Part Seven

Edward rushes out of the bathroom and makes his way out through her front door so fast she can't even catch him.

"Edward!"

Isabella feels terrible. She had been waiting for him outside the bathroom door, planning to talk with him about what had just happened, but before she even knew it he was just . . . gone.

She tries to tell herself that he just needs some time.

. . . But it doesn't take long before she starts to worry. She doesn't think he should be processing what she knows just happened in there – being tormented by his mind's version of Kristen – all by himself. That's why she had come down from heaven in the first place. She was supposed to be helping him work through all of this.

His phone doesn't pick up. Again. "Edward, it's Isabella. Please call me. I'd like to speak to you before I leave for the conference. I'm worried about you."

Isabella still hadn't heard from him by the time she settled in to read more of the Van Dahl family history. She doesn't need to leave for quite a few hours, but she's already dressed and packed for her trip. She believes in being prepared.

She had already read enough of this particular volume – and the others she had brought with her – to be comfortable discussing those antiquarian books at her panel tomorrow – but she hadn't read enough to satisfy her curiosity. There's still more in here to be discovered . . . she just knows it.

It will be a good way to occupy herself– to lessen the focus of her worry over Edward's fragile state of mind. She knows that if she allows herself to think too much about that it will only end up crushing her heart.

She finds the page that contains the lengthy arrest record of Eric Van Dahl – Elijah's father, Oswald's grandfather. He had been arrested many times, but nothing had stuck. The Van Dahl family had influence. She runs her finger down the page. Assault, assault, murder, manslaughter, rape, assault, assault, rape . . .

He sounded like a monster.

She wonders what finally did him in and if justice had been served on Earth. She finds the record. Suicide.

Hmmm.

Poor Elijah had been there.

But Oswald's father had no arrest record. Isabella surmises that Elijah had likely been a good man because he hadn't seemed to pick up any of his father's criminal tendencies despite them having had to affect his life. But then, she begins to wonder if Oswald hadn't inherited some of his grandfather's darkness. She knows his hands aren't clean.

As she looks through the marriage records, Isabella isn't surprised to find that Eric Van Dahl had been married to a Kapelput. Maria Kapelput had been born and raised in Hungary before coming overseas to be his bride. But what she does find interesting is that her sister, Miranda had been the accuser in two of her husband's rape arrests.

And Miranda had never lived in Gotham. She had been a citizen of Hungary.

"How awful," Isabella whispers to herself. Miranda must have been attacked by her sister's husband when she had just been visiting and gotten more than she bargained for. One of those arrests had been made shortly after Eric's marriage to Maria. The other sixteen years later.

She finds a picture of the sisters taken the year before Maria had married Eric. In it, they both have beautiful waves of light curly hair and knowing smiles. But one of them looks more impish than the other as they stand there in identical outfits, arms about each other's waists. They are twins. And once again, that's something that Isabella finds unexpected – and it nags at her.

What is it about this family? There's a secret here.

And then she finds another picture of them . . .

Elijah stands proudly beside his mother and his aunt. He makes quite the dapper young man. Isabella doesn't know which sister is which, but she can take a guess. The one that previously had an impish look in her eyes – in her girlhood photo – now stands there vacantly. It's as if her life is already over. That must be Miranda. Why had she ever come back to the Van Dahl estate, the house of horrors that she had been assaulted in all those many years ago?

Isabella finds Miranda's death record. She had died that very year under mysterious circumstances, back in Hungary. Hmmm… could it also have been suicide?

Isabella flips back to the picture of Elijah with the sisters and notices something . . .

There's a young lady in the background. She's standing just outside the kitchen and she's wearing a servant's uniform. She bears a striking resemblance to the twins. In fact, her long hair is exactly the same as theirs, comprised of loose, soft, light curls. And she's sporting the same impish grin that Miranda is now missing.

"Oh my . . . ." Isabella breathes. "That's Gertrud. It has to be."

Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door.

Edward.

"Mayor Cobblepot?"

It wasn't Edward.

As Isabella lets him in she thinks how odd it is that she had just uncovered something about his family and now here he is on her doorstep. Serendipity? Or something else?

Oswald blusters in and gets to the point. "How shall I put this . . . ? It's over."

"Excuse me?"

"He's not going to see you anymore. Do not try to contact him. That door is closed. Have a nice life."

The words . . . his words . . . are like daggers.

What is happening?

Isabella clutches at her stomach, struggling for breath as tears prick her eyes. Can heartache really be this physically painful?

"Oh my," she says and has to take a seat as she tries to process the unfathomable. Losing Edward.

"That door is closed," Oswald had said.

But why?

"It is a shock," Edward's friend agrees as he watches her collapse.

He rattles off a few things that she and Edward have in common, but then proceeds to tell her why they of are no value in this situation.

"Edward is person of exceptional intelligence and imagination. He deserves to be appreciated by someone on his own level. And you, my dear, are simply not." He looks down at her condescendingly. "Best to end things now."

"You're right," Isabella says. "I don't deserve him."

"Glad we agree," says Oswald. "Bye."

"But I'm not going to let him go." Isabella stands up – she has more to say before he leaves. Love conquers all. She has absolute faith in that. She tells Oswald, "He loves me. And I love him. Do you know how rare that is, Mr. Mayor?"

Then she sees it. . . In his uptight, almost frozen posture. Her mouth parts slightly as she recalls how he's been defensive with her ever since the first time they met, despite whatever veneer he's tried to use to hide it. But now she knows his heart. He loves Edward too!

She feels a sympathy for him. And not a whit of jealousy. She understands . . .

And she suddenly understands something else, too.

She tells Oswald, "It was my glasses this morning. They reminded him of Miss Kringle. He's afraid he's going to hurt me like he hurt her."

This is all coming from a place of love. This is how Edward's been processing what happened that morning - he doesn't really want to leave her after all. But Oswald is insistent that they break it off, even calling her an idiot in an attempt to drive home the point.

But no, she's not going to let Edward go that easily.

She tells him, "He has nothing to fear. I'm not going to let him go."

"Very well. Don't say I didn't warn you."

He leaves.