Not gonna lie I don't like this part I had better expectations but I feel like I forgot to write for this part. I might end up rewriting it but I just want to finish out this chapter so that I can get to posting the writing I do like.
CHAPTER 23 (part 4/4)
SLUTTY GLASSES CHANGE LIVES
Remus made the fire quickly with the pestering ringing of Marlene eager to tell her story.
Once the crackling settled, they all sat in a wreath around the charring warmth, bundled in scarfs and thick leather wearing jean shorts and flimsy linens.
Peter was next to James, who was next to Lily who was cuddled into Mary, who was next to Sirius, who was sharing a blanket with Ana, who was next to Remus, who was adding her marshmallows to the stick he had skinned clean.
He was next to the jittery Marlene, who was next to Alice, who was holding onto Frank's arm.
"Braw, everyone settled?" Marlene asked, glaring at the coughing Peter. The smoke kept blowing in his face, no matter how often he ran from it.
"Peter shh."
"I can't help it!"
"Nothing boring Marls I don't want to hear about Bloody Baron." Mary jutted in.
Frank came in as mediater seeing Marlene's offended face, "Lets make it a rule no boring stories we've all heard before."
"Last time I checked, I was the only Scot here." Marlene defended.
She took a deep breath, pulling on a stoic face as if she was about to tell her grueling stories of times at war. "I am going to tell you about Bean Nighe, the washerwomen."
Crunch!
Marlene sat forward in her seat, turning her whole body to Remus and Ana.
The boy was opening the plastic wrapping of the graham crackers as Ana held her burnt marshmallow towards him.
"What are you doing?" Marlene emphasized every word.
Ana looked up innocently. "Making American smores?"
"No! You're interrupting. I need my ominous silence."
"I'm done. I just need to add chocolate."
Marlene looked down at the graham crackers in Remus' hand about smash Ana's charred candy. "No chewing. It'll be too loud. You can have it after."
Ana leaned over the broad boy to flick Marlene's forehead and make Remus' ears go pink. Nevertheless, patient fell back into her seat eating the marshmallow whole.
Swallowing her manners in trying to muffle the whines of her now burnt tongue.
Marlene continued on after a cast of Lumos holding the 'flashlight' below her face to make the whole ordeal more cheesy. "The Bean Nighe, washer women, are old hags much taller than any human with webbed feet... only one nostril, and a large.. snagged tooth."
"Sounds like my mother." Sirius whispered, earning shhs from everyone now invested on Marlene, who did her best as storyteller to create suspense.
"You see her at night on desolate streams, the Isles Mull and Tire, washing..... Bloody Clothing."
"Its said the Bean Nighe are spirits of women who died in childbirth doomed to wash the clothes of the near-dead until the day their lives would otherwise have ended." Marlene narrated like an overly committed theatre student.
"It is said if you sneak up on the washing woman as she sings her mournful dinge and seize hold on her before she flees... she will reveal to you the name of the soul condemned to die and if your luck is in, she may also grant you three wishes." Marlene finishes out.
Pity silence landed. Waiting for her to continue, tell a story about some couple getting killed by her. Or how her attribute of three wishes would lead to a horrible tale about consequences.
"That was a bit boring." Remus crossed his arms, still a bit miffed she had interrupted him and Ana.
"Depressing is what it was. I mean, she's the one who died in childbirth. Why does she have to do peoples who almost died laundry?" Lily added.
"Yeah, I thought she was going to be some murder cursed to wash all the clothes of everyone killed." James revealed his predictions.
"I don't know why! That's the story my nan told me. I do know that her boobs was so long she had to hang them behind her back." Marlene frowned, adding the last key detail of the description as if it would save her lackluster story.
"Your nans?" Peter asked.
"NO! The Bean Nighe." Marlene whined, glaring as the group burst out into laughter, silencing all chorus from any nightly creatures.
James enacting the folktale, throwing her boobs back as if it was a sassy hair flip.
"I thought it was scary." Peter shrugged, stopping Marlene's scoffling.
The Scot ruffled his mousy blonde hair, smiling. "Aww thanks Pete."
Sirius sat up from his knees tucked position. "Wait-Wait, I have one and it won't be boring."
"Mine wasn't boring!"
"Whys that, Siri?" Ana asked, eating a piece of Remus' chocolate.
"Because it's a real story."
They all tucked back into their seat. Ana sat forward, a new marshmallow on her stick. She was hopeless in trying to make it a perfect dark golden, close to burning it again.
Remus took the stick she was holding by the unstacked end guiding it away from the flames down to the charred ashed.
He whispered. "It'll catch a flame like that."
-
"Now has anyone heard of the tomb of Baroness Demidoff?" Sirius asked, smirking as they all shook their head.
"Good. It's a french story my cousin told me it." Sirius took the blanket covering his and Ana legs fashion it around his head like muggled story witch.
"Now... there was a woman, Baroness Demidoff, she was a Russian women who lived in France. And she was awfully rich." Sirius used every word in between a ghostly whisper and a too loud boom.
"She died very unexpectantly in I think it was- early 1800s- but only days before her untimely death she had altered her will." He kept a pause for effect or to remember the history.
"And for some reason in only months before her death, she had bought a plot in the P'ere Lachaise. It is the most beautiful cemetery in Paris. And had built a huge tomb. I mean, it's the biggest one there, it's all white marble sarcophagus and ten columns surrounding it. It got numbers all over it, and gargoyles and symbols... It looks like a Greek temple. And she lies in her huge building in a glass coffin."
"Like snow white." Mary made the comparison.
"What? no I don't know who that is," Sirus whispered back.
The Parisian continued after a hand to Mary's face. "Now she had a full funeral, every family member from Russia, any acquaintances, anyone who worked under her... everyone came to her funeral, wanting to know who would be getting their pickings of her wealthy assets."
Sirius used his hands to exaggerate."Now as they read out the will, a clause came out.... She had promised a fortune of five million francs- for that time. I mean god I dont even know how much it'd be now."
Sirius straightened his cloak, getting back into his hag character. "To any person brave enough to endure her rules. And they would earn the money."
"What was it!?" James was bouncing his knees at the story.
"They would have to spend 365 days and 366 nights alone with Baroness Demidoff In. Her. Tomb." Sirius let the silence hit as they let out little gasps.
"To make it worse, the tombs walls are lined with mirrors so there is no escaping the sight of her body in the glass coffin." Sirius looked a little too happy at everyone's scared faces.
"Any contestant isn't allowed any human conduct. But she did state they would be allowed to read and have one hour outside a day."
"Now apparently, every single courageous individual who has taken up the challenge has, after just a few days, pummeling at the tomb door, crying to be let out. Most suffered mental breakdowns or heart attacks."
"One thing that every one of them said was that their was a vampire-like entity draining them of their lives."
"And to this day Baroness Demidoff lay in her glass coffin and nobody has come close to earning the fortune." Sirius let his hands up like a ghost rest at his side.
Remus noticed Ana huddled in the chair, looking awfully affected by the story. She already had her arms wrapped around Sirius' bicep. Remus placed a hand to her ghost bump spiked legs as comfort only for her to spring from her seat, smacking him with the marshmallow stick.
"Sorry!" Ana fell out of her seat in front of him as Remus squinted the eye of the side of his face that had been hit.
"Sorry!" Remus said with the same amount of height as Ana, holding his hands up like there was an officer in front of him.
"Sorry! Sorrry sorry." Ana held his head up.
"Did I hit your eye?"
"No no, I'm sorry. I- just- you just look scared." Remus pulled back.
"Oh.." Ana smiled, looked down, sitting back in her seat. "I did get a little creeped out by the story."
Remus smiled back, picking up the stick. "I didn't mean to scare you was just gonna ask if you was alright."
Ana breathed out a sigh of laughter, looking down. "Yeah yeah I'm fine, looks like to made me a weapon." She gestured to the spear Remus made her.
"Oh, yeah." Remus winced. "Did you like it?"
"The stick, yeah."
"No... th-the smores."
"Oh!" Ana laughed. "Yeah! Yeah, they're really good."
Remus smiled, whispering "good."
_
The whole group practically groaned and rolled their eyes at the oblivious two, who found a way to somehow create stings of tension around eachother in even the most meaningless of conversation.
"How are they not together?" Mary whispered out. Lily covered her mouth, glaring. She was probably the only one who liked the pinning watching of the quiescent phase of any great love story, a dance of a one steps forward another back. It was all the books she read, leaving her hopeless (shameless) romantic.
Date Posted: October 27, 2023