The Hallowed

Chapter Fifteen

1

The faces in the painting stared at Celia, so lifelike that the man and woman may have been sitting in the next room. They lived in a secret dimension in the wall, all to themselves, immortal and beautiful as the years passed on. Anyone who cared to look was shown the truth of life that had been Hugh and Leanna LaCroix.

Celia’s eyes traced the outlines, staggered by what she had found so much that her body itself recoiled from the portrait. She turned away, sweeping back out into the hall in order to escape, but the image of the brush strokes was still imprinted on her mind.

The portrait has to be forty years old, but the man is Adam. There’s no mistaking it. I can’t be wrong.

She insisted upon this as she rushed down the corridor, moving once again without a destination. The house was a sprawling maze without end, every passage leading into another until she would be cursed to travel in circles for eternity. The weaving of her path was like the twisting of her thoughts as she tried to straighten them.

If she could possibly accept that the man in the portrait was not Adam, but he was only some descendant or reincarnation, then she would still have to accept a horrible reality. No matter how she could hope to turn it, God’s honest truth was apparent. Adam was a LaCroix.

The girl was angry, thinking only the worst about her discovery. Putting aside how it confused her, she knew that Adam must have been lying to her for these past few days. He was one of them; he was in on the plot, whatever that might have been. Celia couldn’t remember what it was like to feel betrayed, but she knew it now. It came on as a warm and sour feeling in her stomach that made her sick.

Why?

Her head was feeling heavy, and her feet were sticking to the floor. She couldn’t take another step. Celia stopped in the hallway, turned her back to the wall just beside a pedestal with the bust of an ancient woman upon it, and began to cry.

Adam is one of them, she thought as warm tears trailed through the dirt and on her face. He’s been lying to me this whole time, pretending to have lost his memory to gain my trust. But why?

She imagined his touch and she sobbed loudly. She had allowed herself to be fooled by his handsome features and sweet words. He had told her that they were going to be free of this place; that they would leave here together. He had made her promises, and she had believed them. She sniffled, remembering his words.

“I’m not going to let anything terrible happen to you. Do you believe me?”

As she thought on it, she choked – but realized that she still did believe him. He had been sincere.

Maybe… Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he doesn’t know that he’s one of them.

The sound of her cries faded down the hallways, and she slowly composed herself. Adam was not her enemy; she couldn’t believe that. He had told her just last night that he’d discovered something about the master of the house. Could he have found that portrait as well? He hadn’t told her because she would become afraid, and she would…

I would cease to trust him.

Her reasoning soothed her fears, and she applauded herself for her ability to see rationality. Celia wiped her tears away with her hand, but her troubles were not over. She no longer had freedom in this house, for she had lost her keys, and the only one she was willing to put her trust in had fled from her bed. She needed to find Adam, and she would not accept him veering from her again. She took in a deep breath of stale air, preparing herself for her task.

A footstep. It fell along the corridor behind her – beyond where she was hidden by the statue on the pedestal. Her heart did not respond well to it, leaping inside her, for she refused to believe the step could belong to anyone who meant well. The sound of the heel was a gradual click, and she had heard enough of these footsteps to know who they belonged to.

Celia didn’t dare to move, not brave enough to turn around and peer toward the footstep that had stopped in the hallway. She closed her eyes and imagined the one behind her, standing so perfectly still without wavering. She would have black hair and steely blue eyes, and she would be staring straight forward as if there were no thoughts in her head. But wait. The footsteps had started up again. Slow and painfully measured, they fell against the floor, clicking – coming closer. Celia held her breath, waiting to be caught.

“Where are you going?”

The dullness of the voice was unmistakable. Celia’s first response was to answer, and so she bit her lip, keeping her own voice stifled. Unless someone stepped up beside her and looked her in the eye, she would not reveal her position.

“I’m looking for the young ones.”

Celia was surprised to hear the second voice, though glad that she was not the one being addressed. The tones were similar, and she recognized them. It was Luci and Margo together – unless one sister was simply talking to herself; she could not see.

Feeling that she had not been spotted, Celia dared to turn herself and peek, and through the space behind the crooked back of the statue, she watched the scene unfold.

Margo and Luci were standing further down the corridor, rigid and facing each other. They were further down the hall several yards, near a table that held a white vase with red flowers painted onto it. They were wearing those matching dresses, and their hair was sleekly bobbed in the same fashion. Celia could not tell them apart until their conversation led her to a conclusion.

“I was told to watch you, Luci. Master Irving has said that you are beginning to cause trouble.”

“I am efficient enough to mind myself,” Luci insisted to her sister, though none too adamantly.

“The master says that you have been minding another. Why did you take the young gentleman into the old one’s room?”

“I do not need your reprimands. I follow a higher master than you.”

Higher master? Who could she have been speaking of? There was someone she revered more than Irving or Baltus? Perhaps the “old one”? Hugh LaCroix? Celia silenced her thoughts in order to concentrate.

“You should reconsider,” Margo warned her darkly.

“There is none to be done. I know what I will do.”

Pivoting stiffly, Luci turned herself like a soldier, preparing to go her own way once again. She took a step forward – and Margo imitated the motion perfectly.

“Why is it that you are following me,” Luci asked without turning her head.

“You will do what you were told, and I will watch you,” Margo insisted. “That is the order.”

The hiding girl considered all these words. What was Margo accusing her sister of? She didn’t know. Celia watched quietly, and she wondered to herself what would happen next. Would Luci begin to argue with Margo over this? Raise her hand in protest? Everything that had been said between them was simple statements without much feeling. Surely Luci would feel frustrated and indignant – but Celia had never seen such a thing from either of them, and couldn’t imagine it possible. Then, to Celia’s surprise, she saw what she was looking for.

It began as a curling of fingers on Luci’s hands. Her hands became fists, and they began to shake, but there was no twist of her face. Her anger was only noticeable through her hands, and it was those that she used. In a motion quicker than lightning, they snatched the nearby vase off a table – such a lovely vase – and took it alongside her sister’s head.

The thick glass shattered on impact with her skull, but it was not all that broke. The skin of Margo’s face ripped, and a spider-webbing gash began to leak blood. Margo fell to her knees, and Celia covered her mouth so that she would not scream, but she did not intervene.

Almost as immediately as her knees hit the floor, Margo began to get herself back to her feet. She did not seem to know that she was bleeding, for though it dripped down her face, she did not put a concerned hand to her wound.

“That…felt…wrong,” Margo muttered, rising up and seeming only slightly disoriented by the blow. Celia certainly did not understand it, cowering as she was behind the statue, but she shifted her attention back to Luci. The other maid stood over her twin, expressionless, like an executioner. She seemed particularly interested in a large piece of the broken vase that was resting along the floor, and leaning over, she took it up.

“I am sorry,” Luci said, and slashed Margo’s throat with the opaque glass. Blood began to spurt from the open wound, a dark color, but Margo did not protest. She stood still and upright as her blood flooded out of her, staining her neatly pressed dress.

“What are you doing, Luci,” Margo inquired, staring into her sister’s eyes and refusing to know she was dying.

“I am sorry,” Luci repeated, slicing her again. “I am sorry. I am sorry.”

Margo opened her mouth again, perhaps to ask the same question, but no sound came out from her ruined throat. Celia had never seen anyone have their throat cut, but as quickly as Maynard had gone down at the blade’s penetration, she was sure that Margo should not still be standing.

It’s like the hooded man. He was shot. He bled and yet he didn’t die.

The thought of fleeing did not even cross Celia’s mind, struck as she was by these events. Before her horrified eyes, Luci was murdering her sister, and Margo did not realize that she was supposed to die. Luci seemed to notice this as Celia did, and she immediately began to take other measures. Still holding the glass, she took up her other fist and smashed it repeatedly into Margo’s face, and it was then that Celia witnessed something truly horrifying.

Margo’s face began to cave inward, sinking more with each punch. She took the beating standing upright, refusing to fall or defend herself. Celia heard the cracking sounds as the maid’s skull broke apart into fragments, and her face disappeared. Beyond it was a dark and leathery mass that seeped murky blood. When that was exposed, and Luci put her fist into that soft tissue, Margo’s body fell to the floor, and it did not move.

She’s dead, Celia realized. Dead, but not human. Definitely not human.

But if not, then what?

Luci looked across her sister’s body, and she did not appear to feel any guilt or loss for her act. There was also no shock on her face for revealing that Margo was a monster behind a human mask. Looking down at the one who could no longer hear her, Luci spoke in a flat manner.

“I have tried to be more like you, and less like them, but I can’t. My insides crave to be what they are, with my own will and own thoughts. I am not as perfect as she is. I was passed over for the task, just as you were. I hate her for that. I would take her place, but it is not his will. I understand. I have chosen my own master, and if you will stand in my way, then I must remove you.”

Celia listened, and the words all seemed a bit late to her, but they had been spoken, and she could not say that she understood fully. It did not matter much. The time had come for her to make her choice: to flee or to keep her hiding place. She turned her head to look behind her, wondering if there was a door nearby that she could slip inside quietly. Being noticed could not be a good–

“I see you there,” she heard Luci say, and Celia’s heart was clenched in a secret fist. When she turned her face back toward the maids’ positions, Luci was standing directly on the other side of the pedestal, and their eyes met through the space behind the statue. Her sudden appearance was enough to startle Celia into jumping backward with a shriek. She was out in the open then, shielded by nothing, and the murderous maid began to advance on her.

“You have witnessed my sin,” Luci said, “but you do not know the whole truth of it. I have envied you more than I have hated my false masters. I tried to get rid of you before you were alive, but I was stopped.”

What? These words were complete nonsense to Celia. She backed away as Luci advanced, trying not to trip over her own feet. She watched Luci’s hand that was still holding the shard of the vase tightly in her fist, mixing her own blood with that of her fallen sister.

“He would not like it if I hurt you,” Luci said thoughtfully. “But perhaps just a bruise or two. He would not know it was me.”

Alarms went off inside Celia then, and she was lingering no longer. She had to put some space between Luci and herself, or the maid was going to harm her outright. Celia’s joints became unlocked and she turned without further hesitation. The girl began to run, not knowing whether or not the fearsome maid was behind her. Without any other choice, Celia fled through the halls of her own prison, though where she would run or hide, she could not say. Everywhere she went, she was trapped.

(A/N): Funny thing: I was writing on a computer that was not my own, and the word program kept insisting that every time I wrote the word “maid” I should be writing “housekeeper” instead. Sheesh. Have we no freedom in our slurs?