Fantasy CastoffZooka2.0

[zooka]

Liliah Faustine Bartley
A girl so in love with the wrong world.
​

Liliah thought perhaps she should simply throw herself in after her late husband.

Not out of sorrow, but rather she wondered if the dirt slowly piling on top of her might have a far less crushing effect than the expectations she would face as a grieving widow. She was grateful for the veil. It hid the way her lips pursed beneath it. They were small, but not unattractive. Almost heart-like with a natural color befitting such a shape. They could be quite mischievous, quite enticing, but at the moment, they were neither.

She was serious, but not in an outwardly disrespectful way. That would not be a good idea. But Liliah certainly wasn't sad. Not like she was supposed to be. Then again, the woman had a history of not acting according to plan.

Growing up, Liliah's thirst for knowledge grew past what her parents had expected. Of course, they wished for her to be an intelligent lady of her time. Witty, contributing to a conversation, but never steering it. That was what was proper. But Liliah's keen mind drove her to read more and more, often being drawn to the more fantastical subjects.

This interest grew into an obsession when her older sister passed away. Liliah had been a little too young and confused by the events to really understand the disease that had taken her, but Rosalie became very, very weak when Liliah was nine or ten. She didn't quite remember how or why it had happened, how quickly it had come on, how long it took. It was all a bit of a blur. It was especially confusing due to how Liliah saw her sister often after she'd passed. Sometimes while Liliah was sleeping, sometimes while she was awake. And while her parents had simply convinced her that it was her imagination, how she was grieving, Liliah became interested in death and the afterlife.

No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber.​

The folklore, the customs, everything surrounding death was wildly fascinating to the young girl and continued to be until she was late into her teens. As it was, her parents were reasonably busy, letting her have her way with these interests, even indulging when she decided to study at a university to further her education to the highest possible degree available to her. At least until her skills as a young, eligible, beautiful woman were required.

It wasn't that she hated her late husband. But she had hated being married. She hated the restrictions it placed on her own life. And those restrictions were not lessened by her new status as a widow. No, there was a rather strict grieving period, complete with a suggested fashion and acceptable social activities.

A sigh rose and fell in her chest, lips pressed a bit tighter. She wasn't listening to anyone, not really. She was just staring into the hole, thinking about how dreadfully boring her home was going to be. They'd adhered to all of the usual precautions for making sure his soul would not stay behind; they'd wheeled him out feet first and covered all of the mirrors. Liliah rather wished she would have "accidentally" uncovered one. If Edison's ghost became trapped in one, perhaps she'd at least be somewhat entertained. Like she'd said, she didn't hate the man. But even he had to admit this was all his fault.

She'd 'caught his eye' (how original) and their fathers were each lucrative owners of a shipping and a mining company. It only made sense to bring the families closer together. Their parents wouldn't exactly take no for an answer, and he was far less violently opposed to the union than she was. Once they were in it, he enjoyed his... freedom, as Liliah very little interest in him. She'd simply continued reading, researching, and mourning her lost chance at a career.

And now, even in death, he was still holding her back. And as cruel and bitter as she knew her thoughts to be, she could not stop thinking them.

Until I realized it was you who held me under.​

 

[CastoffCaptain]

​

* brighthouse *
​

"Stop that." The man who called himself Brighthouse nudged his assistant with a knee. The lad--as all of the cemetery men pretended she was--who knelt at his feet had a finger knuckle-deep in his ear, face screwed up in concentration as he dug for an itch. "Show some respect," Brighthouse chided, "If not for the mourners, at least for yourself."

A hazel-eyed wink accompanied the statement. The "boy" had wandered through the cemetery gates one night six months ago, cold, alone, and half-starved to death. Jace-- her name had once been Jade--wouldn't speak for three of those months, and now that he did, refused to talk about his past. They all reckoned he was little more than twelve, but Brighthouse would have bet a guinea he was older. Malnourishment robbed the health and height of generations of the underclasses, and Jace was just one of those homeless thousands. Waiting here beneath an ivy-strangled oak tree, the two of them made a pretty picture of poverty, although the older man somehow managed to wear it with considerably more grace.

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Brighthouse leaned against his rake (they wouldn't allow the gravekeepers to carry shovels in view of the public--that would have been far too gross an indelicacy) and sighed. Scratching at his beard just beneath his jawline, he squinted against the daylight and watched the funeral across the way. Even from ten grave-rows back, he could read the opulence in the mourners' garb and the excessive use of what he guessed might be mahogany for the casket he'd be lowering into the dirt once they'd left. It was disgusting, really, to see so much money chucked away, when just the cost of the handles alone could've bought a year's worth of bread for the poor begging on the church steps next door.

But the disgust didn't sink too far into his heart. As head gravedigger, Brighthouse had the "privilege" of living in a two-room shack on the edge of the grounds, and that certainly had its... advantages. He glanced at the grieving widow, attempting to judge her demeanor; just because she wasn't weeping didn't mean she wouldn't return to visit her dearly departed in the next day or two--a behavior that wasn't entirely frowned upon, at least not in the more enlightened circles of the city.

He'd be careful, just as he always was, and although he wouldn't go so far as to dare sell a wealthy dead man's cadaver to a medical school full of his equally wealthy peers who might recognize him, he'd certainly be stripping the coffin of its prettier baubles come the witching hour.

--------
Digging out a memory
Of who I was before
And how I got involved
In this endless war
The ones who win
Don't always need it more
--------​

"I'll never marry anyone ever," Jace broke the silence once the preacher closed his bible and a hush fell over the tombstones.

"And why's that, then?" A grin cut across Brighthouse's face, lopsided and warm.

"It's like bein' owned," Jace replied, pulling his kerchief down further over his close-cropped pale hair. "I'll not have that."

"Don't worry," Brighthouse nudged the youth with the side of his boot, "no one'll have you, once they've tried your cooking."

"Speak for yerself," the lad muttered into the crook of his elbow, chewing at his shirt.

Brighthouse blew a gentle but sloppy puff of air from between his lips. "But look at all the women dying to come see me," he chuckled, flicking a finger at the rows upon rows of headstones stretching over the rolling hill. The comment garnered him a glare. "Speaking of victuals, I'll treat you to some stew once this lot's done. Shouldn't be long now."

Clouds clotted the sky. Sneaking a hand under his rough-knit sweater to scratch his ribs, Brighthouse wondered if it would rain. A drizzle would be welcome, but a downpour dreaded. The first would make digging easier, but the latter would ruin his plans.

"Unless the widow decides to leap in after her beloved," he quipped, and moved to sit at the base of the oak tree.

--------
I'm reaching out
To take what's mine
Whichever way it rolls
Calling on my favors
Watch my bridges burn
I'm stepping out
Never to return
--------​

 

[zooka]

Only if for a night...​

Everything was laid out beautifully. Jewelry, veils, bonnets, gloves. Practically a costume, as if she was an attendee at a masquerade. Only this one would last twelve months, during which she would face social exile and her family public shame should she be caught at any such gathering. An appropriate lady of the time wouldn't be caught dead - inappropriately timed idiom aside - at such a gathering, not while in mourning.

As morbid as it was, there was a clearly fashioned style to everything. It very nearly reminded Liliah of her wedding. She wasn't so dramatic to say that her wedding was akin to a death march, but the sense of duty was the same.

How fortunate was Liliah Faustine Bartley that her mother was available to help her with adhering to proper widow etiquette. Mabelle Gard was a lovely woman of French origin who grew up in a wealthy family in Geneva. Marrying Liliah's father and being whisked away was Mabelle's greatest adventure and she had made social adaptation into an art form. She was a painfully charming woman who fit seamlessly into high-society circles, yet managed to stand out in her own way. She offered safe exoticism with her gentle, but easily understandable accent and people found her absolutely lovely.

And her mother was a smart woman. Certainly not blind. She knew that Liliah had not ever wished for this. However, that was not what was important. Their good name and the bond between the Gard and Bartley family had depended on Liliah's marriage to Edison and now it depended on how she conducted herself in the wake of his death.

Liliah could understand some of her mother's fascination. It was an interesting puzzle, certainly. Navigating social demands. It simply wasn't the type of puzzle that Liliah herself enjoyed. University had presented its own challenges, some of them social, but generally systemic. Those boundaries, she could overcome, or at least meet head-on. But this?

"Lady Bartley?" A maid in their household, Nora, gently alerted Liliah to her presence. Still, the woman was quiet as a mouse and Liliah was unprepared for a second presence. She drew in a surprised breath through her nose and took a step back, turning her body towards the blonde woman as she did so. Where as Nora's hair was a beautiful golden color, Liliah's was a light brown. The maid was lovely. Edison, who certainly held no illusions about Lilah's devotion to him, had favored her help.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's quite alright, Nora. What is it?"

"I was just checking on you. Do you require anything?"

"No, not at all." Liliah reached out, taking up a necklace into her slender fingers. It was beautiful, though admittedly morbid as it held a lock of her "beloved's" hair. She was still examining it closely as she addressed Nora once again. "In fact, I don't believe I require anything the rest of the night. Please inform the staff that I will see them all in the morning, but I would like to be alone."

As true as it was, it would definitely make things easier. Liliah did not plan on staying trapped in that house with all of its veils and masks that night and, while she didn't believe any of the help held ill-will toward her, they'd been Edison's first. If they were to see her sneaking out, it may not end well for Liliah.

And the grass was so green against my new clothes
And I did cartwheels in your honor
Dancing on tiptoes
My own secret ceremonials
Before the service began
In the graveyard doing handstands​

 

[CastoffCaptain]

*brighthouse*​

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"Oi, come back here!" He couldn't raise his voice, couldn't even stage whisper, but what he did manage was just loud enough to stop the tiny blue light in its tracks. The rain had stopped at midnight, but clouds still obscured the sky, throwing the city's glow back at it in a sickly, jaundiced way. The dead didn't need illumination, but Brighthouse did; the shuttered smuggler's lamp could provide a finger of flame while he made his way down the cemetery paths, but it was far too risky of a shine for now.

Brighthouse shook his head and lifted his shoulders in a shrug one couldn't quite call disbelieving-- he could convince the Will o'the Wisps to do his bidding, but that didn't always guarantee their attention. They were bright, but they weren't intelligent. Smirking at his own inside joke, he threw a dirt-encrusted arm over the side of the grave and waggled his finger at the wisp. Wavering, it left its perch atop Old Woman Jackson's vault and twiddled toward him on its own schedule, coming back to rest between the four others lighting the twice-dug hole.

He worked in a ragged shirt he didn't mind sullying and a pair of waxed leather trousers held up by galluses. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, and the linen clung to him, revealing shoulders broadened by years of digging, muscles hardened from both honest and dishonest work.

This work constituted the latter.

Which is why he did it alone; he'd gone to the pub with the lads after the gates closed, had a few pints and some dinner, then pretended to stagger home after dropping Jace off with the Marsdens. No one he knew suspected him of his second trade. All of them thought him a protector of the boneyard, not a defiler. He'd tossed out more than a baker's dozen of those over the years, and who better to rob a treasure trove than the guardian itself?

But it came with risks. Prison. Hanging. All of his workmen condemned despite their innocence.

Not even Jace knew, and she... he... stuck to him like a fly on glue paper.

Brighthouse patted the ground at the head of the grave, searching for his crowbar. With it in hand, he sniffed and wiped the drizzle off his forehead, which left a black smear across his skin, then slid the tool into the first handle of Edison's casket. The turnover men in the Garden's back alleys didn't care if the screws were stripped and the gold scarred.

These baubles were headed straight for the crucible.
​

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And I just wanna be there when the lightning strikes
And the saints go marching in

And sing slow it down
Through chaos as it swirls
It's us against the world
​

​

 

[zooka]

All alone, even when I was a child. I've always known there was something to be frightened of. I can see it coming from the edge of the room.​

Dark musings were meant to be private. If one's own inappropriate, black humor wasn't safe inside one's own head, then what the hell was sacred anymore? She'd bitterly joked that she'd rather have Edison's ghost haunt their home because she'd be less bored that way, but Liliah certainly took that back now. The empty house was maddening. Of course, she was very aware that it was all in her head. It had been when she was a child, too, but she had a very active imagination. Perhaps that is why she'd always been interested in the fantastical subjects; she could visualize as she read all of the incredible and terrible creatures, the enchanted landscapes.

But now it was betraying her. It was very likely that she simply wasn't used to a completely quiet building. There had always been help around, some family at least. The buildings she was accustomed to bustled. In this empty silence, every creak was magnified and she heard footsteps where there were none. She was suddenly very happy that all of the mirrors were covered. She only wished to stare into a safe, plain corner of the room and wait until the clock struck three. In the meantime, she changed into simpler clothes (at least by her class' standards), still dark, but for the purpose of camouflage rather than bereavement.

Finally, she heard the chimes, but even those caused her to jump.

Creeping in the street light, holding my hand in the pale gloom. Can you see it coming now?​

Liliah found it rather easily to make her way back to the vast cemetery. And it wasn't incredibly difficult to get in. She wasn't exactly overflowing with physical prowess, but she could climb a tree with low branches and make her way over the wrought iron fence. The journey back to the ground was the difficult part and he sleeve of her dress fell victim to the speared finial. Apparently, they weren't just decorative. Still, she was entirely silent, save for a gentle hiss as the air hit where the skin, too, had been torn.

Feet firmly on the ground, she looked down at her arm for a couple of moments before her eyes blinked and found the sky, cursing the stars and the moon wordlessly. Her hand covered the superficial wound. Damn this night. Damn this... this whole damn ordeal.

Was that it? Was she being punished for considering her husband's funeral and the residual social expectations an "ordeal"?

She was here, wasn't she? That meant she at least cared enough to come and... and... Well, she wasn't certain. She wanted to contemplate, and for some reason, this is where she'd been drawn to do it. To contemplate her anger. Liliah came to the source.

I think I'm breaking down again.​

Despite how large the grounds were, finding the grave was perhaps the simplest part of this whole ridiculous endeavor. How could she possibly forget the spot? It was where her "contract" with Edison had ended and where her fulfillment of her role as widow began. Sometimes, it was difficult to remember that it was only a year. Only.

Or, that is what she was telling herself. Her family may wish to see her mourn until she herself ended up here. Oh, Lord, was she to be Dowager Lady Barltey for the rest of her-

Liliah's soft footsteps stalled as she came upon the grave. The light around it. It was illuminated by... Her head shook slowly, disbelief painting her features. The lights were alive. The knowledge of what they were filled her mind, a warm feeling accompanying it for a moment; validation.

A hand peeked up over the edge of the grave, at which point, she started to question her own sanity. Her husband's? Of course not. Far too dirty. But that begged the question:

What was a hand doing in her husband's grave? Or, more importantly, the (presumable) human attached to it.

Her blue eyes narrowed themselves slightly, her lips pursing in mild distaste, though a smirk still found its way onto the canvas. She softly padded over to the edge - the edge of a grave, but no more fearful for it - peering down.

"Is that a will-o'-the-wisp?"

I think I'm breaking down again.​

 

[CastoffCaptain]

They're writing my history
Think somebody should've asked me
Everyone was safe in their beds
Their beds

And I said...
------------------


Nighttime didn't make for silence. Carts rolled by on the street past the wall, night-soil men and rag-takers among the many forced to work under the cover of darkness. Crickets peeped in their hideaways, a dog howled half a mile hence, and the gravelights hissed and sputtered their own unnatural flame-songs. Something winged by overhead, but Brighthouse didn't look up. Whatever that was, it was neither owl nor fowl, and he didn't particularly care to snag its attention.

Still, the sound of screws peeling free of wood could carry over all of it, giving away the game, and so he worked with the utmost concentration. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, the back of his neck. One droplet clung to the tip of his nose, wobbled, then plummeted toward a wisp, the latter of which dodged just in time to avoid it. Brighthouse muttered a plea under his breath, cajoling cooperation from the coffin handle. A little turn of his crowbar would give him enough leeway to grab the screwheads with his pliers and work them free, but getting there would require time, patience, and not a little nail-biting.

Balancing as he was on the edge of quiet and the proceedings, he didn't hear the soft pad of feet approaching from behind. Later on down the road, he'd imagine all of the ways he could have turned to greet her, a bit of snappy banter on his tongue. He'd lie awake thinking of how he might have dragged her into the hole--that'd have served her well for her troubles, or perhaps, instead of a rogue's response, he'd simply have slipped out of the grave before she'd seen him, soaking in the shadows to become one himself. Anything other than...

I won't live, won't live like them
Everyone, they're all seeing red

I don't know
If it's alright with you, but I'll be gone
A ghost will be here in my stead, my stead

And I said...
------------------


"NNghaah!"

The crowbar ripped the handle from its housing. It slammed against the grave-wall and ricocheted back at him, bouncing off one of his floundering legs to clatter against the coffin-lid. The grave-lights scattered willy-nilly and blinked out. Stumbling backward, Brighthouse brandished the tool like a bat. Swinging it over his shoulder just lodged its curved end in the dirt and sent down a shower of musty loam.

"Who are you? How'd you get in?" he demanded in a whisper, struggling to free the crowbar while staring at the figure looming over him. Some portion of his brain registered the outline of the silhouette as far more curved than expected, matching its voice. Adrenaline pumped his thoughts into overdrive: he needed to be quiet. He'd been caught. He had to lie. He had to run. He really, really needed a wee.

He'd. Been. Caught.

"You're trespassing," he snarled, fear shoving all else aside. Anger rushed in to fill the void. He wouldn't be gaol-bound, not with so much to lose. "Get out!"

I can't live life underneath it all

So let's just make this count a lot in here
------------------

*brighthouse*

 

[zooka]

I'm gonna raise the stakes. ​

"And you're grave-robbing." Liliah shot the words back at him like a bullet from a gun. It was, however, spent after such a remark and wasn't exactly a peacemaker. So, Liliah unfolded her arms, which had wound up and settled in, her hip jutting out to the side as the strange man in the grave tried to chide her for her trespassing. He was the one committing a major crime. Certainly, if it came to it, people would overlook the poor, grieving widow who had only come to see her late husband. They might even forgive her for being out of "uniform" in public.

But she had no plans of telling anyone about this. Not when things had just gotten so interesting in her life, which had threatened to be dreadfully boring up to this point.

Liliah's shoulders dropped with a sigh, her eyes rolling with exasperation.

"I climbed a tree and then I dropped down over the fence." She reached up and plucked an earring from her ear. The movement bared her forearm and the fresh wound there revealed that the journey had not been a smooth one.

"If you'd witnessed the attempt, I highly doubt you'd feel quite so threatened by me." She knew that it wasn't her he was threatened by, not exactly. It was the fact that he'd been caught in the act. She switched sides, pulling the other earring free. They were a beautiful, white opal. A wedding gift, of course. Lovely and expensive and a poetic choice for his funeral. "But I'm flattered, nonetheless."

She gathered both earrings into one hand and reached into the front of her dress with the other, pulling out her newly acquired jewelry containing a lock of his hair. His hair was brown. Nothing special about it. Nothing at all. In his lifetime, Edison had been a specimen of physical health. Undeniably handsome. But that had mattered very little to Liliah. She could have even overlooked the fact that his head was empty of any sort of interesting knowledge, but he had no interest in the contents of Liliah's own brain. He didn't care about her studies or where she'd hoped they'd take her.

"Catch." It was an option, not a command, but she dropped the trio of precious metal and jewels, ornate and pointless as she had been to Edison. It wasn't a flaunt of her wealth, simply a show that she cared nothing for the man in the grave or any his valuables.

"And you didn't answer my question." She didn't repeat it. Liliah crossed her arms once more and waited.

I'm gonna smoke you out.​

 

[CastoffCaptain]

---------------------

____*brighthouse*
​

There's always hope
Hope in death

Once the wisps had disappeared, darkness slammed down on the graveyard like a curtain. The city glow above could barely penetrate it. Brighthouse strained to make out his accuser's face. Something glistened on her forearm, but from where he stood with his back against the earth, he couldn't tell if it was satin or sinister. Fingernails carved crescents into the palm not wrapped around the crowbar. With one ugly, decisive yank, the grave digger snatched the tool from its prison and slammed it onto the ground outside the hole just as the intruder was fiddling with the front of her dress.

This was intolerable. She was intruding on his space, his safe and sacred space, where he was waging a one-man army against the world in order to better its workings, and now she was--

throwing things at him

--dropping something over the edge, only it was too dark to make out more than a few blobs of blackness and a glint. Whatever it was, he sure as saints wasn't going to catch, even if it had been broad daylight and he could have actually seen what she'd let go. The bits thumped on a pile of dirt at the foot of the casket and rolled to Gods-knew-where.

He knew that tone. He knew that accent, all butter and cream and coated in class. Whoever this was who'd wormed her way over the walls wasn't a low-class tart too drunk to navigate or a char-girl out for a thrill. This was money and means with some secret agenda, and he'd be damned if he was going to let her ask any more questions, especially about any of his talents. Grabbing up his shuttered lantern, he put it topside before hauling himself up and over in a single, fluid motion.

But these days are numbered
This life absolute
​

"I said you're trespassing, miss, and I suspect you wouldn't know a grave-robbing from a hole in the ground."

Ha. Too bad he could never share that one with the boys.

"I'm the caretaker," he straightened, not bothering to brush the sod off his clothes. "Two of the lads are down with the grippe, and I'm up to my ears in trying to cover for them. In addition to the three regulars we had today, a couple of spooked horses dragged a cart through a market in Brighting Square this evening, killed a half dozen unlucky bastards, and I'm here past my bedtime wrapping it all up by myself." Not that she would have ever slummed it in Brighting Square. Not that a cart had done anything of the sort. But what she didn't know might just save him, and so he stood his ground and glared at her in the blackness, countering his queries with an answer he'd crafted and perfected years before.

"So if you don't mind, I'll see you to the gates and you can go back to whatever it was you were doing before you snuck out of your palace, eh?"

Brighthouse moved toward her and reached for her arm.

I need this faith to keep me walkin'
To keep me alive​

 

[zooka]

I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me.
Liliah slid her arm away from him, but only the short distance from where it had been crossed below her chest to rest her hand on her hip. Her jaw dropped open a little bit as she smiled at him, her expression incredulous. She huffed out a brief chuckle, but she quickly stilled it, pressing her lips together in a sly smirk and shaking her head at him.

It wasn't exactly condescending, but it did suggest a very gentle shame on you.

Unfortunately for him, Liliah was a seasoned veteran with men trying to make her think that she didn't know what she was talking about. She also wasn't fooled in the slightest by his little story. Whether or not it had actually happened, she saw it for what it was. A distraction.

"Covering for them?" Though she pressed her lips together a bit tighter, she had to laugh again. One hand moved to her stomach as she arched over it gently, then moved up to gently press against her lips. It was an... amusing choice of words. "You're supposed to be 'covering' my husband. No wonder you're out here so late. I may not have done a lot of digging in the dirt, but even I know that you'll get the job done a lot faster if you're not inside of the hole you're trying to cover. And maybe try a shovel next time."

Strangely enough, Liliah seemed genuinely tickled by this whole thing. Still, even she could recognize that outright laughing in his face wasn't kind. Her smile became a bit gentler as she sighed.

"Look, I'm sorry." She raised her brows at him. "I'm not going to tell anyone. I don't care. Strip it all. He certainly doesn't need it. I just thought I saw..."

She looked him over again, shaking her head, her lips remaining apart as she considered saying again what she thought she saw. A part of her thought he might rescue her, supply it for her, but she knew that was hopeless.

Her shoulders dropped into the heavy sigh, the fingers on her right hand lightly turning her ring around on her finger.

When she looked back up again, she had a much more cordial expression. Something she'd obviously rehearsed. "I'll thank you for the escort to the gates. I definitely don't wish to leave the way I came." Her lip twitched into a smile at the attempt at a witty comment at her own expense, deflated as it was.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

*brighthouse*

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Decades of hiding in the lower classes couldn't quell muscle memory. Not entirely. Entrenched as he was in his own territory, bombarded with accusations--

the truth

--about exactly what it was he was doing, he'd nearly tried to touch her. All fine and good for someone equal to her standing to attempt, but him? The lowly unseen, besmirched by death and all its trappings, a nothing to her. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Add to that, she was steadily unraveling his lie, which only made it more difficult to concoct more, much less concentrate on what she was saying, because--

I beg your pardon?

He didn't ask that aloud. It expressed itself in the jerk of his head forward on the thick column of his neck, the gleam in his widened eyes. She'd said husband. She'd bloody well said husband and now his skull was filling with the blood-rush-roar of panic and he wanted to reel back the night to when he'd been sitting in the pub, warm and full and comfortable and not facing the wrath of Scotland Yard. Brigthhouse put a hand over his mouth and dragged it down his beard, keenly aware of the scent of newly-dug dirt on his palm.

Why was she here? Why now? With a mouth too dry to answer her immediately, he took a step back. There had to be a way to remedy this that didn't involve transportation or a beating from the bobbies.

"I'm not going to strip it," he managed to croak out after a long moment. Taking up his lantern, he wedged the tiny doors covering its single glass eye open another inch. A buttery glow fell across his feet and into the gaping grave. It cast just enough light to underline how pale his face had become, cutting shadows under his cheekbones and throat. "I'm not... I didn't know he was..."

He might not be able to form a convincing lie, but he'd be damned if he was going to own his actions when anything he said might be used against him later. That included an apology. At best, he could claim she'd simply gotten it all wrong, should he need to. It was dark, she was bereaved--or mad-- and by the time the coppers arrived, all would be back as it should, no blood no foul.

"And I do have a shovel," he muttered, aiming the lantern at the tool in question. The spade stood a foot deep in the pile of twice-turned soil, waiting for his return. "Come on. I'll show you the short way out."

The rest of the boneyard lay quiet, as if in anticipation of what might come next. No wisps, no crickets' creak--only deep and penetrating silence.

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[zooka]

No home. I don't want shelter. ​

Though Liliah would have much preferred the scenic route, she had learned to pick and choose her battles. Besides, what was the point in delaying the inevitable? This reckless excursion would soon be at its end, and it had done very, very little to soothe Liliah's restlessness. In fact, it might have made it worse. "Sightings" always did. Glimpses of the world that she'd studied. To most, it was fanciful. They had their rituals, their superstitions, but they knew nothing of Liliah's desperate hope that there was something -

anything

- more. Even just a small, glowing...

She had started to follow him with little more than one last wistful scan of her husband's grave. Of course, the expression had nothing to do with him, only what she thought she'd seen. Even when she was young, actually in mourning over the loss of her sister, confusing dreams for reality, she would often return to the "scene" hoping for a waking glimpse. She could never escape that initial fear, but neither could she quell the curiosity. It would get to the point that she was longing for her heart to jump into her throat once more. Only her studies were able to distract her and those would only feed her imagination.

"Have you... heard of a Will-o'-the-Wisp? I studied folklore, and I..." Some of that desperate hope had snuck into her question. Though she'd already decided there was no point in trying to delay the inevitable, here she was drawing out this strange exchange, despite the fact that he was dying for it to end. Well, not exactly dying. That was insensitive, given their current surroundings.

Again, an airy laugh broke free, though it was gentle as it only took a small push given her tired state. "I'm sorry. You must think I'm absolutely insane."

No calm. Nothing to keep me from the storm. ​

 

[CastoffCaptain]

*brighthouse*

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

I knew exactly, I knew exactly what this would feel like
I knew this day was coming, I knew it right from the start
I knew exactly, I knew exactly what you would be to me
A scar on the horizon, a perfect dim illusory light​

The path he led her down was a winding one. Three paces beyond her husband's grave, Brighthouse veered left off the gravel path, albeit slowly, and swung his lamp so that he lay a thread of light in front of her for a moment to help her get her bearings. They crossed to an artfully-constructed thicket where ivy formed an archway over three tiny headstones capped by lambs. He could only guess which part of the wall she might have climbed over; the fool might have brazenly clambered up along the main road or been too smart to slip in anywhere other than the darkness-lined Heaving Street. Didn't matter. He wanted her gone, and if he had to wait while she squeezed between Mr. Steven Simpson Gunther IV and Madame Jacqueline-Roud in their matching marbled vaults, then so be it. She'd scared him senseless. Perhaps his silence would give her a chance for her imagination to run wild, and that would be a sliver of payback owed. Especially since she was asking questions he'd just as soon pretend she'd never uttered.

Not too far from where his shack hunkered next to a gate used only by personnel, he stopped and exhaled. Knuckling the lantern's shield open, he placed it on the ground. He turned to face his intruder, knowing he'd be backlit by the glow, little more than a shadow-man to her and all the better for it.

He, however, was afforded a full view of her, and what he saw hardly surprised him. Pretty face--elfin and sharp around the edges. Skin that lacked blemishes, lips without cracks, hair that was lustrous and styled. Her clothes made a passing attempt at simplicity, but there were no threadbare patches in the elegant and costly material. No slum kitten come calling.

"Go home, miss." Brighthouse sounded tired, worn down by a frustration much larger than she had wrought. He gesticulated vaguely, but gave up the effort early on. "I don't know what you thought you'd find here, or what you wanted to prove, but--"

And I held it in my hands to protect it from the wind
But the more I held on, I knew I'd lose it again
You blew in like a breeze and rolled out like a storm
I know you didn't think it'd do any harm​

His shoulders stiffened. Tilting his head to the side, he craned his neck to get a better look at something about her, and then took a step forward.

"You're bleeding."

The tone was the same he'd have used with The dog's shat on the rug again, dear.

"Let's have a look."

This time he remembered to keep his hands to himself, as much as his palms itched to take her wrist and examine it, even though his fingertips still remembered the tug of flesh with each stitch finished and the satisfaction that came from closing a wound.

Rent flesh made whole again.
The healing begun.
The healer him.​

I knew exactly, I knew exactly what this would feel like...​

 

[zooka]

The widow very near hated him. Though if she were to utter it, he shouldn't take it personally. She hated most men. People always placed such an emphasis on social status, monetary value, but men were all the same. He'd proved that when he'd dismissed her questions. No one was ever interested in her studies or the various subjects with in it. So as it fell silent between the Liliah and the grave digger, a man she might have thanked for putting a layer of dirt between her and her husband, she got a very sour expression on her face as her blue eyes scanned the expanse of tombstones.

She'd been in a cemetery before, of course. Her sister. She'd had certain clothes and things to wear during that mourning period as well, but that had seemed so insignificant at the time. Liliah had never paid much attention to what her mother wished her to wear and that attitude had not changed one bit while she was missing her sister. The clothes were inconsequential at that point.

Go home, miss.

Liliah regarded him with a look akin to disappointment. He didn't know what she was trying to do here? Neither did she. Not in simple terms at least. She'd hoped that her reason for coming there might have revealed itself once she'd arrived. In fact, she thought it had when she'd seen the...

lights.

And the expression on her face said that she planned to sit through whatever scolding he'd been about to deliver and give it just as much careful deliberation as she gave any other disciplinary speech she'd received, which involved a good chuckle on a good day and fiery retort on a bad. While this was most certainly a bad day, she didn't think she had the energy for such a thing.

But when he pointed out her wound, her brows raised in gentle surprise. She'd forgotten. Liliah glanced down at her arm and then up and along the top of the fencing surrounding the cemetery.

"Well, yes, it's rather sharp, so..."

Just as sharp was her tone as she half considered crossing her arms and leaving. But something about how mundane it seemed to him was... oddly comforting. Or perhaps compelling.

Either way, she held her arm out to him, though she wasn't entirely sure what he thought he was going to do besides look at it and maybe say again,

Yes. Definitely bleeding. Off you go then.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

That she had, in fact, climbed over the fencing shouldn't have been a surprise. She'd admitted as much to him, but somewhere on the surface of those musings was the much more rational hope that she'd managed to slither through an unlocked door or... or... nothing. There were no other options. Up and over she'd gone, an amateur acrobat in full petticoats, and she'd won herself a scar for it. She might've snuck out of her gilded cage without notice but it was unlikely she'd manage the same invisibility on the way back in with that cut. And him? Brighthouse risked his neck every night he pushed his shovel back into a new-dug grave, but the fear he felt now was like nothing else he'd experienced in any of his years. This was insanity. She was insane, and now his whole world was going to suffer for it.

But she was bleeding.

Dropping his head for a heartbeat, he snatched up the lantern and stepped toward the widow. Holding it at chest-height, he leveled a stare at her.

The glow caressed his face. It turned the reds of his beard to copper and highlighted his short, mussed hair. Shadows played in his hazel eyes, masking them in darkness and deepening the twin frown lines carved between his brows. He was hardly tall, but what he lacked in height he made up for in breadth. Muscles massed along his shoulders and thickened his arms into pillars. Brighthouse had once been the darling of the dance floor, born with a rakishness many of his equal had openly envied, but time, labor, and his second occupation had worn down his joy and hardened the boy he once was into a man.

One who at this moment was very tired and very weary.

Everything he'd worked for...

He hesitated before he touched her, making certain she'd allow it. Callouses rasped against the woman's sleeve. With a gentleness far beyond a grave-digger's domain, he peeled away the rent cloth and tilted her wrist to get a better look at her wound. His tongue peeked out from the side of his pursed lips, all the comment he'd make on the gash's severity. Dropping her arm as abruptly as whatever it was she'd dropped into her husband's grave, Brighthouse huffed.

"Right."

...everything he'd sacrificed...

"Come on, then, Mrs. Bartley." He turned on his heel and strode for the thatch-and-stone hovel he called home, the lantern swinging with each footfall. "Let's get you stitched up."

...was crashing down around his ears.

So why was the night so quiet?


Like a feather falling past your cheek
Feel the breath of heaven on your face
And we all die trying to get it right
We're all gonna die trying to get it right

*brighthouse*

 

[zooka]

Maybe I don't want you either. We're both unsettled nighttime creatures.

​

As he studied her arm, Liliah was watching him with just as studious a gaze. Her own lips slid to the side in thought as she tried to figure out what on God's green earth had just happened. He obviously couldn't wait to get her out of his graveyard and back to his perfectly legal activities, she was sure. But he was stopping his night in its tracks in order to help her with the admittedly nasty cut.

Liliah hadn't gotten far enough in her plans for the night to figure out what she might have done about it otherwise, so she was tempted to accept his offer on the spot.

The man seemed almost unable to resist helping her with such a thing. Whether it was some strange sense of chivalry, helping a damsel in distress, she could not tell.

However, she could easily tell that he knew what he was looking at. The furrow of his brows, the lines deep with concentration and whatever else had deepened the neighboring frown lines, were telling on their own. His hazel eyes moved over her skin with a purpose and understanding.

"Have you done a lot of stitching, then? I imagine you're just a little late to save most around here. Fine place to practice, I suppose." Liliah wasn't so much making fun of him as she was trying to lighten the mood. It had grown a bit dark, as had the path as he lowered his lantern to lead her towards a dark building near the gate he'd been about to escort her through.

This was the point when Liliah started to grow a bit nervous. Liliah was a good judge of character and so far, she didn't believe that he meant her any harm. Besides the... anger and fear he exhibited upon her discovering him in her husband's grave, presumably committing a crime.

Liliah's steps slowed a bit.

"I read about these two men who... lured and ever so gently murdered several people to sell their bodies to medical science. I believe they may have named a method of suffocation after one of them." She talked about it rather casually, despite the fact that she was obviously feeling a bit nervous about her current situation. There was a certain tone of amusement to it, however. Perhaps she was insane.

"Look, at least, tell me your name."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

So there was a little bit of payback to be had and it showed itself in the woman's nervous chattering. Guilt should have settled in (or at least a sliver of it) for being its cause, but Brighthouse just couldn't manage to find where he kept that particular emotion. Not for the grief she'd caused him tonight, not for what might come of all this, and certainly not for her egregious sense of entitlement. Sneaking in as if it she had every right. Reaching the door, he put a hand to the knob and turned to face her, the frown on his face lingering, although...

He couldn't contain the grin that began to overtake it.

She was talking about Burke and Hare in the most casual of terms, as if... as if by speaking their names, she might conjure them up again. As if he were going to ever so gently murder her once she stepped across his threshold. This was more like it. This he could understand--he, the keeper of the dead, a boogeyman mentioned to scare children into behaving, a man most crossed the street to avoid. The undertaker who might just bury you alive for jollies, because only God knew the blackness of a heart that dealt in death and dirt. Barely able to keep from an eye-roll and a guffaw, Brighthouse let an amused breath hitch from his lungs.

'Cause you told me that I would find a hole​

Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals​

"It's the morticians who do the stitching," he said, flicking a finger at his lips in lieu of explanation for that little trick, "but I know my way around a needle. And I've no need of murdering anyone who comes through these gates. I'm an undertaker, not an inkeeper. Most of my guests are already dead."

Waving her closer, he opened the door. Light that had been masked by heavy curtains hanging over the windows rushed out to greet them. What could be seen of the front room was tidy and well-kept, if quite a bit hand-me-down. A table and two chairs nestled against the wall to the left, not far from the fireplace. Partially hidden by the door, a pot-bellied stove hunkered in the opposite corner, topped by a tea kettle. Both were companion to a well-loved, plush wingback. A landscape hung over the mantle, overlooking a rug that might have pretended at one time to be Persian, and hinted at once being blue. From here, a second door shut another room off from view.

It was cozy. It was poor. And it was home.

Darkness is a harsh term don't you think?​

And yet it dominates the things I see.​

It would have been so easy to terrify her more. Brighthouse knew what a strangulation victim looked like. He'd seen the results of a pillow pressed to a face, a garotte buried in a neck... the nightmare of blackened tongues and burst blood vessels in dead eyes peeled wide in horror. There was nothing gentle or soft or good about a smothering, and if she was nervous of him now, he could make her tremble in her boots with but a handful of words.

But he didn't have him in him, not entirely. The years here had honed his anger to a tool he used with precision. He'd not bludgeon her with it.

"And my friends call me Brighthouse. Come, sit down. I don't bite, I don't transmit disease, and I know how to act like a gentleman, despite whatever you've been told about my kind."

It seems that all my bridges have been burnt​

But you say that's exactly how this grace thing works.
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start.​

​

It was going to be a long, long night.

*brighhouse*

 

[zooka]

"Your kind?"

Liliah had been quite distracted, looking around his humble home. Her gaze was more curious than gentle, her nose not held at the same upturned angle that most would expect out of someone of her social status. The thing was, she was a little smarter than most of the women of her class. While they were probably rather content in their environment, Liliah was extremely restless. She craved new experiences. This was definitely new. She could have done without the bleeding, but beggars could not be choosers.​

​

At his last statement, however, her head turned to him quickly, and she released another laugh of amusement. Again, it wasn't exactly rude and not entirely at his expense, but it was open to misinterpretation.

"Well, you're not a different species," she added.It was fact and, therefore, simple and she stated it in such a fashion. Her brows pinched slightly. Did he mean his social class or was it in reference to his profession? She'd heard more on the former, but her mother didn't have much opportunity to prattle on about the latter. As it stood, Liliah had a keen interest in the dead. Gravediggers included. And her mother's opinions of such things were of little consequence to her, save for her insistence that Liliah adhere to the mourning customs.

"Is that what they say?" This time, her voice was genuinely curious and didn't hold any of the dismissive nature of her previous statement. "You might have guessed, but I'm not a terribly great listener." She fixed him with a sly smile, small and crooked on her pink lips. His exasperated nature was not lost on her, though whether it was due to the circumstances of his life or this night alone - and, more specifically, her - she didn't know for certain.

Lilian sat down, a delicacy to the motion that showed she wasn't completely immune to her society's wishes, having chosen one of the chairs by the table. She also held her arm out, but she didn't set it down quite yet. She didn't think bleeding all over where he planned to eat would be considered very polite. She'd wait to see if he laid something down or simply moved the chair in front of her so he could patch her up slightly away from the dining surface. She looked patient enough, though she had to wonder how this might hurt.

* You got me beggin' for thread. *​

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Stretch out my life and pick the seams out
Take what you like, but close my ears and eyes
Watch me stumble over and over...

*brighthouse*

Brighthouse was already moving. He strode over to the second room, her words pattering along after him, and squeezed through the few inches he allowed between the door and the jamb. A sliver of his most private life might have been glanced, had one been quick enough: socks hung from a bedstead. Books in stacks not only on shelves beside it, but also on the floor, the bedside table, the windowsill. The edge of a photograph frame, a mug, a scarf.

The latch clicked, and for the moment he vanished, the surprise at her statement--you're not a different species--veiled by cheap pine on hinges. He exhaled and leaned against the wall, clinging to the doorknob to steady himself. Only then did he feel the full thundering of his heart. It beat against his ribs so hard it shook him to his guts, bringing up the taste of beer and bile. The reprieve lasted only as long as his exhalation and the next breath taken. He then reached beneath the foot of the bed and dragged out a squat wooden chest covered by oilcloth. Hefting both in one arm, he returned to the main room and placed the objects down on the the floor in front of his guest. A flick of the wrist laid the oilcloth out over the table. He tapped it, indicating that she could now rest her arm there.

"You know very well what's said of the lower classes, Mrs. Bartley, especially ones who do what I do." Producing a key from a tin on the mantle, Brighthouse knelt and unlocked the chest. It was deep and wide. A number of various-colored bottles nestled within on a hinged platform which he lifted up. Underneath were rolls of cotton and gauze, a set of scissors and blades, thread, twine, tubing, and a cache of needles. He chose one of these last and paired it up with a roll of black thread and some clean cotton, then plucked a bottle from the multitude, the chest's contents so well known he had no need to read the handwritten labels on any of them. All of this he lined up neatly by her arm.

Stretch out my life and pick the seams out
Take what you like, but close my ears and eyes
Watch me stumble over and over ...

"But what's better is what's not said." Retrieving a lit candle from across the room, he returned, sat down, and thrust the end of the needle into the flame. When it had burned hot enough, he shook it to cool it, then held the eye end in his teeth. He spoke around it, uncorking the bottle so that he could pour a bit of the clear fluid out onto a puff of cotton. "You don't have to tell me what you were up to. I don't really care. It's not as though I'll go blabbing to anyone you know. But," he paused, gently taking her injured limb in his left hand, his skin hot against hers, and daubed the wound with the homemade analgesic, "what you say about me'll be heard. Actually heard. There'll be... repercussions. D'you understand?"

He wasn't begging. Never that. But there was an insistence for her to understand him that flowed through his tone, a need for her to listen... even if she'd just said she was particularly bad at that occupation.

So hold my hands up, breathe in and breathe out...

A lover of the light.

 

[zooka]

Liliah wasn't entirely certain that she appreciated his tone, but she could understand the sentiment behind it. Because she did know what people said about the lower class and their opinions on death and those associated with it. Her house was currently proof of the bizarre fears and superstitions. They feared something as simple as an owl in the daytime, of course they lost their minds when it came to who was actually putting the dead into the ground. If they thought that a person's soul could be captured and trapped in a mirror, there was no telling what a gravedigger might be "trapping".

But none of those things scared Liliah. They fascinated her.

A breath lifted her shoulders and she pushed it out, slow and controlled. Her eyes stayed steady on his. She was actively willing them not to roll away and avert to something less frustrating than a man asking her if she understood. The great focus it took narrowed her eyes slightly, her lips pulling inward, tense and holding back something sarcastic and entirely unhelpful. He was about to take a needle to her. She wasn't so stupid as to insult him right before he stabbed into her flesh.

His graceful, deliberate movements fascinated her and made it much easier. He was so sure and precise, the memory of these motions somewhere deep in his body, puppeting muscles that seemed more appropriate for the labor of a gravedigger than the delicacy of the work he was about to do.

At the very least, it sanded down the edges of her response.

"Fine by me. Personally, I find it quite noble of you, taking over for those poor sick men, burying all those unlucky bastards all by yourself well past your bedtime. Honest hard work is something to be appreciated, but I'll keep it a secret at your humble request."

Lilliah seemed bored by her own words, which added just the right amount of salt to them. Despite that, she showed that she was listening, previous self-depreciating jest aside. Her blue eyes caught the light as she looked at him for a brief moment before lids and lashes half-shielded them again when they fell back down to her own wound, ready and waiting to watch his stitching.

She wasn't going to faint. She wasn't going to look away. She barely winced when he had pressed a cotton and liquid to it which she now recognized as a numbing solution. Liliah was a strange woman, morbid and dark. And cold, or at least capable of it. There was a warmth to her teasing, her laughter, but if his only concern was for the safety of his dark secret, she wasn't going to waste her energy.

No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden.​