Refuge of Delayed Souls

Part 3 - Gifted of Cursed?

Present Day

“Whituth has always attracted more than its fair share of dark forces...”

“You can say that again,” remarked Elizabeth helping herself to one of the chocolate biscuits and then looking at Stanley with earnest, “I shudder to think what the place would be like without RoYds!”

Stanley laughed and continued, “Quite.” He winked a blue eye at her before adopting a more serious tone. “There has been more than our fair share of dark activity recently though -- a series of gruesome murders, umpteen happenings and stranger than average creatures roaming the moors. The whole town is becoming darker day by day and rather agitated, especially the Living. We have our work cut out.”

“Sounds like it,” Elizabeth replied, biting deep into another tempting biscuit.

“There have been a number of changes here too,” Stanley remarked casually as he removed a cigar from a silver box on the table and proceeded to light it.

Elizabeth’s curiosity was piqued, “At RoYds?”

“Gemma Bolton has joined us. You remember Gemma?”

Elizabeth half-choked on the biscuit she was eating. That creature was enough to darken even the brightest day. “Who could ever forget,” she scoffed.

Stanley took a drag on his cigar and held the smoke in his mouth for a few seconds before exhaling. He spoke quietly, his words darting in between the clouds of cigar smoke, “Tashriel speaks highly of her.”

They made meaningful eye contact and fell into an uncomfortable impasse with only the occasional spit from the fire and the reassuring tick-tock of the large Edwardian mantle clock breaking the silence. Elizabeth fidgeted in her seat for a few seconds before resting her head on the wing. The journey to RoYds had taken an unprecedented toll.

Stanley observed the young woman curled up in the chair opposite him. In some ways she reminded him of his late wife. Like Edwardina, Elizabeth was an attractive woman who had no real awareness of her own beauty. Over time, Stanley had formed the opinion that with some women, beauty added a quality of ugliness, this was not so in Elizabeth’s case. The same could be said for all her matriarchal line: beautiful women and all of them gifted, or cursed, depending on one’s point of view.