✔ | PAINTED IN CRIMSON | T. SHARPE

EIGHT | GHOST IN LOVE

❝For all that its worth now you were worth it in the end,
for all off your worth I would lapse and fall again. ❞

───────

SEVEN | GHOST IN LOVE

I stood at the door to bedroom where I found the ring, the silly piece of jewellery that opened the door to the abyss everyone had warned me about, "This is Lucille's bedroom . . ." Sir Thomas said as we walked into the room, I had followed him upstairs. Although I was scared -not of him, but his sister- I was eager to know more about the place and the events once occurred in there and since Sir Thomas didn't hesitate to answer my questions, I kept asking.

"This, this is where you died?" He nodded. I walked towards the vanity and my fingers brushed the dusty surface and quickly remembered to stay away from Lucille's belongings.

"You asked who had killed me before," I looked up at him. Sir Thomas was standing by the chimney, his eyes nervously hovering around the room before meeting mine, "it -it was her . . ." he whispered, "it was my sister." His behaviour changed completely and I stared at him as I tilted my head, comprehending.

"Are you afraid of her?" He shook his head.

"I'm afraid of seeing more deaths," In a blink, he was standing by the bed, his eyes fixed on the covers. I made my way towards the other side and stood across from him, "I was trying to end it all," he said and knitted his eyebrows together, "I was determined to leave and start again, to leave it all behind, Lucille was not. She only wanted us, she did not wanted me to stay with Edith . . . she was angry because I broke a promise. Before we were sundered, she made me promise to never fall in love with another woman, I was hers. I told her I would wait for her and I did . . ." he said and squeezed his eyes shut, "I only wanted to finally live a life, but she made sure that I did not live it if it was not by her side . . . she took everything from me," he spoke between gritted teeth. He also told me that when the darkness had not surrounded him completely, Lucille managed to carry him to bed, the place where the heart once loved her finally stopped. That explained what the guy from the café had told me before.

Murders -including their mother's- lies, promises, passion and lust were part of the forbidden love that both of them kept alive and as a secret that would remain trapped into the walls of the rotting house, or that's what they expected, until everything began to slip through their fingers.

Little by little everything was making sense, like a puzzle. He continued to tell me more, how he found himself growing fond of Enola, how she made him feel loved in a different way and she didn't stop loving him even when she learned Lucille was pregnant with his child. It was the first time he had felt different towards one of the women he had married to, he was almost in love with her.

The fact of watching his child suffer and die in his own arms one night and watching how Enola herself died calling his name a couple of nights later made him change. He told me that he always made sure to have an excuse to go to the town or just leave the house when his wives were in their deathbed, but this time he accompanied Enola, he held her hand until the last breath left her lips. After that, he feared the day when money ran out, that only meant they had to kill again.

"Something as dark and evil as what I have done cannot be forgiven . . ." he said, bitter his words. He wandered around the room and then stopped to place his hand on the back of a chair, looking over his shoulder to speak, ". . . do you believe in heaven and hell, Adeline?" He asked, I shook my head.

"I don't," I said, taking a step forward, "Honestly, I am not a very religious person but, I know that God forgives those who repent, he knows when they truly do," He nodded, not quite convinced of my words, he shared one of those brief smiles of him and then slowly walked away, looking downcast, leaving me alone, standing next to the bed. I led my hand to my forehead, all he had told me was overwhelming. I sighed and then placed my hands on my hips.