Eudora

Eudora Spencer didn’t object to joining her mother for tea with Wolfram Belvedere and his son, Quinn. Quinn was two years her junior, but she was almost eighteen-practically a spinster! There didn't appear to be anything wrong with Quinn. He was charismatic, intelligent, and handsome. Unfortunately, Wolfram’s son held nothing of appeal to Eudora. In contrast, when his sister Daphne burst into the room shrieking like a banshee and swinging a fire poker–and clad in no more than a dressing gown–she had everything that Eudora never knew she wanted.

The young woman’s long dark hair fell down her shoulders like a waterfall. At first, Eudora thought she must be wearing a corset, but she realized Daphne’s waist was not cinched. Instead, she was full-figured and voluptuous. Eudora liked how Daphne looked, even if she thought she might be mad.

“Quinn, I said if you did it again, I was coming for you!”

“Bloody hell!” Quinn shoved his chair back to leap out of the way as the poker jabbed into the cushion of his seat. Fabric tore, stuffing flew, and Eudora’s mother gasped in shock at the unfolding spectacle.

“What did you do?” Eudora exclaimed as Quinn ran towards his father.

“What did I do?” He turned to glare at her, “my sister comes in trying to kill me with a fire poker and you ask what I did?!”

“You know what you did, you scoundrel!”

Perhaps because Eudora had distracted Quinn, Daphne plunged her fire poker into his shoulder this time. He screeched, Eudora’s mother fainted, and Wolfram became an inescapable presence at the head of the table. All the light in the room seemed to be repelled from him, leaving the older gentleman shrouded in unnatural shadow.

“Daphne, that’s enough! How dare you cause a scene like this in front of guests?!”

“Guests?! That's what you're worried about?” Daphne scoffed, though Eudora realized she had released the poker and stumbled back. She’s afraid of him.

“Is Tobias dead?” Wolfram replied.

“What? No!”

While his father and sister spoke, Quinn reached for the poker to yank it out.

“Wait, you shouldn’t-” Eudora tried to warn him, but the boy pulled the metal rod free, screamed, and collapsed into a heap on the floor. What on Earth is happening?

“Will you look at what you’ve done with your inappropriate hysterics?” Wolfram snarled.

“I happen to think my hysterics are quite appropriate regarding the situation, seeing as one of my brothers tried to kill the other. Again!”

Quinn tried to kill their brother? Well, That seemed like a very good reason for Eudora not to marry him.

“He can’t kill him, he’s not competent enough,” Wolfram stood at last, and as he pushed his chair back, Daphne shrank away.

Wait, what? Daphne had come in swinging a fire poker and stabbed her brother in the shoulder, yet now she was afraid. At first, Eudora had thought she was simply mad, but now she saw pain and fear in her gaze. He’s going to hurt her. He has before. Wolfram was halfway to Daphne when Eudora stood up to suddenly clap and call out:

“What an amazing scene! I didn’t know your family were patrons of the theater. How did you make that wound look so real!”

Eudora was exceptional at bluffing and had acquired a small fortune playing cards. Whether or not Wolfram believed her was anyone’s guess because his expression yielded nothing. However, he ceased his advance on Daphne, who visibly relaxed. She laughed, beating a hand on her chest.

“You got me!” Daphne cackled, and while it wasn’t a wholehearted laugh, gratitude was clear in her warm gaze, and a single word. It was a question that wanted to leap from her lips, but to speak it would have undone the illusion Eudora had created. Why?

Eudora felt her heart break for Daphne. Would I help someone in distress? Was that idea truly so foreign to the other young woman, that someone simply might not want to watch something bad happen to someone else? Then again...

‘Seeing as one of my brothers tried to kill the other. Again!’ What sort of household was this?

“My mother was overwhelmed by your performance,” Eudora emphasized the word as she spoke to Daphne, “'Twas magnificent. Bravo.”

Daphne turned to look at Eudora, tilted her head, and she grinned like the Cheshire Cat. The bluff had spared her some dark outcome Eudora found herself reluctant to imagine.

“I could do it again,” she replied and tossed her hair over her shoulder, “if you’d like.”

“That will be enough, Daphne,” Wolfram declared. “Help your brother clean up.”

Eudora’s cheeks turned hot at the exchange with Daphne. Her grin, the cant of her head, and even her posture had seemed to be inviting. Oh, dear. Quinn’s groan from the floor pulled Eudora from her thoughts.

“Come on, squirt,” Daphne reached down and grabbed him by the injured appendage, “Wolfram says time to clean up.”

Eudora’s mother began to recover, and Wolfram turned his attention to her. He apologized and explained the scene away, but Eudora wasn’t listening–she was too busy planning. She wouldn’t marry Quinn Belvedere, but she was going to save his sister from whatever darkness resided in Belvedere Manor.

At nightfall, Eudora snuck out of her family home. She put her dirty blonde hair in a bun and wore it under a cap, and donned trousers, a shirt, and a vest. Deception was never her intention when she slipped out at night. The disguise was for her protection.

Normally, she would wander the night seeking a game of cards. That night, Eudora would borrow, buy, or steal a horse if she had to. Belvedere manor was at the edge of the woods and too far away to consider walking to.

Daphne had called Wolfram by his name, instead of “Father”. The Belvederes were a very wealthy family, but people whispered and gossiped about them. When the late Hazel Belvedere had perished giving birth to her final child, Tobias, there’d been rumors of foul play. Even before that, she’d been seen mingling with his brother, Rousseau, unchaperoned. When Rosseau disappeared. Hazel married Wolfram. Many wondered which brother had fathered Hazel’s eldest child, Daphne. And that child is scared of Wolfram.

Eudora had been considering how to save Daphne ever since leaving tea earlier. She had even packed her satchel with all of her past poker winnings. Theoretically, they could run away together–assuming Daphne shared Eudora's special quirk regarding who she regarded as the fairer sex. Regardless of the outcome, I cannot allow things as awful as I fear may be transpiring to occur.

Eudora snuck in through the back of the estate. The property line was marked with a seven-foot stone wall, so she climbed up a tree and jumped over it while the moon crept across the sky.

Crossing the grounds, she came upon a locked shed. Considering that she might find more tools or a weapon, she set to work picking the lock. Once it clicked open, she finessed the door open and was welcomed by the smell of burnt hair and flesh, which turned her stomach. Though neatly organized, the contents of the shed were worrisome. Manacles of different sizes hung on the wall and she found a very large travel trunk. When Eudora opened the lid, she was relieved to find only a shovel. But it’s filthy. The chest was encrusted in dirt, mud, and clay.

When she saw the underside of the lid, her blood ran cold. There were scratch marks.

Eudora grabbed the shovel from the trunk and bolted for the manor. A not-so-small part of her wanted to leave and get away. But she couldn't forget Daphne’s fear or the way the shadows seemed to embrace Wolfram. 

I can’t. She thought as she sprinted across the yard towards the dark manor. I can’t be indifferent to the suffering of another.

Breaking open a glass window with a shovel was a noisy affair, so afterward Eudora dropped flat beneath the shrubbery just outside it. Shortly, a feminine silhouette appeared in the window to investigate. Light from an oil lamp filled the window, and a familiar profile appeared. Eudora’s heart began to quicken, and she heedlessly shot straight up through the shrubbery.

“Daphne?” She called out.

“Oh!” She started as Eudora appeared, “you! The theater fan. I don’t think I caught your name before.”

“I'm Eudora.” She felt her cheeks heat once more at Daphne's recollection of her, “And I’m here to rescue you.”

“-Beg your pardon?”

As Eudora watched, tears formed at the corners of Daphne’s eyes.

“You magnificent maniac. I don't think anyone has ever been more beautiful in my eyes. But, I can’t just go.”

“Oh,” Eudora deflated. Of course. What sort of person would run off with someone they barely knew?

“I can’t leave Toby here. I can’t. It’s too late to save Quinn. He’s willingly become Wolfram's pet monster. But I promised our mother I would protect Toby.”

“So bring him along!”

“It’s not that simple. Tobias is locked in his room specifically so I don’t take him in the night and run.”

“Good news for you,” Eudora leaned on the sill, cut her arm on broken glass, and cursed. “Ow. I know some unsavory fellows who taught me a thing or two about lockpicking.”

Daphne led Eudora inside and upstairs to the bedrooms, Daphne leading the way with her oil lamp, and Eudora with her pilfered shovel over her shoulder. When Daphne showed her Tobias’s door. Eudora made fast work of it with her pick kit, something she realized in hindsight she could have used to get in without smashing any windows. 

Then again, she’d been distracted, and it wasn't like she often broke into places. She only had the lock pick kit because someone had put it down as collateral in a game of cards.

When the lock clicked, Eudora pushed the door open. A little boy sat up in bed with a confused expression on his face. Where Quinn only shared Daphne's eyes, blue-gray like the sky during a stormy sea, Tobias was unmistakably related. They had the same high cheekbones, dark hair, and turbulent gaze.

“Daphne?”

“Toby!” Daphne rushed forward to embrace him. “This is Eudora. She’s here to help us.”

“Can we trust her?” Tobias hugged his sister and peeked out at Eudora.

That was when she noticed his hands and swallowed as her stomach turned anew. The nubs of his fingers were raw and healing with very short nails. But why? Why had someone trapped him in that awful trunk?

“If we can’t, we can take her on,” Daphne answered Tobias confidently. “Gather a few things. We shouldn’t dally.”

Tobias retrieved only a small satchel of stuff, and Eudora turned to Daphne.

“Do you need anything?”

“Ah,” Daphne glanced down at her bare feet, “shoes might be something to consider if we’re to run away.”

Then, suddenly, a hot, stabbing pain blossomed in Eudora’s back. I've been stabbed! She cried out, dropped the shovel to the floor with a clatter, and stumbled forward as Quinn drew the dagger from her back.

“Did you think you two would get away without Father finding out?” Quinn called to his sister and brother as he cleaned the blade on his victim’s shirt.

“Eudora!” Daphne gasped her name and ran to her. Tobias did something with his hands which seemed to cause light to burst from his fingers. When he flung a bolt of light at his elder brother, it threw Quinn across the hall. 

The light answered his call like the shadows obeyed his father.

“Eudora, stay with me! I can fix you up,” Daphne sobbed as she tore the cloth from her nightgown to put pressure on the wound.

“You can’t,” Eudora gently pushed her away and knelt to undo her bootlaces. “You don’t have time. Wolfram will have heard. You need to take my shoes, take Toby and go.”

“You’ll die!” Daphne cried out. “I can’t just leave you here!”

“You promised your mother, remember?” Eudora flashed her a bittersweet smile and shrugged off her satchel. “That has enough cash to get you two started. There’s a horse around the back of the wall. I’ll hold him off. Maybe I can’t stop him. But you two can get away.”

“Why?” Daphne sobbed as Tobias tugged at her hand, looking over his shoulder into the shadowy corridor behind them. “Why would you die to help us? It’s mad!”

“Because evil prospers when good people do nothing.” Eudora flashed her a grin despite the pain. “Also, I don’t like it when pretty girls cry.”

Daphne stared at her as Eudora yanked off her boots. She held them up and Daphne took them with a shaking hand.

“I can never thank you for your sacrifice.”

“Is it too uppity to ask for a kiss?”

Daphne laughed despite her falling tears. “I’d hoped I’d get the chance to do it properly later.”

“Well, there’s no time like the present, right?” Eudora teased, then flinched as her side gave an awful stabbing pain.

She forgot the pain a moment later, as Daphne had taken her face in her hands and kissed her. It was a strong, sweet kiss that told the story of what could have been. Eudora only drew away when she tasted Daphne’s tears on her lips, and she gently pushed her away.

“Go.”

Daphne looked like she wanted to argue still, but Tobias screamed. Eudora whirled around, cried out in pain, and saw Wolfram had emerged. The strange trick of shadows she thought she'd seen at tea was far more present now, like a vortex of darkness, and he was at the core. Even the oil lamp Daphne carried was snuffed out, causing her to cry out and drop it.

“Children,” Wolfram growled, and as he stood up straight his voice seemed to boom. “You should be sleeping.”

“-Go!” Eudora cried out to Daphne a final time, knelt to retrieve her discarded shovel, and then she rushed Wolfram.

It was a piss-poor plan to charge a mysterious magic man brandishing a shovel. It was a worse plan while she bled out from a stab wound. It also happened to be the only plan Eudora had. 

In the corner of her eye, she saw Daphne pull the boots on and pick up Tobias like he weighed nothing. She looked at Eudora one final time before she disappeared down the staircase.

It doesn’t matter if I die here. Eudora thought, and she screamed as she swung the shovel at her adversary. I've made a difference. 

Wolfram's shadows enveloped her senses, blinding, deafening, and numbing her, yet Eudora's thoughts weren't of the cold or the darkness. Instead, she thought of Daphne's stormy eyes, the warmth of their kiss, and what if? Maybe in another life, Eudora would have gotten to see who Daphne would become once free. In this one, even though it had led to this fate, she found she could not regret her decision to come here