The Unchaste

Some are born to Endless Night

Sorrow outlived grief. Decay outlasted death.

The leadened heart couldn't believe any of it any more. Dull now, the mind couldn't attend to death as something that should be mourned. She had heard that before.

She had witnessed it en-play.

George Carson had been dead before too. No matter how much Richard tried to convince her that this loss was real_ Delilah had mislaid her logic of reality. Death didn't seem that eternal anymore. They all had fooled it afterall_ Tiffany. George. The babe?

Notwithstanding.

The bride who was supposed to wear her prettiest smile that day wore sadness, now let lose. She, who should have been donning her grandest gowns, wore a black, mourning dress. For a friend who died again. And that suited her for punishments just fine. Since when had she started to be worthy of true bliss in life? Or expect it?

To obviate the remaining sense of security _ there was that, which was coming.

And Richard left with his secretary and officials in the afternoon.

For where, she couldn't say. But it was some matter of consequence for certain.

And in those dark bent hallways and cold stone walls and pre-historic shadows of Stormcastle, Delilah found impossible to forget recollections of queer pasts. Among so many terrible things that had happened here, something yet worse waited to come alive in performance.

Delilah was no novel foreigner to abstain herself in one chamber. She ambled out of the castle, at the back by the crag that overlooked the grey lake and windy moors. She wondered at the ripples the scant breezes teased down in velvety texture of the dark, murky lake water.

When Delilah returned into the castle, much later that evening, she was informed that the Lord had returned some half an hour ago, now secluded in his study. Delilah went. When she opened the thick oak door, she didn't like the shivering, silent darkness that gushed over her from inside. The room was lifeless. For a moment, she almost refused to believe that he was even inside there.

But inside, the window was still ajar, letting in night air. And by it side, Delilah saw a tall shadow, standing quiet still in the darkness. His back to the window as he faced the darkening interiors of the house.

Richard.

By the time her eyes adjusted to the dark, cavernous yield of the room; Delilah was already at the other end of his invitation_ his arm extended in beckon.

She went and he welcomed her. His extended hand arm around her and they both stood there, staring out the open window, into the dappled evening of post-twilight, into the world awash with night winds. The Prussian blue of the dark sky and the dimming emerald of the moorland yet darker. The scent of lemon grasses in the air. The crow rushing to its nest.

Chrysanthemum abloom.

The howl of faraway sea. Farther away waves.

The faintest shimmer of dotting lights from the village downhill, now obscured in silver mist belting the vista made them both...Delilah especially, think of fireflies. Glow worms from her childhood days. Insects terrified her and Jake loved making her mad by presenting her with a handful of twinkling worms. Disgusting was what they used to be.

And today, in some dark, delving, devious recess of her mind, Delilah was greedily happy to be where she stood. To have him was like to be handed back her childhood reminiscence, crumbled now and with dull edges.

But dear still, the inventory of her past. Good old days.

"I am sorry." He said suddenly. His voice breaking through the lethargic, dusky silence. "This rush was unfounded."