Little Hidden Darknesses
Twenty Four:

If the Vinsants thought I’d actually comply and visit them alone, they were mad. Mad and absolutely right. They were also right when assuming I wouldn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t.

Why, I had no idea.

It most likely came down to a lack of fear, as even though they possibly murdered a great lot of people, I kept comparing the Vinsants to my mum. A kind, caring and all-around loveable woman. A woman with morals. A woman who couldn’t so much as hurt a fly.

But the Vinsants were nothing like my mum. They had a darkness about them, a noxiousness that spread to everything they touched, everything they owned. Like their estate, for example. A mansion overlooking the forest, separated only by patch of lawn, lush and green and with a glass gazebo in the centre. An image of class, of grace and elegance.

Except as I cleared the treeline and padded across the lawn, said image started to dwindle.

To wrinkle, stain and tear in some places.

The once golden-beige bricks had gone black with moss, with patches of green, blue and white. The windows, while adorned with trims, had a waxiness to them, almost as if tinted. I paused a moment on the back entryway, the crumbling steps that led through two red doors, and the figure that occupied it, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders squared.

Aillard.

“How did you know I’d come this way?” I wanted to know, pausing at the bottom of the steps.

“We predicted as much,” Aillard said with the smallest shrug. He stepped aside, without removing his hands from his pockets, and gestured for me to head inside. As easy as that.

But it was far from easy.

A series of thoughts entered my mind, a thousand theories as to why they had invited me. It all seemed so civil, so normal. Like a family quarrelling over money or property.

Even now, after I had seen Aillard in his full glowing form – a monster by any other name – he acted as if I had arrived for lunch. He smiled at me, but his face didn’t lose its shadow.

Its ever-present sharpness that unsettled me.

I kept watching him as I upped the steps and slinked inside, my spine grazing the threshold.

Aillard grinned in amusement – satisfaction, maybe – then turned away and shut the doors behind us. I thought about stopping him, about demanding a clear escape route, but decided against it. The worst thing I could possibly do right now was express fear.

Fear or angst or any type of hesitation.

As the outside light was replaced by that of a lamplit corridor, I felt the first drops of doubt gliding down my throat. Even more so when Aillard turned, his eyes a deep, charcoal black.

“This way,” he said, ever as intimidating.

“To the drawing room?” I asked as I strolled after him, however the answer became clear the moment we turned left into the all-too-familiar corridor with the glass ceiling and photographs.

The third time around, my journey to the Vinsants’ drawing room proved ever so slightly enjoyable. I basked in the sunlight that fell on my head, and the unusual sight of Aillard’s behind. It felt strange not to have him poke me in the back, jostling me to walk faster.

“She’s here,” he announced when we entered the drawing room. The curtains were parted now, the windows opened wide, and nothing but a mound of ashes lay in the fireplace. A mound soon to be replenished with flames, most likely. The same flames that had seen me come and go on many an occasion, each time in an even worse state than before.

I wondered what this time had in store, and whether this time might in actual fact be the last ...

Shut up, Eira. Focus.

“Ha! Looks like I won, Branka,” said Freya and held out her hand. Her sister groaned, then took a crumpled note from her oversized jacket and slapped it down in her palm.

Freya pocketed the money just as Lilith rose beside her. She wore her hair down today, her ebony locks flowing freely across her shoulders and down her back, all the way to her bum. I couldn’t spot a single streak of grey. In fact, even her face proved wrinkle free.

“I’m glad you’re still in town,” Lilith said as she rounded the sofa. She traced the backrest with her nails, each sharp tip hooking onto the fibres to create a scratching sound. It mixed with that of Genevieve’s knitting in the corner – a song to send chills down my back.

Crkk. Click. Crkk. Click.

“Me too, actually.”

“Oh?” Lilith cooed. Her dark eyes had a sheen to them, a wicked twinkle. And even with the sun’s rays scattered across the drawing room, her pupils were dilated. Two marbles that drilled into me, every part of my body as she scanned it. “You weren’t in your room last night.”

“I know.” My eyes swerved to Branka and Aillard at the mantel. They wore identical expressions: their eyes narrowed and jaws set. “And I don’t remember inviting you over.”

Branka huffed. I expected her to snarl something in reply – to tear apart my façade of courage – but when she instead stayed quiet, I went on, “Alright, stop beating around the bush already. You guys obviously didn’t invite me over for tea. So, what do you want?”

A grin tickled at Lilith’s mouth. “Why, isn’t it obvious?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Ha!” Branka rolled her eyes and collapsed onto the sofa next to Freya. She lay back with her feet in her sister’s lap and her head on the armrest. Mud caked the rims of her boots, evidence of her trek through the forest last night. “Are we honestly sure about this?”

Freya pushed Branka’s feet off her lap. “Come of it, Branka. Just because you never like anyone –”

“Girls,” Lilith warned.

But Branka didn’t shut up straight away. “All I’m saying is, she seems rather daft, this one.”

There it was. The criticism.

Something of a growl escaped my lips, and I tightened my fists. Was this the only reason they had summoned me? To insult me one final time before they murdered me in cold blood? Before they hauled my body out to the ocean and let the current wash me away?

“Branka, that’s enough,” Lilith warned without blinking or taking her gaze off me by the door. And her warning deemed sufficient, as Branka merely sank down in her seat with her arms crossed. This brought pleasure to Lilith’s eyes. Content. “What we want, Eira,” she began, “is you.”

“Me?”

Lilith shook her head, each bop accompanied by a step toward me. Her heels left the carpet and they rang off the wooden floor. Clop. Clop. Clop. “You came to Evermist Island to be a part of our family, yes? You wanted to connect with your mother’s past?”

No reply.

“Well, that’s exactly what we’re offering you now.”

I tried to frown, but my brows wouldn’t comply. They’re offering me a spot in their household? Now, after several days of hell? After they had stalked me, accused me and broken into my motel room? Pathetic. Utterly, absolutely pathetic. But also ... kind of intriguing ...

“You can move in with us,” Lilith went on when I didn’t respond. “Into your own room in the mansion.” She gestured to the ceiling, then to the entire surrounding building. Her fingers curled inward when she finished, each one longer and skinnier than the other.

“You could even move into your mother’s old room,” Freya added with a renewed gentleness. “Sleep in her old bed.”

I wasn’t convinced. Not by any of it.

But I couldn’t leave, not when I had made it inside again. Not when this offer – as much as it pained me – proved crucial to my plan. Alejandro and I wouldn’t have to sneak in, and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught. The perfect method of infiltration.

Lilith clasped her hands in front of her chest. Doing this brought attention to the ruby broach by her collar. Another vintage touch. Another item for the accumulated mound of strange.

She spoke on, “Don’t you want to learn from us, Eira?”

“Learn from you?” Finally, my ability to speak returned. “You’ve got nothing worthy to teach me. And why would I stay with you after the horrible way you’ve treated me?”

“We only treated you the way we did, Eira, because we considered you a threat to the family. You read your mother’s letter. The way she put things made it sound as if we drove her away.”

Maybe because you did.

“We thought you blamed us for her death. That you wanted revenge.”

“Maybe I do,” I spat in return before thinking it over properly. Had I done so, I probably still would’ve said it. My mind felt no longer in control of my mouth. Or my jittery limbs.

“Maybe. Sure. But you’ll never go through with it.”

“Why not?”

Lilith’s answer came easily. Effortlessly. “Because you’re all alone.”

My breath caught in my throat and I failed to spit out an adequate reply. Any reply, for that matter.

This brought great pleasure to Branka’s face. She snorted and muttered something under her breath.

“You’ve got no one else,” Lilith went on, ignoring her daughter’s smirks. Her dress flailed around her feet as she approached me, her hands stretched out and her words stabbing me right in the chest. “You’ve seen yourself in the fog. You’re different. Just like us.”

I’m nothing like you, I wanted to hiss, but the moment Lilith’s hands wrapped around my forearms, all words escaped me. No matter how many times I told myself she only said those things to rope me in – to manipulate me – I couldn’t help but agree with her.

I had no one.

No father. No mother.

Not even a high school diploma.

“We can show you who you are. Show you what you can do.” Lilith’s grip tightened with every word. She reeled me toward her, so close I felt her scentless breath on my forehead – saw an arrangement of tiny, red veins in the snowy whites of her eyes.

Show me what I could do? What was she talking about? I recalled a similar line in my mum’s letter. Please, show her the way. Teach her who she is, and what she has to do to survive in this world. At the time, I had thought she meant my identity. Who I was as a person. Now, however, after everything that had happened, I feared it meant more than I wanted it to.

I gulped and pried myself free from Lilith’s grip. “I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This time, Freya smirked. She slapped her hands in her lap. “Oh please, Eira. You know you glow.”

“And you’ve felt it, haven’t you?” Genevieve chimed in, her voice especially croaky. She put aside her knitting and got up, but didn’t move. “The fog makes you breathe better, move better. It fills you with life, almost as though pumping you with pure oxygen.”

She was right, I had felt it.

But I couldn’t admit to that. Not to them, and not until they had told me the truth about it all.

“You want me to stay with you?” I asked with feigned confidence. “Tell me what’s really going on, then. Tell me what the deal with the fog is, and whether or not you had something to do with Benjy and Bobby’s disappearance.” I swallowed before I continued, hesitant now. “Tell me whether my mum ... did she really murder your late husband?”

Branka leapt to her feet, ready to reply, when Aillard pulled her back and whispered into her neck. She grunted, then crossed her arms and stomped her left boot on the carpet. Bits of dirt scattered across the plush, cream-coloured surface, yet she didn’t seem to care.

“All will be revealed in good time,” Lilith promised me, although too calmly for someone whose husband was allegedly murdered. Where had her hatred gone, her thirst for revenge?

Was this confirmation of their deceit?

Perhaps. But perhaps not.

“So,” she went on, “do you accept our offer? Will you agree to stay, and become a part of our family?”

My heart yelled no, but my mind demanded yes. If I agreed, I’d gain their trust, be let into their safe space, into their minds. Everything I needed to expose them for the villains they were.

“Well,” I said with my bottom lip in between my teeth, “I guess everyone deserves a second chance.”

This made Lilith smile. And warmly now, except I couldn’t tell whether it was authentic or not. It didn’t matter, however, as nothing about this family struck me as authentic.

“Perfect,” she chirped. “I know we might’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, but I assure you, dear Eira, you’ll learn to love us. Even Branka.” The two of us smirked at the same time, but Lilith spoke over us, “And now you never have to go back to that rotten motel again.”

Wait.

“What?” I spat before I was able to compose myself.

Lilith shrugged. “You’ve got a place to stay now. And you’ve got us. You don’t need those foreigners.”

I gritted my teeth, fighting avidly to maintain my composure. No one seemed to notice the quiver around my mouth – no one except for Branka, that was. Again she stayed quiet, most probably awaiting my eruption. “Those foreigners gave me shelter when you kicked me out. They gave me a job and food. They’ve been nice to me from the start.”

“Eira,” said Branka when she could no longer hold it in, “do you have feelings for dalmatian boy?”

Freya and Aillard both cooed.

“Alejandro and I?” I nearly choked on her question. And I answered before I even properly considered it. “No, of course not. He’s just a – uh – friendly face. A friend, at the most.” My heart wrenched when I said this. So much so, I felt the need to fill my chest with air.

Freya, Branka and Aillard didn’t seem to believe me, however Lilith and Genevieve seemed none the wiser.

Lilith stepped aside as her mother approached, who instead of grabbing my forearms, merely reached out and brushed a golden lock behind my right ear. I shivered.

“You know,” she said in half a whisper, “I’m in awe at how much you resemble your mother.”

I swallowed, but that only restricted my throat. While this wasn’t news to me – the comparison – it felt a great deal more powerful coming from Genevieve, my grandmother.

Wow.

I couldn’t believe it.

My actual grandmother.

“Really?” I asked as though no one had ever compared me to my mum before. My voice rang with desperation, with the desire for approval. Damn it. Why did I have to be so weak?

Genevieve leaned in, then placed her lips on my forehead. Her peck burned against my skin, not hot, but icy cold. Her touch resembled that of a scaly reptile’s, her breath reeking of old woman and coffee. Still, she had a warmth to her. A tenderness that tensed my entire body.

I had never experienced so much angst and ease at the same time. The combination didn’t blend well.

“Now,” she said as she withdrew, “lest we forget, it’s All Saint’s Day. And we all best get ready for the festival tonight. Eira’s first, nonetheless. Which means she needs to be spruced up.”

“S – Spruced up?” I managed to ask before she snapped her fingers at her great-granddaughters.

“Freya, Branka,” she said, all of a sudden less tender. Less like a frail, old woman and more like Lilith, save for her sparrow-like limbs. Genevieve’s eyes gained a type of spark, and her movements a bounce. Her beige dress and tightly spun bun no longer fit her appearance. “Take Eira up to her bedroom, and have her decide on a dress. Something glamorous.”

A pause in which she pursed her wrinkly lips in satisfaction. “No Vinsant shall be described as anything less.”