Author's Note:
On the off chance that anyone actually reads this story...
The original chapter four was somehow accidentally saved over during one of my old revisions, and I only just recently noticed while transposing these stories over to another site. The later chapters have all been edited to fix that error, but the problem here is that the original chapter four is now missing. I don't have it here on the site and I've lost my old hard copy, since this story was written so long ago. I am in the process of trying to re-write a new version of the chapter (piecing what actually happens together from the other chapters since I don't remember most of it) but that might take a while. Until then, here's the important bullet points needed to understand the rest of the story.
- Cavaldi leaves Marbaden after seeing that Wilhelm is awake and relatively healthy. Jakob accompanies him to the edge of town, leaving Wilhelm home with Angelika and Aurora.
- Wilhelm falls asleep.
- Lorita comes by the house, looking for Jakob because she wants to hear stories about what happened in the Forest.
- On her arrival, it's discovered that Lorita and Angelika are old school mates from the school Angelika and her sister's attended until their father's death.
- Lorita comes in to wait for Jakob's return while Angelika slips into the next room to feed Aurora.
- While Angelika is in the other room, Lorita finds herself examining Wilhelm, who is still asleep. She grudgingly admits that she finds him attractive, and is curious about a necklace he wears - a thin golden chain bearing a locket and a child-size ring.
- Wilhelm begins to suffer from a severe nightmare. In his sleep he begins clawing at his chest, attempting to remove the queen's stake from his heart, and scratches furrows into his skin.
- Lorita tries to rouse him gently, only to have him suddenly wake in a panic and fall out of the bed on top of her. They scramble away from each other.
- Wilhelm makes a waspish comment about Lorita helping him, and she replies that she still has a conscience and couldn't leave him to suffer. She also smugly points out that this makes her the better person, because she didn't let her personal dislike of him stop her from being a good person. She takes a seat at the table and leaves him to ponder this.
- End Chapter.
I will hopefully have a newly rewritten chapter up soon, but I hope this helps until then.
... Annie