They whispered in town about him. They called him a beast. They called him cruel. They called him ugly.
People were repulsed by his face. They treated him like a deadly disease, avoiding him like the plague. They didn't dare talk to or in front of h...
Angelica's father started to act more and more strangely after he told her never to meet the King again. He also stopped her brother from going to his lectures at the castle and told them never to leave home. Meanwhile, he came home late every night, intoxicated.
He would yell a few words no one could understand, and then he would pass out. Angelica was worried for her father and asked him several times what had happened to him, but he always seemed too frightened to tell her. After that night, when he first came home drunk, whatever he had seen had been haunting him. But why couldn't he tell them what he saw?
Thomas, who went out unlike her and William, would tell her about what happened outside the walls of their home. More young women were found dead, and no one knew what or who was killing them. The people of the town believed it was Lord Rayven. Why wasn't she sure?
"Do you think Lord Rayven is the killer?" Angelica asked her brother while they had lunch.
"No," he said. "People don't believe he is the killer. They think he is the cause of their deaths."
"How?"
"Do you know that Rayven is his first name and not his last name?"
Angelica shook her head. She didn't know that.
"He has no last name. They say his family disowned him because he was a bad omen. That is why he got the name Rayven."
Ravens were a symbol of bad luck. How sad for his family to believe he was bad luck and even give him such a name. She wondered if his family was the reason he hated people.
"Angelica, please do something. I am suffocating here." William said.
Angelica was also suffocating but didn't know what to do. She couldn't defy her father's orders, and going out alone wasn't safe either. The only time she could go against her father's demands would be if the King asked to see her, but a week had passed, and she hadn't heard from him. She couldn't believe that she had hoped to hear from him.
"Father will calm down eventually."
She assured her brother.
William shook his head. "He is terrified. He won't change his mind."
"What is he afraid of?" she asked.
"What are humans afraid of?" Her brother asked in turn. "The unknown. Whatever they don't understand frightens them. It becomes a threat."
A threat?
Angelica became concerned that her father would do something stupid to eliminate whatever he thought was a threat. He did say he would do something. She felt like he would put himself in danger. She had to speak to him before that.
"I'll talk to father," she said, standing up.
William said nothing as she left.
On her way to her father's room, she heard his and another familiar voice coming from their garden. She went to see who her father was talking to, but as she neared, she recognized the voice. It belonged to Sir Shaw. What was he doing here?
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