sir thomas sharpe // crimson peak

{ 13 }

Song: Je te laisserai des mots - Patrick Watson

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Thomas placed the breakfast things next to the sink and watched Lucille checking the teapot. "She drank it - look." He said holding up the empty cup. "Maybe she did, maybe not. It doesn't matter. I put half the opium in the porridge."

----- Newspaper Office -----

A managing editor lead Dr. McMichael through a busy newspaper office. A noisy printing press was at work. "We don't make our back issues available to just anybody. But seeing as you're a medical man..." The rear of the office was jammed with wooden filing cabinets. Several employees were leafing through bound back issues. "Anything ever written about that family would be in here. We've found a few things." McMichael examined a photo that has been set aside: a very young, but recognisable Thomas, sitting on a pony. Standing alongside, holding the reins, was a blonde adolescent girl. The caption said: Lucille Sharpe introduces brave little brother Thomas to the joys of the horse ring.

"Doctor, if you don't mind, at night I have the strangest numbness in my lower back-" The Doctor looked up from the paper. "At night, you say?" He asked the managing editor. "It's a tingling sensation, right town to my toes..." Something else catched Alan's attention. It was a newspaper column entitled Recent Weddings. "One moment, please." In the next there was a photo of twenty-somethinh Thomas marrying Pamela Upton, a fair-hairef young society girl from London, who wears dark glasses and carries a long, white cane. "The Baronet. Sir Thomas - he's had how many wives?" McMichael asked. "Haven't the foggiest. I've never met the man." On another page, another photo, more recent, of Thomas, marrying Eleanora Schott, a wealthy heiress from Germany. "But, I daresay, you should go back. August 1872. That's the real shocker." The man leafed through another bound volume, this one older. "I've never heard anyone speak about it. As I'd everyone in the district were ashamed or paid to keep mum. I suppose the Sharpe's were powerful enough back then, buy even so - it made the front page.

"Dear God." Alan put his hand in front of his mouth. "Dreadful business, isn't it? No photographs then - but here" he turned to another page, "...the engravings are clear enough." Dr. McMichael was speechless at the page of illustrations.

----- Allerdale Hall -----

The elevator descended and stopped. I was on board. I glided ghost-like down inky tunnels deep underground. My eyes were closed, my hair billowed, as if underwater. Gaping holes and cracks pass below my bare feet - but I floated over them, my nightgown swirling.

Magically, I was in a...

... where flies were buzzing. Four of five walls featured newly-laid, bricked-in crypts. The fifth crypt was still open, waiting for me. Suddenly, Lucille Sharpe stepped out of the darkness. Although her mouth never moved, her low voice was audible..."None of you will ever leave. You'll dwell here in torment, at my pleasure." My eyes flew open as a shining blade pierced my neck. A strangled, wet shriek erupted from my lips-

And I woke up.

Weak sunlight filtered in from behind the heavy drapes, which have been drawn tight.

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I was bent over the toilet, vomiting. I straightened up and tried to clear my head, pausing at the sink to take a few swallows of water. I stopped as I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. Shock. My fave was gaunt, eyes sunken. I brought a claw-like hand to my throat, which was stained black. My tongue was black too. "No - no..." I brushed against a naked wrath - the walking corpse of a young woman whose face was half hidden behind a curtain of black hair. The awful thing reached for me, but-

-both her arms were chopped off at the elbow!

"Soon, I say! Ssssssoon-!"