Chapter Text
Present Day-St Churnley's In the cold and somewhat stillness of the Plagueround, Edgar and his friends stood fast as they awaited another hell pincer as the fog began to part. He looked up as Poe flew quickly downward towards them before he cried out and flew away from the silhouette of a figure appeared before them.
“Lord, please protect us if this be an enemy who means us harm.” Roland muttered under his breath. Strangely, the Lord was quiet. Kevin and Monty watched as Edgar began to shake. “ Roomie? What is it?” Monty whispered as he laid a hand on Edgar’s shoulder. “I.. I recognise that smell.” Kevin wrinkled his nose. “ I can’t smell anything, there’s too many things out here. It’s like the badlands in the Lion King.” "But it smells like.. like Lavender. " Edgar’s eyes stayed looking at the shadowy figure as it moved forward slowly. His eyes widened behind his spectacles as a woman stepped out. Dressed in a long black coat with her raven hair braided behind in a long strand that looped down the right side of her pale neck. Her long thin fingers reaching out toward him. Her nails though sharpened seemed to shrink as she spoke softly and desperately “ My boy, my beautiful beautiful boy.” Edgar stuttered “ Mummy?”
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E. Allen’s Testimony
I suppose in some cases,It is good to start at the beginning. When I was an innocent young woman who kept hid herself amongst the turrets of books stolen from her parent's library. I was used to the long absences of human interactions, my only companions were my parents regiment of servants and maids and the ghost who lived in the room next to mine.
I had a name once, but it was taken from me when I turned 10. I was given an ability that others would see as a curse, but that’s for later.
We lived in a small home on the edge of the village of Newcombe hidden by the black forests of our vast estate. This was not the home I was born in but I remember little of my early life. My memory is not the same after the ongoing circumstances of my curse. I remember my mother's beautiful face and my father's strong embrace. But that may just be muscle memory, the feeling of being loved by one's family. The first occurrence I remember was when my nanny, Nanny Peters, a bitter woman with an ill temper left me in the woods as I went scrounging for wild mushrooms. I must have only been 7 or 8 years old. As I ran deeper, the branches seemed to envelope me before I tripped on my shoelaces and seemingly fell into a hidden hole. Nanny Peters had told my parents that I had disobeyed her and lost my way. She had slinked away after she had been the one who had attempted to push me in to the hole. But she didn’t know that I had an ally.
The ghost in the room next to me. His name was Theo. A thin gaunt boy dressed in a school uniform but with no blazer. Just a knitted vest and grey shorts with his hair slightly combed. He kept me calm when I had struggled to climb out of the hole and pointed how the mushrooms to crush and mix into Nanny Peters’ evening Darjeeling. She had been disappointed when I had returned and had had me bathed, fed and put to bed. Yet, while I was eating my dinner in my nursery, I had distracted her before slipping the small pellet like mushrooms from a handkerchief in my pocket into her tea. The subtle joy I felt hearing her choking as I laid in my bed before the sound of her body hitting the corridor floor alerted the servants. Soon after, I stopped wearing colours and was never given a nanny again. The funeral was somber, quiet affair. Instead I was left to my own devices, reading and educating myself while my parents believed that their daughter gained early independence and needed no guidance. Theo kept me close at hand in his silent observations as I began to explore my home and the estate around more but then on my 10th birthday, something happened. I began to change.
Not long after the birthday candle had been extinguished, I began to see and hear things that weren’t there. Sometimes I would be walking along the corridors and hearing the cries of Crows. Or there would be in the corner of my eye, the outline of a black wing. Crow feathers appearing amongst my clothes. It began to hurt when I would try to read. My eyes became sensitive to light so that i would wear dark glasses. My weight began to wain. I would try to eat but my body could not contain much but very little like sunflower seeds. Then one day, I left my room and without knowing why, I fell from the landing to the bottom of the stairs. When my parents found me, I had had feathers growing from my wrists along to my shoulder blades. My parents kept me hidden above the house in the attic space my things had been moved from my bedroom and I would no longer be provided with a maid but with someone who could be trusted in their discretion. It was comfortable amongst the rafters, and the different turrets of books. Sometimes, I could watch the rain through the round window facing towards the driveway. And there I stayed. Theo would talk to me through signing with his ethereal hands about the goings on and what my parents were doing but my mind was on the curse. Why me? Why was I the only one of my family cursed. Sometimes the feathers would reappear, sometimes my hand would become bird like talons, scratching the pages of the books I had been reading. It was always when I had had heightened emotions.
It was the 6th anniversary of Nanny Peters subsequent demise that I realised something. Theo had sat next to me by the window, I was pretending to read a book but he could see my mind was on something else. It was my parents outside playing croquet laughing. Holding each other, my mother’s black hair coming loose from the tight bun it was usually restrained in as my father held her round the waist. Theo’s cold touch made me look away. “I know who you are. You are my brother.” Theo nodded. “I don’t know why I forgot you.”
I had found amongst the turret, a small velvet photo album. I had recognised myself, but there was a little boy who looked like me. But then he disappeared from view as we got older. He was a pale boy with a gaunt face who seemed to stay the same. Yet, even in the later photographs, he was still there. Still present. He doesn’t say much but I understood him. There were times that he watched as the feathers moulded from my back which then fell amongst the floorboards. I used to sweep them but now they stay as a reminder that I am like Theo now, a reminder of the forgotten children. Theo had died because he had been playing cricket near the edge of the estate and tripped banging his head on a small boulder while retrieving a ball. By the time he had been found by my father he was half alive. A young man from a nearby home who had been attending the game had tried to help but his raven had not been swift enough to reach the doctor. Theo told me that I would see that young man again. I never doubted what he told me, most of his predictions would come true. Yet, his afterlife had become his curse more than his foresight in life.
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The Summer I turned seventeen was when I met the young man with the raven. Elliot. He was dark haired with beautiful black eyes. It was the rare occasion that I was allowed out from the attic. My parents had decided that a garden party should be used as an occasion to present me as having returned from a made up place. A convalescence or a hospital. When in fact, I had been the crow girl in the attic. I had been given a new dress, black lace with subtle features to hide the marks upon my arms. It was easy to hide in plain sight. My mother had come up to the attic and insisted in helping with dressing me in the beautiful lace and braiding my long hair into a chained plait down my back. I had not seen my reflection since I had been exiled to amongst the wooden beams and old leather bound books. I looked at a young woman, pale but there was something else looking back at me. The eyes of a being not of this world. My mother stroked my cheek and whispered “Beautiful girl.” I smiled shyly but underneath I was not sure how it would be with others.
I waited until there were a few guests before I walked out of the attic and down the spiral staircase into the flurry of strangers. Each seemed to take note of who I was but none would approach me to speak. I went through into the living room to the side as I watched a young couple whispering and giggling. One was a tall woman with her hands interwoven with a shorter woman with blonde hair. “ Annabel, we said we’d behave ourselves.” “I can’t help it Butch, this formality is making me jittery.” I was about to approach when I felt the air change behind me. A crow? No. A Raven. It flew around the room and up into the chandelier above. I watched it land before I felt his presence behind me. “ Ah, so you’re the elusive daughter.” His voice was crisp but there was a confidence that I was unfamiliar with. The kind that would make you feel warm but could break you at their convenience. I turn to see him. He is exactly how I imagined him to be. “Yes. And you must be the Librarian.” He took my hand, it felt strange to hold another person’s hand. The feel of his cold fingers on my palm. “Of sorts. I was taught not to come empty handed.” He gave a small black leather book with a single stem of lavender bookmarking a poem. “Oh, the poems of E.A.Poe.” He smiled. “And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by.” Before he could finish the quote, his raven launched itself downwards and out of the window. “Persimmon.” He called out. “Excuse me.” And then he was gone. My heart was beating but then I heard the cawing and began to panic. I retreated out into the garden and watched Elliot as the raven flew above the clouds. It was beautiful. Something i had never thought of til then. Freedom.