It had been a long, restless night for Pearl. It was still early hours in the morning, the quiet stillness of pre-dawn when not even the bakers roused to begin their day, or cockerels crow. Pearl had managed only to sleep for short periods of an hour or two before waking up at the slightest noise, or if her own internal worry roused her. Unable to withstand lying in the guild’s guest bedroom and doing nothing except worry, Pearl rose from the bed and dressed. Crowcaller hadn’t called for her during the first few hours of night, which meant that Coral had yet to return. Crowcaller had promised to fetch Pearl as soon as Coral returned.
Once dressed, Pearl let her hair splay down her back in waves. She didn’t have it in her to concern herself with her hair. She sniffed a little then. There wasn’t anyone to impress either.
Pearl would never be able to compete with the beautiful woman on Caspians – No. On Mr. Acheron’s arm. She would not refer to him in such a friendly manner now. Her heart gave a painful flutter. Which was ridiculous! She had only known him for a matter of days. She was not so fickle as to believe that she had fallen in love so quickly. Besides, she knew Mr. Acheron exuded a certain charm, apart from the allure of being a vampire. His good nature was surely to attract attention.
No, it was simply Pearls’ childish fantasy to want to fall in love at first sight. It was his fascination with her that had flattered her. It didn’t help that he was breathtakingly beautiful either. Pearl hadn’t wanted to believe Coral’s assessment of Mr. Acheron. Seeing that woman being escorted by Mr. Acheron was more than enough conviction for her. Pearl didn’t want to mix herself up in wanton affairs or to be strung along with fake promises. She wanted real love.
Pearl tugged at her blouse and brushed at her skirt with determined vigor. She was not in a fairytale. She was learning to live a new life, while her sister steamrolled ahead to create a new future for them both. One that Pearl thoroughly believed would succeed, if her sister put her hand to it. Regardless of any setbacks or challenges are thrown their way.
Coral had always been like that, stubborn and taking on the brunt of problems. Pearl knew it was out of love that her sister did this, keeping her safe. It was them against the world ever since their mother passed on.
Oh, she did hope Coral was alright.
Pearl left the guest bedroom, her booted feet tapping almost silently against the floor. She didn’t know where she was going, and the hall was dark. She found that this darkness was different compared to the manors. Here, the darkness didn’t move, it didn’t coalesce into shapes without reason. It was a darkness that was made properly from shadows and the absence of light.
Moonflower Inn’s darkness was a part of something deeper. She knew this the moment she had stepped foot inside and seen the dusty floors. Moonflower Inn had a secret that it kept hidden in its walls. A secret Pearl suspected that Coral refused to see in her stubbornness to make their situation work. Pearl let her feet amble forward, curling her arms around herself despite the warmth that permeated from the walls.
She and Coral would benefit from acquiring a winter coat. Briefly, Pearl entertained herself by imagining a fine, velvet coat of periwinkle blue, lined with fur for the coldest of nights. Then she shook her head with a longing smile. They had to be practical now. They both needed something sturdy, and it wouldn’t matter should they scratch off a button or stain it with something as they cleaned and mended their way through the manor. Pearl stuffed her wishful thinking of pretty clothes to the back of her mind. Perhaps one day she could dress like that. But not now.
Pearl’s feet brought her to the mess hall. Three long wooden tables had been set up in the center of the large room, a counter behind them where she could just make out the kitchen. Everything was scrubbed meticulously clean, and it had that well lived in atmosphere that Pearl loved. Someone had left a mug out which she picked up and placed on the counter of the kitchen. She lingered there a moment wondering if there were ingredients to make biscuits.
Pearl had found herself, once again, aimless and useless to those around her. It was a daunting prospect. All her education, all that she had known before stepping out into what Coral called ‘the real world’, it rendered Pearl into nothing more than a pretty decoration, floating about with no path to follow. She had things that she liked to do. Baking was one of them. She had taken it up where she discovered she was a fair hand at it, incredibly. Her real love was for plants, but what use would someone such as her be in a small town to simply grow a garden full of flowers? Pearl baked only when she had idle hands and no way to enjoy the sun’s warmth.
Aimless. Useless. That’s all that she was. She had been a tool for her father and now that future was lost. It might not have been one she wanted, but it had been all that she had known. How did one choose what filled their days to earn coin? What use could she hope to be other than to clean the manor or bake? She didn’t have the mind for magic, nor did she have the talent for needlework. Pearl stood at the threshold of many paths, many careers and options that were not available to her before, yet she was uncertain of which one to tread. What did she even want from life? Real love, for one thing she was certain of at the very least, but it didn’t keep her busy.
Whatever Pearl decided on to be her future, she knew Coral would support her. But in Pearl’s indecision, she didn’t have a future. Not before when her only real option was to be auctioned off with only her name to lure men in, and not now on this new beginning. If Pearl couldn’t be something for herself, then she could at the very least be a tool for Coral. Well, as much as a pretty ornament could be. It was high time that Pearl stepped up and took on some of the problems her sister faced. It also gave her something to preoccupy her mind while she waited for Coral to return.
There was the night of the Undead that they needed to prepare for before the winter snow started. There were rooms to clean and prepare. If Pearl knew Coral, which she did best out of anyone who had ever taken a liking to her, it was that Coral had already begun vague plans to house Adventurer’s at Moonflower Inn for the Night of the Undead. Pearl shivered. She hoped on that night she could be shut away safely from the worst of it. Perhaps it would be a good thing if they housed Adventurer’s with a direct tunnel to the graveyard?
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Deciding it was too presumptuous of her to help herself to the kitchen stores, Pearl turned back around and continued wandering down the guild’s halls. Flour and sugar were hard won for people this far from the city. There was always the Witching Flour bakery should they every become low on ingredients.
After circling the guild’s lower floors, Pearl eventually came upon the library. Of all the indoor places that Pearl found to be stuffy, it was a library. She had almost turned right around then and there at the door. The thought of wandering empty corridors soured her mood even further, so she stepped into the room and sought out something to read. Pearl sat at one of the tables, with all the words and pages to keep her company and none bringing her any comfort. She could have picked any of the tomes to idly read, of monsters that frequented the area, of creatures that didn’t. Instead, Pearl sought out the stored box behind the counter, filled with information about Moonflower Inn. Well, of its previous occupants at the least. The contents of what she and Coral were permitted to keep were strewn before her, magelight glowing overhead to reveal the ink scrawled across parchment. It crinkled beneath her fingers as she poured over lists of items. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Perhaps it was the pull of preoccupation of her mind from other worries. Perhaps it was the lure of something dark that she hoped to find amongst the filtered information struck from the manor’s history. Whatever it was, it kept her reading for far longer than Pearl would have normally done. Already she missed the scent of damp earth and morning dew, cold as it was this early into autumn. She couldn’t wait for the return of spring, with its warmth and long days. Slowly, the darkened window lightened to a dull grey with the oncoming dawn as she read.
Pearl spent a good portion looking at the portrait of the family that had lived in the manor. Of the facial features of Lord Rayner that had been a necromancer, how he stood almost protectively at his wife’s back. This wasn’t the façade of a cold, heartless man. How well had he played his role in society to keep hidden for so long?
There had been a document Pearl had found stuffed at the bottom of the box. Lord Henry Rayner’s death certificate, to be exact. He had been beheaded. His remains burned and ashes scattered. There would be nothing left of the man, as was the way with dealing with necromancers.
The woman, Lady Sabina Rayner, was perched much lower than her husband. She was seated in a comfortable chair, her green dress spread out around her. The background of the painting gave no indication of when or where the painting had been commissioned, but she was able to discern that the woman, as pretty as she was, was particularly thin. There was a rosy pallor to her skin in the portrait, but Pearl was willing to bet that the artist had taken a great deal of effort to hide blemishes that would have been obvious to those who had seen Lord and Lady Rayner in real life. Many artists took liberty to beautify their patrons in the hope of winning over their favor.
The shawl wrapped around the woman’s shoulders wasn’t of light material. It was thick heavy fur for warmth. Yet her husband and even the children were dressed in much lighter silks. Pearl surmised that Lady Rayner was fragile. Just as Coral had been when father hadn’t permitted her to eat.
Pearl squinted at the face of Lord Rayner, hoping to discover more details, but became bored when she couldn’t find anything further. The children were happy, the dog frolicked, and otherwise the portrait was nothing more than family perfection. A perfect lie.
Pearl pulled more papers to herself, reading through each line with pronounced boredom. She traced down a ledger of inventory, which snagged her interest. A long list of medicinal herbs had been noted, and not just the general everyday kind which had been ordered in large quantities. There were rarer herbs that she only knew about in her own pursuit of discovering magical plants for her own garden one day. Pearl felt her eyebrows raise as she left a finger at the word scrawled neatly listed beneath Silver Pomelo, as if it had any business being mentioned beneath fruit.
Silk Leaf. This herb was incredibly rare. It was also extremely dangerous. The plant itself was almost sentient with how it reacted to its surroundings. It moved when approached, even attacked if it were to be believed. It grew only with precise care, needing an exact environment in order for it to flourish. The plant was to be handled with the utmost care and the leaves separated from the plant even more so. One touch with an ungloved hand would set a stinging sensation over the skin for days, so painful that there had been reports that people had removed their own limbs to be rid of the irritation. What was this doing in a list of kitchen supplies?
The most logical of reasonings was that Lord Rayner wanted the plant for purposes that dealt in pain. Necromancy magic was awful, it required pain and sacrifice. But why purchase such a property and build a lavish home for his family if he hadn’t intended to keep them alive and well?
Surely someone in this town recalled what Lord and Lady Rayner were like. The property had been abandoned only twenty or so years past. The manor after all was Direwood’s dirty secret, and local residents had tried to dissuade Coral and herself from purchasing the property in the first place. They would have deterred Pearl if it weren’t for her stubborn sister who refused to heed their warnings. All Coral had seen was potential and the first thing Pearl had liked since embarking on their new life path.
Pearl tapped her finger against the paper. Silk Leaf also was rumored to have medicinal uses. Whatever that may be. Only fools or the desperate wanted Silk Leaf for such a purpose. Her eyes strayed back to the painting, not to the man who dealt with death, but at the too-thin woman layered in warmth.
What was her story? Was Lady Rayner sold to a man like Coral had been? Would she have escaped if she could? Or was she a part of the Necromancer’s dealings?
Pearl traced the cracked lines in the paint with her eyes, as though they would lead her to some answer hidden in the stroke of a paint brush. She knew it to be a foolish endeavor. The ones who really knew the truth were dead.
Pearl’s thoughts clicked into place. The two children that laughed at Lady Rayner’s feet were still young. Pearl had mentioned that they hadn’t been found when she returned from perusing the documents. Were the manor’s ghosts Emeric and Ayleth Rayner?
They had communicated with Coral. The ghost children had asked for help, hadn’t they? Pearl focused on the little boy and girl, thinking hard. Ghosts were hard to deal with. Ghosts were dangerous. Coral had thought they had wanted to lure her down to the basement to her death.
Pearl hadn’t agreed back then, nor did she now. The ghosts could have acted up the whole month Coral and Pearl had resided in the manor. Pearl had seen how the shadows moved when they shouldn’t, at a distance and darting like mice. That had been the extent of their activity. Fleeting at best. It had terrified her at first, but she never said anything to Coral, who seemed oblivious to the entities.
The ghost’s interference felt more like a warning to Pearl. If they hadn’t gone down to the basement, they would have only discovered too late the ghoul that lurked down there. Had the ghosts’ activities been more insistent because they had Casp-. No. Mr. Acheron with them? Would they have known a vampire could take on and survive against a ghoul?
For a very long time, Pearl studied the painting. Would the ghosts speak to her? Did Pearl really want to know their story?
A door slammed hard, breaking the silence that had settled over Pearl and making her jump. There was an urgency that only came from frenzied rushing, feet tramping and anxious voices. Pearl stood and hurried out of the library in search of this sound, her heart beating hard. It wasn’t the sound of good news.