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nildespirandum · 2 years

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The Master of the House returns.

18+ ONLY!! Tags found on AO3.

Reblogs are life.

“Oh, Lucille, what have you done to yourself?”

The figure in the doorway would have been tall in most company, straight and true, with a dignity of bearing that was more in line with eras long left behind. Handsome as well, famously so, due to the love and artistry of his wife, whose muse he had been, and whose adoration of his beauty she had shared with the world.

For a moment he waited there, the curl of his dark hair coiling like the smoke from the burning hall, his perfect, while linen unscorched despite the sparks and smut that clogged the air, shaking his head slowly. “Lucille,” he said again, in a voice that was filled with love and goodbye and weary, weary sadness, as if he had pulled himself out of a deep sleep to attend this piece of family business.

The mistress of Allerdale was frozen, staring at the phantom of her long-dead brother. Even the flames that were consuming and recreating her over and over stilled like they were now ice encasing her. One hand was raised, about to snatch a handful of Adam’s pretty lover’s golden hair, to burn her for the unforgivable sin of being correct, the young woman’s face certain, uptilted, though afraid.

A horrific and yet, Loki thought, poetic tableau.

The girl wisely took that still moment to take several steps backward from those fiery fingers, allowing Adam to step between them, looking furious, righteously ready to burn rather than let his lady take harm.

Of course, Loki thought, Adam had always been passionate and filled with fury about one thing or another. When he was not overtaken by his tiresome tendency to gloominess and overthinking.

Musicians, he t’sked his tongue. So moody.

“Thomas,” Lucille spoke, her voice juddering, ash flecking the air in place of spittle. “Thomas,” she swayed towards her brother - his shade or semblance, Loki wasn’t sure which - who neither moved to nor from her.

“Thomas, Thomas, Thomas.”

She made his name a song, a prayer. It was all she could say, perhaps all she would ever want to say.

When her burning fingers rested upon his still, white cheek, it left no mark, as if even she touched him, he was in some way untouchable by her.

“I knew you would come to me. That you would find your way back to our home. To Allerdale. To me. That we would be together forever and ever and ever. That we would dance one last time here, waltz as we did when we were young and then we will sleep together in the clay. Where we belong, wrapt about each other, an unbreakable knot. As you promised me.”

Her broken voice was now little more than a whisper, piping tiny bits of smoke from between her lips.

Loki slipped his hand into Laurel’s, their fingers lacing, and held tight. Monsters loved monstrously, he knew that better than most, and perhaps even Lucille Sharpe deserved a little of his pity, if for the part he had in her making if for no other reason.

Thomas took her filthy hand, all but burned down to the bone, and held it, looking at her with pity, with love, with resolution. “What new madness is this, Lucille? Even in death you will not allow yourself peace. My bones are far from here, with Alice and our children.”

“Lucy, you called me Lucy when you were little and could not say my name,” she leaned her head to his shoulder and rubbed against it, bits of her skin flaking off, as she did, ignoring the words that did not please her.

“Enough, Lucille.” Tenderly, as if not to cause her more harm, Sharpe placed a crooked finger beneath her chin and lifted her ruined face to look at him. “Enough! We were not what you wanted us to be in life, and shall not be in death. I am Alice’s and hers alone. Even now my bones ache for want of her. Even in the sleep eternal.”

Wrenching away from him, Lucille spun, shrieking, the brush of her skirts catching the old, once beautiful carpet on fire in spots. She pulled her ruined hair, hands-full coming loose in her grip, and screamed herself raw, spitting out blood and tissue along with fire from her throat, her false body dying with her house.

“YOU BELONG TO ME ! TO THIS EARTH! YOU CAME TO ME! NOT THAT CRIPPLE! NOT THAT THIEVING WHORE YOU MARRIED! NOT TO THAT FOREIGN LAND! TO ME! TO ME! TO CRIMSON PEAK AND ALLERDALE AND ALL OF THE SHARPE’S BEFORE US!”

Crimson Peak shook, and all of them had to find something to hold on to as it seemed to sink and shudder at its mistress’s distress.

Adam lifted his lover in the air, pressed close to his chest, and Laurel scooped up the still sleeping, last scion of Allerdale from the floor, placing him on a chest of drawers, while Loki stamped on the sparks, hoping that the last drama of the naughty Sharpe children would play itself out quickly. The room was growing hotter by the moment and the illusion falling into greater disrepair than the actual house. Bits of sky, which seemed to be showing false dawn, could be seen through the broken roof and true dawn would not be far behind it.

Presuming it was real time he was seeing and not the false time of Lucille’s broken mind. He had lost track and that was bad fortune for three of them.

“No, Lucille. Not for you,” Thomas Sharpe said, his weary voice as soft as his sister’s was loud. Crossing the room, ignoring or perhaps not even seeing the fire, his leather shoes leaving black prints on the rug, he looked down at his all but identical great-grandson, gently smiling. “He looks so much like Alice.”

With a shriek of rage, Lucille fell, her legs no longer able to hold her, beating the ground so the wood groaned and the sound of her cries causing the fire that was now licking at the doorway, blocked from entering while making their exit impossible, to burn hotter and hotter, the brilliant white reminiscent of the sun.

Loki felt small blisters form on his cheek, Laurel hissed with revulsion as she ducked behind the chest where Mas lay, the pain making her animalistic, and Adam spun about, his broad, leather-clad shoulders hiding his lover while his tangled mane smoldered.

Thomas, paying them no mind, started to touch the boy’s curls, and then stopped, jerking his hand back as if afraid of waking him. Or perhaps soiling him. “Would you take his life, Lucille? Do you truly hate Alice more than you love me?”

Kay, that was Adam’s lover’s name, inhaled hard, as did Lucille, the latter choking on her own bile.

“That is a cruel question, Mr. Sharpe," Kay scolded.

The fire in the doorway dimmed a bit, or perhaps Loki’s eyes had been burned and he was going blind.

“Sir Thomas,” Loki mouthed silently, as it was the wrong time to correct her, but the pedantry in him was deep and had to be expressed even if only to himself.

“I certainly don’t like your sister, at all, but that is a rotten thing to ask someone who is clearly mentally ill.” She tried to get down, but Adam would have none of it.

Only Loki saw Lucille’s head turn slightly at that moment, as if listening.

Thomas looked over his shoulder at Kay and smiled, “We are not kind people. We Sharpe’s. My father was filth, and he married a woman as bad as he was, and they were not even the worst of us. Even Alice could not make me kind, though for her sake I played the part of being a better man than I was and those that came after us are made of better stuff. Too much vicious blood and hate made us, Lucille and me, but this boy is Alice’s.”

In that overly rational tone, Kay started to object, only to be interrupted.

“No.”

The fire wasn’t as strong, Loki was sure of it. When he dared look at it, he could see it was flickering down, a dull orange now, and the space beyond the doorway was black.

Lucille’s voice was all but gone, so it was more of a sound, a rasp that hurt to hear, that clearly hurt her to use, and yet they all knew she said, “No.”

“No. I love you, Thomas. I have only ever loved you, and Allerdale. And though I loved you more, more than I hated mother, or father, or even your … than Alice.” She stopped for a moment, heaving with effort, “Yet, only Allerdale loved me back. Get the boy out of this place. He is too much of Alice for me.” The last had a bit of dismissive hauteur, the final moment of Lucille Sharpe as the lady of the house before she slumped to the ground, barely moving, her flesh of her arms nearly gone from smoke blackened bones.

Thomas spoke to Laurel as he settled himself on the floor beside Lucille. Her hair, what was left of it on her skull, he did stroke, “Will you carry Mas out of this place? I saw you were the one to look after him. I will wait with my sister a while.”

Nodding, Laurel gathered the young man up, just as Kay finally managed to escape Adam’s grasp, even if he didn’t look happy about it.

Then again, Loki thought, Adam rarely looked happy about anything.

Adam went out of the room last, watching the Sharpe’s. Within moments the last of her fire turned what remained of Lucille Sharpe into a pile of ash, shaped like a sleeping lady. As it happened, Sir Thomas began to softly sing, his voice gentle:

Let the wind blow kindly

In the sail of your dreams

And the moon light your journey

And bring you to me

We can’t live in the mountains

We can’t live out at sea

Where oh, where oh, my lover

Shall I come to thee?

Kay turned back, “What are you-”

Adam pointed into the room.

“We have to-,” Kay looked and then gripped the sleeve of his jacket hard enough that her knuckles went white.

Thomas did not look at his sister as he sang, rather he looked across the room at a pale shadow that looked like a woman leaning on a cane. Adam would have recognized Eve’s old, dear friend Alice anywhere, looking as she did in the 20s when he knew her. For a moment she looked away from her husband and inclined her head lightly towards him, as if to say his debt was paid. Then to her husband, she said, in her flat, rational midwestern way, “Thomas, will you never realize that acting as a good man makes you a good man?”

“Perhaps someday, my love.”

The force of Alice’s presence, of her voice, of the faint scent of neroli and linseed oil, and what all of that meant, jabbed through Adam’s heart and head.

Kay was right.

Ghosts were real, this he finally knew.

Lucille turned to grey soot and Thomas grew fainter and fainter, and neither of them could look away. At his last moment, Thomas reached out towards Alice’s shadow, and then they were gone.

And then they had to run as the beams holding what remained of the ceiling, real or imaginary, snapped and fell into the room.

Outside the sky was dark and clear, but Adam could feel the sun threatening to rise.

Mas Sharpe was leaning against the SUV, holding his head, looking almost as confused as he deserved to, while Laurel tried to get him to drink from a plastic bottle that had probably leached bisphenol A into the water and Loki was making a phone call.

No sooner had they all but jumped down from the vast, stone porch when at their backs there were several more loud cracks, like the roof beams had given.

The house began to collapse in on itself.

At first twin, gabled turrets sagged towards each other, creating a broken arch for a moment before toppling. The force of their fall shot broken tile, shattered wooden supports, splintered furnishings, and foul, hot air, like the breath of an old, old man, all out of the open door like the house was screaming for them to go away. To leave it to die in peace.

The force of the disgusting air pushed them backward, Adam grabbing Kay to make sure she didn’t blow away after they fell over.

Crawling, pushing her in front of him towards the relative security of the cars, Adam spat out grit, letting Loki pull both of them into the vehicle which rocked on its wheels as they watched Allerdale fall.

Four more crashes, as the rest of the roof gave out chunks, the walls wavering like they were made of paper, and beneath it all the blubbering, thick sound of the mines. Of the liquid clay sucking like a drain at the stone and brick downwards into sticky depths. Devouring what had been made from its riches, until little could be seen but the spiky peak that had once been above its entrance way and now served as its tombstone.

“I am really sorry about going into the house. Even if I was right about the hauntings. We did get Mas out, and that is what matters, right?”

Kay sounded exhausted and worried.

And elated. Of course.

Adam wasn’t mad. How could he be? As ever, it was his past that had caused the harm, and Kay being Kay and loving every minute of the dangerous chaos was not ever something he would want to be different.

He gathered her against him, kissing the top of her head over and over again, murmuring, “I am just going to have to get used to things like this happening, I suppose.”

Though he knew he wouldn’t.

Please let me know if you want to be on my tag list! Since the tags never work it won’t bother you if you do.

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#Allerdale Hall #only lovers left alive #adam only lovers left alive #crimson peak #sir thomas sharpe #loki au #vampire loki #only lovers left alive fanfic au #the bottom of the hourglass #crimson peak au #perfection #tags on ao3 #ghosts #haunted house #Tom Hiddleston fandom

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marzipanandminutiae · 1 year

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... I've been pronouncing it Adderall

Oh noooo

Nope, I'm sorry to disabuse you of the notion that it somehow had the same name as an ADHD medication, but it is Allerdale.

#ask #anon #allerdale hall

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sinistermaximalism · 1 year

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a beautiful monster part II - Crimson Peak (2015)

"at home we have only black moths. formidable creatures, to be sure, but they lack beauty. they thrive on the dark and cold." - Lucille Sharpe

an addendum to my previous post, because this wasn't really visible in those pictures: the floor of the entrance to Allerdale Hall has a moth motif in its tiles. there are real moths everywhere in the house, symbolising destruction and ruin, and Lucille herself tells Edith that nothing beautiful survives at Crimson Peak - just the dark, cold, creepy things.

#Crimson Peak #sinister maximalism #allerdale hall #gothic #interior design #horror decor #production design #horror interiors

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roguemetalmaster13 · 1 year

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#allerdale hall #fernando velazquez #crimson peak #guillermo del toro #currently listening #Spotify

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goth-maudra · 1 year

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Made a thing to continue our spoopy hall. Got a cheap plastic hand and wooden disc. Painted the hand like a Crimson Peak ghost (I LOOOOVE the Crimson Peak ghosts). Sturdied things up with chopsticks inside. Painted a hallway arch like those in Allerdale Hall. Added a tea light lantern I already had, because we have 3 other hands holding LED pillar candles going down the hall. I like my hall.😊

#crimson peak #allerdale hall #red ghost #guillermo del toro #thomas sharpe #edith sharpe #lucille sharpe #disabled artist #eldergoth #handmade

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aminta · 7 months

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if i lived in the crimson peak house i would NOT let it get that water damaged but maybee that's just me <3

#op #i would treat her right (allerdale hall

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branfraser · 2 years

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Allerdale Hall in CRIMSON PEAK (2015) dir. Guillermo del Toro

#crimson peak #crimsonpeakedit #filmedit #moviegifs #horroredit #perioddramaedit #dailyhorrorfilms #onlyperioddramas #filming locations #1k #*mine

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brokehorrorfan · 2 months

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Crimson Peak will be released on 4K Ultra HD on May 21 via Arrow Video. Guy Davis, the film’s concept artist, designed the packaging for the 2015 Gothic horror/romance.

Master of horror Guillermo del Toro directs from a script he co-wrote with frequent collaborator Matthew Robbins (Mimic, Pinocchio). Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, and Jim Beaver star.

The limited edition set comes with a double-sided fold-out poster, four double-sided postcards, and an 80-page book featuring writings by David Jenkins and Simon Abrams, an interview with Guillermo del Toro, and conceptual illustrations by Guy Davis and Oscar Chichoni, all housed in a slipcase.

Crimson Peak is presented in 4K with Dolby Vision, approved by del Toro, and original DTS:X Master Audio sound. Special features are listed below, where you can also see the full packaging.

Special features:

Audio commentary by director/co-writer Guillermo Del Toro

The House is Alive: Constructing Crimson Peak - Feature-length documentary with cast and crew interviews and behind the scenes footage

Spanish-language interview with Guillermo Del Toro

The Gothic Corridor; The Scullery; The Red Clay Mines; The Limbo Fog Set - Four featurettes on Allerdale Hall

A Primer on Gothic Romance featurette

The Light and Dark of Crimson Peak featurette

Hand Tailored Gothic featurette

A Living Thing featurette

Crimson Phantoms featurette

Beware of Crimson Peak - Walking tour of Allerdale Hall with Tom Hiddleston

Interview with film historian Kim Newman

Violence and Beauty in Guillermo Del Toro’s Gothic Fairy Tale Films - Video essay by the film historian Kat Ellinger

Deleted scenes

Original trailers and TV spots

Also included:

Double-sided foldout poster

Four double-sided postcards

80-page, hard-bound book with writing by David Jenkins and Simon Abrams, an interview with Guillermo del Toro, and conceptual illustrations by artists Guy Davis and Oscar Chichoni

Beginning in Buffalo, New York, during the 1880s, Crimson Peak follows Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), an aspiring writer who is haunted by the death of her mother. Edith’s falls in love with seductive stranger Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), who whisks her off to Allerdale Hall, his baronial, yet dilapidated English mansion built upon a mountain of blood-red clay. Here Edith meets Lucille (Jessica Chastain), Thomas’s sister who at times seems hostile and jealous. As Edith struggles to feel at home in the imposing residence, she gradually uncovers a horrendous family secret and encounters supernatural forces that will help her discover the terrible truth behind Crimson Peak.

Pre-order Crimson Peak.

#crimson peak #del toro #tom hiddleston #jessica chastain #mia wasikowska #charlie hunnam #arrow video #dvd #gift #guy davis #jim beaver #horror #gothic horror #doug jones #javier botet

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cissa-calls · 4 months

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Rewatching Crimson Peak & Things of Focus and Notice:

As a child at her mothers funeral, Edith wears butterfly/moth earrings

Is the pen her father gifts her the one she later uses to stab Lucille? He describes the importance of having “The right tool for the job,” is that foreshadowing for gifting her the tool to begin her escape from Crimson Peak?

Is Edith wearing a butterfly hair clip when she dances the waltz with Thomas?

Lucille’s iconic crimson red gown is so detailed, so beautiful. It represents the skeletal ghosts with its spinal column along the back, crimson peak itself in color, the carapace of a bug on the sleeves and structure, and the upper bodice has trim that blooms outward (present similarly in her blue gown) but is bisected by buttons…creating a familiar shape…a moth?

The candle they hold during the waltz is held at the same level Edith holds her iconic candelabra, a subtle parallel

The trim on the collar of Lucille’s black dress references the spikes and trims of gothic architecture - which is very heavily featured in Allerdale Hall

Lucille says that: “At home we only have Black moths, formidable creatures but they lack beauty.” Knowing the parallel between her and moths, it implies that she sees herself as a survivor and powerful, but something no longer beautiful because of it

Lucille places the butterfly she holds directly into the ants, an action that’s brutal but quick. Is it foreshadowing to her execution of Edith’s death? Something quick for such a beautiful thing, done by her hand?

The LOOK Lucille gives Thomas when they realize Edith’s father knows their past. THE LOOK (JESSICA CHASTAIN YOUR ACTING)

“You seem the more collected one my dear” Lucille is called this. She always holds the mission undetered in her mind, as opposed to Thomas who seems more easily swayed by emotions

When Thomas breaks Edith’s heart by ripping apart her book. He says: “What do you dream of? A kind man? A pure soul to be redeemed? A wounded bird to be nourished?” He is telling her exactly what he is. None of those things, none of the dreams she has built of him in her mind. Not with a past and life such as his.

The significance of gramophones and wax cylinders: it is what plays when Edith’s father is murdered, it is also what saves her from meeting the same fate

I want to know more about Lucille!! Her character is so rich, so so complex, she needs more screen time!!

Need a prop replica of the ring NOW

[the house] “is a privilege we were born into, one we can never relinquish” METAPHOR ALERT METAPHOR ALERT metaphor for the cycles of abuse and trauma they could not break

HOW THE FRICK did I MISS the fact that Thomas’ workshop is in the attic when that was where him and Lucille were locked up as children. SO MANY IMPORTANT SCENES HAPPEN THERE. So many significant to their past we never see, so many ghosts not visible but are so real and present to have caused this

The trail of smoke like red essence that emanates from the ghosts as they walk, like they are still bleeding

Lucille’s hair looks black in darker lighting, but a dark brunette in others. It’s provides a black, dark shroud when she’s in America, and catches more light when she’s in Allerdale Hall

“I like to think she can see us from up there. I don’t want her to miss a single thing we do.” UM MA’AM

“…in time, everything will be right” LUCILLE QUEEN OF FINAL OMINOUS STATEMENTS IN SCENES

The amount I WISH to explore this set. To pry apart each detail and pick apart each piece, so much of it had to be handcrafted pieces for the movie or vintage pieces sourced for it. LET ME IN

THE LIGHTING MUAH

The ghost in the hallway has a rope dragging behind her…is this a gory detail, or an allusion to how she may have died (if not by poison)?

The ghost in Edith’s dream is pointing, though it is never shown to what. Is it to the exit, her warning to leave as all the other ghosts try to do?

The children’s laughter after the presumed scream of their mother’s ghost as she is stabbed, is it just for creepy effect, or did Lucille and Thomas actually laugh after they murdered her?

The scar on Lucille’s lip? Never noticed it before!

Not the first time I’ve noticed it, but the act of her clutching hot steaming food with her bare hands is chilling every single time

Were the bodies of Thomas’s wives left in the vats of clay? I don’t know HOW I didn’t make that connection before, originally i thought it was merely for creepy effect.

Many people villainize Lucille and try to make Thomas out to be solely a victim. But as stated in the wax cylinder, he was fueled by his desire to pay for and make his machine. Him and Lucille are both complacent in using their victims money for their own gain

We need to bring Chatelaine’s back into fashion. That is all.

The scrape of the spoon over the porcelain cup, it screeches and is a subtle way that shows Lucille act of caring has a harshness to it, an unpleasant sound resulting from an otherwise pleasant action: tending to Edith

Such an interesting camera choice to have the camera focus in a circular inwards and outwards

also also Lucille has a temple scar on her forehead?

The small amount of glee Lucille takes saying Edith “thought [she] was was a writer” as she throws the pages to her novel in the fire.

The absolute deadpan, matter-of-fact-ness Lucille has to Edith when she signs the papers “you have nothing to live for” & “mercy killings.” This is a familiar repeated cycle

“Sign your name! Sign your bloody name!” Bloody is not just for emphasis. Edith’s name is soon to be nothing but blood

Lucille’s night gown sleeves as she flies down the stairs in pursuit - like a moths wings fluttering towards its prey

Lucille and Edith fought each other with bare feet on the stone and in the snow

Lucille is the only one of the two who knows how to start Thomas’s machine, because she was the one who witnessed it working

It is only the stab wound on Thomas’ face that bleeds and smokes when he is a ghost, perhaps because it is the wound that bears his betrayal by Lucille, reminiscent of tears of his lingering pain

Edith now has a facial scar, gifted to her by Lucille, who bore ones of her own. It is a passage, a continuing of the cycle, but it is its finale. It is Edith’s souvenir from Lucille, who took her own souvenir (her hair) from the other like a prize

#a very exhaustive list from my most recent rewatch of one of MY FAVORITE MOVIES #crimson peak #many many thoughts #lucille sharpe #edith cushing #thomas sharpe #cissarambles

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my-beautiful-wickedness · 1 year

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Allerdale Hall

#horroredit #horror #crimson peak #crimsonpeakedit #locationedit #my post

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nildespirandum · 2 years

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Lucille chooses to burn.

Tags on AO3

18+ ONLY

Loki had seen absolutely to Laurel’s care and education as an Undead with an exactitude that bordered on the obsessive. He’d had to do it two times, due to what she liked to think of as a glitch in her personal matrix, since things hadn’t gone so well the first time. She understood every aspect of hunting, of feeding, of protecting herself from the sun, and loving the night twice over - for the sake of the day they never got to see as well as for itself.

She learned to govern and revel in her new speed and have an appreciation of the intricacy she could now see in everything from the structure of a leaf, to the workings of the old plumbing in their house which took a great deal of fussing with to produce the amount of hot water Loki required for his - again of obsessive - need for cleanliness. But he had never quite been able to get her used to being so damned strong.

Actually, Laurel thought, carefully hefting Mas’s limp, lanky body from where it sprawled across the faded Aubusson carpet and over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, Loki obsessed over everything he cared about and was immediately bored with anything he wasn’t.

He was tall and skinny enough that she was able to all but wrap him around her shoulders like an exceptionally pretty shawl. “Don’t worry, kid,” Laurel said, patting his golden curls like she might a golden retriever, “we will get you out of here.”

He and Adam’s lady friend would be fine. Laurel was sure that Loki’s plan, the one she was certain he had to have even if he hadn’t shared it with her yet, would get the humans out. However, not being sure exactly what time it was in the real world, she wasn’t as confident about how well the rest of them would do.

There would be a high irony to the idea of the three of them busting out the two humans out of the Gothic maw of Allerdale Hall only to find it was high fucking noon and for them to promptly burst into flames that Laurel felt the universe would not be able to resist.

The door to the sitting room opened and Loki sped in, little more than a black-suited blur, and then slammed shut behind him.

“Did you figure out how to get us out of- what the hell?” Laurel interrupted herself.

Loki’s face was smudged, his impeccable suit was smoldering, and a bland disgruntlement twisted his thin lips, “We have three new problems.”

Laurel waited.

Loki straightened his jacket and cravat, and lifted a pale hand to tick off the points with his spidery fingers. “The first floor of this pile of imagination and rubbish is on fire, and there are no longer any doors.”

“And three?”

“If one looks out the windows we appear to be within a dark and formless void.”

“Then one is not going to look out of the windows. Or go downstairs. Do you at least know where Adam and Kay are?” One of the advantages of having no pulse or heartbeat was there was nothing to race or pound when things got bad.

“They should still be upstairs.”

“Upstairs, farther from the fire? Great, I love it, let's go there.”

Adam stood, long legs unfolding, and then reached down to give Kay a hand up, and then pulled her to him, his long arms wrapping her close, his nose nuzzling her hair, she rested her cheek against the quiet of his thin chest and for a moment they said and did nothing.

Then they both realized they probably shouldn’t waste anymore time, even if what they had been doing was far from wasting.

They were covered in streaks of dirt, and his hair was powdered grey with dust, and she had grit from the floor in a few places that she absolutely did not want grit but Kay had never been happier because she was able to say, with complete certainty-

“I told you ghosts were real!”

The profundity of Adam’s eye-roll was extraordinary even for him. “Really? That is what is important to you right now? That ghosts are real?”

Dusting off her hands with an exaggerated gesture she could feel herself not just beaming at him, but gloating, something that Kay didn’t like to do but felt she’d earned in this situation, “Yep. I recognise we have a lot of problems, but give me this. How often are you wrong about anything other than your living conditions? And I know, we have to find poor Mas, and those people you came with-”

“Vampires.”

“ Really? ”

“Not now, Kay.”

Yes, that could wait.

It would give her more time to come up with questions.

Pulling together her thoughts, Kay paced. As she did, she noticed that she was barefoot which she hated being anywhere other than at home or in Adam’s basement lair, so she made socks appear, and shoes, and because it would be silly to be naked other than ankle socks with small blue and green foxes on them and a pair of black and pink oxfords she also recreated underwear and a matching bra, a black and pink plaid skirt, a white poplin blouse with black buttons, and vest to match the skirt.

“Right. We have to find Mas and your vampires and get away from Lucille and hopefully it won’t be light outside when we leave for obvious reasons - we should tear down some of those tapestries from the hallway to cover the three of you up just in case - as well as -.”

Adam grabbed her arm, leaving dark streaks on her new blouse, and sounded wonderstruck. “How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Making that schoolgirl uniform.”

There was a growl to his voice that was normally reserved for librarian naughtiness.

Kay looked down. Damn it! It did look like a schoolgirl uniform. She wasn’t that young anymore. She changed the plaid to plain black but left the shoes. “Oh, I am controlling reality, or what passes for reality, here. I think that Lucille made this place with her thoughts but because she was alone here it never occurred to her to password protect her verisimilitude. Or something like that. I figured it out while we were having sex. Now do you know where your- what are you doing? You look like you are having an aneurysm.”

Adam’s face was twisted, his teeth gritted so his fangs were cutting slightly into his full lower lip, his eyes were screwed shut, and his hands were in tight fists that would have left his knuckles white if he had any blood in them to begin with.

“I’m trying to make myself something to wear.”

“What? Or, sorry,” Kay was so used to Adam strolling around naked or all but naked she had forgotten that in this situation even he might like a shirt. Despite how nice it would be to see him in a suit or maybe a cardigan, she manifested a plain black t-shirt, a pair of jeans that probably should have been tossed out decades ago, and his favorite boots and leather jacket. She also pulled his hair back in a queue which he promptly shook out with a scowl.

“Why can’t I do that?”

“Because you are a vampire?”

“The woman who built this hell-hole is a … a….”

“You can say it.”

“Ghost,” he spat it out as if it tasted bad.

Kay patted his upper arm consolingly, “I know. It’s hard to change how we perceive the world as we get older. Which is also probably why you can’t do it.”

“Too certain of your philosophical correctness and your disbelief in the supernatural,” came a voice from the door, dark and impassive, almost bored.

Adam stepped between Kay and the entrance to the room.

The couple Kay had seen Adam arrive with were standing in the doorway, with poor Mas who was unconscious and slung over the woman’s shoulders. Now that they had shrugged off whatever Lucille did that convinced people they were characters in her melodrama it was clear to anyone who knew what they were looking at that they were vampires.

Scintillating with that same luminous darkness that Adam and his friend Marlowe had, wearing humanity as a costume, there was however something different about them.

Kay looked up at her lover, frowning, “Why do they have such normal hair?” while at the same moment the woman said, “Cute shoes, the house is on fire, and there is no way out.”

The male snorted and Adam scowled harder. Kay wasn’t sure at which.

Once she had feared fire. Everyone did, even more so in the past, when heat and light came with the risk of destruction. One of the only lessons she remembered learning from her mother was how to lay a safe fire with the massive fireplaces and small stoves that kept the northern winters at bay.

The house breathed through those fireplaces and flues and chimneys, and because she loved it she was ever careful to be certain it would breathe easy.

Yet no matter how careful of a student she had been, receiving the only approbation she’d ever gotten from the hag that spewed her forth at how well she kindled a blaze, it was fire that had consumed her. It had destroyed her home, her cave, her nest, her little safe hole within the vast loneliness of the world, the where that was what she was, the only place where there was comfort and hiding and Thomas.

When he ran from her, with that weak, pitiable, crippled girl who could no more understand or deserve him than she could walk unaided, when he ran from their home, from her, she had welcomed the bullet that had missed every broken piece of her heart. Instead she had fallen, pierced through the lung, not yet dead, and lay with her burns cooled by the red clay beneath Allerdale Hall. Wrapped safely within it until the fire cooked the clay, and then Lucille, encasing her, taking the last of her breath, making her part of Crimson Peak itself.

Fire took them, and then fire remade her. As she burned, Lucille became light and heat and over time they became the strength that was found in hearthfire and inferno.

Perhaps it was all just an illusion, another lie she told herself, Allerdale beautiful, filled with music and laughter and love, a lie she told herself that could not be sustained, she wondered, as she walked through the library, gently touching the gowns and jackets of her guests, who nodded with appreciation as they took light and burned torch-bright in the darkness.

Running her fingers over the keys of her beloved piano, tracing fire with her fingertips so hot that the wires within sprung with dissonance that Lucile danced to alone, she knew she did not care if it was a lie. It was her life and it had again been stolen from her.

This time, she would not burn alone.

This time Alice would burn, and Thomas - the real Thomas and not that pretty bauble of a boy - would know what it was to be alone.

And so she ascended the stairs, her footsteps making the wood smoke and char.

Loki had taken the still unconscious Sharpe scion from Laurel and laid him on the settee that Adam and his little paramour had clearly ignored with their reunion fuck, based on state of the dust on the floor. As he did so the women took care of the introduction, when he heard his name he turned and gave a slight bow.

Then he explained what had happened.

“Why would Lucille decide to burn her own house down? I don’t understand. It’s pretty clear she is obsessed with this place.” Kay said, frowning cutely. “And is it the real house that is on fire, or the one she made up?”

“We have to assume it's both of them,” Adam said, which Loki agreed with in silence as he slowly circled the room, whilst really only circling Kay, intrigued.

Everything about her was rather adorable if one could tolerate that sort of thing, from the shoes Laurel had admired to that little frown. Her stick straight blonde hair was squeaky clean and her outfit looked brand new and perfectly ironed. She was also taking the current madness with an aplomb that he found admirable as well as unlikely.

He had questions about all of that, however before he could ask them Adam snapped, “Oh, I am guessing that someone decided to fuck with her rather than keep his head down so we could sneak the fuck out of this shithole.” Turning, he gave Loki a wrathful look that would have been amusing under other circumstances - he knew that he could defeat Adam handily enough yet the musician had a vicious streak that would make it interesting - and kicked a hole straight through an armoire filled with art supplies.

Laurel crossed her arms and looked at him. Askance. It was an expression he had been used to seeing long since, from her and others. Kay put her arm around Adam but also gave him a reproachful look. He mouthed ‘sorry’ to her, and Loki felt both affection and mild nausea at the sight.

Through his thin shoe leather, through the rug, and the sturdy floor, he was certain he felt heat rising. They were running out of time, a thing that his kind should always have more of.

“I did, perhaps, beard the beast in her lair, as it were, but I was also trying to distract her from yon fair faced youth long enough for you to deal with him, min kona . Members of the Sharpe family irk me terribly. They overstep.” Turning on his heel he looked at Kay, “Would you mind, I find this suit reeks of singed wool. And whilst my Laurel looks lovely in that gown, she might desire something more practical. Unlike us, she is more like your sulky lover and disinterested in fashion.”

A moment later, he wore a modern, slim cut suit, also in black, with a deep violet silk tie and matching pocket square, while Laurel was dressed in a pair of blue leggings, a large grey sweater, and trainers.

The sweater was cashmere, so that was at least something.

“How did you know she could do that?” Adam asked.

“I knew someone had to have done it, and I knew it wouldn’t be you. Playing with the primordial forces of reality would go against your strictly boring philosophical outlook.”

“He didn’t even believe in ghosts,” Kay piped up, earning glare from Adam, “until now.”

“Also, Lucille has made your lover the villain of her little story. The place holder for someone she hates drastically. Considers her mortal enemy, which is a position of no small power. I surmise that level of hate has caused some of the lady of the manor’s power to bleed into Kay, will she or nil she.”

“She thinks she’s Alice Meadows-Sharpe.”

“The painter?” Laurel asked. “Well, at least she thinks you are someone cool. That nude of her husband? Amazing, and hot .”

Kay nodded, “I know, right? He was so-”

Her enthusiasm was quelled under Adam’s glare, whilst Loki considered if perhaps he could recreate the famous work of art for Laurel’s delectation, since she seemed so enthused.

“So wait, if Kay here can do basically what Lucille can do then she can make doors, right, and even make something outside, yes?” Laurel looked excited at the prospect. “Also, thank you for the clothes,” she added to Kay.

“I can make a door. I can probably make a lot of doors. I watch those home improvement shows all of the time. I am hoping to get a midcentury modern of my own at some point,” Kay confided.

Loki fought snorting at the idea of Adam in such a dwelling and instead motioned towards Mas, still blissfully unaware of his potential future as charcoal.

“Hopefully. Right now I think we need to move towards the downstairs, fire or not, and try out our Miss Kay’s abilities, for I am certain time is not on our side. Adam, get Thomas, will you?”

“What do you mean make something outside?” Adam asked, as he hefted His Lordship over his shoulders none too gently.

Before Loki could answer, the door to the studio opened again, slamming against the wall, so every painting in the room fell from the walls, wood breaking, canvas tearing, and flame curled in around the frame like grasping hands.

Within the frame of fire Lucille stood, her gown no longer red satin, but rather writhing sheets of fire winding about her, her dark masses of hair now mimicked by smoking pouring from her scalp, when she spoke her tongue was a lick of flame.

Her face… her face was a horror of burns and keloids and in places where her skin had burned away even her skull was embedded with sparks.

Loki threw up a hand to spare his eyes from the painful brightness of her, pulling Laurel to him, pushing her face against his chest.

Whatever words she directed to Kay, who she flowed towards with the grace of the element itself, were garbled and spit out with clots of smoke and burning meat. With such speed that even Loki could not see him move, Adam was between them, holding Mas Sharpe by his neck like a doll, thrusting his limp body toward Lucille.

“Try it and I’ll pull his head right the fuck off his neck.”

With eyes that were all but boiling out of her face, Lucille did not bother to look at the young man, her eyes were for Kay alone, and she laughed, a horrible, choking cough. She reached out with her burning touch towards the boy, who Adam quickly tossed away, back to the scant safety of the lounge he’d been on before.

Clearly she was no longer under the illusion that this Thomas was her Thomas, even if she still seemed to see Alice in Kay.

From everywhere around them the house groaned in pain as glass shattered in windows that bowed and gave in the heat, furniture cracked and fell under its own weight as the legs burned out from under heavy, ancient pieces, the roof moaned and its tiles fell and shattered, and scorching air ripped through the system of flues and chimneys with a sound like the wail of a woman being murdered.

Lifting her hands, fingers arched as if to play Mozart, Lucille pulled at the fire that played about her, dressed her, filled her, and her hands turning to face each other, a ball of flame formed between them, growing larger and larger as she slowly drew her hands farther and farther apart, all of the while speaking in that unintelligible manner.

Loki saw Adam’s hair and clothing begin to smolder, and noted with some concern his were as well. Laurel struggled free of him, turning to face Lucille, eyes blinking in the smoke but ready to fight.

And Kay?

He was astonished, a rare sensation for Loki, that she seemed to understand what Lucille was saying. She crossed her arms and spoke in a snippy, pedantic tone, “That is all well and good, but this ISN’T your house, is it? It’s his.”

She nodded towards the burning door, and from behind the swirling smoke and sparks a voice, clear and deep as the dark water that pooled in the Cumbria hills could be heard, speaking in tones of sad reproach.

“Oh, Lucille, what have you done to yourself?”

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