RoseBlood

Pretty Poetry

While Emerson makes food downstairs in the evening, I decide to stay in the library and spend a while running my fingers over the firm, thick brown spines of the hundreds of books they've collected. Elias comes over too, eyes briefly scanning the books.

"Not an amazing reader myself," he admits, "I can't concentrate well after about ten minutes. But Emerson reads sometimes. Only old stuff, though, like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, or classic crime books."

I hide the roll of my eyes as I brush my hair away from my face. Amazing. Now he likes the same literature as me. It's not a cool common interest as Brunsley might think, it's just annoying.

Feel threatened, do you? Please.

"Yeah, they're good," I agree, glaring at the shelf as I ignore my pestering thoughts, "but I'm looking for poetry."

Elias' brows furrow in confusion. "Poetry? You're into that?"

"Well, no," I answer, glancing up at him, "but those death threats or love letters, whatever I was left by the killer, were written on paper taken from a poetry book."

"Really?" Elias leans against the bookshelves now, interested. "How do you know?"

"Because of the words that were printed on the back side of the paper. 'Readth,' is a Shakespearean term, right? Or 'breadth,' whatever. It was only a bit of it, not the full page that was ripped out. Brunsley's trying to find the book it was taken from."

"Why a poetry book, though?" Elias questions. "This psycho's mad. You could ask Emerson if we have anything, though."

I open my mouth to turn him down as politely as I can, but then close it again, thinking. While I'm with these people, I might as well make the most of them. They've been assigned to help me anyway, and the things that I don't know, they might know. Especially Emerson, by the looks of things. Even if he's practically unreadable so far, would it hurt to talk to him? I don't need his advice or anything, but...

Just go.

"Alright then," I say with a slight smile. "Downstairs, right?"

"Yeah, I'll come too. I'm starved."

We go downstairs and Elias bounds into the kitchen, past the bar where Emerson is staring into space, pasta bubbling in a pan. He snaps out of his thoughts as soon as Elias comes in, sighing but saying nothing as his brother swings open the cupboard doors behind him and takes out a bag of crisps.

"Seen the pictures of those weird death threats the murderer left?"

Emerson nods, glancing at me and then at Elias. "Yes, I have."

"And what's printed on the other side?"

Emerson's brow twitches ever so slightly, and I have to bite back a smile. He didn't notice after all.

"I didn't look at the other side."

"You should've done," I comment mildly, "because if you did, you would have noticed that the paper the killer used was taken out of a poetry book."

Emerson rests his arms on the bar opposite me, meeting my eyes attentively. "A poetry book? That makes sense. It just proves that this killer likes the old-fashioned, traditional way of expressing love. Roses were left too, weren't they?"

I nod. "Do you have poetry books here?"

"Not many. But we might have a few. I'll check when this is done. What was printed on the paper, exactly?"

"Nothing understandable," I reply. "Only a few words from sentences, since they didn't use the whole page, they just ripped a part out. They might have done it on purpose, or by accident."

"It was most likely an accident," Emerson says thoughtfully, "but they needed to use a poetry book, especially if it was a love poem. If it was, then it might be a commonly known one that we can search online by the words. Everything they do has meaning, symbolism."

"So using a poetry book's paper to write the twisted love letters on means that they feel they're expressing how they feel properly. But if they..." I take a breath, hating the words that come out of my mouth. "If the murderer loved my father-"

"Loves," Emerson corrects. "But they feel betrayed, too. Still, not enough to hate him. Them doing this is what should be done, in their mind. They love him, but in their own, twisted way of loving."

"Nah, that can't be right," Elias contradicts. "If they loved him, they wouldn't have killed him."

"I said in their own, twisted way," Emerson repeats. "It's different for them. They don't feel things normally like others do, otherwise none of this would have happened. They're an obsessive, delusional lover."

"What, like a yandere?" Elias asks, a brow raised.

"I wouldn't put it like that," I tell him with a shrug, "but yeah, I suppose."

"Every little part of this kill matters," Emerson says slowly, before his dark gaze meets mine again. "What were the words you saw?"

"Um... 'count the' on one line, 'readth and' on the other, 'ing out of,' and 'Grace.'" I finish, contented with my memory, and Emerson blinks, processing them.

"A sonnet of some kind, maybe? Edith studied them in her English Literature class before, so she might know. She should be back soon."

"Back now," Elias says, nodding at the window, where Edith can be seen walking up the driveway with the backpack, her figure disappearing as she unlocks and shoves open the door.

I leave the boys to help her in, and she gives me the bag with a breathless smile.

"There you go! Alright?"

"Yes, thanks. We're talking about the poetry book that the killer used, to take a part of a page out of it for the death threats. Some words were printed on the back."

"Poetry? Sonnets?"

"That's what we're saying," Elias says from the kitchen, and Emerson turns off the stove, pulling out a few bowls.

"Stop eating that, Elias, or you won't eat this," I hear him say boredly.

"Well, I know a thing or two about poetry, thankfully," Edith tells me, going into the kitchen and helping Emerson.

I stay behind for a moment, opening the bag, and rummage through it until my grip reaches the familiar, hard feeling of my casebook. I pull it out, flipping through it, and sure enough, everything's there. I smile to myself in satisfaction and zip the bag back up.

"Do you want to take that upstairs, to the room you were in before?" Edith asks, and I nod before carrying it up, making my way to the room and dropping the rucksack on the bed.

All my things seem so out of place here, in the Tyrels' home and not mine. There's no Lizzie, ironing clothes and dusting the shelves that my crime series' are neatly slotted together on. No Mum and Dad talking numbers and looking through photos of houses and apartments, one flicking through them and the other taking notes. Everything's out of place, and it's all this RoseBlood Killer's fault.

All the more reason to find out who they are.