You Must Understand... (Charles)

[Emma Ravenhearst]

Emma Ravenhearst woke the next morning to an empty bed. On any other morning, this would have been no problem, it would have been the norm. But this morning, she had rather expected to wake with Charles beside her, holding her.

For the day before, Emma had given Charles Dalimar everything she could. After a century of denying him, pushing him away and denying her own feelings, she had finally given in to the man who would not stop pursuing her. She had allowed him to make love to her, and lord knows, she had enjoyed it. She had loved every moment of his body against hers. It was something that she had always planned to save until marriage, had always planned to wait until a ring as upon her finger. But with Charles in front of her...She had been unable to say no. And she would be marrying him soon, in any case. They would be wed and all would be well.

It was so strange to think of. She was going to marry Charles Dalimar. The insane man who had poisoned her, murdered her, kept her captive in his bedeviled manor for years and years, all on the pretense that he loved her. He had been absolutely brutal to her and her spirit and had effectively ruined her life.

And yet, even so, she loved him. She had always loved him, perhaps from the moment she had met him. The two were soul mates, connected at the most level, and this had always been so. The connection had certainly intensified over the years, but it had always been true that they were meant to met, were fated to spend the rest of their existence together. And his insanity had seemed to fade away in the recent months, had withered and melted to reveal a personality close to that he had possessed when alive. She was no longer afraid of him.

She had someone much more menacing to be afraid of. She had the most dreadful feeling that Claude would not let them alone, that he would not be satisfied with letting them live out their existence in relative peace. That would not sit well at all with the Prince of Darkness, she was sure. He was something to fear, far more than Charles was. She was sure that all of his insanity had always been caused by his association with the devil, and now that he was keeping himself farther from his influence, Charles would surely become as lovely as he had been when she had first met him.

But, for the moment, she had a problem. Charles was not in her bed, and that made no sense. Why would he leave her there alone? She furrowed her brow and rose slowly from bed, looking around the room. Where could he have gone...? She closed her eyes and thought for a moment, trying to locate his spirit in the manor. For some odd reason, his signal seemed to be...altered, in some way. It was still his, to be sure, but it wasn't what she was used to feeling from him. In any case, she could sense that he was down in his workshop.

This brought a little smile to her face as she opened her eyes. Of course. His insatiable appetite for inventing, comparable to her obsession with books. This was certainly a sign of his return to normality. She would go meet him. He would be glad to see her, no doubt. He had always loved her company while he was tinkering.

She walked out of his bedroom and made the long trek down to the workshop, tying up her hair in a braided bun as she went. She was still in her nightgown, but she didn't think that he would mind too much. It was extremely modest, and quite pretty, she thought. Besides, it was the only clothing she had that she really liked wearing. She was loath to take it off. When she reached his workshop, she opened the door slowly, smiling when she saw Charles inside, "Hello..."

[bedeviledmanor]

Blackness. Just emptiness.

Charles sat in a chair next to Emma's sleeping form. Solid again. He sat leaning forward with his hands between his knees, watching her with a straight face. No one knew what he was going through, and no one would ever understand. He was alive, yes--he breathed. He was flesh. But that was all he was, flesh.

He himself couldn't even comprehend what he had done, not that he was comprehending much of anything now. What he had given up for his Emma and his home, this place that had brought him comfort and safety for a century, was immeasurable. He had not have much of his soul left to give, but to see the manor at peace, he had given it all. It hurt. The pain was the last thing he remembered really feeling.

Now everything was terribly muted. Quiet. So silent in fact that a slight ringing sounded through his head. He felt much better around her... a little lighter. A little more human... He stood slightly and brushed her hair out of her face, eyes moving over her features and studying them carefully.

His fingers had begun to burn... When he pulled his hand away from Emma's face, he saw that his fingers were powered with a strange white substance and the skin was sizzling. It stung, badly, but it had happened to him before. He left the master bedroom to go to his workshop, where he knew there were some bandages that he could put on his fingers.

Children... he'd wanted children so very much, but he didn't know what he wanted now. He wanted to be with Emma and make her happy--that was the only thing he could really comprehend caring about. Why would anything matter? The well-being of the guests in his manor? He didn't care. The fact that Satan was probably using a mere child at the moment? He didn't care.

This state of hyper-focus on his goal to make Emma happy caused him to dawdle in his workshop. Tools that he hadn't picked up in months and months slipped right into his hands just as they had a century ago, working once again. All of a sudden, he had the insatiable need to create. It was as thought he had no sense of time, because it felt like mere minutes later Emma walked in and greeted him.

Charles lowered his tools before turning to her. The pits of his usually-brilliant hazel eyes were empty. His eyes were usually very deep, the pupils black pools that you could very easily fall and fall and fall into... But now, they were flat and muted.

"Emma," he said. His voice was different, too. Tense, as if he spoke through his teeth. Barely able to speak at all, really. "Look... look what I made..." Charles stepped back with a rather emotionless smile, eyes widening. The automaton was laying on the table with her head facing the door, build from the shoulders up. Her big grey eyes stared at Emma, a lifeless smile plastered to her face. She had no hair, but Emma could see several heads with wigs on them just waiting for be fitted for her.

"What will we name her?" he asked, almost... bashfully.

[Emma Ravenhearst]

She knew before she saw him, before she even heard his voice that something was wrong. The entire atmosphere of the room was wrong, everything was wrong. She clutched the door frame as he turned around, staring at him with wide eyes, her face uncomprehending, lost and confused. His eyes...There was nothing in his eyes. He wasn't there anymore, there was nothing in them. They were shallow and cold. His voice was monotone and empty, and she parted her lips slightly, staring at him in confusion.

When he pointed out the mannequin, she looked over at it, and clapped a hand over her mouth, giving a tiny noise of surprise. Those staring eyes...Why would he ever make such a thing?! Unless...She looked back at him and slowly lowered her hand back to her side, her eyes glassy. She could see it in his eyes, could feel it in such much that she could feel nothing. There was no emotion coming from him at all, nothing emanating from his core. His insanity was apparent in his every motion.

He didn't seem dangerous. He seemed...dead. She walked forward quickly, standing right in front of him, her eyes flickering between his, looking for some small sign that he was awake, that there was someone behind those hazel eyes. Nothing. She put a hand over her mouth again, so lost... "What happened...?"

[bedeviledmanor]

Charles's eyes flickered over her as she said nothing and slowly approached him. He might have been confused, but as it was, he just stood there and took things for how they were happening. He looked away from Emma for a second, moving on immediately as she just stood there. "Look! I wasn't sure what to paint her eye color, what do you think?" he asked, his voice more excited than it had been.

When he realized she wasn't answering he raised his head and looked at her, as her horrified expression, and wasn't sure what to make of it. Charles twitched a little, the corner of his mouth and his brow, and then straightened up. "Emma, my dearest, are you alright?"

"What happened...?"

Again, he twitched slightly and raised his hands to his chest. He fiddled with the bandages there, which were already stained with oil and rust. They still working just as well, though, so he hadn't noticed. It didn't even occur to him that Emma might find the wrappings strange.

"Nothing... nothing happened, my love..." he said softly. She didn't need to know what he'd done. He was almost ashamed of it. He'd not done it to win her affections, because he already had them--he'd simply done it because he loved her. He could not remember the last time he'd done something selfless, though he was having a hard time comprehending the difference between selfishness and selflessness.

"Come, look!" he said, his crisp tone restored. He moved as if to take her hand, but he only hovered over hers, reaching to take down one of the wigs. "Real human hair," he said reverently. "She'll almost be like a real girl...!"

[Emma Ravenhearst]

Emma didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to think. She simply watched with an almost heartbroken expression as the man she had finally come to love demonstrating the undeniable traits of a lost mind. She wanted to grab him and shake him, rattle his brains until she saw those eyes light up again, shake him until she could feel something from him. But all she could do was stand and watch him. She couldn't even cry. She was in shock.

When he moved his hands in an almost ashamed way, she caught sight of the wrappings. She blinked. She was sure he hadn't had them before...When he moved to point out the wigs, she gently took his hand in hers. She didn't even want to ask how he had procured real human hair for the wigs. She didn't want to accept it. This was not happening, not when everything had just started to go right...

In an almost motherly and deflated tone, she murmured, "What did you do to yourself...?" She looked up into his eyes for an answer and pulled him to a nearby set of chairs, sitting him down with her, looking him over. She kept one hand on his hands, placed another hand on his forehead, on his cheek, an almost desperate search for any other explanation. Her hand trembled, as she could find none, and lowered to join its partner, gently holding Charles' wrapped fingers.

Pressing her lips together hard, she looked around the room, her eyes scanning over the wide eyed mannequin, the wigs...She could remember him making them before, in his insanity. She had been too far gone in sickness to question it, and, once dead, had no longer cared much. She had accepted that he was a mad man. His strange habits were none of her concern.

But they were now. She looked back to Charles, begging an explanation with her eyes. Anything at all that would prove to her that his mind was intact, "Love...Why did you make that..."

[bedeviledmanor]

Charles looked over when she took his hand, again taking it way too gracefully when she completely ignored his happiness about the human hair. His fingers still stung, and they exuded a strange white mist, almost as if he were a ghost again. But the pain quelled when she touched them, bringing him blessed relief if only for a few moments.

He followed her to the chairs and set his hands in his lap, watching her with the same empty expression. He didn't even bother to pretend to show emotion--he was too far gone. The most he could do was let his brow crease in mild concern and shake his head. "I didn't do anything to myself... my hands were stinging me, so I wrapped them..." When he was handling the very demons of hell, his hands ached for weeks afterward. The bandages brought him false comfort and hid his wounds from anyone else.

As she looked around the room at the mannequins, his eyes followed hers, smiling at the little creation resting on his workbench. Oh, what a surprise Emma would have when she saw what he had made her do...

Charles snapped out of it sluggishly when she asked him why he had made her. His eyes widened a little, as if he was surprised she didn't know. "Emma... Emma, we are married." He showed her the ring on his finger--but when had he gotten that? She'd never received one! "You must remember! We made love, and so the stork brought us a baby. That is how it works, silly." His words were without humor.

He pulled his hands away from hers and stood, going to the little automaton. He sat her up a little bit and fiddled with the back of her head, turning some knobs and flicking a switch. "Say hello to Mummy..." The little thing's mouth dropped open like a broken nutcracker, and her eyes rolled around in her head a bit before they rested on Emma.

"He-he-hello. Ch-ch-ch-rrr," it chirped, the voice on it horrible, grating... robotic. This wasn't a real child! But Charles seemed so very pleased with it, something that was uncommon--after his death, he had created magnificent things, but had never shown any pride in them.

[Emma Ravenhearst]

Emma only let him move away from her because she was too shocked to do anything else. She had to be dreaming...It was as though she had stepped back in time. But it was worse...Lord, much worse...She watched in complete horror as the thing locked eyes with her and spoke- but it could hardly be called speech!

The most disturbing part of this was not the mannequin, not the human hair on the wigs, not his wrapping- it was the way Charles was acting. He was so sure, so proud of this invention, so confident that she would like it and share his feelings- but he didn't seem to have any feelings at all! She gripped the chair she was sitting on, trying to avoid the dead gaze of the mannequin. It was terrifying, it really was...She had come across the pieces before, but she had never seen one in action...Had he been creating what he thought were people...?

But he had been getting better! His insanity had been seeping away! Why now?! Why was he reverting to this state now?! Emma could not fathom any reason. What had changed?!

...She loved him. That had changed. Before yesterday, he had not truly known that she really loved him, that she was truly devoted to him. And all he had existed for, for all of these years, was to make her love him, to make her submit. Was it possible that he could not handle it happening? That losing that goal meant loss of mind? Had her love driven him to insanity?

But it could not be. No. She rose to her feet slowly and moved towards him, with the air of someone dealing with a small child. She could reason with him...She had to...She approached him, not looking at the mannequin, cocking her head very slightly at him, her eyes wide and almost pleading, "...Charles...That's not a real baby...You know that...Don't you...? That's...That's not how it happens...You know that..."

[bedeviledmanor]

Charles's prideful expression never faded as she approached him. On any other day, he would have been able to tell there was something wrong between them--he would have been able to tell by her body language that she was upset. But there was nothing. He just seemed to see her walking toward him--perhaps he even thought she was coming to talk to the horrible daughter effigy.

His expression change slowly when she began to tell him that the automaton wasn't real. "What are you talking about?" he asked incredulously, steadying the young girl by the shoulders and going to the wigs. He picked out a curly brown one, much like Emma's hair, and fitted it onto her little head. She looked more human, but no less disturbing. Her mouth still hung open, and Charles moved his hand to close it gently... like he was handling a real girl...

"Of course she's real, and she loves you... like I love you," he said, tilting his head to look at Emma. His tone sounded genuine, and of course he did love her, but his emotions could not break through the horrible filmy barrier over his eyes. "Like I always loved you, Emma, ever since the first time I saw you...!" The tincture of madness seemed to grow stronger and stronger until...

Charles finally showed something other than indifference to his environment--he cringed. And without warning, his eyes closed and he bellowed, "It's real, it must be real! Love her! Please! Love her...! Mother... you're... you're a mother, you must!"

His bandaged hands went to his temples and he pressed down on them, inhaling sharply through his teeth. All at once and suddenly, they were around them, inside of him, dancing around in absolute glee. One of the invisible little fiends pulled at Emma's hair, and it seemed Charles was being jerked around as well.

"Ring-a-round the rosie,
a pocket full of posies!
We broke him,
we broke him...!"

He ripped his hands from his temples and shouted, "Mine!" No one but him had any clue what he was trying to protect, but the demons died off in a little chorus of horrible laughs--the little joy, the little humanity he could have when Emma was near. Almost like a soul... and they would not take it.

[Emma Ravenhearst]

She watched in dumb horror as he affixed a new wig to the mannequins head, shaking her own head very slightly and pressing her lips together. It was enough to make her go insane, watching this...this dissemblance of his sanity, his very mind falling apart in front of her. She couldn't speak as he looked at her, could only watch him with such pity and sadness...

She jumped when he yelled at her, jumped so violently that she knocked over the chair behind her. It clattered to the floor and then there was silence between them, save for Emma's heavy breathing, almost hyperventilating. Tears were welling up in her eyes as she felt the fear creeping back in her again, the desire to run away from him. A mother?! She was no mother!! He was insane, had lost his mind!!! She stumbled a little, clutched at the back of the chair that had not fallen down, looking for support, something to hold on to. Something to fend him off with...

She let out a little scream when she felt something tugging at her hair, something pulling at her. Her hair tumbled out of its bun, seemingly of its own accord, and the strands of her hair were being pulled on, while a discordant song was being hissed in her ears. It was THEM...

She slammed her hands into her head, onto her ears, trying to block them out, swatting at the air around her head, trying to make them let go of her hair. And then...They were gone again. She could from the atmosphere of the room alone. It was only then that she took in what they had said...

We broke him
We broke him...

"They broke you..."

She looked at him with wide eyes, her fingers so tight around the back of the chair that her knuckles were white. Claude...It was his fault!!!!! That demon, that thief of her happiness!!! Rage began to build up in Emma, help rage that made her want to kick, scream, bite- anything to rid herself of it. She had finally been happy! Had finally found her peace!!! But he could not let her alone! Could not let her be!!!

She was going to confront him. She had to. For the sanity of herself and for Charles...She glanced back at him, straightening up with hard eyes. He had fought for her for so long, had protected her...Now she would protect him. She would wage war against the devil himself for their happy ending. It was due to her, due to them. But she couldn't do it alone. She needed help, needed a man of God...Nathan.

She didn't look back at shell of Charles as she moved quickly from the room, pushing her way out of the door and walking quickly down the hallway. She didn't even know where she might find him, but she had to. She had no choice at all.

[bedeviledmanor]

Charles watched as she stared at him--was she angry at him? He wasn't sure how to react, so he didn't, just staring at her. His mouth was pulled into a frown because of the pain, but nothing more. And then she turned to leave him, practically stomping out of the room.

"No! Emma! Emma, don't leave, please! I'll be good!" Charles looked in a panic from the automaton to the way his wife had gone and then took off after her without a second though, trying to follow her down the hall. She'd already run, though, and it was hard for him to hone in on where she was. He just succeeded in stumbling around for her blindly.

"EMMA!"

~

Nathan knew something was very wrong with the manor the moment it had happened--something about it seemed... less enchanted. It had always been a spooky place, but it had its charms, and Satan left you alone if he didn't want anything from you. So outsiders were generally safe... unless it was from Charles. Outsiders had never been safe from Charles, and Nathan had learned that the hard way.

He hadn't seen Emma in awhile, though... it had come to his attention that she was flesh again, which seemed strange to him--was this another one of Dalimar's tricks? He was sure it probably was. He had known Dalimar had changed himself, because they'd gotten into an argument almost directly after, but he still held some of his old powers.

And then he heard her. Calling for him. Strange, usually she kept the affair (not like that) quiet, just went looking for him. But he could hear her thundering down the halls, and he thought he could hear Charles too. Oh no... was he about to kill her again? He wouldn't be surprised...

"Emma?" he asked with an unsure laugh as she came barreling toward him.

[Emma Ravenhearst]

Emma counted her blessings as she saw Nathan at the end of the hallway. Thank God. At least something was going her way...She could hear Charles raging behind her, and it caused her heart a pang of fear- but she could make him better. She would. She hurried to the end of the hallway and stood in front of him, breathing hard, her eyes wild as she looked at him. She could still see ghosts...

"Nathan...I don't know what happened...Charles has lost his mind completely. Claude did something, I know he did...I don't know what to do...!"

She stared at him, her bottom lip quivering slightly as though she might burst into tears again, though she tried to hold herself together. Be sensible, Emma, be calm...

"You have to do something for him...Please. I know you don't like him, but please, please help him...For me..."

Her eyes spoke vastly more than her words could as she looked at him. She was growing to need Charles just as much as he needed her. He was her other half, her soulmate and all that she had left in the world. If he were to go mad again...She couldn't take it. Couldn't live with it, not when happiness and peace had been so close at last.

[bedeviledmanor]

Nathan's eyebrows raised... he'd never seen her alive. She was quite beautiful, all things considered--things like the fact that she was in her nightgown and that she'd just run up here for her life. He could hear Charles downstairs... a rather pathetic rage, really. He sounded like a child trying to find his mother with his "Emma! Emma? Where are you!" and all this.

"Charles has lost his mind completely--"

"What else is new?"

"--Claude did something, I know he did..."

"All right, all right," Nathan sighed, holding his hands out to touch her shoulders. He'd forgotten she was no longer in his plane... her form slipped right through his fingers. Awkwardly, he lowered his hands. "Do you know where Charles keeps his spell book? Not in the library--I know there are spell books there, but that isn't the one I'm looking for. His spell book."

"Emma! Where've you gone?! Emma, I'll be good! Please, come out...!"

Nate sighed impatiently and said, "It won't be plain to find--it's not going to say 'SPELL BOOK' right across the cover. Look for something he keeps close... maybe... maybe a book given to him by a family member, probably someone he'd rather forget. The spells will be hidden in there, I'll bet your life." Knowing how Charles's mind worked had never come in so handy, and thank God--he liked to put his talents to good use. [/blockquote]

[Emma Ravenhearst]

Something he kept close...Emma paused in real thoughts for a moment, looking at Nathan's transparent face. She tried her best to recall everything she knew about Charles, everything she had seen him do in life...She winced a little at his cries from below, and resisted the strong urge to run again. No. She was not going to be the frightened girl she had been so long ago. She was going to have some wit and fight for her right to be free and happy.

"...His diary..."

The words were out of her mouth before she consciously realized the thought, but it seemed so obvious once she had said it. Of course! She had seen him writing in it countless times, often when he was tinkering in his workshop. Could he have really written spells in it...? Why not? He obviously had performed them, he must have written them somewhere.

She nodded to Nathan after her words, confirming them. "He keeps it in his room upstairs...Come." She set off down the hallway, eager to get away from Charles' desperate and disturbing cries, assuming that Nathan would follow her. She made her way up the stairs and into Charles' bedroom. The sheets were still mussed from their sleeping the night before and she pressed her lips together before moving about the room, rustling in drawers and cabinets, coming up empty handed until she came to the wardrobe. At the bottom was a small chest, locked by something peculiar. She furrowed her brow and dropped to her knees, before letting out a soft sigh.

It was a puzzle lock. Not just any puzzle lock. The same he had been working on that day in the workshop. That day...She remembered it so clearly. She pressed her lips together, reaching forward to finger the lock. It opened down the middle, she remembered...It was a mess of symbols and colors, waiting to be sorted into the correct order in order to open. She leaned forward, remembering from that day exactly how to push the pieces in- Charles had shown her with such pride. The lock popped open at her movements and clattered to the floor, the top of the chest swinging open.

And there it was. Emma reached into the chest, pulling the small leather bound book from its depths. She began flipping through the pages, now stained with age. Drawing after drawing of herself leapt from the pages at her, almost taunting her. And the drawings grew more and more disturbing, crude and almost violent...Until she found pages and pages with messes of symbols and words that made no real sense, written in blood red ink.

"This is it..."

[bedeviledmanor]

Nathan ducked his head a little when she looked away in her thought. His diary... "Ah, well, of course. His diary," he said, as if he'd known it all along. It was so Nathan to keeping joking around when there was literally a soulless killer after both of them.

When she told him to come with her, he walked about half way down the hall before just giving up and teleporting into the room. He was standing in there when she entered, urging her quietly to hurry up. He started to search himself, though it was useless since he couldn't pick up things much heavier than a book or two.

"This is it..."

Nate turned when he heard her utter those sweet words and breathed and unnecessary sigh of relief. He went and took a peek over her shoulder. "Yes... that is it, alright." He took the book from her and attempted to decipher the scribblings. Charles was clearly in the depths of his insanity when he'd written this down, so they weren't exactly clear. Luckily, Nathan had had over a century to read up on all of the evil going on in this house...

"This one, this one right here." He lowered the book. "Emma, there is something you can do, but... I urge you, consider this very carefully..."

Charles was on their floor now, that had become evident. His calls were getting more panicked and louder as he came closer.

[Emma Ravenhearst]

"Whatever it is, I'll do it."

She didn't even have to think about the words. She said them firmly and without hesitation, still looking down at her lap where the book had been before Nathan had taken it. She wished she could give him his body back as well...He was such a good man, he deserved it. But God only knew the price Charles had paid to get their bodies back...They had little left to give between them to anyone else.

She flinched violently when she heard him coming closer and rose to her feet quickly, walking swiftly to the door and locking it. Ha. As though that would stop Charles. But she felt as though she were at least doing something to protect herself, and that was enough. She turned quickly back to Nathan and strode to his side, looking at the spell he had pointed out. The words meant nothing to her, but obviously they had some meaning for Nathan, "What does it mean?"