#emory warwick

RoseWood Manor is haunted. Anyone who spent more than five minutes in the place could figure that out. Those who stayed longer, the more permanent residents — one would be correct in assuming that they were the reason for most of the manor’s haunts. 

Majority were only Ghosts. Poor Souls who somehow died in the manor, forever wandering its halls in search of an exit. 

Others were stronger: Poltergeists. None knew more fame than Myriam — Mary, as the public now knew her. Haunting mirrors instead of the halls, she quickly earned a reputation for being violent, with those that summoned her ending up with gruesome deaths. 

Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Emory couldn’t help but chant her name every time he walked past a mirror. Not that he would ever say it out loud, of course. Talking to Myriam did nothing but upset him. And even if he did wish to speak with her, finding a mirror his height was exceedingly difficult. He often had to jump onto the bathroom counter or find someone’s vanity to check his fur. Neither of which he did often. Not anymore. 

When he first got turned into a cat, all those centuries ago, Emory was near obsessed with gazing at his reflection. Hours were spent just looking at himself, dissecting his appearance detail by detail. His whole body soft and squishy. Far more flexible — that took some time to get used to. As did walking on all fours. Going from a human to cat body was…an adjustment, to say the least. Now, Emory found himself with the opposite problem: if he were to gain a human body now, he’d have a hard time refamiliarizing himself with all the bells and whistles that form would contain. 

But his newfound enjoyment of mirrors came to a close end. Like all things, it was Myriam’s fault. One too many times has she caught Emory off guard whilst he was trying to groom himself…Such things were better left to someone more qualified. 

Unfortunately such a person was hard to find due to RoseWood’s ever-revolving residents. Daniel did what he could, as did Richard on the rare occasion he visited. 

But there was always Delilah. 

His dear little sister also haunted the manor’s grounds. Emory tried to avoid her, though unlike Myriam it was not out of hatred: it was out of guilt. He couldn’t protect her. He was too reckless, and thanks to his actions, his sister was killed. 

Emory could never decide if her memory issues were a blessing or curse. 

A blessing, for she didn’t have to remember the pain of dying. Didn’t have to remember Myriam’s betrayal of them both. Didn’t have to remember how Emory failed her. 

A curse, for he couldn’t talk to her. She did not remember who he was, not fully, and couldn’t comprehend what she meant to him. She no longer remembered their parents, what it was like when they died. How Emory tried to care for her afterwards. 

There were rare times where Delilah would say something, do something, or even just had this look to her — and for a moment it felt like his sister was with him again. 

But then the moment would pass, and it was just another Ghost looking at the strange cat inhabiting RoseWood Manor.  

And yet, despite all of this, she still sang while she brushed his fur, just like she did when he let her help him get ready for church. 

If someone had told Emory back then that he would be living in a haunted house as a cat, he wouldn’t have believed them. Not that he would be blamed. A haunted house is one thing. Being turned into a cat due to your own arrogance was another. Combining the two seemed impossible. Here he was, however, amongst the poor lost Souls that were now forced to live within the manor’s walls. 

Emory supposed that he, too, could be considered a lost Soul, in a way. He was no longer in his original body. The manor was the closest thing to a home he had now. There was no family to mourn him — Delilah hardly remembered and Myriam took great pleasure in boasting about what she had done to him. The only difference between him and the other residents was that he’s a cat, free to leave RoseWood’s grounds in search of something better. 

Though Emory knew — as did all the Spirits — that he would wind up back within the manor’s walls sooner or later. He could leave for as long as he’d like, but he’d always haunt RoseWood.