The Red Wing Mansion

The Pearl Wing Mansion : Chapter Twelve

Pearly's POV

"Red on a white wedding dress?" I ask Isela, as she lays out small beads she wants to add to the design we're making for Alix.

"In memory of the Red Wing Mansion, of course," Isela lines them along the cups of the breast area, and I lay down some near the centre line too. Our room for designing dresses and hats was always filled with our messy materials, it was quite the difference from our cousins' work space, Walker and Gregory, who had a liquor business.

We were always meeting over lunch to share food and business ideas in the Pearl Wing. All our long lives were filled with fortune, but romance was... was... well... not really my families' forte.

Isela was alone, as was I, even Walker and Gregory seemed to be quite lonely. Unless they had secret lovers from Clue, but I wouldn't know, they certainly wouldn't tell.

The main reason was Claudius. We loved him, but there were periods in the past where he went on bloody rampages and it was terrifying. He had seduced and killed the love interests of Walker and Gregory centuries ago. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why all of us were reluctant to grow our families.

"You're so quiet, Pearly, that's unlike you," Isela puts her hand on my forearm, as my hand is hovering over the dress but I'm frozen in deep thought, "Are you okay?"

"It's like we're all dead," I tell her, turning to her with tears in my eyes, "...don't you ever feel dead...?" I whisper, "What is the point of us existing? Claudius forbids us to leave the Pearl Wing. I am so ashamed of even that fact, that I did not tell dear Alexandra the extent of our miserable lives."

"We manage great wealth," Isela avoids my eye and looks to the dress again, frowning, "Our fashion line, their liquor brands... but I agree, it's not right that we are commanded by our brother to live on the grounds here and have to ask for permission to leave."

"It's a paradox, Isela. In Claudius wanting to desperately preserve our lives, we stay put and do not live at all," I sigh.

"Why don't we book a trip around the world then?" Isela surprises me with her sudden spontaneity.

"Really?" I whisper.

"I'll ask Walker and Gregory what they think, shall I? They can come," she grins, "Claudius has Alix back now, we can count on her presence keeping him unconcerned with our safety, why should he have all the fun? And I would love to meet a man from another place – a new language, a new city, new everything!"

I nod and Isela runs off to tell Walker and Gregory of the idea.

Alone now, I turn to the window overlooking the overgrown green gardens, pruned daily but always growing quick with the constant rain that's attracted to these mountains.

The other truth to my deep loneliness is that I died too when Dagger was killed and I had no desire to leave this place.

Centuries of existing.

Not living.

It was partly my own fault for isolating myself in this residence, the only thing I inherited from Dagger that reminded me of him, that allowed me to daydream of the family we could have had, the mortal life, short but filled with laughter, babies, more weddings, some struggle but always with good company... then a peaceful death. I had romanticised dying in old age with Spellman. Strange, how you fantasise about the end so much when you're an immortal supernatural being.

Dagger's grave is out in the garden, a headstone disguised as just a statue of an angle, his wolf-hound, Bobby, also a part of the picture, sitting by the soil of his master, now a sculpture.