The Curse of Will Blythe

Chapter 1: Emily Blythe

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon in the town of Thorneridge. The rain didn't seem to stop and it just kept on pouring and pouring. Gloomy dark clouds covered the sky above the Blythe Manor. It's only 2 in the afternoon but one could barely see the light of the sun. Staring down from the mansion's parlor window at the right most part of the second floor was a short-haired girl in a black lolita dress. Her name is Emily Ivy Blythe, the daughter and only child of the Blythe family. Emily is a quiet-type person with cold dark but beautiful eyes, she has a pale-white skin and short pitch-black hair.

She has been staying in that window for a while now closely observing the rain. The door opened and a tall man in a suit entered. It was her father Edward Blythe.

"You've been standing there for quite some time, admiring the rain I presume?" he said.

"Nothing much. It's just that I always wonder upon looking at it. People say the rain is sad and I can't disagree to that but to me, the rain is rather beautiful in a unique way," she replied.

"A sad beauty then?" he added.

"If that's how you look into it." she answered in a soft low voice.

"Do you need something of me?" Emily asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I must inform you that our relatives, the 'Westons', will be coming over in the next two days."

"Why, what's this about?."

"Just a little family bonding that's all. I'm going to need you to prepare, uh... clean your room and stuff like that." (He smiled, and went for the door.)

"But I always clean my room." she thought in her head and sighed.

Emily displays an expressionless face, almost emotionless even when talking to her father or pretty much anyone else. She's always been like that ever since. She is currently seventeen years old but she's never changed. It's as if she's sad about something but can't explain it, or maybe something bad happened to her, or perhaps she only doesn't care about anything at all, but she's smart, very smart in fact and quite talented too. She'd often times read a book at the manor's library, play sad songs in the grand piano located in the parlor, or simply look into the windows of the same room or her own room's window when it rains just like she does now.

The sun went down and it was already night, Emily has finished her supper. The rain was even harder now yet she still stood at a window but this time in her room. She was listening to the sound of the rain while enjoying the cold. She occasionally touches her window pane and feels her palm. No matter how peculiar she might look she's still human. She eventually gave in and bounced to her soft wide bed with large comfortable pillows upon which one's head would sink in when you lie on them. This time, she was staring at the ceiling of her room, cracking her shoulders for standing so long. She then rolled herself left, reaching for a book on her desk placed at the side of her bed then stopped her arm halfway, she was having second thoughts if she should read it or not, she'd let her hand fall to the side of her bed out of laziness (even for someone who cleans her room everyday) then would lift it up again to try and reach it, and the same thing again and again. Finally, she made up her mind and decided to get it. She read it directly above her head facing upwards.

"And then she jumped off the cliff leaving the man who loves her screaming in anguish-"

She continued reading: "then the man jumped too...(yawns)- trying to reach her ha-(yawns again)."

She kept reading, and then finally she closed her eyes unconsciously and finally went to sleep. Emily could be mistaken for an irresponsible lady at times like these, you see she has a habit of sleeping in the middle of reading but aside from that, she is an undoubtedly responsible and refined lady.

The night had passed and the rain had stopped, it was already morning when she heard a voice:

"My lady it's time for you to wake up." it was Trisha the maid.

Her eyes opened, and the first words she SAW were: '-and then they both died still holding each other's arms.' Good grief, she left the book covering her face after falling asleep last night without knowing. She removed the book off her face. The gas light was off, she looked at it not remembering having putting it off last night.

"Maybe Trisha put it off." she thought.

And then finally she rose up and stretched her arms.

"Good morning my lady" said Trisha.

"Good morning." Emily replied covering her mouth with a yawn.

"So I see, the rain stopped?"

"Yes my lady, but it did soak the ground pretty bad too." Trisha said reaching for Emily's pillows but she stopped her.

"Its okay I can handle it" she said.

"But my lady..."

"It's alright, I insist on fixing my bed myself" Emily said in a low tone of having just woken up but who can tell the difference? It almost sounds like her normal voice.

"Yes my lady, I'll head back to my work now." she answered and left the room.

Trisha isn't familiar with this yet, having her own master fix her room instead of her. You see she is only new to serving the Blythes, its her first week after all.

Emily changed her clothes, got dressed and went to the dining room for breakfast as part of her daily routine. She would normally proceed to the manor's study room in the library for her education with a tutor, but she has the day off during weekends and it's only Sunday. So she just prepared herself for tomorrow as her father asked her yesterday though there was not much to prepare. She only lives with her father 'Edward' and her mother 'Elizabeth,' they are both a businessman and woman and they leave every after breakfast during weekdays to run the town's gold mining-business known as the "Thorneridge Aurum" the reason why they live in a manor in the first place. But all that isn't really a big deal for Emily. Even though she is of a high-class family, she is humble and isn't spoiled like her Weston cousins.

Among all the things in the Blythe Manor, there has always been one thing Emily has been curious about: an old wooden chest placed above an empty wooden cupboard in the parlor room. She always notices it whenever she goes there. There really wasn't a time when she couldn't notice it at least once every time she visits the manor's parlor. But she doesn't know of the chest's contents nor has she ever touched it. All she knows is that there is a portrait of a man in his twenties wearing a black suit placed on the wall directly above it: it was her great great grandfather Will Blythe, also there is a famous legend known to Thorneridge about the Blythe family rumored to own a cursed treasure.

"Hmm... I wonder if they're connected somehow? What does an old town legend have to do with my family? Could this be the chest in the legend?" she asked herself.

The chest must be locked from the looks of it, it has a keyhole after all and if there is a keyhole, then there must be a key.

"Well, there's no use asking my parents about it" she said to herself.

They always change the subject, and then when that time happened some years ago: when she asked her mom in the parlor about it after she played the piano, her mom made unconvincing reasons so she tried to touch it but was yelled at by her mom. Since then, she has never asked her parents about it.

"That was the first time I heard mom yell." she said upon remembering it with a sigh.

In the end, she just played the piano in the parlor room trying her best to ignore that thing.

"Tomorrow is a big day after all," she added.