Blood Moon [a Twilight Saga FanFiction]

Revenge on Mr Brandon?

ONCE MORE, it took a day to travel between the asylum and Biloxi. The sun was high when I arrived, so I stuck to the shadows and watched out for Mr Brandon. I found the new Mrs Brandon with her friends, doing some clothes shopping, laughing and was only a little bit jealous of how she smiled, closed her eyes and held her head up to the sunlight when they stepped out of the store.
I noticed Cynthia behind them, holding bags, and her head was down. The young girl's eyes lifted and connected with mine. I wasn't surprised, I wasn't exactly hiding, I was just in the shadows between a few buildings.
I smiled and waved at Cynthia. She waved back before Mrs Brandon ushered her along to the next store.
I found Mr Brandon at his work, I caught him just as he sat back at his desk, made a deep sigh and put his head in his hands.
'Tiring day, Mr Brandon?' I asked, watching him from afar.
I wanted to get his scent, so I could know exactly what I would need to draw to make this man, feel the guilt that Mary felt daily.
He reached into something in one of his desk drawers, but I wasn't able to see it at my angle. I knew I'd have to wait to find out, wait to know how to make him guilty. I worried that it would keep me away from the asylum for too long, that I would miss helping Igor with James and his new mate; I had to remind myself that Igor knew how to take care of himself.
I kept an eye on Mr Edgar Brandon for the remainder of the day, he looked at whatever was in his drawer four more times after the first. The sun was set before he looked at his watch and probably decided to get home to his wife and daughter.
I saw an opportunity. I had guessed from the amount of time he spent at his desk that day that he wouldn't know everyone working in his building. So, if I looked like I was just rushing passed him as if I had forgotten something...
Women weren't popular in business... maybe I was picking something up for my husband?
Not thinking any more, I began my part at the perfect time. Mr Edgar Brandon even held the door for me.
'Thank you,' I said softly as I squeezed passed him in the narrow doorway, making sure to catch his scent as I did.
What I discovered pulled me short. I turned to watch Edgar leave, his heart fluttering, and he was taking deep breaths to calm himself down.
The fluttering heart made sense, I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He assumed I was married just as I had hoped he would. But that wasn't what stopped me.
What he had looked at in his desk five times since I had found him, was a photograph of his late wife, Cynthia, as a young toddler, and Mary. There wasn't much guilt when it came to having his late wife killed to be with his present one, but when it came to Mary. He wasn't in short supply.
It was his current wife, Anna, who had wanted Mary dead. Of course, he hadn't liked Mary visions, he never had with his line of work, but killing his own daughter had seemed farfetched to him. He had been grateful when the asylum had been an offer rather than her death.
And that he didn't feel any guilt over killing his wife, did not mean that he didn't think of her, which I did find surprising. He thought more of his late wife than he did his current one.
As I followed Edgar Brandon back to his house, I saw how he hugged Cynthia in a way he only had after losing Mary. Tight and not letting go until she let go first.
'You're home late,' his wife said, breaking apart their hug sooner than I knew Edgar would have hoped.
'Busy,' he lied. He had spent the last half hour thinking of Mary. Wondering if she was okay or if she hated him.
How could I make this man feel her guilt, if he already is, even the tiniest bit, sorry? I thought, watching.
I watched as the family ate dinner, the new wife ignoring most of Cynthia's words unless they were about her, or about dresses.
I really didn't like this new wife, but I already knew that she was more heartless than her husband, there'd be no making her feel the guilt. However...
I pulled my art kit out and began drawing my first art, an exact replica of the image I had created for Mary. I was done within the hour and knew exactly what to do for the following, something from Igor's past, how Mary looked after her treatment. Pale, thinner than Edgar would remember. I drew tears in her eyes that I knew hadn't really been there, but just to add my own touch.
I slipped into their house and left them on the bench where Edgar got his coffee every morning before his wife woke up. I returned to his work, broke in and left a note, pretending to be a representative of the asylum who had missed him last night. I told him that Mary was still alive and healthy and that due to an outbreak of... tuberculosis, all family members of the asylum are encouraged to withhold visits. That'll keep him from visiting.
When I returned to the house, midnight at this point, Edgar was sitting in the yard, alone, on a bench he hadn't sat on since the passing of his late wife. He hadn't even sat at the bench the days before my watching him... so why tonight?
I saw the glitter of my paper in the moonlight beside him. He found my art early.
As I watched the shine of a tear softly slide down his cheek, I knew I couldn't make this man feel the pain Mary felt. Mary was strong, was able to move forward with her head high and a smile on her little face. Edgar was weak, and he knew it.
I knew I should have left then, returned to the asylum and tell Mary what I had discovered about her father's heart. But then I remembered her face when she had seen how I would make her father guilty. What would have happened? Would I have lead this man to kill himself?
I couldn't do that. I couldn't become that type of person.
I knew Mary couldn't physically harm me, but I was afraid of her reaction once I returned to the asylum, so instead, I focused on Cynthia. Wondering what I could do to make her young life better.
Days passed and turned to weeks, as I watched Cynthia Brandon, cringing and feeling sorry for her when her step-mother pulled her around like an animal. But while she was still under their care, I didn't know what to do about it.
Until she started showing signs of perhaps having a gift similar to her sister's.
'Father?' Cynthia had said, approaching her father in his study, a forbidden room to her, one night. He didn't react but look over his glasses to her, and put out his cigar. 'I... I know Mary is still alive.'
'What are you talking about, Cynthia? She..."
'I can feel it. I just know.'
Her words scared him, but they made me smile. Premonitions were a family trait apparently, but I could tell that Cynthia's weren't as strong nor as helpful to her as Mary's were.
'We buried your sister, Cynthia. So, please, enough.'
'With a closed casket because we couldn't find a body! I heard what An, I mean, Mom said! She's out there. I know it.'
'Please, Cynthia. Enough.'
Cynthia took a deep breath. 'There's something else, Father.'
'About your dead sister?'
'She's not dead, and no. I think somebody's been watching us,' she said, looking over her shoulder, through their window, and at me. Did she know I was there? She shivered before looking back at her father. 'I don't know who they are, or if they mean us any harm, but I know someone's been watchin' us.'
'Have you seen them?' he asked her.
'No, Father. I just know.'
'You just know,' he repeated through his teeth. 'Just like how you just know about Mary?'
Cynthia nodded.
'I don't want to hear any more of the things you just know, Cynthia, understood?' her Father growled.
'Yes, Father.'
Before he said anything else, she ran out of the room, her head low.
Once in her room, Cynthia opened the window and looked out as if trying to see someone. Me?
'I don't know who you are, but I think I know why you've been watching us? Please, tell my sister I said that I remember her, and I miss her,' she said into the night before closing her window, her blinds and getting ready for bed.
On that note, I decided that it was finally time to return to the asylum.