ᴀꜱʏʟᴜᴍ :: ᴛ.ꜱʜᴇʟʙʏ

xii: mourning black

Eventually, Tommy stood from the muddied ground, torn his hands through his hair, inhaled a deep breath of the bitterly cold fog. Then he grabbed his gun from the ground, placed it back in its holster, and returned to the house. He didn't know how much time had passed since the gunshot had fired through the fog, but the sky was only just beginning to lighten with the promise of morning.

It didn't matter, anyway. Nothing mattered.

His eyes ached, his head throbbing from the pressure of a headache, his ears ringing from the force of the gunshot and the cheers from Bingley Hall. Dread filled him as he stepped onto the gravel driveway before the house, seeing figures looming in the arched doorway. The maid, perhaps, or his wife. Right now, Tommy wanted to speak to none of them—he wanted to be nowhere close to their concern and their pleas for answers. Right now, there were no answers he could give.

Only his mother could answer the questions which burned in his own mind, but she wasn't here to say a word anymore, and that was the whole reason why.

Fuck. Fool he was, his hands were still shaking, trembling like leaves in the wind, the half-moons of his fingernails darkened by dirt. Tommy dug his fingers into the pocket of his coat, pulled out a small vial of laudanum and tipped his head back to drain its contents. As the opium touched his tongue, Barney flashed into his mind, unbidden—the cold of the asylum, and Barney's refusal as Tommy showed him his gold-plated cyanide tooth. Now, the fragments of his skull painted the exhibition hall. His trust had gotten him killed as much as the bullet from a gun.

Perhaps Tommy belonged in that asylum more than Barney, more than anyone. After all these years, the nightmares still plagued his footsteps, the exhaustion, the sounds of the tunnel, the shakes. At night, sometimes he swore he could still feel his wife's blood staining his hands, warm and red as she grew cold.

That girl from the asylum—was this how she felt? Trapped within the cage of her own mind, battling the shaking in her voice?

Winnow. Her name was Winnow.

Before Tommy could stop to think further than the dawn, his footsteps had veered from the house towards the waiting gleam of his car. Arthur still stood in the front courtyard, pacing, his fingers fisted into his hair, but Tommy paid his brother no mind. Watching wordlessly, Lizzie stepped forward from the house, holding hands with their daughter. Ruby's silhouette was tiny beside Lizzie's statuesque height.

"Tom, where are you going?" Arthur looked up as the car door opened, starting forward at a jog as Tommy slid inside. "Tom—"

"Business, Arthur," he had replied in a mutter, right before the door slammed shut. "Business."

His fingers had still been shaking as they closed around the wheel.