Pain. Fear. Loathing. Desperation. A sudden sinking in the mind, all proper personalities and manners slinking frightened back from the battle ground for sanity. Instead, a black, hollow shell remains, dark as pitch without light or hope, where once a lively girl stood.
Nothing explicit appeared, neither bruises on the cheeks, nor scars etching mystic patterns where lashes were laid against skin. Nothing typical showed save a faint fearful uncertainness and a gradual withdrawal from the world
Misfortune had been her lot since she was seven. First, the death of her mother had plunged her family into a dark stage, then the moving in of her paternal grandmother at age eight; the death of her father subsequently served only to worsen the dark days, and for "disciplinary" purposes, the gradual increase in attention from her uncle moved her to worse. Though nothing was directly apparent, I knew something was amiss as her soul moved further back into the shell of her body, and the bright girl I once knew shriveled into the darkness.
Milky skin became mottled with stress, and the coral and burnt rose faded from her cheeks and lips. Streaking through the passage of time, I recalled how gaunt her figure was becoming from the pleasant fullness of her family's earlier prosperity, and she had stopped entirely the visits from her former paramour, Mr. Rayton, to whom she had been engaged.
Then, her corpse was found in the river, bloated body floating the courses like a tragic Ophelia, and Mr. Rayton and I determined ourselves to find the killer. No Ophelia was she; Emily, Desdemona in her beauty and in her death, had been murdered.