The Whole of the Law
Disclaimer: SM owns Twilight and its characters. I'm just borrowing them, especially Esme for a while.
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I lay naked upon the alter, my innocent flesh willingly sacrificed to the Great Beast. A shiver of excitement danced through me as the others began to chant…
Ch. 1: Exiled
EsPOV
Tears flowed freely from my eyes and streaked down my cheeks as my parents' coffins were lowered into the earth. My parents had been well liked and the entire town had shown up for their funeral. I briefly glanced around in the vane hope that Dr. Cullen would be here but he had already moved away. My left hand absented traced the cast he had put on my right arm a week ago. I had been smitten by the good doctor and wished he could whisk me away from my heartache.
It hardly seemed fair that my life could be changed so drastically in just one week. The day after Dr. Cullen had put the cast on my arm, Mother and Father had gone into town to buy supplies for her younger sister's visit. They never made it home; an accident had taken both of their lives. Sheriff Dobbs delivered the horrible news later that evening. Two days later, Aunt Edith and Uncle Henry Langford, her husband, arrived. The two of them helped my older brother, Eli, plan the funeral. I almost felt as bad for my Aunt as I did for myself because she and her husband had come all the way from England for a visit.
I helped Aunt Edith make supper while Eli and Uncle Henry ensconced themselves in Father's study with Reverend Hammond and two other men I did not know. The men reappeared just as the last of the food was set on the table. Supper was an awkward affair because Uncle was obviously angry with Eli for some unknown reason. When the meal was finished the Reverend and the other two men excused themselves then left our family to find solace in each other.
As a whole, the family drifted into the parlor. I sat next to Aunt Edith on the small sofa while my Uncle scowled by the fireplace and my brother paced the room. The tension grew thicker by the second and gradually I grew more nervous. Just when I started to fidget, Eli stopped in front of me.
"Esme, you are going to go live with Aunt Edith and Uncle Henry. The three of you are leaving in the morning," he stated forcefully.
"WHY!? Why do I have to leave? This is my home and you have no right to send me away," I replied incredulously.
"Actually, with Father dead, this house and the farm all belong to me. Tomorrow afternoon, Becky Johnston and I are going down to the Justice of the Peace and getting married. As the oldest male of our immediate family, you will do as I say and what I say is that I want you out of MY home before my new bride and I return," Eli shot back hatefully.
Now I knew why Uncle Henry had been mad at my brother during supper. He did not want me to live him and Aunt Edith any more than Eli wanted me, I thought as I felt the tears start to well up in my eyes again. Uncle must have seen my devastated expression because he quickly spoke up.
"Esme, dearest, Edith and I would love nothing more than for you to come live with us. When your brother told me of his plans, I argued your part. Your life has changed so dramatically in such a short amount of time and I simply wanted you to have the opportunity to mourn the loss of your parents before the added trauma of moving to an entirely different country was thrust upon you. I had hoped to convince your brother that he should postpone his plans for a few months. However, I am ashamed to say he would budge as you can see," Henry explained honestly.
I gave him a small smile but it did not keep me from crying. Eli turned to say something to the older man and I ran upstairs to my room. Aunt Edith joined me a few minutes later then held me in her arms until I fell, emotionally drained, asleep.
The next morning was overcast and bleak, which seemed to fit both my mood and forced departure perfectly. My Aunt helped me get dressed then the two of us headed downstairs. All of my belongings had been packed while I slept and Uncle Henry had gone as far as seeing that my Hope Chest, which contained my dowry, was safely delivered to their hotel room before he retired for the night. When we joined him outside, I was happy that my cad of a brother was nowhere to be seen.
After a brief stop by my parents' graveside, we three made our way into town to catch the train. Uncle had secured a private car for us and was supervising the delivery of the luggage while his wife and I walked around town. There was a little more than an hour before our train left so we were able to get something to eat before then.
Edith and Henry told me to stop referring to them as Aunt and Uncle because we were so close in age; she being eighteen and him being twenty-three, we could almost be siblings. I was only to use the honorifics during formal occasions, and then only when they asked me to in advance. Somehow, using their names in the familiar seemed liberating and I started to view my situation not as being exiled from my home but starting a new chapter of my life. In hind sight, that was truer than I ever realized.
I spent the four day train ride learning all I could about my new home and family. One of the more scandalous things I found out was that my mother had fled England to avoid an arranged marriage. Just days after Charlotte Biggles arrived in America, she ran into my father and it was love at first sight. Less than twenty minutes later the two left the Justice of the Peace's office as husband and wife.
Edith and Henry had been married for two years and lived at Grey Haven, a small estate northwest of London. His father had been a modest country Squire whose meager income had allowed his son to read Law at Oxford. Henry was a very successful Barrister and parlayed that income, along with an inheritance from his father's death, into a respectable fortune. That allowed him to purchase Grey Haven from a family that had fallen on hard times.
Edith spent several hours extolling the virtues of living in England in general then on living near London. After we arrived in New York, there was going to be a month long ocean voyage ahead of us and she promised to teach me enough that there would be no culture shock for me when we got there. From everything my companions told me, I was looking forward to my new life.
The conversation lulled during supper and then just died afterward. Henry left to play cards in the Club car while Edith began to read a rather non-descript, leather bound, book. I tried to occupy myself with watching the scenery pass but it was dark outside so I grew bored. When I asked my Aunt what she was reading, Edith grew very tense. She told me that it was a tawdry romance that Henry would not approve of but for some reason I thought she was lying.
Before I asked any more questions, she handed me a book from my Uncle's valise. I took it then glanced at the title, Dracula. Looking back, it was almost a prophetic choice. The book Edith was reading tipped slightly as she offered me the other book and I had been able to see some rather strange diagrams on the page for a few seconds. Whatever that volume was, it most definitely not a tawdry romance; those mysterious pictograms tantalized my imagination until I lost myself in Stoker's novel.
I fell asleep at some point and had the most intriguing dream. A certain golden-eyed doctor played the role of Jonathan Harker and he saved me from being ravaged by the dreaded Count. Just as things began to cross over into the inappropriate with Mr. Harker, Henry returned which abruptly woke me up. I was unable to fall back asleep for some time after that.
As I watched my family sleep, those weird drawings haunted me. Something about them called to me in a way that nothing else ever had. In the wee hours of the night, I vowed that I would discover the truth. Finally, I drifted back into an exhausted slumber.
In spite of my vow, the rest of the trip to New York was very frustrating. Henry never left our private car and the strange book never made another appearance. I tried to talk to Edith about it while her husband was in the toilet but she pretended to not remember the book. Many times when I was caught between sleep and consciousness, I heard whispered arguments about the enigmatic tome. Obviously, Henry knew about it and was upset because I had seen it. Edith assured him that I forget about it when we reached the city. Two days of shopping before the ship sailed were a temporary distraction.