The commotion had died down somewhat in the late evening.
Taryn had gone back to her room, sitting along the windowsill in silence. She did this to avoid being talked to about what happened, from the workers’ whispers—an all too familiar thing like with her brother’s death three months prior.
Rachael paused in her sketching; the only thing she could think to calm herself down as she glanced at her friend. Not a word had been uttered since they returned. Taryn didn’t even acknowledge anyone as she walked by the staff. Not even Toya.
The only one she had was with Shoko, for what she had said.
“It’s not surprising. You, Westerners, are all the same. You think you have the right to do whatever you want. It’s no wonder the idiot died—” Her words stopped short when she realized that Taryn was now staring at her, Shoko’s smirk vanished into dread. Taryn merely stared at the woman, her blue eyes hyper-focused with such hatred that made the Japanese woman back several steps away as Taryn continued to stare her down. Shoko flinched when Taryn spoke in Japanese, possibly thinking it to be a verbal threat only the opposite of a calm, composed voice.
“Just leave me alone…”
No one bothered with them since.
Rachael glanced at her phone. It’s been three hours. She thought as she looked back over to Taryn. She hadn’t moved an inch since they returned.
While outside the mansion grounds, they had tried countless times to get a hold of their families and loved ones but to no avail. It was like they were stuck in another era with no means of communicating with the outside world beyond where they stood.
Every time Taryn tried, Rachael could see her anger mount, that same cold, calculating anger that she held back during the trial, back when she first cut her hair.
Of wanting blood for blood and was a hair’s breadth from doing so.
Seeing that scared Rachael a little if she was honest. But then who wouldn’t be angry after hearing that? The woman must have had something wrong with her if she was willing to antagonize Taryn after what happened.
A knock came on the door drawing Rachael’s attention away and answered it. It was Toya. “I know the two of you aren’t hungry, but you both should at least try to eat.” He says as he hands her the tray of food for the two of them. His green eyes glanced at Taryn; a look of concern remained on his features. “How is she?”
“Angry,” Rachael said simply. “Anyone would be after finding their friend murdered like that. Add on top that she’s just pissed off at the police for how things were handled.”
“Because an officer wouldn’t let her leave.” He then looked to Rachael. “You said they were friends. I thought they hated each other.”
“Well, they did, but they must have made up at some point. I don’t think Taryn held any resentment toward him, given the complex nature of their relationship. Even if she did hate him, it would never warrant someone’s death. She won’t even talk about what she saw.”
Toya’s gaze shifted back to Taryn. “Was she like this three months ago as well? When her brother died?”
Rachael paused, grey eyes looking over his face. What was he trying to get at by asking her this? “I don’t think you should even be asking that. You can’t really compare the two…”
Toya fell silent as he pulled his gaze away from her. “Yes, of course, please forgive my rudeness. It was uncalled for.” He then gave her a faint yet sad smile. “Please try to eat. The cooks put more effort into the meal for both of you.” then, after looking once more at Taryn, he left them alone.
That was weird. Rachael thought as she placed the tray on a low table for them to eat. Her brows knit into a frown as she looked at the well-prepared food before letting out a breath. Rachael really wasn’t hungry. Her gaze drifted back over to her friend, as a frown formed along her brow in confusion when she saw Taryn stand up suddenly as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “Taryn?”
Taryn headed towards the sliding door of their room. “Want to come with me for a bit? I’m going to get some air.”
“Oh, okay.” Only she hesitated. “Where do you want to go?”
“To one of the gardens.” She looked at Rachael. “Unless you want to stay?”
Rachael quickly shook her head and stood, forgetting about the food instantly. “No, I’m… I’m coming with you.”
Taryn merely held out her left hand, eyes glancing at the food before landing back on the woman before her, which Rachael took hold of instantly. “Then let’s go.”
* * *
As the two walked through the halls of the mansion’s ground floor, they passed several of the workers, many of who would pause and murmur to one another as the two young women passed them.
All of which Taryn ignored, her face was impassive, emotionless even. It became a stark reminder to Rachael of what Taryn had to go through almost daily after her brother died. The media going nuts over it, and the vast majority of people’s adverse reactions to her, many holding sympathy while others talked behind her back like now.
It pissed Rachael off.
“Ignore them, Rachael,” Taryn said softly in English. “What they have to say doesn’t matter. What they think doesn’t matter, just ignore it.”
Rachael cast a wary glance on Taryn’s way as she squeezed her friend’s hand. This was just like when Taryn lost Roy. The gossip, the rumours, people talking whatever they thought behind her back. And all the while, Taryn kept a mask, a blank expression revealing nothing while her eyes held anger and turmoil.
They headed to where their shoes were, putting on her boots, Taryn waited for Rachael before holding out her hand, and Rachael took it without a word. Now it just reminded her of when they left the abandoned hospital together.
Some might have seen it as weird, but it was a form of reassurance to each other and for themselves.
The two continued walking through several of the gardens, Rachael noticed a few of the other workers watching them again, and though she couldn’t help but think it, their stares looked anything but good. As if to make sure they wouldn’t go too far, rather than out of concern.
Their eyes looked so empty from where they were.
“Don’t look at them,” Taryn spoke softly in English again, drawing Rachael’s gaze away from them. Taryn merely kept looking forward. “Don’t show them your concern.”
Rachael’s gaze became downcast as they fell into silence, things like that weren’t easy for her, but then again, stuff like this was drilled into Taryn from an early age, or she had done so herself that way to draw less attention to her.
She recalled Taryn’s parents, her bodyguards, her uncle and her grandfather. All of them had been through their own battles, in a literal sense for the men of her family, and became what they were. Was this no different than what they went through? Yet the feeling of having to face something a person didn’t want to linger heavily. It made Rachael tempted just to pull Taryn into the forest and make a run for it.
Taryn then came to a sudden stop, nearly causing Rachael to stumble. With a faint look of confusion, she looked to where her friend was staring off too. Several feet away, there was a garden with striking red hydrangeas. Faintly, she could feel Taryn’s grip tighten; this brought Rachael’s gaze to her face, and what she saw brought her pause.
Taryn’s expression changed subtly, her blue eyes focusing on the garden itself as the wind picked up slightly, lifting her hair, and pushing her side-bangs to reveal the scar resting along her forehead. Then Taryn closed her eyes, took in a deep breath from her nose and exhaled the same way. “Rachael,”
“Yeah?”
“You really meant what you said, that you wouldn’t leave me behind?”
She frowned. “Of course, you know I wouldn’t go back on my word.”
Taryn glanced at her. “Even if it could mean we might die?”
“Even then!” she snapped as Taryn turned to face her fully. “You don’t always have to do things alone! Not with this or anything else!” in that moment she recalled all the other times Taryn had this same expression, of pushing back her emotions. It broke Rachael’s heart, recalling all of it as tears began to well up in her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you…”
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Without a word, Taryn closed the distance, placed her hands on either side of Rachael’s head and rested her forehead against Rachael’s, and with a soft smile, she whispered. “Sometimes I think that I don’t deserve a friend like you.”
In response to this, Rachael grasped Taryn’s face and bumped her forehead against her own with a harder thump. “Stop with that nonsense! Nothing in the world is going to change that. You deserve it, you hear me? You deserve all of me!”
Taryn gave a genuine laugh before closing the distance even further and hugged Rachael. “Right, I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. You’re the best friend anyone could ever ask for, and I deserve all of it.”
Rachael hugged her back tightly. “Damn straight!”
As they continued to embrace in a hug, Taryn’s smile faded as she glanced at the garden in question. When they pulled away from each other, Taryn’s smile returned. It wasn’t the same as before, of course, but it was at least a good sign in the right direction.
Rachael’s gaze then returned to the garden that was several feet away from them. Seeing those flowers in such a dark red colour made her feel unnerved. It reminded her of the colour of blood with its deep shade.
“There’s an old story I heard once,” Taryn said. “That if a person were to be buried underneath a hydrangea, the flower would turn blood red. If you were to judge the size of the plants here, how many do you think have died to make them all so vibrantly red?”
She stared at it hard before giving an honest answer. “I’m not sure…”
After a moment, she continued. “Toya said a plague had come through this village many years ago and that the flowers were a reminder of a mass grave from those who died. But how much time, or how many bodies, would there have to be for those flowers to remain such a dark vibrant red after it had been so long?”
Rachael looked back to the flowers as a feeling of dread came over her. Don’t tell me…
“There was something I asked Robert about those who must not have been a success, of those that had failed and where they might have gone. And why I was being affected by these flowers whenever I came too close to them.” Her gaze remained on the flowers; however, the look was a mix of clarity and faint disgust. “Guess it was pretty obvious.”
“Y-you really think that?”
“It’s worse than when I’ve gone to graveyards. If there’s anything I can compare it to, it would be within the streets of Paris at the Place de la Concorde. But as a whole, it’s still like what I mentioned when we first arrived.”
“…in this place, even though there is obvious life, it feels as though we are in a massive tomb. With the dead all over…”
Rachael turned away from the flowers, unable to look at them any longer. Only to recall something else when Taryn spoke.
“With all that said, I still can’t figure out why they’d want me specifically. I keep reaching dead-ends whenever I try to think about it.”
“I know why.”
Confusion slowly came over Taryn’s face as she turned to look back at her friend, who now faced her with a grim expression of her own.
I shouldn’t do this. Rachael thought as she looked at Taryn. I shouldn’t tell her about it while she’s like this. About the painting but… she took a deep breath and spoke. “I need to show you something.”
* * *
“You say you want to show me something but have to wait till night.” Taryn reiterated as the two were dressed for bed. The food from before was still untouched. “If it’s so important, why don’t you just tell me now instead of hanging this over my head?” she wasn’t annoyed. She figured that Rachael had a reason for it, but felt that this was just the long way to go about it.
“It’s better if I show you.” she then looked to her phone regarding the time before standing. “Okay, come on.”
Without a word of complaint, she followed after Rachael, with only the light of the moon from the windows to guide them, for everything had been turned off, leaving the halls to be dark.
Instantly, Taryn became on guard, her blue eyes shifting around throughout the halls as they walked. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. Rachael glanced at her friend over her shoulder. She had more than enough reason to be cautious. Much like before, there was no one walking around besides them.
Shoulders growing tense, Rachael took a slow breath to try and calm her nerves. A small part of her mind shouted to stop doing something so crazy and just to head back to their room. But another part of her was stronger; Taryn needed to see this for herself. And being told would not do what she had seen justice. She needed to see it just like Rachael and Stephanie had.
Silently, the two made their way through the mansion, with Taryn getting Rachael to stop, wait and listen, every so often when hearing something off in the distance. To make sure that they weren’t being followed.
Rachael opened the sliding door with a crack and peeked inside. “Okay, good, no one’s here. Get inside, quick.” She said before pulling Taryn in before she could say anything about it.
“Rachael,” Taryn’s tone was stern. “Why are you—” her words stopped when her gaze landed on a kimono stand, her back straitening as she looked at it with concern. “This is Toya’s room…” For on the stand was the kimono and robe that he had worn that day, left on the stand as the warm glow of candlelight filled the small room as a futon had been lain out, but no sign of it had been used.
“It is,” Rachael admitted.
Taryn looked at Rachael, clearly wanting answers. “Why?”
Rachael moved to stand beside a covered painting. “Because of this.” She removed the cloth and let the painting speak for itself.
Taryn’s whole body went uncomfortably still, spine straightening, eyes remained focused on what lay before her. After a solid minute, she slowly moved closer to it. Her eyes moved about, looking at all the details of the painting itself, before taking one singular step back, colour draining from her face as her gaze broke away from it. Eyes shifting about as she silently contemplated what it could mean, while her face merely showed dread and confusion. Her skin was slowly growing pale as she looked back at it, as if doing so, she would see something different, as she slowly wrapped her arms around herself. Looking at its details once more only to land on the signature left in the bottom left corner.
“This is what he painted,” she whispered. “I saw a glimpse of this.”
Rachael looked at the signature. O, Kiefer. One of the many people who were labelled as missing. “You found something of his?”
“Briefly, I saw him working on a painting of this size. He was just working on it in someplace dark; I couldn’t get more because Robert didn’t know about my…” she glanced away. “I should have told him about it sooner. Maybe if I had, then things could have been different. It’s why he took the pendant with him. I think… I think he felt something might happen. So he took it with him as an incentive in case…” her breathing hitched as she stopped herself. “I should have been more trusting.”
“You can’t blame yourself for being so cautious. If people more knew, if it got out, who knows what people would write about you?”
“They already write stuff about me,” She gave a short, bitter laugh and a wry smile. “But yeah, I can imagine…” she looked back to the painting. “Do you really think the person in this painting looks like me?”
Rachael looked at it then back to Taryn, before remaining on the painting. “A bit,”
“Shit…” she muttered. Her gaze narrowed faintly at the painting in question. Now strictly looking at the face, Taryn could see the likeness, but then it could be said with many other people who just happened to have similar facial features, hair and eye colour.
But it was the clothing and motif of the painting that made it even worse.
“It just had to be Greek, didn’t it.” She said as her shoulders began to shake, and after a moment, she laughed, looking at the painting with a smile of contempt. “No wonder they wanted me to stay, why he wanted me to stay. All of it just feels like a sick joke.”
Rachael didn’t respond as her friend continued to laugh humorlessly about it, only to frown when Taryn’s demeanour changed as her gaze went to the door that they came through. “What’s wrong?”
Taryn silently raised her index finger to her lips, silencing Rachael as her gaze went to the mirror, standing on the tsukeshoin by the covered window.
Through the mirror, she could see it.
That of the dead making its way slowly toward them. It was the same dead woman who had led Taryn to the room with the Doll. Only now, she could see the woman in detail, and the disturbing thing about her, besides the red markings along her body and blood-stained white under-kimono, was that she had no eyes, only two black holes where eyes should be as blood flowed from them like endless tears. Her body grew tense as she watched the woman stagger, arms outstretched as if to stop the two of them from leaving.
Slowly, Taryn took a step back, feeling Rachael’s right hand rest along the side of Taryn’s left arm as she kept her other hand over her mouth not uttering a single sound. All the while, Taryn made herself as a wall to separate the ghost from her friend as she gradually kept sidestepping. Eyes glancing back and forth from the mirror to the door as the dead woman moved further in.
Typically, the dead would be of no issue if not provoked, but when there’s one that holds a tremendous amount of animosity and hate, then that spirit could do considerable harm to an individual. Taryn had the scare to prove it.
Why this woman didn’t do anything to her back then was something she could only guess. Perhaps this woman hated that she could not survive, or that maybe, she just wanted someone else to die by the Doll’s hands, regardless of who, to join in her eternal suffering.
In any case, the woman’s anger was so palpable and bitter Taryn could practically taste it and judging from the sudden shaking in Rachael’s grip, Taryn could guess that she felt it too.
Just a bit more… Taryn thought, glancing back and forth from the mirror to the door as they took another step. Move just a bit more. Another step. Please. And another. Don’t change direction. Another. Just keep going the way you are. Another. As if we’re not here. One more. Just wander like that. She grasped Rachael’s hand tightly in her own. Away from us. When they were at the door, she slowly opened, making it wide enough for them both to get out before casting one last look at the mirror, a chill ran up her spine.
The ghost woman had turned her head to look right at her through the mirror. The moment she had, the ghost gave an unnatural smile as blood coated her lips.
Her grip tightened on Rachael’s hand, making her friend wince before being yanked harshly out of the room and down the hall and back to their room. The two collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath.
“A-are you okay?” Rachael asked her as Taryn reached for her medicine.
“I will be when tomorrow comes.” She said through wheezed breath. Only to feel Rachael hug her from behind, shaking. “I know Rachael…” Taryn whispered as she gently grasped the girl’s shaking hand.
“It was terrifying…” she murmured as Taryn turned to face her, her shoulders now shaking horribly as tears brimming in her eyes. Teeth chattering as she grasped her own shaken hands. “It wasn’t at all like the hospital… that thing… what was it…?”
Taryn placed her hands on the woman’s shoulders, trying to keep her calm as she kept having Rachael look at her. “A vengeful woman. With a lot of hate.”
She shook her head slowly as she let out a shuttered breath as her tears finally fell. “It felt a lot worse than that.” Taking off her glasses, she used her sleeve to try and stop her falling tears. “Was it at all like that in the basement? With him?”
Taryn became silent for a moment before pushing Rachael’s red hair from her face. “No.” Rachael’s eyes locked with Taryn’s. Making Rachael realize the truth with her word. Worse.
Her tears had stopped briefly before going for a hug. Doing her best not to cause any more pain than what Taryn was still healing injuries. Only for her tears to fall again in the comfort of a friend’s warm embrace.
Taryn held her close as Rachael continued to cry, her gaze shifted to the window before looking down to Rachael’s weeping form. Her grip tightened as she kept her friend close as the same line of thinking she had from near the garden come back in full.
I need to do something drastic...