Elia Uunt hummed lightly to herself as she stood over the sink, long, pale gold draped in plaits down her shapely back, her arms buried in a monstrous heap of suds and dishes. This would have given some casual, if imaginative, onlooker the impression of a goddess reaching down through the clouds to touch some blessed mountain. The twins had been tucked safely into bed with this same tune, and, after a long and somewhat strained kiss, her husband had retired to his study. A ghost of a smile flitted briefly across her soft lips at this memory, giving her once again the look of a goddess, that same look Aarden had been so taken with in his younger days.
He works so hard for us! Elia thought to herself. And he can't even understand what he's doing.
Elia knew, though. She knew all too well how hard he worked to provide for them, the long hours of overtime at the office just to get her a "little extra" for herself. That's what he always told her when he called, and he always called when he had to stay late. "Just getting you a little extra, sweetheart." She felt sad at the thought of him working himself to tatters, barely sleeping (he slept less and less these days, it seemed), and all for what? Money? A better life for his family?
Suddenly she wished fervently that they were back on the farm. A cold chill ran over her making goosebumps stand out all over her pure white skin. The farm was hard, true; they went deeper into debt every year, and barely kept food on the table, but it was home, and he was always able to be with her, or her with him. Besides, there was something inherently wrong with this place, something sinister, like a ghost hiding in the shadows; something that could only be felt, but something that was there, nonetheless. And those mountains, curse them! The domestic goddess shuddered involuntarily. Those mountains always made her skin crawl as if she was covered from head to heel with invisible spiders. Something was definitely going on in Augevilla, and it was affecting her husband. I'll talk to him tonight, she thought rapidly, rinsing her hands in hot water, not bothering even to pause to dry them. He has to know, and then he'll see how I feel, and we'll kiss, and then we'll take the twins and just leave. Leave this terrible, awful place forever. And then things would be right again, just like they had been, like they had always been before they came here. She fled toward the study in a state approaching panic, no longer a goddess but a tired, scared girl, golden locks flying behind her as she rushed on down the hallway, past the pictures of family long gone, past reminders of happier times long gone, past the old coat of arms her husband still kept (he was royalty once, she thought, and this slowed her travel somewhat), and on to the heavy oak door that led to her husband's inner sanctum.
A shrill scream pierced the air.
Her hand, still dripping with water from the sink, now feeling very cold, froze on the knob of the already open door. It took a moment to register that that hideous, animal scream came from behind the door in front of her. I was imagining it I must have been it's all in my head I mean after all nothing this side of the Ridge makes that kind of sound....
Her thoughts trailed off as the scream was repeated; a fierce, wholly animal scream of pain, frustration, hatred, all of the above or none of them, now without a doubt came from inside her husband's study. Her composure shattered beyond repair, she rushed into the study.
Theirs screams mingled in a discordant harmony of terror and pain.
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