Chain of Pearls

The Funeral Bells- Cornwall, 1889

"Even in the grave, all is not lost." Edgar Allen Poe
✵
The church was empty, apart from one woman at the back, a black veil obscuring her face. She stared at the coffin, over the rows of vacant pews. Standing, her short heeled shoes clicked on the wooden beams of the church floor as she walked to the front of the church. She opened the lid of the coffin. A bouquet of rhododendron, belladonna and red dahlias lay on the floor. Fitting, she thought. As expected, inside the coffin lay a dead mundane, glamoured to look like her. Sammael could trace her no more, she was free. Her life ties were tight again, her daughter was safe and she would live forever, secure in the knowledge that her old self had died that terrible night in a motorcar accident. She slammed the coffin shut, ensnaring the body inside in darkness. The snap echoed around the pillars, into the domed roof. It sounded like an explosion, like the crackle of fire. It sounded like destruction. Isadora Woodstorm stepped out into the cold November sunshine. She was free.
*
The front page of the paper that night was full of the tragic accident that had claimed six lives. Her name was inked in stark black, a testament to her demise. She smiled a smile full of cunning. The Princes of Hell had better start to run, and she knew just who to start with.
Sammael.
Her once lover, her once most burning star. Well, his corpse would disgrace the ground, and his light would burn no more. You deserve this, you filthy creature. She thought, before she began to pack away her things. She and her daughter would move far away. Sammael could never find them, and she would live.