(A/N) This is the first chapter of many to come. With every chapter I will write songs that are either relating to or, for future chapters, in the chapter. Also, Avis is pronounced 'Ay-vis', just so there is no confusion.
Halloween, 1962
Even her wrists were beautiful to him, white as the fallen snow, the prominent veins beneath like blue rivers hiding beneath her skin. She trusted him to hold her hands - her delicate, strong hands that had been so kind to him. She did not tremble, did not flinch or cry. She was calm in the face of her death, her head held high, a smile on her lips and love in her eyes - love he felt he did not deserve.
There was no damsel here, not in her, not his Avis.
The monsters that wished to end her banged at the wooden walls, thirsty for the blood within his darling.
They could not have her.
"She is ours to claim, not theirs." The demon face hissed possessively.
"Not ours - Mine"
Nine years earlier
Halloween, 1953,
Voices muffled through red Saturn walls as Avis Valerie looked into her crystal ball and announced the fortune that came into her mind.
"I see a green light, and a man in dark yet formal attire." She told, her fingertips hovering over the surface of a crystal ball - though Avis needed not the ball of glass to tell a fortune, the costumers drank it in.
"Is it a stage light? For the up coming school play my daughter is in?" The woman asked, clutching her purse as she leant forward, her curled hair falling over her shoulders before she could tuck it behind her ear.
"No. Beware this man in a top hat, he has a dark purpose and death hangs around him and you." Avis told with urgency.
"Do you have his name?" She woman asked, eyes wide and brows raised.
"Edward Mordrake."
The woman paid handsomely for her fortune each week, and Avis's accuracy kept her coming back. Her presence left the scent of expensive perfume within Avis's tent after she left, and she lit a stick of incense to combat the sickly sweetness.
The Autumn night was alive with the chirps of crickets and the merriment of the carny folk of the circus. The wind was warm and gentle and the moon was bright. Avis packed her equipment away and retired to the extension of her tent that was her bedroom, the long thin silk gown that she wore served her well in evading the unsusual warmth of the evening.
She removed the pins holding her red hair in place with delicate hands, letting her wavy locks fall by her fair face. She gave a sigh as the work of the day weighed down on her, but the woman had been her last client so she let herself unwind.
"That reading wasn't meant for that woman, Avis." Charlie said as he appeared in the room, his ghostly presence sending her sixth sense wild.
"I know. But I had to give her something." Avis said, looking up at the flannel clad, blonde as he stood in the corner of the room.
"He's coming tonight, Red." Charlie said urgently, "the others say he has an extra face - on the back of his head!" He exclaimed, adding the extra drama to the news that only a fourteen year old could.
"And the girl in the next tent has three legs? What difference does it make?" Avis replied, unamused.
"He'll want you to tell him about the asylum." Charlie added, his usually cheery demeanour replaced with uncharacteristic worry.
Avis' breath caught in her throat and she took a moment to compose.
She felt Charlie's big blue eyes on her and she shifted under his gaze.
"Be careful, Red." Charlie said before vanishing, leaving Avis with her newfound nervousness about the man's impending arrival.
Through the curtain to her reading room she saw a luminous green light and heard the footsteps of another.
"I'm not doing anymore readings tonight." She called as she walked into the room.
In the middle of the room, stood a man dressed in formal attire - top hat, cane and all - with dark hair and piercing mint green eyes and lips that had quirked up into a small smile.
"I am not here for a reading, my dear." He said, his accent foreign and unrecognisable to Avis's ears.
Avis clutched the drapes between the two rooms and stood in their wake, cautious of the stranger.
"What do you want?" She asked.
"Take a seat," he said as he himself sat upon a cushioned stool at her reading table, "we have much to discuss before the night is through." The ghost of a smile curved his lips and added amusement to his voice which left Avis with chills.
Something was not right.
"You should know that if you are looking for a bed to occupy tonight, it is the show girls that provide that service, not me." Avis said, attempting defiance.
"I'm afraid you have the wrong idea about my intentions on this night. I do not wish to fill the space between your legs, I come for your sorrows, for the tale of your darkest hour. For tonight, I will take one freak from these grounds with me to the depths." The dark haired man informed with theatrical flare.
"My sorrow? I am not a freak. You've got the wrong tent." Avis replied, raising a brow in confusion.
Your gift, my dear, means you fall into the same class as the deformed that preform in the freakshow."
"Oh," She muttered, clutching the emeralds at her neck, and sitting on her usual seat, "What do you need to know?"
"Tell me, sweet one, how you came to find yourself in this place." He said, leaning forward attentively.
"I guess you could say it started when I learnt to talk. I was able to tell my parents of the things I knew and the apparitions I saw, the ones much like yourself, Edward Mordrake." Avis said, addressing him with a slight smirk.
"Ah," he said with a husk to his voice, "so you know who I am?"
"I'm a clairvoyant, of course I know." Avis replied.
"Well, don't be shy, my dear, tell me of your woes." Edward urged, edging an inch closer to hear her story.
"Well, as I said, it started when I learnt to talk. I would talk to my ghost friends, and I was able to tell my mother things that would happen during the day. Since I was a child, she thought I just had imaginary friends. Only my friends never went away." Avis bowed her head, looking to her lap and back at the ghost in the seat before her, who listened closely to her words, his brows furrowed with sympathy.
"My parents grew concerned, but they never thought something was wrong. Until I turned 13, and I saw-" Avis bit her lip to combat it's quivering as the memories flooded her head, "Until I saw my Dad's death. I begged him not to leave the house and told everyone I could find. No one believed me, and when he crashed his car later that day, suddenly I was a freak."
The first tear fell from her eye, granting permission for more to follow. Edward leant forward, handkerchief in hand and wiped them away.
"How dreadful." He offered, attempting to convey his sympathies. Avis kept the cloth as he returned to his original position.
"My mother had me admitted to an Asylum the following week," she continued, scrunching the tissue in her hand, "I think part of the reason she sent me away was because she blamed me for not stopping Papa's accident. She never told me, but I could see it in her eyes."
Edward said nothing but occasionally offering a look of empathy.
"I didn't make it out until I was 16."
Avis heard a faint whispering as she fell silent and Edward appeared to look over his shoulder.
Avis knew of the face hidden behind his back, the spirits had told her all about the 'demon' on the back of his head. She swallowed thickly, loosening her tongue to avoid choking on her words.
"What's it saying?" She asked, cocking her head, sneakily attempting to steal a glance, but Edward seems to turn to hide it.
He considered her, mouth slightly agape as if scared to speak.
"He wants to know about the guard." He said softly.
Her body quaked and her tears fell uncontrollably.
"I can't." She shook her head and rose from her seat, retreating to her room behind the curtain.
Edward Mordrake sighed, cursing his demon half. He moved quietly across the room, his cape swaying at his calves and his cane making muffled taps against the ground.
He stepped into the lady's room with respect.
"I'm sorry to have upset you, but the demon demands answers." He said as he moved swiftly to her side, sitting upon the plush covers of the bed beside her.
She teased the handkerchief in her hand as she cried, reliving the horrors of her time in asylum as if she were still there.
Edward sat in silence, waiting for her to continue her tale.
He was startled by the sudden impact of her head falling against his shoulder as she leaned into him, her cries softened to gentle sobs.
"The night I escaped," she began, "I thought I was free, when one of the guards, an older man, caught me. I begged for him to let me go, and he told me he would if I -" she closed her eyes and took a breath to build the strength she would need to recount the events of the night. "If I got on my knees for him." She admitted with shame.
"I didn't want to be in that god forsaken place anymore. So I did. It was disgusting and I was so ashamed."
"How horrible for you, and you were only 16." Edward said, allowing her to seek comfort in leaning against him.
"After that," she said, her eyes flickering to red Persian rug on the ground, "he wanted to do more to me. I fought back as best I could, but when he finally got me on the ground, I found a nail and stuck it in his neck. Blood sprayed everywhere and he died on the ground in front of me."
Edward rose without a word and stood in front of her, hands piled above the handle of his cane.
"Thank for your story," he said as he took her hand and pressed his lips gently against her knuckles - bidding her goodbye as a gentlemen would, "I apologise for your pain, but you are not the one."
He turned to retreat into the night but Avis stood - feeling robbed of her right to the mans presence after he had come unannounced.
"Wait-"
playlist songs for this chapter:
Edward's song - 'Holy water cannot help you now
Thousand armies couldn't keep me out
I don't want your money
I don't want your crown
See I've come to burn your kingdom down' S Seven devils - Florence + the machine
Avis' song - 'The night was all you had
You ran into the night from all you had
Found yourself a path upon the ground
You ran into the night; you can't be found' Lauren Palmer ~ Bastille
'Don't fret my dear, it'll all be over soon' Kingdom come ~ the civil wars
Elements ~ Lindsey sterling (orchestral version)
