Chapter Text
It's coming to the end of a long day.
A long, long day of trying to gather themselves and the surviving children around them, cleaning up what the Wights left behind as far as it was even possible. Somehow, they've gotten on
This is the last part of it. The cellar of Bentham's house. And though they know exactly what to expect, because their children told them with fright in their voices and pain on their faces, it's hard to imagine until you actually face it yourself.
There's just so many bodies. Pale, cold shells that used to hold a life and soul. That used to have a name, and a family. People who cared and loved them.
Gone in an instant because the Wights said so.
They're only a handful of Ymbrynes who wanted or even could be considered to go down there, and as they moved forward through the chambers, they dropped off like flies.
Miss Finch is first to go. Only a few feet from the door is the body of a woman - an old one, perhaps even Ymbryne - and the cawing of her aunt sitting on her shoulder mixes with her own uncharacteristic screams of shock and pain. Overwhelmed, they both stop right there, saying their heart wrenching goodbyes as their sisters plow on into the next room.
Miss Gannett ends up stopping there, instead. Ten of her thirty beloved peculiars lie carefully stacked on top of each other against the wall, and before anyone has the chance to try and stop her she tears them all down. Lifeless bodies spread across the floor, all their pale faces now on display across the floor, and if Siobhan had thought she'd feel better she didn't. It only makes things worse as she sinks down in the middle of them all and cries helplessly, overwhelmed by the grief it causes her.
Poor Miss Thrush decides that she can't go any further then. She had been hesitant to come at all, but Miss Treecreeper's insistence had quickly won her over. Now, looking like she might puke or cry or both, she turns and runs back the same way they came.
Balenciaga stubbornly ignores them all. She has only one thing on her mind, and that is to plow on, because she knows there has to be a body there for her. Althea had to be resting there. If Althea wasn't there, if she couldn't say goodbye, then she didn't know what to do.
It takes time, ten, maybe even twenty, minutes before they reach the back of the wights' morbid crypt. The one Balenciaga so desperately want to find is nowhere and the injuries their enemies have given her are starting to become apparent.
Her breath came in harsh pants, struggling to get past her sore ribs and hurting terribly, her mind meanwhile distracted by a blinding headache. Even her ankles and wrists ached, the ugly rope burns standing out against her pale skin.
Despite this, and despite Miss Treecreeper's gentle requests for her to leave and get to a bed, she plows on.
She can't fail Althea. Not again.