Blooming in Death (The Petal Sisters Duet #1)
Chapter 1
Chapter One
P ale moonlight danced through the thin lace curtains. The gentle sound of rain pattering on the window pane, plinking softly in the otherwise silent evening. The oncoming storm easing our staff into an early night. Grandmother would have been prepared for bed hours ago. A common theme these nights, as if she has grown scared of the night. When you can only admire the world in close to a million shades of grey, you dread a daylight you cannot witness. I had grown to prefer the dark.
Seeing the beauty in life is such a foreign concept. A seemingly delicate concept to those of Florian manor.
People boast of the vibrancy of life, the exuberant colours that shape and brighten the world.
A creation I was still yet to see. The only colours to grace my life were but shades of grey. Bleak slates of nothingness. When asked what colour was my favourite, I would tell them it was pink. A colour supposedly so feminine and soft. Enough to prove to others of my normalcy. I had no idea what shade of grey pink truly was but I really did not care enough to find out.
It was always this way. Long ago the women in my family were cursed to live in a black and white existence until we met our one true love. A fool's dream. That finding love would enrich a life in colour. A truly ridiculous notion.
I hated the thought. I refused to entertain a world of vibrancy they boasted about. The human race deserved to live a bleak existence. Myself along with it. For all I could see was darkness. In that of both life and death.
People in town often referred to themselves as kind and gentle but to me, they were their own unique form of toxicity. Constantly chasing a life of colour and beauty. But all I witnessed was them chasing a life of greed.
A frown creased my lips as I smoothed my skirts. The rich velvet smooth under my cold palms, the dark grey shimmering under my pale skin. Lighting a candle, I wandered through the halls of our grand manor I called home.
Grandfather was a rich man. A very successful lawyer with a natural wit. Grandmother always boasted of how I reminded her of him. The sentiment was sweet but I secretly longed to know the man he was before he died, to see just how similar we truly were. If any of my so- called ‘odd’ mannerisms matched his, if he too preferred his own company and if he held a fascination with the darker things that lurked in this world.
My father was always so proud of his father in law. I could not wait for him to return from his travels to greet me in his arms once more. If even just to listen to his boring botany findings at this point. Another fool’s dream. He would never draw me into his arms. Not if our lives depended on it it seemed.
I continued through the hall passageway. Drawing short at my reflection in the grand hall's mirrored walls.
Light eyes reflecting back, near black shadows lining my under eye with lack of sleep. Grandmother always said I was the perfect mirror to my mother in all but heart. Same raven black hair, pale skin and hauntingly wide light eyes. Where Mother was hard and wild, I was soft and tame. Mother had left the manor years ago in the winter of 1845. Just shy of seventeen years ago. Leaving my father to look after me whilst she collected some leaves for him. They found her mutilated corpse floating in a river nearby. A deep x carved into her chest.
Father was distraught for the months following from that haunting image of his wife. Not sparing me a single glance that wasn’t filled with hatred before he too abandoned me at age fifteen to be raised by Grandmother. Abandoned like a ghost in these vast halls. Just like his sanity that seemed to falter more often than not.
He had been gone for over five years now. The memory of him fading with each day passing. If I closed my eyes I could still smell his familiar scent, mint and lemongrass. A strange mix that somehow complimented him.
He loved nothing more than studying his herbs. Botany was his one true love. Above us he placed his career. I missed the days spent with him, beside him in the greenhouse. Watching as he crushed each herb. I only wished now that I had paid more attention to his teachings. The information in the books I had read had nothing on his expansive knowledge. My own craving for knowledge and pull to plant life had me growing all kinds of plants through the greenhouse just in the back gardens. Close enough to the manor to feel safe but far enough to feel distant from the endless chill the manor was riddled with.
With a roll of my shoulders, I pressed on to the library. The one place I spent almost each and every day. Losing myself in stories, journals or even studies.
Hundreds of books lined the shelf. Uncle Arthur had filled them for Grandmother when Grandfather died. Each book a different shade than the one before.
Placing the candle down, I ran my fingers over the volumes. Leather gliding like butter under my fingertips. The covers still vibrant shades of grey despite their age.
Rain fell heavier outside as I lowered myself into my grandmother's reading chair. Her musky violet scent swirling in the dusty room. The maids had always neglected this room claiming there was a dark energy to it. I paid it no mind. It was the only peace I could find these days.
Despite the home being near bare of occupants, the walls screamed their history. An almost eerie feeling as you enter. As if you truly are not alone. I had learnt to block it out. But sometimes, the feeling crept in, the feeling of being watched. I suppose that might be true. Many of our staff over the years had spoken many a time about the spirits that supposedly remained in the home. The book I had been reading earlier in the day sat perched on the small wooden tea table beside me. Placing the candle down, I opened the book to my current page.
‘ An Anatomy of the Human Mind.’ the title read.
The volume was fascinating. The book was published under a false name by a female doctor originally in France. Her findings are some of the most extraordinary. She would study each and every one of her patients’, in the asylums, minds and report on her varied findings. Reporting on their mania induced hallucinations and actions. The Church of England had banned the book long ago. It was said that those who were found with a copy would be tried for treason.
I didn’t mind that though. It wasn't as if the police would so much as dare to search the manor. People had tried in the past to have us searched, labelling us as heretics and vampires as we didn’t fit their norm. I laughed quietly to myself each time an officer approached the door, knowing he would leave the moment he stepped into the library.
Thunder cracked overhead, rumbling the ground beneath me. My heart soared into my throat at the sudden noise. The book I was reading now tossed to the hard wooden floor as I leapt to my feet. The sound of my name being called echoing softly through the halls.
Regaining myself, I headed toward the voice, as if pulled by an unseen force.
Candlelight flickered onto the walls with each step as I passed. Portraits of Florian’s past lined the walls. The art was an astounding masterpiece to those who can see colour. To me however, they were an awful mess. I hated their white eyes and bleak smiles. More of a horror story than a legacy told by these horrible portraits.
Each Florian in the portraits had suffered an untimely end. As if the curse also involved a brutal death for each bearer of the family name.a curse of nothing but mostly daughters for the Florian name. As if a higher power had forgone adding them to our line. The only male truly born to the family was Arthur. An anomaly in itself. Each more violent or gruesome than the last. My mother had told me each of their stories just as Grandmother had told her and her siblings. So that we may learn from our ancestors' mistakes.
I always felt a sense of invincibility. I was safe in the manor. The only times I would venture outside of the grounds was to collect seeds for my garden or to visit my only friend Dorian in the town. At this point I was sure I was labelled a spinster but it never really bothered me, not much really did these days.
My name was called louder this time, bouncing off the empty upstairs halls. I shook off the feeling of the eerie portraits watching me and hurried up the stairs to the only person game to call for me.
The weird sense of being watched lingered on my skin with each stride away from the library. My skin prickling under my velvet sleeves. Something felt strange. Well stranger than usual that was. The soft sound of my name being called again swirled around like a leaf on the wind. Gentle and quiet. I turned back to the portraits, straining to hear the strange call again.
“Vespera!” Grandmother barked before letting out a ringing dry cough. My head swivelled back to the stairs. ‘You’re just being foolish.’ I cursed myself, rolling my shoulders back.
“Coming,” I called from where I remained frozen on the stairs. I turned to look behind me. Nothing. No one remained. I cursed myself for being so childish before heading into the lady of the manor’s room.
“Are you well, Grandmother?”
“You know how I am awfully frightened of the storms,” She grumbled, her irritation more at herself than anyone else. She shuffled over in her large bed, her bed covered in blankets and pillows of all kinds. Artwork of all kinds lined the walls. I always believed she kept the art as a way for her to remember she can see colour, that she can see the so-called beauty in life.
Reaching where she lay facing me beneath her multitude of coverings, I extended my hand before sitting in the chair beside her bed. My candle now joining hers on the nightstand, enhancing the glow around her large bed.
Sophia was once said to be the most beautiful woman in all of England. I believe she still is, in both appearance and spirit. She was the kindest soul to those she cherished. Strict, but heartful. Loving beyond reason.
Her long grey hair fanned out across her silken pillows. The strands of white amongst the dark were more evident than last month. Her sweet eyes, once youthful and full of mischief, now drooping with age. She looked exhausted, but the woman was still quick as a whip.
“Why are you still dressed?” Her thin brows creased. Eyes raking over me as I fought the urge to shuffle my feet.
“I was preparing for bed when the rain began and I got distracted.” I had always loved the rain. The beauty of a rainstorm mesmerising as it fell from the heavens to the earth below. Cleansing the world of its filth. The morning after always seeming more lush and vibrant
“You always did like gloomy things.” She rolled her eyes but there was no malice behind it. The corner of her thin lips curving up. The howling of wind creaked through the manor. How could anyone be sleeping through this?
“You called me gloomy as a child. Did you not think it would have an effect on me?” I smiled as I took her extended hand. Her wrinkled skin was freezing in mine. I smoothed my thumb in circles over hers in a desperate attempt at keeping warm. The chill had set in. Even the fire at the end of the room blazing away couldn’t take away this chill. A chill each Florian knew to be a normality.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the room. The light grey walls near white in the blazing light. A crash of thunder followed not too long after.
She shifted uncomfortably, fear wild in her eyes.
A fearsome storm rolled over many years ago now. My grandfather had left late into the night, where the storm was at its peak, to find his youngest daughter after she had snuck out of the manor. Aunt Magdelena had only been in her early seventeenth year when she fled. No one was ever sure of the reason why. Only that the storm had triggered something within her. Grandfather was the only one game enough to brace the weather to find her. Only to be crushed by a large branch hitting his own carriage as a storm crescendoed with deadly fury. Aunt Magdelena however, was never heard from again.
Mother had told me that Grandmother was never the same after that night. That losing two of her loved ones in the same instance tore her heart apart and was never to be brought together again. To me she was still the sweetest woman I had ever known. I often wondered how my mother had seen her before the accidents. Was she as soft then as she was now? Or was she more of a stern woman. I would never know. Although somehow I suspected the latter.
The townspeople all knew of Sophia. Many intimidated by her, others friendly enough. But Grandmother kept her distance, keeping her list of friends small and only keeping those with a certain type of power and sway close.
People thought we Florian’s were cursed and so far they were correct. The outside world knew nothing of our curse. Nor would they ever. If the civilians of the towns found out, we would be tried and most likely be burnt. Knowing my luck, they would bring back the stake specifically for us, after not having done the horrific practice in over a hundred years.
I rolled my shoulders. Trying to shake the feeling of what it must have been like to witness those crimes for myself if I was around back then. I was almost certain I recalled Grandmother speaking of a Florian burnt at the stake for supposedly practising witchcraft. But now was not the time to ask.
“Are you tired, dear?” Grandmother said softly. I shook my head. The lie not needing to be vocalised. I was exhausted. The nights most often had called to me, beckoning me to join the shadows of the night where sleep evaded me. Sometimes amongst the garden, sometimes in the halls like a trapped spirit.
I squeezed her hand, holding her steady as the storm raged on. Her breathing evening out slowly as she fell into an abyss I craved. Lightning flashed brightly through the windows. A roar of thunder following not long after. The silence that followed was deafening.