Warning:

Rated 'BH'(Bloody Hell) for a reason.

A door clicks from behind, startling me into motion. In my haste, a few strands of hair get stuck into my mouth, as I take in the room. My feet slip on the shining floorboard, while clouded rays on light seethe in through a single candle.

After stabling myself, I find it better to paralyse my actions, after noticing the two individuals in the centre of the room.

Dannoso beckons Marietta's cloak off of her shoulders, till the soft cloak lies in his hands. Marietta's eyes wander around like mine. She glances at the abandoned bed in front of her, before breathing out with a smile:
"The household name would certainly give someone quite the fright. Don't you think, Dannoso?"

Meanwhile, Dannoso throws Marietta's cloak and takes off his coat, till he is left only in his shirt and trousers.
"My father was quite the jester; he liked to scare people."

Dannoso takes a few steps further towards Marietta and she turns around to face him. He pulls her dark brown hair to the side, caressing her cheek.

"Pray, I complain not," she says, pulling her arms against her chest.

I rub the back of my neck, since the neutral expression on his face contradicts his soft gesture.

Marietta opens her mouth but closes it, as if to dismiss a thought.
The sky grumbles from the outside and Marietta looks at the window.
"Is your uncle still ill?"

"Ill? He is out of his wits, Marie. One can only suspect that when their brother and sister-in-law dies."

But didn't your uncle marry your mother and hate your father.

Dannoso's a bit of a liar, Lindsey.

Marietta nods, but Dannoso purses his lips into a straight line.
"Which is also why I advise you to never set foot in the East Wing's fifth room. I have nurses and doctors at his convenience, but it is better to not test another's madness."

Certainly...

A clock from somewhere outside the chamber whispers twelve times to signalise the midnight hollow.

Dannoso sighs as his hand falls to Marietta's shoulder, and it then hustles her onto the bed behind her.

Her blue eyes widen as her elbows support her up against the silk sheets.
"What are you..."

Dannoso flicks a hand at the candle, scaring the room into darkness.

"Everything shall end in a few moments, Marie..." Dannoso's voice fades away, as his waist belt collides with the floor and he lifts up her skirts.

My breath comes in ripples after watching the scene before me. I try to fumble about, but the clouds materialise again. I can't hear or see anything in the clouds.

The play shortly focuses into its next setting, but I still feel like gagging at the previous one, like a mallet is being battered against my throat

The vomitting sensation passes away with each gulp of air.

Bringing myself back together, I find myself in a chamber that seems more like a horizontal hall. The curtains are pulled over the tall windows and something rattles at my opposite corner.

A man, with silvery hair and worn-out clothes, is chained by his wrist to the wall. If not for the expression on his face, I would not have guessed who he is.

It's Dannoso's uncle.

My head tilts to the side, as the door behind me hinges open.
I clench my fists at seeing who it is.
The nephew himself has come to meet the other devil.

The old man sneers at Dannoso,
"Any reason for this honour? Though, I must say that I am impressed by your incantations upon this place. Make me seem like a lunatic, while I am not."

"It is the least I could do after you arranged the same for my father." Dannoso folds his arms across his chest.

The man tilts his head to the side.
"You actually let vengeance course through you veins, didn't you."

Dannoso rolls his eyes, but his breaths become shallow.
"Did you expect me to worship you? Especially after you orchestrated my father's death? Made my mother think her only sibling didn't want her by a forged letter?
And then mockingly name me Dannoso?"
He calms down and lets the words drown themselves in the darkness.

My shoulders slump, but I jeer myself back after remembering.

The old man's sigh breaks my reverie.
"Why did you come here, boy? Are your wife and twins not awaiting you?"

Meredith had siblings?

Dannoso screws half of an eye shut.
"How do you know of my twins?"

"I always told you to pay attention to our art, boy. Appears as though you only paid heed to the part that would get rid of me...
The father of twins has a rune on the hand, which only Gifted ones can see."

Dannoso looks down at his hand, and a symbol of two lines spreads across it right before my eyes.

"I wager you want to know why both are Ungifted," the old man snaps Dannoso's attention back to him.

"If you know, then why not tell me?"

"On what condition?"

"On this one: the Maleece lineage continues, and I don't send death to your pithole tonight."

The man grimaces at the word 'death', but recovers soon enough.
"Is it not obvious? I said on your five-and-tenth birthday that consent is necessary for Gifted children."

"I brought Marietta here on her consent."

"You know what manner of consent I mean."

An eternity of silence pierces through, before the old man decides to shatter it.
"How much of a difference do your twins have?"

Dannoso narrows his eyes, but decides to reply, "Of about five minutes."

The other ponders on Dannoso's behalf,
"Don't you think the number five to be ironic? I am in the East Wing's fifth room and your twins are five minutes apart."

Dannoso grunts and pounds out of the room, leaving the old man to his own shackles and demons.

Though, for me, everything only drowns in a mist. Everything comes back to clarity after fading away.

I find myself outside East of Eden, standing on a corner of the land. The manor lies embowered within a clump of trees, on the edge of the shore.

There's the sea beside me, while some seagulls pay their odes around me.
One small small stumble and you'll go tumbling into several feet of water.

I gulp.

Pulling my hair back, my eyes focus on some sort of a blackened tower's peak on the other side. The tower seems abandoned.

Something passes by my foot and a sigh of relief escapes at realising that it's only a squirrel. The squirrel wiggles its way towards the children who are playing under a tree. There are three children: one boy and two girls.

Are they...

The boy and one girl have brown hair with rosy cheeks, while the youngest girl has blonde hair with sallow cheeks. The squirrel escapes to the tree nearby, while a voice barges into my mind.

Look closely at these three children.

The boy touches his dark brown hair and frowns at looking at his youngest sister.
"Why do you have black hair while the rest of us have brown, Meredith?"

Black? But she has blonde hair...
And how is this even her?

Now you know how we felt.

Meredith pulls a strand behind her ear and says, "Papa says it's because I'm Gifted, because I am the heir to the family art."

"So, Ungifted people are different?"

"I don't know. I can't see the difference."

I blink at Meredith, while she points a finger at the same squirrel that passed me. With a flick of her hand, the squirrel levitates at her command.

What the...

Meanwhile her siblings, who look no older than a year from her, wear masks of drained colour. The other girl says,
"Meredith... you know Mama advises against this all."

"Oh Cruento, that's only because she's never seen the art. I'm she'll be delighted once she sees this." Young Meredith gestures to the squirrel, that is still trying to its way out of the invisible grasp.

Cruento? What kind of name...

Meredith strolls through the verdure with the squirrel still in her command. The twins remind still.

"Come Dannato and Cruento. Let's show Mother before Papa comes back."

Dannato too?

Wait, in Italian...

Cruento: bloody

Dannato: damned

Dannoso: harmful

I'm always able to note stuff like this, then why this time...

Certain memories are locked away and they only reveal on their own account, Lindsey. Like how Dylan only found his letters after the fourth memory.

Henry answers my question for my pondering, while the twins look at each other, before tumbling along side Meredith.

Shaking my head, I follow before I lose sight of the kids.

The children enter through the already open gates surrounding the manor. They take a few steps before reaching the main entrance, which is secured by two servants at each side.

The servants try to veil their shock of seeing a floating squirrel by keeping their heads low and opening the door for the children.

I rush towards the door, forgetting that I can pass through it like a ghost.

By the time I am within the house's walls, Meredith, Cruento and Dannato have already reached the centre of the corridor.

A cold wind wisps down my spine, as I walk with tortoise feet. This corridor's almost like the two rooms I have already seen.

The walls are tainted black and even the wood of portrait frames are darkened to suit the atmosphere.

Throwing my head back, I look at the chandelier above me that looks to be the only source of colour.
Even the colour it gives off is like a single blotch on an old painting.

It reminds of the chandelier that fell on Percival and Estelle Knightley.

My head lowers itself before memories waltz in again.

The children close a door behind them and I have to prance and waft through the walls again.

The room looks like some sort of a parlour room. A woman sits on a piano that blemishes the centre, while the rest of it has several sofas at the edges and two tables with them.
The light from the windows somehow doesn't affect the gloominess.

It only embellishes it.

Her elbows are upon the piano's lid. I only recognise her to be Marietta by her blonde hair.

Marietta's back faces the children, and the twins look to Meredith.

Meredith flashes them a smile, before strolling towards her with the squirrel still at her finger's tip.

But before she can reach, the squirrel lets out a scream.

Marietta whips around, and her pale hands shake and mouth drops. She looks at the cross on top of a window and back at her daughter.
"Meredith, stop doing that. It isn't natural..."

"But Papa says it is."
She keeps the squirrel afloat.

Marietta leans down and grabs Meredith's left wrist. The squirrel falls from the child's control as she flinches.

Pain suddenly shoots through my own wrist.

Marietta loosens her grip at seeing Meredith's expression.
"Papa says a lot of things, Meredith, which may not be true."

Marietta's voice is cut short by the neighing of a horse outside, and lets go of her daughter. Her face grows even more pale, as she looks at the cross.

The sound of screeching gates resounds, just as the cross reverts itself.

Meredith rubs her wrist, while the twins shoot each other looks with tilted heads.

Meanwhile, the mist engulfs me again into its shadows.

Against my expectations, I find myself within the same parlour room.
This time, though, Marietta and Meredith are in front of each other. The mother is seated on a single seater sofa, with the base of her palm supporting her crippling stature. Meredith, on the hand, is now almost my age with light brown hair. She sits with her arms crossed against her and her chin up.

Meredith sighs and chides,
"With all due respect Mother, I fail to fathom your stance."

Marietta shakes her head.
"I have told only half the truth, Meredith. If I told you the whole, then your reverie would be shattered.
Only you can-"

"Papa said you could leave after I was born. If he was such an antagonist, then you could have left our Italian island and gone back to England, declare yourself to be a widowed mother and live there with Cruento and Dannato."

"And leave you here with him?" she retorts.
"Besides, my parents died almost immediately after the marriage and all my assets were transferred here. If he wanted me and your siblings gone, then we would be."

"Then what does he want?" Meredith questions with narrowed eyes.

"I know not, but it is certainly not a clouded daydream! We wouldn't even have the freedom for this conversation, if he had not been out for business."

"Quale stolto(What foolery)..."

"Then can you explain why he only taught you Italian and not your siblings?"

"Well, I've always been better at academics. You can't blame the child to be more favoured by the parent."

"You father only loved his mother, truly.
I had the same hope as you, a few years ago. I believed that, even after all that happened, I could bring back the Dannoso I loved for our children's sake.
But that Dannoso I loved was never there. He was a mere mirage."

Meredith's narrowed eyes screw shut, as she takes deep breaths.
"How do you even know of Grandmother, then? She died before you came here."

"By your father's uncle."

This takes Meredith aback, making the wait for her reply longer,
"An uncle-- Papa never had an uncle."

"I did know he had one, but I was told he was a lunatic locked away."
She sighs and continues,
"There are enchantments upon this manor, which become weak when Dannoso is away.

"Once, I went to the forbidden fifth room in the East Wing, and not a single doctor nor nurse there. This was after three years you were born.
I always thought it was strange to never find anyone coming in or out of that room, but I paid no heed to it...

"Then I met Dannoso's uncle there.
I agree with your father that the uncle was indeed a lunatic, but he wasn't mentally ill.
He told me Dannoso kept him locked up there for years, because he murdered Dannoso's father and then tricked his mother into marriage.

"Dannoso is planning something, Meredith. What? I do not know; though, the consequences will be severe."

From my position, you can see her fists clenching and unclenching beneath the table separating mother and daughter.

I rub the back of my neck, while Meredith screeches her chair and stands up.

She gives a swift bow and curtsey before saying, "Thank you for your conspiracy theories, Mother. I rather enjoyed them."

With a swish of her skirt and a flick of a hand, the door barges open. She treads out the room without a single glance at her mother, who warns from behind.
"That rage of yours only burns your own feet, Meredith. Be careful!"

Something tugs on my arm.
I look down to find nothing.

"Oh, hell no--"

In the next moment, I am whisked out of the parlour and into the centre of the corridor.

What the heck was that!

Sorry, my magic's on fast forward lately!

This is why I never let you control the memories.

Shut up, you two.

My fuzzy vision clears up, as Meredith passes near her siblings standing outside the door.

She pays no heed to them, but Dannato rushes and stops her. He catches Meredith's elbow, making her glare back at the twins.
"Meredith, we know what Mama-"

Meredith blinks and grumbles,
"So, you know too."

She keeps shifting her gaze in between the twins, as Cruento nibbles her lower lip.

"Meredith..." Cruento laments.

"I trusted you two!"

She tries to wriggle out of Dannato's grasp, but he holds on.
"Please listen--"

In the next second, Dannato's back hits the wall mirror on his left.
The glass shatters instantly, with a few shards impaling the boy's body.
Though, one shard the size of a spider web impales his thigh.

Cruento rushes to her twin and shakes his shoulder. He takes sharp gulps of air, while his body lumps. Dannato reaches over to his thigh and wrenches out a shard from it, resulting in a yelp of pain.

Just like Henry and Matthew.

Meredith widens her eyes, before looking down at her shaking hands.

Two servants, a young man and an old woman, enter the corridor and wear masks of terror.

The male servant runs away, presumably to get medical assistance, while the female one tends to Dannato.

Marietta also thrusts open the door of the parlour room, only to see the scene of her bloodied twins and a shaking daughter.
She almost falls, but her grip on the door knob supports her.

Cruento stands back with her hands bathed in her own brother's blood and runs those hands on on her skirt with swift hands.

She notices Meredith still standing and shouts,
"HOW COULD YOU! YOU ALMOST KILLED YOU OWN BROTHER!"

"I- I didn't mean to!" the girl splutters, before running out of the corridor and ignoring her mother's withered look.

Boy, this is the first time I'm glad for not being a witch.
My temper would've done some real crap. Plus, the number 5 is literally trolling here. XD

The music above is 'The Threat' by Ayetekin Ataş(for 'Muhteşem Yüzyıl) :)

Anyways, hullo everyone! I hope y'all are well. :)

As for me, I honestly don't know how all this high fantasy sort of stuff is happening here. But hey, I'm having fun with being cruel.

But don't call somebody after me, all right. I wouldn't be able to update then. ;)

I hope y'all aren't confused by anything here. If you are, then drop by a comment and I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities. :)

Also, I don't know wattpad sometimes changes the curved inverted commas to the plain straight ones. It does that on itself.
Though, if only a little portion is in the plain inverted comma, then that means that I've already copied this from the docs and I'm editing/adding on the app. Please forgive my procrastination. XD

Anyways, this is this week's question:

Thoughts on Marietta?

Have a fantastic week!

Love,
MS Zame