Under the Veil

Ethan loomed over the counter methodically scrubbing and stacking dishes in the cold, antiquated kitchen of his family's Victorian farmhouse. The plates and bowls clattered against the chipped porcelain of the large apron sink as he stared out the rain-speckled window, the steam from the near-scalding water obstructing his view. He reminded himself he should check the boiler in the basement - the stark contrast between the cold house and the searing hot water required some attention, yet another to-do on his never-ending list. He huffed, unsuccessfully trying to blow the streak of brown hair away from his face. His old linen work shirt was unbuttoned and hanging loosely at the neck, partially revealing his chest and prominent clavicles. Dried mud on his boots was crumbling off and leaving a path of dirt on the floor, which he knew he'd get an earful about at any moment.

"It's getting pretty dreadful out there," he called to his sister who leaned over the kitchen table, scrubbing and wiping it clean. While she was four years older and had helped raise him for much of his life, these days Ethan found their roles to be somewhat reversed. "We ought to go around and close up the windows, it's quite cold."

"Yes." Lily barely whispered with a hint of her mother's Irish accent. She had become so terse and distant over the last few years. Her rich auburn hair shrouded what once was a glowing, vibrant visage in waves of copper, masking her deep green eyes, rosy lips, and lightly freckled nose and cheeks. Her modest apron dress, which she wore as often as she could, did little to conceal her delicate but shapely figure. While Ethan was thin and lean like his father, Lily was blessed with her mother's ample physique. She finished with the table and raised a boot to the chair to refasten its long laces, revealing the soft, milky skin of her upper thigh, "You're getting dirt everywhere, Ethan," she remarked, dropping her foot to the floor in protest and stomping out into the hall.

Ethan listened to the familiar sound of footsteps making their way up the stairs as he finished up with the dishes, wiping his hands on an old rag and tossing it over the lip of the sink. He stood, arms crossed, and observed for a moment. The house was so quiet even in the storm that howled outside. Its weathered white walls danced with shadows cast by the dim, flickering gas lamps. The sagging wooden floors were worn with time and sparsely covered by ornate old rugs. And the windows, those damned windows, shuddering with each gust of the wind and echoing down the halls with the unnerving, unending tapping of writhing tree branches. It wasn't the same without their parents there, the house itself had sunken into a depression as if it had died along with them.

A loud thud upstairs shook Ethan from his trance, sending down a puff of dust and plaster from the aging ceiling that he batted out of his face with the wave of a hand.

"Lily! Everything alright up there?" He yelled from the kitchen. He closed his eyes in anticipation of a snarky and incomprehensible shout from upstairs when a soft-spoken response from behind caught him off guard.

"I'm fine. Why?"

Startled, Ethan looked over to see his sister standing in the doorway leading out of the kitchen into the hall.

"Were you not just upstairs? Shutting the windows?" He was perplexed.

"No... I've been down here." She gave him a curious look.

Ethan shrugged, "Must've been the wind."

Lily rolled her eyes as she turned back to finish what she was doing. Ethan watched as she drifted off into the shadow of the unlit living room.

"I'm going to check the boiler in the cellar, the water is damn near scalding!" He shouted after her.

"I'm cold." She faintly said from across the hall, "always so cold."

Ethan sighed, "...and the furnace, I suppose," turning to the larder door in the kitchen. The knob was cold and stiff as he struggled with it. After a bit of fidgeting, it finally clicked and the door begrudgingly swung open, allowing Ethan to step into the dank little room. The shelves were dusty and empty but for a few old cans and some wilted, dried-up carrots. He didn't like going in there anymore, Lily kept all they needed to be stored neatly in the kitchen cupboards. The trapdoor to the cellar was situated on the floor at the back of the pantry. Ethan knelt down beside it, brushing a single black feather away from the latch as he reached to open it. Odd, he thought but carried on.

The door crackled as it popped open, releasing a puff of stale air. Ethan groaned at the moldy taste and covered his face before lifting the door the rest of the way, leaning it up against the wall. It was dark. And damp. And cold. A faint amount of moonlight was coming in through the cracked and dusty cellar windows that lined the upper portion of the walls, not quite enough to safely navigate the cluttered area. An old lantern hung on a pillar at the base of the stairs leading down from the pantry. Ethan cautiously approached it, pulling a book of matches from his pocket. He reached out, and upon touching the lantern his hand shot back to his side... it was warm. Not so warm that it burned, but enough that it startled Ethan. Warm enough to seem as though it had recently been used, but neither Ethan nor his sister had been in the cellar for some time.

He very slowly reached out again, his long fingers trembling, testing the temperature of the lantern nervously... yet to his surprise the lantern was cold - as cold as it should be, hanging down there in the icy darkness of the cellar. His face contorted in confusion. Plucking the lantern off its hook, Ethan struck a match to light it. A cold draft in the cellar doused the first flame, but his second attempt had the lantern emitting a soft glow. He eyed it suspiciously, watching the flame dance in its glass cage. A subtle amber light faintly spread out and splashed against the vaulted pillars and walls, leaving columns of cold shadows wavering in the faint illumination. The furnace sat ominously at the far end of the cellar, hulking and black and seemingly older than the house itself. Just next to it sat the boiler in question.

Ethan approached them slowly, being careful not to knock over the buckets and tools scattered about the cellar. A pile of dusty old wood sat off to the side, Ethan cringed at the thought of picking through the lumber, it was probably crawling with all sorts of nasty things, but he'd never hear the end of it from his sister if he didn't get the house warm soon. He lay the lantern on the floor just to his side so that it would cast its light across his area of work. The pile of wood splintered and cracked as he pulled piece after piece from it, each one trailing with wretched cobwebs and dust. He grimaced with every effort to move them, yet before long a decent-sized pile lay ready to toss into the furnace. At least enough to last through the night. He turned to his left, reaching for the iron hinge of the furnace door, but paused just as his hand made it to the latch. Scattered about the floor before the furnace door lay an arrangement of clean, black feathers. Reaching down to investigate, he picked one up, twirling it in the lamplight. How curious, he thought.

Intrigued by the presence of more feathers, Ethan left the pile of wood and picked the lantern back up. He walked slowly across the dusty floor, holding the sole source of light before him with a single black feather in the other hand.

"How did you get in here," he pondered to himself.

He cautiously moved from window to window throughout the cellar, taking note that many were cracked and worn, and some even ill-fitting in their frame, but none so damaged or displaced as to allow a bird into the cellar. He reached up to wipe the grime from one of the windows when a sudden, loud metal clang jolted him out of his wonder. The feather dropped slowly to the ground as Ethan shakily held the lantern out toward the furnace. Its door had swung shut, damping out any trace of its dwindling flame.

As Ethan began to make his way back to the furnace, a sliver of light beamed across the floor as the trap door above noisily creaked open, "Are you done fussing about? It's getting colder by the minute, what's taking so long, Ethan?" Lily beckoned into the darkness.

"It's - yes, I'm almost done, Lily. The... furnace door is giving me trouble. Has a mind of its own, it seems." Ethan replied, stepping into the light cast by the open cellar door and gazing up toward his sister, the light behind her illuminating her hair with a crimson glow.

"Well... I'm cold. And hungry. We should eat soon." She offered.

"Yes, Lily. I'll be right up."

"And don't forget the boiler."

"Yes, Lily," Ethan replied, unnerved by the eerie happenings in the cellar. He'd have to look into it more later. For now, the siblings had their usual, lonely evening routine to get through.

--

As they sat across from each other sipping the hot, brothy stew Lily had prepared, there was little conversation. Lily stared emptily out the dark window while Ethan gazed into his bowl, stirring the remnants of the stew and pondering the feathers that had strangely appeared around the cellar. The sound of rain and tree branches thrummed against the glass, adding an unsettling din to the otherwise silent house.

"Ethan?" Lily broke the silence.

"Yes?"

"Will you sleep downstairs tonight?" she asked.

"Again?"

"Ethan..." she persisted.

Ethan exhaled deeply, hanging his head over his bowl. He had already helped his sister move from her room upstairs into the larger bedroom downstairs. Chopped more wood than he'd ever remembered chopping before to keep the house, and Lily, warm. Fixed the boiler and the furnace, cleaned the kitchen, fed the animals, and fixed the stubborn bathroom door. His one retreat, his one place of solace, was his quaint but comfortable bedroom upstairs at the end of the hall. A place of respite where he could bury his mind in his books or get lost in one of his detailed pencil sketches -- the only time could escape the endless duties of keeping up the house, the barn, what was left of the animals and crops, and most recently, his older sisters uncharacteristic new display of incessant neediness.

"Yes, Lily." He replied lamentably, "but just tonight."

"It's just the storm. It -- it makes the house... unsettling," she shifted in her chair, "the noises. I just feel safer, Ethan."

"I know, Lily. It's alright. One more night," he knew when to give in.

"Thank you, Ethan. I'll make the sofa comfortable for you. Shall I light the fire?"

"I think I'll be fine," Ethan replied, getting up from the table to put his dish in the sink. He stood there a while with his empty bowl in his hands, staring out the window. How long would they go on like this? Sad, alone, afraid, barely holding on to what was left of their family estate. As he wallowed in uncertainty, an odd shape caught his attention just on the other side of the glass. Or was it in the glass -- a reflection? He squinted, looking closer...

"Fuh--!" he gasped, dropping the bowl into the sink and sending silverware clattering to the floor.

"Ethan!" Lily shouted, standing up and knocking over her heavy wooden chair.

"I..." he shook his head and stared back out the window, "there was -- I saw..."

"Ethan, what is it, you're scaring me?" Lily demanded, her voice beginning to tremble. The last thing Ethan needed was for Lily to be more uneasy and uncomfortable than she already was.

"Nothing, Lily. I'm sorry. I scared myself with my reflection," he said, trying to convince himself. "I think I'm just tired. One can only sleep on a sofa so many nights in a row and still keep their wits about them..."

That last little quip upset Lily, making Ethan flinch in regret as she stormed out of the room without clearing her plate or saying another word. He heard her door slam shut at the end of the hall.

"Ugh," he sighed. "Another lovely night at Fynch Manor."

Returning his gaze to the window, Ethan's jaw tensed. He knew that wasn't his own reflection, but what could it have been all the way out here? An owl? One of the goats? Perhaps is just the steam from the sink fogging up the glass? Whatever it was, there was no trace of it now, and it was far too miserable to go out and investigate any further. He shrugged it off along with the rest of the oddities he experienced that evening, too exhausted to try to comprehend anything outside of apologizing to Lily and sinking into sleep.

Dousing the lamps that hung all down the long, portrait-laden hall, Ethan made his way toward Lily's room. The door was still shut with a faint light peeking out from underneath. He knocked softly, "Lily?" he waited for a reply, "Lily, I'm sorry if I made you feel bad about the sofa. I -- I didn't mean it. I hope you know that."

Not receiving a reply, he turned back down the hall toward the sitting room, figuring he ought to make his own bed on the sofa at this point and deciding he didn't need the fire. The sudden sound of running water gave him pause midway down the hall. Lily must have decided to draw a hot bath, her own way of escaping reality when she was upset or frustrated. A tinge of panic crept up Ethan's spine as he prayed he hadn't turned the boiler down too much -- he was already in trouble as it was.

Steam slowly filled the bathroom as Lily sunk into the tub, her hair spreading out across the surface of the water like fiery tendrils. She submerged herself up to her nose, releasing an exaggerated breath and slowly closing her emerald eyes. The soothing water was the perfect temperature thanks to Ethan's efforts in the cellar. The thought sent a stubborn huff of bubbles up from her pouting lips. Her eyes opened and drifted up to the ceiling, recounting the events of the evening. She was so quick to flame. She thought of poor Ethan in the other room, probably reprimanding himself over the remark and dreading their next encounter. As irked as she was, she loved her brother dearly. He was truly all she had left -- she ought to be at least a little easier on him. A smirk crept across her lips as she reached for a sponge. I'll let him suffer a little longer, she thought, lathering the sponge with the soap she had painstakingly made with fresh herbs from her greenhouse. The dim candlelight in the bathroom relaxed and soothed Lily, and she noted how the light danced on her glistening, wet skin. She slowly sat up, gliding the sponge over her curvaceous form, teasing at her flush, pink nipples, and opulent breasts. The sponge sensually found its way between her legs, massaging the scent of lavender and rosemary into the soft, pale flesh of her thighs. For now, she would enjoy the old claw-footed tub and time to herself.

On the other side of the door, Ethan listened to the faint moans and whimpers coming from the bathroom. He winced in regret, berating himself for having upset his sister enough to make her retreat to the bathroom and sob. He raised a hand to the door to knock but decided it would probably be best to leave her to herself the rest of the evening. He buried his hands in his pockets and retreated to the sofa, hoping for a decent sleep and a better day tomorrow.

The night slowly crept on as the storm grew even more fierce outside. Ethan tossed back and forth on the sofa trying to find a comfortable nook to sink into. He found himself wondering how Lily was doing when a cold draft from the chimney swept across the room, making him question his earlier decision not to light a fire. That was it.

He got up, kicking the thin sheets to the floor in frustration. He sat there a moment, his head in his hands, knowing the list of things to do the next day would be impacted by his lack of sleep. A creak in the floorboards down the hall snapped him out of his misery -- was Lily up? Ethan turned toward the hall, but it was drenched in shadow. He slowly got up and walked toward the sound, peeking his head around the corner and peering down the hall. Lily's door was shut, but he could swear the sound came from somewhere between her room and the parlor room he was in. He quietly made his way down the hall toward the stairs, stopping at Lily's door for a listen... nothing. Quiet as ever. He carefully turned the knob and cracked the door just enough to peek in -- the sound giving him some alarm as he saw Lily turn in her bed, throwing a slender, silken leg over the side. He held his breath and gently pulled the door closed, sure not to make another peep. Straining his eyes to catch any glimpse of light he could, Ethan made his way up the stairs, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Having navigated the creaks and groans of the stairs, Ethan searched the second-story room by room. For what, he had no idea, but felt the reassurance that there was truly nothing there was worth the trouble. His hand hesitated as it grasped the tarnished knob of the door to his parent's room. He knew nothing, and no one had been in there for... some time. Still, he turned the knob and pushed the door inward. He was met with stale air and eerie silence. The finger-like shadows of tree branches in the moonlight danced across draped furniture and a large, hauntingly empty canopy bed. Its sheer curtains billowed in the draft from the open bedroom door and a cold sensation of goosebumps crept up Ethan's arm - was the doorknob getting colder? He pulled the door shut with a sigh, leaning his head against the door in mournful thought. Did his parents question every bump in the night? Were he and Lily ever so uneasy before? He missed the days his sister took care of him, comforting him in their parent's absence, making his meals, washing his clothes, reading to him, and actually talking to him. As he grew out of his awkwardness and into a capable young man, she became more and more distant. Perhaps she thought he didn't need her tenderness anymore, her near-motherly love and compassion, but Ethan still yearned for it. He needed it. She was all he had now.

He pushed away from the door and continued to the next room. The door was ajar as Ethan poked his head into Lily's old bedroom. The faintest scent of lavender still lingered in the air but it was otherwise barren, save for a chair in the corner and a few articles of clothing strewn about. Ethan stepped into the room to pick up the clutter and bring it to the laundry but stopped short as a strand of delicate lace and thin straps unfolded from the bunch... he felt a rash of heat in his cheeks, realizing these were his sister's undergarments. He quickly shoved them into the crook of his arm in embarrassment and left the room.

Ethan's final stop was his own dwelling. His quiet, clean, organized, sensible room. The octagonal window on the opposite wall projected a beam of geometric moonlight onto the floor before him. His easel sat off to one side of the ornate window, his bed to the other. The remaining walls were adorned with bookshelves, sketches pinned to the wall, and a quaint but sturdy desk. He sighed a breath of contentment, taking in the scent of wood and books and leather. As he gazed longingly at his comfortable bed, he felt an odd tingle at the back of his neck.

"Ethan!"

"Wha--?! Lily! What on Earth!?" Ethan exclaimed as he spun to find his sister lingering in the doorway. Her fiery hair and sheer white nightgown were faintly illuminated and near-translucent in the soft glow of moonlight, catching Ethan off guard as he took in the stunning shape of her silhouetted figure.

"What are you doing?" she continued, her eyes fierce and disappointed all at once, "you told me you would sleep downstairs, Ethan. At least be honest, if you had no intention just tell me!"

"Lily I-- ", Ethan tried to explain but Lily was having none of it. The light caught her gown again as she spun around and left the room, once again illuminating the fine curves and soft shapes of her exquisite form beneath the sheer material. Ethan grit his teeth in frustration and woe. The house would be absolutely miserable the next few days with how things were panning out.