OPHELIA: Chapter 45
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 45
Her head ached as she stepped out the front door with Sally. The morning sun bit into her tender flesh like hot ice. A gush of wind sliced through her hair, wiping strands across her face. It was a chilly morning. She pulled her cardigan tighter around her frame to sustain the warmth.
“You alright there?” Sally asked, looked very worried for her friend.
“Yeah, just cold,” she admitted.
“You know, we can go a little later if you’d like.”
“No,” Ophelia protested as she sat in the vehicle. She decided to borrow Stefan’s as it might have been easier for them both, “I want to get this over with. Besides, it’ll help me keep my mind off the fact that Stefan isn’t here right now. I wasn’t able to sleep last night.”
“Would you like me to drive? You seem tired. And besides, I feel a lot better right now. Better than yesterday, also driving helps me keep my mind at ease, and not dwell too much on Frank. I have a tendency to overthink sometimes.”
Ophelia smiled, “Alright, but I’ll drive back. We take turns.” She got out of the driver’s seat, threw the keys to Sally, and sat at the passenger’s seat next to her.
As they drove, Ophelia felt a sense of chilling serenity. She wasn’t sure what to think of it. A few times too often, her mind fell upon Stefan. Had he eaten? Was he alright? Will she ever see him again? A sudden sadness weighted her down, the thought of never seeing him again agonized her terribly.
“Where am I driving to?” Sally asked, snapping her out of her depressive thoughts.
“Keep going straight ahead, there an old burnt manor to the left. One of the tallest you’d see in this town.”
Ophelia thought about the old manor that was once her home. It was once very beautiful, her mother used to be an architect, she had a love for the antiques of life, the way an old piece told endless tales to the modern society. She had incorporated a lot of interesting pieces into the house, all of wish must have been destroyed in the fire. She remembered that there were days she would enjoy exploring the house. To Ophelia, it was like a treasure chest. There was a little hall to the left of the house, the flooring was the colour of marbled gold. A chandelier three times her size hung above, it’s beauty dances with the lighting of the room.
She was so deep in thought she hadn’t realized that the car had stopped. “Wow,” Sally breathed, “This is magnificent.”
Sally’s eyes were glued to the haunting beauty of what was left of the manor. “Is this where you lived?”
“Yes,” she replied softly, “This is it.”
The house felt so different from the Pierre-Louis’s manor. When the fire hadn’t struck, the tone of the house was warm and inviting, a feeling that was never present in Stefan’s home. And now, looking at the house again, nothing felt the same. No matter how hard she tried to achieve that same warmth she once felt, it was now a cold dead thing before her. It was as if she was asking the soul of a dead man to reenter the body it left from. It was utterly, morbidly, useless.
They entered through the half opened front door that remained intact, but nevertheless charred like an overbaked chicken. She sneezed as they both walked through the halls, a chilling feeling iced through her spine. Had she done the right thing by coming here? Ophelia felt so incredibly overwhelmed at the moment. The rooms however were all gracefully touched through the cracks of the house which let the sun inside. It luminated the beauty that remained within the walls of this house. The memories all stained with the floorboards and the laughter that lingered through the corridors. She had memories here with Stefan when they’d come here even after the fire. In the attic, under the bare moonlight, he’d sit with her keeping her company, telling her stories, dancing to the sound of soft rock. How could she erase those memories? How could she even have tried to? She knew now that she was wrong. She was wrong for doing so. She was wrong for trying to.
They walked up the staircase and stood at the enter of another circular hall, to the right she saw her old bedroom. She neared it to feel suddenly emotional, her childhood hitting her all at once. Who was the little girl that stayed in this very room? She walked towards the half-broken mirror and stared back at her reflection. Would she recognize the little girl she once was? Somehow, that felt like the most difficult task. She wondered how far gone was the little girl within her. Oh, how she wished to hold that girl, to hug her tightly and tell her everything will be alright, to protect her, to love and care about her. Ophelia felt immensely guilty because she knew she did not one of those things to the girl that she once was. She neglected her. She abandoned her. She even tried to kill her very existence. How could the girl who she was forgive her? How could she even forgive herself?
“What now?” Ophelia asked bitterly, feeling her heart shatter within her chest, “I’m here, so what now? I’m not feeling any better to be very honest, Sally.”
“You have to make peace with his place, you have to forgive yourself, Ophelia.”
Ophelia thought about the persons who had done this. If there wasn’t a fire, then her parents wouldn’t have been dead, and none of this would have happened. Who had set this house on fire? Who wanted to kill her parents? And why?
The sound of her phone rang as she left the room and continued to walk through the hall where Sally followed behind.
“Ophelia,” Charlie spoke abruptly.
“Hey, are you alright? Why do you sound so out of breath? What’s going on?”
“I just left the hospital, Lily, I’m driving towards the Manson house right now.”
“Why? What’s wrong, Charlie?”
“Ophelia, there’s no one admitted into the hospital by the name of Frank Manson.”
“What?”
“Hell, Lil, there isn’t even a Frank Manson. That’s not even a real person here in the city. I’m heading into the house right now.”
“Charlie?”
“Fuck,” he stopped and saw the scene before him in the living room of the Manson household.
“Charlie, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“Ophelia,” he said in a shaky shallow breath, “Where are you right now?”
“I’m at my old house here with Sally.”
Those words pierced into Charlie’s heart like a sharp gutting wound, “You need to get the fuck away from her. Sally Manson doesn’t-”
The call suddenly ended.
**
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