Bad coke.

 

The house keeper.

The fire of the night has burned through in dark momentum; even as old ashes of fragmented grey lie half burned upon the hearth. Moving slowly She lights a lamp, the old house, quiet. Cold is in the air, her breath white like lace, even as the others sleep, in the comfort of upper levels of panelled stillness, quiet with the silence of vaulted warm mahogany. In this half light,,, beyond the flicker of the candle in her hand. She will peer out on to the day,to slow rising light drifting across the great frosted expanse of park- a whiteness like a shroud Stretching out to the old folded boundaries of the gate house that keep the world away. Reining in the old ghosts, she thinks. The ghosts that cannot move and cannot play. She shivers, as she pulls the heavy mantel to her.

It will soon be time to wake them, The small children in the nursery, stained with red wracks of ruin, moving slowly over rosy cheeks, and perfect Gold of curls that tuck under crimson sheets. soon the crow will sing. It has been a long night. She takes the candle, and lays it on the long mahogany of the great table; empty seats long since vacated, places where the family have been. Beside it she will places the empty jar of cyanide, setting it before the slow flickering flame that moves around with the attendant shadow. For a moment she will sit in the last of it, waiting for those that have crossed the veil to begin. MB