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Chapter 68: Ella, a different kind of recipe
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Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 69: Ella, in dreamworld
Every tread on the stairs worked dread a little deeper into my bones. I hadn't imagined it. I didn't have the breadth of experience to dream up the delicious things Seth did to me when my naked skin slid next to his. But what about the vermin? If there was no Grim War, then I had never encountered Seth, nor had I ever worked by his side. As much as it would be a relief to never see another Turned, I didn't want to contemplate a world where their absence resulted in Seth belonging to Louise.I swallowed a sob. I was stronger than that. All I needed was to clear the cobwebs out of my head and figure out what had happened. A good gallop across the fields would help. Once I had seen to them and Father.I pushed into the dining room and rocked back on my heels in the doorway. Hands on a clock spun backwards several months, or did time rush forward? My three step relatives were arrayed around the table. Two wearing dressing robes edged in soft fur. Only Charlotte was dressed in a plain and
Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 70: Charlotte, making a choice
The bird drew my attention first. It uttered a caw as we walked into the darkened parlour. Despite the sun outside, inside was dim. The single window had glass so thick and wavy it was as though sunlight tried to penetrate through deep water. The shafts of light quivered, mimicking the movement of being rocked by an unseen tide. The walls were panelled in a dark wood, and even the tapestries depicted a night-time scene of people cavorting around a bonfire. The raven was perched upon the top of a high-backed chair that faced the window."Hush, Walter. Miss Jeffrey is a neighbour and soon to be part of our family," a rich, lyrical voice said."I was wanting a quick word about the wedding, Lady Leithfield. Mother wants to know how many people could fit in the garden because ever so many are expecting an invitation." I glanced at Ella, expecting her to do something, like leap at the duchess waving a sword."You are so very early to call, Charlotte, how uncouth of you. I was on my way to
Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 71: Seth, did you hear that?
The hardest thing I ever did was walk away from Ella, leaving her to do battle on her own. While on an intellectual level I understood the reverend's approach, that we needed to combat Millicent in this world and the one beyond, on an emotional level I rebelled. I would do what had to be done, but I wouldn't like it.I had my foot on the accelerator and hard to the floor in the motorcar, racing back to Serenity House. Shingle spun under the tyres on each corner and Bain's fingers gripped the dash until his knuckles turned white. I stomped hard on the brake outside the front door and we both jumped from the car and ran up the steps.Warrens pulled the door open a second before I ran into it."Cellars, bring lanterns," I yelled as I pounded down the long hall and headed for the original part of the house and the area that had once contained the kitchens.It was easy to see why the old cellars had been long forgotten. The stairway had been bricked up and the wall plastered. Only the t
Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 72
Part FOUR BONUS: Henry, the GaolerSomerset. September, 1918HenryThe recruitment posters lied. I went to war, but doing my duty for King and country didn't make me a man.War shattered me.The death and horror seeped into my soul and each and every day it tore a sliver from me. Days mounted into months and then years, until only an empty husk remained. Now death shadowed my every step. Like loose hay down the back of my shirt, no matter how much I wriggled or squirmed, I could not free myself of its constant presence.Even in this truck, death surrounded me. It wheezed in the chest of the man slumped over his knees on the bench next to me. It reflected in the blank gaze of the soldier opposite me. It reeked in the foetid rot coming from the bandages on the man stretched out on the floor at our feet.One man I avoided looking at; one place my gaze could not settle. An officer on the stretcher with the best spot, lengthways behind the cab. Straps kept him secure and stopped him
Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 73
Whistles. It always starts with whistles. The high-pitched noise slices through the trenches and cuts away whispered prayers and shared jokes. I close my eyes, but you can't block out the whistle.It only took a matter of days to realise war was not as glamorous or exciting as the posters made it out. Some soldiers, unable to cope, deserted. If caught, they were executed for their cowardice. I lacked even the courage to run and so found my own way to cope.Over the first desperate months, I built a castle in my mind. A strange construction with leaning towers and stairways that ran straight into ceilings and doors that opened onto empty space. Memories filled the many rooms. Some were complex and exotic, evoking all my senses. One lavish room held my first day in Egypt, the walls tiled in vibrant bursts of colour. We stood in the bazaar in wonder, convinced we had been transported to another world and no longer walked the earth. Heavy spices danced on the air and swirled around befor
Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 74: October, 1918
I thought that now I had returned, life would revert to normal. Perhaps my mind would heal, my frozen vocal cords would relinquish their grip on words, and I would speak. I was wrong. Again. Events didn't even allow me time to settle back into my old life. War followed us home.Magda fell ill first. Lady Jeffrey's high-pitched screams reached my room out in the barn. She accused the cook of being lazy and threatened to throw her out if dinner wasn't served exactly at six pm. Then the sickness claimed Charlotte.By the time we saw the news in the paper, the pandemic had swept across Europe and crashed into England. If the farm had possessed a moat, Lady Jeffrey would have pulled up the drawbridge and shut out the world. And us. Leaving us to starve and rot in the dirt.From September 1918 the pandemic first reached out for the soldiers and then followed their path home, but the government kept it quiet so as not to spark a panic. I didn't need Lady Jeffrey to point an accusing finger
Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 75
There is a comfort in exhaustion, for it gives you no opportunity to think. Ella was determined to do her bit as the nation fell ill, and far from being left to hide in my room, she included me. She devised a plan that kept us both working every single daylight hour and several dark ones as well. It ensured I dropped into bed too tired to even remove my boots.Did she know that the long, quiet hours were the hardest for me to endure? Every night I plunged back into the war, relived the horrors over and over. I awoke exhausted, with my throat hoarse and scratchy from screaming in my sleep. The constant physical exertion of Ella?s new regimen drained my mind and I slept deeply and, for a short while, free of the clawing nightmares.We rose early each day to undertake farm chores. For me, that meant helping Stewart catch up on four years of damaged fences, broken water troughs, fields in desperate need of ploughing and reseeding, and tracking down a small band of sheep that decided to g
Serenity House: Ella's Journey Chapter 76
Magda's fever broke first. Charlotte, though younger and healthier, fared worse, and the entire household worried if she would live or die. Days stretched into a week before she too woke from fevered dreams. Both women were terribly weak and still abed, but we all breathed a little easier to know their journey through the darkness had ended.As time passed, worry ate at the back of my mind like a worm through an old apple. Was the Morris family healthy and did they have sufficient supplies?Hazel seldom complained about her odd parents, even after they shut her away. To keep her safe they said, whenever I knocked on that door and asked if she could come out to play. But in private, they made preparatory arrangements to survive the Judgement Day apocalypse they believed was nigh.I understood their concern. I, too, wanted to see her kept safe, and I had worried about her for more years than anyone knew. Ever since she lobbed a rock at my head. It didn't matter I was only seven at the
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