thinking about sinner parings that don't work with the base sinners but work very well with their mirror world counterparts. like, Lord lu and maost. I don't think that they get along very well of even interact much in the lcb world (as of pre cantoIX) but their dynamic in their mirror world is SO compelling to me... her thinking that he doesn't care for her but staying with him anyway because false compassion is still compassion. gah. the fact that she's the only one of his heishou to speak in his uptime story. I just think that its all so neat :).
Can you imagine The Never Ending Story written by Stephen King? Well, wonder no more, because The Talisman is... sort of like that. It's a fantasy story about a child traveling to a parallel world in order to save the life of his ailing mother AND the other world's queen, but written jointly by Stephen King and Peter Straub? It brings a lot more horror to the table than what we're used to from fantasy tales. Still, it's an amazing read, and one I absolutely recommend!
https://youtu.be/nEZ99xIgDSY?si=CrzMusvFvdWncxn-
"How should one go about making an introduction post?"
[ MAX DEMIAN ROLEPLAY AND ASK ACCOUNT ]
rules + about under the cut
[ MUSE INFO ]
{ adult ' city wanderer ' he/him }
[ MUN INFO ]
{ adult ' main blog is @pobopolybius ' it/he }
{ a bit rusty on roleplaying, but I do write often and used to rp, so i think i'll get the hang of this quick }
[ RULES ]
{ both serious + crack content ' AUs/Mirror World selves allowed and encouraged }
{ while this blog will have no explicit sexual content, please do not interact if under 18 years old }
{ oc interactions allowed and encouraged, as well as canon character interactions too, and of course, you, as the reader, are free to send asks as yourself as well }
{ asks may on occasion be answered with art, both digital or traditional}
{ may slip into shipping territory on occasion }
{ this blog may have dark themes due to the content in project moon's stories, things such as mentions of abuse, cannibalism if I'm feeling spicy, graphic violence, etc }
{ however i do not condone and will not portray instances of rape and pedophilia, and ask you to not interact if you engage with that type of content for gratification, as it makes me uncomfortable }
How did H. G. Tannhaus split apart his own world into 2 worlds?
IMO it's due to the lack of God Particles, which act as a fuel for any sort of time travelling.
Due to the absence of God Particles in his Quantum Machine in 1986, it misfired and ruptured the walls of space time and split his world into 2 worlds, who coexist because of the existence of God Particles in them which fuel all time travels.
As the Origin world gave birth to Adam's & Eva's worlds, the God Particle could've entered them from the cracks of space-time continuum.
Bootstrap Paradox Origin
First, Tannhaus' origin world split apart into 2.
Then, Eva's world influenced Adam's world with the Triquetra Notebook written by the Unknown, while coexisting with it.
Simultaneously, Adam's world further supported the cycle by creating the origin of their family tree and hence all the loops continue.
Both worlds of Adam and Eva further split their timelines/realities due to the quantum entanglement. In first timeline/reality, the time loops seemingly stop. In the second timeline/reality, they continue.
Until Claudia deduces the true origin is out of both worlds and exists in the origin world. This is when the same second timeline ceases to exist when the cause of splitting the origin world gets resolved.
Summary: The sixth chapter of my George x Elizabeth magic AU, in which Elizabeth is a magician and George is a fairy. This chapter: tragedy strikes the Poldarks and Elizabeth visits Nampara and Trenwith.
Previous chapter
Chapter 6: Tarot Cards
“Well, I have found nothing in even the most reliable of treatises I possess. I fear we must dig far deeper than we have so far to avoid the awful conclusion that books, for once, have failed us.”
Elizabeth blinked, having just come down the stairs to the parlour for breakfast. Thus had been the greeting that her father had bestowed upon her from his place, alone, at the table as she entered the room. The words in themselves were not unusual—she was well used to conversations with her father on the subject of magic, and enjoyed them immensely, but those conversations were not usually started so abruptly. Nor did her father usually look so haggard—his hair ruffled, his coat discarded, his neckcloth askew and the buttons of his waistcoat done up the wrong way. He looked, currently, as if he had been up all night, and considering all the stress they had been under, Elizabeth wouldn’t have been surprised if that were not so far from the truth.
“Papa, have you slept at all?” she asked, a concerned frown on her face as she took her own place at the table.
Her father suddenly looked very sheepish.
“I think I dozed for a short while before dawn…” he muttered, as much to himself as to her.
“Papa, you must rest a little at the very least,” Elizabeth chastised him gently, pursing her lips in mild disapproval. “How are you meant to discover anything of value if you are too tired to think properly?”
Mr Chynoweth looked at her bleakly before screwing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose, as if to stave off a headache.
“I know, my girl, I know,” he sighed after a short pause. “It is simply that I cannot abide the thought of something like the attack on the Bassets happening again, when we could very well have been holding the key to this thrice damned mystery the entire time…”
“But you have found nothing in the books?,” Elizabeth replied, pouring herself a cup of tea and blowing gently on it to cool it down. “Nothing about the sigil?”
Her father shook his head grimly.
“Nothing even close to it,” he said. “All I have been able to confirm is that the king it belongs to is not Tregudda—all works of any repute confirm that his sigil was a hawthorn tree.”
This did not particularly surprise Elizabeth. Tregudda, the famed merchant king of the Western Cliffs, had been the last fae ruler to have any proper contact with his human neighbours, both as an ally and trading partner in ancient times and as a bitter enemy in the violence that had come from the rise of the hunting families in the Middle Ages. Tregudda’s forces, however, had swiftly retreated from Cornwall some two hundred years ago, and had never returned. Most people claimed that it had been an undisputed victory for the hunters, but some more scholarly minds were inclined to theorise that something had occurred in Faerie that had required the entirety of his army to return there. Given that what little that they knew of the past two thousand years of Faerie’s history—ever since the rise of Benbencula, the infamous warlord who ruled the land across the sea—was somewhat bloody, it was highly likely that Tregudda was dead, and could well have been replaced by a far more warlike king. Still, that offered no explanation as to why this king—whoever he was—was attacking them now of all times, and considering that it had been some time since a human could have visited the Western Cliffs and lived to tell the tale, the prospect of finding anything about that in their books was a highly improbable one.
“Well it is something at least,” she said consolingly. “But we never expected to find a great deal amongst our books anyway. If only we had some works concerning Faerie’s more recent history…”
“I believe that the Guild of Magicians is in possession of Robert Goldsworthy’s journal of his time in the Southerly Land,” her father remarked thoughtfully, taking a bite out of his toast. “That, at least, is only from a hundred years ago, even if it isn’t the part of Faerie we want to know about. I would be highly surprised if Benbencula doesn’t keep a careful eye on what occurs across the sea from him, so there may be a chance that Goldsworthy heard some things of interest about the Western Cliffs and wrote it down. Perhaps I should write to them and ask them to loan it to us.”
A look of slight distaste crossed his features at his own suggestion, but Elizabeth knew that had nothing to do with the prospect of getting his hands on the journal of Robert Goldsworthy—an eminent Yorkshire magician of the previous century who had dedicated the majority of his life to studying Faerie and its denizens—and everything to do with the prospect of having to deal with the Guild of Magicians. Comprised mostly of well-educated, well-bred and, most unfortunately, entirely unmagical city gentlemen, the Guild had, due to the wealth of its patricians, managed to gain something of a monopoly over most rare and important volumes on the subject of Faerie and the arcane, and that made them somewhat unavoidable to deal with on occasions such as this. Her father tolerated them, she knew, though their preciousness concerning the books which they hoarded, their condescending attitude towards the practical magicians who required access to them and, above all, their glaring ignorance and incompetence when it came to the arcane frustrated him beyond measure. It did not help that they constantly had to worry about some of the less tight-lipped members of the Guild revealing their secret—practical magicianship may have be seen as a pleasant form of entertainment in London or Bath, but in a place like Cornwall, so close to Faerie and full of hunters, many of whom did not care to discern between human and fae practicioners, it was a far more dangerous skill to have.
“Well, let us hope that they shall be more easily persuaded this time” she said, though she knew very well that her father was no more optimistic than she was.
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a soft cough from the doorway, and they both turned to see their elderly retainer, Mrs Hammett, standing in the entrance to the parlour, looking perturbed. Elizabeth frowned.
“Misters Poldark to see you, sir” she said, the uncharacteristically disquieted expression on her features setting Elizabeth’s insides squirming with worry.
Her father frowned in consternation, glancing down at his unkempt state. He seemed finally to have noticed that his waistcoat was done up the wrong way, and immediately set about rectifying it, apparently too absorbed in the task to take in the grave atmosphere which had begun to settle over the parlour like mist.
“Very well, very well, send them in” he sighed impatiently.
Mrs Hammett did not move, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Upon realising that she was still there, Mr Chynoweth stopped fussing over his appearance, hands hovering over the top button of his waistcoat, and stared up at her, his frown deepening.
“Yes? What is it?” he asked, a note of concern creeping into his voice.
“It is only that…,” Mrs Hammett floundered slightly, her eyes flickering towards Elizabeth. “Well, they be in quite a state, sir, and I be a-feared they’d make an alarming sight for a young lady…”
“I shall be quite alright, Mrs Hammett,” Elizabeth assured her, though the feeling of dread twisting deep in her gut had by no means lessened upon hearing this—after all, what must have happened to make them look so shocking that the old lady feared for her sensibilities? “Please, send them in.”
Mrs Hammett, though she did not look at all happy about the decision, made no further complaint, turning on her heel and leaving the room to fetch their guests. A few excruciating moments passed, and then the door creaked open once more to reveal the pale, wan forms of Charles and Francis Poldark. Where Charles was stoic but grim, his son, swaying dangerously at his shoulder, looked rather like he was about to cry, or be sick. None of this, however, was what Elizabeth first noticed when they entered the room, for—and she suddenly appreciated why Mrs Hammett had been so disturbed by their appearance now—their hands and clothing were stained unmistakeably with blood.
“Good God, what on earth has happened?!” cried her father, leaping to his feet in an instant and gesturing to them to sit. Francis, who looked like his legs would no longer support him, sank into the nearest seat and covered his eyes with a shaking hand.
“I must apologise for coming here in this state,” said Charles, heaving out a great sigh, his expression dark, “but given the night’s events we were concerned for your safety…”
“The night’s events?,” Mr Chynoweth echoed, his eyes widening. “Has there been another attack?”
Charles took in another deep breath, gathering himself for what he was about to say.
“Not precisely, no,” he replied, “but I am afraid… I am afraid by brother is dead.”
There was a long, horrible silence, then—
“Dead?,” Elizabeth gasped before she could stop herself. “But…but how?”
Charles gave her a sharp look.
“I hardly think that this is an appropriate topic of discussion for a young lady—”
“That is for Elizabeth to decide,” her father cut across him, his tone firm, though not unkind. “And besides, I fear it may shortly become an unavoidable topic of discussion amongst our associates nevertheless. But what is it that has happened? I am guessing that some manner of fae creature is responsible for…?”
He trailed off, glancing over at Francis. The young man was hunched over, face buried in his blood-stained hands. He had not said a word since their arrival, as if he had been robbed altogether of the power of speech. Silently, Elizabeth stood and made her way over to him, coming to sit beside him and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. He didn’t respond, but she could feel him shaking.
“You guess correctly,” Charles said gruffly, paying no attention to his son as he too sank down into a chair; her father followed suit, taking up his own seat at the table once more. “There was a small party of them abroad last night. We were worried that they may have come for another attack, but it doesn’t seem to have been their aim.”
Her father frowned.
“Then how…?"
He trailed off, and Charles glanced at him, suddenly looking very old and tired. The man let out another long sigh, lifted a hand to his temple, and began to massage it slowly before speaking.
“We were visited late last night by Lord Godolphin and his son,” he said. “Mr Teague and Mr Trengrouse were accompanying them. They told us that a small party of fae creatures had been seen prowling about not far from Trenwith. Naturally, as members of three prestigious hunting families, they felt it their duty to find the creatures and do away with them before they did anybody harm and, given our own family’s reputation, they were counting on our aid. I said Francis and I would join them, of course—it’s damn well about time he grew a backbone.”
He shot a nasty glance at his son, a sour expression on his face that made him look, Elizabeth thought a little uncharitably, like a grumpy old toad. She felt Francis twitch convulsively under her hand, though beyond that he made no indication that he had heard his father’s words, or that he was even aware of what was happening around him. Elizabeth let her hand trail downwards so that the flat of her palm rested at his back, exchanging a glance with her own father, whose lips were pursed ever so slightly in disapproval. In that moment, she knew that both of them were thinking exactly the same thing—that Charles would very likely have done better by his son by allowing him to remain at home rather than forcing him into a dangerous and potentially deadly hunt that he was not in the least prepared for. Still, it would not do to speak such notions aloud, and her father turned his attention back to their visitor, a deep frown etched between his brows.
“So, you set out to hunt this party down and…then what?” he prompted.
“Well, nothing happened for a good few hours,” Charles replied, running a large hand over his face. “We followed their tracks, but with no fruit, and we hadn’t heard of anybody being attacked so we were beginning to suspect that they had simply returned to Faerie.”
He paused, glancing off into the middle distance with a grim look, before mustering himself to continue his tale.
“We had followed the tracks to Nampara and…somehow,” he said, with another glance towards Francis, who was still had not shifted from that hunched, despairing position, tense and unmoving save for the sporadic shivers that were shaking his entire frame, “Francis managed to get himself separated from the group. Unfortunately, the party had not returned home, as we had thought. One of the creatures attacked him. If Joshua hadn’t come bursting out of the house with a star iron pistol and shot the bugger—pardon my language, Miss Chynoweth—he would probably be dead.”
“My God…” breathed Mr Chynoweth, looking alarmed. Elizabeth couldn’t help but agree with her father’s statement, and she suddenly realised that Francis, who was not wearing his neckcloth, bore several long dark bruises at his throat, the skin scratched and grazed, as if clawed hands had wrung themselves about his neck, trying their very best to squeeze the life out of him. Swallowing, she let her own hand stroke gently up and down his back.
“It was too late by the time we got there,” Charles said darkly. “Another one of the fiends—huge goblin, about seven feet tall, I’d say—had lifted him right off the ground and stuck a knife between his ribs—(Francis let out a soft moan at this, something which his father summarily ignored)—and just…dropped him down again on the floor and ran off into the dark the moment he saw us. It was enough to finish him off as it was, but the blade was coated with some kind of poison. Choake was at a loss—had no idea what it was. Needless to say, it was far from a pleasant end…”
He trailed off, staring morosely into the middle distance. A long, uncomfortable silence filled the room as they absorbed the gravity of what had happened. For several moments, the only sound in the parlour was the ticking of the grandfather clock against the wall, before her father shifted slightly and brought them all out of their reverie.
“And the fae party?,” he asked tentatively. “I presume that they have returned home by now?”
“If they’re still here, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of them,” replied Charles, a definite note of bitterness in his voice. “I expect they’re long gone.”
Her father nodded, glancing around him distractedly.
“What on earth could they have wanted here?,” he wondered aloud. “There must have been some purpose for their coming…”
“Bah, it’s pointless to expect anything more than mindless violence from those creatures,” Charles snarled, his tone almost alarmingly vehement. “This proves more than enough that it’s all they care about. They tried to kill my son! They did kill—”
He cut himself off abruptly, glowering at the floor. A tense silence stretched out between them, before he took a deep breath and composed himself, lifting his eyes to Mr Chynoweth’s face once more.
“My apologies,” he sighed. “I imagine I am not currently the best company.”
“We understand, sir” said Elizabeth softly.
They left a little while afterwards, when her father gently suggested that it would perhaps be best if Francis were taken home. Charles had acquiesced, albeit a little grudgingly, Francis following him, looking lost and dazed, as if he couldn’t quite understand what was happening or where he was going. Both Elizabeth and her father watched his progress with concern. Once the door closed behind them, however, Mr Chynoweth’s expression darkened, worry etched across the tired lines of his face, and he shared a significant glance with his daughter before speaking up.
“You know what this means, of course?” he said grimly.
Elizabeth nodded, her resolve set. For all she had been dreading the time when this would become necessary, she was ready for it.
“Of course,” she echoed, taking a deep breath and drawing herself up. “We must go to Nampara.”
They set off right after breakfast, riding hard along the clifftops, where they could hear wild grey waves frothing and crashing against the rocks below, the wind cold and vicious as it whipped at their hair and faces no matter how warmly they were wrapped up. A storm was coming in from the sea, and dark clouds were roiling and broiling like smoke from a fire in the sky on the horizon, blurred slightly by the rain that was lashing down on the water in sheets far away. As focused on their goal as Elizabeth was, she couldn’t help but cast it a nervous glance. It wouldn’t do to be caught out in such poor weather, especially not when there may be other dangers abroad.
Even at the pace they had set, it took some time to arrive at Nampara, cold and shivering but determined nevertheless. Elizabeth swallowed, feeling a lump rise in her throat at the sight of the familiar stone cottage. There was still a part of her that half expected Ross to emerge from it at any moment, wild-haired and defiant and ready to take on any that threatened those under his care headlong. But she could not pretend, however much she might have wanted to. Had it not been Ross’ recklessness that had had him shipped off to the Americas in the first place? His determination to do whatever he pleased? His eagerness to fight? For a brief moment, she wondered if war had suited him, but clearly it had not, or else he would not have…
To her horror, her eyes began to sting as tears welled up in them, blurring her vision, but she blinked them angrily away. No. That was not what she was here for. She had a duty to fulfil, and it would not do to dwell on Ross’ misfortune or her own misery now. With that in mind, she tore her eyes away from the house and looked to her father, asking him silently what they were to do next. He was frowning, staring around him as if searching for something, clearly deep in thought.
“So this is where they were last seen, I suppose,” he mused aloud, his eyes narrowed against the wind. “But where did they go from here? Where are they now?”
For someone who had no skill or knowledge in the area of magic, that question would have been highly difficult to answer. For herself and her father, however, there were certain means which could be used to find the information that they sought. There was one such spell—a way of tracing the imprints left behind by magical beings that had been developed by a distant ancestor of theirs who had once famously traversed the whole of the Northerly Land of Faerie from Treguddan to the mountain kingdoms of the north in the ninth century—that they had become particularly well-practised at casting, and it was that that they decided to cast in order to get their answers.
First they moved a little way away from the house, so that none inside would be able to see what they were doing—Ross may be gone, and poor Joshua may have died as well now, but the Paynters most likely still lived there, and a nosier pair Elizabeth had never met—before dismounting from their horses and preparing to cast. Carefully, almost reverently, her father reached into his saddlebag and took out an old, worn leather journal, in which he kept the most precious of his spell, and opened it. He did not even have to rifle through the pages, for it fell open right at the working they intended to cast, so often had they used it in recent months. On the yellowing parchment was a complex symbol, resembling a many pointed star, which Elizabeth knew that her father had painstakingly drawn himself, copied from their ancestor’s own ancient journal as he had imbued every carefully sketched out line of ink with a little bit of his own magic.
“Ready?” he asked her and, when she nodded at him, leaned down to the paper and blew gently it. Immediately, the lines of black ink floated right off the page before scattering like dust or soot grass and earth and stone. A pause, and then the ground lit up with silver. A group of footprints, large and strange and alien, glowing like ghostly echoes had appeared before them, dwindling off up the hill and into the distance. Elizabeth bit her lip a little nervously at the sight of them.
“Well then” sighed her father, and they both headed off in the direction that the tracks led, wary and alert for fear of what they might find when they came to an end. There had to be at least twelve separate sets of footprints there, she guessed as she stared down at them. Most of them were large and long and narrow—the footprints of goblins or wights most likely—but there was one pair that was truly enormous, dwarfing her own dainty feet as she stepped beside them, and she could only presume that those footprints had been made by a particularly large troll.
Once they reached the crest of the hill, they saw with some surprise that the footprints led right up to the old engine house of Joshua Poldark’s abandoned mine, Wheal Grace. They exchanged a wary glance, before approaching it cautiously. It soon became apparent, however, that the place was not capable of concealing over a dozen fae soldiers, one of which was most definitely a gigantic troll, and so they threw caution to the wind and followed the tracks inside.
“Could you summon us a light, Elizabeth?” her father asked—with the sky outside so cloudy and grey, it was very dark in there.
Elizabeth nodded, reaching for her magic. Conjuring a light was only a simple spell, and did not need the careful preparation that the tracking spell did, and so she could perform it easily without any of their usual magical aids. She felt a familiar tingling sensation surge through her fingertips before a white orb of light as large as her fist burst into life above her outstretched palm. She sent it to hover in the air above them, casting strange, eerie shadows on the walls, and her father smiled, thanking her, before crouching down to examine the footprints on the ground beside him.
“These footprints… They go right down into the shaft!,” he exclaimed, peering cautiously down into the darkness, illuminated only by Elizabeth’s ball of light and the silver glow of the ghostly footprints that headed down into its depths. “There must be a portal down there—one that emerges underground on both sides. Perhaps that is why they have not used it so much before—they can be assured of what is on their side but were unaware of whether they could get above ground once in this world.”
“Would it also not be awkward to manoeuvre any reasonably sized force down there?,” mused Elizabeth. “The mine tunnels must be a lot narrower than the pathways of Treguddan—if that is indeed where this portal leads.”
“Precisely,” hummed Mr Chynoweth, pushing himself off his haunches and consulting his journal by the light of the white orb now floating just before him. “I should think that it leads to the very outer reaches of Treguddan—possibly very close to the cliff edge, and for that reason alone, whoever lives there now may be keen to steer clear of it.”
Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully, staring down at the floor with a little frown on her face. With a start, she suddenly noticed that the footprints of the party that had come to their world last night were not the only ones she could see. There was another pair of them, fainter than the others, and markedly different. They were smaller, made by feet a little larger than her own, much more like human feet in their size if not in shape. Their glow was much dimmer than the others, and she could only suppose that whoever had made them had arrived before the party—perhaps by a day, maybe less. Her frown deepening, she followed them.
“The question is, though, why have they started using this particular portal now? What do you think, Elizabeth? …Elizabeth?”
“I think…it looks like they were in pursuit of someone…” Elizabeth called in reply to her father. She was already outside, having followed the footprints that far. A few feet and their direction turned and headed right to the edge of the cliff, as if their maker had gone to look over at the sea below. After that, they turned sharply back away. A few paces more and they simply…disappeared.
“What makes you say that?” asked Mr Chynoweth, poking his head through the doorway of the engine house to stare at her with a contemplative expression on his face.
“These. Look,” Elizabeth replied, pointing to the footprints in front of her. “These don’t belong to the party that came here last night, and they just…stop here.”
Her father stared down at the footprints in astonishment, following them as she had until he came to a stop beside her.
“My God, you’re right!,” he cried. “And these footprints certainly don’t belong to a goblin or a wight or a troll. I wonder where they went after here…”
Their discussion was cut short, however, by the appearance of a figure coming along the path from Nampara. Mr Chynoweth immediately let go of the spell, and the silvery footprints disappeared from view. It was unlikely that whoever it was could have seen them, unless they had magic of their own, but it wouldn’t have done to risk it.
The person approaching them, as it turned out, was Prudie Paynter. Upon seeing them, she fixed them with a rather hard, narrow look, and Elizabeth fought not to shift uncomfortably under it. She wondered what this must look like to the other woman, who quite frankly looked more suspicious than she had ever seen her. Beside her, her father snapped his journal shut very quickly.
“Can I help ‘ee, Mr Chynoweth, Miss Elizabeth?” she asked, frowning.
“Oh, well, I…” Elizabeth floundered unconvincingly, glancing out at the sea so as not to have to meet her eye.
“There b’aint any t’ visit ‘cept poor Prudie and that lizardy lousy layabout back in there” Prudie said, jerking her head back in the direction of Nampara, where her husband, Jud, was no doubt taking the opportunity to drink as much of his former master’s rum as possible.
“Oh, I know that…I…,” said Elizabeth softly, glancing over at his father; he was now hastily stuffing his journal away into his saddlebag. “I am sorry about…about what has happened. It must have been…”
She couldn’t quite find the words to describe what it had been, but the sentiment must have carried across nonetheless, for Prudie’s face softened, her attention entirely on her now.
“Aye it were,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, and a long silence stretched out between them before she spoke again. “You be missing Mister Ross, Miss?”
Elizabeth started at the question, but she could not deny the relevance of it despite not having expected it. She swallowed thickly, blinking rapidly as she stared out at the sea.
“I…it is just so…so strange being here without him” she confessed. Her voice shook slightly as she spoke, for all that she tried to suppress it.
“Aye that it is,” replied Prudie with a wise nod. “and with old Mister Poldark gone so sudden as well… They be dark times we’re havin’, with all those fancy folk droppin’ like flies an’ all them devils maraudin’ through our lands. We be needin’ a man like Mister Ross right now, Miss.”
Elizabeth sighed.
“And yet we do not have one anymore…” she murmured, more to herself than anything.
Prudie gave her a sad look.
“Aye, Miss,” she said. “Not anymore.”
The next day, Elizabeth paid a call to Trenwith. Even with her head buzzing with thoughts and possibilities and jumbled events which she could never quite make sense of, no matter how much she tried, she was keen to see her two friends in light of the tragedy that had struck their family. She was particularly worried about Francis, thinking back to the state he had been in when he and Charles had called on her father and herself at Cusgarne, and had taken it upon herself to see how both he and Verity were faring, though she imagined that was something she could guess quite well without witnessing it. After all, losing Joshua so soon after Ross…well it must be painful, no matter what.
Charles was away when she arrived, though considering it had been Francis and Verity she had come to see, that made little difference to her. In all honesty, she was a little relieved—she had never liked him very much, and even though she was used to his manner by now, she found his presence rather wearing. Instead, she was led into the parlour by Mrs Tabb, where Verity and Francis were sat, looking pale and sombre. Verity had been working on her embroidery, but clearly without the usual attention to detail which she afforded it, for she had been absentmindedly undoing a rather glaring mistake when Elizabeth entered the room. Francis was slumped in a chair by the fire, a glass of brandy clutched in his hand and staring at the floor with worryingly vacant eyes. He barely noticed her when she greeted them, nor when she sat down beside Verity, inquiring after their health and the absence of their father.
“He is…he is…making arrangements…for the funeral…” said Verity in a very quiet voice. Her eyes were very red, Elizabeth noticed, and her voice sounded a little stuffy, as if she were suffering from a head cold.
“Oh, I am so sorry, Verity, Francis,” Elizabeth said sadly. “It must be…”
But she trailed off, for she realised once again that she could not find the words for what it must be, and even if she had been able to, she doubted that either of them would have wanted to hear it. By all accounts, Joshua Poldark had, unlike his son, not been all that close to his Trenwith relations. In fact, he and Charles had seemed to have loathed each other. Things were always different when someone passed, though. Nobody wanted to think of the dead badly, after all.
“It was my fault.”
Both Elizabeth and Verity started, turning to stare at Francis. He had not lifted his eyes from the floor, and the utterance had been so soft that Elizabeth almost began to suspect that she had imagined it before he spoke again.
“It was…it was my fault that he died,” he said, glaring down at the rug at his feet. “If I hadn’t…If I had just stayed with the group, he wouldn’t have had to…”
“Francis, no!,” exclaimed Verity, looking stricken. “They clearly wouldn’t have tolerated being followed. Imagine if you had all caught up with them. There were only six of you. They might have killed you all! It was not your fault that they chose to attack you. In fact, I do not think Father should have taken you at all. It was a very dangerous thing to do when there were so few of you to combat them.”
Elizabeth could not help but agree with that, though she was rather surprised to hear Verity disagree so openly with her father’s actions, but Francis didn’t seem to be heartened by his sister’s words. He drew his free hand over his face and stared morosely into the contents of his glass, the muscles of his jaw working convulsively as he swallowed.
“He expects me to be like him,” he said darkly, a hand reaching up to massage his throat, where Elizabeth knew the marks from the fight with the goblin lay hidden under his neckcloth. “The patriarch on his throne—the great leader of men. But…but I do not think that is a legacy I can live up to. When that…that thing sprang out at me… Well, I do not think I have the makings of a fearless hunter to say the least.”
There was a snort from the corner, and Elizabeth started, whipping round her head to see where it had come from. Sitting at the table, with a pack of tarot cards clutched in her wizened hands and a glass of sherry sitting before her on the table, was Agatha Poldark. Elizabeth swallowed discreetly. She hadn’t noticed the woman when she had come in, and she wasn’t best pleased with suddenly finding herself in her company. She did not wish to think ill of her friends’ family, but like Charles, Agatha had always grated on her. Most of it was to do with the way she treated those around her—she had always been unkind and dismissive, even to Verity, who waited on her hand and foot—but there was something else lurking underneath it that she could not quite put her finger on. It was something about the way she watched her when she visited, she reckoned, as if she knew some secret that she was greatly enjoying hoarding to herself. Of course, that could have been Elizabeth’s mind playing tricks on her—she did have a secret to hide, after all, and with it came the constant, and sometimes irrational fear that she might at some point be found out. Nonetheless, she could never quite shake the feeling off, and to say that unnerved her would have been quite the understatement.
“Oh, please, do not keep your thoughts to yourself, aunt,” said Francis, his tone bitter and scathing. “I am sure you are creative enough to find something suitably disparaging to say which has not already left my father’s lips."
Agatha scoffed, turning over one of her tarot cards. Elizabeth watched them curiously. It wasn’t real magic, of course—only fairies had the ability to see into the future, which they did by communing with fire, and even that was a fairly unusual ability, passed down from mothers who had the ability to their children—but the imitation of the arcane held some degree of interest to her nonetheless.
“I’m sure he’s exhausted the subject already,” she said, turning over another card and placing it carefully down on the table, “but he’s not wrong. You will need to do better than that in future, boy. There are dark times ahead—you mark my words.”
“So you keep saying” sighed Francis.
“So I do,” Agatha retorted sharply, fixing him with a sour glare. “There is something coming, and you know it, Francis. We all know it.”
Francis said nothing in reply. Elizabeth’s attention, however, was now fully on Agatha as she moved to turn over the third card. The old woman gave a jolt as she saw what it was, her eyes narrowing ominously. She laid it down on the table beside the other two, and Elizabeth got a clear view of what it was—of the image of the winged, horned man with a pitchfork and pointed tail. She swallowed. Staring right back at her was The Devil.
Next chapter: George and Cary meet up with the others, and plans are put in place.
