OPHELIA: Chapter 33
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 33
Ophelia felt as if her stomach dropped. Did she call her Elizabeth? How did she know? That was impossible. She couldn’t have. She couldn’t.
“The more you try to run away from it the closer it catches up to you, Ophelia. Don’t you realize that?” Vivian frowned.
“No-” She refused. “No- I don’t know what you’re saying. I- this-” Her words were falling out her mouth. She shook her head in denial of what she was hearing. The little sloped hill behind Vivian was edging her nearer. She knew this place. She’d been here before, in a dream, in a nightmare. “No,” she found herself whispering as she neared it. No. Please no.
Hot tears began building and flowing down her cheeks as she looked at the place before her. This buried trauma began unravelling itself from within her. “No,” she sobbed and felt her knees gave way. Her body shook in distress as her knees fell to the dirt ground, snapping the little twigs beneath. This is where he brought her. This is where he tried to bury her after raping her. This is where Stefan and Monty found her.
“W-why…” was the only word she was able to form.
“Why did I bring you here? Think Ophelia. Think and remember. I dug you up from here for them to find you. I was there. I know what it was like. That fucking rat who did that to you, I know. I know how it felt to be touched and violated and molested by him. For years I couldn’t do anything. For years I kept the guilt of watching what he did to you.” She stopped as her voice broke unable to speak again.
Ophelia looked up at the woman before her and noticed those eyes. Those big soulful aching eyes. “You were her,” she breathed, “You were in the closest.”
“There’s so much you don’t know, Ophelia. This place is insidious. They know.” She sighed, “They know you killed him. They know everything. They know what you did.”
“How do you-”
“I don’t blame you. After what he did to you- to me, I was glad he was dead.” She scowled, “But some of us aren’t that lucky to leave. This town pulls you back to it. It’s like a rubber band attached to your rib, pulling you back the more you try to run away from it. The further you run, the greater the pull and crash.”
“What don’t I know?” Ophelia stood while wiping away her tears and trying to process the information.
Stefan’s voice suddenly echoed through the woods as her phone began to ring.
“It doesn’t seem like we have enough time,” Vivian smiled.
“I need to know, Vivian.”
“We can’t meet in public. I’ll send you my address.” Her smile faded to a worried frown, “You can’t trust him.”
“What?”
“You know in your heart who’s to trust and who you shouldn’t. You need to be careful,” she said before leaving in the direction where she came from which was opposite of where Stefan had been calling.
The phone continued to ring. Ophelia felt her heart throb. What did she mean by that? In a shaky breath, she answered. Stefan’s worried voice melted through the call. Relief dissolved throughout his body as she walked through the dimly lit trees towards him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He scolded, shocked and concerned that she would find herself here of all places again, “Have you gone mad?”
It was rare seeing him so upset but she understood why he would be concerned. Going along with Vivian like that was a stupid decision but she was glad she did. Stefan’s anger would calm down eventually. He was about to say something else but she pressed her lips onto his. “I’m sorry,” she sighed and pulled away, “I shouldn’t have run off like that. I’m okay.”
He sighed, “Charlie thought something happened to you. He shared your location with me. How did you even end up here?”
“It’s a long story,” she said with a deep breath.
They sat inside the parked car in silence. Stefan pinched the bridge of his nose to reduce his headache. A pang of guilt fluttered through Ophelia’s bloodstream.
“I shouldn’t have worried you and Charlie like that. It was stupid, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”
“You were right,” he said in a soft voice, “It’s a cult. Plagetis Patriarch. That’s as much as Charlie and I found out, but it’s enough for me to tell you that it isn’t safe here for you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I failed you once. And I certainly failed my little sister. If anything happens to you or anyone else again- ”
“Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself. Whatever happened you had no control of. You didn’t fail me. You helped me. You saved me. You and your family gave me a life after my old one was dead. No matter how much I hate this Town, I don’t hate you nor your family or Charlie. You think I don’t know?” she scoffed softly, “How you and Charlie blame yourselves? It hurts me that you do. Every day after I left this Town, I didn’t live because I wanted to for myself. I did it because you wanted me to. Everyone sacrificed so much for me. Every day I’d been living in guilt. We all have. Especially after what I did. I killed him, Stefan. I killed a man. And now…” she stopped to breathe. “Don’t blame yourselves. This wasn’t your sin. For the matter, I think it’s best if you begin to forgive yourself, for everything you felt like you did wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong, Stef.”
“And do you?” He suddenly asked.
“What?”
“Do you forgive yourself?”
She smiled. “You know I can rarely ever take my own advice.”
“Well, you should.” He started the engine.
Ophelia looked out the window and soaked in the starless night sky, “Someone told me, no matter how far I run, my demons within this Town will follow.” She turned to him, “I’m not running anymore.”
**
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