The Manor Ch.1 (ReaderxReclusive!Russia)

    The house at the end of lane had been standing for as long as anyone could remember.  It was there before the graveyard, before the church, before the docks were constructed or the houses raised.  It almost seemed like part of the landscape, as huge and foreboding as an unforgiving mountain range.  It had seemed, to many, that the house stood empty for many many years, so many years in fact, that it was believed to be haunted.  Some said that on particularly stormy nights, you could hear the ghosts wailing along with the wind.

    But that was a tale for children, to keep them from straying too close.  The fact of the matter was that The Manor, as it was come to be called, was very much inhabited.  But that didn’t make it any less creepy.  Stories and rumors, as superstitious townsfolk are want to create, swirled as to who the mystery inhabitants were, as only one soul was ever seen going in or coming out of the estate.  But the waif of a man who trudged down the lane once a fortnight with his horse and cart couldn’t be the only one residing in the mansion at the top of the hill.  He bought enough supplies on each trip to feed an army!  So two things were abundantly clear: either there was an innumerable amount of very secretive people residing in The Manor, or one exuberantly wealthy little waif.  Both explanations seemed farfetched to the townsfolk who lived in the bustling port village below, though not so unbelievable as to inquire for themselves what was really going on in that great black abode.  Most were happy enough to merely shudder when they caught sight of The Manor’s shadow over the graveyard, and turn away, putting all thoughts of the mysterious inhabitants out of their heads.

~~~

    (Your name) watched silently as the plain wooden box was lowered into the shallow grave.  There had been no service, no procession, no wake.  The only other people who had made the march out to the old cemetery with her were the dock hands who had carried her father’s meager little casket, and as soon as the hole they’d dug was filled up with the last of (your name)’s family and the dirt resettled, they nodded solemnly, and were on their way.  No words were spoken.  There were no flowers.  Just (your name), and a freshly turned grave.

    Opening her mouth, she attempted to say her last goodbyes, but all that she managed to push out was a wordless puff of air.  What was she supposed to say now?  He was dead.  He couldn’t hear her.  

    The life (your name) and her father had cut out for themselves had always been hard; with her mother already in the ground, her father had tried his best to raise her in the outskirts of the village, while still trying to eek out an acceptable wage working as a dock hand.  They had always been poor, but they’d always had each other.  He’d always had a smile for his daughter, even after a day of back-breaking work.  He’d scrape together his pennies each year, to try and make her birthdays special with a gift.  When she cried, he’d dried her tears, and when she laughed, he was the one who had caused it.  They had never had much, but they had had each other.

    But what did she have now?

    The first few raindrops hit (name) like arrows, sending a shiver straight through her heart.  Looking around, intending to find some cover so she could spend the night sitting vigil over her father’s grave, she noticed that many of the other graves around her, towards the very back of the cemetery, had makeshift crosses affixed to the heads of the graves.  The proper stone headstones were all towards the front of the cemetery, where the village’s richer class were buried, but back here, it was either handmade, or nothing.  And (name) couldn’t bear to leave her father nothing.

    Glancing at the grass around her feet, she bent to pick up a few twigs.  She had no string, but she used a strip torn from her skirt to bind them together in an awkward, lopsided cross.  She would try to fashion something better later, but for now, it would do.  It would have to.  Planting it at the head of the upturned pile of dirt, she stood back to admire her handiwork listlessly.

    The rain really began to come down as the sun began to set.  Looking up at the sky, the angry grey clouds that covered it, (name) started to shiver once more.  Not only from cold, though; her heart was only now beginning to ache, for her father, and for herself.

    “What am I going to do now?” she whispered to herself, letting herself slump to her knees in the dirt.  She couldn’t go back to their shack.  It was there, dry and at least warmer than being outside, but that was where she and her father had lived for her entire 18 years.  Going back alone would have killed her.  And there was nowhere else for her in this village; the poorest of the poor, she was looked down upon by almost everyone.

    Tears and raindrops were indistinguishable from one another on her cheeks, and even if you were only standing a few feet away, you wouldn’t have been able to hear her sobs for the thunder that began to roll overhead.  Her form was hunched over on the ground, her eyes squeezed shut.  There was nowhere else for her, so she may as well lay down beside him and die as well.  What difference could it possibly make, if a fisherman’s daughter died of a broken heart out here in the graveyard?  Perhaps then, the ghosts who lived in The Manor might take pity on her.

    But, as it would seem, those ghosts, one ghost in particular, did take pity on her.  Violet eyes peered down through the highest window in The Manor, seemingly piercing through the driving rain, down to the little huddled body below.  This ghost watched the graveyard day in and day out, and saw his fair share of misery.  Children and widows crying over lost fathers, sons over sister, mothers over husbands.  Death was a promise, but it was never one anyone liked to keep.  Those stormy eyes flickered briefly from the girl below to the angry clouds overhead, taking note that this gail wouldn’t be ending any time soon.

    His steps were heavy and slow as he crept through his domain.  Footsteps echoed ominously off the polished stone floors, bounding down the many corridors, rattling nearby windows.  His pace was measured, sullen, and as he approached the main staircase, one enormous hand, previously folded behind his back, came out to grip the wooden banister.  Following the slight curve of the set of stairs, he made his way down from the top floor to the entrance way.  Tiny hands reached out from the dark to hand him his jacket, though when he took it, he did not put it on.  Slinging it over one arm, he gripped the solid brass doorknob tightly, and pushed.

    (Name)’s sobs had only just died down to pitiful whimpers, her forehead low enough to nearly touch the mud she kneeled on.  Her eyes stared down, though she didn’t see anything, nothing at all.  The only thing that kept her from sinking into the mud at that very moment was the vague presents of eyes on her back.  She didn’t look up, and yet she could feel him approaching.  His footsteps echoed through the earth, reverberating through her very soul.  Whatever he was; a specter, a monster, even just a man, she didn’t care.  He could be whatever he liked, and to her, could do whatever he liked.  He may as well have been the boogeyman from her old bedtime tales for all she cared, because at this point, there was not much left for (name) to live for.  

    He stopped a few feet away, staring at her hunched over like that.  The man was soaked to the bone at this point, having not put on the jacket he carried, but was in no worse condition than the woman before him.  She was in a terrible state.  Didn’t even look up when he circled around her, to stand at the head of the grave she huddled on.  Her (hair color) hair was in knots, obscuring her face, and her thin clothes, if you could even call them clothes, clung to her back, slick with rain water, exposing every single vertebrae along her spine.  Just as he’d expected; a dock child.  

    The grave was situated partially under an old bent cork tree, whose branches had long since gone bare.  Looking to his feet, the man noticed the crude little cross that had been fashioned as a grave marker, and slowly, his forehead wrinkled slightly.  You would never know it, not from his size or stature or general foreboding nature, but deep in his chest, he felt poorly for this woman.  She couldn’t have been much older than his youngest sister; obviously not still a girl, but the way she looked now, she reminded him of how his sister had looked, all those years ago.  That thought nearly made him flinch.

    Having enough of this rain, the man stepped forward slightly, meaning to drape the jacket over (name)’s shivering form, but as soon as he did, he heard her mumbled something.  He paused, trying to hear her over the wind and through her own curtain of damp hair, but when he didn’t immediately react, she finally looked up.  And on her face was not the terror that he usually found on the faces of the grieving upon seeing him, but rage.

    “I said get off his grave!” (name) screeched again, looking more like a demon in her current state than a person.  Her sudden outburst almost surprised him, and after a very tense moment where (name)’s eyes never waivered from his, staring down whomever it was that dared desecrate her father’s grave, he relented, and stepped away.  And again she deflated, crumbling back in on herself.

    “You’ll catch your death out here.”  His voice was nowhere near as deep as one would have expected from such an otherworldly presence.  It was almost musical, not quite tenor, though somewhere close.  But it cut through the gail like a knife, and caused (name) to flinch heavily, tough more at his word choice than the tone of his voice.  

    “Good,” she croaked, her fingers sinking into the mud, clawing at the earth that separated her from the only person she’d ever loved.  “I hope I do!”  To these dramatics the man only sighed, before coming to stand beside her.  Pulling the coat he held from his arm, he draped it carefully around her, bending low so he wouldn’t have to speak so loud this time.

    “Wishing for death will do nothing to bring the dead back,” he said, laying a hand on her back gently.  After a long moment, he straightened, and took a few steps away, before speaking to her over his shoulder.  “Come.”

    “Why should I?” she asked, though it was less in defiance, and more an honest question.  Looking at him, a shadow in the pouring rain, her eyes watered with her own misery and pain.

    “What have you got to loose?”  To that, she had no argument; she truly did have nothing to lose by following him.  Even if he was only leading her to her death, then that was welcome.  So, on shaking legs she rose, pulling his oversized jacket around herself tightly, and following him as he turned.  It barely registered with her that they were taking the old path up to The Manor, but he could have been taking her to the gallows for all she cared.