Rock wrote:Silently, Everline rises and positions herself to the side of the door -- the side it won't swing into if opened. She pulls her morningstar out of its hiding place and holds it ready to slam into the face of anyone who tries to force entry. "Who is it?" she calls out.
Rock wrote:Everline hides the morningstar away, but takes out one of her wand and quickly shoves it up her sleeve. She shakes the other one, letting a dagger's hilt slide into her palm, before she opens the door -- without standing in the doorway.
"Come in," she says.
Ken of Ghastria wrote:On the terrace--
Primeiro accepts the tea and begins eating the scone. "Truly," he says, "it will do none of us any good to try to address these problems on an empty stomach." He swallows. "And yes, alas, Bennedict did have the paper on his person, I believe. But I don't quite feel that our visit to the abbey is responsibile ... or at least not solely responsible. As Eustace points out, Mademoiselle Vaughn did not even come with us yesterday. and if her attack is related to the tragic death of that girl on your staff, monsieur -- and I believe it is -- then these creatures have been active. Still, something troubles me...."
He ponders for several moments, having another sip of tea in the process. "Eustace, if the creatures that attacked the men in the abbey years ago are the same creatures that are threatening Everline and the rest of us NOW, then what creature is trying to pound its way through the door in the pit?
"That is, we know that Everline was attacked in her dreams last night and we know that a shadow creature was in the pit yesterday... which suggests they're not imprisoned. Yet the pounding on the door resumed during our second visit to the ruins. So what's in there if it's not one of those shadows?"
He puts down the tea and says to both men. "We may have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Could whatever is in there be opposed to the shadows?"
Rock wrote:"No poppy," Everline says, her voice coming quick as a whip and coldly aristocratic in tone. "She must not sleep. Ths is crucial. She... saw her son and husband taken under abrupt and unnatural circumstances. Sleep will only serve to unleash hideous nightmares, you may believe me."
Adam wrote:Benn's pulse feels thready in his throat, but he turns.
"Juergin, I'm so glad you're here. You should have said something, I nearly took your head off with my cane. Where are - "
He is cut off as the speaker in the darkness. Stepping forward, he turns to the direction of the voice. "You! Enough of these games! Tell me where my son is now!"
Fragonard sits down on the edge of the bed with his black bag in his lap.Rock wrote:"Yes," Everline says. "Two people have been -- no, three by now. Three have been taken. Miss Charlotte was a witness to two of the disappearances, and it has..." Everline visibly and audibly grinds her teeth. "... it has unhinged her. I say to you now, she must not sleep. What you dismiss as harmless phantoms of the mind could push her over the edge of an abyss you can not even imagine."
Rock wrote:Everline starts to laugh. It is a sound devoid of conventional happiness, hard-edged and cynical -- and yet it is clearly not directed solely at Fragonard.
Once the sound subsides, Everline's voice has become soft and slightly mystical: "This island is tainted. Some great evil was buried here in centuries hence, and sealed up so it could not attack the living. Yet its shadows still slither around and do its will, attacking those they find dreaming -- and now also those they find awake.
They are the reason that poor servant girl died, the one for whose death no cause could be found. They stole away the boy through a shadow portal, and that is the way the boy's father and a young man went, also. Miss Charlotte had to see her husband disappear into darkness, and we do not know where to look for him now.
Physician, if you dare to question my sanity, I shall be most wroth. I ask you now: how would you help me? How would you help Miss Charlotte, when those who sleep are in even greater danger than those who are awake on this island?"
