Obscurity, The First Chapter
In which we meet Monsieur Le Propriétaire at his death bed.
e last read The Prologue, in which a mysterious woman turned up at the Plantation St. Vincent.
The brewing melancholy outside seemed to quiet as the cloaked man escorted the young woman into the estate—the night sinking its teeth into their skin as they followed the abbess down narrow corridors, through winding passages, and up creaking staircases, a single candle lighting their way through that perfect stillness.
Hushed voices followed them where they walked, whispered prayers lost from the mouths of the nuns who kept vigil, their words wandering against the walls until they could be heard no longer. At last, a heavy wooden door sealed them in silence as they found themselves in the bedchambers of the baron of the estate—the air shrouded with infection and sickness.
A large four-poster bed, Gothic in its carving, was draped with a red velvet canopy and laden with red velvet quilts—the man beneath them tortured by the weight of his own demise. Blackened veins coursed through his pale complexion, his face was contorted in agony, and his blood seeped into his sheets from some unseen ailment.
The woman knelt by his bedside, removing her silk gloves that he might take her hands. His lips were rough, calloused with the dread of the dead, his breath hollow as the air in an ancient crypt. With that stale kiss upon her hand, she bowed her head in penitent prayer by his bedside, that his soul might seek rest, and her own absolution.
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