Greek Tragedy

EP 05 | ELIZABETH'S REQUEST

EPISODE FIVE

'elizabeth's request'

"No one even realised she had been missing," Elizabeth finished, staring at a long ago she could only go back to in her memories. She took another sip of tea, more of an unconscious movement than actual thirst or pleasure.

"What did you mean as 'you were told'?" I asked, brow furrowed.

"Did you not believe them?" Leon asked.

"I am... unsure." Her forehead deepened, lip pressed tight in thought. "There were a slew of workers, and the body had been badly bloated. A time in the sea had ruined her, but the head maid and butler had identified her as one of their own. But in my brief time there, I had not seen her around. I don't know why I felt that way. But they did tell me that she had different tasks than to cater to guests, so it was that."

She shook her head. "She was taken to the mainland to be identified by family. I was told it was positive."

"Heinrich had arrived with the seaplane that afternoon," she continued. "And was immediately told of the body. He told Josephine much, much later. Months when the babe had a stronger hold on her womb. Heinrich told me not to be the one to deliver such ugly news. In the end, he was the one who told her. I didn't know how she reacted, and we barely saw each other after that. In the end, it was in church, much a time had passed, that we had met again and I was made godmother to Jane Elvira Sterling.

From then on, life had moved forward. It was only after Jane was born that we had kept in touch. But only recently in the, hm, I guess, past ten years, that we had built a solid contact."

"Then she invited you to the party? The engagement of her daughter?"

She nodded. "Amelie Susan Sterling to Bene Adam Azoulay Crowley, yes. I said yes to it, as my Jane had insisted. I had completely changed my summer plans, which wasn't unheard of. None of my plans in my getaways are ever solidly plotted. I wasn't just the sole guest. Today is the second day of the party, and that... suppressing feeling had crawled back. A lot of the castle itself was much of the same, so it could just be that."

"But you wouldn't be here with us, going all the way back to Little Hodge, if you didn't think it was just a feeling," I said. Elizabeth was many things; solid, instinctual, and a creature of habit. That feeling of... wrongness. I knew that all too well.

Genuine horror has a foreboding feeling after all. A scent. A shift. The music picking up before the sinister emotion crosses the screen with the sole purpose of disturbing and fulfilling that musical crescendo.

I knew in my bones that there were people who can notice it, who are able to feel that scent behind the red curtain. Most don't ever truly know or understand what it is, nothing but a feeling at the tip of their fingertips, but it is there.

Whatever it is, it is coming.

"The party had started out quite alright, a bit too much of intimate guests for it to be intimate, but the young folk cannot be blamed for their friendships. But Sùilean Gorma a' Chaisteil had that same... oppression. And Josephine's youngest have been making jokes, sly comments in passing that have truly disturbed me."

Leon pitched forward. "Sly comments?"

Elizabeth truly looked uncomfortable, her face pinching. "Niamh has... this uncanny enjoyment of prickling people. She has been brushing them off as jokes, and she has no ill will, not really, but she has been making disturbances of things. I truly do not know if she cared for the reactions she brought or just the genuine feathers she ruffled. Jane had talked to her, Josephine had told me, but last night at dinner she had alluded to a tragedy."