Deprivation- The Feast and the Famine

Epilogue Part 1

Like any wild creature trapped in an unfamiliar place, Claudia was on edge. The smells of the city disturbed her. She choked on the smoke and shied from everything that had once been home. When the carriage stopped out front, she paused only to kiss Bennett. He was ill at ease here and leaving him for even a moment was nearly impossible. What if something happened? 

There were loose ends in the city, and she needed to provide. 

The mansion that housed her the first 18 years of her life appeared smaller now. It's fancy trappings, visible even in the middle of the night, looked silly. The place was a sick joke, not a home at all. Still, she knew the secret ways into the house. 

She crept through her old, vacant room glancing only once at the strange woman reflected in the looking glass. More vampire or ghost she seemed than the vain little girl who used to sit at the desk searching idly for flaws in her face. Something of death hovered behind her eyes and in every miniscule muscle movement. No, that little girl had been carved from her. 

Julien's room was next. It was a small room but of all the rooms in the house it held the most joyful memories. Already steeled to pass by, Claudia did not even glance at the door. No furtive goodbyes in the night to frighten him. Doubtless he'd said his goodbyes to her already. Seeing Claudia in her new wraithlike form could only confuse him. No, her gift to him wasn't a goodbye. 

Next she came to the chamber in which her mother slept. This place she entered. Everything in the room was hard, wood and metal and stiff-stitched hangings. Claudia drifted over to the bed handling the strange objects reminiscent of another world. She moved until she saw was her mother's face. 

Stirred by some bond of genetics, Louisa was already awake and sitting up.  

"I should hate you. That you knew, and you vetted him. You allowed Father to contract me to a monster," Claudia said. 

"You made your own decisions, Claudia." 

"As did you. I forgive you, Mother. You're in your own prison here. As captive to their cruelty as I ever was. Only you never did have the strength to break free. In the beginning, when it was new, I wonder if you deemed it was better for me to be raised among devils with money than be destitute. But if you'd left he only would have had us punished. I have a gift for you." 

"I lack for nothing." 

"I'll give you your freedom, Mother. You can love Julien if you are free. Be the mother he needs. Better in a gutter than here." 

"That's nonsense." 

"I'm going." 

Louisa did not speak again. They were strangers and had no goodbyes to give. In her heartless confines, Louisa had tried to warn Claudia. Somewhere in Louisa, Claudia found hope, remained the woman that had once followed her heart into a marriage beneath her station. The woman who was capable of loving with a strength beyond the shallow norm. That mother was the best, and only, gift she could offer Julien. 

She left the room and traveled down the silent hallways, touching nothing. Descending the stairs she tried to find the girl who had traipsed to parties hand on the rail. That girl was gone the last drops of her blood mingled with Eudora's lifeblood. 

Last, she found her father's study where, as most nights, he lay passed out by the fire. A half-full crystal decanter of some dark, foul liquor sat on the table.  

Claudia tossed a splash of liquor onto the dying fire. A laugh tore out of her at the flare of flames. It lit her father's face as he came to a stupefied wakefulness. He sputtered awake, too bleary to react swiftly to the ghost in front of him. 

"Daddy, I'm home. I have some bad news for you. You are down to one son. Luckily, it's the good one left in this world. Roderick has been speared like the giant rat he was." 

It was a testament to his complete lack of belief in female agency that he didn't react swiftly to this statement. His brain could not grasp the words, but at least had the impetus to begin to struggle against his girth to stand. "What!?" 

It didn't matter if he understood. He didn't matter. 

Claudia slammed her knife into his breast. Calmly she watched him crumble and left her blade embedded. "A gift for you, share your dear son's death."

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