All Saints

Les Anges de la Mort

Her father came home that day and locked himself in his new study. He hadn't come out in 2 days and no one had dared to venture in. When she got home the doors had been left gaping open, flapping only slightly in the timid breeze. She was greeted by her sister who sat at the bottom of the stairs looking down at her red glinting shoes. The house was completely silent as if it had gone to sleep. Dahlia walked past her sister up the stairs  who barely acknowledged her arrival. "You can't go up there." Her sister voice echos from behind her, warning her of what truth was hidden up there.

She watched a group of men emerge from Etienne's study holding the edges of something shrouded in white cloth. Her mother's screams came from the room. Dahlia's knees buckled at the top of the stairs. Confusion was twisting into fearful assumptions. Her tongue felt numb in her mouth and so her mouth was left slacked open in shock. The men hadn't even realised her presence as they carefully carried the bag down the marble stairs of their empty fortress. She dared to peer into the colourless room where her mother lay holding on to his book on the page it had been sprawling open. Her eyes were red and her face was grey as she slightly foamed from the mouth. "Lord save me, take me not him in that way you'll save me. If you can hear my call from the heavens," she murmured her desperate beg as she got onto her knees still clutching the book, "I have been loyal and indivisibly dedicated to you. Tell me what sin have I committed against you for you to leave me wretched. Tell me!" Her voice shook with the confusion and rage that soared in her. Dahlia tore her eyes away from the woman unable to see her completely destroyed. Her weak legs carried her down the stairs only for them to give up underneath her weight a few steps from the open door. Her head was spinning and her vision was blurring the lines of objects into each other, nothing was certain. She crawled and clawed herself across using the door frame to stand up. It was like the whole city had gathered to watch the last act of their theatrical. Neighbouring women peered through open windows chatting back and forth. People had gathered at their door from every house on the street even people from a few streets down stood amongst the crowd as her family entertained their simple lives. Her eyes caught Descamps amongst the curious masses. Only then had she realised the tears dripping from her chin and onto her light purple frock. She forced a hand across her chin and straightened her posture. The ambulance drawn in front of their house as they haul another dead carcass into its white door of doom. They don't know that they're holding Etienne Beaufort, that their hands graces a once fortunate man who owned three of the most expensive faberge eggs or that fact that man had heart better than this whole city and that was her father tossed carelessly. She put her hand together and sucked in a hard breath as the doors close and the vehicle drives up the street away from her. She put her hands together, watched the vehicle become a mote of colours in the distance and the crowd dispersed to go on about their day. A lump remained in her throat but she shuffled away into the shadow of her house. The door was left open as if the house itself were waiting for someone to return.

Dahlia eyed her sister who still sat at the bottom of the stairs hands wrapped around her legs rocking back and forth. She grabbed her sister hand and walked her to the neighbour house. A woman appeared from behind the red wooden door as if she had been expecting them. She held her sister in front of her and in return she gave a solemn smile. "Oh you poor thing come in." She invited them in. Dahlia pushed her sister forward, "I have duties to get to so I cannot stay but I will forever be grateful if you watched her?" She said her hands still at her sister's shoulders. She knew she had to let go. The woman was happy to oblige especially in their direction circumstance. Unable to handle the silence of her home now that her mothers wails had become echoes of quite murmurs. She walked to the park and slumped onto some wooden bench. Her eyes staring into the green  algae shrouded pond before her.

The phone called and Joseph lunged to get it before his mother expecting a call. It was Dupin of course who let his friend know that they would be going down to the gardens to kick a ball about with some friends. Joseph wasn't that interested at first but when Dupin mentioned the girls coming Descamps eyebrows quirked up in interest and suddenly he was very passionate about football. He looked around his room as he had a bottle of liquor stashed somewhere. Descamps knelt down and looked under his bed. The handkerchief that Dahlia had given him for his bleeding lip sat there. It had her initials and a gold feather embroidered into its soft, fabric clearly done by hand. He felt bad for how carelessly he had discarded it and picked the handkerchief up stashing it in his pocket.