Conspiracy

Seeing the Town

Regina smiled as the warmth of the sun's rays flooded over her, a welcome reprieve from the frigid cold of the mansion. The town of Thornstone was quaint, with a minimal amount of streets lined with neat brick buildings boasting beautiful bounties. There was a bookstore, a butcher's, a baker's, and even a candlestick maker's. Beyond the town, the landscape was dotted with dozens of houses and farms. The wool of the sheep was like clouds on an emerald sky, sprinkled with the brown of the cows and horses. Regina sighed again and sat down on the edge of the fountain in the town square, staring aimlessly into the gentle stream of water spouting from its centre. As she stared, her vison blurred, and all the sounds around her dimmed to a soft buzz of noise as her thoughts wandered through the farmlands, and over the mountains.
"Excuse me, miss? Are you alright?" a voice called from afar, pulling Regina from the void her mind had fallen captive to. She turned to see an elderly woman smiling at her as she sat down. Her golden-brown face was wrinkled with wisdom and kindness, and her hair was but a wisp of silver cloud.
"I'm alright, thank you."
"You foreign." The woman observed rather blatantly. She spoke with broken English, but what she knew, she spoke well.
"I am. All the way from London."
"And why you leave such pretty home?"
"Oh, I'm only visiting."
"Who?"
"My brother."
"Where?"
"He lives on the Bloodthorne estate."
As soon as the name of Cora's family left her lips, the colour in the woman's face retreated, leaving nothing but a ghost seeming like it had seen itself in the mirror.
"No. No. Not good. Devil house. Devil house!" she exclaimed, repeating those same words with a mix of her native language. Her heightened and sudden frenzy made Regina's blood pump in her veins, and for the hundredth time that week, the cold spikes of fear were invading her insides. She suddenly felt like a forest creature in a hunter's snare, and needed to escape, to get as far away from the woman as possible. But as she turned to leave, the woman threw herself on her, clutching her dress as if it were her lifeline.
"Please. Don't go back. Danger lurks. Danger lurks. Don't go back. Please stay. Please. Don't go back." She begged, tears streaming down her cheeks."
"Why? Why don't you want me to go back? Why is bad? What dangers are there? Tell me please!" Regina cried in anguish, shaking the woman's shoulders.
"No, no, no. No! NOOO!" the woman wailed, running away from Regina.
"Regina?" Andre's voice sounded across the square, and suddenly his arms were around hers, saving her from the madness of this town. "What's going on?"
"I don't know."
"Devil man!"
"Excuse me?" Andre spat. They whirled to see the woman had returned, creeping towards them as someone would a monster. Her arm was outstretched and holding a wooden cross, and the other clutched a clove of garlic.
"Demon man. Leave her be." She hissed, shoving the garlic towards Andre's face. Regina turned to ask her brother what all this was about, then gasped as she saw how red his face was.
"Andre, are you okay? You look sunburnt."
"We need to leave."
"What?"
"We need to leave." He declared, grabbing her wrist, and dragging her behind him with a strength she'd never known he had.
"Andre, what's going on? What was that back there?" Regina interrogated her brother, but his lips remained in a thin line all the way to the carriage. With a grunt, he hauled her inside and ordered the driver to go. The carriage jolted and justled along the dirt roads, throwing Regina about the cabin. She wanted desperately for Andre to say something, but he kept silent the entire ride home.

∞

"Cora." Andre called as he walked into the library.
"Andre. Thank God you're okay." Cora sighed, pulling him into a tight embrace. The rest of the group rallied around them, asking Andre if he was alright.
"I'm okay."
"Is Regina?"
"Of course not. Not after what just went down."
"We heard. Sounds like Gretel is causing issues again. What was she doing this time?"
"Wooden cross and a garlic clove to the face."
"I honestly don't understand why those people think that garlic would work against us. I love garlic." Roman said.
"Same here, brother." Merlin agreed. "But we tread with caution from now on."
"Why? What do you see?"
"Nothing. Ever since Regina arrived, I've been seeing nothing but dark fog and clouds. Something is coming. A test. But what exactly, I know not."
"Well we'll take it. Together. Just like we've always done. We'll..."
"Shh." Cora hissed suddenly. Silence descended upon the room, and that was when they heard it. The lone pounding of a racing heart. Cora's stomach fell to the ground as she heard Regina's retreating footsteps down the hall.
"Oh dear." Roman muttered
"This is where the fun begins." Cora sighed heavily.

∞

Regina's heart was pounding as she retreated to her room. Something strange and horrible was going on in this household, she knew it. Her skin was always crawling, shivers were running non-stop laps down her spine, and she always had the strangest feeling that someone was watching her. This house, these people; they were all so peculiar. In the week that she'd been there, she had noticed their behaviour often involved nightly strolls along the grounds, dining at sunrise, and never seeming to sleep. What's more, the harrowing howls from the nights before continued to echo through her mind every time she laid to sleep, only adding to the mountains of stress that were growing on her shoulders. Those seeds of doubt that had seeped into her mind at the start of this terrifying journey had grown into giant roots of confusion that were now ripping the cracks into chasms of insecurity. For much of the night, she tossed and turned and pondered her sanity, wondering if at last she had begun to slip. At last, as the sun's rays creeped through her window and tickled her nose, she came to the conclusion that she's stay only one more week, then she was going home, never to return to this horror house in the mountains.