Ishcliff @lcb78 - Tumblr Blog

Missing Piece

Cross-Posting from AO3

[A gothic romance, directly inspired by Wuthering Heights, as well as the WH/Edgar identities. I promise to do a better job than Emerald Fennell.] Warnings: Sexual Content, Melodrama, Suicidal Ideation and (Minor) Character Death.

Summary: On the day of the Wolf’s Banquet, he announces something that stops all their hearts: he now legally owns that damnably grand mansion. It turns out, he is looking for something precious he had lost there. One shrewd butler volunteers to help him. Can she stop him from ending their truce and killing them all?

Mirror

Ashes and dust made of all. Vengeance was served. Revenge exacted.

But at the very end, nothing; no one returns.

He is still left feeling empty and cold.

The Wolf’s Banquet

The Wolf returned with his undead party in attendance just as promised. But he didn’t just send them forward to senselessly slaughter as expected; instead, at the top of the hill, in the park in front of the house, he requested a ‘word’ with the Heir of The Edgar Family.

Gregor immediately condemned the idea as a trap, commanding his own forces to set upon him. But, as an example, a few butlers were torn to shreds as examples before him.

“Their fates lay upon your actions! Now, come with no fangs bared and I will not bare mine!” Heathcliff repeats his desire for the Heir to speak with him.

Ryōshū then steps in to interfere, but she is knocked down with a throw of the chained coffin from his back; she had misjudged his brute strength. He kneels over her, holding her down with the coffin. “How rash! I am doing this for your sudden impudence. Put down your cutlery for a few moments, the audience I request from your Master is for your benefit as well!”

Gregor, feeling pressured to come to his Head Butler’s aid, now comes forth. Ryōshū slips away quickly as the coffin is lifted, hovering close to the heir. He is livid at the shameless request. “You ask too much of this house, you threatened death too often to ask civility from us now! You’ve taken my dear sister and my arm, from all accounts, I owe you nothing, Wolf! Nothing but a blade to be driven through your heart!”

Heathcliff remains unfazed, only throwing an incredulous look at part of the accusation. “Your sister keeps the company of backstreets gamblers and bruisers by choice! What befalls her has little to do with me. I have met with her once, but I have never held any manner of heart for that chirpy strumpet.”

The heir continues to seethe. “She never returned here, she disappeared in the night! I found her little dog hanging by its leash on the stairwell! And now you have told me you’ve sold her for gambling debts?!”

“Will you really continue to waste time by making false conclusions? She chose to abscond with an unluckier bloke than myself that night. I don’t know or care what came of her next, but she was free to leave as she pleased.” Heathcliff dismissed the notion, ignoring the gap of his memory of why he even entertained an evening with this man’s sister. “And I am a self-made man with no debts, as you’ll soon discover!”

“Isabella, c-could she be alive?” Gregor’s voice hitches, coughing. He tries to recover quickly, but the trauma he sustained from her disappearance didn’t help his already delicate constitution. Ishmael, another butler, comes to Gregor’s side to assist him, but he puts a hand up for her to halt. She backs off, but doesn't spare her worry. It's understood that he needs to face the Wolf as he is right now.

Heathcliff’s face has remained rather grimaced until this moment, where it hints at something guileful. “Highly possible, but not guaranteed. It’s not my fault if you never went looking or if she doesn’t want to be found. Ah, though I did happen to play one game with her recently enough.” He lifts his hand and a butler dressed in a brown uniform and monocle comes, in a trancelike state, to place a document in his hands. “You see this? She signed something for me after I won a hand. Go on, take a look.”

Gregor nods for Ishmael to approach and take the document from the entranced woman, whom she recognized as the Head Butler of Wuthering Heights, Outis. She gasps involuntarily by looking into her glassy eyes a moment too long. She concludes that The Wolf has overtaken their allies, seeing swaths of brown uniforms in his rotting army. The butler takes the paper and brings it dutifully to her Master, flicking her eyes on the contents. Her stomach drops, if she understood that brief glance correctly.

Gregor’s eyes immediately widen and he coughs so hard he may spit blood. “What is the meaning of this? What is this farce!” He is in disbelief, the shock immediately takes a toll on his body. “This is the deed to this very manor…S-Signed by Isabella...It can’t be…”

“Yes, you got the family businesses, but she got the house in the asset division following the funeral!” Heathcliff said matter-of-factly. “So kind of her to let you play lord while she played in the streets.”

A choir of whispers broke out, and even the most loyal of Edgar Butlers began to murmur fearfully. Many of their contracts, spanning generations, were bound to the Manor, not Gregor himself. The few that are become even more scared. “This can’t be real!” One of them cries out. “Another one of the Wolf’s games!”

Gregor looks as if he’s ready to faint on the spot, but remains as strong as he could, scanning the document for any signs of forgery. But it was his sister’s handwriting, and their family seal. He pulls out his pocket watch, and the verification chip embedded into the document even reads legitimately. He hyperventilates, which causes him to choke on his saliva and begin coughing uncontrollably, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket to spit out the upheaval of blood in his mouth. “No. No…I will never let you have my family home!” He draws his saber, and before anyone else can interfere, he plunges forward to pierce the interloper's heart.

“As expected, you are taking this news rather poorly! Seems I also win this round of hide and seek!” Heathcliff grabs his greatsword to redirect, predicting him to resort quickly to attacking him again. “Now don't be a sore loser and die on me so soon! You don’t look so hale, perhaps you should just lay down, Mr. Edgar.”

Gregor can only scream as he holds the next clash with all his might, but he sees himself reflected in that great blade that Heathcliff uses to knocks him backward. He is unable to make an attempt to recover as a heavy boot punts his gut. More blood comes expelled from the internal pain. The same maid, Ishmael catches his body from crumpling to the ground. Heathcliff notices the look in her eyes, glaring at him with burning contempt.

Ryōshū steps in again. “Enough. I orchestrated the Wolf Hunt, direct your lashing out at me!”

Heathcliff glowers at her. “Do you see me cutting down any of your fellow butlers? None of my ranks have even moved an inch! Had I not called for your pause to discuss this matter of business?”

“Someone find Isabella, someone find her please.” Gregor says deliriously, panicking as his body shuts down on him. “Isabella!”

“Master, we can’t find Lady Isabella.” Ishmael whispers. It hurts her to witness this again. They've been all over the backstreets looking since she went missing. He's been like this before, with episodes occurring since her disappearance.

He is sweating, and coughing more blood, just from a look Ishmael knows the man had plunged into another dangerous bout of illness. She tries to keep him standing, but knows he is soon going to collapse. “Master Gregor, please try to-” It is too late, the rest of the house start to openly worry, and even more fearful sobbing can be heard among them.

Ryōshū turns to them and yells at them to shut up. “Don’t disgrace our Master by being such cowards! I will S.Y.N.C myself if I hear another blubber!”

Heathcliff knows it’d be all too easy to take them all out, but that's not what he decided he was here for. “Well seeing your Master is currently indisposed, let us finish these talks.”

But Ryōshū does not back down, her knives are quickly bared again, and many of the butlers take it as cue to launch an attack.

Heathcliff looks above to the sky as they close in. “How tiring. It's raining again…”

Days pass.

The majority of the butlers somehow are left alive after that last-ditch effort. Once Ryōshū was incapacitated, many of the butlers lost the will to continue the fight. They were able to take out much of the undead horde, but it doesn’t mean much when there’s still a surplus of the dead for The Wolf to raise.

The Wolf was now ‘technically’ their Master. But their former Master was still alive, though bedridden and in a medically induced coma. The Wolf must have been ridiculing them, at their incompetence to kill him. The humiliation does a huge hit to morale.

Heathcliff doesn't care much to assuage their feelings, but he didn’t interfere when they tended to their injured, nor did he raise their fallen comrades for more corpse fodder.

He mentions offhandedly he will in fact leave them alone once he is ‘satisfied’ with his revenge. But until then, he intends to keep them in suspense. One of the first actual requests he lays onto them is for someone to give him a formal tour of the estate.

Ryōshū’s voice remains firm against the man that, by all points counted, won. “I am still the H.B .of the estate, Heathcliff. No matter who legally owns it.”

His shoulders rumble with an amused laugh. “Ha. Yes, you are. Unless… I dismiss you.” But the bizarre merriment from his face quickly leaves, as he returns to the stony manner he’s conducted the rest of their conversations with. “But as I said, it must be anyone but you.”

“Tch. When I raised you…never did I--”

He towers over her as her battered body is confined to a chair. “Consider those ties long severed. I don’t need a big sister figure to half-heartedly tell me to stop sulking in the corner. To force me to accept the ‘difference’ I was born into after facing daily condemnation for existing.”

She opens her mouth to reply, but he cuts her off. “Now don’t you worry dear old Ryōshū, I know you had your own survival to think of. And that's exactly how you’ll remain in this manor. Even though I know you wished to leave my childhood home and myself so desperately, that's why you were only able to get as far as the next house.”

“Y.B.” She nearly throws herself up from the wheelchair she is temporarily bound to, anger seeping off her in sweat, her staff surrounding her, worried about her bandages. “How dare you accuse me of abandoning you!”

“Don’t feel bad, you’re not the only one.” Heathcliff replied coarsely. “Enough of this shoddy reminiscing. Now tell me, which of your little maids or butlers can be spared to give me a tour of the house?”

The gallery of the manor’s employees remain silent, the entire surviving lot from the siege are frozen with dread and fear. Ishmael’s fist grips strongly, shaking as she is unwilling for any one of them to be sent to the Wolf’s Den. As always, she forces all the unwanted jobs on herself. She doesn't want to stay stagnant as her home becomes overrun. The Wolf himself is growing impatient, and she only becomes more willful as his eye lands on her.

“Lady Ryōshū. I will.” Ishmael volunteers, curtsying at a low angle. There are beads of sweat on her forehead. “I will guide the New Master around the manor.” Calling him ‘Master’ feels like acid on her tongue.

Ryōshū flashes her a look filled with uncertainty, she’s upset that one of her most diligent staff was sticking her neck out like this. But she also knew if she sent someone more unqualified, Heathcliff may actually slaughter them all from the irritation. She knew she could trust Ishmael to do her job well. She still hates the idea, as she speaks through gritted teeth. “Fine. D.N.D.”

Ishmael heard it plenty of times to know what those three letters stood for; Do not die.

Heathcliff looks bored at the exchange but nods at her. “Very well, let’s go then.”

Rows of her coworkers stiffly part for them to pass swiftly through the room, eyes wide with horrified stares, as if watching a human sacrifice take place. Many hope she will survive, though the majority are just glad it's not them.

Ishmael shows him around the main hall first, only speaking to denote the rooms and the features. It is a bland, straight-to-the-point, perfectly-in-order type of performance from her. The boring business-only persona slips as he starts up the stairs instead of following her to the east wing like she planned. “No, wait-”

He doesn't, and continues on each stair without any intention of turning around. She follows after them, reaching out and grabbing his arm forcefully, and as she does it, she realizes too late that she had defied the natural order of her position. “Please stop, it's just bedrooms up there.”

He doesn't pause. “You are all rather committed to that sickly Master of yours.” He comments aloud, as they make it to the top. “If looks could kill…”

She throws him another one, there is no lack of trying when it comes to killing him with her mind. She wonders if she could afford a moment to distract him long enough to slit his throat.

“Is that why you decided to put yourself on the chopping block? To get close enough to use your silly little cutlery on me?” He doesn't know why he feels so talkative suddenly, but there is nothing to lose when he knows everyone in that house detests him but has no choice but to tolerate his presence.

“You read my mind.” She admits dryly. “But seriously, Master Heathcliff, there's nothing-”

“I don't like that.” He interjects. “Do not call me Master, just Heathcliff is fine.”

What? You were the one who stormed in and demanded we recognize you as the owner of the place. She thinks. “As you wish.” She says quickly. He has started to open doors, and her worry rises.

“I recognized you immediately because you have no light in your eyes.” He says, walking inside a boring guest room to give it a once over, just to walk out. “And that trailing long orange hair, of course.”

“I must have made an impression.” She says, unimpressed. She has heard about her “Dead fish eyes’ once before, from someone she can never reach again. “You would be the expert on dull eyes.”

Heathcliff finds her rude retort almost funny; it's basically true, but he actually doesn’t like looking the dead in the eye much. He throws another glance at her, she is easy to read; she keeps staring ahead at a particular door.

“I will leave your precious Master alive for now.” He says with heavy disdain. “So you may refrain from becoming hysterical each time I approach closer.” He opens the door to a guest bedroom, and rifles through drawers somewhat aimlessly. “Though his own body may have a say in that more than me.”

“Hysterical?” She scowls. “Of course you would make me nervous, you ripped an arm from him, and so much else! You've ruined his life!”

“He must be an incredible leash holder to inspire such passion.” He twists a flower out of its arrangement. “Is he your lover?” He smirks. Rich men can afford to live so selfishly.

“Haah.” She sighs. “Are you only going to say things you know will piss me off?” Such indignation, there's been no other reason for him to make such a conclusion. Her feelings for that man are pure admiration and care, or so she thinks. Though she owes him no explanation, she launches into one, picking up the whole vase and placing it away, “If you must know, absolutely not! I am a professional, not a damn wannabe mistress!” Her case rattles on her back as she stomps. “The Master saved my life-”

He interrupts her. “Allow me a guess, he picked you off the backstreets and gave you purpose and a family?” Heathcliff’s voice rumbles in her head despite his low tone. “A common story around these parts, the rich playing at being benefactors to the misfortunate. I know it very well! They only interact with backstreet dwellers to surround themselves with enough laborers and punching bags willing to lay their lives and work themselves to the bone.”

She stares with hatred, and while he makes a valid point; it doesn’t apply much to the Edgar household. It is clear her employment is a huge point of pride. “Is this generalization the reason why you've set out to take everything from him?!”

“You're a bold one to ask.” He looks amused at her anger, but scarily so. “He is not so kind, and took something precious from me, that's all the reason I need.” He brushes even further past her, looking back. “Oi, there’s that look again. Don’t burn yourself out.” His hand lifted to point directly to her eyes.

She finds it very shallow of a reason, which makes him seem all the more deranged. She says nothing, though she has a mind enough to swat his hand. She assumes this ‘something precious’ is what he is looking for as they go room to room. She's left fuming in the background, trying to counteract each mess. By the third room he’s ransacked, she pauses to ask, “Well what is this ‘something precious’?”

He doesn’t answer, instead stopping by the window curtains, a vague memory from his childhood plays from a game of hide and seek. But who he was looking for always remains obfuscated; he feels like screaming out as his hand clenches down on the fabric. He rips the curtains down, the entire metal rod and drapery. He drops it to the floor in a clatter.

Ishmael watches this, but doesn’t understand it, he was only acting like a schoolyard bully just moments ago, what snapped? Perhaps he is just as much as the madman the Wolf had been talked up to be. She intervenes, worried about the further destruction he’d wrought. “Heathcliff!” His proper name still feels so odd to say. “Please, sir, It’d be much easier for me to assist you if I knew exactly what you’re looking for!”

He swings to face her. “You do not know the great restraint I place upon myself, from destroying everything that man has touched!” He yells, but it does nothing to help him. “You are lucky I didn't raze this place to ashes and be done with it!”

“But I do know, having seen what you’ve done to the people of your own home!” Ishmael yells recklessly in return, recalling the glassy countenance of Outis. She wants to ask if he intends to do the same to all of them, but she finally thinks about her lack of self restraint, her throat feeling the effects of use. She wonders if any of her usual decorum is salvageable, as she calms her voice. “Please just tell me what you’re looking for so that we can unclench your jaw and fist.” She knows she’s being too blunt, but she knows their interactions will never be normal, as they hold too much hatred for each other to play polite. It isn't in her personality to be cowed by someone so despicable. But her lack of self-restraint still feels like a failure on her part.

His stormy temper subdues for the moment. He makes an observation. “You address me like a fire you’re simply trying to put out, much like your Mistress.”

Her face expresses a caught look; it is true.

He is smirking again. “Do not be regretful about your behavior now, I cannot be surprised that you see me as a challenge to overcome. Though I had expected you to force yourself more with shallow pleasantries."

Of course, how else can she treat a blood-lusting interloper whose claws may come down on her neck at a moment’s notice? “If you have such self-awareness, why do you put me through this challenge without even a hint to lessen the burden?”

He knows he is asking the impossible. “I will know when I find it.” He says, knowing it sounds like madness, his brow softens somewhat; he looks younger somehow as genuine worry seems to appear, perhaps it's because his eye looks a little less darkened. “If it is here.”

Ishmael recalls seeing this look, early in her time as an employee of the estate. She recalls the man visiting them, often turned away in spite. But still he kept coming back to the gates, even in the rain. Who did he keep trying to visit? What link did this man have to the estate? A companion? “Didn’t you love—” She realizes the question is absurd, but the faintest silhouette of someone comes to mind. She is somehow quickly sure it's not Miss Isabella, whom he had seemingly lost in the backstreets by his own admission. Ishmael can feel him staring intensely at her as she says it, but she never finishes the thought.

She pauses as they turn back into the hallway, at the top of the stairs there is a grand portrait of Gregor, but it seems so empty, as if there was another portrait that also belonged there. The Master also had a companion, she vaguely reminisces. But who was it? She sighs. “Forgive me, it's nonsense. Doesn't this wall look weirdly bare?”

His gaze shifted darkly at the wall, the intensity from before quickly returned. She knows something! It’s a divisive feeling, and he wants to smash something again, anything to calm himself. He clutches the banister of the grand staircase, nearly crushing the wood beneath. He takes a deep exhale, but his brain only greets him with sharp fog in response. “It does.” He agrees, it truly does. But it doesn’t go amiss that she clearly has insight on events he had to mentally torture himself to dismiss as cruel illusions. He looks desperate. “You…remember someone?”

She is taken aback from the vulnerable look in his eyes. She had eschewed the passing thoughts as much as she could before; to steel herself. But the truth was now apparent, the Wolf really did love someone. But what of it? He was still terrorizing her home, and his presence hovering over her neck was actively grinding her nerves. She leads him down the stairs, only glad he didn’t storm into her Master’s room. “I-I don’t know.”

The fact she doesn't completely deny it is an admission in itself. A strange thing happens; he laughs. “She doesn’t know!” He exclaims, but the sudden glee sounds equally like pain. He will accept that; he is not the only one who has seen shadowed memories! He feels vindication from that confirmation. He had been suffocating for as long as he could recall, dismissing the fog in his brain for lies, for daydreams. He is, for the first time in his recent memory, elated. He expresses as much as he blithely marches down the stairway, holding his hand to her to take, a sign of his intentions. “I don’t believe we’ve had a proper introduction, lass.”

Ishmael is not swayed out of her hatred by his sudden uplifted mood, nor the piqued interest in her. She accepts his hand only due to her rigid code of propriety, shocked when it clamps around hers. “Call me Ishmael.” She finally says, like it's a rite of passage she must endure.

He makes nothing of her odd phrasing, but soon relinquishes his grip. But even after he lets go she feels like she’s been marked by him. Her hand tingles with a shiver as her mind wanders to the chains on the oddly-shaped coffin he carried. There is a connection, somehow. The burdening object was presently laid in the foyer along with his great sword when he made his claim of peace. She entirely doubts he needs either to lay waste to them. Her eyes sink to the ground, as she turns to continue the tour into the East Wing.

“Ishmael.” His voice is low again. “I believe you can help me find what I’ve lost. If it's actually…missing.”

It's so cryptic, but she doesn’t bother to ask more. She simply nods, accepting the responsibility, as if she has any other choice. She has bought time somehow, but the threat of her failure looms. She swallows the lump in her throat. “It may take at least a few days to thoroughly look, the estate is very large.”

“I am prepared for that.” He replies, releasing her from his grip. For now.

More days pass…

The other servants look upon Ishmael differently. Before, she did always command a level of respect with her hardworking nature. Even so, some regarded her worst attribute as her lack of faith in anyone else to reach her standards, often opting to do many things herself. They supposed now that flaw was also now their saving grace. Her way of not only surviving, but handling the Wolf’s constant presence was met equally with admiration and fear. No one else save for Lady Ryōshū would have lasted this long.

Ishmael’s scheme was hitting a corner. They had completed the search of the entire house, and now she has asked for them to make time to search the grounds. She is no closer to understanding what precious item he is hoping will materialize. She starts to make more connections from his odd behavior, doubting the ‘precious thing’ to be a physical object at all. He is trying to restore his own memories, is what she concludes, especially after she had helped him uncover several realizations throughout the days, of things he does remember: he remembers creaking footsteps sneaking up to the attic he once lived in, he remembers the clattering sound of dropped tools. He remembers laughs and pinches on his arm. He remembers long hair; he remembers it whipping in the wind, while running up and down the moors. None of these things sound particularly romantic to her, except for maybe the wind.

And for what he specifically remembers about the estate: he remembers the howls of hounds and the gnashing sound they made, he remembers a scream that followed; those fleeting days of joy abruptly ended the first time he came to this house. He recalls the misery he felt every time he left it since then. She feels a sliver of sympathy in these half-recollections that haunt him. She knows what it is like to harbor thoughts that drive you to madness. The picture of his hatred has become clearer. But to Ishmael, it still remains unsatisfying as reasoning for his former homicidal plans.

But it deeply bothers her that the more they interact, the Wolf seems ever more like a battered child clinging to the past, than the walking death imagery that was hammered into her. She fears she is too accepting of the dissonance. He is a deeply troubled man; his mind seems to lack any certain form of clarity; his mood the first couple days were a tornado cocktail of despair and maniacal mirth. She remembers the dread leaving her utterly exhausted. By the third day, he seemed to steady himself. He became disturbingly approachable, even. Due to their improved rapport they were able to have what she considered a breakthrough in the library. She found a book on riddles while he was busy pulling things off the shelves:

The book was unlike most of the collection. The household kept many informative and varied works, but the subjects were mostly for educational purposes. The book looked well-worn and read, in contrast to the meticulous ‘good as new’ nature the others were kept in. Gregor nor Isabella never showed such a profound interest in riddles. A familiar one came suddenly to her mind, and she recited it, “The more you take away from me, the bigger I get. What am I?”

Heathcliff looked up, shoving the book in his hand back in its place; he actually knew this one. “A hole.” He went silent in thought, before sighing. “Someone else used to ask me riddles.”

She touched the cover of the book, feeling a fuzziness in the back of her head. “I think someone used to ask me too. Do you know any others?”

Heathcliff went quiet again, and looked away for a moment, but seemed to finally recall one. “Who makes it, has no need of it. Whoever buys it, has no use for it. Who uses it can neither see nor feel it. What is it?”

“Oh.” She frowned, immediately arriving at the answer, glancing away. “A coffin.”

He nodded ever so slightly to confirm her answer. “You didn’t like that one?” He asked based on her reaction, but she didn’t elaborate. He hovered closer to the chair she had taken up. “Do you fear dying that much, even though it is inevitable?”

“Is this another riddle? Obviously! I’m human, last I checked.” Ishmael sighed, her eyes flickered for a second, as she fought back memories of her own. “There are worse fates than death. Even worse than what you’re capable of.”

He scowled. “You seem very certain about that, lass.”

She returned his derision.“I’ve seen things that very few would envy. Your corpses eventually turn to unusable dust, much like what I would clean from forgotten crevices on a window sill. But I know you’ve never dealt with unspeakable laws, know what a resonance tuning fork is, or witnessed humans become-” She stopped herself, quickly disinterested in recounting it. “Ah, forget this-”

But his attention was absolutely captured, he took up a chair. “Humans become what?”

She somehow convinced him to change the topic then. The important thing is they reconfirmed his memory wasn’t the only one that suffered from ‘holes’.They ended up talking about death again. She doesn’t care much about that subject either.

Heathcliff slammed shut another book. He wasn’t reading it, just observing the morbid illustrations, which were not at all shocking for him; but he enjoyed the dramatic sound. “What do you think of this damnable curse of mine?”

Ishmael got up from her chair, swiping the book from him. “You’ll break the spines, which decreases the value.” She doesn’t prod for him to continue, too focused on making sure Gregor’s collection of medical volumes survive intact. She found him before her again suddenly, his brow twitching. He was upset. “What is it?” She asked, thinking it's the wrong question.

Surprisingly, the man sighed; disappointed and clearly sulking. “I said…what do you think of this damnable curse of mine?” It doesn’t feel the same the second time he says it.

“Your…” She doesn’t have a better word for it. “Necromancy? Uh, are there side effects, like does it affect your own lifespan at all?”

The very question leaves him pondering. She is almost insufferably practical. Truthfully, he has no idea, even after peering into the mirrors of himself. The wretched glass had shown him limited possibilities. But perhaps he merely dreamt those too. Unsatisfied, he decided to drop the subject. “Let’s end our search here for today.”

“I think it's awful. But it does seem a bit thrilling.” She knows how she'd use it.

“Yeah it is awful, but that thrill wears quickly off.” He replies morosely.

In those days, Ishmael begins to see that his will to live is just as frangible as his abstaining from destroying them. She never thought she would learn to spend time with him without constantly holding her breath. Figuratively, he was a man lost in the dark. In her voyage days she had confronted the dark as well, nearly losing herself if it weren’t for a dear lifeline of someone she loved and eventually lost. She knows the Wolf’s missing person was like that for him.

Etiquette

On this particular day, her eyes now settle on his back; on that ragged and stitched coat. His appearance is of someone who hasn’t known comfort in a long time. She absolutely hated it, and his unkempt scarf and hair. She knows he probably doesn't socialize with the living enough to care much about his appearance. In a way, she thinks that is a failing on his household. He probably has never felt enough pride in it. She wonders if she can provide him with a new set of clothes, but quickly feels it's an overstep. He would look strange dressed like a landlord.

But, would it be so bad if she showed him a bit of the decency required to serve their guests well? She’s never seen the man even take time to eat in her presence, nor knows what becomes of him when he leaves for the night.

He notices her looking at him with a strangely sympathetic gaze as he turns back around. “What is it?”

She changes back to an aloof expression, not wanting to offend him. “Would you like to break for a meal, Heathcliff?” She half expects him to boom his voice at her for making presumptions, but she is surprised when she detects a disarmed look from him instead.

“Fine, I’ll go.” He says mildly, heading back inside for the main kitchen.

When they enter, the staff there stares with bewilderment, but quickly scrambles to assemble a plate to foist him off. Ishmael harshly gestures for them to stop, flashing a disdainful look for their impertinent and more importantly, unrequested haste. She wishes she could scream at them for treating him so obviously like an obstacle, but she remembers when he called her out for doing the same. She was ashamed of that. It was terrible service that went directly against their code of conduct, foe or not.

“Would you like to eat in one of the dining rooms, Heathcliff?” Ishmael asks politely. A nearby servant named Jenny cannot control her expression at the personal tone when she gasps, scandalized by the familiarity between them.

Heathcliff glances at his companion and begins to back out of the room lethargically, as if she was dragging him around. “If you’d like.”

“If…you’d like?” Jenny repeats to Ishmael’s ear, who promptly ignores it.

She then does a courtesy bow to the staff, issuing an order: “Please bring the meal to the blue room in the west hall.” She gives them a final look, especially to Jenny. “Keep it simple, don’t do anything stupid, please.”

But Jenny’s loud mouth fires off before she leaves earshot. “Doesn’t anyone else find that insane?!”

The blue room was well-named and well-lit; in an otherwise monochromatic home that was traditional and basically mandatory in the manors of the Nest, this room was a stunning change of pace. However, the novelty soon fades once you understand that the room was much like all the other finely appointed ones, just all blue.

She stands near the head of the table, waiting for him to take a seat. She then notices he is still wearing that outerwear inside, so she insists he shed his coat and scarf before sitting, leaving him in a long-sleeved button up shirt and thick belted vest. He looks unusually more approachable this way, but it bothers her that she thinks so.

“Do you always wear this many layers everywhere?” Ishmael asks him, but quickly realizes this might be all he owns.

“It gets cold here.” He replies plainly. She almost feels bad for him, but she also wants to tell him he smells of rain constantly. Rain and rust.

It's even worse that she's getting used to it, but she was once also used to the smell of fish and whale oil. She shrugs off the thought as soon enough, a procession of items from the kitchen are carried in, and a napkin and setting with pointedly placed cutlery are placed in front of him. He grabs one of the knives, it is polished so well that he uses it as a mirror for his good eye to view Ishmael standing behind him. He cranes his neck to look at her directly. “Are you not going to sit with me? It’s a bore eating alone.”

“I don’t believe it's considered proper since you rank above me, I will eat later.” She explains.

He doesn’t like her use of the word ‘rank’.“Nothing about me is proper, now sit.” He turns to one of the butlers bringing in cutlery. “Oi, get her settled too.” He kicks out a chair next to him with his foot. “C’mon, Ishmael, Sit.”

She heeds him and carefully joins him at the table. But she feels a bit startled. She remembers this being someone else’s seat, and Gregor would sit where Heathcliff was. Lady Isabella used to be on the other side of him. She fights the urge to grimace, for those ruined days. She tried to fix her face, or her present company will notice. He does, but doesn’t call her out.

A place-setting is quickly established in front of her. One of her co-workers timidly places two small basins of warm water mixed with natural oils and herbs, along with two hand towels. The basins give off a pleasant citrus-basil smell.

Heathcliff peels off his gloves, understanding its purpose; hand refreshing. Ishmael supposes she should not be surprised he already knows this custom, having grown up in a manor too. But it reminds her of when she first learned of it after joining the house.

Water lightly splashes out of his basin, which causes her to look at his hands; they are noticeably rough and worked, marked all over with scars. They remind her of someone else her heart quietly held, her face again becoming somber. Ishmael then takes off her own gloves, and notices his eye settled on her. She dips her hand into her bowl; the mixture should have been a touch warmer. She mentally notes to bring the feedback to her fellow servants later. There was an opportunity almost, with a nearby coworker, but Ishmael nearly jumps as Heathcliff grabs her hand suddenly, kneading it, feeling it. He does it only for a few seconds, releasing it after coming to an observation. “You have very rough calluses.” His voice seems astonished.

“L-Likewise.” Her heart is pounding from shock, she avoids looking at any other eyes about the room. This has to be moved on from. “Not what you expected?” She then recovers, soon drying her hands on a towel. The same servant removes the basins and towels, and soon more feet come shuffling down the hall, with the first course. There is an alarming amount of whispers, but Ishmael turns her attention back to their guest.

“I expect it's something to do with your secret past that you keep mum about.” Heathcliff replies, unusually garrulous.“Am I bang on?”

“I thought you had me all figured out. Some backstreets wanderer taken in by a rich family, remember?” She finds the surrounding atmosphere is changing. “Though, calluses can fade. I am just as diligent as a scrubber as anyone else here.” It’s a lie, she’s definitely in a league of her own.

“I have figured something else about you, as well.” His brow resumes back into its usual creased look. “But I will tell you after we finish this meal.”

Her head tilted, curious on what he had to say. But Ishmael gets a clenched feeling in her stomach as bowls finally meet the table for the first course. She turns to another Butler before they leave. “Can you please just bring the rest out soon? I requested this to be simple.” The others nod diligently, but it doesn’t escape her notice that the two that had just entered pile up to also whisper again on their way out.

Heathcliff stares down at the soup, sniffing it. It is a meat-based broth from what he can gather. It also has a strong smell of onion. There’s something else he can’t place. His hand goes down to lift a spoon. “Is this the right one?”

Ishmael leans slightly, to look. “Yes, actually. The smaller one is for dessert.”

She finds herself flushing when he touches her cheek suddenly, not used to physical touch. It makes her very anxious. Many things made her anxious. “Uh- what-” But it fully frightens her when his hand moves from her cheek to grip at her jaw.

“I’d like you to taste it for me.” He says, blowing on the steaming portion of his soup he picked up on his spoon.

She feels a strange inexplicable tingle that is short-lived; he doesn’t allow her choice in the matter, as he shoves it quickly into her mouth.

Ishmael sputters, equally from his harsh shoving and the burning liquid. She indiscreetly spits out the portion onto her napkin, the staining is unusual, the smell even more so, she looks up in disgust once she realizes, but her throat also burns, she quickly reaches for her water glass, but Heathcliff plucks it away.

“No, no. Don’t wash it down yet-” It's completely predictable to him, the whole situation. She starts gasping, her eyes start to roll back. It burns, it hurts! Her mind is screaming.

“Hold on, lass!” He quickly fishes a bottle of something from his pockets, a tablet of sorts, and forces her to ingest it. “Swallow, it's charcoal, it’ll stop you from absorbing any more poison.” He has been wise on stocking such pills since childhood, it was one thing to thank his former caretaker for, as she had hosted many banquets with officials that often ended with poisonings. He then hands her the water glass back. She immediately takes it, swallowing it down and drinking the water so swiftly, then taking his water glass too, drinking enough that it feels like she may vomit. Some relief comes soon to her throat, but it's nothing to quell her sudden liquid-hot anger.

She promptly grabs Heathcliff’s bowl and storms out of her seat, she marches down the hall to the kitchen.

Jenny, with a cocky smile and holding a ladle, greets her. “Here she comes! Did it work-”

Ishmael throws the bowlful of soup directly at her face. Jenny screeches and writhes as she begins screaming about her eyes. Ishmael is still furious. “Stop laying there and wash them out!” The rest of the staff on kitchen duty peer from their stations, a couple of them hoist Jenny under the sink, spraying her down.

“Told you it was a stupid plan!” One of them harshly tells her.

Jenny’s eyes stings as she continues screaming: “Well, what is your plan, Ishmael!? Why is he still here?! Are you trying to domesticate him?!”

Ishmael seethes, but she had already punished her. “What you just pulled is not acceptable! It is not your place to make such decisions! Heathcliff’s service is mine to oversee! I told you not to do anything but prepare a simple meal, next time do your fucking job! ”

“You mean that damn WOLF?” Jenny’s eyes and skin look terrible; red and pink and burnt with irritation when she finally comes up from the nozzle. “You didn’t answer me, Ishmael! What are you going to do about him?”

Someone knew a fight was bound to break out, as another Butler comes with Lady Ryōshū to quickly end it. She enters the kitchen, scowling. Her arm was wrapped in a cast and her head was still bandaged, healing was going slow as she elected to not touch the limited supply of ampoules. The houses’ funds were temporarily frozen until Gregor woke up. It was an entire mess she was presently dealing with since the takeover. But even in her battered state, Ryōshū bends over to pick up the discarded bowl from the floor, which was miraculously still intact. She sniffs it and sighs. “Which one of you idiots put poison on the menu?”

Jenny begins to scream, wagging a finger at Ishmael. "Look what she did to me! Look what she did!”

“Looks bad, Jenny.” Ryōshū acknowledges. “Did you do it?”

Jenny crazily rants more. “She let the Wolf sit in the Blue Room! Are we really letting him take over our home? She has been with him for days and has made no attempts to kill him!”

Ryōshū lifts an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Ishmael turned and curtsied to her superior. “Mistress, I-”

She was cut off with a hand wave. The Head Butler loathes this petty situation. “Allow me to explain something to you all. Ishmael has the right of it, P.N, and you might survive another day. Do not initiate any O.M. unless instructed.”

“Play nice, no offensive measures.” A younger butler repeated for the sake of clarity.

Jenny was not convinced. “It’s cowardly, Mistress! How is this interloper any different? Just because you knew him once?!” She fell to her knees, inconsolable. “Look at what he did to the Master! We’re hostages as long as he holds that deed! We cannot just wait this out, why isn’t anyone else doing anything! We are all going to die just waiting for him to strike!” She begins to clutch at her face. “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE-“

The head maid pulls her back up to her feet with one hand. “S.Y.B.A.U. I don’t need such weak-minded idiots in our ranks. Your actions led to one of our own getting poisoned, but did you account for that?” She turns. “Ishmael, go puke already. You look like shit.”

Jenny becomes a bit pale herself. “Who switched the b-bowls…She was poisoned all this time?”

Ryōshū dispatches another butler to get medicine for both women.

Ishmael nods after receiving her command to leave, she had been battling nausea this entire ordeal. She ducks quickly out of the kitchen for the nearest restroom, passing Heathcliff in the doorway, with his arms folded, listening in against the wall.

Ishmael miraculously makes it; but vomits so much that she even chokes up bile, it's so painful and disgusting that she forcibly weeps with her head down in the porcelain sink, trying to wash up. Strangely enough, even despite her pitiful state, she knows for a fact that it is still not yet one of the worst days of her life.

She exits, and Heathcliff is no longer there in the corridor. Whatever he meant to tell her after eating is now forfeit; she wandered the halls and grounds for the span of two hours and couldn't find a trace of him. She is disturbed by the fact that she finds herself rather disappointed by this.

The thought of him touching her earlier resurfaces, and she looks down at her gloved hand, lightly sweeping it on the edge of her face, recalling his scarred hands. She notices an odd flutter in her core; she concludes she must still be a bit sick.

Night falls, and with the medicine she insists she is fit to return to duty. After she finally finishes her routine chores and sweeping for the day, she cleans up to get ready for bed. Ishmael is one of the few staff members bestowed with a small guest room of her own, complete with a large window in the west wing of the house, facing a courtyard. She had been given it fair and square with her own efforts, as Ryōshū is the one who decides the room assignments. Her room brings her much pride, since those who have better room assignments are usually almost always shortlisted for internal promotions. But she wonders how much of that matters now.

Her head hits her pillow and she almost immediately falls asleep. But her eyes flutter open as she hears some rustling at her window. She quickly turns on her lamp and grabs a knife from her nightstand. “Who is there?” Her voice is a harsh whisper. The curtains of her window are softly opaque, but she notices the familiar outline in the moonlight. She gets up and throws the curtains open to fully see none other than Heathcliff standing there. She opens the window a bit more, but not enough to let him in. “Well this is unsettling.” She chides him, but doesn't deny her nerves. “What are you doing?”

He even seems slightly abashed. “Checking on you.”

Ishmael wonders if she's allowed to feel touched. It can't be right that they were that close. She does her best to ignore whatever glad feeling she has and remembers other details. “As you can see, the poison you forced down my mouth didn’t finish the job.” She scolds him. “You could have told me you thought the soup was tainted, I would have sent it back and made you a meal myself-”

He sighs, it sounds desperate to her, his face is even pitiable. “But why? What could you possibly owe me?”

Ishmael slowly blinks, dumbfounded. “Did you really feel guilty about it?”

“Perhaps.” Heathcliff turns away from the window. “I don’t know...” He knows it's worse that he enjoyed it, but he was not glad at the prospect of losing his new daily companion. He even tells her this. “I would be very irritated if you died like that. I just wanted to prove a point.”

“Point taken.” It really bothers her more that she is not off-put by his honesty, implying a level to their relationship that she was equally terrified to admit she was enjoying. Her mind had been preoccupied a lot with the state of it. “Well I’m alive, for now. You really didn’t need to return to Thrushcross Grange just for that.”

He sighs again, like this newfound vulnerability is quickly exhausting him. “I have yet to actually leave the property today.”

“But I looked for you!” The statement leaves her mouth before she could put it back and change it to something less wanting. Her cheeks flush again. “I just wanted you to answer for making me drink that, and I looked everywhere, you were gone.”

Heathcliff palms at his scarf, tugging it looser, as if he’s choked by it. It makes him look apologetic as he lifts up around his face for a moment before letting it fall. “I am…very good at hide and seek.” He finally says in a low voice.

Ishmael doesn’t understand why the way he phrased that flustered her so much. “Ah, so you’ve been stalking me, that must be how you found my room.”

“You don’t remember the tour you gave me?” He replies.

It doesn't answer the question of how he knew this room was hers, she didn't make it clear. She is ready to cut off the conversation by closing her window, but his stomach involuntarily groans. It’s so incredibly mundane, but it makes her throw her window open to bring him inside. “Ugh. I still owe you a meal. Stay here for a moment.”

She sneaks into the main kitchen, knowing that through the schedule the night shift team are all in the servants’ kitchen. She is able to get some premade lunch boxes from the quick service fridge. They are filled with cut meats, cheese and prepared vegetables. She even grabs some bread along with it, as well as a corked bottle of ultra-filtered water. It had to be better than whatever he had been surviving on.

By the time she returns he is sitting on the floor, reading her journal near the lamp on her bedside table. “Has anyone ever told you that you over-describe things? Especially fish.”

She snatches the worn-out journal from him, shoving her bounty to him. “Eat.”

He opens the contents, pulling out a piece of cheese. He eats quickly, with only the motive to keep his body sustained, showing very little enjoyment in it. He shoves most of the food into his pockets for later, clearing his throat. “So. You were a sailor.”

The question reminds him of an old conversation she had with Gregor long ago, but she pushes the memory away, as the company of the present would never approve; or vice versa. She nods slowly. “Yeah. But I don’t feel like going into it much.”

“Well, it explains that look on your face.” He recounts, carefully opening the bottle to slake his thirst, taking a long swig before wiping his mouth with his hand. “The very thing I was thinking in that blue room too.”

“And what is that?” She asks, sitting down on her bed, her eyes trail to his scarf and tattered coat again, she begins tugging at the scarf. She would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a changed atmosphere around them. “Take this off if you’re going to be sitting against my clean bed.”

His head turns, but his patched eye still makes it impossible to see her well, surprisingly, he complies, moving his body forward to begin shaking it off. Once it is removed, he lays it on the floor next to him. They share a moment where they look at each other for a few seconds far too long.

It hits her that there's definitely an air of change between them when she begins to think about his comfort again. She finds herself joining him on the floor, sitting with her knees to her chest. This in itself was entirely a bit improper; as she wore just a cotton nightgown issued by the manor. At least it covered her to her lower shins, thick enough for the cold stormy nights. She nudges him with her elbow to continue.

Heathcliff is able to turn and look at her better now, but he finds himself rigidly trying to keep his eyes on her face. He seems to swallow a lump in his throat before finally speaking again. “What I was going to say was that you’re paddling so hard to keep your head above the surface.”

Her eyes narrow, half-lidded. “So you believe I am drowning?”

“Not quite. You have the look of a woman who knows she may never make it to shore.” His voice seems a bit softer.

She could not argue with that. It was now her time to lay down her observations. She stares at mouth. “Says the man who threatened to kill this entire house nearly a week ago. What are your intentions now, if not that apocalyptic banquet? Are you enjoying having a house full of hostages?” It comes out exactly as harsh as she means it. Maybe she wants a rise out of him. She moves her legs out in front of her, scooting to better confront him.

Her intimidation is quite something, all hunched over him like a yowling cat. Her eyes are far from lifeless at that moment, but he can clearly see her struggling, wanting a response. He notices the falling sleeve, exposing her shoulder that she makes no attempts to fix. He leans in, speaking with a deliberate teasing tone. “I will never have a satisfying answer for you. It will never be my intention to release anyone in this house from torment.”

“Your presence does bring torment,” She admits, her breath hitching as he grows closer. She doesn’t stop the way she’s hovering as well. “But can you find any other use for that anger of yours? Does the heat of fires you create ever keep you warm?”

“Never. I don’t think it ever will.” His lips are almost pressed against her ear. Heat is also swimming to his head, as he shifts her weight and pulls her fully on top of him. “But I wonder what fires I can make here.”

She goes silent, her eyes fluttering closed as she leans in to kiss him. He impatiently deepens it, it is very rough, nearly overwhelming. But it doesn’t stop them from trying several more times. Her fluttery feeling from before is in full force, as she began rocking her hips against the mound of his pants. He even groans and bucks his hips into the friction, only stopping before he hits over his limit.

As she catches her breath, she wonders how she got swept up in all of this, but he doesn’t afford her much more time to think thoroughly. He bites a glove off with his teeth, shoving his hand up the gathered skirt of her nightgown. He soon finds his mark, the slick and heat guiding him to her core. Heathcliff is not a proper man by any means, but he does believe in ladies first as he prods into her.

One of those scarred and roughened hands she admired earlier was definitely between her thighs now. She gasps, latching her arms around him tightly. “N-not so rough!”

Heathcliff restrains himself, letting her guide his hand better. She gasps in a particular way and he takes back control, doing his utmost to unwind the tension in her body, as she spasms favorably in his hands. She elicits a gratified sigh as slumps limply onto his shoulder. He finds himself thinking that her eyelashes and freckles are so alluring. He also admires the way she bites her lip when trying to stifle her voice. These sights, touches, and tastes are so new and liberating, as he doesn’t recall if he ever got this far before. He has never been interested much in torrid meetings or flings. There is that unfulfilled ghost of devotion from his past. His unhappy memory forces him to confront that does remember the Edgar girl, and how she threw herself at him, how he soon abandoned her; but to recall such things only ruins his mood. This constant misery reminds him it's his only match. He doesn’t deserve this lovely distraction, not a moment of reprieve. He doesn’t deserve anything other than his empty rage. He cannot keep avoiding this truth of his existence.

Heathcliff presses himself against Ishmael tightly, nuzzling into her shoulder as her arms wrap around his back. He knows the warmth cannot last, he has to end it before it is ripped away from him. His voice shakes. “How much longer are you going to allow a beast to stay in your room?”

She sits up, coming down from her wiped slate feeling. There is an uncertainty that begins to fill her head as the question is spoken. “Stop that. You are a man, human as anyone else.”

Heathcliff crudely pushes her off him, grabbing his belongings so he can see himself out. “No, tell yourself I was a beast, that you were frightened, anything that makes you hate me.” He doesn’t allow her much room to retort. “If you cannot bring yourself to do that, then think of who you are betraying.”

He ducks out of her window and disappears into the night.

Awake

The next morning, Ishmael rises early. She takes an early bath, forcing herself to forget. ‘It was a dream’ she repeats every single time the thoughts come to mind. It was a dream and nothing else. A dream, in the way her subconscious thoughts were twisted into form. It was a dream, despite her barely sleeping at all. She must bury all those thoughts as a fleeting experience; she is awake now.

Ishmael throws herself into work. She will have plenty of time to prepare Gregor’s morning tea, which has done nothing but go cold and undrunk since he became bedridden. She still prepares it diligently; just in case. A part of her mind weakly wanders to the bottle left in her room. Something is seriously wrong with her. She takes a pause, recalling Jenny’s words from the day before. Her stomach, which was still recovering, turns uncomfortably.

Those parting words are rehashed in her head countlessly; think of who she was betraying.

Reaching the door to the kitchen, Ishmael quietly slips in, turning on just one light. She begins grabbing a kettle and basket to fill. She then reaches up for a frying pan, but freezes in place when she sees a shoe brush against her arm. From above, suspending from the ceiling pot rack, a body hangs lifelessly with an apron twisted around the neck. It was Jenny.

Ishmael emotionlessly fills the kettle and puts it on the stove to boil. She exits the kitchen and calmly asks someone still awake on nightshift to remove her. The once quiet kitchen fills with her coworkers, a mix of reactions ranging from annoyed by the mess to disappointment. This is unfortunately not a unique incident. There are a few sad words, but ultimately; everyone is tired. Death is so constant in their lives, even in this profession that was once considered a safer and more respectable form of living. It’s not long until a furnace is lit. That is the fate that is expected of anyone who dies on the property. Jenny’s ashes will be mailed to her next of kin, if she is fortunate to have any.

Ishmael refuses to react. She doesn’t want to think what that poor girl was feeling since she last saw her. But dread sets in when her mind turns to Gregor's accusation about the Wolf hanging Miss Isabella’s dog. An angry tear slides down her cheek. She is so disgusted. She swipes it away with her white glove and forces herself to focus. That is right, the Wolf. There is no longer a man. She doesn’t want to look past the myth anymore.

Ishmael soon finishes bringing up the tea to Gregor’s room, and he manages to stir a bit. His eyes are half-open, struggling to stay that way from the medication he is dosed with. “Did they... find Isabella?” He struggles to ask.

Ishmael puts down the tray to come to his bedside, swiping a hair from his eyes. She knows lying won’t help him. “Not yet.”

“Oh.” He swallows, his mouth is dry. “They didn’t.” He breathes out, and his eyes start to flutter close. He coughs, and that's all the strength sapped from him for the present.

“Master Gregor, please, we need you awake!” Ishmael shouts, lightly nudging him.

Ryōshū bursts into the room quickly. “He was awake?” She instructs the medical team to stop medicating him so heavily for a while now that he is stable. Her patience and sanity is wearing thin, even if she is wearing the pressure well. They need to discuss a lot of important matters that are starting to become unmanageable. “It's come to this, foolish Master. I have to force you.”

“Won’t the shock of the Wolf’s presence here make his health worse?” Ishmael asks, recalling her thoughts from that morning. Guilt was consuming her. Even though her original intentions were to distract him from harming anyone, she herself became distracted. Even if Gregor had wronged him somehow, or so he so viciously believed. She wanted him out of her head.

“Don’t ask me things you know the answer to.” Ryōshū’s voice has a hard edge to it. “If only I was able to kill him before all of this...I should take an ampoule and try again.” She glances at Ishmael. “I hate to ask you to, but play house with him a bit longer.”

“Huh, play house?” It makes her flesh crawl that her superior would know about that entanglement. It is the last thing she needs, to be marked and ostracized. “I-Is that what you really think I am doing?”

Ryōshū doesn’t seem to be taking the accusation as seriously. “I.D.C. Lure him naked into a bathtub and then strangle him with your hair, do whatever it takes at this point.”

“Please stop making these tasteless jokes.” Ishmael balls her fists into her apron. “That's not an order, is it?” She would sooner be strangled by her own hair than get close to him again.

Ryōshū assumes she’s just disgusted by the idea. “O.C.N.” Her brave face faltered. “Did something happen? You seem less focused than usual.”

“I just didn’t sleep well.” It is somewhat the truth.

Ryoshu doesn’t push it, but looks unconvinced. “I need to know you're prepared to use your cutlery, no matter how tough the meat is.”

She avoids more suspicion. “I am definitely prepared.” Ishmael even nods, but she doesn't know how confident she sounds about it.

Her mistress sighs. “I am not sure I can do it myself. That's why I lost that day that he called this insane truce.” She starts out of Gregor’s room, away from the other butlers. They stand out in the corridor, and she shuts the door lightly. “I cared so much about that boy, but I know I never did enough. I wish I could be the one to kill him, but I've already failed.” Her teeth grits on the word ‘failed’. Ishmael thinks back to that comment he made about abandonment, she must have taken that very personally.

Ishmael takes the utmost pride in her job, and she has never failed a request. But she has no idea how she will surmount this.

The Cloche

She dreams the Wolf’s head in her arms, under a cloche. She places it on a table in front of the gallery of her peers.“Revenge is served.” She’d announce.

But when she lifts the cloche, The Wolf’s head laughs back at her, baring his teeth. “You know I’d sooner devour you.”

Pallid

But nothing moves so quickly.

Heathcliff doesn't show back up at the house. But luckily in his absence, Gregor has woken up. The estate somehow returns to a gentle semblance of normalcy, despite the feeling of a sword still hanging above their heads.

Ishmael brings Gregor his morning tea, it's so obvious he’s in constant pain, cradling his arm, sitting on the mattress in his bedclothes. He looks stunned and battered, but makes a conscious effort to drink it, even though it sloshes in an unavoidable shake in his hand.

Ishmael uses a serviette to clean the amount that dribbles down his chin

He waves her off, holding up a napkin from his lap. “It’s okay, I can do this much.”

But she is unable to hold back her somber face, it breaks her heart to see the person she had expended so much effort to keep safe completely become a broken shell. But the fact remains that it is only the Wolf’s will that any of them are still alive at all. Heathcliff. Will he ever leave her thoughts? She recalls their first conversation, and the top of the stairs. What if her Master had noticed that same gap? “Master, I am very sorry to ask, but do you recall another portrait at the top of the grand staircase?”

He coughs up more of his tea, wiping it from his mouth and beard feebly. “I am very sorry Ishmael, I beg your pardon?”

Ishmael asks him again, with an unsure tone. Gregor’s entire body shakes as he looks at her with a confused and shocked stare, “D-Did he put you up to this?” His terrified voice is ice to her veins. “Are you one of his shadows sent to mock me?”

Ishmael is quickly horrified by what she unleashed. “Master, this isn’t a nightmare. I just want to help you! Please-”

“Nightmare or not, each moment I am reminded of his existence, I am dying!” He claws feebly at the length of her apron, desperate tears flow down his cheeks. “Enough of this torment, kill me and be over with it! This procession is much too slow, this game of hide and seek overdue for an end!”

“I’m so sorry, I am so sorry for what I have done!” She pleads like she’s begging forgiveness for all of her sins. She wipes his tears away with her serviette, and tries to steady him. He feels so light and brittle in her hands. “I just wanted to understand something.” She replies, her eyes also welling up. She almost said ‘both sides’ but how can she ever be on any other side but his? How could she have looked at someone else?

Gregor's waking nightmare continues, but he is losing strength in his movement. His eyes bulging, his voice wild, “And if the origin of this waking torment is that very missing portrait you seek, to confirm its memory surely claims my responsibility! That he is correct in his taunt, that this pain is deserved! If my existence is to pay penance for this rift, then he can take my head, take my heart, take it! May he choke and die as he swallows it all!”

Other servants enter the room, picking up on the commotion. They have medicine ready in hand, to sedate him again. “Please leave!” One of them shouts. “Whatever you are doing, you are agitating him!”

The door is nearly shut on her apron as Ishmael is thrown out of the room. In this, she feels she has been put into her place. She sinks to her knees, remembering the old cries of mermaids from times long past. She will perhaps remember this day as one of the worst of her life. Despite having seen the void directly in the shape of a whale’s eye, she would rather see that monstrous sight a hundredfold than witness another person she loves break down and lose themselves. The cruel cycle of sickness reminds her so much of palidification. She fidgets uncomfortably at resurfaced memories. While it feels like a lifetime ago, the woe in her heart is evergreen. Her duty and devotion to her Master and position had begun to fill the surrounding gashes and cracks it endured, but now such notions only break it further. She does not know how much longer it can hold out before the grief snuffs her.

“You’re paddling so hard to keep your head above the surface.” Damn his voice in her head.

“Yes, this game of hide and seek is overdue for an end.” It was time for her to confront these stifling feelings. To cross the dark woods and seek the Wolf.

Hide and Seek

Thunder crashes, rain pours. It is the same as before. Nothing soothes, nothing shields him from it. He’s imagined a hand holding an umbrella for him many times, but he is no closer to fully realizing the spectre until the image turns into that maid, every time.

These events were never in any mirrors he observed, that mysterious looking glass he found in a room upstairs. He has conferred with himself before. He remembers the ends. Ashes and dust made of all. But the most pertinent thing he had discovered is what happens after. Corpses sprinkled through the moors was not only boring and bleak; it was lonely. He has long since broken that mirror. Total isolation is now his punishment.

When he had plans for taking both estates, he had hoped to slow down his path of revenge, savor it, use the cards in his hands like pawns. But when he had his homecoming at Wuthering Heights, things quickly became out of hand. Hindley, that prat. He was still Hindley in all the ways he used to be, just filthier and drunker. It was a ton of work for him to track down and painstakingly trade hands until he won Wuthering Heights’ deed. Even when presented with this reality, the belligerent man could not accept it. Hindley was the first to die. After that blood was on his hands, the rest of the manor set in motion to attack. He had no choice but to kill them all. Their deaths rang hollow as he came to expect. He had higher hopes on the next part; obtaining that damnably grand manor on the hill. It had easily fallen into his lap. But after the day of his takeover, he had grown such reservations about it. It would have been even easier than his childhood home to destroy. But the missing piece was linked. What if there was something, anything that was left behind? He found himself delaying. And when he became entangled with her, Ishmael.

Heathcliff wanted to sink his teeth into her and tear her apart. He equally wanted to put light into her listless eyes. Break her, mend her. Make her bear his shame, his longing. Make her pay for making him feel something other than rage. The curse, that void in his soul, if it desires for him to pay retribution for one night of warmth, then he will pledge his suffering to it eternal. But to that missing thing, he blames it for his desire of warmth to begin with. Why did you leave him this way?

It is bone chillingly cold inside this old mansion. It feels like it's been empty for a countless amount of days. He hears the dead whispering from the halls to the rafters, as the long-deceased cling to its foundation. He knows the creaks and the bends, the sound of gales and lightning strikes laying its fury on its ancient structure. The monotonous pattern only breaks when he hears the front door open, possibly blown open by the storm. He stares up at the ceiling on that old cot, with no desire to move, he doesn’t know if he has the strength. The cacophony in his head was just starting to make sense. The noise soon dies as silence.

Then it begins: someone has lit a fire, he knows because heat begins to rise. It had to be the fireplace in that corner room that he remembers sitting by as a child, no other corner was capable of this heat. Footsteps start creaking up the stairs. His heart, so long after being broken, begins to beat with trepidation. Yes, he can nearly imagine her now, finally coming home at last.

“Found you, Heathcliff. Now come downstairs.”

A breath escapes him, it's not- its not death, yet. That voice brings him just enough strength, he is found. His balance is unsteady, falls halfway down the stairs, crashing down to meet her. His body is so sore, but he drags himself up, limping.

She is stoking the fireplace when he finds her, but her long hair is hidden by the hood of a long cloak. He wastes no time to peel it down, those lashes and freckles greeting him. Her eyes sparkled in the firelight, because the sight of him made her eyes water.

She has come here to carve him. But Ishmael immediately falters: he is utterly formidable to look at. This is more of an ambling shadow than a man, and certainly no wolf. He looks closer to the rotting corpses she had stepped over in the yard, he is as gaunt and cold to the touch. It is hard to believe this is the man that almost destroyed them all.

He gives her a kiss, it is off-kilter because he is shaking so much. Ishmael lets him kiss her, but only places a kiss on his knuckle in return. She needs time.They say absolutely nothing else that night, because she then takes him to the sofa to sit with her, and soothes him to sleep by playing with his hair. He expects to never wake, but then she wakes him to eat the next day. Days pass this way.

They play house, delaying the end. Ishmael knows the end has to come, and so does he. But not yet. For now, she feeds him what she can find in the kitchen pantry, and lets him sleep in her arms. Eventually, he regains part of himself as they stay on that first floor, primarily in that one room, as if the fireplace is the only place that is safe.

Once his health improves, a dalliance begins. Just like fervid daydreams, he devours her on a stack of blankets in front of the fireplace. He wants to carve the memory of her shuddering below, as much as her riding waves above him. He confirms it is worth the price of hell, doubly so when she begins to ravish him. His soul is lit as she scrapes her teeth down his neck and collarbone, covering the trail with planted kisses. Her way of loving is also thorough and diligent. But when they meet the ending of these moments, he awaits his retribution. Every moment feels like his least meal.

The ceiling may fall on them at any moment, he is certain this amount of contentment cannot continue in this accursed place. He is slow to accept, but never uncertain that she may be the one to end him, his personal harbinger. Perhaps this is her way of slowly torturing him.

They are again entangled together on the floor, he places his head on the crook of her shoulder after pushing her long hair out of the way. “Thank you. I feel…warm.”

“Because you are warm.” Ishmael replies simply, sitting up to look at him with an implacable gaze. She is not harsh, her voice is soft. “Heathcliff, I have something to show you, but we have to leave this house.”

He knows; without the servants to keep it in order, the manor has begun to decay and fall apart. But to leave, they have to pass the threshold, which means he'll be facing the rain again. But of all things, she hands him an umbrella, and something feels light inside him.

She nudges her hand against his shoulder as she leads him up to a hill with a tree, where a lonesome, unmarked grave sits. “It was a thought I had. There's that hole in our memories, yet no one knows who this grave belongs to.”

His umbrella shakes. “I’ve already dug this place up.” He admits, sighing. “Nothing was inside.”

“It makes you wonder why.” Ishmael nods sadly, patting his arm. “Just pretend they are still here. Tell them everything you’ve been thinking. How much you miss them, what you wish was different.” She stares at the grave, wincing her eyes, “It's the type of talk I wish I had.” She means it for the past and the present.

She steps back as Heathcliff kneels before the ground. It's hard for him to begin at first. He mutters lightly, twisting at the long wet grass. But something breaks, and he begins recapping until it turns into bitter declarations. He tells it of his tortured days, his haunting half-memories, the years of freezing rain. He tells his sins, his anger, how much he hates them, how much he must love them for driving him to fall into madness. He hopes they’ll forgive them for thinking of someone else. He hopes they weren’t lonely like him all this time, wherever they may be. When he finally quiets, he feels cold steel against his neck. He lifts his chin to make it easier for her.

Ishmael's hand pauses, she closes her eyes briefly, letting the rain hit her face; in an odd way she is the only thing that is shielding him from the brunt of it. It's so freezing cold, but she only feels a calm, peaceful feeling as she quietly drops her blade. She shares with him that final feeling of strangled peace. Her closure is no closure at all. She’s allowing herself to take a half-measure.

The sky crackles, bathing everything in a muddled white light before a hurling lightning bolt to the grave, driving straight through the material of Heathcliff’s slumped umbrella next to his foot, and soon recoiling into their bodies, jolts surging through as both of them as they fall, hitting the ground.

After

Gregor stares out at the window everyday after Ishmael never returns home. His health is forcibly stable, but the lack of nightmares do not heal him overnight. His only consolation of his dear employee's disappearance, is that the deed to Thrushcross Grange miraculously turned up wrapped in a cloak by the front gate. He blames himself for her fate, unable to stop the events in the first place. The only thing he can do is send people to search for her, but his hopes are grim, as he witnessed Wuthering Heights burning down from afar.

Ryōshū similarly sighs with a hint of remorse, whatever she had done to accomplish her impossible task, she hoped she didn't lose herself in the process. Even if it's foolish, she hopes Ishmael is alive somewhere. She does not allow herself the same comfort for Heathcliff, though, despite never finding bodies for either of them. It was better for many if he was thought to be dead.

One day, there is a commotion downstairs as one of the other servants calls for her. “Lady Ryōshū! There's a strange and dirty woman claiming to be Miss Isabella at the door.”

She sighs, though she would never gamble on the odds, she would be receptive to another impossible event.

Years Pass

A man with short dark brown hair and a prosthetic eye shows up to a fixer office with a ginger-haired woman in tow. He carries a large sword, she wields daggers. They're extremely overqualified for these newbie positions, but that is what a lack of background paperwork gets you.

They've had to rebuild their lives backward from shattered pieces. Maybe one day they will put those mirrors back together again, but perhaps they will remain askew. They can learn to live with the pieces missing, if thierselves are lost too.

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