[Disclaimer: Anything JK Rowling created, I don't own.]
Author's Note
Yes, I'm finally getting back to On A Crooked Path, felt the need to fix up some things in the last…oh, six chapters. So basically everything I didn't like anymore got axed and the stuff I did like was shuffled into one chapter. I did add some things to that – the last scene, for example, and about two sentences in a previous scene.
Gyah. I've had writer's block on this stupid story for so long I just got completely lost…add to that the fact I can't entirely remember where I intended to go with it in the first place…
But, there is hope yet. I have a plot! (Bits of one, anyway).
Wondering what the deal is with Lacrimosa back in chapter seven? Most people who've roleplayed with me will know, but for the rest of you, you'll just have to wait and see.
On A Crooked Path
Chapter Eight: Private Demons
By Adele Elisabeth
Hugh had a bad feeling about all of this. A very, very bad feeling.
There was a new grave next to William's, when he went back for a second visit, proclaiming Jean Everly recently dead. There was something terribly familiar about that name…god, who was he? He was sure he'd known him, or known of him, or maybe Will—
Oh.
The summer before their sixth year, Hugh had gone with William to William's family's summerhouse in France. There, William had introduced him to his closest friend – Jean Everly.
Well, that explained who that was. Why he was so familiar. What it didn't explain was the horrible feeling he got when he looked at that marble gravestone. Or why Everly was buried here in England, instead of at home…
He remembered how Lucia had complained about her sister making a new friend – Cassandra something – who was altogether too much like said sister for Lucia's comfort…thinking about Lucia ached these days. He still couldn't believe she was dead, but he'd attended the funeral. He'd seen the casket lowered into the ground and covered over and he'd touched the gravestone.
Only two of the Montaques he'd known were left now – Morganna and Lacrimosa. He'd known them both, of course. Anna had been a sweet little thing that Lucia had introduced him to, the summer before her sixth year (Anna's, not Lucia's). He'd met Lucia through her mother, and it had turned out they moved in much the same circles. Lucia had been a very precocious girl. She'd been dragging her younger sister about with her, and Hugh had found himself befriending the much quieter Montaque sister. As for Lacrimosa, eldest of the Montaque girls…
'Vicious bitch' didn't quite do justice to what Hugh thought of that particular woman. Only…
He frowned. He remembered Lucia mentioning something about Lacrimosa and that Everly fellow…what was it?
Damn. This was going to bother him all day, now.
The house-elves had fled when Lacrimosa started smashing things.
Now, some hours (and several bottles of wine) later, she half-sat, half-fell onto the absurd bean-bag that Lucia had bought—
Lucia.
Christ. Lucia, Gerad…her own family.
She'd killed them.
Why should it bother her, she wondered, almost challengingly. They'd stood in her way. In her Lord's way. She got them out of the way.
…just like Cassandra got Jean out of the way…
Lacrimosa tried not to think about that as she swore, feeling where she'd stood on a broken vase, the blood reminding her that she, at least, was still alive.
She'll burn, my love, she promised in the silence of her mind. She'll burn for what she did to you…to us…
So she healed her numerous cuts and tried hard not to remember wide, dark eyes full of accusation and hate. Eyes that looked upon her as if she were Satan himself.
Tried not to remember how it had hurt.
Helena-Marie Everly,
Twelve years ago you trusted me when he couldn't.
Now I ask you to do this again. I know I have no right to, not anymore, not after what I have done. I won't be surprised if you burn this letter without reading it. I would.
He died for her, and I won't let you waste that. I can and will do what your conscience and your laws will never allow. I will do this with or without your blessing. I merely felt that you deserved knowledge of my intentions.
There was no signature, but none was needed. She knew who wrote that, and she knew what it meant. She had been afraid of this ever since they found Helena staring in horror at her father's body, Helena who had been in that blood-soaked and sound-proofed room, screaming, for hours before they realized what had happened.
"My darling girl," she whispered, folding the letter in two and casting it into the fire. "What have you become?"
Her son had always told her to stop asking questions she knew the answers to.