Heir to the Manor

He dragged the unsuspecting man out of the carriage, threw him to the ground, and clasped his hands around his throat. A chilling shriek departed the victim’s lips, echoing unheard in the darkness while the shackled black steed whinnied, expelling mist into the air. I watched through the deep brush of the forest while sparse moonlight cracked through the clouds of the night sky, illuminating the murder. My eyes widened while the killer strangled his prey till it fell limp in his grasp. 

The murderous fiend crept through the trees an hour earlier, unknowing I perched above upon a branch. Audience to the deed, my interest peaked.

The assailant pulled the corpse beyond the dusty road, dragging the body through the bush before the blackness of thick trees swallowed them whole. Countless moments later, he emerged, dawning the apparel of the recently deceased. After dusting off the jacket, the murderer reached inside the black carriage while the tethered steed pulled impatiently on its harness. He found something and held it to his eyes; Paper. A letter, perhaps.

This was no random attack. The man snickered as he folded the paper and put it inside his coat before climbing onto the bench seat. Taking the reins, he continued down the road. Plagued with curiosity, I flew down through the shadows and hid on the back of the carriage.

The clock precisely struck midnight as we arrived at an estate featuring a most haunting old gothic manor. The murderer studied the words above the gate, showing the Master of the House belonged to a man named William. He negotiated the iron gate while I run off amidst the sheltering cover of trees. The man paused and studied the letter once more before pressing the horse forward along the stone path toward the home.

I stood in the darkness watching him grab a suitcase assumed to be the belongings of the deceased. He lurked toward the aged wooden door with a gleam of malevolence in his eye. The clouds parted, leaving the placid moon casting shadows upon the stone walls and windows of the upper level. He rapped the iron ring door knocker three times before the glow of a candle emerged from the far end of the home. His menacing glance transcended the echoing whines created by the wind sweeping around the manor’s stones. As evil as the ominous moonlight could depict, creeping vines scaled the base of the walls like slithering snakes, appearing to reach for the threat at the door.

“Uncle Thomas, I presume?” asked the girl, no more than twelve years of age. He nodded and smiled, looming over her, displaying ragged teeth. She held the candle close to her chest, adorned with a black-laced nightgown. The flickering flame caught the man’s scraggly face, and the moonlight showed misty breath departing his lips.

“And your name, young lady?”

“I am Elizabeth. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Please, come in, the night grows cold.” She stepped back and let her presumed uncle into the manor. “The rest of the house sleeps, shall I wake them for you?”

“No, that will not be necessary, child. Your courtesy to show me to my room will be sufficient for this late evening. I have had a long journey. There will be plenty of opportunities to acquaint with the others in the morning.”

“Very well, Uncle Thomas.” The door closed, and they vanished into the house.

Unbeknownst to his treachery and deceit, I felt the uncontrollable urge to warn the girl of the danger that lurched behind her into the manor. Not that I possessed the capability. Nonetheless, I climbed a matured tree, forever locked in an embrace with the stone wall holding the edge of the house, and crawled across the rocky ledge. The family cemetery lay below, embodying mausoleums and weathered gravestones growing out of the foggy mist. I felt a shiver pinch me and push me forward into the eeriness of the estate. Finding an open window, I dauntlessly crept inside.

The house groaned slumberous while I prowled through unseen. Surreptitiously, I moved to each room counting the living souls - eight in total - and one of the non-living kept cool in the dank basement below. Inspecting the kitchen yielded an ensemble of spoons and knives hanging by hooks, jangling into one another by a breeze from a nearby window.

Loose wooden floorboards creaked beneath me while rounded a corner and into a hallway. Startled, I looked to see four human-like faint silhouettes, invisible to the living, floating amid the slivers of moonlight invading the hallway. They passed over me with only a shallow glance, but I still felt the chill raising the hair along my spine.

I returned to the door where the intruder lay listless and pushed through the open crack. Pausing momentarily, I noticed the hearth in the corner burning low while still offering its warmth and lighting to the sounds of the murderer’s restful wheezing. The letter he pocketed lay strewn across the desk in the corner. 

Dearest Thomas,

I desperately hope this letter finds its way to you. We have never acquainted, nor you with my six children, but I must inform you of the untimely demise of my husband, your brother, William. He has fallen to fever in recent days, leaving you the only surviving member of your immediate family. By the wishes of your late father, they have bequeathed the estate to you. Please come at once. 

- Jane.

Sly bastard. Could one with such a diabolical scheme evade punishment? How could a ghastly murder prove so fortuitous for this impersonator? This butcher? I watched as he slept, cursed him with my eye. What was I to do? Despite the overwhelming inclination to caution the innocents, the pathway to do so remained unknown. 

The night faded to morning while I awoke to the sounds of children pacing through the hall. Daylight peered through the windows, revealing tapestries, swords, and shields proudly presented on the walls of woodwork. I remained in the shadows, away from the home’s dwellers.

There he was; the murderer. Laughing. Mocking the oblivious while he strutted around in the deceased Uncle Thomas’s clothes. The scent cast into the air foretold of his undeserving morning meal to come. 

The ineloquent belching and rambling of the unknown uncle drowned out the muttering chatter among the family. Surely he reveled in his good fortune, not thinking twice of the poor soul he impersonated and the impression made upon the grieving of the household. No sooner did he finish gorging the last morsel, did the family retreat below to view the body of his supposed late brother. I followed. 

The deceased William looked pale amid the candlelight - like wax. The intruder held the flame to the laying corpse on the table, with deceptive recognition.

“So many years have passed, I hardly recognize him,” he snickered under his breath. “My memory fails me. How long has it been since I’ve seen my dear brother?”

“Thirty years or so, I gather,” Jane replied. She looked upon her late husband with sadness in her eyes. The six children; two boys and four girls, dressed in black mourning attire, saw their mother’s face riddled with melancholy and moved to her side.

“Now, now, Jane,” he said, holding up the candle. “I’m sure William was a good man, father, and husband.”

“That he was,” she replied. He caressed her cheek and wiped a tear from her eye.

“Come along, children,” he said. “Today will be a celebration of life. William would have wished it that way.” He turned to the widow; “I trust we have prepared a plot in the cemetery?”

“Next to your father and mother.”

“Splendid.”

After the last of his excrementitious words departed his lips, I watched the children and Jane ascend the cold stone stairs out of the basement. The four faint silhouettes vanished into the walls before the murderer studied the widow’s backside and nodded his approval. The dirty bastard. 

Day turned to dusk as the family laid William to rest in the cemetery. I viewed from a window on the second level, not hearing the words spoken, but trusted it was a proper eulogy. The murderer led the group of seven back into the manor bequeathed to him and ravenously indulged on a bottle of the deceased William’s wine. They served the heir to the manor, a banquet of fine bread, fruits, and meat while he gluttonously dined from the head of the table, the former House Master’s seat. The smell made me ravish with hunger, but I remained invisible among the shadows.

“There is one last thing we must do to honor my father’s wishes, Uncle Thomas,” said the eldest son. He held up a dusty old wooden box. “My father wished we would open this heirloom together, at midnight following his burial.” The murderer’s eyes widened, wondering what riches awaited him inside the box. A family with such an estate and great wealth must possess priceless treasures.

“Of course, my child,” he replied. His speech slurred from the overindulgence of drink. He burped and wiped his chin. “Midnight precisely, with the entire family gathered around.” He smiled and slid his hand under the table onto the widow’s thigh. The bastard.

Though I am not the superstitious type, humans believe that a black cat crossing one’s path is a bad omen. I waited until he returned to his quarters before I leaped out in front of him in the hallway. I gathered his intoxication led him to not notice me, so I stopped and licked my paw, then hissed as loudly as I could. He stopped, bobbled for a moment, and squinted his eyes.

“Skat! Move along. Filthy animal.” The bastard tried to kick me. I hissed again and jumped to the next room. There wasn’t much else I could do.

Midnight approached, and I awoke to the family walking through the halls, each bearing a candle, and summoning Uncle Thomas to the kitchen. I waited from under the impersonator’s bed, then followed.

Jane pulled a chair away from the dining table and situated it in the middle of the room. She motioned for her presumed brother-in-law to sit. He happily obliged. She turned up his palms and placed the large wooden box on top of them, blowing off the dust into his face. He coughed but maintained his facade of anticipation. I loathed him at that moment. What treasure could be inside for such a treacherous man? No, not a man; a demon.

Jane produced an old iron key and pushed it through the little hole in the box’s front. The lid popped open, and she lifted it until it came to a rest on the presumed Thomas’s chest. A folded paper, penned in the deceased William’s handwriting, lay atop the wealth beneath. Jane took the paper, and one of the seven items inside. The six children grabbed the rest.

“These are the last wishes of William, my husband, the children’s father, and your brother.” She unfolded the paper and read to the smiling man in the chair.

Thomas, my brother,

Over the years that have passed since your abrupt departure, I found time to properly and respectfully mourn the death of mother and father. I hope you visited their plots in the cemetery and paid your respects, as I have done so each day. Our sister, Sarah, succumbed to death twenty-two years later and bore no children for complications from the same poison you used to kill our parents. I still recollect the facade your face bore when you returned to see that Sarah and I had survived your murderous plot against us all. You were wise to flee.

 Unfortunately, if I have passed, you are still heir to the manor until the day you breathe your last breath. I have taken the family’s collection of jewels and created the decorative handles for the blades my family now grasps before you. I have instructed each of them to give you a dagger in remembrance of our mother and father, Sarah, and myself. In the likely event of your death, the estate will belong to those you see before you. May you burn in hell for all eternity.

- William.

The impersonator sat bewildered and confused, attempting to comprehend the words the widow Jane lavished upon him. The family members, dressed in black nightwear, wielded a jewel handled blade and circled him like marauding vultures. One by one, they gifted the presumed uncle with a dagger, sending spurts of crimson into the air. He tossed aside the wooden box and stumbled out of the seat, but the continuing barrage of blades sent him to his knees. Blood pooled around his hands and feet until he collapsed and lay dead on the cold stone floor. The four ghosts hovered. I was most certain it was the murdered parents, William and sister Sarah, witnessing the due punishment for the murderous Thomas. They faintly crowded over and inspected the body. I wonder if they realized it wasn’t him.

But the greedy murderer murdered another murderer and was murdered for the murders of the man he murdered. I wished at that moment I was capable of speech, but my burden was far from over.

Relieved, though disturbed, I crept away from the massacre and up to the window, still open on the second level. Reaching out to the tree’s branch, the shadowy figure startled me; a most haunting gargoyle atop the manor. Its glance eternally locked at the grounds below, while droplets of rain darkened its stone skin and dripped off its wings. I wouldn’t be missing this cursed place, nor would I ever forget.

The wind howled while I shifted into an owl and ruffled my feathers. I shrieked my piercing voice into the air and flew off into the night.