The Ghost Of Poent Rage

Author's Note: This short story is now published in the literary magazine, “Lilac Blossom.” Copying, pirating, or claiming this work as your own and using it to feed AI generators in any form is strictly prohibited. Thank you.

The bitter winds clawed across the Yorkshire moors like a bitter memory, the skies hanging low with the promise of storm. The vast grounds housing the abandoned estate of the late Mr. Blackthorn Vale, now to be inherited by the only remaining mistress of the now dwindling ancestry. With rumors swirling about her mysterious nature, it easily unsettled even the most resilient staff members as she showed up to the estate with just a single lacquered case and the jewelry that adorned her pale skin. Her clothing was made in hues of widow’s black, though most grew unsure of whom she had mourned.The fabric of her clothing clung to her like smoke, and beneath her veil, her eyes burned not out of sorrow but of something more sinister. Something with purpose etched into the edges.

The estate was a haunted thing, not of ghosts, but of the history that seeded itself deep within the walls. A history that had been told through hushed whispers as if it were fables told to disobedient children. 

Whispers wafted through the surrounding town of how Blackthorn Grange saw generations of brides lose their sanity within the estate. Told that they had become unraveled within the confines of their chambers while their foolish husbands turned a blind eye to it, either out of pity or pure ignorance. Women whose mothers and daughters damned themselves to a fate of falling from their silk-curtained windows, drunk with tears caused by the men who denied their voice–denied the legacy they could’ve held. It was no surprise when townsfolk turned their head in disbelief that a man of high status was the sole proprietor of their bride’s depletion. Ignoring the hues of blue and violet littering their forearms and their timid behavior outside of their glorified prisons. 

 Seraphine’s mother and younger sister were no exception to this as they finally fell into the same fate weeks before her initial return. Stricken with a silent grief, her position to inherit what would’ve been her legacy was ripped from her grasp and given to a stranger bearing her late sister’s wedding band. 

The memory still rang fresh in her mind, a familiar white rage growing within her. Just as any eldest daughter who had been stripped of their privilege for the favor of a false son with nothing to offer but the shakey promise of bearing legitimate sons and wealth beyond imagining. That was the only thing that could keep such a man bound to a father that was not their own. Lust disguised as love and greed shaped as power–false or otherwise.

She was not there to mourn those who were lost. She had come to make the house remember why it was her that must be obeyed. To remind that it was she who commanded respect and will stop to no end to receive what she was owed.

Seraphine’s heels clicked rapidly against the main foyer with an urgency that startled the members stationed to the main wing. Their eyes darted against one another before crumbling against her gaze and removing themselves from her path. Though unusual to allow a member who was not one of the house, there was no denying the young mistress. 

If one had dared to come in her way, they’d only be told calmly to collect their valuables and dismiss them from the property with no hesitation. 

The young wife of Lord Alarie Cheravick-Vale, Evelyn Vale had recently become subjected to the curse that plagued the home. Told to have died upon impact, it didn’t take long before writers of infamous columns had wielded their pens to inform others of their misfortune. The columns read the situation “delicate and mysterious circumstances”. Printed powdered euphemisms for violence in fear their mothers of the ton would deny the males of the promising families their daughters’ hands in marriage. 

“Frail constitution.” It read“Unwell.” “A tragic accident due to woman’s incompetence”

Any sensible person could easily be deceived by such absurd claims. Taking them as gospel instead of what it actually was. An act of incompetence perpetuated for a desire for a woman easily moldable, easily fooled, and easily given and taken. Corrupted by fathers who willingly gave their “cherished” daughters to questionable men for a few extra gold or silver coins. 

 Being a woman of cold restraint, Seraphine had been able to read between the lines as it had been forced into her memory through experience. The kind of demeanor that must remain quiet in drawing rooms, obedient in marriage beds, smiling while grasping at the edges of ruin. The kind that had been taught to be hated to her late sister and mother and their mothers and sisters before them. She had long since abandoned such lies of gentleness and grace, no longer begging for what she deserved. Instead taking what others didn’t dare to fathom. 

Blackthorn Grange welcomed her like an old accomplice, the air growing thick and damp with the familiar scent of mildew. Neglect over the years spared the main foyer and a fair majority of the northern and eastern wing. The southern and western wings did not share the same mercy as their conditions visibly differed from the other parts of the residence that was able to be salvaged and saved. The deeper Miss. Seraphine went into the familiar mazed halls the more decayed the estate became.

 The wallpaper, once a deep crimson, peeled in long curling strips, revealing the cracked plaster beneath it like flayed flesh. The deep oak floorings groaned with each strike of Seraphine’s heels, dust puffing up in clouds that danced in the fractured light fixtures that hung above her. Old painted portraits hung askew, though the subjects blurred by mildew, she had memorized each haunting face. The silence in this wind was unnatural–heavy as though the air could sense the sudden intrusion. 

At the far end of the hall of the southern wing, just before Evelyn’s chambers stood a portrait veiled in a moth-eaten sheet. The fabric fluttered, though no windows were opened for wind to pass. Within the painting, something waited–not seen but felt, like a soft breath on the nape of the neck. When Seraphine entered Evelyn’s room, she learned it remained untouched–too painful, the staff whispered, for Lord Alaric to enter. Whether true or not, her room had remained a time capsule for a period where the sun had blessed these halls; when there was more to their names than what their fathers or husbands provided.

The room felt paused in time as if the air itself refused to move. Afternoon sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains, casting a soft, ghostly glow over the delicate furnishings now covered in plastic. A porcelain doll sat upright on the edge of the bed, her glass eyes wide with permanent surprise. The quilt, carefully stitched in fading pastels, remained smoothed and undisturbed, still holding the shape of a small body that once lay beneath it.

There, in a drawer pushed into a forgotten corner beneath sachets of dried lavender, she had found what she had hoped for. The gold embroidery glistened against the leather cover of the late Evelyn’s notebook. Her voice spoke in soft, desperate entries:

“He says I overreacted, that it was I that dreamed of the bruises that paint my skin”

“I miss the girl I once was, Father had subjected me to a marriage to a man for the sake of extra coin and nothing else. For that, I will never forgive him”

“I wish I had believed my dearest sister, Seraphine. Seraphine. Seraphine”

“You are not supposed to be here Seraphine” A voice echoed from the doorway “I had thought following the death of your father would keep you from this place”

A rage hit her like a tidal wave–familiar, ancestral. It wasn’t just Evelyn. It was every woman of the Hale family who had been sold and forced to smile through the pain. Girls were taught by a frail mother to fold herself smaller so her spouse could easily digest her. Every wife whose name was erased beneath her husband’s.

“Is there no mercy within you, Lord Alaric?” She began, her voice steady and threatening “I would’ve thought you’d hold more compassion following the death of my father as you did consider him as your own. I thought you’d at least have the decency to protect one of the few things he held dear to his heart and yet here you are, falsely wallowing in a pain that is not yours to bear. I hope you have prayed to whichever god your feeble mind worship for their mercy because I no longer hold any for the likes of you. ”

The sun had fallen as quickly as it came, leaving Seraphine to roam the manor at night. Her bare feet striking the floor like the beat of a war drum, not as a guest but as a reckoning. A warning of all who dared to pass to return to their hiding holes if they wished to be spared. The portraits, now uncovered, met her with a painted male gaze before flicking against her own stare. Multiple nights had passed as she continued her routine of roaming through the halls, not as human but a spirit with a bloodthirst that could not be quenched  When Lord Cheravick finally confronted her, his face flushed with whisky and pride, he had demanded to know what her purpose was returning to the manor.

“Do you believe this place was yours?” She chuckled, toying with a nearby glass “You’ve inherited a home by the silence of the women before me. You have banked on the damnation of my dear sister who you bound yourself to under God. You will pay for this–I will make you pay for the silence of the women you’ve buried.

In an attempt to silence the final woman of the Vale family, he raised his hand. 

His hand never landed nor will it land on another ever again.

He wasn’t found until days later in the southern wind, facedown on the scratched wooden flooring, his mouth frozen open in terror. A trail of soot and discarded embers led from the fireplace to his study–where every document that bore his name had been burned until nothing remained remnese of what it used to be.

Seraphine had long disappeared without a trace, gone but not erased. The servants, now retired to their family homes, spoke of her for generations to come. Warning their children of a black figure that roamed the halls every now and again, even long after the estate was abandoned. They said she comes when a woman pleads for salvation–not in their screams, but in the knowing silence in the absence of their husbands.

Her veil that she had worn was not for mourning. It was for war.

And beneath it, she smiled.