Chapter Text
The greenhouse looks beautiful with its new smooth translucent glass. Light filters in gently and warms your cheeks despite the temperature outside being quite frigid. You smile at how much the room has changed since you arrived. It’s clean and organized, and it looks ready to house an abundance of flora and fauna.
Donna already gave it a head start this morning after she finished making the gardening boxes and asked you to help place them in neat rows on the metal tables. She poured fertilized dirt and planted all of the seeds she bought from Angela then left you to your own devices to pack some items she wishes to take with her that wouldn’t be noticed by Miranda or Alcina.
It’s only been a week but this creepy house started to feel like home at some point. You’ll miss being here with Donna, but the prospect of starting anew in a place without danger or fear is driving you forward. You have to go and you won’t look back, not when your mother and lover are with you.
Because you’ve grown to love the house, it pains you to dirty it, but it’s integral to the success of Donna’s plan. So, you walk into the living room and toss some furniture over, throw decorations and dolls around, then proceed to splatter some of Donna's blood all over the floor.
The trail of blood starts in the living room then leads into the foyer and up to the front door. You’ll have to splatter some outside as well but you want to finish the interior. With a paintbrush you’ll burn in the fire pit outside, you meticulously spritz droplets of blood onto furniture and the walls. You even put your hand in her blood and place it on the wall, leaving a red imprint that streaks across white wallpaper.
It’s supposed to look like you stabbed Donna at her desk and then the two of you fought over the weapon, managing to toss some furniture in the struggle. Donna runs when she realizes she can’t get away and sprints to the door when she senses her sister. She’ll scream for help and run outside.
It’s then that Alcina will witness the rest of the concocted story firsthand. When Lady Dimitrescu steps forward to confront you, you’ll screech about never going back to that castle and you’ll slam both of your bodies through the fence and down the ravine.
It’s a good plan and you’ve both prepared extensively since Donna came up with the idea. You can’t screw this up. The timing has to be perfect. In ten minutes, Donna’s going to call Lady Dimitrescu and frantically describe how manic you’ve become, so you hurry outside to splatter more trails of blood. Donna will make the hallucination follow this path so it lines up. Lastly, you sprinkle some of your blood into the mix. An altercation would most certainly wound you as well and Donna plans to make the hallucination of you look injured and crazed. After all, Donna would try to defend herself with hallucinations if she were in danger.
Just five minutes later, you find yourself outside at the large fire pit, burning the foam containers that held the blood and the paintbrush you used. It’s one of the paintbrushes Donna bought you for her portrait. You barely had time to finish it last night, but Donna loved it and hung it on the staircase wall for Angela Balan to see. She still owes you another session so you can paint her with her scar. You hope to do that when you all settle in at the new home in Tuscany.
The remaining ash in the pit gets tossed off the edge of the cliff and you watch it float down and disappear into the raging waterfall. They’ll never find a shred of evidence. You’ve both made sure of it. The most incriminating piece that they’ll have access to is the rumors about your relationship with Donna that’s most likely churning in the village, but you doubt they’ll say anything. They’ll most likely write you off as a slut, using her body and wiles to seduce a Lord in an attempt to free herself. You’re fine with that as long as you escape this nightmare. Either way, they’ve said worse about you.
When you walk inside, Donna’s hanging the strap of a small duffel bag on the railing of the stairs. That must be the items she’s chosen to take with her. It’s not much at all and a pang of sadness rings through your body.
“Is that all you’re taking?” You ask despite knowing the answer. Nosiness is driving the urge.
Donna touches the bag instinctively. “Yes, I just grabbed some photo albums, mementos from my family, and some of my favorite books. Things no one really knew I had.”
You nod. She’s sentimental, so her choices make sense. You notice one thing missing though. “Where’s Angie?”
Donna looks down at her shaking hands. “I’m not sure if I can take her. They would notice her absence.”
Angie is a crutch. She was her mouthpiece when Donna refused to speak and was blunt when she couldn’t express herself. She shouldn’t need Angie, but it’s okay for Donna to want her. Angie was a gift from her father and kept Donna company for so many years. That doll means a lot to her. There’s no way you can leave Angie behind.
“Just put Angie into the hallucination and make it seem like she falls with us. It would make sense. Angie can be on your shoulder, trying to fight me off, and she goes off the cliff with us.” You step toward her and smile. “She’s important. We can make it work.”
Donna nods hesitantly and goes to grab Angie from the living room, making sure to avoid the blood on the floor. All you need is bloody footprints leading Lady Dimitrescu to you. She comes back with Angie sitting on her forearm like she used to, but moves toward her duffel bag, unzips it and gently places her inside. The zipper struggles to close but after a few strong tugs, Angie is safe in the bag and ready to be transported to her new home.
“Is everything ready?” Donna asks anxiously. Her hands are wringing together and it reminds you of your first few days here. Understandably, her anxiety has been through the roof.
“Blood clearly splattered,” You joke and point at the puddles of blood you placed earlier. “Metal fence broken, evidence burned and tossed, and my mother should be hiding in the Duke’s carriage by now if she understood my directions on the phone last night.”
“Perfect,” Donna whispers more to herself than to you. Her nails press into the back of her hand painfully and you gently bat at them so she stops.
Harming herself isn’t the healthiest coping mechanism and even though it’s gotten her through so much, you want to help her find other ways of grounding to reality. She smiles at you apologetically. You haven’t said anything about her habit of digging her nails into her skin or scratching harshly at her hands, but you think she knows that it’s something you wish to stop. Perhaps with time, she’ll be able to.
“I suppose nothing is stopping me from making that phone call and getting Alcina here,” Donna says hesitantly. Her smile is tinted with sadness and fear.
You understand each emotion. She’s leaving everything she’s used to and comfortable with, and her anxiety is spiking. She’s sentimental so leaving her childhood home is hitting her hard. The fear over whether this plan will work or not is also understandable.
“I have to believe it’ll work out. If it doesn’t, at least my mother will be safe and taken care of. For that, I owe you more than just my life.” You grab her hand, the one she had been digging her nails into, and kiss the back of it as if soothing her marks.
The Duke has been paid handsomely for the trip and his discretion. If neither of you appear at the carriage after six pm, he’s been instructed to take your mother away. You hope that won’t be the case and that all of you will be escorted to the airstrip, but contingency plans are needed, especially with women as cunning as Mother Miranda and Lady Dimitrescu.
Hesitantly, Donna walks to the phone and lifts the receiver before punching in Lady Dimitrescu’s phone number from memory. You imagine all of the terse conversations she’s had with her so-called sister and wonder how different their relationship could’ve been if the older woman had just an ounce of empathy in that cold, sadistic heart.
You hear Lady Dimitrescu answer in her usual pompous tone and roll your eyes despite nausea growing in the pit of your stomach. Donna sighs silently, gearing up to play her role. She looks nervous and worried but once her sister finishes her greeting, Donna embodies pure panic and mania like a professional actress.
“Alcina, I need you to come here right now!” Donna whispers hurriedly, desperately, into the receiver. If you were on the other line, you’d believe this performance without question.
You hear Lady Dimitrescu scoff then say, “Oh, do I?”
“Please, sister! It’s your maid! She—“ Donna pauses then pretends to choke on her saliva. “Stop!”
She rubs the receiver against her clothing to mimic a struggle and now you hear Lady Dimitrescu shouting questions down the line. Surprisingly, she sounds afraid. Perhaps a part of her does care after all. “Donna, what’s going on? Are you alright? My maid—Say something, damn it!”
Donna doesn’t respond. Instead, she takes her landline and smashes it onto the ground. It splinters into several pieces, sending plastic fragments all around the side table and into the blood puddles behind you. The blood, handprints on the walls, receiver, and the diary entries you forged where you mention growing desperation to not return to Castle Dimitrescu tell a story. A rogue maid gone mad over going back to that castle decides to take one last swipe at the cult by killing a lord then taking her own life.
Now, you wait anxiously for Donna to sense her sister's arrival. It shocks you both when she appears near the home only a minute later. Donna looks confused and runs to peer through the window. When you join her, you nearly collapse at what you see. Lady Dimitrescu is flying! She’s a horrid flying beast with tentacles and wings and thousands of sharp teeth embedded in layers of large maw.
Donna doesn’t seem surprised by Lady Dimitrescu’s form. She only mentions, “She flew here. I can sense her fear and urgency.”
Lady Dimitrescu cares about Donna in a twisted, unhealthy way and it shouldn’t affect your lover but it does. Donna’s used to being the outsider and not being shown love or care by the rest of the cult, but at this moment, her sister finally lets her guard down. It’s too little, too late. Donna realizes that quicker than you expect her to.
She pulls back from the windows and takes a deep breath as Lady Dimitrescu slams into the path right outside the gate to the front yard. Donna nods at you. It’s now or never.
Donna closes her eyes and within seconds, the lighting in the house turns darker, more bluish, and you feel anxious. She described this to you, told you in detail how it would feel to slip into the hallucination so Lady Dimitrescu couldn’t see you, but experiencing it is jarring. She’s trying to make this easier for you. The room looks exactly the same as seconds before and her hand grabs yours securely.
After grabbing her bag, she leads you to the door and opens it. The only thing you can manage to do is follow close behind and witness the extent of her power. The first thing you notice is Lady Dimitrescu in that stomach-churning form. She’s calling out to Donna and the monster she’s attached to screeches angrily while its skin undulates between red and white.
Donna pulls you to the side of the property, out of the way of any danger, and you nearly gasp when another version of you two fly through the front door. You marvel at the sight of Donna struggling against your chokehold as you push her toward the center of the front lawn. The hallucinations look so real that you feel the need to squeeze your lover's hand and make sure she’s really next to you and not actually across the lawn.
The hallucination of Donna is bloodied and looks to have several stab wounds, and she’s screaming agonizingly.
“Let her go, you insipid little rat!” Lady Dimitrescu screeches and her monster roars so ferociously that the ground rumbles. It scares you beyond belief and leaves you shaking against Donna, who’s so concentrated on making sure the scenario goes as planned.
Before Lady Dimitrescu can charge forward, Angie runs out of the house and climbs your body so she can punch your head with her tiny wooden hand. It’s not enough to stop the attack and it only seems to anger you. The other version of you screams maniacally. “I’m not going back there! I can’t! You’re a monster! She’s a monster! She’s a monster!”
“Please!” The fake version of Donna calls out to her sister and it makes Lady Dimitrescu growl then lunge.
She pounces several yards before the hallucination moves. In a murderous rage, that fake version of you drags Donna to the side of the property then rams into the metal fence that you know is already broken in reality. You watch in horror as the other versions of you, Donna and Angie go flying off the edge of the property. There’s screaming as you all fall and Lady Dimitrescu screeches so loud that it hurts your ears. Donna squeezes your hand so hard that blood stops circulating.
Then Lady Dimitrescu does something neither of you accounted for. She lifts off the ground using her gigantic wings and flies off the edge in search of her sister. She won’t find her.
“We must go,” Donna says and starts to pull you to where Lady Dimitrescu landed earlier. “Let’s get to the Duke.”
“She jumped for you,” You say. Shock filters through your nervous system and would paralyze you if Donna wasn’t dragging you across her land.
It takes her a minute to process what you said and its implication, but when you’re walking across the rickety bridge, she says, “She doesn’t want to anger Mother Miranda. I was hers to kill and Alcina’s maid is to blame for ruining that. She’ll be punished for the insolence.”
For some reason, despite the belief that Lady Dimitrescu is evil and doesn’t have many redeeming qualities, you truly believe your former captor loved her sister in a way neither of you understood. She didn’t respect Donna and she constantly belittled her intellect and power. She stated that Donna wasn’t family and she was simply an insolent, disobedient child, but there she was, afraid for Donna’s life. It doesn’t feel like fear for punishment, but you let Donna believe whatever she needs to.
The Duke is stationed exactly where he’s supposed to be. Unlike normally, the Duke isn’t set up in the front with his wares on display. The carriage is closed and the horse is tethered to it, ready to take the carriage wherever it needs to go.
The village is eerily quiet and it unnerves you, but Donna quickly trudges over to the carriage and opens the doors to reveal your mother sitting on the wooden floor of the carriage interior, anxiously awaiting your arrival. When she sees you, her shoulders drop and she gasps happily and with a tremendous amount of relief. You don’t hesitate to jump up into the carriage and fall into her body. She engulfs you in a hug and Donna slams the carriage doors shut behind her before knocking on the partition and speaking to the Duke in hushed tones.
Anxiety still rattles around the carriage and it continues to do so even as the Duke arrives at the airport, as the pilot flies you to Tuscany, as you settle into the new home, and for weeks after you arrive. Your mother settles in much faster, but Donna’s just as uneasy. Perhaps it’s because the two of you have seen the horrors of the village up close and safety feels unreal.
That changes three months after the move when Donna turns on the television and sees that a bomb decimated the village and all of its residents. You all watch in shock as the BSAA organization lies its way through a press conference about the situation. Your stomach drops at the news, but there’s a sense of freedom as well. Perhaps they’re all gone. Perhaps you’re finally safe.
You may never know and you may never feel completely safe, but you get to kiss Donna and make love to her. You get to paint and draw and build a life. You’re able to do more than just survive.
You can’t complain.