Murder at the Masquerade

Chapter 2

My mother was one of his victims, the devils. He seduced her and she ran away with him and never returned, then, one evening, I received a letter about what happened, how she was murdered and the state of her body. It was mutilated. I was 8 years of age, and when I look back it seems like yesterday but 8 years flies by like an arrow, eventually hitting its prey and leaving it for dead. The day was bright, why on such a sad day, would the sun be shining and the birds chirping? My mother died, shouldn't the rest of the world? My life had ended, why hadn't time stopped? A horn blaring had broken me from my traumatic trance and the boy steering the ship was looking at me with impatient eyes, so, as any woman would do, I glared back. The older man had already jumped from the ships deck onto the dock and was bringing down the ramp.

"Are you Miss Carrow?" For such a big man, he had a soft voice, like feathers tracing patterns on your skin.

"Yes, sir." I replied with a curtsy.

"Why would a young lady, such as yourself, be boarding a boat with two strangers, if I dare ask." It was now noticeable that he had an accent, though I wasn't sure, knowing only English and French and not meeting many new people.

"It's a long story, Mr?" By then I had only just realised that I never asked for his name.

"Gray, Richard Gray, and this is my nephew, Christian." He said with a small nod in the direction of the boy.

I replied with a small nod of the head to both the men as Mr Gray assisted me onboard. After we all boarded, Mr Gray instructed Christian to move the boat. Christian spun the wheel as fast as he could, which resulted in me plummeting into the multiple rows of kegs, hitting my head on a tap, and gasping in pain. He looked over at me with a wide smile playing a hideous tune on his lips that made me fume with anger. Mr Gray helped me to my feet, whilst sparing a glance at his arrogant nephew that made him coil like a mouse face to face with lion. We all stood in an unmistakeable silence known as regret. Regret of hurting an innocent woman, regret of giving such a fatal look to one of family, and regret of coming on what seemed like an impossible endeavour. Mr Gray broke the excruciating silence and I promised myself that I would forever be in his debt.

"Why are you running away?" He asked.

"I never said I was, sir." My voice sounded like a grab on the shores compared to his voice that sounded like the waves, smooth yet abrupt.

"But you are, aren't you?" The look in his eyes made me wonder why he was so interested, he looked so curious as to why I was running away from shelter, food, and warmth, and boarding a boat with two strangers, one of which had some sort of grudge against me.

"I have to find something."

"Find what?" He kept pounding me with questions I wasn't sure I could answer myself. Grandmama would know. She would know what to say when questions were being fired at her faster than bullets.

"The truth." I couldn't risk telling him what truth I needed to find but he looked at me as if he understood my secrecy. But that didn't stop the questions being targeted at me. I had grabbed many things before my sudden leaving, one thing being my Grandmamas diary. She spoke of her time, her love for what was supposed to be my Grandpapa, Alastair, before his untimely death. She had a gift, it came to her on her 18th birthday, she could see emotions as colours. People, whenever they acted a certain way, radiated a different colour, but it was tricky. Colours have two emotions linked to them, often opposing the other. She said her grandmother, my great-great-grandmother, was a witch. She was, so I believe, the great-granddaughter of the ancestor I was named after. But that went back quite far in my family tree, and as I hate to admit, caused me to lose sleep over the simple task of tracking down my heritage. My Grandmama gave me her journal the night she found out I was running away. She said all the things I needed to know were in that old, leather-bound book, and she was right. My 18th birthday was soon approaching, and I would then find out if I bared the same gift. My mother, though I don't remember much about her, had the same gift, before she went missing and was assumed to be dead, she stripped herself of her gift so she couldn't read peoples intentions.

Mr Gray stared at me for what seemed like a lifetime before he turned his head towards his nephew and shouted orders. By then, I had already stopped listening but occasionally got a few words such as "Storm" and "Fear". I should have been more aware of the words he was saying but could only focus my attention the town I had spent my childhood, growing smaller with each wave passed.