#viola lloyd

when she beheld her husband she saw not the changes wrought of time, only his sadness- only that. so overwhelmed, she Slept and waited.

they buried lady perdita and set about forging a new life. the business was empty, the manor was lost. if not in law, in spirit. they would move away from here, sell the manor and find a quieter life, a smaller one, made only for the two of them. the two of them and also Viola.

at last, at least, she'd be with them both. her husband, her daughter. no matter if they couldn't see her, couldn't touch her, couldn't hear her. no matter; she'd be with them and that was all that mattered. they were leaving bly, leaving most of what remained of their belongings. her reward for all these years of isolation; for all the ache in her tired heart.

but arthur has become a superstitious man and had seen the horror on perdita's lifeless face. his superstition defied reason, but he felt confident all the same. whatever curse has claimed his second wife, he would not risk his daughter to its icy fingers. his daughter- nor anyone else.

this final insult of being cast to the swampy depths, while her daughter would grow to womanhood. this absolute abandonment. it shattered Viola's heart.

the feeling of being pulled towards some other place, some realm beyond, had faded in the years since her death. but now she rejected it outright. with every ounce of her considerable will, as when she was sick, and against all probability; Viola would not go.

the Eldest of Willoughby's Daughters, once Lady Lloyd of Bly, remained, some would whisper, by stubbornness alone.

the pull of that next would ignored, she instead made her own gravity, gravity of will that would change the terrain of Bly Manor forever.

and once again, she would Sleep;

she would Wake;

and she would Walk.

as if woken from a nightmare, she would Walk back to her home, feeling each time that it was a dream. feeling that if she Walked to her bedroom, to the room she once shared with her husband, her infant daughter, that perhaps the nightmare would abate; that she could simply slip into the warmth of blankets and nestle herself to the bosom of her family, waiting for her all this time.

and she'd stare at that empty bed, and Viola would remember. and the remembering itself was injury anew. her heart would shatter anew, burning in her bosom. a searing ache that she hoped would be quenched by the cold, muddy waters of her new manor; her new home.

thus, she would Sleep. and she would forget.

having forgotten, she would Wake.

She would walk.

How many nights, how many Walks? she could no longer count. her attention lay only ahead, only on the bed that was her goal, and on the daughter she believed, each time she Woke, would be waiting for her there.

She did not even realise that a decade had passed. not even realise, after an outbreak of plague in the village, that the empty manor had become a quarantine for the coughing death that ravaged her former community.

Where is she?

what are you doing in here? it isn't safe. you mustn't be in this wing without protecti-

Where?

as the plague doctor died, so he was immediately forgotten, and a strange phenomenon occurred. her gravity, it seemed, her invented gravity that held her to the grounds, that kept her in purgatory, it would hold others, too.

she would Sleep, and as happens when one dreams, she would forget.

and having forgotten, she would Wake.

she would Walk.

Viola faintly noticed her own attempt at exorcism. and alas, the poor vicar, the second person to find himself in Viola's path.

and she would Sleep. and forget, and forget, and forget. and with the forgetting, an ailment altogether monstrous.

all things fade. all things. flesh, stone, even stars themselves. time takes all things, it is the way of the world. the past recedes, memories fade, and so, true, does the spirit. everything yields to time, even the soul.

Wake, Walk, forget even more. her name, forgotten. her sister's name, forgotten. as her memories left her, so, too, her face. so little did she remember.

but one night, she found a child in her daughter's old bed, and could not remember who she had been hoping to see. she had only the faint notion that she'd walk this far hoping to find a child, and here was a child. it must be the child whom she'd sought. it must.

she would Sleep, and she would fade, and fade, and fade. and the others, too. those souls held in her orbit. those unfortunates trapped in the gravity well she had made of bly manor. they were fading as well.

the Eldest of Willoughby's Daughters, once Lady Lloyd of Bly, now just a thought. just a feeling, not a woman at all, not a person at all, not a name or a face.

just need, Need. and loneliness, and rage.

her fate was a nightmare. a fate that be befell all trapped at bly. a fate that befell Viola's once sister, now forgotten in the attic, unaware that she'd ever had a sister at all. to murder, or be murdered by.

a fate that befell anyone unfortunate enough to step into her habitual path. a fate that befell a poor valet, so many years later. a fate that befell even those who died of other causes at bly, who found themselves in the grips of Viola's gravity, even if never in the grip of her icy hands.

no hope for anyone with the sad misfortune to die on the grounds on bly. no hope for the victims of bly, be the victims of fate, of vice, or disease, or of each other.