Serves as a prequel to the 2015 film Crimson Peak, as well as the novelization by the same name.
Minor violence and implication of further violence.
Prologue
The sister's hand did not tremble from nervousness or shake from fear as she silently slipped through the open doorway. The cold metal blade of the hog cleaver that hung at her side brushed gently against the bare skin that was accessible through a hole in her nightgown left by a riding crop.
The girl gripped the weapon's handle tightly as she watched her prey enjoy a moment of serene stillness in the porcelain tub. She had yet to be noticed. The sister's cascade of wavy black hair helped to camouflage her in the shadowed corner of the lavatory. She took slow, calm breaths, pushing the moist air in and out of her nostrils.
The wounded animal shifted in the tub and the girl thought to whisper- to alert the prey of her advantage, but she was enjoying the anonymity far too much to spoil it just yet. So she stayed quiet, her mind as calm as her breathing.
A patter of excited feet ascended the stairs down the long corridor behind the girl, and she couldn't help but smile. The smirk spread across her cracked lips like a piano scale, gradually transforming her colorless face into something more human. Joy was altogether rare in that house, and her prey sensed a disturbance in the ambiance. The girl's uncommon emotion had betrayed her.
"Leave, now." The mother hissed from the warm caress of the tub. "You're not wanted here, Lucille."
Chapter 1
Cumberland, England, 1876
The grounds of Allerdale Hall were encapsulated in a sheet of dreary grey mist that all too often plagued the rural English countryside. A drizzle of rain had been pouring from the sky since late the night before without any indication of letting up.
Young Thomas Sharpe pressed his face to the paned window of the nursery. He should have been able to survey the entirety of his family's estate from that vantage point, but with the present weather condition, was instead gazing at a mirror image of his own pacific-blue eyes and head of deep-chestnut hair. Both appeared to be disembodied entities, suspended in the air of their own volition being that his complexion was too pale to make out against the grey background of the outdoors.
The boy had to stand up on the table in order to reach the window, but the climb was worth it to catch a glimpse of anything besides the interior of the nursery. He clutched a wooden figurine in his hand. Thomas, who was already a talented craftsman at the immature age of eight, had carved it himself using the pocket-knife that his father had allowed him. The figure's head was over-sized, held up by a thin neck that Thomas had been overzealous in shaving. He traced the fingers of his free hand through the condensation on the window, spelling out the only name he cared to besides his own: Lucille.
"How are my letters?" Thomas called over his shoulder at his older sister.
Lucille turned her attention away from the insect that she was examining- a beetle that had crawled lazily overtop of her hand- to answer Thomas' question. Wordlessly, she crossed the room and climbed to meet her brother on the table. She made a show of raising one finger and placing it on the window, as if it were a pen that she had just dipped in ink. She wrote "Thomas" below her own name with the uniform penmanship that she was often praised for by their school mistresses and masters.
"I'd say they're coming along nicely." Lucille told her brother, planting a soft kiss on his forehead.
Warmth spread from the depths of Thomas' stomach. He felt as if one of Lucille's winged creatures had taken flight within him. "For you." He said, holding out the wooden figurine to her. Lucille was Thomas' sole confidant, and so he knew that she rarely betrayed what she was feeling, behind her enormous green eyes was a world all her own, Thomas was sure of it. But the sincerity with which she regarded his gift was evident in the mindfulness of her movements around the fragile neck.
"It's wonderful." Lucille said, gazing at the unique craftsmanship. "But why is it sad?"
The mouth Thomas had carved was down-turned in an obvious frown. The boy shrugged, he had carved only what he knew.
Lucille ran her fingers through her brother's unruly hair, finding the long-forgotten part at the center and dividing it as nature intended. "My sweet boy…" she whispered. Although she was only two years his senior, Lucille had endured more than some adults, and far more than Thomas- she made sure of that. Her position as his older sister was not simply a birthright, but an all-consuming occupation. Lucille was his sister, his mother, and his guardian angel. She was his everything, and he was hers.
The boy turned to face the window once more. "Do you think it will snow?"
Lucille shook her head. "I shouldn't think so. It's not quite cold enough yet."
Thomas had not asked the question out of hope like a normal boy his age, he asked it for fear of the winter climate. The gaping house was seldom heated, and the drafty attic the children were relegated to seemed to defy the laws of thermodynamics- heat did not rise to comfort them.
"Soon enough, though." Lucille admitted. "Can you smell it in the air?"
Thomas nodded. "But mother will be back with warmer things. Finlay says any day now." Finlay was the chief servant belonging to the Sharpe family, and provided the children with the necessities while their parents were away.
"I would rather they stayed away…" Thomas mumbled, trying his best not to look at the newest addition to his sister's collection of scars.
Lucille gazed at him wistfully. "Someday, Thomas. Someday it will just be you and me."
Thomas delighted at this idea. The thought of a life without fear of punishment seemed like such a novel concept, something that was meant for a wandering mind after the lights went out at night. In his best dreams, he and Lucille would play outside on the great field before the gate. Running in circles around each other. Lucille chasing her butterflies and Thomas in turn chasing her. Or in some they would have a dog, not like his father's hunting hounds, but a kind creature, one that would relish in their excitement. A dog that would retrieve a ball when prompted rather than a helpless animal.
"Tell a story of just you and me." Thomas said, prompting a familiar method of passing time during their stretches in isolation.
Lucille climbed down off of the table, and Thomas followed, electing to jump off instead. He landed on the ground with a soft thud, jutting his arms out at his sides to keep his balance while recovering from the landing.
Although both children were of average height for their ages, most certified physicians agreed that they were underweight- not severely, but noticeably. Although these medical professionals rarely alerted Sir Michael or Lady Beatrice Sharpe to this problem. The children's parents were regarded with great apprehension. From fellow aristocrats to those living in hollows, scrounging for food, "Sharpe" was a dirty word in the mouth of the surrounding community.
Lucille sat down on the wooden floor and gathered her little brother in her arms. "We'll have free reign of the house, when it's just you and I." She started. "We'll attend parties in the finest clothes money can buy, and eat to our heart's content."
Thomas smiled at that, but also became painfully aware of the hunger pangs he was fighting. "Pastries?" He asked hopefully.
Lucille nodded. "If it's what you like."
"It is what I like." Thomas confirmed, twisting his hands in the skirt of his sister's dress.
"We'll use mother's piano to play our own music," Lucille continued. "And dance wildly if the spirit moves us."
A horrible howling, like the wailing of a woman in the night, encircled them, forcing every hair on their bodies to stand on end. Lucille gripped her brother tighter in her arms, assuming the role of the guardian angel, when in fact she was every bit as frightened as Thomas. Father had told them it was the wind sweeping up through the chimneys that made that awful noise, but the children were convinced it was terrible monster breathing through the house.
They waited for the howling to stop before speaking again and in fact maintained the anxious silence long after it had died down. It was Thomas who dared utter the first word. "The song…" He whispered.
Lucille softly cleared her throat, knowing instantly what he meant.
Let the wing blow kindly
in the sail of your dreams
and the moon light your journey
and bring you to me.
We can't live in the mountains,
We can't live by the sea.
Where oh, where oh, my lover,
Shall I come to thee?
Chapter 2
The Sharpe children awoke with a start when the unmistakable rattle of large metal keys on a chain ascended the stairs, drawing closer to the door of the nursery with each obnoxious jingle.
Thomas had drifted into an uneasy slumber against his sister's chest, and noticed as her heartrate abruptly picked up speed. The clinking of the ringed iron cylinders stopped momentarily, and the room was once again plunged into silence. Thomas could then feel Lucille's heart thumping inside of her. It both concerned and comforted him.
"Mother." He whispered into the folds of Lucille's dress.
His sister moved slowly and silently, bringing her hand up to stroke the unruly curls on his head. She shifted her eyes to the window above them. The night was dark and damp, the fog from the previous day having refused to let up. It was an empty night, not a single star visible. She felt the splintering wood beneath their huddled mass. It was breaking apart in places, rising and falling irregularly, the boards simply refusing to stay flush.
Lucille's ear's pricked up once more as a key was inserted into the grand oak door at the entrance of the nursery. She stopped the repetitive motion of her hand, letting it rest upon her brother's head, the other encircling his bony shoulders. "Shhh…" She uttered, her lips brushing against Thomas' ear.
The handle turned and the door creaked open. A figure loomed in the doorway, her skirt and padded shoulders created the appearance of a much larger, more ominous and hideous monster than in reality.
Both children held their breath, wishing with every thought, emotion, and physical fiber of their being not to be noticed. The monster lifted the candelabra from behind her, eliminating the encroaching shadow, but in turn illuminating her features.
The children closed their eyes quickly, but they knew it was in vain. They had both seen the woman's graying head of hair pulled back in a braided mass atop her scalp. The light from the candles had reflected, flickering, in the horrible deathly abyss that were her nearly iridescent pale green eyes. They held no light of their own, simply reflecting- coldly- and absorbing that which they witnessed.
"Thomas…" The word slithered from her thin, wrinkled lips. "Are you awake my boy?"
Lucille exhaled softly onto the boy's neck, communicating that he shouldn't respond.
The woman took a step into the room, the heel of her boot echoing through the attic. "Lucille?" That name formed a far more menacing snake as it trailed up the woman's throat and out of her mouth. Lucille heeded her own advice and did not respond.
The monster took another step, and as she did, the awful howling started. The woman in the night wailed once again, begging to be saved or found. The children flinched, and the traces of a triumphant smirk twisted the woman's mouth.
"Do you intent to besmirch your mother?" She asked, although the question was rhetorical, and did not warrant a response.
The children again remained silent, aside from the thumping of their tiny hearts beneath their skin.
"I don't presume that you do, Thomas." The mother drew nearer with each poisonous utterance. "But you, daughter…"
Lucille felt her mother's sharp talons close around her arm, and she was at once yanked upward.
Lucille did not cry out, electing to remain relatively limp. "Have you no words of welcome for your mother?" She was asked.
Thomas shot up. "Welcome, mother!" He told the woman, desperately. Trying to distract from the inevitable outcome of their reunion.
Whatever color that remained in his sister's face drained then. She stiffened her body and opened her eyes, starring directly into the angled features of her mother. Lucille shifted slightly under her grip, making sure she was positioned between her mother and brother.
The mother noticed her daughter's sudden alertness. "Have you nothing to say?" She asked.
"Welcome, Mother." Lucille replied quickly, forcing their eyes to meet.
Thomas looked on nervously from one to the other, aware that any assertion could upset the gridlock, resulting in a less than favorable outcome for his beloved Lucille, whose body remained stiff in their mother's grasp.
The mother regarded Lucille's body language as if the girl had spat in her face. "That you would not greet your own mother…"
Lucille's cheek was radiating with the hot impression of a palm across her face before she could raise her hands in defense. The smack echoed through the space as the mother let her daughter's body drop to the floor. Lucille let out a solitary whimper as the mother adjusted the ring on her finger that had been knocked out of place.
It was then that Thomas began to cry- constrained tears rolled down his cheeks. Without another word, the mother once again picked up the candelabra, and with a sweep of her cape, exited the room. Slamming the door shut behind her as well as locking it.
Thomas hurried his sister's side, kneeling down on the uneven boards beside her. "Lucille?" He said cautiously, his bottom lip quivering.
His sister turned away from him, ashamed by the weakness she was exhibiting.
He studied the waves in her hair for some time, the deep-chestnut tone engulfing her in the dark night. Her pale skin glowing like his. Two ghosts. Two spirits of children who would never be, all alone in a cavernous prison cell.
The young boy brushed the girl's hair back away from her face, revealing the splotchy, crimson impression that was somehow even visible in the darkest moments before dawn. He moved further toward her, softly pressing his lips against her cheek, the salty tears that remained on his face transferring onto hers. "Are you hurt?" He ventured.
"No." Lucille lied, her pride every bit as wounded as the skin on her face.
Thomas seemed to understand the importance of her strength, so he slipped onto her lap once more and pulled her arms close around him, pressing his nose to her breast and breathing in the scent of the only compassion he knew.