Sorry about the long wait, I've had a hard time adjusting to school... I swear the teachers plan to have all their tests on the same day! So now I think we can all assume where this story is going...
"Oh, oh! This is horrible! Horrendous! This is a scandal! A down right calamity!" The Viscount Druitt threw himself out of the door to the room Ciel's body, and the Undertaker were in, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
The Viscount was a magnet for scandal. Elizabeth had a very low image of him. He was a molester and a rapist. He sold people on the black market. People! And he consorted in the black arts, as rumour had it. He was now in his sixties and still thought he was twenty. He tried to seduce young women. Not even young women, they were girls. Girls who hadn't even hit puberty yet. No, Elizabeth wanted nothing to do with him. She wished that he would just hurry up and die already, put everyone else out of their misery. Why he dared come to Ciel's wake, Elizabeth had no idea. He even had the audacity to wear white. To a wake! Not to mention that his clothes were not flattering his pot-bellied figure. Elizabeth loathed the man. Maybe even more than Lau and Ranmao.
"It's ghastly! Repulsive! Hideous! Shocking!" The Viscount continued, throwing his body around in ways he probably thought attractive, but was actually everything he described.
"Okay, Druitt, we know you have a way with words, so get on with it!" one of Ciel's business partners shouted at him. He was from Korea. Elizabeth tried to hide her amusement.
"Fine!" he said indignantly, "The Earl Phantomhive, friend and family to us all, has the mark of a demon upon him!"
Elizabeth couldn't even register what he had said.
"What is this nonsense?" Elizabeth bellowed, ignoring the image of a proper woman she was supposed to have on.
"It is true! I have seen it with my own eyes! The mark of the devil on the Earl's left eye! He has concealed it all these years with his eye-patch!" Druitt cried. He had everyone's attention. This was what he wanted. There were murmurs among the gathering, and a lady or two fainted.
"Show us!" Lau cried, and all of the people gathered in the great hall followed the Viscount to the room Ciel's body was in. The Undertaker was overwhelmed with the sudden crowd, and was unable to hide the mark of Sebastian. Ciel laid in the casket, dressed in the beautiful blue that Elizabeth had learned to love for so many years. And they saw it. They all saw it. Every last one of them.
Ciel's demon-marked eye. Even in death he held the mark Sebastian left on him. Elizabeth gasped, and felt faint. How could Ciel have the mark of the devil on him? Elizabeth knew Ciel. She'd married him for God's sake! There was no way he could have contracted with the black man.
"The Earl must have been a witch!" the Viscount announced over the murmuring crowd. A ripple ran through the crowd. A witch? The Earl Phantomhive was a witch?
"He was no witch!" Elizabeth screamed, as tears came to her eyes. She would never let them run her husband's name through the mud. She loved him, even in death. He was honourable! How could they accuse him of witchcraft just hours after his death? Had they no respect? Did they even know him?
"Oh no?" Lau asked, putting a sleeve-covered hand to his mouth in mock surprise. That sleazy bastard was trying to ruin Ciel's name as well! Elizabeth's hatred for Lau grew exponentially in just moments.
"Lau! You know as well as I do that Ciel could never sign his name in the devil's book! You knew him, Lau! You knew him!" Elizabeth pleaded.
"I knew him, yes, Lady Elizabeth. But did you?" Lau smirked at her, and she felt the room grow cold.
"Elizabeth is right!" Prince Soma screamed, his face a mask of anger, "There is no way that Ciel could contract a demon! You all just want to ruin his good name! You bastards!" Soma's face was running with tears, and he stomped his foot like a child throwing a tantrum. Elizabeth's heart grieved for this friend of her's.
"No one stands up for witches, save other witches!" Druitt yelled, and the gathering turned on her. They glared at her.
"The Lady Phantomhive, a witch?"
"Prince Soma? No way!"
"She's a witch!"
"Burn them!"
"We must burn them at the stake!" Druitt yelled, happy to once again have the attention of everyone around him. The Viscount would do anything for attention, even accuse a high-standing lady of witchery. And Elizabeth had no proof in her defence. Neither did Soma, who again made Elizabeth's heart grieve. How could anyone deny being a witch? It was impossible! Just look at the Salem Witch Trials! Upstanding citizens were accused and executed.
"Neither of them are witches. They only wish for you to not blacken their good friend's name," Agni said, trying to calm down the group. "I mean really, Lady Elizabeth just lost her dear husband. And I'm sure that there is a reasonable explanation as to why our dear friend the Lord Phantomhive has such a mark upon him," Elizabeth assumed that normally Agni's logic would have soothed the crowd. Unfortunately, it didn't.
"You can't trust an Indian! They do not fear God! They wallow in their own filth and sin! We must burn the lot of them!" Druitt screamed, pointing at the three of them. "BURN THEM ALL!"