祸起萧墙 不忍看 "Trouble arise within family; one could simply not bear to witness"
At first, Tessa thought it was her insomnia that kept toss and turning. She was drifting between consciousness and the land of Morpheus. But the muffled noises suddenly let out a sharp shriek, and she jumped out of the grogginess and out of her bed. My children! She screamed in her head.
With no time to lose, she slipped into her slippers and housecoat, and ran to the next door. On the children's bedroom floor, she found their handmaid Lottie, her eyes already glazed over. Tessa swallowed a scream, but knelt down and took a hairpin from Lottie's bun, and reached out to the light. She skimmed over Lottie's memory as fast as she could, and there! She found her last memory, and there was a hooded figure who lashed out on her, discombobulated her, and while she was down, tied up the weak children, then with a quick slash, ended the still-down Lottie.
Baffled by her death, Tessa stumbled out into the corridor, hoping to still able to catch them even with the small delay. She stopped in her track, listening closely to the small covered up voices, ran towards the sound, and repeat; she thought she ran in the dark corridor for ages, and when she started to get hopeless, she realized that they were heading towards the main entrance, where it is getting brighter.
Tessa stagger into the open, where she yelled at the shadow in the distance, "STOP! PLEASE! Give me back my children!"
To her surprise, the figure stopped, and turned around, with her children in his arm, wriggling in vain. She dashed towards them, heart pumping as hard it can without popping out.
"Charlotte! William!" she cried out for an answer, with only incoherent muffles as answers.
As if on cue, the children were somehow knocked unconscious in the tall figure's arms. Tessa screamed in pain. She was close enough by then, thus she delivered the hardest punch she could manage.
"Don't you dare touch my children!" she growled.
"Funny, because they are mine too," chuckled the figure.
Will! But… how? Why? They were his children, too. How could he stand to hurt them?
Will revealed himself, pushing away the black hood. Everything looked in order, his face, his muscular body… Except his eyes, which were burning feverishly, like a plague patient dying deliriously.
"Will! Wha…what's going on? Why did you take the children?" Tessa tried her best to keep her voice level.
"Isn't it simple? Isn't it as plain as day?" Will snarled hysterically.
"What? Will, my love, what? Please tell me what is happening? What do you need?"
"We need to bring Jem back! You have the ability to bring back the dead! Should we not utilise that ability to bring back what is dearly missed in our lives?"
And with that bombshell, Tessa had the unfortunate epiphany of Will mad plan. He planned to make her transform her into Jem, and let him takeover her body for as long as her body is disposable.
"Well, you'll have to get over my dead body before leaving my children motherless."
"But why? I don't intend on harming you at all? Jem and I would never want that. After all, you are the mother of our children."
Jem and I? With more incoming information, Tessa was feeling bombarded. What? How can the dead have wants and desires?
Then, from her peripheral vision, an uncanny humanoid looking shadows slowly transformed… into… Jem? But not to his completely likeliness, since Jem never looked sinister or smirked lopsided.
"Jem!" Tessa cried out. It was Jem, regardless of his disturbing appearance, and his ghostly body was like his image bleached by moonlight. It was her betrothed, the one who loved her so dearly with his life.
"Jem, how I have missed you so. Why? Why have you came back without finding me? Did you know about our child?" Tessa could not help but blurted out everything that had been haunting her mind since Jem's departure.
"Our child? Then what about the male one? He is obviously Will's child. If our child is the same age as the other one, you must have been having an affair with Will while we were engaged. You have been a dirty traitor, you shameless backstabber."
To her dismay, Will simply nodded in agreement with ghost Jem.
"But I thought… I thought you knew… at the end, you held Will and my hand."
There was a flash of kindness and remorse on Jem face, Tessa thought, are maybe it was just a trick of the light, because as fast it came, it went just as swiftly.
Then, as if a judge giving his verdict, Jem commanded. "Let us not waste time. Will, take her."
