The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Paranormal Romance

Forty-Eight

After what she'd seen in the kitchen, Veronica wanted nothing more to do with Mrs. Twig. She stayed in the classroom all day, praying she would not be disturbed.

She sat at her desk and put her hands over her face, wanting to cry. The raging, frightening beast in the tower had escaped. It was a black wolf. It was Rafe.

The man she'd fallen in love with, was something unspeakable.

There was that diary in the desk drawer, the one she didn't feel right about opening. Had her predecessor been witness such goings on? Well, discretion, be damned. Gulping down her tears, Veronica opened the drawer and looked underneath her missal and her class ledger, for the red cover of the diary.

She took it out and opened it to a page near the middle.

She's so jealous of me, but for no reason. Mr. de Grimston could never prefer a plain girl like I am to a great beauty such as Lady Sovay, but I don't know how much longer I can stand her barbarous attempts to hurt me.

Was Sovay so jealous, then?

Veronica turned to a further page. A newspaper cutting was stuck into the binding: an engraving of a wolf standing in a field. Below it was the headline:

Farmer's Lad Found Dead.

It seemed his throat had been torn out. The governess had written with a trembling hand:

A child from the village was found ravaged by a wolf during the night. But there are no wolves left in Britain. So they say. Yet, Janet told me that this is not an unusual occurrence. It has happened off and on for years....

Chilled at the memory of her own near escapes, at the thought of the creature that was out there now, Veronica turned the page again.

I should not write of this, but I must get it off my chest somehow.

I caught Sylvie crouching over a dead hare in the classroom today. It was bleeding all over the carpet. When I shouted at her, she turned around and----I tremble to say it----I thought, for a brief moment, that she had the face of a wolf. But it's not possible. Anyway she jumped up, ran at the door, slamming it shut in my face before I could get a really good look at her.

Perhaps the tension in this house is getting to me. I can only pray I am not going mad.

Then below:

I had to tear the carpet up today. I had Mr. Croft take it out to the stables. It should be burned.

I have an unspoken agreement with Sylvie that we shall never speak of the incident with the hare. Lady Sovay is on the verge of sacking me anyway. I can tell.

Veronica flipped a few pages and found:

The moon is full tonight. They shall all be gone. I will have some time alone in the house to decide what to do.

Next:

I know I should not commit this to paper, but I have discovered where the children get off to every full moon. Mrs. Twig locks them in the tower. I heard them howling like right lunatics. It must be a brain fever. Such is the legacy of aristocratic inbreeding. They can't help it, poor things.

Howling like lunatics.... Brain fever. How Veronica wished things were so logical. She swallowed hard, as if there was stone in her throat. Miss Blaylock hadn't the benefit of the Bestiary. Miss Blaylock, perhaps, hadn't been chased by a pack of wolves that were not really wolves, but wolf-men, people who had been killed by other wolf-men, dying, only to rise again from their graves a-cursed.