In Memoriam

Chapter II

Even when her tears had dried, she remained sitting on the steps, shaking her head as she held it in her hands. She sniffled quickly as she sat up straight, wiping away the traces of her lamentation from her cheeks. Thomas had stepped back into the shadows, his topaz eyes studying the woman as her bloodshot eyes seemed to stare right at him, but he knew she could see nothing but darkness. She used the banister to gather her balance, standing only to turn back around and head back upstairs. Once more, Thomas followed Iris into his old bedroom, watching as she picked up her purse from the bed and sifted through it.

His head tilted curiously as he watched her, mustering enough energy to be transparent to her eye. Yet, Iris moved much too quickly and soon found what she was looking for, holding the bottles to her chest as she shuffled to the en suite bathroom.
With shaky hands, she unscrewed the caps to the bottles and withdrew her dosages. She popped the pills into her mouth before leaning forward to take water from the sink to swallow them.

She lifted her head, using her fingers to rake her dark hair from her face as she studied her hollow features in the mirror. She lifted a shaky hand to touch her reflection's cheek as a tear slid down the tawny flesh. Thomas wanted to reach out and comfort the girl... he had never seen someone so broken. He wanted to understand why she cried, why she looked at herself and her surroundings as if everything were a lost cause or temporary. She reminded him too much of himself.
Iris turned from the mirror as she closed her eyes, dropping her hand and balling her fists at her sides. Her footfalls were soft, yet the floorboards creaked and shifted underneath her weight as she entered the bedroom once more. Thomas leaned down to read the labels of the bottles, although he was no doctor; he was merely curious.

Iris Rachel Spencer.

Lithium.

Abilify.

Thomas's brow furrowed in confusion, not understanding what exactly these prescriptions were used to treat, but he hoped it would help cease her tears. He stood up straight once more and left Iris to move furniture and unpack what was now her bedroom. He would need his strength if he was going to keep an eye on Iris with the intensity he was.
Lucille was waiting for him in what once had been her room. Iris had moved odds and ends into the room, namely boxes from her childhood.

"Look at this..." Lucille tsk'd, shaking her head as she opened a box, pulling out an old China doll wearing a homemade, knit gown. "Storage... that is all my room is good for, apparently."

"You don't know that..." Thomas tried to encourage her, although death had made his sister even more bitter than she was in life.

Lucille scowled deeply as she looked to her brother, her eyes colder with her undead state. "Defending the woman, already? You must've seen her in the bath... How does she look? How does that golden skin tempt you, my lustful counterpart."

"No, that is you, Lucille." He growled, his features also growing stony as the atmosphere around them lowered nearly ten degrees.

She hissed as her form advanced on Thomas. "My, my... the afterlife has sure given you some nerve, my dear brother." He stood his ground as her hands trailed down his chest, a mocking grin across her lips. "I don't recall much resistance on your part, in the past..."

"The past..." He grasped her wrists, shoving them back down to her sides as her grin fell into a scowl once more. "That's exactly what it was... and I intend to keep it there. I haven't touched you in over a century and I don't plan on doing so ever again."

"You will." She promised before her form disappeared from the room, retreating back to the shadows to preserve her strength.

Thomas followed his sister's actions and retreated into the shadows to rest. Iris was busy with her bedroom for the majority of the afternoon, moving furniture, unpacking clothes, and making the bed. She didn't have will for much else, only unpacking the necessities, including the Crimson Peak book that Edith had published nearly a year after the "events" at the manor. It was never published as anything more than a work of fiction, but she and those that believed in ghosts found the book so much more than a piece of fiction, but a glimpse into the other side.