forth on her own.

“Yes,” she said.

My hopes were not met.

“Why were they strange, Mary? What happened?” I said.

I’m not very good at being patient.

“Three families, all very wealthy, very active in the community, all friends of mine. One family, Byron and Theresa Hafterley and their four children, disappeared entirely. The whole family. The only thing left behind was a scene we were told was bloody and beyond gruesome. The second family, Carlton and Beatrice Trotter and their two children, were all found dead. The third family, Lewis and Hilly Kar, had their infant daughter taken,” she said.

I was relieved Mary had finally taken some initiative in the conversation but she was still dancing around the subject.

“Was it only the gruesome nature of the attacks that made them strange?” I said.

She hitched a breath and looked down.

“No,” she said.

I thought I was going to have to ask her more questions before she said: “They found the same calling card at all three homes.”

My instincts began to pick up the sound of a subtle hum, like a low string had been plucked. The sweat came off my back in rolling drops now.

“What calling card?” I said.

“All the police told us was that it looked like some kind of rune or ancient symbol,” she said.

The hum became deafening as it came together.

“The same symbol found when my parents were murdered,” I said.

Mary looked away and folded her lips to keep her cries from escaping. She nodded.

I felt hot. I was dizzy. The church and Mary started to fade away from my immediate senses as my mind journeyed back to that night five years ago.

My parents and I finished dinner and were leaving the dining room. Grant and Dean were in the kitchen. Dean had made an extra croissant for me and was going to have it waiting in my room. My parents had gone to the library and I went upstairs. There was a terrible thunderstorm that night. The windows rattled and the rain came down in horizontal sheets. The lightning was white hot jagged streaks across the sky. The thunder was muffled inside but was still loud and tremendous. I was reading a horror story, since that’s naturally what one does in that kind of weather. A few hours had gone by and I hadn’t heard my parents come upstairs yet. I went downstairs to look for them. There were a few lights on here and there, but it was mostly dark.

“Mother? Father?” I called.

No answer.

I walked the whole of the first floor. I didn’t find my parents.

I went back to the library to see if I could find something that would tell me where they went.

There was another white hot flash that lit up the sky and the garden in the back. There was something out there, something I saw that couldn’t be, my eyes had to be playing tricks on me.

My eyes saw one thing and my brain processed it for what it was but then rejected it. I shook my head violently to rid the image that had come to me. It had to be a construct in my own mind, something dredged up by the fear, the weather, and the book I had read. But even after the image faded and the flash died down, I could not shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

I had to know.

I had to know if what I saw was real.

I snapped.

“Grant! Dean! Come quickly!” I screamed as I started running to the double doors that led to the backyard and the hedge maze beyond. I flung the doors open and ran down the steps, not even remembering if I had shut them behind me or not. There were no other flashes in the time it took me to get from the house to the center of the maze, and I will never know if I’m grateful or hateful of that fact. For if a flash had given me only a glimpse of what I saw that night, I wouldn’t have run into the center of the maze. I would’ve only seen it from afar. I would’ve been able to remain somewhat removed from it all. Maybe I would’ve been able to save myself. Maybe I would’ve been able to save myself from being lost entirely.

But that did not happen, There were no flashes to save me from experiencing that sight full on, raw and exposed.

I ran to the center of the maze. I ran through the archway to the center and I stopped. My body was incapable of movement at that moment. Rain poured over my already drenched body, splattering over my eyes but never concealing what was in front of me. There was another white flash that perfectly illuminated the scene in front of me.

My parents had been impaled on their statues, my mother on the left and my father on the right. They were laying on the shoulders of their stone portraits, but the statues’ heads rose out from the centers of their bodies. The shadows they made looked like large crosses on the ground. There was still so much blood flowing down, even with the rain. The stone was being stained. The lightning died out and the scene went back to mostly shadows. The statues looked like they were wearing my parents as stoles around their shoulders.

I’d never been happier to be back in darkness. I was thankful the light had gone away so that I could stop seeing with perfect clarity what had happened to my loving parents. But more terrifying than the sight of stone heads jutting out from their chests, were the looks on their faces. Their last moments were spent in agony and it showed. It stained them as well. The police would tell me later that they weren’t actually impaled at all, but had large holes bored into their chests to allow for placement on the statues. That was the first time I made a grown man cry.

I started shaking. I fell to my knees, convulsing. Then I screamed. I let out the most gut-wrenching soul scream of our time. My core shook. There was blood, pain, hate, regret, so much emotion in one sound that it took on a life of its own; and that life called out to more pain, hate, and sorrow. I later found out that something had answered.

Dean and Grant came running in a few moments later.

“Dear God,” Dean said.

Grant picked me up and carried me into the house. I screamed until I had no voice left. Grant and Dean had turned on more lights since I had left the house. Grant carried me through the library and into the main room to the staircase. He stopped.

I was still in shock at what had happened, but Grant’s sudden stop had made my body and mind forget momentarily what I had seen and focus on the now. I turned to see.

“No, Charlotte,” Grant said.

I looked anyway.

There were many paintings that decorated the main room. Most were landscapes, some were portraits. There were individual portraits of my father, my mother, and myself. There was also a large portrait done of my parents and me. It was the largest in the room and was the only painting below the staircase to make it the focal point.

My family portrait was now marked with a symbol made with my parents’ blood.

“Lottie. Lottie. Lottie!” Mary shouted.

She shook me back from the depths of my subconscious and I was very abruptly brought back to my senses. I looked around confused and unhappy for a moment that I was in a church and not at home, until I remembered what happened.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” she said.

“I know.” I was out of breath and my voice was hoarse.

“Mary, tell me everything you know abo-” I started but then we were interrupted by the sound of an inner door opening and closing.

“Mary, what are you doing here? And who is your friend?” he said.

Mary stood up quickly. “Father Michael! This is, Charlotte, she’s interested in joining the congregation so I wanted to show her around,” she said.

I looked at Mary. While I was proud of her for lying, I was not pleased that her lie involved me being interested in joining this church. But I stood and smiled at him.

The priest walked towards us with slow deliberate movements. He looked like someone approaching a wild animal, readying his reflexes for the pounce and the split second he had to pull the trigger. He was staring at me with a strange look in his eyes. He tried very hard to keep the emotion hidden, but I could see it. He hated me and was afraid.

“How do you know this woman?” he said.

He tried to keep his voice light, but there was a harsh grate to it that made it clear he didn’t approve.

“I’ve known her since I was a girl. We grew up together,” she said.

“Mary, I appreciate you bringing your friend here. I’d like to spend a few moments with her in private, if you don’t mind. I always like to get to know new members a bit before their first Sunday here,” he said.

“Of course, Father,” she said, “I’ll be at the cafe across the street for a bit if you want to come find me and of course you’re always invited to visit me at home.”

She squeezed my hand and left.

The sweat was condensing quite steadily on my back and my dress began to stick to my body uncomfortably. The church suddenly felt small and stifling. I clung to each of Mary’s footsteps that echoed in that room, until they eventually died out when the door closed.

Father Michael and I stood there staring at each other.

“What are you doing here?” he said. He was seething, he looked at me with disgust as though the act of talking to me was so against his nature it made him sick.

“Mary brought me here to talk in private,” I said.

His disgust did not lessen. He shook his head

“How many have you taken to serve your own twisted end? Are you the one that’s responsible for the madness of late?” he said.

“I stared at him, my mouth hung open. How did he know? My uncomfortability with the situation shifted to a very palpable fear I hadn’t felt before.

“Again, I’ll ask you: what in the hell is a half-demon doing in my church?” he said.

Author's Note

I'm overall quite happy with the pacing in this chapter, but I want to make sure that I'm giving enough detail while still allowing the reader to let their imagination run wild. Let me know what you think!