𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡

Joy tickled the twins like a pair of ballerinas attending their first dance recital—a happiness that surfaced with each rare occasion that their father might feel particularly tolerable that day. Only they had never attended a recital, much less one with him in tow. Annabelle, being the most affectionate of the two and, quite frankly, the one who ofttimes curbed Gascoigne’s wrath, was a bundle almost too sweet to stomach. Calmed and still, she looked like a deflated birthday balloon—the weight of her lashes comparable to the gravity threatening to pull her knees to the floor. She did little else but trace the embroidery of her father’s garb in soothing strokes. Isabeth, however, fought the sleep, her swollen, weary eyes moored to dark silhouettes shifting back and forth in the lightless kitchen. From over Gascoigne’s shoulder, past Mabel, she could almost make out the shape of a woman: a tall figure with a tremendous ball gown. She appeared to be weeping, bent over like a toppled Γ whilst cradling her face in her palms. Only there was no face to hold. Her head had been lopped off at the throat. The macabre presentation didn’t disrupt Isabeth’s concentration. She’d witnessed worse things. Like the time her pet rabbit, Mopsy, wriggled loose from her cage and got her leg snared between a stone crevice constituting one of the manor’s many hearths. The poor creature squealed and screamed, flopping and kicking. In Isabeth’s frantic, near-petrified state, all she knew to do was pull. Pull and pull, trying to free her floundering Mopsy from the mouth of a roaring fire, until white fur bled red and skin and tissue shredded from bone in thin, fibrous filaments. With a quarter of the hapless bunny torn from its attachments, Beth hurled back onto the floor, a gush of blood and intestines slopping like leeches across her nightdress. That had nearly been three years ago. Still, the memory of warm wetness seeping onto her belly stuck with her like time hadn’t aged it. Nor did time interfere with Isabeth’s readily accepted role as troublemaker. No, not troublemaker. But rather, fearless valiant—an adventurer of sorts. It had been her idea to elude Professor Crow tonight, and even now, at the risk of her father’s fury, she’d do it all over again. “A magic trick?” Annabelle inquired earnestly, her mitts wadded into tight fists, rubbing her eyes. The shrill sound of her sister’s voice pulled Isabeth from her dark reverie. Both maidservants had gone. It was now just the three of them and the ghosts looming in the hollow hallways. “Magic trick?” Beth repeated. “What magic trick?!”

Hesitancy lapped the first few droplets of courage building within the girls’ bellies, but Annabelle’s tentative approach was the first to leap for her father’s embrace. “Mind your step,” the keeper called after her, and without another moment’s delay, Isabeth followed suit, the two draping Gascoigne’s shoulders in separate pairs of silken sleeves. Clinging to the ill-tempered warlock like they hadn’t seen him since early spring. Such a sight was a fresh breath of air, even for a hardy old hag. The creases in the old woman’s forehead softened with her eyes, and her expression settled for something a little less dry. For much of her life, Eleanor Grimshaw had only known servitude. Her father was a poor man, and her mother perished with the scourge that plagued the entire northern half of France just eight years after she’d been born. At age sixteen, she met Yusuf Carcassonne and his wife, Cornelia Carcassonne—the first two to have the chateau built back in 1700. Where Gascoigne considered himself old, Ms. Grimshaw was ancient. For a long time, she’d watched children, and their children’s children, grow to renew their family’s namesake. Feeding, clothing, and caring for each familial generation until they could dictate lives of their own. Well before her current master even became a thought in his mother’s mind. “Can we sleep in your bed tonight?” Annabelle had her face buried in the crook of Gascoine’s neck, her breath a gentle gale against skin as pallid as hers. Isabeth, on the other hand, kept her chin perched atop his opposite shoulder, both still clutching him tightly. “We’ll promise to behave…” The two appeared utterly fatigued, their father’s presence and lullabied vow having soothed them into submission. In the midst of all this, a new pair of heels came clapping down the hallway from which direction Eleanor was facing, and with them, firelight glinting from a handheld lamp. “Mabel, clean all of this up for me, will you, please?” The newly-arrived redhead idled there for a moment, her brows stitched with worry, not a single rumple appearing on her youthful canvas. Having heard the recent commotion, she glanced worriedly at the girls, then at the muddled mess on the floor. "Quickly, now,” the eldest keeper urged. “Y-Yes, of course, Fräulein! Right away.”

The intrusive sound of ceramic fragments pealing across the floor sent a small cloud of dust billowing through the air. The noise rang loud and far, amplified by, what had been for decades, desolate passageways and deserted chambers. Both twins flinched as scalding hot liquid dappled their exposed ankles, spurring them to stagger back two steps before they exchanged a knowing glimpse. The disquiet on their sun-starved faces meant they knew they were in trouble, and just when the silence became a sliver too much to bear, they pleaded beneath their father’s snarled sneer. “Don’t let Scrapbeak take us.” “Please, papa?” “He’s going to unstitch us.” “And stitch us back together,” they finished simultaneously. “Nonsense,” a voice cut in from behind the girls, old eyes snatching a peek at Gascoigne’s galled guise. It was Ms. Grimshaw—one of the eldest keepers in the manor and something of a surrogate to the offspring. There’s no telling how long it took her to get here. She’d come hobbling from the stables occupying the distant tip of the chateau’s west wing with nothing but moonlight pouring in from floor-to-ceiling windows to guide her…only to wind up amid a standoff between father and daughters. “You two should behave for Professor Crow. He travels a long way to provide his services.” Each Annabelle and Isabeth clung to the old crone’s linens, their hands gripping for purchase against her worn, tarnished garb. Ms. Grimshaw stilled, seemingly adapted to the desperation in their cadaverous countenances, before her disappointed gaze settled back on Gascoigne. If there was one person in this entire death trap who could challenge her Master’s misdeeds towards his children, it was her. “Now, all this babel I’m hearing—are you up again, sending your father into another fit? Look at the mess!”

The antique doorknob rattled and popped free from its mortise, only for a mess of locks and two identical heads to peer out from the slim opening. Four eyes scanned the corridor outside their bedroom while two sets of ears tuned to the creaks and groans of the chateau’s gurgling bowels. None of the halls were lit during this time of night, but that didn’t discourage the curiosities of two audacious adolescents with an interest in the dead. From the time they were pulled from their mother’s belly to the time now, most had considered them a peculiar pair. Consequently, being peculiar attracted attention—far more than they had hoped—but none seemed quite as intrigued, nor as fascinated, as the family practitioner. Professor Crow was what the townsfolk called him, but the twins had unique monikers they stood by. Sawbones and Rotwurst were of a few, but Scrapbeak seemed the most prevalent given the Doctor’s hoard of shiny metals. When asked where he accumulated his collection, the girls would shiver. The dead offer many gifts, my children, he’d say. It was enough to explain the noises they’d hear in the early mornings before the sun rose—the scratching and digging in the courtyard tombs all a sign of Professor Crow’s endeavors in search of new trinkets and treasures. Father always told them not to meddle, and, to their indifference, they obeyed. So long as they weren’t strapped to a medical bed and fed serum through a needle or sliced open at the front to have their innards poked and prodded. They’d very nearly come close to that two nights prior when the doctor had last visited, and tonight, he appeared again, provoking yet another game of hide-and-seek. “Not that way,” Annabelle whimpered before gripping her other half by the arm. Isabeth backpedaled, and the two veered to the right, heading straight for the scullery. Scrapbeak wouldn’t think to look there! But that hope withered as a shadow darker than the rest swelled around the end of the hallway.

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Plot Craving(s) 𝑉𝐼𝐿𝐸 𝐵𝐿𝑂𝑂𝐷: 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐵𝐸𝑅 𝑆𝐴𝐶𝑅𝐼𝐿𝐸𝐺𝐸: 𝐴 𝐺𝑂𝐷 𝐼𝑁 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐵𝐴𝑆𝐸𝑀𝐸𝑁𝑇: >>More information/ideas coming soon<<

Time hadn’t been kind to Adalina. Her weak legs, decrepit and unreliable, had been her undoing. All it took was an ill-placed step and a twisted ankle before jaws welcomed her at the end of a backward fall. Witnessing the bloodshed, the slaughter, Jezebel's ghost doubled over and wept in devastation. Her ear-shattering cries transcended the astral plane, felt through her physical body, as tears brimmed the surface of her vision before descending against the collar of the deceased. With each mindless morsel, skin popped around her teeth as if she'd bitten into an underripe apple, arterial spray squirting against the back of her throat in ropes of warm, pungent fluid. Dead eyes peered straight through, and cold lips embraced saturated flesh like a newborn would a wet nurse. Adalina's shrieks and thrashing torso had since tapered into a cacophony of gurgling gags, her corpse convulsing, as precious Bella chewed one side of her neck–masticating muscle and tendon until she reduced the entire structure to minced meat. It should've stopped at that, but it didn't. He wouldn't let it. A tangle of emotions stifled Jezebel's apparition, feeding off her dismay as she watched Hannibal's knees buckle. Watched as her body reciprocated his touch, spine curved, hips arching forward, pressing Ms. Lacrosse ever-closer between them. His mouth tore shreds from the woman who helped raise her and something similar to relief flooded each fissure of his guise. The sight was vile. And soon, that vileness stirred. Darker than blood and thicker than oil, it moved within the vessel of her spirit, its whip-like appendages slithering inside her abdomen. Blindly, it prodded her pallid, see-through frame, probing outward, retreating inward, before spreading its mass throughout her entire soul. Corrupting, changing, consuming. A sharp pain jolts from Jezebel's ankles to her temples, piercing her navel along the way. It stirs her from her stupor for only an instant. And in that moment of transience, Hannibal's hand is in her hair—loosening the pins from her kempt coiffure, spilling it in waves against her back. She can't speak. She can't even move as the image of his profile molds into that of her father amidst their frightening feast. Through the haze of her exhaustion–through a memory she can't be sure is her own–Jezebel is deposited into an unfamiliar room, bare and broken, one leg lifted, and one arm pinned to the fire screen of a burning hearth. Gabriel's eyes hover above, his breath heavy. Sweat shines across his broad, exposed shoulders, his straining muscles, glistening down the length of his spine and the peaks of his undulating pelvis. Pushing, withdrawing, and pushing again. Like a wound healed over, it opens once more, infecting her mind and existence. Heat sears vine-like shapes into her back. She can feel his fingers coiling against her thigh as he thrusts her against the fire, reassuring her that it wouldn't last too much longer, that the pain would all be over soon. It is within these words that she feels his desolation. And in his shuddering movements, he buries himself in a body that is not his. All she can do is stare, shoved against the fireplace screen, hips tilted, eyes peering over Gabriel’s shoulder to settle across the room. Seeing nothing as a sheen clouds her gaze—not with terror or agony, but incurable resignation—a terrifying acceptance of the inevitable. ...He'll come back for you. He always does. Faintly, the hybridization of a groan and a murmur croons up Jezebel's throat. Her soul snaps into her body like a rubber band that'd been pulled too tight, awakening her to a spectacle most alarming. At some point during her recollective blackout, a skirmish ensued, apparent by the way Hannibal had her bruised beneath him on the Chesterfield cushions, her bodice torn and threadbare across her ribs, and the needle-like end of a hairpin trained directly at his right eye. Her pulse shimmers with the living remnants of their kill, biofluids marinating the slender column of her neck and the dip that valleys into a v against her velvet bones. Had Hannibal’s hand not restrained her, Jezebel’s wrist might’ve plunged forth, and with it, the shaft of a particularly unpleasant point.

Jezebel disliked the scrutiny of palpating fingers. It reminded her too much of the inappropriate curiosities her father exhibited once she'd reached womanhood and each menstrual cycle succeeding it. Or when he'd invite strange men to the house and do nothing as they stared with hollow eyes and grinning teeth, forcing her to fend off palms too eager to crawl up her gown. Adalina's touch felt uneasily similar to the rough, covetous hands of church men skirting across her outer thigh, so when the point of contact idled too long against her neck, the lass's modest demeanor succumbed to interjection, and quickly, she eased the woman's arm away. "Call father and tell him I've returned home safe. You’ll do that for me, won't you?” "You’re far from safe, child. Look at this mess! You can’t even hold your head up straight, and you expect me to spit lies?!" A sadness Jezebel couldn't explain poured through her. That's the sole reason she'd thought to beckon the family caretaker in the first place. Right? Knowing Gabriel would be fuming had she not returned home after her piano lesson. Knowing that untruth might curb disaster if she caught Ms. Lacrosse before the news was delivered that his daughter was somewhere she shouldn’t be. Or maybe Jezebel hadn't had any forethought at all and acted on pure, anesthetized disorientation. Or worse, on instinct and self-preservation. Adalina leaned close, her voice a whisper between them. "Mia cara, we need to go. He's flying back from Venice as we speak." “N-no. I can’t let him suspect Hannibal is the cause of this. He’ll—" Hannibal's inquiry cut through their dialog—an intrusion considered highly ill-mannered by the dark-skinned nanny. Ada's expression pickled, glare sour, as her neck twisted to stalk the psychiatrist's approach. But unlike his client on the couch, she couldn't see what gleamed against the atmospheric obscurity. The surge of panic did nothing to assuage an overwhelming sense of anxiety as the shimmer of a syringe snared Jezebel's attention. Those tantalizing blues and knitted brows, the plush, parted lips perfectly matching an exsanguinated, doll-like complexion, and how she helplessly watched as Dr. Lecter crept toward his target… She could see death in the way he denied her his eyes–how guilt captured each feature of his prepossessing countenance. It loomed within the tenseness of his jaw, the stillness of his elbows hooked behind his back, and each calculated step as he positioned himself behind the troubled crone, weapon drawn and ready. However, what drew the scythe ever closer was an encrypted command strung upon his breath. It feathered across Jezebel's skin as if he sat right next to her, breathing down her neck, along her jawline, into her lungs. Corrupting, changing, consuming. "It'll all be over soon," it said, resounding throughout each layer of fear inhabiting her thoughts. Until fear faded, and only the heat of his demand guided against paralyzing darkness. Jezebel couldn't be sure how much time had passed or if time had moved at all. The denseness of her lashes had fallen heavy, and her silver-blue hues resigned to a dull gray, overcome by hypnosis. Unseen claws shackled her limbs and pulled her from her body like a ghost stripped from its shell, hijacked and powerless. This was their design. At some point, Adalina began a barrage of insults, shouting something in Hannibal's face, arms waving frantically. However, his little marionette couldn't hear the words. She couldn't feel her back stiffen or her fingertips carve imprints into her knees, nor could she feel her shaking thighs and quivering stomach. Submerged in a murky haze, begging to regain control of her body, she could only watch from a faraway window outside of herself as both hands and mouth no longer hers seized Ms. Lacrosse and tore a generous bite from her jugular.

Though the delusions were gradually subsiding, it felt as if Jezebel's brain was being stretched, hyperextended, pulled into two different directions. She was weary. Angered, even. Not nearly on the edge of blind rage, but close enough for it to be considered comparable. Tolerating Hannibal's continual dishonesty without speaking against it was humiliating, but what was there to do about it? Physically, he'd overpower her, especially in her feeble state. Mentally, however, his corruption transcended beyond that. This wasn't the first time he'd governed her—sculpting her into a precious marionette. And despite any conflicting emotions, she often seemed to acquiesce in the decisions made by her puppeteer. If only she knew why. Jezebel watched as Adalina crept into the limelight before her attention flitted to Hannibal. She could feel his gaze on the old woman, crawling like painful, probing fingers. Predatory, as he twisted the deadbolt once she stepped toward the center of the room. Shadows danced along the walls, encouraged by the fire-breathing hearth. A dissonant crackling played over mounted speakers, and a large fare beckoned with decorative persuasion. Aside from a bloodstained Persian rug, some misplaced cutlery, and an overturned chair, everything remained unsullied. But the imperfections were enough to provoke Adalina's disdain. "A few lacerations?" The woman's hand gestured to the dark red mess on the floor, disbelieving. "Tell me where she is." "Here," Jezebel said weakly, cringing at the command in Lacrosse's voice. It'd been years since she had heard her this upset. Dark eyes settled on a corner opposite the door, completely enveloped in blackness. Upon closer inspection, Adalina could make out a faint silhouette huddled on a Chesterfield sofa. With an accusing glare, the warden approached in earnest. "Darling, are you alright? Where does it hurt?" Rough, calloused hands—overworked from hours of housekeeping—cupped the perimeter of Jezebel's face, tilting her chin upward to inspect one side of her profile and then the other. Too fatigued to disallow the examination, Jezebel clutched the same bloodied serviette Hannibal had used as a compress. Her injury had nearly ceased its bleeding, though the pain lingered, sending trembling waves up her entire forearm. When no answer came, Ms. Lacrosse's impatience swelled. Carefully, her thumb traced the length of Jezebel's neck, venturing toward the dip where the young girl’s shoulder connected. Analyzing until two parallel lumps, unseen but felt, throbbed beneath Adalina's touch, each topped with a tiny pinprick.

The sight of death saddens me, though I cannot quite articulate why. When I look at you, looking at me, with your deep, burrowing gaze–in fleeting moments, death is all that I can see. The thought came to her, amplified by delirium. It was Hannibal's eyes, how he stared: hungry and intrigued. She could have sworn she saw something writhe behind his retina, glowing black in the firelight, its many limbs twitching like fine, stringy vessels. And when he withdrew, abandoning her like a broken doll on the dining room floor, it was gone, reminding her again of the all-but-intolerable pain shooting across her damaged extremity. "Don't," she implored, her voice barely exceeding a whisper as she pulled herself into a sitting position. "Don't open it." But why? Why feel the need to protect him? He had hurt her. Bound her to a chair for reasons unknown. What if she hadn't woken? What would he have done? Jezebel's attention settled on the thin barrier between them and whatever else lingered on the other side. Subtle raps became a barrage of heavy-handed knocking, beating against the door's framework with an urgency that disrupted an entire quarter of the manor's expanse. Glassy reflections rippled in protest, mirroring the angry canvas of the fireplace's incandescent oranges. Steady streams of rainwater broke from their beaded formations, sliding down the smooth surface of the threshold. The commotion shouldn't have frightened her, but it did. However, what may have seemed a significant threat at first was quickly contradicted by singular stature alone. "Mr. Lecter! Oh, thank heavens you're here!" Standing at Hannibal's doorstep, little less than an arm's length away, was fifty-eight-year-old Adalina Lacrosse, a caretaker of the De Russo ménage. She'd been hired to move to the States as a family-trusted warden shortly after Gabriel had adopted Jezebel. A year later, she and Dr. Lecter had the pleasure of meeting, introduced to each other during a brilliant soirée one winter eve. The food was exceptional, and many other prominent guests, such as the Chief of FBI, Dean Crowley, had joined in on the merriment. Back then, the woman's hair was coal black, her complexion a smooth olive, and eyes an amber brown. Now, streaks of silver-mottled locks barely clung to her scalp, deflecting light beneath a thundering, moonlit sky. Her skin had grown dark and papery with liver spots. Even wrinkles and blemishes tarnished what was once a comely visage. Time seemed unkind, yet still, Adalina carried the momentum she always had. Her voice was no exception. "Sir Gabriel mi consiglia di venire da voi. I can't find Jezebel, and he's worried himself sick." A flash of lighting arced just above the manor, spawning shadows that appeared as monsters lurking behind hedges. The older woman shivered with sudden cold, huddled inside her cardigan as if to disguise any distress regarding what punishment might await her after she’d neglected her duties as Jezebel's caretaker. But when a familiar voice, soft with underlying unease, chimed "Je suis ici, madame Lacrosse," from within the maw of Hannibal’s dwelling, Adalina’s expression shifted. Worry became relief, and relief gave way to suspicion as the silence between herself and Hannibal Lecter grew bitterly unpleasant.

Nervous would've been an acceptable term for her demeanor, yet even that came up short-handed. More accurately, Jezebel looked like a trapped mouse, too panicked to keep still but too terrified to run as she watched Hannibal's profile take on an ominous form. His lips peeled from his teeth in a slow, frightening grin. And though his gaze remained mostly indecipherable, Jezebel sensed his awareness burrowing behind her eyes. Like a voice, it whispered: "Ah, my little Bella. There's nowhere for you to hide." As Hannibal came within breathing distance, the minister’s daughter reacted in a way she hadn't expected. She didn't turn away or sink into temptation but rather intervened—the middle and index finger of her right hand claiming his lips in place of her own. It was a stand-off. One with a pleasant smell as the citrus and woody notes of aftershave intertwined with a more subtle fragrance stemming from sensitive pulse points behind both ears and at the base of Jezebel's throat. She smelled of fresh fruit and blooms, uniquely formulated by Dossier. During the unusual kiss, a shadow played in her peripheral, its large antlers not unlike the gnarled hands of a corpse, reaching from the opposite wall. And though Jezebel's expression brimmed with terror, begging to look away, she kept her gaze glued to the very man stained with her blood. Words struggled to breach the disorderly static of her mind, the tenseness between them amplified by a ticking clock. But when her mouth parted to speak, she was immediately interrupted by three knocks against a glass-paned door nearest their position. Again, tears welled up. She could cry for help, though the thought of jeopardizing two lives aside from her own was a burden too much to bear. And she suspected that for Hannibal, that was yet another gambit in their game of chess.

Roasted pig? A surge of guilt overcame her, and with it, a soft sob, knowing what she'd done and the discomfort she had caused him. But somehow, the look of disappointment and shame in his eyes was all the focus Jezebel needed. It served as an anchor to quieten the chaos, telling her to let go of the knife she desperately clutched within her right hand. After all, it would've proven useless anyway, more likely to be used as a scare tactic to keep him from approaching. Yet that didn't work either… Closing her eyes, the lass expelled a shuddered sigh as if something so simple would make the disaster disappear. In her mind, it did. At least long enough for Jezebel to enter a state of calm–a disciplined behavior Lecter had taught her over the years. There was an uncomfortably lengthy pause, tears slipping from the corners of Jezebel's lashes as her fingertips flexed within his, trying to encourage circulation. Her wrist, the back of her hand, was entirely marred, chewed up like she'd stepped into the forest to pet an angry bear. A pitiful chuckle escaped her at the thought. At least there was one positive out of all of this. She hadn't worn makeup today. When Jezebel finally inhaled, she was flooded by the subtle pleasantry of Hannibal's cologne, further stimulating focus and repose. "I'm a terrible guest, aren't I? Even the remnants of my sanity tell me so..." Wincing, Jezebel's shoulders tensed, her upper back arching slightly in search of a comfortable position. After a failed attempt, she settled again, her neck easing back against Hannibal's thigh. "Self-medicated," she uttered, correcting his presumption. "Though poisoned seems fitting, doesn't it?" At least, that's what it felt like at this point. Like she'd poisoned herself in an ironic endeavor to stave off frequent nightmares, only to make her hallucinations worse. The humor of that notion was dark. And in a situation so dire, humor was often used as a coping mechanism. For Jezebel, it took away the pain, the humiliation… But, more than that, it took away the fear of confronting him. "I'll pretend my instability is why you restrained me to the dining room chair." The delicacy of her voice had grown grim, her eyes now open–glassy with the fogginess of drug-laced veins. Still, the look she gave was one of knowing—a look bolstered by bravery and intoxication. With measured motion, Jezebel's free hand gripped his, pulling it away from her hairline and tucking it against her beating sternum. Her cold touch formed a loose shackle around Hannibal's wrist, not nearly tight enough to stop him if he tried something. She knew he could strangle her if he wanted to, but something told her he wouldn't. Not because he'd think it wasteful but because beyond the void of his gaze, something in his eyes possessed more compassion than that. As if he wouldn't want her to feel while he was killing her. Or so she thought. Jezebel's teeth clenched, her breath trembling with the uncertainty of what she was about to say. "I see you, Dr. Lecter... I see the very man father tried to warn me about…"