The Red Wing Mansion

The Pearl Wing Mansion : Chapter Thirteen

Dagger's POV

Initially I feel nothing but burning greed and hunger, while my body pulls itself out of the soil and decomposition around me. The moment my nose breaks through the surface, I smell her perfume; primarily gardenia. Mrs. Spellman always wore gardenia and she always sprayed it in the rooms, the whole Pearl-Wing smelled of her.

That one familiar scent and the sight of her shadow in the nearest window, immediately repel the inferno of sin I felt bubbling away inside seconds prior. I didn't question the sudden hyper-focus of that greed, being diverted to a curiosity so great I can only keep moving closer.

I've stood. Now I stumble toward her.

Pearly slams open the window. I'm moving slow but I can't move quick. Because I'm weak. So weak. But I have a purpose and that purpose is getting to her.

I try to speak, to open my mouth, but I can't – I can't even smile the way I want when our eyes meet through the fog and rain. I wonder if she'll vomit at the sight of me, a walking dead man.

But no, she's brave, she's always been brave. Pearly vaults out of the window, disregarding the brat, Alix, Claudius' Mrs at her side, warning her not to be so rash.

Pearly loved trousers, shirts, big boots, horses, hounds, gardening, swimming – everything un-lady like. But she's re-invented herself in this time, looking quite pretty in a tight beige dress covered in polka dots, her hair clearly done elegantly by her sister, who loved to do her hair.

However, I can't admire her from afar any further because Pearly has run right into me – now embracing me.

What happens next is so fast and incredible it is beyond words. All I feel is a rush of extreme and generous warmth as my heart starts to beat within a single breath. And now all my strength returns as the rain sticks us together. One moment I had been a corpse, the next, I'm me. I'm normal. Her careful hands move around my torso and hold me even closer as she rests her cheek over my heart.

I'm dressed in tattered clothes that can't be repaired but that's no matter. Pearly pulls back to catch my eye, "Oh, Dagger!" she cries out whole-heartedly with passion, her heartbreak mending with the realisation I am indeed real.

Not a ghost she cannot see.

I could see her when I was a poltergeist – although I knew she believed I couldn't. However, the silly laws of the veil are not my concern anymore.

Pearly wants to kiss me but I cup the back of her head and pull her under my chin, unable to articulate myself right away with the unfamiliar desire surging through me – not the sweet kind, but the need to devour what I love entirely. It frightens me. I must protect her. So I rest my chin on the top of her perfectly styled bun, and I look into the window... and I see that bastard.

Fontaine.

His devil-blue eyes glare, but his mouth curls manipulatively upwards. Pearly looks back, her breaths shaky as Claudius softens his eyes for his baby sister. He nods, shuts the door, separating Alix and himself from our reunion.

I can appreciate that, even if I feel nothing but bitterness and anger toward that devious being, ruled by malice because of his hatred of human nature. Of course, Claudius had to excel and exceed beyond us all.

Fool, to think he knew better than God's plan.

Not many more seconds pass before that same door is opened and I see Isela, Walker and Gregory witnessing my return.

"Dagger!" Isela screams out, jumping on the spot and hugging her cousins tightly. They laugh, frightened but happy at the same time. Can't blame them, hysteria is expected. Pearly chuckles, hearing their exclamations, "This is because of our dear Alix!" Isela comes to the window with Walker and Gregory, and they just watch us now, frozen with contemplation.