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b e f o r e
Adeline falls asleep by the time night paints the passing skies, dreaming of the dead. She's in her room at the Levier estate, silk sheets burning her skin as she wakes. Her feet touch the cold, wooden floor as the air around her is the glowing lustre of an illusion.
The bedroom door opens with a creak that hadn't been there before - like even the house knows it's being haunted. The hallways are long and bright but her feet still push her to the double doors at the end, a bright gleam making her squint as she pulls them open. Her father sits on his desk, writing down letters and plans as he always did, and her mother sits by the fire, a book of black magic in her lap. Their gazes flicker up to her as she enters, a disinterested look of boredom dancing over their features as they both go back to their tasks.
"You're late," Lillian says as Adeline takes a seat on the couch. Her books are on the table in front of her, writing utensils and paper beside it. She was supposed to be studying. "Can't even get that right."
Ellis let out a heavy sigh as if the weight of his disappointment was fatiguing. She looked at her father, aged since the last time she had seen him as was her mother. She realises that this must have been what they looked like when they died.
A sharp ringing sounded in her ear at the point of contact from her mother's hand. Adeline touched her face, a stinging pain spreading over her cheek. Lillian was sneering at her, disgust in the set of her mouth.
"Hurry up, little girl." She spat.
Adeline took hold of the books in front of her, opening the page she knew she had left it at. Latin scripture taunted her as the words started to jumble on the page, oozing and melting out of the book and swirling around the spine. Her breathing quickened knowing her mother would punish her for this.
The ink bled through the old page and then started to shape into something new, lines etched into the sheet in front of her, making shapes and definitions of eyes and lips. Before she even realised, Adeline was looking at the drawn illustrations of Honey and Ryland. She turned the page quickly, but every sheet was someone else.
Ari, Amethyst, Arthur, Dean.
She stopped on the page that showed Draco. His face had the most detail, the most precision and definition. There were at least six different drawings of him on the one page, all showing different emotions, but the same piercing eyes stared back at her.
Then all the ink fell off the page and all the sheets were blank, nothing inside the old ancient history book.
Her mother hit her again.
"What have you done?" She hissed. "No wonder they all left you, who could love you?"
Adeline looked to her father but his stare was distant and cold.
