[QT!] Oscar Wilde Quote
[Backstory, pre-series for Bela.]
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
She was aware that her parents had had a lot of money.
That was one of the first things she was told when she was read the will after her parents’ death. The crucial part was that she had now inherited it after she had murdered them. Well-it hadn’t technically been her, but at fourteen she was fairly certain that selling your soul to a demon was still murder for hire. Not that she was actually going to inquire as to that fact. She had a likely feeling that people would send her to the happy farm for that one, and she wasn’t looking to be incarcerated, regardless of what the guilt in her stomach told her.
The house was the kind of house that could just swallow you whole if you let it, with big empty rooms and dark corridors shadowing their every move. It was the kind of place where it would be fairly easy for someone to just slip away into the shadows and disappear for a while. She’d remembered her mother saying that the house was far too big for what they needed-that it was too much space, far beyond what they actually needed for themselves, it was beyond their means. But her father had just asked her mother where her imagination was, and started rattling off all the things they could do with the house. Abby knew differently, however. She knew that he was just looking for more shadows to hide in, looking to give them more secrets to keep.
She made her way up the wide main staircase to the second floor, not even bothering to turn on the lights. There was enough natural light for her to find her way in a house she’d lived in since she was a small child. The staircase was then followed by the dark hallway, and her journey ended in the doorway to her bedroom. Moonlight streaked through the window and she studied the contours and shadows as it reflected off her dolls and old toys that she no longer played with. When her eyes fell on the bed, she couldn’t help the memories that came rushing back to her, the things that had happened, and the way she had to sleep with those memories every night, and act as though nothing was wrong, with nowhere to go.
Now, however, things were different. The house was empty and hers, and she could do whatever she chose with it, sleep wherever she wanted while still avoiding suspicion, and just soak in the silence, knowing that he wasn’t going to come for her in her sleep. And while the guilt, sadness, and heartbreak at what she had solicited with her eternal soul was still resting somewhere in the pit of her stomach, the major feeling she couldn’t help but share was relief in knowing that she was no longer subject to the whims of the man who dared to call himself her father.
And that was what was going to allow her to sleep tonight. In a different room, and on clean sheets, but she was going to sleep.
522 words
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
She was aware that her parents had had a lot of money.
That was one of the first things she was told when she was read the will after her parents’ death. The crucial part was that she had now inherited it after she had murdered them. Well-it hadn’t technically been her, but at fourteen she was fairly certain that selling your soul to a demon was still murder for hire. Not that she was actually going to inquire as to that fact. She had a likely feeling that people would send her to the happy farm for that one, and she wasn’t looking to be incarcerated, regardless of what the guilt in her stomach told her.
The house was the kind of house that could just swallow you whole if you let it, with big empty rooms and dark corridors shadowing their every move. It was the kind of place where it would be fairly easy for someone to just slip away into the shadows and disappear for a while. She’d remembered her mother saying that the house was far too big for what they needed-that it was too much space, far beyond what they actually needed for themselves, it was beyond their means. But her father had just asked her mother where her imagination was, and started rattling off all the things they could do with the house. Abby knew differently, however. She knew that he was just looking for more shadows to hide in, looking to give them more secrets to keep.
She made her way up the wide main staircase to the second floor, not even bothering to turn on the lights. There was enough natural light for her to find her way in a house she’d lived in since she was a small child. The staircase was then followed by the dark hallway, and her journey ended in the doorway to her bedroom. Moonlight streaked through the window and she studied the contours and shadows as it reflected off her dolls and old toys that she no longer played with. When her eyes fell on the bed, she couldn’t help the memories that came rushing back to her, the things that had happened, and the way she had to sleep with those memories every night, and act as though nothing was wrong, with nowhere to go.
Now, however, things were different. The house was empty and hers, and she could do whatever she chose with it, sleep wherever she wanted while still avoiding suspicion, and just soak in the silence, knowing that he wasn’t going to come for her in her sleep. And while the guilt, sadness, and heartbreak at what she had solicited with her eternal soul was still resting somewhere in the pit of her stomach, the major feeling she couldn’t help but share was relief in knowing that she was no longer subject to the whims of the man who dared to call himself her father.
And that was what was going to allow her to sleep tonight. In a different room, and on clean sheets, but she was going to sleep.
522 words