Scene 3: The Ceremony

After the strange events in the graveyard, you all make haste back to the Manor, ensure the mastiffs are out and lock the doors. Twice!

Most of you have no idea who that creature was, though maybe some may be hiding some clues... What you all seem to agree on, despite the apparent absurdity of it, is that the dead are somehow walking again.

Still, you can't stop wondering about what the creature was after. You know it was something (or was it someone?) from the family. But what or who? Could the Manor be hold some old secret you are not aware of?

No one can remember Claire being at the scene, in fact, when you all just decided to go back, you just abandoned her there, still hidden behind a tombstone. The scared girl followed you back to the Manor like an invisible shadow, unnoticed, and forgotten...

You can't tell how long has passed, but you lie awake in bed. Are the recent events running around your mind, preventing you from sleeping, even if your body feels tired? Or was it that noise outside that woke you up? Maybe the light of nearly full Moon peeking from the window disturbs your sleep?

Whatever the reason, you don't think you will get much rest tonight...

After trying and failing to sleep for hours, Claire eventually climbs back out of bed and paces her bedroom. Somehow, it had felt wrong to rejoin the others after that strange encounter outside, so she had just followed them quietly back inside. None of them ever even inquired as to where she went, though, which kind of hurt. Do they not care about her?

She walks up to the large mirror and looks inside but sees nothing but an empty room inside. Maybe they're right not to care. Maybe she should be forgotten by the world like she has been forgotten by the mirror. After what she did, selfishly, those years ago. She tries to remember Annabelle's face, the face that had lured her into betraying her own family, but the image that appears in her head is probably nothing like how the beautiful woman had actually looked. And all those fantasies Claire had held about her, the two of them dancing together, lying in the warm grass, their lips touching in a chaste, nervous kiss... Claire could no longer hold on to them. Thinking of the meadow she had made up, Annabelle - or that image Claire has of her in her mind -ias there, but Claire isn't. As if she was fading not just from mirrors and from her family's notice, but from her own mind as well.

"Why did I ever lie to Annabelle?" Claire asks the empty mirror. "Alexander deserved happiness. He didn't deserve to lose everything just because I desired the same woman he did. I destroyed my brother's life because of a selfish, childish crush." With a frustrated cry, she smashes her fist into the mirror. Blood mixes with reflective shards as tears start streaming down Claire's face. "Maybe it would be best if I did just disappear!"

Roderick didn't even try going to bed. The events of the day weigh heavily over his brittle frame. And his arm adds a non-figurative, very real weight. He touches its stony surface... like touching granite. The fingers of his non-paralyzed hand find his face. Or rather, the stone mask that was once his face. He follows the contours of his facial muscles locked forever in a sardonic grin, like some comedy Greek mask from the proscenium of a grand theatre.
You are turning into a statue, old fool. What is this? Is this punishment for having used that statue - WHY DID ALEXANDER HAVE THAT???- so many years ago? Was it a curse, uttered in death by my victim?... his thoughts are a torment, a storm of darkness besieging his once-calculating mind.

He reflects on the graveyard, and on the impulse that overtook him there. Did I... commune with the ancient stones under the sacred ground of that place?? Did I... ask the stone to trap that creature?? And why? Who was it following? AND WHY DID IT CALL ME BROTHER???

He stands, and lays his good hand on the cold stone of the mantelpiece. His eyes wander. His thoughts focus around that stone, and its secret, occult connection with any other stone object in the manor.
"If I have any power over you, dark stone... respond to me. Be an extension of my fingers. Be my eyes and ears... SHOW ME..." he whispers, shaking for the effort.

The Death of Roderick Rookwood
Roderick's eyes widen in terror as he feels his heart clenched by a mighty stone grip, tightening without mercy until his heartbeat stops.

For several long seconds, he is conscious inside his dying body, feeling each bone, muscle, tendon and cell turning to stone with a sickening grinding sound, trapping him for eternity within a granitic tomb. His own body, turned funerary monument.

His mask-like face changes as he draws his last rasping breath. Mouth impossibly wide in a silent scream, terror in his now blank eyes, staring forever in the void.

His last thought is for the Rookwood name, the prestige of which he strived all his long life to protect at whatever cost - lying, beating, betraying and even killing to reach his goal.


Thus dies Roderick Rookwood,
who called to the ancient stones of his Manor,
only for the stones to claim him for eternity.

He will be found,
a granitic statue standing in his room,
arm extended to touch the mantelpiece
(and now fused to it)
his face a mask of screaming terror.

Nathaniel lays in bed, unable to sleep, and desperately trying to reconcile the oddity of the days events. He was tossing a ball in the air and catching it, figuring that throwing something is what made his arm go . . . wobbly. 'Why am I even want to replicate that?' he thinks to himself.
Also of concern is that now Alexander knows his secret, and he couldn't think of a worse Rookwood to have such information. The only solution he could think of was to ask the old man to do him a favor (and he just might, if Nathaniel could convince him it would help the Rookwood family name), but at what cost? He'd have to try to sleep on it, and worry about it in the morning.

Alexander calls a servant up to draw him a warm bath. While he waits, he places the demonic bust on the vanity, the central and side mirrors allowing him to view the creature from every angle. "Who are you?" he asks no one in particular.

The rakish Rockwood doesn't wait for the servant to leave before undressing, despite the obvious discomfort this causes. As the groom finally scurries out of the room, Alexander begins ladling water over his body, sloshing the grave dirt away into muddy whorls on the bathroom tile. Finally, he sinks into the tub and disappears completely underwater. He holds his breath. One.. two... three.. four.. five... He loses count. It's no use. He needs it—the only thing he'd been able to find to fill the hole left when Annabelle called off their courtship.

Almost unthinkingly, he reaches for a metal case on a nearby stool, opens the lid, and takes out a glass syringe—his last. The last of Grandfather's "investment"—the one that Alexander cajoled the old man for to buy some land in the valley. Well, when this serum hits his blood, Alexander laughs, he'll be thinking of places more joyous than pristine mountain valleys

As Alexander waits for the laudanum to do its work, he notices the horned statue staring back at him from the vanity. "Who the devil are you?" he thinks as he drifts off into a drug-induced delirium.

Claire couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the lingering fear of the strange creature holding her in the dark graveyard... maybe it was the pain of her own loneliness and the realization her own family didn't seem to care... She walks to the large mirror in the bedroom, maybe hoping to find herself in there, but not even that she could. Her reflection was gone, maybe forever, and maybe should she do...

The guilt of her betrayal years ago, of her childish selfishness... maybe this was her punishment. She thought of Alexander and the suffering her cousin had to endure all this time because of her. Looking at the full moon, she knows she won't find sleep tonight... at least not before checking on her cousin. Like with the strange girl in the mirror, she had the strange feeling the moon was asking her to...Alexander couldn't take his head out of the statue. It's strange enough there was such a thing in an open and empty grave, but that face, that pagan god... he is sure he saw it somewhere before. He decides to have a warm bath to clean himself from the graveyard's dirty and think about it. A warm bath... one of the few pleasure left he could still appreciate.

But like everything else, it was a fleeting moment peace that wouldn't last long.

But his body wasn't asking for a bath and he knew it. He felt it before. He reaches for his metal case and the vial stolen from his cousin Nathaniel. As his mind starts to wonder he see the statue one last time, noticing the chipped stone on its side. Suddenly, he realizes it looks exactly like the blood stained fragment he found in the library 10 years ago! And he imagined a memory of seeing in the library when he was a child... Was this pagan idol from the Manor?Like the others, Nathaniel doesn't manage to fall asleep. His strange, maybe even supernatural, experience making his rational mind run in endless circles, searching for answers. How could his arm loose its rigidity? What could have been the process? It looks normal now, and his bones are unbroken, but his skeleton should not allow such flexibility... The possibilities of such discovery are beyond imagination! Could it have been something about the creature?

As he goes around considering all possibilities, he unpacks his medical supplies, mentally going through each chemical's and concoction's properties. Nothing there can explain such phenomenon. It is then that his attention is caught by something else. The Guild letter! It is not there! And the only missing vial he can account for... tells him exactly who has it. Alexander! The worse person to hold a secret. Though he could probably negotiate it back for another vial, he would need to buy the extra supplies from Town, and the Guild was not that friendly last time...

Maybe his best bet for now is Roderick... The old man never accepted him as one of their own, but his dislike for Alexander may be something he can use...Roderick was furious about the way things went down in the graveyard. Not only he failed to find exactly what was going on, his sister seemed to fear for him and then... that accursed statue and the creature! Could that have been him?

He would not sleep before he had the answers he was looking for! He turns to the family's powers once again, calling on the Manor to help him. He sees everything that is going on, his mind expanding to include every rock and stone withing the grounds. But in his eagerness he because reckless and fails to control the ancient powers of the family. Too late he realizes what he has done and the fate he can no longer escape from. No longer he would share a deep connection with the ground and the Manor, for now he became the grounds and the Manor himself.

As his body is consumed by his curse, his mind finally finds what he was looking for. For a moment, he glimpses at the truth. His sister smiles once again. "The moon is calling us, brother. We will meet soon"At some point during the night, you hear noises from the ground floor but you can't tell what it was.
In the morning, only the missing family sword and the open front door tells you what may have happened.
No one saw Elias that night. He vanished into the cold darkness.

Still wearing her nightgown and with just an overcoat thrown on for modesty and some warmth, Claire wanders down the hallway of the massive Rookwood mansion until she reaches the room she knows Alexander to be staying in. She's not quite sure what she's even doing here. She's obviously not going to tell him about her betrayal. Right?

Still, she finds herself knocking. "Alexander?" she asks hesitantly, but to no answer. Driven more by instinct than reason, she tries to open the door and finds it unlocked. She takes a careful step inside and closes the door behind herself.

Drawn by the sound of bathwater, she makes her way deeper into the room. In her mind, an image appears of her cousin in a bathtub filled with blood, all because of her betrayal years ago. "Alexander?" she asks again as she slowly pushes open the bathroom door...

Nathaniel takes a deep breath as he resigns himself to talking to the old man. 'Best to get it over with quickly' he thinks, and head to see if Roderick is also awake at this hour.

Opening the door, he says "Sorry to bother you at this hour sir, what with . . the . . day . . " and for a brief moment, he assumes Roderick has commissioned a statue of himself. While that's the most logical explanation he could think of, he knows, somehow he just knows that isn't the case. "I'll fix this grandfather." he says to the stone, hoping the old man hears and believes him, even if Nathaniel doesn't believe it himself.

He leaves the room, headed to the library. Hopefully something there will hold the answer he seeks, the answers he needs. Then he stopped and thought to himself "Alexander is much more familiar with the library, I'll talk to him first." befor turning and heading to his cousins room, praying a similar malady hadn't befallen upon him too.

Bliss… euphoria… bliss… Alexander feels them like an undulating caress. Slowly, he finds he can't resist the impulse to open his heavy lids. Someone is calling his name. Someone… Claire? His eyes open, still fixed on the unholy god. Its horned face and goat-like smirk quickly shift to Claire's pale visage then back again.

Alexander closes his eyes tight until he hears a rumble in his ears. After a few more hard blinks he sees that Claire is indeed in the room. "Cousin. Would you be a dear and hand me that towel? This water's grown cold."

Her eyes turned away from the tub, Claire finds a towel and holds it out in the direction of her cousin, letting him take it. "I couldn't sleep," she admits. "And so I decided to see you, even if you probably don't care to see me. You didn't seem concerned about me after this strange encounter outside." She shakes her head. This doesn't matter. The mirror forgot about her. It's no wonder her family did the same.

"How are you, Alexander?" she asks him. There is something heavy in his voice that she noticed. "Have you been doing alright?"

Alexander takes the towel, then stands with his back to his cousin as he wraps it around him. As the cold water drips off and soaks into the cloth, the last remnants of the drugs seem to ooze out with it. He quickly slips on his breeches. "Cousin! Wherever have you been tonight? I figured you must have turned in early and didn't want to disturb you. How do you know of the 'strange encounter outside'?"

"Because I was there, Alexander," Claire replies to her cousin's question, an eyebrow raised in disbelief. "The whole reason that... thing attacked us was because it wanted me. For some reason."

She notices some official looking letter lying around but doesn't pay it much attention. "Why did you just go back inside without even looking to see if I was okay? I was terrified, and hiding!"
She then remembers the thoughts she had earlier that drove her here in the first place, about Annabelle. "I guess I don't deserve better. But it still hurt."

Nathaniel, seeing that Alexander's door is open, walks in. He see's the letter from the doctors guild just lying about on the floor and sighs, ''Makes sense he wouldn't have some sort of competent filing system for his creatively acquired assets.' Nathaniel clears his throught before speaking; "Alright, please give me just a moment to explain why I am technically not licensed to practice medicine . . . " He's about to continue when he sees Claire.

"Oh, uhm, Claire, you're back. You missed quite the ordeal in the graveyard. Not 'miss' as in you'll regret you weren't there, but. . . " he stammers, frustrated even further with the way this conversation, actually the way this whole day is going. He needs to try to remove the focus from him while he gathers his thoughts . . "Uhm, Also, the old man's been petrified, apparently."

"What do you mean you're not..." Claire begins before her question is interrupted when Nathaniel continues, also implying - or rather outright stating - that she wasn't there down on the graveyard. "I didn't miss it!" she shouts at him. "I was there! I was the whole reason we were attacked!" She stomps her foot but it barely makes a sound, deepening the empty feeling inside of her. Her voice lowered again now, she simply, quietly repeats, "I was there."

When Nathaniel mentions something about the old man - Roderick - that just doesn't make sense to her, she can't even bring up the energy to ask. She just looks at him, confused.