“I did everything I could! You said it wasn’t going to happen. You said you were going to save me. You said I was going to be alright. I trusted you. Why did you kill me?”
“You really want to do know why? Do you even need to ask? You were there. You knew why I had to kill you.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t know.”
“How could you even consider marrying Thomas? You’re heartless. You flounced around and you knew you were betrothed. You just stood back and let it happen.”
“I didn’t want to marry Thomas, you knew that! You knew I hated him. I hated my father for making me marry that man. You knew. You knew I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“And still you continued to give me your heart. You made me promises you couldn’t keep. So you see, my dear, that is how your actions brought about your own death.”
“That’s not fair! I was sixteen years old and powerless to stop my father. You said you were going to do something about it. You promised. I loved you and you killed me,” tears started to fall from Charlie’s eyes.
“You killed me too! How do you think I felt when I found out you were engaged? It crushed me. I couldn’t let another man have you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“We could have run away together, it didn’t have to end like that. We could have eloped. No-one would have had to know where we went. We could have been together but instead you decided to end my life. I was so excited when you said you wanted to meet with me. I thought we were going to run away.”
“I had no choice. There is no place to run. Your father had a hand in everything. We would have been caught before we even left the shire. He would have had me killed, if not both of us. It was either kill you or watch you in the arms of another. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“You buried me underneath a tree. You didn’t even have enough respect for me to allow me a proper burial. You’re a policeman! How could you do that?”
“I had to! If I had left you there, then they all would have known what I’d done. With no body, they had no evidence.”
“They knew anyway. Their youngest daughter goes missing the day before her wedding. Who else could have been responsible for that? They knew I couldn’t have made myself disappear, they didn’t think I had it in me.”
“But there was no evidence. Which, by the way, I told your father when he accused me. If he had gone to my superiors, they would have laughed him out of the police station. You don’t accuse the police of anything without consequences.”
“So that’s how you got away with it? You disgust me. I can’t believe I ever loved you.”
“I met with your father, begged him to let me marry you. Did you know that? Did Daddy Dearest tell you all about our conversation?”
“I knew you tried. It only made it worse. My father beat me that night because of it.”
“He said I didn’t have enough influence. He said love was meaningless. He liked me right up until he realised I couldn’t help him get what he wanted. He wanted me to bend the laws. It’s ironic that my refusal caused all this.”
“I couldn’t help what my father did. I shouldn’t have had to pay for that.”
“You’re right. But unfortunately, it had to be this way. I really did love you. I wanted you to be my wife, have my children.”
“If you love me, then why won’t you let me go? Why do you hold me here like a prisoner?”
“Don’t you see, Eve? I can’t let you go. I couldn’t then, and I can’t now. You belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to you, Ethan. Please, just let me go. All I did was love and trust you. I just want to go. I want to be with my sisters.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
Silence filled the room. Charlie and Blair stared at each other, all their senses were on high alert. The confrontation had been charged with emotion, now it was coming to a head.
* * *
Downstairs, the lights in the house started to flicker on and off. The guests all stared up at the ceiling, watching the light globes twinkle. They all shrugged it off, except Cate. She was starting to get worried. Not only had Charlie left, but she couldn’t find Blair now either. Her instincts were telling her to be concerned. She found Rahni and told her to stick close. Whatever was brewing, she was going to be prepared.
* * *
Charlie summoned up all her strength. She started yelling. “How dare you keep me here? NO MORE! I won’t let you anymore.”
Blair reacted immediately, he lunged at her and knocked her to the ground. She recovered and stood up again. Her legs were shaky, but they were holding her up for now. She swung her hand at him and slapped him across the face. He clenched his hands into fists and swung back. His right knuckle collided with her jawbone in a large crack. She was thrown sideways with the impact.
It took only a moment to recover, she felt no pain. All that was consuming her now was her hatred. She was going to get away from him, she had nothing left to lose. This fight had been coming for over two hundred years, she wasn’t going to back down no matter what the price was.
She ran at him, scratching and pulling. Doing whatever she could to stop him getting another punch in. She used both her hands to hit him in the stomach. She kneed him in the groin, but nothing was stopping him. He grabbed a fist full of her hair and yanked it tight. Her head was thrown back. She swung around and tried to scratch at his eyes. He only let her go after she made contact with his eyeball. He covered his injury with his left hand. With his right, he slapped her across the face - hard. She fell to the ground. Blood was dripping from her cheek, her cut reopen with the impact.
He straddled her on the floor, pinning her to the spot where she had fallen. His weight on top of her meant she couldn’t move at all. He reached down and placed both of his hands around her throat. He started squeezing as tight as he could.
Charlie could feel the blood pounding in her head. She was struggling for breath and just couldn’t gasp for air. She could feel the life draining from her body. Slowly, the scene around her started to get dark as she lost her grip on the world. Her peripheral vision went first, then crept closer and closer until she could barely even see Blair sitting on top of her. Her last sight of the world was seeing Blair’s face, scrunched up in anger, as he strangled her. Then, nothing, as everything went black.
Just like in her dreams, Charlie felt herself falling. Whether it was falling into a black hole or just nothingness, she couldn’t be sure. A voice in her head was screaming somewhere. She couldn’t understand what it was saying. Suddenly, she felt panicked. She knew if she hit the end of the darkness, that would be it. She just knew it.
Summoning all her strength and courage, she forced herself to be conscious of her body again. She made herself feel every part of herself, from her toes to her head. Eyeballs to entrails, she brought herself back to her body.
Charlie opened her eyes. With a booming voice that could not be described as human, she yelled. “NO!”
As if her breath was laced with poison, it hit Blair with full force. He was flung from her body and collided with the piano. He lent back on it for support.
Charlie stood up, feeling invincible. She stomped over to him and glared down. “NO MORE!” She screamed. She continued to yell, her strength growing with each word. Blair couldn’t move, he was pinned to the piano and recoiling as if injured.
“YOU CANNOT HOLD ME HERE ANYMORE!” As she continued her barrage, the room started to grow dark as it was filled with a black smoke. It whispered around the room, leaving only the two of them visible. It snaked around and got thicker and thicker. Soon, it was also enveloping them too.
With an almighty bang, the smoke disappeared. Blair was released and he slunk down to the ground, his legs unable to hold him up any more. He laid there, staring up at Charlie. He was conscious of himself again, able to control his own body. She knelt down beside him, her face almost touching his.
A smile spread across her lips. In a whis
per, she said: “Thank You.” Standing back up again, the grin didn’t leave her face. She stood there, like all the problems in the world had been lifted from her shoulders.
A white light filled the room. Blair placed his arm over his eyes to shield them from the sudden brightness. The light had no source, it was just hovering in the room. He squinted as he watched a radiance come from Charlie. It lingered just in front of her body before gliding upwards. He watched as it ascended towards the ceiling. In another flash, it and the light were gone. The room was back to normal.
Charlie lingered there for just a second before falling to the floor. She hit the ground with a thud. Blair blinked to readjust to the light of the room and hurried over to her. She appeared lifeless, worse than before when he had first entered the room and found her laying on the lounge.
The door burst open as Cate and Rahni ran into the room. They stopped for a moment to try and work out what was happening. They saw Blair cradling Charlie and quickly ran over to help.
“What happened?” Cate asked. “All the guests have gone. The lights kept flickering and then things started to jump off the walls. They all ran away, terrified.”
“I’ll explain later. We need to get Charlie out of this dress.”
“Why?”
“Later. Just help me,” Blair snapped. They unbuttoned the antique dress and slowly slid it from her body. They left it in a heap on the floor. “Charlie! Charlie, wake up. It’s all over. Wake up!”
She didn’t stir. Blair picked her up and quickly carried her into the blue room. He carefully placed her on the bed. Cate and Rahni stood by and watched, scared and confused.
Blair looked from Charlie to directly at Rahni. “Rahni, you need to go and get Alice. She needs to tell me what to do.”
Rahni nodded and ran out of the room. Cate stood by, horrified. Both Blair and Charlie were covered in cuts and bruises. It looked like they had an almighty battle between the two of them. They waited, silent, until Rahni returned.
“I can’t find her. She’s not here,” Rahni started to cry, clearly shaken by the events. She huddled under her mother’s arm.
“Blair, what the hell happened in there?” Cate demanded.
“I don’t even know,” he shook his head. “I think Eve got rid of her captor. It was like they just took us over. I could see myself strangling her, but I couldn’t stop it.”
“You strangled her?”
“Not me. Ethan did it. He used my body to get to Eve, just like she used Charlie’s.”
“You better pray she wakes up.”
They waited by Charlie’s bedside in the blue room for the rest of the night. With every slight movement, they would crouch over to check on her, hoping it was the sign they were looking for. Charlie looked to be asleep, the only difference was they couldn’t wake her up no matter how much they tried.
Blair was racked with guilt, even though he was powerless to stop Ethan. As far as the long-dead man was concerned, he was assaulting Eve, not Charlie. It had by far been the most bizarre and terrifying night of his life. He wished they had just left the house weeks ago when it had started to get bad. They had been warned and they ignored it. He kept asking himself why they had decided to stay. He would have done anything to go back in time and have another chance.
Cate didn’t know if she believed Blair’s story. She wanted to, without a doubt, but she couldn’t just accept the fact a ghost had hurt her sister. She was a rational thinker, and the most logical explanation was that Blair had attacked her. Before that night, she would never have thought him capable of hurting a living thing, let alone his girlfriend. Something about the house changed people. After all, the previous occupant, Harold, had been a family man until he moved in. It only took a few short months before he was the infamous party boy that was notorious in the area.
Rahni had been convinced to go to bed. Not that she needed much persuasion. She wanted to be as far away from the whole scene as possible. She was scared to see her Auntie Charlie lifeless and what concerned her most was Alice couldn’t be found. Her friend was usually always around when she needed her. Now, there was no sign of her. She felt alone in the house for the first time since they’d moved in.
The adults both sat in the blue room together. Their thoughts all consuming with the worry of Charlie’s situation. She was the innocent party in all of this and she was the one fighting for her life. They stayed in silence, not saying a word. Eventually, the sun rose and cast rays into the room. Cate opened the curtains in a bid to get some more light in.
They continued their vigil until early morning when Charlie slowly opened her eyes. They ran to her side, each gripping one of her hands. At first there was a look of confusion in her eyes as she looked from Blair to Cate and back again. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to sit up in the bed.
“Careful,” Cate soothed. There was no need to warn her, Charlie could feel the soreness in her whole body. It felt like she had run a marathon and then been hit by a car.
“Are you okay?” Blair asked.
“I will be. I ache all over, but it’ll go. Is everyone else okay?” Charlie managed to say as Blair passed her a glass of water. She drank from the glass, not realising how thirsty she had been.
“Everyone’s fine. The party guests all left safely last night. A bit freaked out, but unharmed. It’s you we’re worried about,” Cate explained.
“I’m tough. It takes more than that to hurt me. Did Blair tell you what happened?”
“Partly. He said that you were taken over?”
“We both were. It’s so hard to explain. It’s like being in your body but having no control over it. You’re kind of pushed to the back of your mind and all you can do is watch. You could feel the other person acting for you, like you shared a mind. I could see what she was thinking. It was horrible.”
Tears started to well in Blair’s eyes, despite his attempts to stop them. “I’m so sorry Charlie. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Honey, I know. It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything to me. It was all Ethan. I know that.” She squeezed his hand for reassurance.
“Does anyone want to fill me in on the whole story?” Cate asked. “Who was this ‘Ethan’ person?”
“I’d like to know too,” Blair added.
“That’s right, I forgot to tell you yesterday,” Charlie said as she remembered her visit with Mrs White. In the excitement of the party, she had completely forgotten to share what she had learned. “I had a hunch about who the Mr L was in Eve’s diary. Yesterday I went and saw Mrs White from the historical society who confirmed it. Blair, remember when we went to the court house and saw that photo of the Debutantes?”
“Yeah, Violet and Eve were in the picture.”
“That’s right and they also had their partners. Eve’s partner was Ethan Lester. We immediately forgot about him because we dismissed him as a kind friend of the family. We said he was too old to be anything real to Eve. However, when Eve was referring to Mr L in her diary, he seemed to be an older man. She said initially her father had accepted him because he offered something to the family. A young man in their mid-teens wouldn’t have been in that position. Also, Eve described him in great detail, he matched the picture. So I thought Mr L and Ethan Lester were one in the same.”
“Did you know he had killed her?” Blair asked.
“I suspected. We saw the newspaper article where it said he was protesting to stop the re-development of the Red Hen Estate. I didn’t think anything of it until we saw the original plans for Sage Manor. Eve’s body - or the ‘Jane Doe’ - was found on the very edge of the Red Hen Estate. Mrs White confirmed for me that the area where she was uncovered would have been part of Sage Manor in the 1800’s. Ethan wasn’t trying to stop the development, he was trying to make sure the land where he had buried Eve wouldn’t be disturbed. Had the development originally gone through, they would have found her body much sooner.”
“So years later, when they did get it
through the council, Ethan was long gone,” Blair finished. “They painted him as an environmental hero in the paper. If only they knew the truth.”
“What a worm,” Cate shook her head. “Why didn’t her family report the murder? If someone killed a daughter of mine, I would have them hung, drawn, and quartered.”
“That’s where is gets interesting. Eve gave me this answer through my dreams. Ethan was a policeman and Lord Reign was a tyrant. Ethan knew he could get away with it because no-one would tell on the head of the local police. Richard Reign only had eyes for succeeding, he would do it at any cost. It would have been extremely detrimental to his empire if he was involved in a murder case with a policeman as the main suspect. There was no way they would have convicted him in the kangaroo court and Lord Reign would be branded a liar.”
“But didn’t Lord Reign commit suicide a few years after leaving Sage Manor?” Blair asked, recalling the meeting with Violet’s great grand-daughter.
“He did indeed. The death of his youngest daughter cut him deeper than he expected. Lady Elizabeth was never the same again and his other daughters hated him for not doing anything about the murder. None of them could stand living in Sage Manor anymore knowing it was where Eve had lost her life. They would still see Ethan around town, see him in the newspapers. Can you imagine how bad it would be to see her killer on a regular basis and know he had gotten away with it? They moved away, but it didn’t stop her death looming over them for the rest of their lives.”
“The great Lord Richard Reign, killed himself because he couldn’t stand the guilt for not doing anything to bring justice for his daughter’s death. Sounds like a sad opera,” Cate sighed. “You haven’t said why Ethan killed her. Wasn’t he in love with her?”
“He was. Eve loved him too. The way she spoke about him in her diary was beautiful. She was a young woman head over heels in love. In any other context it would have been a great love story. Had it not been for her father, then it would have had a happy ending. Lord Reign told her she was going to marry her cousin, Thomas Rochester Reign. He was the heir of a successful horse business and would have been good for his empire. Thomas had travelled all the way from England to claim his bride and take her back to the mother country. Ethan knew about the plans. He tried to convince her father to accept him and let him take her hand in marriage but it didn’t work. Lord Reign had dollar signs in his eyes and that was it. So, in a weirdly sweet kind of way, Ethan couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else having Eve. He made the decision that if he couldn’t have her, then nobody else would too. He sent word to Eve he was coming to see her. She thought he was coming to rescue her. Instead, he killed her. He snapped her neck and buried her on the boundary. It was that simple in his mind.”
Gifted Page 36
