Rainy Wednesday Mornings
Church bells rang in the distance, rupturing the silence that had consumed the mist covered London. The creaks of a carriage echoed throughout the almost empty cobblestone roads of the morning. As the sun rose it graced the city with its light, but barely cut through the fog. Heavy, darkening clouds hovered above, causing the citizens out on the streets to draw their cloaks and coats tighter around themselves.
This particular variety of weather was not exceptionally odd for London, or England in general, but the grey weather definitely caused an already morose mass of mourners to grow even glummer. Garbed in the pitch-black clothes that everyone saves for these occasions, the relatively small group remained rather quiet.
According to the obituary in today's paper, the young woman that was being buried this morning was killed by natural causes. This only provided proof that the newspaper has tendencies to write lies.
The miniscule group gathered around the casket of their presumably dear friend consisted of what many would consider a peculiar assembly of people. A pair of what someone would think to be siblings, a young man with two remarkable dark green eyes and a slightly disfigured hand from an old wound was standing next to a straight-faced and youthful woman, who shared the man's eyes. There was also another young lady, the daughter of a prominent Marquis, with ringlets of blonde hair and spring green eyes, dabbing away a few tears with a handkerchief. And the deceased woman's parents, who were both sobbing enough for all of the other attendees.
The last of the group invited, a man well-known as the Queen's "Guard Dog" and as a high-class businessman, had yet to show his face. They hadn't planned on him coming, as he wasn't much of a fan for funerals, but the three had hoped he would, at least. They had been waiting for him to make an extraordinary entrance and explain why he had been so late, but they had slowly begun to give up after four hours had passed.
They had all given their condolences to the parents, dressed the plain wooden casket with flowers and said their individual goodbyes, and sat through the preacher's speech about the dead woman, namely Mabel Argent, the beloved handmaid of Agatha and Augustus Brisbane. He was a no-show and as the weather steadily grew worse, they began contemplating returning home.
The younger sibling in the pair blinked as she ripped her eyes away from the coffin and exhaled, opening her umbrella to shield her from the beginnings of rain. As she strode away, the wet sound her boots made from impacting on the ground shook the cluster of mourners out of their stupor.
"Agatha!" The green-eyed man called out after his little sister, who paused at the utterance of her name. "Will you be alright?"
Said girl temporarily looked extremely sad but replied in a neutral voice. "Of course, Augustus." She began to walk again, seeing as her brother apparently was sated in his need to make sure his sister was okay, but was stopped again in her attempt to flee the cemetery.
"You always were a terrible liar, Sis." He called back, grabbing the hand of the blonde woman and stroking it comfortingly. Engagement rings were obvious on both of their hands.
The recipient of the man's words allowed a small smile to tug at her lips, although it was on such a grim day then she looked at the sky that was practically the only thing that didn't drag up the dark memories that she and the others shared.
The memories of that dastardly castle on that damned hill in the middle of nowhere – the memories of the mutilated monsters that lurked in the dark and the monsters that weren't as obvious.