Emily Archer (boundbyhate) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-07-02 00:17:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | 2009-07-18, imogen |
What keeps me here
Who: Emily and Imogen
Where: Emily's attic
When: Night
Scarlet Oak. Really, again? Emily had never thought that was an appealing name or that much of an appealing town and yet she had found herself pulled right back to it. As though a magnet were pulling and tugging and she was unable to keep herself away. Just like the last time that she had found herself there. Surely many years had passed as the living counted them but for her it had been nothing more than the blink of an eye, a little whisper of time that had had a few interesting moments she might remember for a decade. But the last one that really stuck out to her was when she had been in this town. When she had failed to kill that remnant of her family, that little piece of Blanche that did not deserve to be alive and happy. But no, she had failed because someone had gotten in the way.
Her sister, Imogen. The only one of her original family who was left and that was just because she had been killed along with her. Emily knew that if she was back in Scarlet Oak then Imogen would not be far behind. The elder sister, the good sister, never was since their death. Since she had realized that Emily was nowhere near at peace and would do nothing but create havoc and chaos wherever she went. Hopefully even death if she had her way. Luckily enough, Imogen did not tend to step in as much when it came to regular witches, just the people Emily target who carried traces of the blood that had once ran through their own veins. When they had still had veins. Just thinking about the fact that Imogen would interfere angered her enough to make the dust on the nearby table in the attic start to rise up. Because she knew why she was back and it dealt with that problem child she had not quite managed to kill however long ago, but she doubted that Imogen knew. Or even remembered that dark-haired little girl who thought her swing was a flying kitty.
Sighing, Emily drifted above a table filled with old, dust-covered objects from a time most people had forgotten, trying to remember what that girl's name had been. Maybe it would help her find her because she was positive, absolutely certain, that she was still alive.
Imogen stumbled? wafted? along. She didn't even know what to quite call what she was doing at that exact moment in time. Nevertheless, she was moving in a general direction...well, being pulled to be exact. She looked up at the house and sighed or...pretended to as she didn't exactly have breath to sigh out. She knew Emily was up in that attic, most likely plotting some form of malice and she was almost at the end of her rope. She had no idea what was still anchoring her sister to the mortal plane and she had no idea what was keeping her back. Imogen still continued to hope against hope that it wasn't someone's death that would set Emily free because...well, what afterlife could Emily hope to achieve if she committed murder in cold blood?
Nevertheless, Imogen had not been able to stop her from killing a few witches in the past. She was still standing? existing? there in the same spot when she felt Emily's anger wash over her. It was a terrible thing, Emily's thirst for blood. Imogen finally moved to join her sister in her attic, marveling at her sister's choice of abode. Emily preferred dank, abandoned places while Imogen preferred to not be tied down to any certain place...she would just close her spectral eyes and drift until her sister would call her again. Well, not call but she would feel the need to find her sister. She found Emily in the attic (where else?) and approached silently - which was easy when you didn't really make any sounds at all.
"Emily," she said gently in the accent that she still had not lost. "What are we doing here again?"
Oh and there, there it was. Emily did not even feel the need to turn and take in the ghostly apparition that had suddenly joined her in the attic. She had known that eventually her benevolent spirit of a sister would come along behind her. Just as Emily was drawn to those people she wanted most dead it seemed that Imogen was drawn after her. Because she can't just let me be. It was a realization that she had had quite some time ago, one that she had not felt a particular need to share with her sister. As much as Imogen got in the way, as annoying as she could be, Emily knew that if her sister passed on without her then she might grow lonely in a way. There was also a certainty that, if there was an afterlife, Imogen would go to a much better place than Emily. She was not the one who deliberately sought out people to kill because they dared to live and have things that neither of them could have. Emily felt as though there was a certain justice to it and she was certain that Imogen just found it sad, or barbaric. Ah well, she thought it ridiculous that Imogen pined after mortal men.
"Oh, I don't know whyever you're here," Emily replied in a flippant tone, waving her fingers without still so much as glancing at her sister. Unlike her, Emily's voice had changed slightly over the centuries, picking up modern tones without her even realizing it. "But I have some unfinished business with someone who used to be a child. Perhaps you remember her? The one I tried to drown and for some reason you decided to save." She made a tsking noise, the dust stirring up in a miniature whirlwind to give her displeasure a physical form. "She's still alive, amazingly. One should finish what one starts."
Imogen walked up to her sister carefully. While Emily couldn't physically hurt her anymore, her words could still sting. That and she had the potential to take it out on other people that could get hurt. It was still best to tread carefully. Imogen touched the side of Emily's face with her ghostly hand. Neither of them felt it and Imogen could hardly remember what it even felt like to touch someone. She smiled gently at her sister. "Now, now, Emily. What use is it chasing after the past? It is the reason why neither of us has moved on yet. We are both held back by the past...let it go, please?" Imogen had said the words before and she was saying them again now. They had become a chant: a meaningless, hollow repetition of words neither one of them truly believed. But she had to try.
Dropping her hand, she walked away from her sister and looked at some of the discarded items in the attic. Dark, dust and disquiet, these were the things her sister surrounded herself with. Imogen preferred happier things. Turning back around, Imogen looked at Emily and tried to plead with her. "Things happen for a reason. The child has nothing to do with why you are still here and whether she lives or dies should be left to a higher being. Perhaps she lives because she is meant to be alive. Our lot in this world is not dole out life and death as we please...that was our folly in life."
Imogen sighed again, a habit.
Scoffing, Emily turned when her sister came close, eyebrows knitting together in a frown at the gentle smile and the words that came out of her mouth. Always with this ridiculous idea that she should stop what she was doing. No, why should she? The past was the reason that they were like this! Had people not been so narrow-minded and judgmental then they would never have been killed. Emily could have mastered her magic and done who knew what with it. If first Imogen had not been stupid and then decided to... no, thinking about that would just make her so much more upset than she needed to be. She could save that anger for a later time when it would actually come in handy. "Stop your sighing, it does you no good." A little snap that was nothing compared to ones when she was in the mood to argue.
As for the girl. "Yes she has something to do with it," was the return reply, given as Emily sat up, legs dangling off the table that she was not even really seated on top of for anything but the sake of appearances. "I was drawn back here as I was the very first time - her. Again, her." A sly little smile slid across her face and she tilted her head. "These higher beings of yours, why care for her and not for us? Or our family? She has some of the same blood in her veins and for that, I feel the need to bleed it out. You know this, Imogen." It was not said to disturb or anything, so far as Emily concerned it was simply a fact of their afterlives. Studying her nails, perfectly clean since it was impossible to get them dirty, she smiled sweetly at her pale-haired sister. "Perhaps they wish for me to kill her and the reason we're here again is so that I can complete this task without interference from someone who thinks that she knows better than me... when we both know that's not true." Someone who fluttered her eyelashes at boys who could not see her or enjoyed sunlight she could not feel could not be right about matters such as these.
Imogen could imagine feeling a pain in her temples, though she knew it wasn't really there. Ghost pains, which was actually (now that she thought about it) a rather appropriate term for both her and her sister. She crossed her arms across her chest and looked at her sister with the eyes of an exasperated older sister. She made a wry face as she listened to the response. Rehearsed, almost, for both of them but you kinda ran out of material after a few years. "They choose her because she is innocent of crimes. They did not choose us because we intended to hurt, to kill. We were both ready to take what was not ours - which is what you are trying to do again. Do you not realize that this is perhaps why you cannot move on? You continue to do the exact same things that caused your death and eternal unrest in the first place," Imogen turned away from her sister. "Please, Emily, I just want to rest...and you should too. We have been here long enough."
Running her fingers through her ghostly hair, she paced the room. "It is your own malice that calls you here, not any higher being," Imogen said at length, voice barely audible. "You should not blame your own blood lust and thirst for revenge on...them." Imogen did not quite believe in God. If there existed one, he would surely not be so cruel as to allow His children to wander like this...at least that was not was she was taught. Spirits were evil things...and she was not evil. Not anymore. She didn't believe in a God, but she believed in a divine being or beings...there was something bigger than them in this world...just not a jolly, bearded man that sparkled in the sunlight, knew all, saw all, loved all...because Imogen certainly did not feel loved at the moment. In fact, she hadn't felt loved in centuries.
Her sister could be so dull and stuck in the mud, far too down-to-earth for someone who had been a spirit for as long as they. Such an odd contrast to that approach she had always had to love as well. Sighing, Emily shook her head at her sister, though her smile did not fade. Things like this did not bother her. Being bound to the earth did not bother her as well. Who would kill the witches for daring to be open about the life that had condemned so many if not her? Who would end the family line that should have died out with them if not her? Not Imogen, not some living human who did not know what had happened to them. No, the only one who could do that was her and Emily refused to just let things go. Four hundred years was not enough time to get over that by even a slight and, unlike Imogen, she was not bothered by her malice.
"Actually, sweet sister, it was you who doomed us to this, if you choose to view it as being doomed. It's a better life than we lived from where I stand." Sitting up, or appearing to, Emily acted as though she were propping her chin in her hands, elbows on her knees. On this day she had pretended to clothe herself in a modern way with jeans and a loose polo that she imagined she would look wonderful in. Much better than the sack clothes they had worn in life. "And since it was your fault, that must be why you still wander, perhaps hounded by a guilt you don't understand that death destroyed any semblance of sanity your poor little sister may have clung to once? No, no, I won't blame my lusts on something that doesn't exist, but rather the cause." Same smile on her face, Emily leaned out and brushed her ghostly fingers against where Imogen's cheek was supposed to be, flicking her fingers when she finished. "My malice continues to exist because it was given an outlet, thanks to you. I stay to satisfy it and you stay - unsatisfied - perhaps because you do nothing. Poor dear."
Imogen glared at her sister before her look softened and she merely ended up looking tired. Crossing her arms as she watched Emily putter about in the new clothing mortals wore, Imogen reflected on the futility of everything she did to try and stop Emily from killing people. It wasn't that she thought it was impossible, it was just that there had got to be a different way of going about it that would convince Emily to do the right thing for once. She just hadn't figured it out yet. Emily was simply stubborn, in Imogen's mind, and she was still confident that her sister would see the error of her ways and stop killing. But that time wasn't now and Calista wasn't the last.
"It is of no use arguing with you," Imogen responded quietly. She was fully convinced it was indeed her fault for trying to use witchcraft to achieve her means but that only meant that it was their mistake for using their magic for their own purposes. Many of the witches Emily condemned were using their powers for the benefit of others as well...Imogen was convinced she had inadvertently caused the the death of her sister as well as her own and that of her family but guilt was something she could exist with. Emily's downward spiral into eternal damnation was not.
Quietly, Imogen promised she would warn Calista of the danger she was in. Intentions, check. Method, however, was something Emily had up on Imogen. Emily was what modern scholars called a poltergeist. Imogen was simply a spirit at unrest. It was difficult for Imogen to do anything more than be a cold spot in the room whereas Emily could perform more harmful things. "How do you intend on killing the girl?" Imogen asked. At least knowing the method might help.
Of course arguing with her was pointless, because she was right. Emily knew that she was and it would only be a matter of time - maybe another four centuries - before Imogen agreed. And there was no error in her ways to be fixed. Imogen was the one who was incorrect, thinking that they could just move on. No, no, Emily would not move on until her work was done and perhaps that would be never. She was completely okay with that. It was Imogen who had all of the problems. Not my fault. Her eyes did turn on her ghostly sister and narrow when she was asked about her intentions on killing Calista. Oh, no, why would she share that? Imogen had made clear that she was against what Emily did and sharing might only lead to more problems. Such as interference. Imogen had done that so many times that Emily had lost count, but she had not forgotten.
"Mmm, I haven't decided," Emily lied easily, her smile almost vapid when she floated upside down, hair brushing just over the floor. "I was thinking that fire might be fun since that was how we died. Don't you think it would be nice to listen to someone else scream for a change? I wonder if I'll feel the same thrill that those bastards who killed us did." Emily had also picked up on some of the cursewords of the current days and sometimes enjoyed saying them for no real reason at all.
Imogen stiffened at her sister's mention of the fire. She still didn't like talking about it and the idea of someone else burning alive sickened her. Murder, in general, irked her and she had issues with gore and...everything Emily enjoyed. She pursed her lips together and decided that the night was lost, especially when Emily decided to be vulgar. "Someone raised you better than that, Emily Archer," Imogen said coldly. At this point, however, she understood how silly she was sounding. Here they were, discussing murder, and she was nitpicking on Emily's abuse of the English language. Yay priorities.
"There is no arguing with you tonight," or any other night Imogen told her sister. "I do love you, Emily, consider all that I have said." Imogen walked over to her sister brushed her ghostly hair in a show of sisterly affection that neither of them really felt. Imogen argued internally that it would be easier for both of them if Emily and her could actually still feel things. "Good night, Emily. I will see you again soon," Imogen made to leave slowly. She, unlike her sister, preferred the outdoors and hated attics and the dusty things humans left forgotten in them.
"Blow the wind, blow~ swift and low," Imogen hummed gently under her breath.
"Yes, and someone died." Her eyes were cold, the vapid smile vanished. Emily did not like thinking of their parents very much, especially not their mother. She had actually loved the woman when she was alive and sometimes she felt almost sad to think of her dead, to remember having seen her burned at the stake. Oh she had deserved it as much as the others, but still. Tossing her head the ghost did not reply to what Imogen had said nor the touch that she attempted to give. She was just about to shoot off a scalding reply that she hoped would stay with the better of the two when she heard the song that Imogen was beginning. The same one that their mother had so loved to sing to them when they were alive... sighing, Emily felt herself settling into the air, the dust and various objects that had risen up calming in much the same way. I love you as well, Imogen. But she would never say it, or usually ever think it, except for those moments when she was calm and thinking of nothing but days spent alive.