OPHELIA: Chapter 16
Blurb
Elizabeth Lockwick wants one thing… to ensure Ophelia remains dead.
For years she’s weaved a life seen through rose-coloured glasses in idyllic Vermont with her husband Sebastian Lockwick, an alluring man with a broken moral compass, whose intent lies in protecting his wife. However, apart from her unorthodox understanding of Sebastian’s dark and gritty hidden nature, she finds herself slipping away from her sanity in maintaining this picturesque life.
After receiving a gruesome gift from an unknown sender threatening to expose her, she finds herself haunted and possibly hunted by her buried past.
In order to make things right for herself and ensure that her secret is hidden, she reluctantly travels back to her sleepy small hometown in Wisconsin. A town where young girls seem to be mysteriously disappearing. There, she reunites with the dysfunctional Pierre-Louis’, a French-American family who sheltered her in their manor in her time of need.
With time slipping away, she struggles with her guilt and a dangerous affair and realizes that perhaps Ophelia wasn’t dead after all these years.
Elizabeth suddenly finds herself caught in a game of cat and mouse, unsure of which she really is this time and who she can trust.
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Chapter 16
Stefan parked at the side of the manor and looked through the window, soaking in the diming sun. His muscles tensed as he turned forwards and leaned back to the seat with a tired sigh.
“I know you’re not alright so don’t tell me that you are,” Ophelia noted, breathing in the silence besides him.
“Do you love him?”
His question caught her off-guard. She knew he was trying to mask the fact of how worried he was about Claire Marie and hence threw out another question which bothered him but she was surprised that was the question.
Taking a deep breath, she answered honestly, “No.”
A cold stillness injected the air. She continued, “Nor does he love me.” It was the truth after all. Something she never admitted nor spoke out aloud regarding Sebastian. And nothing was ever truer than those words.
Stefan unlocked the car doors and opened his, “We should get inside, a storm’s coming.”
The door screamed deeply behind them as it closed. The cold air shifted inside and sent a chill up her spine. Two maids hurriedly ran across the hall with clean bedsheets while the smell of a rich honey glaze danced through the thick heavy air.
“There you two are.” Rosie called from behind them, walking hurriedly to the dining room, “Join us for dinner. Don’t refuse.”
Stefan ushered her into the room where the chandelier hung threateningly above the dinner table. Usually Diane would be the one at the head of the table, however, Victor sat at the head while Florence sat to his corner left with Rosie just besides her. The maids hurriedly served an assortment of dishes and for a moment Ophelia almost forgot what year she was in for the place gave of such a vintage-like, Victorian ambience. She sat on the opposite side of the lengthy table from Florence and Rosie while Stefan sat besides her to her left. Diane soon entered and sat directly opposite her. Ophelia could feel her sharp gaze cutting into her tender flesh with a silent detest while Elaine found herself besides Ophelia’s right. The air thinned. Elaine’s red curls brushed against her shoulder in their nearness and a heavy stillness weighed her down. She looked at her with her yellow green sightless eyes and smiled an eerie smile. Without a word, she snatched Ophelia’s hand and brought her palm to her lap, tracing her thin long fingers along the lines.
“There is so much pain that runs through your blood,” she whispered, “A vile and wicked energy taints your soul. Its stench is of your impure soul, a dirty, unhappy thing you are.”
Ophelia snapped her hand away and reached for the water before her, to swallow the woman’s words away. Diane kept her gaze fixed on her and a sense of unsettledness climbed through her ligaments.
Dinner was silent, and awkward, and filled with unspoken words. Ever so often, Rosie tried to make conversation about the local charities being set up, the environment, and her husband. Victor occasionally spoke with Stefan about plans to expand the mining business as well as local job openings. Diane voiced her opinion about his waste of interest in art and her dislike for Europe. Then again, the woman barely liked anything to begin with and Ophelia was pretty sure that the only thing being enjoyed at this table was the chicken.
At the corner of the room, a little bucket sat collecting the water dripping from the ceiling. Drip. Drip. Drip. Her attention remained fixed upon the sound of the earthly leak but was soon broken by laughter. Rosie laughed at Stefan’s remark to something that was said.
“You have to teach me!”
“I will,” he smiled warmly.
“Stop it!” Florence suddenly burst in frustration and anger. “Just stop it. All of you. Have you all no shame?”
“Florence,” Victor tried to warn.
“No, I will not behave myself. How dare you all? To sit here. To eat. And where is my daughter? Has she eaten? Is she hurt? Yet every one of you sit here and relish in the pleasures of a warm home. Is this agony? Is this grief?”
“Do you think we’re not hurt? Not in pain as you are?” He shouted in vexation. “We are doing all we can do! If starving yourself to death is how you wish to greet your daughter upon her return, then so be it.”
“Mother,” Stefan tried to calm her but she snapped her head angrily towards him.
“And you. Who do you think you are? Coming in here seven years after as if nothing happened? What kind of son are you? You left because of that girl, you think I don’t know. You left us all because of her.”
“I hadn’t been in contact with Ophelia for seven years,” he tried to reason with her, yet his voice was swollen in pain. “She had nothing to do with my decisions.”
Florence laughed and looked at Ophelia who sat silently still. “And why is she here? If she truly cared about Monty the way he cared about her she would have at least been here for his funeral. We’d given her a home when she had nothing and this is how she repays us. To sit shamelessly before me.”
Ophelia tried to remind herself that Florence was unaware, but her heart began to throb as his mother’s words spilled like thick milk gone bad before her. She continued in irritation, “Ungrateful. He should have left the filthy-”
“C’est assez!” Stefan stood angrily, “That’s enough. Ne la blâmez pas.”
Ophelia felt like the world was breaking but she retained her posture, regardless if her heart was too. There were very few times Stefan shouted at his mother, and she hated to be the reason this time. He wasn’t usually like this, but she knew the stress of coming back here and his sister gone missing had him on edge.
“Excuse me,” he finished and left the table.
Walking through the hallway, he pressed the bridge of his nose in the hopes that his headache would subside. He hadn’t been eating properly. Hadn’t been sleeping at all. His mind ran on many things more than it usually did. And now his mother accuses him of not caring all while insulting Ophelia. He hated raising his voice at her. She was hurting after all, he understood that, but there is a limit to the things that are said.
“Stefan.”
Ophelia called after him. He stopped and turned to face the hurting girl behind the composed mask. Unspoken words drifted between them as she stared at him sadly.
“You shouldn’t have spoken to Florence like that. At least not because of me.”
“There were untrue assumptions that were made. Not only because of you.”
She sighed, understanding what he meant. Her hand reached out to touch his in comfort but she pulled away just before their flesh touched. A certain agony groveled within him like a starved wounded cat. He reminded himself that this is what she wanted, what would make her happy. Yet, he knew it was all bullshit. An ache began to swell within his chest, minced in misery and subtle anger. He held himself back from making any remarks upon her refrained action. He couldn’t look her in the face right now without it breaking every part of him.
Taking a step back, he turned without a word and headed upstairs. Closing the door behind him, he went straight for the bottle of alcohol and filled an empty glass on the rocks. He felt it burn down his throat as he poured himself another and blanketed himself in an irked state, both mentally and physically. He wanted to throw everything against a wall, to find whoever took Claire, the one who killed Monty, the people who hurt Ophelia, he wanted to take away the pain his family now suffered with. Florence was right. What kind of son was he really? Maybe if he stayed Monty would be alive, maybe Claire would be right here with them, maybe if he’d done things differently in the past Ophelia wouldn’t have to live a lie.
She should have been happy. He stayed away from her because that’s what she wanted. He did it for her, for her happiness, no matter how much it killed him inside. Yet, she hadn’t taken that opportunity. Instead, the worst thing he feared to happen had happened. Not a day went by that he hadn’t thought of her. Wondering if she’s alright. If his decision to maintain this distance was the right thing to do. He hated himself. He hated how he messed everything up. He hated the fuckers who were toying with the ones he loved.
The glass shattered within his hand and blood oozed out of his palm while the sharp shards pierced into his flesh. He was so numb that at this point nothing hurt.
Ophelia frowned as the time passed. She looked at her watch while Rosie added a spoon of honey into the cup of tea before her. The refrigerator’s ice maker suddenly went off startling her while she mixed the liquid in.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” she tried to assure Ophelia whose worry began to show. “You know men with their moods.”
“You and I both know he isn’t like this.”
“Well we can’t say that now, honey. Seven years can really affect a person,” she added while placing the tea on the tray, “And Florence was out of line with what she said. I’m glad Stefan stood up for you. If Monty was here he would have done the same.”
The thought of Monty never speaking to her, laughing with her, walking alongside her, giving her his signature encouraging nod when she felt down. The thought of his entire being now a distant memory, much like her parents, stabbed into her heart so thoroughly that it felt as if it gutted the organ out, ripped from her belly, a thick dark, slowly beating, bloody thing that ached on the floor like a fish ten minutes out of water. It was now an unbearable thought.
**
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