Poison Ivy | T. Riddle ✔

[17] Ophelia

The next morning, a local man was fishing by the stream as usual, his fishing net spread awaiting the catch. He had been waiting for the fish to catch bait for an hour or so, when he noticed that something else had washed up on the bank.

Slightly surprised, he left the net as it was and went over to the place where he had seen some disturbance. On the bank was a heavy cluster of ivy vines and he felt as if something or rather someone was disguised under the foliage.

Grabbing a twig, he cautiously pulled apart the vines one by one but as the cluster was pulled apart, he was shocked to see what was underneath those vines. 

It was the dead body of a woman with bright red hair and clear white skin.

He stepped back with an exasperated gasp and rushed to the town yelling and asking people to go to the forest with him. News of a woman found dead on the bank spread like a wildfire and it wasn't long before it reached the residents of Knockturn Alley as well.

The Fawleys, who had been searching for Renata since morning soon as they had found out that she wasn't in her room, rushed to the forests as well accompanied by Herbert Burke and his family. 

A crowd had gathered around the bank in order to witness the strange sighting. Never before had anyone drowned in such a pitiful way in the forest streams and all people present were wondering what could have caused such a mishap.

Tearing through the crowd, Lazarus Fawley and Herbert Burke came up front and seeing the body enclosed in the vine net, shocked them a great deal. 

It was Renata. 

Her beautiful red hair were entangled in the delicate creepers, her pale skin had lost the reddish tinge to it which implied that she had no life left in her and her eyes were staring up, the green irises glazed over.

Lazarus, her brother, couldn't control himself and fell down beside her weeping, since he had loved her like a daughter after the untimely death of their parents. He stroked her head, shaking her as if she would just wake up but deep down, he knew there was no hope. His little sister had died and nothing and no one could bring her back.

Gradually, the crowd dispersed leaving only the two families, the Fawleys and the Burkes, standing there. Lazarus's wife, Cecilia, crouched down beside him trying to console him while crying herself mourning Renata's loss. She had been dear to both of them and as they had no children of their own, they had treated her just like their daughter.

Tears were visible in Mafalda and Belvina's eyes; they had both seen her grow up from a child to a beautiful young woman right in front of their eyes since both Demelza and Renata had been friends since childhood.

Demelza was standing in a corner, too shocked to speak or even move, holding on to a nearby tree trunk, afraid she would fall from distress if she didn't. First Perseus and then Renata. She had lost both of her very dear and close friends just in the blink of an eye.

After a while had passed and Lazarus seemed to have clearly understood what had happened and realized the extent of the blow he had received, he stood up and grabbed Caractacus by the throat, his eyes flashing in inexplicable rage.

"If only your son hadn't ran away... If only he had not broken Renata's heart, she would have been alive! She would still be with us..."

Herbert came in between them, trying to restrain Lazarus and gesturing to his own brother to back off and not say anything that would wound his feelings even more. He knew Lazarus was hurt and at the moment couldn't think clearly due to sorrow and loss.

"If I see Perseus ever again in my life, I will see to it myself that he suffers," Lazarus was shaking with rage as Herbert took him in a strong grip, leading him away from Caractacus, "you mark my words, Herbert, I will kill your nephew with these very hands. Because it is due to him that my sister died!"

With trembling steps, Demelza went over to Renata's corpse, kneeling down on her knees and gently took apart the vines that encircled her. Slowly disentangling the leaves and the dainty flowers from each hair strand, unwinding the vines from around her arms.

All the while, her eyes welled up with tears and her heart sung an old melody they used to sing together whenever they had come to play by that stream. It was a poetic speech from the play Hamlet which Gertrude had recited on Ophelia's death.

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And mermaid-like a while they bore her up.

It was such a poetic death. A death so closely resembling to that of Ophelia; the distressed maiden who had gone mad from grief and drowned herself after the loss of her lover. The last verses of the speech were stuck in her head, repeating over and over again.

But long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

***