The Wayfaring Stranger

by phantomwriter05

VOLUME I - In the Season of 1936 Eton and Collegian chaps fill the House of Grantham to chance just a glance at Downton's young roses, Sybbie and Marigold. But, in the seclusion of Crawley House, a demon somewhere in the past of Downton's heir looms like a dark cloud over young love's romance in bloom of a grand countryside summer. COMPLETE

7. Of Lancelot and Guinevere - Part II

Warning: This Chapter is the first and only HARD 'M' chapter I'm going to ever write. Some very rough and dark stuff ahead, so be advised.

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Of Lancelot and Guinevere

Part II

There was a cavernous thunder of complete silence that fell over the halls of the second-floor wing of Brancaster. It had been nine years, but it felt like it was yesterday. The same hall, the same decorations, the same smell. The only thing that was missing was the screams and pleading of little girls, and the overwhelming odor whose vapors were as noxious as the boiling contents of a witches brewing cauldron. For a long time, George stood at the mouth of the corridor and stared darkly into the poorly lit hallway infested with blind spots of seeping darkness and forests of shadows. His breath came short, his nerves were aflame. An anchor wrapped his ankles and did not let him move forward.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Let her go, please … please, Mrs. Pelham, we won't say anything to Aunt Edith or Daddy! PLEASE! George is just her friend, I swear! George is her friend, she doesn't want to marry him! Please, don't hurt Marigold! DON'T HUURRT HEEER!"

"PLEASE … I'M A GOOD GIRL! GRANNY M, PLEASE, DON'T, NO, NOOOHOHO, PLEASE!"

A single droplet of sweat fell down his temple as the phantom screeching of little girls filled him. His hand trembled in old and crippling nightmares that were memories. But it went deeper than that, its dark seeds went much further, planting a black tree at the very heart of a boy's doom. A flash of New York, of Halloween, rushed through his mind. A young boy watching a young mother sobbing that she wanted to go home, back to her husband, her children, her nephew … and an old woman spitting on her face to a chorus of laughter. They grabbed the young woman by the hair, led her to a bed of silk and tossed her back on top of it. And all the boy did was think back to this place, to little girls begging, screaming, and an old crone dragging the girl he loved toward the reeking bathroom, yanking her mercilessly from every obstruction the desperate golden-haired girl clung too. And It was in New York, in flashbacks of that night in Brancaster, that a boy of twelve, drew his father and aunt's Webley from his coat to the illicit moans of a softly sobbing woman who begged the most powerful women in all of New York to stop.

It was every folly that followed from what an eight-year-old did here, to what a twelve-year-old did in New York, and everything that came afterward to this very night. It was for the love of a girl whom he shared the Evening Star, which helped him master his heart and every fell thing that held him to his mark at the ascent of the staircase. Small, tepid, came the first step forward into this garden of shadows which a glutenous black spider spun such evil snares in her isolation from society and reality itself. His steps came easier, descending into the opulent halls of a castle sponged by the venom and paranoia of madness that consumed a prideful and scornful old woman. His weapon clinked against his thigh in its Mexican holster with every step, his boots treading with soundless tuffs on the plush carpets of the long corridor.

For all the young man's trepidation and fear of what he might find in this place, he also knew it like the back of his hand. Many times, in the old days, had he come here visiting his Aunt Edith, his Uncle Bertie, but mostly to stay with Marigold. Rarely, then, had he seen or known Mirada Pelham. But he knew of her, for long had she watched George and Marigold together from afar. Suspicion and doubt in her gaze of the two at play, yet, not saying why she misliked the two of them together. Her attempts to permanently separate Marigold from George was overbearing and laborious, always pressuring Edith to send George away, or to bring Marigold away from Downton more regularly. But Edith loved George too much, and great affection did Bertie grow to have for the boy as well. So, little heed was given to Mirada who only beheld the sound of children playing in the halls and secret pathways of the castle with disdain …

Especially the two children she stalked endlessly.

Ideally the youth would make a straight line to Marigold's room, which he assumed was near his Aunt Edith's. But as he turned the corner to the larger suites and apartments, he felt the need to make a detour. He knew the odds of the girl being were he opted to go was doubled after the firefight. Also, after what he saw at Downton this evening, a slow sickness in his gut formed of some secret fear of terrible possibility which he did not tell his Aunt Edith. His anger toward her might have been near rage after what her secret had stolen from him, but he would never be cruel enough to worry her further than she needed to be. While, in truth, with Marigold potentially in trouble, he couldn't imagine driving a woman he loved once insane with the prospect that the people she guarded in her heart were in trouble …

Or that there was a good possibility that the man she loved was murdered.

It was in the far end of the East Wing of Brancaster. The walls were lined with large portraits of past Marquesses. At the start they wore tweed suits and plain ties. Some were balding, some wore glasses, some young, many old. But the further down you got in the hall, the more their attire changed. From suits, to long collared white shirts with ribbon bowties, and Regency Jackets. By the time that those in the portraits were posing with flintlock rifles, tall and long powdered wigs, and wore antique armor, George knew he was in the right place. He saw his Aunt Edith's room, the door open. Once more he drew his revolver and held it up by his ear as he slowly glanced inside the master's chamber. All the lamps were on inside it, as Madge, his aunt's lady's maid, left it. He did not go inside, sensing quickly that his adversary had hoped to take Lady Edith unaware as she was changing, but had just missed her when they sprang in.

But once more he felt a chill go up his spine. A rush of adrenaline ripping through his veins when he felt a presence looming right behind him. He whipped around quickly, drawing back the hammer of his sleek weapon in one smooth motion. He found himself holding a gun to the head of a stone angel. Her arms were held out to him in grace, the barrel of his gun aimed between her eyes. The blue glow of the night and mist swirled together outside the large and expansive window at the end of the corridor which cast its gloom behind the figure. The expression on the statue was unreadable in the odd shadows filling in the gaps of clashing artificial lamp and natural lights in the opulent residential wing of the master's bedroom.

The youth saw that there were two statues, matching, both heads turned different directions. They were not here when George was last at Brancaster. These crumbling antiques, worn smooth after centuries, were taken from old medieval ruins of a burnt church in the nearby woods that he had discovered years ago. They were set sentry, but not for the woman who had stolen them from obscurity. The youth slowly lowered his weapon as he looked to the large floor-to-ceiling painting of a classical romantic depiction of Christ outside the tomb of Lazarus. The Jews of occupied Galilee gathered around the man in red shirt and blue cloaked sash. A veiled woman was on her knees in front of The Savior, whose head was wreathed in divine light.

But just as he stepped forward, he felt himself kick something. There was a sudden rattle of many items in a hollow container. The youth looked around wildly in readiness, hearing the noise carry down the corridor, giving away his position. He ducked low behind one of the statues, aiming his weapon down the hall, waiting for a figure to come slinking up to check on the noise. But after a long beat of held breath he saw and heard nothing. Though, he had a strange suspicion that he was being watched. Yet, he could not decipher the feeling of if someone really was watching him, or the peripheral instinct of half a dozen crafted and painted eyes of bust and portrait that seemed to follow him wherever he stepped. After a moment, he withdrew his aim, and crouched down to pick up what he had kicked. It was a carded box which slushed and rattled with items inside when George moved it. He saw that it was a box of pills, aspirins. It was labeled with the name of one of the most prestigious hospitals in London.

"Damn …" George swore under his breath in a shot of cold fear at what it meant.

The youth watched the corridor a moment longer, setting back down the pill box where it had lain, covering his tracks least someone doubled back and saw that he had been through already. He turned toward the painting of Christ and Lazarus he had his back against. He felt around the edges till he identified the old latch. Gently, quietly, George pressed it till something clicked. Slowly he swung the frame open on a hinge, revealing that the painting had been a secret door the entire time. The youth lifted his leg up to the vaulted stoop stepping inside the secret room of the castle, slowly closing it behind him. Meanwhile, as the moment's past and the empty corridor of the castle remained quiet, a pair of dark human eyes gazing from the sight of the fifth Marquess's face shifted one way and then the other, before the sound of something sliding closed echoed lightly.

Then, the painted eyes of the portrait returned.

George had already known that this room had existed. He had been told by Mr. Moseley that the seventh Marquess had it built so that he could keep his mistresses close while his wife slept. Other times it had been the Marchioness's bedchamber, at least the ones which had 'actually' loved their husbands. When Marigold was little, it had been her bedroom. Though everyone told her that she could claim any wing of the whole castle for herself, the girl declined, wishing to be close to her Aunt Edith and Uncle Bertie. From the very beginning the little girl had little love for this place, holding her guardians ever close in the bad feelings she had of the too many dark halls. But it had been a long time since she had been here, and even longer since this had been her room. But George knew what would be here, only fearing of what fate had found its occupant.

In the large and spacious bedchamber there were gilded roses painted on the boarders. The room was a deep crimson that came off black in the gloom of the foggy night which waned through a small port window. Its dim light was like a beam that crossed the dark, spilling onto a king-sized bed with four tall posters, and a design of two lovers' hand in hand on the headboard. It was clear that the room was built and decorated as a place, a sanctum, for secret lovers to meet and make love. But the romantic trappings and designs inherent in the décor of the secret room seemed marred by large and cluttering machines which wired and hissed in the dark. Slowly, the alertness of George's face fell away, and it was replaced by a sudden sorrow. He slid his revolver back into its holster as he walked forward to the side of the bed, reverence in every step.

It had been many long years since George Crawley had seen his Uncle Bertie Pelham, Marquess of Hexham. The last time he had spoken to him was on Thanksgiving of 1931, in New York. It was on the Thursday after the holiday. He had stopped asking if he could convince the boy to come home. It had always hurt both to see the teary eyed and broken hearts of Edith, Marigold, and Sybbie on the days when it was time to return home to England. Instead of following them in their grief, his uncle rather liked to end on something happy. Both had come up with a tradition of saving the best joke they had heard that year and telling it at the parting. So, it was, instead of saying goodbye, they each told a joke in the hopes of making the other laugh. It always worked, but no one ever won, because Bertie got so excited to tell his joke, that in the process he would make himself laugh. This, in turn, made George laugh at his uncle's laugh. The boy would punch the man in the arm in chortling frustration, to which his uncle retaliated with a large hug. Even in the crowded taxi, with wife and nieces, the man would still be laughing, pointing to George with a shake of his head.

It was a memory he wished to hold onto, especially, considering the last time that George had, actually, seen him.

It was weeks after what happened on Halloween. the Knickerbockers had placed a large price on his head. So big, in fact, that an entire city of starving people was now gunning for George. The boy had told Atticus to close San Sochi and take Rose and the babies to the consulate. Meanwhile, the boy had went underground, hiding in Chinatown with his local friends and sensei. He had told the Aldridge's to get out, back for England, and that he'd wait for the heat to die down. He planned on following when the time was right, when every bounty hunter, Pinkerton loser, and desperate waif with a broken bottle wasn't staking out every dock and airport within fifty miles of the five boroughs. And, for a time, it seemed to be the right plan.

George Crawley had just as many friends as he did enemies. The boy had lived his life with the same moto as his father. "What man is a man who does not try to make the world a better place?" Thus, George Crawley had done as much as he could for those around him after three and a half years of living in a city which teetered on the abyss of oblivion. And much of his deeds in those hard days had more than warranted loyalty from many communities and neighborhoods. Even many beat police officers had a hand in helping misdirect the old families 'private' police and hired bounty hunters from finding the tween.

But it was by ill luck that George would always remain a small lad in the eyes of his Uncle Bertie. His perception of a young boy on the run was not taking into consideration the familiarity with the city and its people that George had. Bertie had come to New York as a deer who wandered thoughtlessly into the open glade where parties of hunters waited for him to give them their perfect shot. He searched for a week, going door to door, having many of them slammed in his face. They were flabbergasted by the sheer stupidity of the foreigner. Even if George had been there, they'd not tell him, knowing he'd paint a target on their home or business. The boy had to stay a step ahead of the Pinkertons, and two ahead of Bertie so that he didn't blow his cover. Finally, with no choice, George had sent a letter to the Consulate, telling his Uncles to take off, and that he'd be heading to New Orleans when the time was right. However, the boy hadn't realized, or if he had, he felt he had no other choice, knowing the British Consulate was infested with spies for the enemy. Thus, his letter was intercepted, and redirected to the Pinkerton offices.

Bertie had never gotten a bigger relief to be given a note from George. So happy had he been with the knowledge that George was alright, that he had called Edith from New York to report that he had found their nephew. He told her that he wanted to meet at San Sochi, and after that they'd be on the first ship back with a worn-down Atticus, a traumatized Rose, and their two children. It was the last time that Edith had ever heard her husband's voice.

It had just so happened that George had been informed that the Pinkertons planned to demolish San Sochi in order to draw the boy out. And George had disguised himself as a city worker, one of the Irish child laborers from Hell's Kitchen. The youth had secretly entered the Levinson family's crumbling palatial mansion on Fifth Avenue. Quickly he was filling his sack with the things he wished to save, determining that he'd allow the Pinkerton's to destroy the home which his Granny and Donk first met and fell in love. No one had suspected that George was there, fooling them with his best Tom Branson impression. But as he was saving heirlooms of the great love which turned Downton Abbey from notorious to a shining Camelot, stuffing them into his messenger bag, he heard commotion. Racing to the window he saw that his uncle had shown up to the demolition, after George had sent a letter expressly telling him to stay away. The boy cursed, knowing, intuitively, that the Pinkertons had set a trap with a false letter and Bertie fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

The Marquess was throwing up quite the ruckus of resistance at what he saw. He had claimed to the foremen in charge that the property belonged to Martha and Harold Levinson, both whom had been missing for three years, thus it reverted to Lady Cora Levinson Crawley, a Countess of British Aristocracy. They couldn't blow up the Gilded Age mansion, because, it belonged to a foreign dignitary. The disguised Pinkertons were supposed to have waited, allowed George time to arrive. Bertie was nothing but a bonus, a sweetening of the pot in order to draw the young outlaw out. But what they had hoped was that George would come to raise riot, was now Bertie Pelham, Marquess of Hexham. He was doing all their wolf's head's fighting, giving him no need to come out and show himself.

So, in a rash of anger and desperation, knowing their presence on the property was not remotely legal, the foreman struck Bertie. Soon five other thugs converged on the man and beat him into the slippery cobble till there was blood in the snow. Desperately, angerly, George drew his weapon and shot the lead Pinkerton off his horse from his Granny's old bedroom window. It was enough to draw their ire and fire, all but forgetting a horrifically beaten Bertie. They had tried to burn the mansion down around George, but the tween had escaped through a servant's entrance. Stealing a Pinkerton's horse after shooting the man off his mount when he threw down on him with a shotgun, George saw Bertie only briefly as he galloped by. His face was broken and smashed, his blood running down like rivers into the snow, turning it red, like cherry snow cones. The flames of the burning mansion reflected and glistened off the open wounds, illuminating his face a flickering orange. George had wanted to go back for him, but there was Tommy Gun fire everywhere. He had told himself that the only way to keep his uncle safe was to put as much distance from him as possible. So, he raced away, being chased by dozens of toughs, machine gun fire trailing as he vaulted the horse over the truck hood that blocked the smashed open gates and rode into the snow crested night.

But years afterward, he was tormented whether there was just a chance to have saved Bertie.

It had been four years since then. And his uncle didn't look too much different than he had in those happy holidays. The wounds, which had been terrible and horrifying when freshly given, had healed. Though the man had sported facial scars on his cheeks and nose. He saw that he had a beard now, a week old. They didn't shave him but once a fortnight. George also noticed that, while Bertie's hairline continued to recede, his hair in the back was allowed, by his caretakers, to grow out. So much so, in fact, that the youth might have even considered it long. He thought it strange that his uncle was so unkempt, considering his family's standards. But then it dawned on George what conscious people did to keep their head and face warm in the cold, and how those poor souls in a coma could not, nor call to their discomfort. The central heating in Brancaster having always been spotty, and Autumn in full swing. A machine nearby hissed in and blew out, making a panting noise. The youth watched as contraptions under the covers inflated and then exhaled in rhythm with the machine. Wrapped snuggly around Bertie's legs, the two air bladders massaged the Marquess's legs to keep away atrophy and blood clots as he slept.

Gently, the youth reached out, and for the first time in five years, he placed a hand on his uncle's chest. He let out a sigh of relief when he felt his inhale and exhale as he continued to sleep. It was a fear that George couldn't shake, the thought that his adversary would've gone out of her way to kill Bertie just to spite his Aunt Edith. It seemed out of a question that the woman he was hunting would do that to a defenseless man, but then nothing was out of the question after the terrible things he saw tonight. Things a mad woman had done with her own hands to the people she loved.

The young man took just a second, in relief, to look over his sleeping uncle. George's hand reached up and gently swept back Bertie's thinning hair fondly. It seemed strange, it was an action that would've woken anyone up by now, and yet there was nothing he could do to trigger him. He guessed there was a part of himself which thought that he'd be the one to wake his uncle up, that somehow, he was the special touch. And even now he looked on the peaceful man's face waiting for the moment soon when his eyes would snap open.

But it never happened.

Knowing that Marigold might be in danger, and that there was a mad woman on the loose, George could not linger. So, it was with a great pain and internalized guilt that he turned away. Though he looked once more back at the man, his eyes heavy with grief. His mind ever echoing with the things written and said about himself by Mirada Pelham, and even privately by his own family. How much blame George shouldered for the man being where and what he is was often debated. He was all too familiar with what his Aunt Edith and Marigold had been through, defending him, having his back when the world wanted to scorch the earth here at home, give him nowhere to return too. And no matter how much he hated his Aunt Edith now, he would always be grateful to her for believing in him, defending him when the world told her she was wrong. He only wished that he could've repaid her with something, to square them, and leave him in peace to loath the day she was wrought without guilt. In truth, he'd give her back his uncle if he could, it seemed the only price worth paying to satisfy the debt he had accumulated in the tattered hearts of Lady Edith and Marigold.

But just as he was leaving, he halted, sighing long in emotional pain, before returning to the bed.

"A woman gets married to a Newspaper man, sports reporter, gone every damn night, working late shift to beat the presses. And when he's there, everything is about the goddamn Brooklyn Dodgers, right? So, eventually, she gets pregnant. And like a typical asshole, he's never there, but she ain't complaining, right? That is till she hears about this new-fangled machine in the birthing room that transfers the pain from the woman to the man during childbirth. So now she wants him in the delivery room. So, she goes into labor and she asks the doctor to hook dear hubby to the machine … haha … huh? Doctor says sure, and the reporters not afraid, big tough Brooklyn kid, played football on the Hudson during blizzards, 'he'll be alright' … ha! So, the doctor hooks him up and turns the dial to one, right? He doesn't feel a thing. Doctor puts it up to three, four, six, right? Guy's perfectly fine. Doctor jacks it up to the highest threshold, past the most dangerous settings … ha … still nothing, right? But the wife is having the easiest childbirth since Eden, baby slips out like a water slide. The doctor is puzzled about why the machine didn't work, all the other fathers had felt something in the past. So, a few days later, couple comes home with the baby … and they find the Milkman dead from a heart attack at the doorstep!"

George let out a scoffed laugh when he was done, his shoulders shaking as he watched Bertie. He chuckled for a long time, imagining, picturing his uncle's laugh. After a beat the humor grew heavy and lost its punch. And somewhere a chortle turned to a sniffle as cerulean eyes watered. "Yeah …" He cleared his throat after a long pause. His fore finger and thumb wiped the moisture away before it turned into tears. He bit the center of his lip and nodded with another sniff as he patted the unconscious man's shoulder affectionately. The boy had been saving the joke that old Joe Goldberg, the owner of the deli on Fourteenth Street, told him over a toasted turkey, Salami, and mozzarella sub four years ago. It brought little comfort now that he had told it to his uncle, but he had lived up to his promise, and he had others to tell since their last parting.

With one last a shake of his head of the impossibility of opening eyes, the youth exited his uncle's sick room.

When George closed the painting frame door with a silent click, he looked back and forth in the corridor. His skin prickled, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and his breath was trapped in his throat. His Aunt Edith's door was shut, and the box of pills that he placed back down on the floor before stepping into Bertie's room was missing. With a flick of leather, George smoothly drew his weapon again. Someone had been through here while he was inside the secret bedchamber. He immediately slipped soundlessly across the corridor, using the corner for cover as he peered out toward the path to the conservatory in the North Wing of the castle. It was the only path that made any sense to go. After the firefight, the madwoman wouldn't risk being seen by going right back to the main staircase where he was sure his orders were ignored, and the great hall was filled with his aunt's guests. Though, it would help to know what this crazed fiend really wanted and how far to the extreme she would go to get whatever it was.

But just as he was readjusting his feet, he felt something pop and crunch underneath the tread of his worn boot heel. The youth frowned and lifted his foot to see that it had been an aspirin from the box of pills. Then, just before taking a step away from cover, he noticed that there was another one. He knelt and took it in hand. He observed it through his fingers, crouching ponderously. After a suspicious pause, he looked down and saw that there was one more, followed by another a few paces later. What he had initially, almost, dismissed as spilt pills, he now recognized as someone leaving a trail to follow.

There was a part of himself that felt defensive at the cliché. He almost shouted for his adversary to 'go screw' for insulting his intelligence by thinking him that stupid. But quickly running contrary to his instinct was the thought of something else. A feeling that came straight from the heart that whoever left the trail of pills wasn't the madwoman running around a haunted castle with her husband's pistol. But someone who was desperate to be found, who was already caught, and leaving a bread trail for a young man she knew was inside her daddy's sick room as they passed it.

"Marigold …" George's breath was caught, a shooting pain ran through his soul, his fist crushing the capsule to powder.

He didn't waste any time getting to his feet. For anyone else they might have taken to a sprint, their emotions ruled by their heart. But George Crawley had been here before, in these situations. With every fiber of his being he wanted to rush out like any man might at the thought of the girl he loved being held captive. But he had lost too many friends, seen too many good men die that way. He had dealt with wicked figures in his past who, well-nigh, understood normal people's basic instincts and had used it against them. And George was sure that if he had rushed in with guns blazing, he'd turn a corner to find a bullet in the head by some crazed woman lying in wait, Marigold choking in thrall to her grasp. So, the youth set a pace which was quickened, but every step controlled, every angle covered and observed as he crossed the upper balcony bridge to the other side of the castle toward the citadel.

But even when he was aware not to rush into anything, his pace, his mind on the possibility of Marigold captured blinded him from other emotional hurdles that should've been forgotten. And it was by that same panic within those old memories that familiar sights and smells only enhanced his aggression and fear. He knew where he was as he came up to it. He paused, skipped a step, when he saw the staircase that once, long ago, a boy had shed his pack to free himself of the weight, charging up the steps to the sound of screams. He passed the open bridged gallery from the East Wing and into the darkness of the North Wing. He knew the path that a small boy once sprinted through, stopping to hide behind the very statue of an armored Athena with her owl perched on her shoulder. George saw nothing down the hallway, just an immensely black obscurity. There were no windows, no light fixtures to the walls, but one single candelabra that flickered with three wax sticks afire in an alcove of the oldest part of the castle. Here, the walls were made of stone, there was no insulation, barely any light to be found. In the past this had been where George, Lady Mary, and Tom had been relegated when they stayed here under a united House of Hexham in the early days of Edith and Bertie's marriage.

For a drawn-out moment, George listened very hard, hoping he might hear any sort of activity echoing down the hall. But he found nothing of the sort, for all his knowledge of Brancaster, his mark was being very clever about these things. It only spoke truth to his heart that this attention to detail came from a creature of sheer desperation. Sidling to the wall, keeping an eagle's eye toward the end of the corridor, George continued his pursuit, following the aspirin trail left behind. But he paused when he saw a door knob. It was made of shined copper but dented and twisted out of place at an off angle.

"NOOO, NOOHOHOHO! PLEASE, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!"

George's breath came shorter at the visible scar left behind by a terrified little girl, screaming and sobbing, holding onto a cleaning closet's doorknob for dear life, as an old woman yanked and ripped a girl from her feet, tugging her violently by her waist. Once her grip was broken, the woman, madness in her eyes, roared that the girl was a 'unclean harlot' in her face. Then she began carrying her like a toddler down the hall, while the girl only cried hoarsely, mewingly contradicting the hurtful accusation in sobs. Much like the boy within the memory, it led him quicker down the path. But, eventually, all roads led to the place where it all came to ahead many years ago. It was the guest bathroom at the center of the North Wing, across from the flickering candelabra who cast a bubble of light from its invisible cove in the wall.

Even now, years later, there was the faintest smell of bleach whiffing from the old tub.

It began on the back of celebration, fore, it was the third time that Lady Edith was pregnant. It had been a year since her first child with Bertie Pelham, a little girl, had come into the world bloody, not breathing, and only after seven months. Great was Edith and Bertie's grief. In that time the two had taken joyous comfort in the children, Sybbie, George, and especially Marigold. Just being around them healed such turmoil of their very existence in their loss. The three stayed the summer with their Aunt Edith and Uncle Bertie in London. Their laughter, candor, and deeply endearing comradery together had healed their favorite aunt's woes, intensifying her love. And it was not long after that sad, but glorious, summer that Edith was with child again. The family was trepidatious but elated none-the-less.

But as the months went on, Lady Edith grew bigger and bigger, much larger than she had previously. And it was that they celebrated the passing of the seven-month mark with relief. There was no doubting that Lady Edith was carrying twins, which she found odd, because, she couldn't think of neither Bertie nor her family having twins. Lady Grantham found it odd as well, but privately she found refuge in her husband's arms suffering in the silence of a painful secret of a still born son who had come into the world with his twin sister Mary clutching his hand. Only Carson had known, and the man would go to his grave cherishing the first baby he ever held and grieving ever in promised silence for the missing part of a whole. His heart, along with his lord and ladyship were often broken while they quietly watched Mary's cold and unfeeling demeanor, knowing that it was a symptom of a piece of herself robbed at birth. And it was that often they watched George and Sybbie over the years and pondered what might have been for their poor Mary who had always felt that something, a great anchoring love, was missing in her life.

But in the final months of Edith's pregnancy, and the doubled swelling of her belly, her weariness had become near deadly. She soon found many things hard to manage and conceived that the situation was delicate. Lady Grantham had come to London to stay with Edith, to help her navigate the difficult pregnancy. In that time, they had resolved to send Marigold to Downton to stay with Robert, Mary, Tom, and Sybbie. She would also spend the weekends with George at Crawley House, watched over by Isobel and Dickie. But, seemingly out of nowhere, it was Mirada Pelham who volunteered to look after the girl. Fore, it was, though Marigold was Edith's shameful secret, hidden from society. The woman cherished the girl greatly and it was that, despite her strict demeanor, they both had always been relatively fond of one another.

Edith found it very hospitable and agreed to it, with support of Robert who had always loved Marigold but was unsure how close he should be to her. But it was Cora who noticed that, out of all people, it was Bertie who seemed very hesitant about it. Though he would not say, Lady Grantham perceived long ago, that her son-in-law was haunted by his rearing, and had never fully trusted his mother. She did not pry, but even Robert's dismissals in bed could not dissuade her worry of the opaqueness that surrounded the fierce mother of the Marquess of Hexham. So, it was, quite clumsily, that when Marigold asked if Sybbie could come with her, that Cora agreed.

She had come to know from George that Marigold didn't like going to Brancaster alone, that she was scared. The boy spoke in confidence, over he and Cora's regular friday lunches, that Marigold wouldn't say exactly what she didn't like about it, just that she didn't want to be alone in the place. But when Cora asked Edith, her daughter only claimed that the statues and painting unnerved the little girl, that she was uncomfortable with the staff who never spoke out of the servant's hall and lingered a bit too long in the shadows of the halls.

Mary was disagreeable of letting her daughter stay in such a place with a woman she didn't know or like very much. And neither was Tom, as both Mary and he, at the time, were having massive behavioral issues with Sybbie. Tom, who had ever cherished and loved his daughter above all else, woke up one morning to find that, somewhere down the line, Sybbie had become horribly spoiled by everyone around her.

It came from a confrontation with George.

At the time the two were coming from different styles of parenting. Sybbie regularly got whatever she asked for, from either Mary or Robert, who she always had wrapped around her finger. Meanwhile, George rarely asked anything of Isobel and Dickie. Instead, he found contentment in the simpler things he discovered on his walkabouts around the Estate and village. Isobel had been parenting her grandson with imposing limited means, the same budget, the same rules, in which Matthew had grown up. George had taken great pride in the things he did have, and even greater pride in the ingenuity of not needing other things that most wanted.

Both children were but a reflection of their fathers in these matters.

Tom had long saw, not Sybil, but himself in his daughters delights for the finer things in life. Ever as a small boy was Tom Branson accused by brothers, cousins, and father of having a liking of the finer things and pursuing their ownership. And the man conceded long ago that much of his politics and convictions of his youth had been envy of the exquisite and beautiful denied to people of his class and upbringing. When he thought of Sybil, and his enamoring with the crown jewel of the County of Grantham, he did so with shame. For there was no purity for his initial infatuation with the lovely teenage princess. And it was only in the kindness and friendship of the girl and young woman that he saw the truth, and ever the enrichment of his love that went beyond her finery and beauty. Even now he understood that these failings were part of the equation of his relationship with Mary. Though their love wasn't romantic in the slightest, still Tom was drawn to Lady Mary's beauty and finery, however sore it made him at times in her flaunting of knowing it and cherishing it. Thus, he felt a deep doubt in his heart when he saw that his daughter was more like him than she was her real mother. Fore Sybbie was ever enamored with many fine and extravagant things that shined and glimmered in the light. She was effete, high maintenance, with a beguiling charm which disarmed even Lady Violet.

But for George, though he seldom took after Matthew on the surface, of the things he did gain from his father it was his propensity for quiet contentment. Fore Matthew Crawley saw no bad thing in the celebration of a simple life. And it was that he had cherished his uneventful and normal middle-class existence in Manchester before destiny and doom called him hence. And great then was his stubbornness and pride against the greater calling to adventure in the County of Grantham, determined to hold onto the quiet study and little gardens of his childhood and young life. But it was only love which lodged him from his determination, and in the imaginings of the fine Lady Mary in his arms that he strove, ever quietly, to win her heart. And it was that, though love was born between the two at very first glance, it was his dedication to the ennoblement of his destiny in the values of the simple and quiet life of his upbringing that Mary saw her future. Her love given forever to his sweated brow to better all things in his charge.

Thus, for all the boy's bold dashing and steadfast valiance in many adventure, George Crawley admired self-reliance and cherished the quiet of a countryside life. His rejection of the Lordships of the House of Grantham was born in his blood which carried a fond remembrance of a father's prayer that his children would know someday the contentment of the quiet simplicities of everyday life. In the boy's heart he saw the power, not in the heraldry of a Noble House, nor the Lordship of a County, but in the quiet decency of every day people in the small acts of kindness and love in the land which he lived side by side.

It was everything that Matthew Crawley held dearly and believed with all his heart.

In that contrast of best friends and adopted siblings, Sybbie began to resent George for his simple contentment, taking it as an insult that he was happier with some homemade figurine, he made himself, rather than the newest thing that Robert had bought for her. And one day, in a terrible fit, Sybbie had taken George's favorite stick, which was his sword, rifle, and magic wand in play and broke it. In a fury she had cast it into the creek. When Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes found them, during their leisurely walk, the two children were rolling in the dirt, throwing punches and smacking one another. But when they were brought before Tom and Cora, Mary had mocked George for starting a fight over a stick. But the boy was dismissed back to Crawley House by his grandfather after George had raucously made a deeply wounding joke about Mary's hair, knowing it would ruin her day.

But Tom was shocked and angered by what he heard from Sybbie's mouth in his departure. She went on a tirade about how George thought he was better than her. That he was happier with his sticks and Uncle Matthew's stupid old books than she was with her pony. But she informed them that George wasn't better than her, that he was living in a drafty old house, wearing dumb 'poor people' clothes, and that he doesn't even cut his hair regularly anymore. She was the one who was better than George, they all were better than George and Isobel!

Tom was incensed, grabbing a hold of her shoulders and angrily rebuking the prideful and disgusting things that she said. He harkened to her scornfully by her full name and informed the little girl that she wasn't better than anybody, that none of them were. That living in Downton Abbey, wearing these clothes, and having people who love her so much that she wanted for nothing was a privilege, that she was lucky. And he'd better never hear her say the things she had about anyone, much less George, and especially Isobel. But the girl, having been scorned and humiliated more than once today ran away in tears.

But when Robert tried to rebuke Tom for his temper, he was met with a fiercely angry son-in-law. He tore into all of them, Robert, Mary, and Cora, accusing them of turning his little girl into a brat. But when rhetorically asked if they heard what Sybbie had just said, Mary didn't seem to see anything wrong with it, only that their little girl said it out loud. Tom was not amused by Mary's tone, and threw in her face that she might be able to abandon her child and sleep at night, but he would not let others dictate his little girl's values, nor how she valued others. With that he stormed out, while Mary was once more wounded by harsh words. Weeks later they were still not on good terms, no one was. Sybbie didn't want to talk to her daddy, didn't want to talk to George, and was bitterly incredulous that the word 'no' was being reintroduced into her life, even if it was killing Robert.

George had told Isobel, Dickie, and an unwelcome Violet that he blamed it on Sybbie's new look.

It had been, for most of their life, that their mama had looked to their appearance. Whatever day clothing that Mary had bought, she also had matching masculine clothes made for George so that they could dress to match every day. Meanwhile whatever hairstyle Mary was sporting, she had Sybbie's hair styled to match her. That way whenever they were out and about together, people always knew, whether by George's matching clothes, or Sybbie's matching hair, that they were Lady Mary Tolbert's children. For years their mama had sported the 'Bob' and in turn, for years, Sybbie also sported the 'Bob'. But recently Lady Mary had decided to let her hair grow long again, and as such, Anna was instructed to allow Sybbie's hair to grow as well. In the meantime, after years of their Granny and his Uncle Tom picking out Sybbie's clothes, Lady Mary had decided to make over Sybbie in coordination with herself. The bereft woman deciding to reinvent herself after Baby Cora and Henry's deaths. In doing so, Lady Mary had spent a fortune on herself and Sybbie, creating a stylish and attractive pair in mama and daughter.

But, also, in doing so, some of the clothing that Sybbie now wore, the light makeup that Mary allowed Anna to put on her, and the long glossy curls in perfect ringlets tied in satin bow had consequences. In the time just before Sybbie was made over, her hair growing out, the girl went through her first change. And over a summer, the cute, freckled, and chubby cheeked little girl had melted away. And in her budding came the first signs of a true beauty of the future beginning to take shape. George said that it made people, especially certain men, look at Sybbie differently. He couldn't describe it, but the new way she was dressing, the new way she looked with make-up and the more maturing of her face, caused people to treat her differently, cherish her more.

Isobel and Violet both thought it obscene for Mary to dress Sybbie in such a way as she had been. But the boy only shrugged and said that all he knew was that Sybbie was trying to pretend she was older due to the attention. And that some people treat her differently and would give her whatever she wants, because, of the way she looks now. It was Violet who caught that George had something to get off his chest, but instead didn't speak of it. Only leaning back in his cushioned chair, glaring at the old woman when she stared at him.

When Cora told George that Sybbie and Marigold were going to Brancaster till his Aunt Edith's babies were born, the boy didn't like it. But he was unspeaking of why it was, only that he didn't think it was a good idea. George had no love for Mirada Pelham, and in turn, Mirada had a dark prejudice against the boy. No one knew exactly why that was, their mislike flaring up during that summer, and beyond the fact that George Crawley didn't get along with any woman of the gentry over the age of fifty that wasn't named Isobel Merton and Cora Crawley. But the boy doubled down on his silence when Cora brought up the conversation, he had with his elder grandparents about Sybbie. His granny sensing the connection. But instead he relayed that if she sees his Granny Violet, she could tell her to keep her 'chicken beak' out of other people's business. Cora, once more, admonished her boy's popular comparison of Lady Violet to a chicken. But then Lady Grantham leveled with George that she been trying for forty years to tell Violet Crawley to mind her own business …

No progress had been made.

But the news seemed to stay with George for a long time. Darkly had he pondered on the new developments. The boy was gun shy about stirring anything up, especially when babies were again at stake. But he knew that things were getting worse, and that waiting till his new cousins were born might be too late to speak up. But his half-understanding of suspicions seemingly rang true in his musings of a greater code that no child of eight had a key to unlock. So, he sought counsel in the detachment of a friend and mentor which had no care for an Aristocratic family's troubles.

For a week every month, and a month for every season, George attended intense studies, tutoring, and training by a mysterious captain of the ocean depths. It was a deal, a bargain that Lady Merton agreed to two years past with the Science Pirate. In those sessions George Crawley learned much of the world as it is, was, and even of what it might be. He learned the sword, ancient languages and text, advanced arithmetic, and navigation. His lessons were hard, but fair, and he was taught self-reliance in teaching one's self. The Captain liked to put a task before George, and yet, give him no aid, only the free roaming of his clockwork vessel and full access to his extensive library to unravel this Gordian puzzle. It soon became up to the boy as to how he would achieve such a task with no help or rules. And it was there that George Crawley found the value of books, fore he had to teach himself many things, before getting to the achievement of the task. Thus, by the time that George had accomplished the thing set before him, he had learned more than one lesson on his journey to completion. And it gave the Captain no better Joy than to be debated in different point of view in their discussion of the work and subject, fore he knew then, that not only had his apprentice learned the lesson …

But was as much his own man.

And it was during such a quiet moment, the boy sitting in the Captain's office, as the Indian man smoked a pipe, lost in thought. His dark and crazed eyes looking up from the ember glow of his seaweed tobacco to see George halt his translation of a scroll of Adûnaic which had faded borders of a sunken island kingdom that had once been known by the Greek Scholars of the Library of Alexandra. Now it only exists in the remaining and conserved dialogues of Plato. But to this uncovering of a lost empire which fell before the changing of the shape of the world, the boy had other things on his mind. And it was seen by the Captain who watched the youth lean back from five open volumes of the prince's studying of the matter in his earliest days of exploring the great fathoms below.

When he was asked what troubled him, the boy explained the situation at home. He started with his fight with Sybbie. But told more of it than his family knew existed. They had been playing around, making up stories about some far-off adventure they wanted to go on. Much like everyone knew, Sybbie had grown jealous of the boy's contentment with his stick. But at first, she hadn't lashed out and broken it. Instead, she wanted it, to just hold it. The girl wasn't cruel, she wouldn't do anything to it, but she had wanted, for just a moment, to take it away from him. George told her no, that if she wanted a stick that she could go find one of her own. It was an argument that lasted only a minute, before Sybbie chased him around, till he climbed a tree, something she couldn't do in her new fancy dresses.

Then, something weird happened.

Sybbie offered him a trade. If George gave her his stick, she'd let him kiss her. To that the boy only scoffed. Leaping down, he quickly pecked her cheek, and spinning away from her grasp. He had arrogantly said that he didn't need to give her anything for a kiss. But then, the girl told him, 'not that kind of kiss.' That had made George stop in his tracks and wondered what she meant.

She then revealed that she had found a new way to get things. That all she had to do was let someone kiss her on the lips, and they'd give her whatever she wanted. George asked if it was one of those weird Gentry kids that their mother made her have tea with. But she shook her head and said that it was an adult, and that the other day, while she was with their granny, checking on their Aunt Edith, someone there had asked her if there was anything that she desired. The girl relayed that she really wanted some emerald earrings, but that her daddy wouldn't buy them for her, because, he wouldn't allow her to pierce her ears. The person at their Aunt Edith's said that they would buy them for her, if she'd let them kiss her. Sybbie had gotten kisses before, every day, and the person was liked by Marigold. So Sybbie didn't mind. But instead she was led to a private bedroom, sat on the person's lap, and they kissed her, not on the cheek or forehead, but right on the lips. For a long time, they had kissed Sybbie, the person's hands running over the fabric of the girl's dress, and underneath it. But then when their Uncle Bertie came looking for them, Sybbie was quickly thrown back on the bed, as far from the person as possible as he entered the room. And for a long and stunned moment, their uncle stood in silence looking at the merciless glare of the person and the feverish little girl with glazed over eyes on the bed. But when he left, with an old childhood scar renewed inside him, Sybbie was told that it was their secret, and that she wouldn't get her earrings if she told anyone about their kiss … and the other things done, especially Uncle Bertie.

Then, Sybbie reached into her coat pocket and showed George the adult women's earrings that were more expensive than anything at "Tiffany's" in New York. The girl said that it was scary and uncomfortable at first, and she didn't like the touching under her skirt, but then … she admitted that after the initial fear, what they were doing to her felt very good. But George looked mortified by what he heard, and it only made Sybbie angry. She quickly said that the person liked, no, loved kissing her. She swore that George would like it too, and that if he gave her his stick, that he could kiss her whenever he wanted and for however long he wanted, even pet her knickers like the person did.

But the boy backed away from her in horror.

Feeling a rush of fear, shame, and sudden realization that it was a bad thing that happened to her, the girl lashed out in defensive emotions of sheer devastation. She then ragefully chased George down, tackled him to the leaves, and tried to kiss him, to show him that he was the one who was wrong. After two struggling lip locks, George slugged Sybbie in the face, sending her rolling. She had tears in her eyes and cried at the rejection and the realization of her molestation, more than the punch. Then, in that horrible confusion and fear she let out a shill screech of primal despair. The teary-eyed girl, scared of things she didn't understand, broke George's stick over her knee and threw it into the creek. With that, the boy went full on in attack for revenge.

For a long time, the captain had sat in a smoke plume silence weighing what his apprentice had told him of his other student.

He seemed unreadable in the dark as he pushed further of why this story mattered now. But George spoke of that summer, after his return from his month-long expedition with the Captain and his crew. It had been at his Aunt Edith's flat in London. He had been let in by his aunt's friendly housekeeper who was cleaning the toilets. He had wanted to sneak up on Sybbie and Marigold, to surprise them on his return from the voyage at sea. But as he slowly stalked into the sitting room, completely unseen, he saw that Sybbie and Marigold were sitting on the sofa, being instructed in needle point by Mirada Pelham, his Uncle Bertie's mother. She was looming over Sybbie, having seen the girl for the first time in her new wardrobe and hairstyle, dolled up by Anna and Lady Mary. Marigold was watching from the corner of her eye with discomfort as her "Granny M" petted and touched Sybbie, her shoulders, her perfect curls, feeling the material of her smooth dress with shivered breath. If anything, Sybbie seemed to be arrogant about the affection, thinking that it meant that she was doing better than Marigold at their lesson.

Yet, the older woman's attentions had become so physically intrusive to the smug girl's work that she had accidently caused Sybbie to prick herself with the needle. The girl wanted to cry, Marigold immediately embracing her best friend. But Mirada Pelham had taken the right course of action, sternly telling the young girl to master her emotions, that it was just a prick, and that it wouldn't kill her.

It started first in something that most would not see as odd. Mirada had taken Sybbie's bloody forefinger and stuck it in her mouth and sucked on it. George knew that there was uses for saliva in minor cuts. But this was strangely different, and he saw it in the woman's eyes. At the time George couldn't describe it, only that it made him uncomfortable. It went on too long, the woman's eyes staring intently at the first budding signs of a great beauty in a young girl's face. Marigold made a disturbed wince on the couch as Sybbie whimpered and shifted, lost in the dominate older woman's eyes at the suckling of her finger, feeling a tongue swirling over her digit.

Suddenly, the hand of George Crawley had interceded into that strange incident. The boy, coming completely unseen, ripped Sybbie's finger out of Mirada's mouth. The woman was startled, then fearful, to see the cold glare of George Crawley standing eye level with the kneeling woman in front of the young girl. Everyone in the room was shocked to see George, but there was no fanfare when the boy roughly grasped Sybbie's hand and yanked her to her feet. Without another word, George led his sister away from the crouching woman and out the door, Marigold quickly following behind, reaching for Sybbie's other hand. As the girl left, she was the only one who saw fear turn to the deepest of black hatred for a young boy.

Fore a Hypocrite hates the one who exposes them only less than the sin they condemn in public and commit themselves in private.

When George was done telling the story, he presented the theory that both incidents were connected somehow. That the incident with the finger, the look in Mrs. Pelham's eyes, she had to be the same person who feverishly kissed and groped Sybbie on their Aunt Edith's bed, and gave her the emerald earrings for her silence. He was sure of it, as he was sure that he had in his possession a map of the Atalantë. At any other point, that might have made the Captain smile at the right answer to the task he assigned.

But not then.

In this, the Indian Prince, not since the death of his wife and children, had anything of human affairs so grievously troubled him. And though his eyes were wild, his heart cold, he saw great peril in the situation that his apprentices had fallen in. Had he not sworn an oath to never mettle in the affairs of the land, more might had been done on behalf of George and Sybbie. Yet, he hardened to his dark heart, and held to his oath. But, never the less, he gave willingly more counsel on the matter than he'd spare any other human. And thus, he warned his apprentice to be very cautious about what to do. There were many factors at play here. Though he was old, ancient to one as young as George, the world changed since he last made it his home, long before Robert and Cora Crawley were born. He knew that the violation of one so young and lovely had never ended in peace when the devil was exposed in all his evils. He told George to confide in someone trust worthy, which could articulate the incidents and suspicions effectively to those of authority which, then, could take mindful steps in protecting those George loved most in the universe.

When the boy was left to go back for home, the Captain stopped George disembarking, and warned him to master his heart and emotions. He perceived much darkness that lay ahead on his road home, and that when they meet again, it will not be a happy tide that bears him in return. But his advice was not heeded, not out of pride, but of ignorance. Fore a child, so young, knew nothing of what he had seen nor, could he comprehend the evils that lay ahead. Thus, it was, that George Crawley waited for his Granny to pick him up. But he was, instead, greeted by the odd figure of Mr. Spratt, his Aunt Edith's advice columnist, and his Granny Violet's former butler. The man had been doing a favor for Isobel, apologizing that the boy's Grams couldn't be there, it was quite impossible.

George returned home to Crawley House to find that it had been two weeks since his Step-Grandfather Dickie Merton had died, and a week since his funeral. The boy was dreadfully hurt by the news. He had liked Dickie quite a bit. The man had always felt inadequate as a Grandfather, but the boy told him that he was more than fine as a friend. He never knew that the magic the old peer bore was not in love, but the simple interest in George's life, the engagement of conversation with the boy of all he had learned from the Science Pirate's Library and vessel. He did not ignore him like his Donk and mama, nor did he coddle him to make up for all that was missing like his granny and Aunt Edith. Dickie had simply been there, been interested, and listened when George talked. And it was a blow to the boy to come home, especially then, to find the one person he knew he could always rely upon to confide in was gone forever.

It was a long day of sitting and waiting, his grams in the hospital again, his granny with his Aunt Edith, and the girls at Brancaster. For the first time, the young boy found himself completely alone in his father's house. He was unsure what to do, pacing the floor, pondering if he could trust Anna, Mr. Bates, Mrs. Baxter, the way he knew he could've trusted Dickie with the things he knew of Sybbie and her kisses. The boy did not even consider Thomas, knowing by intuition that the butler's hot heart for those he loved could only make things worse in his coldly cruel scheming vengeance. But just then the phone rang … and in some ways it hadn't stopped, even now. George, thinking it the hospital with news of his granny, answered it quickly. But he found that it was Marigold. The girl was crying, sobbing frightenedly. She said nothing, not when George pressed her for what was going on. The girl, instead, only tapped on the talk piece before she suddenly hung up. The boy's blood went cold and his hair stood on end.

It was the children's private emergency signal.

Denker, Lady Violet's maid, would forever grudge her future employer for the 'dastardly' blackmail that he presented when he came to the backdoor of the Dower House's kitchen. He required a ticket for the last train to Brancaster for the evening. The drunken woman was loathsome to pay it but did so in protection of her place. Thus, George, pack on his back, geared for war as well as a boy of eight might, he stowed away into the evening, bound for Brancaster Castle. What came next was blurs with sudden technicolor clarity in moments which haunt him even now. His mind not fully caught up yet to all that happened due to the injuries he suffered in the struggle.

But what he did remember about this old castle was the nauseating smell, the commotion, and most of all the squealing cries of Marigold. A terrified little girl who grabbed ahold of railings and door frames, begging in horrified sobs for the Butler dragging her down the corridor to stop. He remembered Sybbie in a loose silky 'Wood Nymph' costume with a crown of roses on her head. She was holding onto a crazed Mirada Pelham's robe, pulling hard, crying for her to stop, saying that she'd let her do anything she wanted if she didn't hurt Marigold. It was only a flickered second that the Prince's words rang in George's ears, before he leapt into action.

By the time George arrived, fire poker in hand, the butler of Brancaster was restraining Sybbie, who was wearing more makeup than even their mama would've allowed. They were standing outside a bathroom where a crazed Mirada Pelham, with eyes made of pure venom and delusion, was tearing Marigold's nightgown off. Sybbie was screeching for Mirada to let the girl go, meanwhile, Marigold was desperately clinging to the doorway. The girl was squealing in linin shorts and naked upper body as the old woman tried to pry Marigold free, lifting her completely off the ground. George could smell it before he ever saw it. The rank odor of boiled bleach was suffocating as it whiffed from the bathroom. Mirada was completely lost in some fierce and cruel bout of madness, growling of the filth and degeneracy which clung to Marigold like a diseased flesh that had to be purified.

She claimed that the golden-haired little angel had a sickness in her, filled with unnatural thoughts and feelings for those she shouldn't. Beyond the doorway, in the green, gold, and white tiled bathroom, was a bathtub filled to the brim with scolding hot bleach which Mirada Pelham was attempting to wash Marigold's exposed supple flesh with, unknowing, or uncaring, that it would melt it right off a girl so young and delicate.

Till this day it was never truly known what had made Mirada Pelham react the way she did. Long had she watched George and Marigold, since the day that Edith and Bertie had married. In that time, she alone, by some foresight of providence, saw the bond between young children which was more than a simple friendship or kinship. And as they got older, it came clearer to the woman's watchful eye how much George cherished Marigold, and how the girl, in return, ever strayed by his side, her hand in his. The woman had been the first and only, till many years later, to come to know the truth of George and Marigold's great and secret love. But what had prompted her reaction to 'wash clean' Marigold was only known by two people, and both girls only spoke of it once, to George and Thomas in the aftermath.

What was known, was a frighten Marigold was driven from her room by the feelings of sorrow for Dickie's passing, and the knowledge that bad things were happening around her. She had gone to sleep with Sybbie. But when she entered the room, she saw something that shouldn't have been happening between a grown woman and a sweaty and mewling young girl, crowned by roses, eyes glossy, and the hem of a silky costume dress pushed up to her chest. Marigold had fled in fear of what she saw the woman doing to Sybbie. Darting downstairs, she quickly phoned Crawley House, phoned George out of a subconscious reaction, fearing to bother her Aunt Edith in such a delicate condition with such horrifying things. But she was quickly captured by the servants and taken back up to Mirada's bedroom.

For most of the night the woman tried to explain to Marigold of what she saw, what had been going on between her and Sybbie since they had gotten there, even before that. But she couldn't get Marigold to stop crying, to stop the girl from telling her that it was wrong, that she was hurting Sybbie, that it was wicked what she was doing her. The girl's accusatory words fueled a desperate madness, seeing only ruin and ridicule for the last of the failing House of Hexham. But the bending frame of her unhinging came when Marigold revealed, in a child's longing, that she had called George and that he would come and get them. To that, Mirada gave over to a rage of self-righteous defense of her terrible urges born from the curiosity and coveting of the secret Journals her husband and son's cousin had kept hidden of his exploits with his own young male victims. Thus, she ordered that Marigold be cleansed, and that Sybbie be set free from her room to witness it, just in case she thought of telling anyone what had been happening between them.

But George sprang out of the darkness in that eleventh hour like an avenger just as blood was being torn out of Marigold's now missing fingernails. He took a fire poker like it was the rapier he had been trained to use on the clockwork pirate vessel. With an expert swing, the boy freed Sybbie with a sickening thud that knocked the butler's knee out of joint. The eight-year-old didn't have the arm strength to shatter it, but the iron and momentum was enough to do permanent damage. The man roared in pain as George felled upon him, beating the blunted end of the poker in his laborious gut for laying hands on the girls he loved.

But he halted when Marigold screamed for him as her fingers finally gave way. When George and Sybbie rushed into the bathroom, the blonde-haired little girl was squirming violently as Mirada paced toward the bubbling and reeking tub. The boy sprang in pursuit, leaping up and wrapping his arms around the woman's neck, bending her backwards. Marigold hit the tiled floor with a thump. She cried, holding her elbow, cradled by a sweat glistened Sybbie. Both girls were over shadowed by the struggling silhouettes of woman and child. They watched in fear as an eight-year-old boy and a woman in her late fifties fought like feral dogs. Snarling and growling, they crashed into counter, wall, towel rack, and cracked a mirror when the boy was thrown against it head first. But George, blood running gruesomely down his forehead, mounted the counter as the woman made for the girls again, and leapt onto her as she passed, renewing their clawing and flailing. Finally, the boy got enough of an upper hand, using his lower center of gravity to smash his shoulder into the older woman's thighs. All it took was a misstep, the coagulation of bubble burst puddles on the tile floor, to make the woman slip.

No one there that night would forget the terrible scream Mirada Pelham made when she fell back first into the boiling bleach filled tub.

CRACK!

Suddenly, the youth was startlingly ripped away from his dark memories in front of a bathroom, a room, in which the children of the House of Grantham had lost their innocence in many ways. He turned quickly when he heard the shot, slipping away from the door and hugging the wall. As if it was yesterday, once more, George heard the screaming cry of anguish from Marigold. Forgotten was his dark ponderings, his terrible memories of the sickening smell of boiling bleach. He charged forth unabated, unworried for his safety. His entire mind shifted to one gear, and one gear only. And that was to save Marigold, at any cost.

With sprinted thumps on plush carpeted corridor, his feet echoed in the ancient stone lined halls. His vision was swallowed by blurs of lit candles and swirling shadows. His silhouette was cast down the end of the hall and racing just behind him as he moved toward a single stained-glass mural at the end of the corridor that looked out over the green yard of the citadel. His shadow grew smaller and more defined as he reached the end of the hall. There, he slid to a stop before his momentum sent him crashing into the glass pane at the end of the stone pathway. There, he quickly observed the scene that had stopped his heart.

Marigold was in a strapless silk nightgown, her golden tresses free and curtained on her bare milky shoulders. She was on her knees weeping and reaching for someone. That someone happened to be Thomas, who was slumped back against the wall on his knees. He half lounged, his hand clutching his shoulder which gushed with blood through his valet jacket. His sharp featured face was sweaty, and he looked to be in immense amount of pain. But standing right in front of him, slender arm barred around the beautiful elven like ballerina's neck, was a woman in a nurse's white uniform. Her polyester blouse and skirt fit her tightly like a glove, and matts of grey came down under her white uniform cap. In her hand was a Webley MK II that was pointed right between Thomas's eyes. Marigold was begging her not to do it, desperately reaching for the butler. But, teary eyed, the older man only told the girl that everything was going to be okay, not to look. It was all he kept telling the loveliest of young teenage girls to do … to look away.

It was by the grimmest of luck that George's rounding turn of a slide down the hall had caught the nurse's attention, his shadow on the wall announcing his coming. He had only caught the briefest of seconds of the scene, before a woman with desperate and crazed eyes pivoted her aim. George heard the first shot whiz by embedding in the medieval stonework of the hall. He quickly rolled defensively away from the second shot behind the corner for cover.

"George!" Marigold screamed in fear and worry as the nurse continued to restrain her in a choke hold.

Holding his gun to the ceiling by the ear, the youth quickly peaked over in pavlovian response to the girl he loved calling to him. But his reward was the painful sanding of stone particles exploding by his cheek. The bullet ricocheting near his face and shattering the ancient stained-glass mural of a local saint from the days of Lionheart and Merry Men. When George leaned forward from cover once more, he saw that the nurse was pointing her Webley at Thomas again. Quickly, the boy pivoted from his cover corner and fired his second shot from the 'Ray Gun'. Though a 'dead shot' with his weapon, he knew his subconscious was ruled by fear of hitting Marigold. Thus, his shot went right by the woman's face, the force of the high caliber bullet exploded stone right near her. He heard her cry out as it tore and burred into the flesh of her cheek. Strangely, or as strange a contradiction as he had ever seen, the nurse fell on Marigold, covering her in maternal protection and taking all the sharp debris of George's fire. But when the exploding stone turned to dust. The intruder, disguised as Bertie Pelham's nurse, hooked an arm across Marigold silken breast and began dragging the ballerina away. A familiar chill rose in George's chest as he saw the young beauty grasp tightly the corner of the corridor, fighting the tugging of her captor to pry her back into her power.

"George!" She screamed, reaching for him.

The boy didn't hesitate to come out of cover, and took a sharp step forward, body torqueing. But just as he was about to unleash his energy and momentum to go speeding toward Marigold's outstretched hand, the nurse reappeared again. She checked the ballerina into the wall with all her weight, crushing her between the stone and her pelvis. Then, the woman pointed and fired. darting, George moved swiftly as shadow, advancing forward into the cover of a maid's closet. Another part of the ancient stone corridor was dusted to powder in a warped and manic sound. The bouncing bullet embedded in a thick oaken bedroom door, yards away from the action. But by the time that George looked over, about to return fire, he saw he had no shot. Marigold was in a choke hold again, her fingers sliding from their tenuous grip on the stone corner of the hall that led to the battlements.

"George, Geohohorge!" She sobbed, struggling to hold on just a moment longer. "Dragon's Roost!" She shouted. "George, Dragon's Roost!" She said one more time, before she was finally torn away, being dragged down the hall.

"Marigold!" the vigilante roared in alarm. He was hesitant to move from cover, but he was driven by the cries of anguish from his golden-haired angel.

He sprang forth, moving quickly, flying toward the hall that led to the walls of the citadel. He took cover behind the corner of the wall that Marigold had been holding on to dear life. He was incensed by the lingering scent of her sweet perfume. In the distance he heard the girl repeating the words "Dragon Roost". But when George finally glanced down the corridor, weapon drawn to action, he saw nothing but the large shadow of Marigold and her captor as they turned the corner, the girl being used as a shield as they backed away.

"Shit!" George barked in frustration as he broke cover.

His gaze lingering down the hall for only a second. This was not the young man's first time in these situations. This mad woman was not the first person who had ever taken a girl he loved hostage. And the circumstances, as grim as it was, was not the worst that he and Marigold had faced together. This false nurse wielding her husband's service revolver, would never be the Hausa Shaman who had taken Marigold captive in order to draw George out for what he had assumed would be their final duel. He only thanked Christ that the ballerina was an angelically gentle creature, unable to harm anything in this world. It had kept her alive before and it would again. Had it been Sybbie, all Hell would've broken loose. The fire hearted raven-haired beauty had been captured herself in the past, but the girl's attitudes and temperament would've thrown all his plans out the door. By now, she would've either have escaped her captor, turned the tables on them, or most likely would've gotten herself killed. Taking Sybil Afton Branson into any dangerous situation was a roll of the dice at the best of times. Her courage was only rivaled by her stupidity and fey aggression of bull-headed disregard.

Finally, he turned and rushed back toward the wounded man in a lounging heap against the wall. "Forget about me, Master George … Ms. Marigold … go get Ms. Marigold!" Thomas's teeth chattered from the sheer pain of his wound as he clutched his shoulder.

"The hell did I tell you about watching your corners …?!" George chastised in a huff, ignoring the butler's pleas. "Move your hand … get it out of the damn way!" George finally snapped at the man when he refused to comply, painfully over talking George, ordering him to go get Marigold. He finally forced the butler to remove his wounded hand from the war. There was a lot of blood. George saw that the shot went clean through. Looking up above them, there was a splattering of blood from the exit wound and the lead and coper cap that was imbedded into the stone wall where Thomas got shot.

"Kissed by an angel …" George breathed a panted scoff with a shake of his head.

Thomas swallowed. "After closing off the main servant's entrances, we went to go get Ms. Marigold in her and Ms. Sybbie's room, she wasn't there. I knew that if Ms. Marigold wasn't in their room, then she'd be with Lord Hexham in his. We were using the servant's main stairs to this side of the castle to close off the shortcut to the battlements when we ran into her dragging Ms. Marigold down the hall … She got Billy first, when he was turning the corner … Got me in the shoulder when I went for the shotgun." Thomas sucked in a breath.

George, in conclusion of the context clue, turned and saw that by a servant's door was an older man in valet's suit with grey hair and a groomed mustache. He lay face first on the ground, a bullet hole right between his eyes. George had recognized him as old Billy Solomon, his Uncle Bertie's valet. He wasn't a bad man, loyal even after his employer was stricken in coma. He had stayed, looking to Bertie's grooming and comfort in his vegetative state. He had also been known to be his Aunt Edith's only informer of the goings on with her husband after he fell back into the care of his scarred and delusional mad mother. George felt a numbness in his chest at the sight of his body. There was something automatic, unthinking, when the young man crossed himself in a Catholic sign of respect.

But for all the boy's bluster, Americanization, and learned alien ways that didn't match or fit with the customs of the British Upper Classes. There was never a clearer sign of the harsher world and attitudes that George Crawley was forced to adapt too in the, almost callous, way that he kicked over the dead valet's body. Thomas only watched in shock as George, without a scruple, began going through the man's pockets. Had Thomas not been in so much pain, he might have been shocked both audibly and physically by the cold way that the youth turned out the dead man's body. But he saw that George took no money or valuables but was searching for something. But when he didn't find it, he Instead, ripped open the dead man's suit shirt and stripped it off him, leaving the old valet with bare-arms in a white tank top. Then, the youth undid the dead man's belt and slipped it from his waist. There was a calm, unfeeling, way in which George stripped the dead man's body that spoke to his over familiarity to these situations, to the cheapness of life. Thomas felt his heart hurt at the lack of reverence and guerilla resourcefulness of the boy's treatment of the dead, knowing that he hadn't learned this from the warmth and safety of the last eight years of his life.

George got to his feet and trotted over to the open door that led to the servant's staircase of the castle's downstairs. "BAXTER!" the youth roared. "BAXTER, GET UP HERE!" His voice echoed thunderously, its force bull rushing downward with thudding slams through the hollow corridor below. When he was done, he rushed back over to Thomas, kneeling by the bleeding man. "Take your hand away!" he ordered again, bunching up the valet's shirt. The butler let out a pained grown when the young master lifted his bloody jacket and stuffed the wadded-up shirt against the wound underneath. Then, he took the belt and began looping it around the man's shoulder. Thomas immediately grasped George's shirt, balling it in his hand in extreme pain when the boy began tightening the belt, using it as a makeshift tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

"BAXTER! NOW!" George roared back down the open door.

Just as he finished the clacking sound of feminine shoes sprinted up the last of the steps. From the ascent of the stairs and through the door was a couple of figures. Mrs. Baxter's hair was waved, though with much more volume and curl to fit the latest fashion. She looked older than George remembered, but not enough to be considered an old woman, but enough to be described middle-aged. She wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses which she immediately took off in shock and fear at the sight of a wounded and profusely sweating Thomas. The butler was holding to the young master in pain as George secured the tourniquet by fastening the belt. Anna looked white as a sheet, having followed her colleague up, responding maternally to the distress in George's voice. The woman's hazel eyes were focused on the dead Mr. Solomon whose blank eyes stared to the ceiling, a terrible bullet hole right between them, the blood running down his face and staining his mustache.

"Baxter, get Thomas below …" The youth ordered. "Find some of Donk's Sherri in his suitcase. It's behind the lining under his underwear, he hides it there from Granny when they travel. Use it to clean the wound and bandage him up." The youth got to his feet.

"Yes, M'Lord … of course, M'Lord …" The woman looked frightened and terribly confused to see her old friend so mangled looking. She had also just noticed the dead body of a man she had known for over a decade.

"Come on … help me get him up." George rubbed her shoulder in passing comfort to get her attention back to what mattered as he bent down. "Watch his arm …" he warned as he grasped the butler's hand to help him up, meanwhile the head lady's maid wrapped an arm around the wounded man's waist. Together they pulled a weakened Thomas to his feet. Looping herself around, the older woman took all her friend's weight as she placed his uninjured arm around her shoulder, steadying him against her side with strong hands of a farmer's daughter. George and Anna watched as the woman and the wounded man maintained a fragile balance as they began to descend the stairs. But before they disappeared into the dimly lit corridor, Thomas turned.

"Master George …" the butler wheezed in pain. He saw that he wanted to tell him something but had caught himself. The youth knew it was a final plea, a prayer, that the young master rescue Marigold. But it never came, because, he knew, above all others, even Lady Edith, that George Crawley would not stop till the golden ballerina was safe. From the Bermuda Triangle, to Mount Everest, to all the Circles of Hell, he would chase her till she was back in his arms and safe.

"Don't let Ms. Marigold despair, it wasn't her fault, none of this was her fault." Thomas sputtered.

"I know …" the youth nodded. "You can tell her yourself when I get her back." He said confidently. It was enough, the stony quality of the young man's dauntless assuredness that he would rescue the girl took some of the weight off the butler's heart.

"Good luck, sir."

"Don't need it, Old Man."

"You never do …"

George gave a rough smirk as Mrs. Baxter, with a nod, began escorting Thomas, slowly, down the steps. The sound of their shuffling feet, and Thomas sliding unsurely, echoed. When they were gone, George turned to find that Anna was still transfixed on the dead valet. She was shaking, her breath coming out in shutters. The youth placed a steading hand on her silken skirt, and the woman, shakily, placed her hand on his that rested on her hip.

"Anna …" George took a step closer.

He didn't understand it. He damn well knew that this wasn't the first dead body that the woman had ever seen. Having lived with a death mark and Islamic 'Fatwa' on his head since the day he was born. George knew the ins and outs of the dead Pamuk story by heart. He knew that Anna had helped his mom and granny carry the piece of shit Ottoman across the gallery, back to the guest quarters. But he had guessed that carrying some dead, foreign, stranger across the house was different than seeing a man that she had known for eleven years laying on the floor, brutally murdered.

"Anna, look at me …" George cupped the cheek of a woman he thought and saw as close to family as one of his aunts. He turned her head till she looked him in the eyes. She quickly used her other hand to grasp his forearm in sudden desperation.

"They've got Ms. Marigold …" She reported, forgetting in her sudden fear of the random ambush of violence. As a mother of two children, she immediately put all those indelible instincts of pure love and protective nature into the feelings of fear. She was tormented by thought of someone else she knew would be murdered. All Anna kept thinking was that she had known Ms. Marigold all her life. She was a girl so pure, innocent, and kind, and she would be murdered before she knew the joys of love, her wedding day, and motherhood.

"Anna, look at me …" the teenager repeated, bowing her head closer to his. "I'm gonna get her back." He nodded. "I promise you, nothing is gonna happen to Marigold." He was the picture of stalwart in his promise. "But I need your help …" He nodded.

"Okay … Okay …" She breathed, nodding with him.

They broke apart, the lady's maid watching as the youth walked back to the dead valet. He knelt and removed something from underneath him. In his hand was Lord Grantham's gun that Thomas had given Mr. Solomon while he was attempting to lock the servant's passage. Stress poured over the woman's face, her hands bracing her hips at the appearance of the double barrel shotgun. The young master walked back to his mother's maid.

"I need you to go back downstairs …"

"No … I don't want that."

Anna …"

"No, Master George …!"

"Anna, Listen to me!" George snapped pulling her against him, holding the woman's outstretched arm as she tried to back away from him. "You are gonna take this shotgun, you're gonna go downstairs, you're gonna find Uncle Tom and give it to him! Tell him what's happened here, then tell him and Uncle Atticus to take the long way and meet me at the east rampart of the citadel at the tower ruins from the western side!" He held the gun out to Anna.

"That is not a request!" He gritted his teeth.

The woman stared at the gun and then the youth. There was a power, an authority, which George Crawley seemed to possess in times of great stress and danger which was hypnotizing. One had no basis to explain it to others, but to simply say that some people were born leaders. In desperate times they had that certain 'something' that shown like a beacon through the darkest moments. They were able to inspire others to the impossible, as they followed his lead to the very gates of Hell. It wasn't that Anna Bates found some secret auxiliary courage in her breast, as she simply did not have the strength in her to disobey the young man's command at such a crucial moment. He was, as it seemed to her, the only one who knew what to do, who had the answers at that very moment of fear and confusion.

"Yes, M'lord …" Anna complied shakily. She took the gun from George and held it in her hand meekly. She attempted to glance to the dead Mr. Solomon on the stone corridor's floor. But George stepped into her sightline.

"Think about him tomorrow, Anna … go!" He pointed down the hall where he had just come from.

"Sir …" She panted, taking two steps backward, cradling the weapon, before turning and running quickly down the passage, rounding the corner.

George lingered a bit longer, making sure that he knew that Anna hadn't faltered. When he was sure that she was gone, he turned to look at the dead valet. He let out a long sigh, his heart thumping through his chest. He took a moment to observe the body in a beat of clarity and mourned it for just a sparse second. It wasn't that George Crawley hadn't seen a dead body in a long time, but instead, he lamented the fact that he had seen far too many in the last month. Much more than there had ever been, or he could've imagined there ever being in Grantham County, in his own home. He had always seen Downton as insulated from the world, that everything that he had seen and done in eight years was a foreign product. But kneeling by the dead Mr. Solomon at his feet, closing his eyes with his two fingers, George was getting a brutal wake-up call ahead of all his family …

"It's happening again."

With the sentiment, the ringing, of Mr. Moorsum's final words to him after storming out of the board meeting of the electrical plant all those months past. George understood now what he had meant, the same thing that he had feared, talked himself into thinking that it wasn't a possibility here, of all places. But deep down he knew that not even Downton was immune from the dark desperations and evils of despair that was carried on the black winds of Depression. And now the one he loved most in the entire universe, in the very make-up of both Heaven and Hell, was the one paying for the mistakes that his Aunt had made …

And the ones he had made as well.

Getting to his feet, mind racing with all the consequences and guilt of the situation, the boy sprinted down a different passage, following the path in the complete opposite direction of where Marigold was led. He didn't stop till he reached a tapestry of medieval figures astride horse, hounds bounding at their feet, as they charged through a forest. Golden trumpets of mounted servants announcing the coming of the haloed hunters in the cloth mural. It was just outside the guest quarters, the upper chambers reserved for close and valued family. Quickly, George ducked underneath the large blanketing material. There he pressed a panel of the wall. Cold air rushed over him, cobwebs sticking to the material of the ancient tapestry. Suddenly the paneling of the wall turned into the entrance of a passageway. George grunted in annoyance, not remembering the secret passage being this small. But then everything seemed larger than life when you were eight years old. Also, more the pity, he learned rather quickly that they didn't quite make men as tall and broad as George when the castle was built.

The youth ducked low under the entrance and slipped through the stone path to reveal a long secret corridor that led to a stone stairway covered in dust and debris of long centuries of neglect. The narrow path was flanked by the stained-glass figures of maidens. George could never be sure if they were female saints or some ancient depiction of queens from some lost kingdom to time. He only knew, since he and Sybbie first discovered this door when they were young, that it was some secret passage meant for a woman of some kind. Whether she was some Saxon Princess, or perhaps a nun whose love was torn between the sin of human fallibility in the arms of some nameless lord and the great devotion to God's endless mercy. For a pause, the youth halted his audible clapping of echoing feet as he reached the long stone stairs. In the cornucopia of odd colors lit by the silvery moonlight through stain glass depictions of chivalric beauty he saw footprints through the dust. But, upon his further inspection they turned out to be that of a child. And he let out a scoff with a shake of his head as he stormed the ascent.

They had belonged to a familiar young boy who had infiltrated the heavily guarded castle many years ago to also rescue Marigold.

The walls of Brancaster Castle's citadel were slippery by the many centuries of erosion and elements of Northern English weather which smoothed the pocked and chipping stone of ancient masonry. The heavy swirling fog that touched the battlements obscured everything below the knees, making the footing treacherous, with no visible sign of when the high walls ended, and the abyss began. The obscurity was endless and drifting far afield as if conjured by the inexorable Queen Mab herself in this, her witching hour. Above the fallen clouds that crowned the green hill, at the top most walls of the ancient fortress, the glimmering light of all the night's jewels shined down. Fields of countless stars glinted like diamonds on a sable stained by milky sheen. The crescent moon of late autumn cast a waning blue light over the battlements. High above the scenery, the cold wind cut like a knife, whipping and slashing, crying like a banshee through the holes and crevasses of the ancient stained stone. In the dim azure light and strong winds, the rippling fog took to the likeness of the ocean. Their tops like wave foam and their body a clear blue, surging and breaking, carried on the tides of the western winds. The entire expanse seemed to look and certainly feel as if one was walking on top of a cloud, with all of heaven to bear witness with nothing else but the open sky above and in sight.

Here was the end, the last refuge of a desperate woman. She could no longer go back, nor ascend any higher than to the peaks of the towers. Shifting and echoing came their feet on stone, slipping and nearly falling on the slick moisture which gave no tread to old shoes and bare feet of a freezing teenage girl. They continued to back away, the woman's eyes darting, staring intently at the main door which they had come. She pointed her weapon that way, her feet ever shifting, stumbling backward, navigating through the cloud that had gathered at her feet. Her breath was visible and frothing thickly, tears streamed down her torn and bleeding cheeks. She was grievously frightened, her bloodshot eyes weary and consumed with a black despair. It seemed that she hadn't slept in days, and often she closed shut her eyes harshly, as if someone was pounding on the door of her mind. The voices of children and their laughter echoing from underneath, taunting her, punishing her.

"It's alright, Baby … it's alright, mummy's got you." She said hoarsely, seemingly lost in some other world.

She gently kissed Marigold on the temple, looking down to see sorrowful emerald eyes. It was not fear, it was not anger, nor hatred in them. Instead there was only pity and sadness in the beautiful ballerina's soul as she glanced up at her captor. The woman saw the single grieving tear on the girl's cheek. The older woman's blood smeared face fell and in it shown at great aging. The woe and harshness of her grief and madness sowed deep the lines on her face, her hair nearly white. It was wordless, the acknowledgement between the two that they both knew the circumstances. There was tenderness in the way she wiped away the girl's sympathetic tear. Then, gently, with a grunt, she swept the girl off her feet. Holding her tightly, the woman snuggled the girl's golden head to her breast as if she was a toddler again. She rocked her back and forth in her arms, her hand patting the girl's bottom in a maternal comfort as she nuzzled her pale face.

"It's going to be alright … It's all going to be fine, poppet." She whispered, nearly choking on a sob. "We're together again, I came back for you." She kissed Marigold on the cheek.

"End of the line …"

The woman whipped around quickly, crushing Marigold to her. She confronted a lone shadow that was leaning casually against the round tower on the ancient walls of the castle's final defense. George was unblinking, eyes hardened, and darkness in his words. His arms were folded, his weapon holstered, the boy's legs were crossed as he leaned his shoulder against the frigid stone covered in green moss and browning ivy. And yet, George seemed more perilous than if he was fully armed and harnessed for war. The woman quickly turned back to the double doors she had been watching, having expected the youth to come sprinting through them. But she was bewildered as to how, and by what road, he had come to beat her here. But when she looked down, she saw that the beauty in her grasp was not surprised at all that George had taken them unawares.

This place, affectionately known as "Dragon's Roost", had been named by the children of the House of Grantham many long years ago. In play, and certainly in imagination, this had been where the great and fabled Dragon "Alguzul" had made his lair and often took their treasures. He had been a terrible brigand and a blight on the land, party to all sorts of heinous crimes, such as the stealing of Ms. Marigold's most beloved dollies. The great wormed reptile was the original Teddy stealing fiend who had no respect or love for the things that were right. He was a monstrous creature that lived entirely on crab cakes and rice … as well as the livestock … because, unlike George, Sybbie rather liked crab cakes and rice, thus it was not wholly a 'villainous' food. Alguzul 'the great worm' had been slain many times by George and Sybbie, and even once or twice by their squire, Marigold. And on those days, there was a great celebration in which a feast was thrown. Then, all Marigold and Sybbie's dollies, as well as all three children's stuffed animals were invited to tea. Even among their parents, guardians, and downstairs, the news of Marigold's slaying of the Great Worm was cause for the breaking out of the special menus at dinner. While Robert and Mary had found it odd that they'd celebrate a fictional deed of children's fancy, Cora and Tom found it extremely charming and forced all to play along.

But even after all these years, and the dragon nothing but the past imaginations of innocent children, George Crawley had seldom forgotten the many ways to get to the dragon's roost. But this time, standing against another dark creature who had taken a great treasure, there was nothing innocent about the way that George beheld the woman in front of him. For the first time, he had come face to face with the desperate shell of nerves and delusions since he saw what she had done on this very evening. And he would be certain that long would it be, ere years and lifetimes, before he'd be able to unsee what she had done to those who loved her.

Fore in the first dark of evening, as the last light of the day was but a purple band on the horizon against the silhouette of Downton Abbey in the distance, George had been led to the foul deed. A crowd of villagers had gathered outside the quaint residence of the old cottage at the edge of town. Everyone was whispering among themselves, old women praying, and young mothers shaking their heads, some being filled with terror had fled the scene. But no one dared to enter the ivy-covered house with rose trellises flanking the red door to the charming home. The entrance had laid open were the sheriff had come in having been sought out to the reports of terrible screams coming from inside the residence. Once he had gone in, he had immediately gone out. Even then, George saw that the man hung back when they once more approached the cottage at the outskirts of the small town.

Yet, as long as George lived, he would never forget the sight he saw before him. Inside the home, within the kitchen, an older man with much white in his hair was on his knees by the table. He was dressed in jacket and still wore his hat, clearly having been gone and returned home … to this. In his arms was a small child, no older than four. Vomit ringed his mouth, blood ran down his nose, and his eyes were open and lifeless. The small boy lay limply in his grandfather's arms. Around him at the dinner table were more bodies. A boy of seventeen, his father's hair and his mother's face lay slumped over his place at the table, his face buried in his stew. A woman of twenty, with lush blonde hair, and pale face lay dead on the kitchen floor. Next to her a toddler girl, which looked just like her, lay awkwardly on top of her momma. The baby girl's blood and vomit staining the blonde woman's breasts where her head lay. A dark-haired man, of the same age as his wife, lay on the floor curled up with a pretty young woman. She had dark auburn hair of her mama and the lifeless eyes of her father. In despair, the dying older brother had spooned with his already dead little sister, his eyes staring fadingly at his dead wife and children. Next to them, a baby sat by his father and aunt's heads, playing with their hair, making little sounds, blissfully ignorant of the horrific scene he was among.

Why? That was what the man kept sobbing as he clutched his dead grandson. He looked up and saw George standing there, staring in dismay at the massacred family. But the man could only ask the young vigilante the same question, repeatedly. He couldn't understand why she would do this, how she could do this? They had families of their own, Maisie was getting married that month. Why would his wife do this to them? How could this have happened to the people he loved? Then, he grabbed the youth's jacket lapels from his knees and asked why, God, why was he still alive? His sobs were broken and unhinged as he cradled his dead grandson in his arms and fell. George watched, hearing the sheriff vomiting on the roses outside at the sight of it. But the youth could only place his hand on the man's head as he clutched the four-year-old in his arms. The baby pouted and began to cry when George lifted him up and paced outside the cottage. He seemed to be in a deep trance as he stepped into the evening, while the baby protested, still reaching out for his dead father and beloved aunt, annoyed that he had been taken from them. But the boy didn't seem to notice as he looked visibly shaken. A grief of great darkness overcame his heart.

It was, as if by instinct, he knew why this had happened and what had been its cause.

"You killed him …"

Margie Drewe said shakenly, madness and despair in her voice. "You killed … you killed Peter … my little Peter Rabbit … YOU KILLED MY BOY!" She screamed in a rage of the deepest sorrow that guts a soul and dissolves it into the wind.

"I did." George Crawley responded with back straight and shoulders back.

Like many other things in life, he refused to shirk the responsibility of what he had done.

His face implacable and made of stone. But ever a deeper guilt weld inside his heart. This was the first time in his life, after so many years, that he had seen the very consequence of his actions upon taking a life. The first-person George Crawley had ever killed, he would soon not forget, but in the end, he had done their family a favor. Long had they sought in vein to get rid of the perverted degenerate. And ever afterward George had killed many men and boys in struggle and battle. Cold and professional Pinkertons, and anonymous Klansmen in white hoods who wished not to be named. Mexican bandits which had long forsaken their homes in their desperate means of survival in the impoverished regions. Cultists in New Orleans which forsook their own names, much less parents and siblings, to render their service to the dark powers. But mostly they had been nameless, faceless, waifs like him. It was on many country roads that they had attacked in desperation, driven by hunger, thirst, or despair in the hopeless bleakness of the abyss in their grief and torment.

But now, in the blood shot eyes of a crazed mother, he stood before her accusations with nothing to shield his sin. With the heavens as witness and the world cold and quiet, he took upon himself the mantle of everything that Mrs. Drewe spoke with a fell penance. In her words and sunken face, he saw the extinguished light of divinity he had known for eight years in many a face. But this time it was not financial ruin, shortage of food, or the heavy burden of life. It was, because, George Crawley had forgotten. He had forgotten that the men that he killed, who he deemed from the beginning would not leave with their lives, were not strangers from distant lands and hamlets of far off back woods. He knew them, he knew their families, and he now stood to the guns of what his cold instincts had bought him and the one he loved most in "The Glory".

"Oh God, oh God, oh God …!" The woman repeated, slinking low over Marigold in her arms. She had the appearance of a much put-upon gangly creature who had suffered long in torment till woe was made enduring on her lined and fallen face. "My baby, my baby …" She sobbed in a whisper.

"I saw the house … what you did …" George interrupted her deathly grief. But when she looked up again there was nothing but hate in Margie's shadowed eyes.

"They were going to take them from me …" She took Marigold closer to her breast. "They, they wouldn't let me keep them, they'd take them from me, just like you did with my little rabbit, and the way you did with my little girl." She sobbed burying her face to Marigold's cheek. "I won't let you take any more of my children … they were mine! They needed me … they would've died without me!" She begged.

But to the very sight of a woman coming apart at the seams, Marigold shrank in fear, turning beggingly toward George. But the young man said nothing, did nothing. He alone was not the accused and accursed that Margie Drewe spoke of, but was only a part of a greater collective, committing the greater atrocities against her heart and soul. She named all the Crawley family, not just George, but Lord Grantham, Lady Grantham, Lady Painswick, and most of all Lady Hexham. They were all liars, murderers, and thieves. And it was George's understanding in that rant, at the death of Peter Drewe, a dark seedling planted on the day that Marigold became a ward of the House of Grantham and grown to full fruit.

Thus, it was in the designs of Margie Drewe, lost in despair, that her heart blackened. Thus, conceiving a plot to murder that who had committed the original sin against her family. The boy had left Downton that evening with the instinct that she'd come after Marigold, but now he was vindicated in knowing that Mrs. Drewe had always planned on murdering his Aunt Edith. It was the only thing she had thought of for years, and now she felt, with one more perceived slight of the arrogant Crawley family against her, that she'd do it. But in committing to such an act, she knew that she would never get away with it. Whether she was imprisoned, killed, or if she'd never let them have the chance at either, she would never see her children and grandchildren again. And in her madness and grief she could not bear to be parted with them all. And so, it was that she had made sure that no one could take them from her, not ever again. Now there was only one left, the very light that once filled the woman's heart, before she was supplanted by a seedling of great evil when the little angel was stolen from her.

Now, near full womanhood and in the morning tide of her full loveliness, Mrs. Drewe coveted Marigold at the last.

In a rash action, Margie had dropped the teenage girl's feet and once more revealed her husband's service revolver from the war. Growing up in the wild woodland glens of an obscure tenant farm of a Duke's estate that was divorced from its Duchess and her Boston fortune. The mismanagement of funds had left her and her two younger brothers hunting stag, rabbits, and wild boar to sustain their family. All the meanwhile the Duke broke up his ancient estate in lost land and prestige while amongst drunken card games. The years of stalking heather and moor had made the woman a crack shot with any fire arm that she had grasped. Only the most allusive adversary could escape her aim. And even with eyesight and heart faltering in the laborious years of her late middle-age, George Crawley's was not too small a target for Margie Drewe's focused hatred.

"Mummy!" Marigold mewled. "Mummy, please!" The girl was playing along, but the fear and alarm was real in sight of the gun, which had already killed Mr. Samson and wounded Thomas, being pointed at George.

But the young man didn't flinch, glaring deeply into the woman's eyes.

"It's alright my darling, darling, little girl." She kissed Marigold, nuzzling her nose with hers. "He won't take you from me. You don't have to worry about anything … he'll never have you." She repeated backing away a step or two.

"You're not taking her." George said stalwartly.

"You can't have her!" Margie shouted. "She's mine!" She sobbed. "She's MY BABY!" the woman roared. "She's my baby, my last baby … and she needs her mummy!" She shook her head, tears falling down her lined face, mixing with a stinging of salt water in her bloody gashed cheek.

"If you want to kill her, you're gonna have to go through me, first." The youth took a valiant step forward.

"George, no!"

"Don't think I'd only settle for that horrid bitch who took my Marigold … I'll send you to Hell same as, Boy!"

"Mummy … please, don't!"

"You got five seconds to pull that trigger, ya screwy bitch, then you're really gonna start pissing me off!"

All the weight and pain of the guilt, all the pity and remorse of mistakes made seemed to melt from the youth's heart like afternoon sun upon morning dew. All sympathy went away in a flash the moment Marigold's life was at stake. Then, a deep and cold cruelty welled within the young man. A wild malice took hold of him and he became belligerent and remorseless toward the woman. For the protection of his precious golden-haired ballerina's life, he'd not only cut down Mrs. Drewe, but do so without thought. He'd slay any for presuming, whether by sound mind or not, to lay hands on the girl he loved and claiming the right to murder her as one who was their own property. In his eyes the woman saw the change, the fey aggression in his steps and in his coarse words.

"This is for Peter!" She shouted at the youth in sudden fear of the elemental force within the perilous glare of his hardened cerulean eyes.

But to her cry, George only responded by arrogantly blowing out a puff from the corner of his mouth at her gun barrel.

CLICK!

Marigold screeched and turned away, covering her eyes and burying her face into the collarbone of the woman who held her to her breast. But when she heard the fall of the gun hammer, there was nothing but the metallic noise of the weapon firing dry. There was no shot, no chemical explosion, and no flash of powder. The girl looked up to see a dumb stricken look on Margie's face as she held the gun to George's heart. But when Marigold quickly jerked to look back at the boy she loved, she found only the ghost of a smug look on his face, his arms crossed with a look of ill-amusement.

"No … no …!"

Again, and again, Mrs. Drewe pulled the trigger of her husband's pistol. But nothing happened. Then it only occurred to her, while George had come to the confrontation with full knowledge, that she was out of ammo and that her weapon was completely empty. She then looked up and saw the dark and gravely deadly look in George Crawley's eyes as his fists began to ball, turning his tanned knuckles white in a building rage. She had lost all pity and sympathy in that moment. She had her say, and now it was time for justice to be done, for her to pay for what she had so completely failed to do.

And it was from somewhere in George Crawley's past that a demon was shown in his eyes in full might and hate. Then, it was not known what measure of dark designs were in George's heart. Nor how far his hate ran to conceive fully what cruelty had awaited Margie Drewe had he laid his hands on the woman who had massacred children, shot at his mother, shot his friend, and was attempting to murder the girl he loved. But it was not by his own foresight, but perhaps a power beyond sight and understanding which intervened on behalf of George's everlasting soul.

Fore at that moment the doors to the walls of the citadel were thrown open. From their swinging came Tom with a shotgun and Atticus trailing. But there came Sybbie and Lady Edith as well. A white fire burst forth in George, and he was filled with a desperate alarm at the sight of his Aunt Edith. Even as Sybbie forcefully tried to restrain her aunt back into the castle, the Marchioness made a grievous error. And it came in the form of a frightened cry aloud for her precious little girl which she saw was being held hostage. In that fury George sprang forward at Margie Drewe, just in time to take Marigold's outstretched hand to him. His action was born of the stricken madness in Mrs. Drewes eyes in the sound of the voice of Edith. And in the sight of the lovely middle daughter of the House of Grantham, Mrs. Drewe very soul was poisoned with the hottest and blackest soot of the very furnaces of Hell.

In that madness, she pulled Marigold to her and stepped off the wall, falling into fog, taking George with them.

"NO!"

The whole of the Crawley family stood silent in deep paralyzing shock, watching the three go over, disappearing into the rolling tides of midnight. Then, all at once, their family ran as quick as they could toward the round tower. Tom warned all of them to be careful, to take ahold of the tourist railing on the citadel walls as not to slip and to mark where the wall ended. It was too slow a path and progress for any of their liking, Sybbie most of all. The girl knew these walls better than anyone in their party. Tears streamed down her face as she cried for the two of her best and only friends in the entire universe. The girl didn't know what she'd do if worst was revealed to her. They were the people who she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with, grow old with, and love above all others. And she knew, even filled with a deep anger toward him, that if she looked below and found George dead, she'd not even hesitate to leap and take the spot by his side in death.

"AAAAAHHHH!"

They all paused in fear and confusion when they heard a primal cry of pain and strain that echoed into the clean glittering sable skies of night. It was long, loud, and tormented. But from their sight, in their slow progress toward the dragon's roost, they heard a hollow ring of aluminum. Then, with surprise, a hand shot up through the obscurity catching the rung of the guard railing of the citadel wall. The sight of it caused a fury of movement and determination by the Grantham family to get there with all possible speed.

Slowly coming into view, with great effort and pained strain, the one hand which held the railing was used to pull up the now visible figure of George Crawley. His face was red and shaking as he pulled himself up with one arm, the other was wrapped snuggly around Marigold's silken waist as the ballerina clung to the boy tightly. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her face buried into his cheek, and her eyes squinted shut. Swinging his legs, George's feet slipped, dangled, and then, with second effort, hooked tenuously on the loose stones of the back of the wall for footing. He used his leverage to finally push himself and Marigold under the railing. He wheezed in panting as he rolled them underneath the bar and back on top of the wall. With a growl of effort, the youth stopped when he felt them hit the retaining wall. Then, wearily, he lay on the flat of his back, panting, as Marigold trembled on top of him.

His arm shaking, he did not hesitate, even in the chorus of popping and snapping of the strained tendons in his shoulder, to wrap it around Marigold. Then, for the first time in so long, he was able to take the girl in his arms. All fear, anger, and sorrow had been forgotten for just a blessed spell. She fit perfectly against him, and a deep worth overcame him. He breathed harshly, burying his nose into her golden tresses and took a deep whiff of her perfume, becoming light headed, as one who took strong drink after years of prohibition. He knew, only then, after the mire of dark thoughts and fear, that the girl was back where she belonged, safe in his embrace in which nothing could harm her. A place which only his love and safety existed. It was then, coming out of his fog of relief and utter bliss that he realized that Marigold was weeping, clinging to him harder.

"It's alright, it's alright … I've got you." George said running his hand through her luxurious golden locks. But when the girl looked up, he did not see relief, nor fear … only a deep and everlasting anguish. Tears ran down her cheeks washing away Mrs. Drewe's blood as she loomed over him. Gently, she cupped his cheek. Then, after a long moment of torment, looking upon him so close to her, she leaned down and caught his lips.

The world went away, the fog cleared, and there was nothing. The wind had died down around them, the moon was hidden, and the stars became veiled. The world, the universe, and all of existence darkened. And as it seemed to George, all the light of heaven and earth came from Marigold. And through her he was filled to the brim of his soul with all the goodness and purity of the unspoiled world at its creation. Then, and only then, did George understand how long and hopeless his road had been without her, how empty his life was. Deep was the shadow over his heart and mind at their parting, and for a long time he lay slumped as one stricken dumb. Hidden in the obscurity of a world slowly returning, he stared at the light he saw within the girl that blinded him. But eventually he heard shuffling feet and voices calling to them ever closer.

Knowing of the shortness of time, the weeping girl leaned over the young man who had, but once more saved her life, and held herself to him. Tightly, desperately, she hoarded for every second they had left, clinging deathly to the last wisps of clouds which gave their dilapidated dream privacy from the cruelty of fate and doom which would separate them once more. Tears glistened from her emerald eyes. And in her sorrow and vulnerability, the young woman was made more beautiful in her frailties of humanity. Knowing how close the world was to separating them again, the girl leaned down, nuzzling the young man's ear and whispered to him with the most pained of broken hearts at the last.

"You should've let us fall …"

George immediately looked to the girl in surprise at her words. But just then hands reached through the fog and took a hold of her. But not before she met his gaze and nodded in conformation. It was not only of what she said, but what truth and regret was in her words. Of her secret torment, it was no less felt, or borne than George's. Then, in her, as she was helped to her feet by their family, he saw her desire to be free of the pain and anguish of a life without the man she loved by her side.

All her days, all her nights, everyone in her life talked of the future. Her life was made by grand designs and aspirations which would take her to all the peaks and valleys of those who had come before. And yet, those figures had not the touch of destiny that was hallowed in Marigold's feet. But to all the talks of future and life of greatness, she would've gladly given it up for death. She would stand on the banks of oblivion, forever, hand in hand with the man she loved. Fore there was no future worth having, not anymore, and her life would only be half as full and none the richer without George. Thus, was his very betrayal when he put all those empty tomorrows and strings of unworthy suitors ahead of the only union, the only place, in which they could've been together forever.

But George realized it too late and was left unable to respond when he saw his Aunt Edith crush the girl in silk nightgown in her arms. He watched as the girl's fey words in his ear went out with the tides of night as she snuggled deeply into her mama's arms. Sybbie joined the embrace as they all formed a protective bubble of hugs around the lovely and stressed girl. She shut her eyes, letting tears squeeze out as she nuzzled from face to face, drinking deeply from all their comfort and love.

Once more, it became crystal clear that George had lost Marigold, forever.

Sybbie was chief among those who clamored to hold the girl. Her memory of this place was ever living in the dark recesses of her unveiled mind. Fore it was here in which the carnal pleasures of adulthood were thrust upon her from the mouth and tongue of a woman she trusted. And in the aftermath of her confusion and shame, the incident was not addressed by her family. No one was truly able to explain or comfort her. Even her mama, who was also exposed as a young girl to deviance, was never forced into pleasure or pleasuring by her abuser, she only was made to watch as they pleasured themselves to her. But from the dawn of time, such lude acts had been endured by some young girls by vile men, and there was a method and ability by older women to explain and make safe young girls exposed to such evils. But no one knew what to tell Sybbie about how to deal with the deviance and perversion of another woman, a maternal older woman.

Such betrayals seemed almost impossible, unheard of by most. How would the girl ever feel safe, when she was so abused by the one person of gender and age that all of society said she was safest with? Thus, the Grantham family agreed to bury it, to never speak of it again. They'd coddle and wrap the girl up in a steel ring of endless and enduring love, shower her with all matters of fine and lavish material items till she forgot. But she never did. And over the long decay of years it warped and darkened her till she isolatied herself from the world and normalcy in the haunting of those nights. Long did the memories of the shame and pleasure ruin and corrupt the girl. Till she was a helpless prey to a crazed activist who loved her father and was hired as her governess, and a Nazi spymaster in disguise as a bright movie star engaged to her mama.

This place of Brancaster Castle tore the young beauty apart, and she feared being alone here, even for a second. Her mind haunted, not by the abuse she endured, but by the sights and sounds of the things those she loved most in the world suffered here. She feared the cries of mercy and repentance of a little girl being dragged down the hallways. She cowered at the long shadows of the brutal fighting between the silhouettes of Mirada Pelham and young George that was cast over the two half-naked little girls sobbing on the bathroom floor. She remembered how they cuddled together in fear for their best friend and this nightmare that they found themselves alone within.

Neither Mary, Tom, nor their Donk would do here. Sybbie, in the night, would lead Marigold to their room. Locking and bracing the door, they'd snuggle together. It seemed childish to observers who didn't know the suffering had here, but to those who understood they'd say nothing of it. Long then did Sybbie hold Marigold's hand as they lay face to face in bed, the girl kissing her cousin on the forehead and cheek, stroking her golden hair till she fell asleep in the safety of the love in the sad blue eyes of Sybbie.

Now, there was only a wild fear in the girl's eyes and heart at it nearly happening again. Someone had come and taken Marigold. Someone else had dragged her through these halls and wished to harm her. They had wanted to take the girl away from them, from Sybbie. And she cried bitterly at being locked away again, of not being able to help.

Last time, her sixth straight night of her "special kiss" was cut short by Marigold's entrance. Sybbie's face was hot with shame and embarrassment, not only at the sight of the strange action being seen out of private, but Marigold's reaction, which had been the same as George's. Then, Mirada had quickly sent the servants to get her back. But, then, turning, she found an overwhelming sense of shame in herself from the sight of a mostly naked Sybbie on the bed. Suddenly, ragefully, Mirada Pelham sprang and pinned down and began beating Sybbie cruelly on her bum, for no reason. She was vicious and horrible in rageful violence of a sobbing little girl, begging through screams of pain of what she had done wrong. But the woman didn't deem to give a reason for her inhuman cruelty. When the rage passed, she sat a long time only watched the crying little girl bury her face into the sheets, covering her red and bruised bum from anymore beating, still asking for her wrong. But when she was informed that they found Marigold, Mirada only turned to leave primly and emotionlessly.

Still sobbing, hobbling from the viciousness and bruising of her beating, Sybbie tried to chase the woman to stop her, but she locked the girl into the room. Surrounded by the smell of the vile night's deeds and the noises of Marigold's protests as they brought her to Mirada's room nearby, the girl screamed and banged on the door to no avail. Her worst nightmare was for what Mirada had been doing to her she would also do to Marigold as well. She fell to her knees sobbing, begging them not to hurt Marigold.

In that memory she beheld George darkly as he lay on the floor. He knew better. The young man knew that Sybbie had a right to know that Marigold was in trouble. George knew that Sybbie had been locked away the first time this happened, unable to help till it was too late and Marigold's mad punishment was to be carried out. In her was fury awakened by deep trauma at the knowledge that George had locked her in a room, same as she was before, unable to help nor save Marigold till it was too late. After being partners through too many dangers in their sleuthing adventures, he had deceived her, made her idle when their most precious shared treasure needed her most. For that, Sybbie would grudge and hate George forever. Wrathfully, Sybbie shoved her father's gun into Atticus's chest and took Marigold in her arms protectively, as if the world's most sacred comity. The young teenage girl purposefully bore away her little sister to be tended too. Her glare ever fixed upon the young man still on the ground till they disappeared. Behind, Edith and Atticus trailed, rushing to keep up with the teenage girl's pace.

When they were gone there was not a hand or comfort for the youth who lay on the floor. He did not grudge it as he got to his feet, arm dangling at his side in uselessness. Instead, he walked toward the edge of the abyss where he had fallen. In the turning of the hour he felt the wind shift. And from it, the haze turned eastward pushing it strongly, dispersing it upon the ground. There, for a moment, he saw through the blue hue to the shadowed citadel grounds.

Laying at the center of the cobble stone fairway of the otherwise green yard was the figure of Margie Drewe. Her limbs were twisted behind her and at odd angles as she lay motionless in a splattering of her own blood. It pooled on the ancient stone, growing an ever-expanding perimeter around her broken body. George stared down at the scene unblinkingly into the open and lifeless dark eyes of Mrs. Drewe which looked up to the sky. For a flash he could see it, could see the resemblance between her children and her, having now seen all four of them with the exact same expression of death upon them. But so often did the blows come, and so crowded together, that he only felt numb from the revelation.

"Mrs. Drewe?"

"Just missed her … punched a first-class ticket to Ground Town, was in the market for a reasonably priced dirt nap." George sniffed with a hard-boiled cynicism in his voice.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, a grateful one. He didn't turn to look at his Uncle Tom who had remained to attend to the hero of the hour. The Irishmen looked conflicted when he peered over the wall and saw the woman's body. Tom Branson felt a deep empathy for Mrs. Drewe in that hour, and quickly defused any grudge he might have borne against her. Yet, he couldn't stop himself from being relieved that she was gone. The ugly business between Edith and the Drewes, after so many years, was now at an end. And Tom felt guilty for feeling grateful for the threat to Marigold being over after twelve long years of walking on egg shells. But even then, he didn't think that anyone deserved what happened to Margie Drewe at the end of her life.

"How's the arm?" He asked.

"Had worse, riding the Rodeo in South Texas …" George replied absently.

He turned to George and looked at the young man who cradled his arm. Tom Branson loved his nephew as if he was his own son. And his devotion to the lad was enhanced by, what he would consider, the spitting image of Sybil in his face and spirit. The boy, in a different world, might have been exactly the son that Sybil would've bore to him. It was such a popular thought among so many of the family, so much so, that often Tom and Mary joked that, with Sybbie being much in mind with Mary, and George taking much after Sybil, that perhaps their babies were switched at birth. But for all of Tom's love and reverence for George, he often found himself tip-toeing around him. The boy, after all, had always guarded fiercely the permanently vacant spot of the role of his father. Robert had stopped trying, Henry was rejected a year into marriage, and Tom was mauled more than once for not 'staying the hell out of people's business' in trying to support Mary or Cora in the wrangling of the wildly independent rebel. As far as George was concerned, he had no father, and needed no father. Nor did Tom's closeness to Mary help his cause. George hardly trusted his uncle, never fully believing that he wasn't his mother's lackey who was intentionally sent to spy on him unintentionally.

"Cad a bhí sí tar éis?" Tom asked in Gaelic, wishing to keep whatever madness led Mrs. Drewe there that night private. Though, he couldn't be sure why, other than to show some respect toward the dead.

"Vengeance ar thoil Dé agus nádúr an duine le haghaidh grá agus fuath." George answered hauntedly.

"Did she get it?" Tom asked George in plain English at his rather profound answer to his question of Mrs. Drewe's intentions. George was quiet for a long time.

"Vengeance is a loan. Quick, expedient, fleeting, and you spend the rest of your life paying it off, leaving your children to cover the interest long after you're gone." With that George look off in ponder of his words in a deeper understanding and experience of the sentiment.

But then George sensed it, felt it, and heard it next to him after a long pause. It was the shutter, the shivered breath frothing in the boy's eye sight. His uncle had taken to looking over the railing. But in his exposure, he grew shaken and was not used to staring at dead bodies, at least not like this. Tom Branson was a good man, a virtuous man, and had little experience in violence. The worst thing he had ever done was be party to the burning down of an Anglo-Irish Manor House of Lady Mary's friend in his youth. The worst death he had ever seen had been his beloved wife's. He had never committed personal violence. Not being fit for military service, Tom had never killed anyone. Nor was he ever allowed into the surgical or trauma wings of the hospital while taking Sybil the things she needed when she was a War Nurse, thus missing the gruesomeness of the incoming wounded.

George had seen it, many times … too many times before. The first truly awful death that a person sees is the one they remember most. They transfix on it, unable to look away. It filled them with great terror that wells deep and unhinges the bolts of their hearts, or worse, their minds. The strain of the many thoughts and perceived truths of the fragileness of the mortal coils that keep them to ground, building in them a great and terrible anxiety that could cause permanent scars. And next to him, he heard the strained buckling of his Uncle Tom's heart and mind as he stared deeply at the broken body of Mrs. Drewe lying in the yard.

After a time, the young man placed a hand on his uncle's shoulder. Shakenly, the man quickly darted his eyes away from the mangled corpse and toward the youth. George said nothing, he only nodded at him in assurance that it was fine. He insisted, wordlessly, that the man take his leave, to go back down the stairs, back to the dining room where the rest of their family was gathered. He could tell them that it was over, that they could come out. It was a meaningless task, but gladly taken by the broad-shouldered Irishman. He lingered longer, not wanting to leave the taller of the two alone with the same sight that had stolen the heart from him. But he saw, with a deep sorrow, that George was completely unaffected by the sight of the gruesome vison before him. Thus, then, he knew, absolutely, that the young man had gotten used to these horrors, and much like his injury …

He had seen worse.

But when Tom was gone, George looked down again, to say some final words over the woman. But he found the body was covered by a shrowd of blue mist that passed over like flowing water of the sea. His heart was heavy in the silence of the still night and the sound of wind through stone. In the starlight he felt all the stress and fear crowd him and finally overwhelm him. He let out a shaken breath of his own. His mind filled with the snap shots of the dead Drewe family, especially the small children. In his mind he heard Mr. Drewe's cries of anguish in the bitter disappointment of still being alive when everything else had been taken from him.

But when the mist thinned over the body, his face suddenly fell, and his heart was dismayed. Through the obscurity, a young girl of eleven years of age lay in place of Margie Drewe. She had lily white skin, and rich dark hair in perfect drop curls. She wore a loose white dress, and a black choker about her pale neck. She was a beauty worthy of portrait, her charm and looks was of an old-world glamour of American Southern Society. The young southern belle lay flat on the ground, her dark eyes cast up sightlessly, peering at George. Blood ran thickly from her belly, her pale hand covering the gunshot wound. And ever in her arm was a beautiful dolly of a fine and fashionable Lady of the old world.

At the appearance of the girl, a great wave of guilt overwhelmed him. He felt the high beams of spotlight fall on him in sight of her dead eyes which looked right through him. There was a frigid half-breath that left his throat in fright. It had been a long, long, time since he had seen her lovely face, thought of the silky curls, and the easy smile that had just the twinge of sadness for the woes of everyone in the world but her own. Even in view of her, George still couldn't bare to speak her name aloud. Instead, he quickly shut his eyes to the girl, covering his forehead with a palm, bracing himself against the guard rail.

It was the same feelings, the old wounds given freshly again. It was the same as it had been that one awful autumn night in New Orleans. He saw flashes of the massacred painted ladies of the French Quarter, the blood bath painted on their fine papered walls running together with the sight of the murdered Drewe family around their kitchen table. The feelings of confusion and anger turning to split second violence inside him which had long and far reaching consequences. An action fueled by the horrible sight which had come upon him, both in the stilted house of a Traiteur in the bayou, and the Stone Barn at the edge of the Grantham Estate. The mistakes of the past which he had spent much of his young life trying to forget was a demonic poltergeist which now dogged his very everlasting soul in his moment of doubt.

And all his mistakes today, last week, and beyond was manifested in the single terrible image of the worst folly of the doom set upon George Crawley. Fore, he, in a split second of terrible wrath and fear, committed the gravest error or, perhaps, the cruelest mercy that anyone could. Yet, whether by mistake or deliverance, it was an action that a boy, so young, should never have had to take. But still it remained, after so many years, that the greatest torment of all was the unknowing of which it was he had committed that night …

Error or mercy.

But, finally, when the boy drew all the strength left to him, he opened his eyes. And it grieved him so to find comfort in the dead gaze of Mrs. Drewe once more. He marked it as a larger sign of how lost he had become, in which he rated the comfort level of the corpses of those he had laid dead haunted him less. He let out a long and frothing sigh, finding himself alone in the cold clear night above. There he felt the bitter cold of the scars of exile and the phantasmal hand of isolation in this land of familiar faces that he no longer knew. Then, he knew in his heart, finally, that he no longer belonged here. That whether by his presence or not, the ills of Depression would find even Grantham County. But he knew that him being here, amongst these phantoms of what was and never would be again, had not helped anyone. In fact, he felt, rather, that he was only making things worse. Worst yet, his actions alone were putting the people he loved most in danger from the fallout damage of his own follies. Thus, it came into his mind and heart, remembering clearly the look on Sybbie's face and hearing the fey words of Marigold whispered in his ear, that it was soon time to depart these lands.

And perhaps never return.

With a shutter against the weather and look down at Margie Drewe's body for the last, the boy backed away from the railing. There was a grim look to his surroundings of the old fortress. He let the view sink in, the stained stones imprint into some fragment of his memory. This was be the last time that George Crawley would ever set foot in Brancaster Castle. And as such his gaze lingered long on 'Dragon's Roost', and his fond memories of the many hours of quests and duels had here of child's contentment, before all the innocence and joy was stolen from them by the very dwelling which had given it to them. With one last frothing breath, George spat upon the battlements and left Brancaster Castle forever.

"Fuck this place …"

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Author's Notes

Yeah, so if you want to know why I didn't post this last week, the same day as the teaser trailer drop … I needed another week to sit on this one and ponder if I should even post it. This is the peak of how dark I'll ever take anything I write for this fandom. I felt it necessary in order to give all three kids an origin point for their major issues, and how childhood scars manifest into young adulthood.

I'm dropping this a day early, because, it's my birthday today and it's kinda a tradition that I post something on my birthday to mark it. Also, because my battery and charging cord for my laptop is almost dead and I won't be getting any replacements till after Christmas, this will be the last time I post till probably after New Years …

So, yeah, let me take the time, in this chapter of all chapters, to wish everyone a Merry Christmas …

Umm … one more thing. I love reviews, I really do, I want all the reviews, please, review. That said, guys, if you're gonna review please read the story a bit more carefully. I like reviews, I want more people to review and discover the story. I want new readers … and, like most people, new readers check reviews … so when they read in a review that George beat up Carson … that's gonna turn off new readers. Guys, that was Mirada's butler that George kicked the ass of.

In no universe of mine or the show would George Crawley ever beat up a member of the Crawley's senior staff, they're his family, even Carson.

I also don't hate Mary, I like her quite a bit. However, I write her character as is. I call it the "Cersei rule" from my Game of Thrones stories. I love Cersei Lannister, but I don't tone down her cold awfulness, because, I like her. It's the same with Mary Crawley. I base my Mary on the tons of times I've rewatched Downton over the years, and the many interviews about Mary that Michelle Dockery has given, discussing her character in-depth.

So, please, just read the story a bit closer in the future, I really don't want to be known as "That Mutherfucka who hates Carson and Mary" … cause I don't. But don't let that deter you from reviewing, I really love reading you guys thoughts and I take them seriously. I mean it, I'm in a pretty bad place, and it really does lighten the mood and burden.

Well any way, Merry Christmas and Happy New Years …