literature

The Fate of the Fuzzums, Pt. 1

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When they heard the news, he told her, "You will stay here, my love," and proceeded to explain to her the unhealthful dangers of such a place. In turn, she had demanded, "No! I want to go!" and proceeded to explain to him the love she had for her aunt, although they had never really known each other. She had seemed so certain then. But now she was not so sure. She had never known what a wretched place her aunt had lived in until the car pulled up in front of the gate. It was a miserable little row house, squished pitifully between its neighbours, its growth stunted by lack of fresh air and sunshine.
Thomas Blacksheath and his infernal machine were already there waiting, as were the washerwomen, the undertaker, the coroner, the doctor, and the rag and bone man (with all their assistants aside).  They had gathered like vultures to the carcass, waiting to feed on the generous donations of her father's pocket, ready to pick clean the remnants of her aunt's existence so the brutal circle of life could continue as before. All the furniture would be sold, and the house cleared out and made liveable again. Everything would be as if her aunt had never existed. It was the way of things in Izberia. The thought of it made her shudder on the inside. For the proletariat, there was no such thing as a legacy.
She pulled the collar of her coat tighter around her slender body, and smiled gratefully as Sophia tucked the aurochs hide lap rug in around her legs. Even with the heating system on, the interior of the luxurious steam-powered automobile was still cold. Perhaps if Greycrow had not insisted on having the window open, it might have been better, but he liked to take the air as he watched the scenery, so it stayed open. He had been sitting across from her, vividly taking in the sights for the entire trip. He seemed fascinated by the sight of the forest and the mountains, and sometimes stuck his head out the window like one of the dogs. It was the scent of the outside that he found so enchanting; leaves, flowers and deep loam-it was all so exciting! He looked over at her every so often, so she tried to keep her gaze fixed on her side of the window, and ignore him, as a lady of status should. Beside him, Wormwood read his newspaper, looking anything but entertained. Occasionally he offered a remark about the poor outcome of a battle or a drop in production, but mostly her father silenced him. He had no desire to listen to any more of Wormwood's nagging, not today.
At the sight of the house and the commotion that was going on outside it, her father's temper seemed to darken, and as the chauffeur came to a stop in front of the gate, he muttered something ghastly about his sister's love of spectacle and stepped out onto the sidewalk, without even waiting for the chauffeur to open the door. In his dark humour, he went straight to the coroner, and immediately they were down to business. Greycrow, too, got out quickly. "God middag, medbroder!" he called to Thomas, leaning cheerfully out the window, and leapt out to join him. Lycoris frowned as she watched him go. She contemplated getting out. She was praying that Blacksheath's awful son was not lurking about somewhere. The chauffeur came around to her side and opened the door for her. She stepped out slowly. There was a certain chill to the air, like the onset of winter. Still shivering under multiple layers of clothing, she made her way towards the house. It would be warmer inside.
Petrosius had finished his discussion with the coroner by the time she reached the gate. Making sure her gas mask was fastened properly to her face, he took her arm.
"Come, my love," he said, opening the gate "let us go inside." Lycoris nodded and stepped inside with him. Inside the boundary of the gate there was a sort of garden, with trees that looked like they had been tame at one point, but were now so wild and overgrown, it was quite impossible to tell what was what. All were in the dress of winter, and stood bare and cold, jostling together like a flock of bashful skeletons. A white stone path cut through the dissonance of the barren vegetation from the gate to the front door. This they traversed, going slowly to avoid slipping on the icy stones, with the doctor, the coroner, the undertaker, and the undertaker's man, all in tow. The front door was already open to the icy winter air and a loud sound of wailing came from within. Lycoris felt her heartbeat quicken. She clutched her father's hand tighter. It was dark inside, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior.
When she could see again she saw that there were no electric lights, only gas lamps, fed from tubes in the ceiling, that flickered and smoked most horribly, staining the papered wall space around them with sooty halos and giving off a most unpleasant reek of skyfish oil. They were standing in a small, narrow hall, with a steep and narrow staircase straight ahead, a parlour off to the left, and a dining room to the right. It was from the dining room that the wailing came. A little old woman and a little old man clothed like servants and hunched over with age stood near the door. It was the woman who was crying, wailing as disconsolately as a child as she snivelled pathetically into a sodden handkerchief. A housemaid who stood behind her comforted her, and offered her a fresh handkerchief. Petrosius shoved them out of the way.
"Be silent, you old hag!" he growled as he shut the door to the house and banged his cane on the wooden floorboards to make himself heard. "The whole neighbourhood can hear you!"
"Poor poppet, poor ladybird!" wailed the old woman, trumpeting into the handkerchief. "The Mistress was like a child to me!"
"Regardless of what she was, you must stop this foolishness immediately! There's a crowd gathering outside." He drew the curtains across the door as he pushed the servants out. "I wish to avoid a scene. Now, wait outside and don't make a nuisance of yourselves." Glancing briefly at the body, he took Lycoris by the shoulder and herded her inside before sealing the room off completely. "Consider this your notice of termination. We won't be needing your services here anymore." On the other side of the curtain, the old woman broke out into a fresh flood of tears.
Under her gas mask, Lycoris gave her father a wide-eyed look, but Petrosius' attention was focused on other things. Lady Hazel of Vespasia had been laid out in state on the dining room table, dressed in a scarlet red dress and resting in a simple wooden coffin. Hazel, if she had been alive to see it, would have described it as looking "economical" at best, and Lycoris knew she would have cringed to see it, although perhaps she would have been relieved to see herself surrounded by bouquets of red roses instead of sterile while lilies, as was customary. Their exquisite color contrasted vibrantly with the strange soot-coloured wallpaper. Lycoris frowned. How odd it looked. It seemed to be thicker around the lamps and fireplace, and looked almost fuzzy, like flock. She was trying desperately to keep herself amused with this distraction. She had never seen a dead body before, and she found it absolutely chilling. She did not dare look too closely at the body, it was too horrible. Even the faintest of glances stirred in her a feeling of fearful sickness. How pale her aunt looked in death-so hollow, almost nothing more than a deflated shell. The skin was like wax, and a strange blackish mottling shifted under it.
"The King's Curse," said her father, blackly. He was in fear of it, and held his handkerchief to his face.
"Correct," croaked the coroner. He had a voice like a carrion bird, and a shabby black coat to match. "It haunts the body after death, and sometimes lurks before. It's a symptom that her globslug is going into the larval stage." He traced the pallid skin with careful hands, lifting up the deceased woman's arm to show the bruise-like marks near the wrist. "You see? You can tell that death is coming near when the palsy comes into your joints." At the sight of the bloodless flesh, Lycoris' eyes averted themselves to the strange shifting walls and her mind attempted to focus itself on other things "Very nasty stuff, Mr. Ebonheart," continued the coroner "but it takes you quickly. That's the pleasant thing about the Swat. It never lasts long." The coroner replaced the arm, and laid the winding sheet over the woman's head. Then the undertaker and his man came and replaced the lid. The undertaker's man drove the nails in with what seemed like peals of thunder in the tiny room. With little effort, the two men lifted the coffin on their shoulders and carried it outside to the waiting hearse. They would bear her away to the Woods, to the ruins of the ancestral home to be buried in the ground with all her ancestors before her. That is, if Petrosius did not decide to dump her body in the well, instead. Turning her head slightly towards the grimy front window, Lycoris watched them go. With her aunt's departure from life came the ending of an era. She dropped her eyes as the hearse drove slowly out of sight. The little room was altogether too depressing. It was as if everything in it had become black with the sadness of mourning. The strange wallpaper seemed to shift, as if a ripple had gone through it. Lycoris rubbed her eyes in muted disbelief. If her father had seen it, he did not appear to show it. He reached into his pocket and removed a letter from its depths.
"She left you a letter, my child," he said, looking at her with a grave expression "it will open for no one else but you." She took it from him mechanically, and turned away to examine it. "My guess is she left you a part of her estate in her will. It's a wonder she has anything to give." She traced her fingers over the cheap paper, examining the dull black wax that adorned the front of the letter like some insidious fungal growth. He handed her a letter opener. "Will you take some coffee, sirs?" he asked, addressing the grim men who still hung about the room like hungry crows. "It would be a shame to let provision go to waste." He opened the door to the kitchen and showed the men inside. "We'll give the old dame a last hurrah before we send her off." With a last look in her direction, he stepped inside and closed the door, leaving her alone in the empty room. She opened the letter. There was a key inside. She tipped it out onto her palm and examined it. It was too big for a safe. Perhaps it opened a room? There was a thin, creased paper that went along with it. It looked as though it had been folded and unfolded numerous times, perhaps in the haze of her aunt's fevered contemplation, and there were several ink stains and crossed out lines that obscured the practised handwriting. In the end, it said simply,
Lycoris, I've left you everything of value in my own private room. This key unlocks the door. I've put a seal on it so that prying brother of mine won't be able to get in. Don't let him in, will you? He wouldn't be pleased about the mess.
-Hazel.

Lycoris slipped the paper back into the envelope. She would obey her aunt's last wishes. Wandering away from the dining room, she tiptoed across the hall and up the narrow staircase. Old daguerreotype photographs in dusty frames lined the wall going up the stairs. Lycoris looked at them with a sort of wistful curiosity. She wondered who the people were and what they must have done to earn their places there. Were they good friends of her aunt? Did her father know them? Perhaps they were relatives of hers? She did not know, and it frustrated her. Her father never talked about the family much.
The stairs squeaked precariously with every step she took. The carpet runner was a sort of dull, greyish color, and the pile, once luxurious and deep, was worn down with the passage of many feet. There seemed to be a pattern of some kind trapped underneath the grey, but it didn't seem to be able to get out. A little cloud of dust swirled up around her ankle at every step. It tickled slightly, then settled back down again, quickly and cautiously, as if it were anticipating something. Or someone. As Lycoris turned to look briefly back at the photographs, she noticed someone coming up the little walk. She hurried quietly up the stairs and peered warily over the banister at the top of the landing. She could see the figure of Mr. Thomas Blacksheath, resplendent in the sombre attire of his honourable profession, coming up the stairs to the front door. Through the colourful stained glass that bordered either side of the door, she watched him knock and wait to be admitted. One of Petrosius' men opened the door for him. Doffing his hat, the tall, awkwardly stoic man made his entrance, looking around and sniffing with emotionless disdain at the filthy interior of the house as the servant took his coat. Lycoris shrunk back against the wall as he ran his eyes over the upper landing, as if he were taking his finger to it to examine its state of cleanliness.
"I will begin the process shortly," he said calmly as the door to the kitchen opened and Petrosius emerged with a quill pen in hand "we'll have to move the furniture out bit by bit. Are you ready, my lord?"
"Do what you must," said Petrosius softly. His voice was strained and hoarse, though from sadness or shouting, it was hard to say. The Booth man doffed his hat once more and made his exit. As she watched him go, Lycoris stayed as close as she could to the wall and clenched her fists a bit. She turned and looked at the hall behind her. The skylight above her head illuminated a swirling cloud of dust motes rising up from the carpet runner in a lazy spiral, twirling gracefully as they hung suspended in the stuffy air. There were seven doors in the hallway, three on one side and four on the other. One was a closet, one led to the bathroom, one led to her aunt's room, and the others led to the servants' rooms. The question was which door led to her aunt's room and which to the servants'? As she was nearest to it, Lycoris tried the first door on the right to start with. It was locked. Fingering the key she grasped in her palm, she inserted it into the lock. The door opened easily without a bit of resistance.
Lycoris stepped inside, and was immediately overcome by the smell of opium. She knew it only regrettably, by her memories of Tiberius Brehm, one of her father's ministers who often visited the shadowed dens of the opium eaters and kept the drug on his person at all times. Without a doubt it was the room of her aunt. A large, four poster canopy bed, curtained with golden hangings and made with solid oak wood dominated the tiny room. It was so large, it took up most of the free space in the room, save for a narrow strip of exposed floorboards that surrounded the bed on three sides between the vanity, the closet and the window seat. Lycoris gaped at it as she quietly shut the bedroom door. It was strewn with numerous pillows and expensive-looking stuffed animals, the likes of which Lycoris had never seen before. They were types of fantastic creatures that one only experienced through the pages of a physiologus. But despite their exoticism, the creatures seemed well-loved, cuddled, no doubt, on a daily basis by her aunt, when she had been alive. They huddled together in a pile, next to the blankets, which had all been mounded up to form a sort of nest in the sheets. Lycoris thought it must be a very pleasant place to sleep, quite undisturbed, as the room was, out of the way of noisy traffic and prying servants. She sat timidly on the bed and looked around.
The wallpaper was yellow like the sitting room downstairs, only it seemed to be in poorer condition, as if it had once been damaged and was never fully repaired. There were some bare patches by the window, but these were partially obscured by silken hangings draped across the vanity mirror and strung along the curtain rod. The vanity itself was crowded with all manner of female necessities. The colourful blown glass lamp that illuminated the vanity was practically swarmed. All over the vanity there were powder puffs and vials of scent and tubes of lip rouge, punctuated here and there by daubs of color and sparkle all boxed and bottled. Next to a parcel of potpourri, there was a collection of atomizers and pots of cold cream. It was more makeup than Lycoris had ever seen in her life. However, whatever treasures the vanity contained were instantly overshadowed at the sight of the closet.
The open doors had spewed out a flood of elegant clothing, which pooled about the floorboards near the door. Racing over to examine the pile, Lycoris discovered a multitude of beautiful things, more than she had ever had in her entire life's possession. Tailored pieces from all the finest Vespasian couture houses; hats, coats, scarves, gloves, and scandalously short and revealing dresses-things her father would never allow her to be seen in as long as he had breath to stop her. Had her aunt left these things for her? She wondered as she stroked the sequined panel of a tricolored evening gown. It seemed her aunt's very heart and soul was shut up here, its last refuge in a world that seemed to have conspired together to bring about her downfall. And she knew her father would not tolerate any resurrection her aunt's heart and soul. She knew if he could see these things she so desperately coveted he would rifle through them like a winter storm, complaining about the length of the piece or the translucency of the cloth, and then nothing would be left. It made her angry, but then, she could never be angry with him. She was resigned to covet, like a hungry dog at its master's feet, begging at table for a favoured scrap of meat. Like a dog she knew his was the hand that fed her, and his was the hand that governed her. If he said she could keep nothing, she would keep nothing, although she didn't like it.
In this whining state of mind she dropped the gown and went back to the bed, determined not to look any more at things that would only make her heart sore for longing. She pulled back the bed curtain and clambered into the perfumed nest, taking a blanket which smelled of roses and wrapping herself in it, sighing as she examined one of the strange, curious animals. It was soft and warm, and presently, quite overtaken by the enchantingly sleepy atmosphere of the room, she felt her eyelids begin to droop.
***
She hardly realized she had been asleep when quite suddenly, she felt a little tingly tickling on her shoulder, like a puff of cold air or a cotton ball. She brushed it off and clutched the blanket tighter. But it came again. This time accompanied by a second tingling, on the back of her hand. Sighing, she ignored it and slid her hand under the blanket. Then it came again, this time on her forehead, and in her ear, where it buzzed like an agitated mosquito. She rolled over and let it squeak. Then a loud roar suddenly pierced the air, accompanied by a disjointed pop and the neighs of a few frightened horses. Her eyes shot open.
The first thing she saw was that her hands were covered in soot, or at least, she thought it was soot. The texture of it was fuzzy and mottled, like the wallpaper. She stared at it perplexedly, wondering how on earth she had gotten her hands so dirty. The second thing she noticed, as she leapt up from the bed and scampered to the window, was that the Booth machine was up and running, and the few horses that had been standing in the street with their carriages had spooked. Blacksheath often got sued for spooking horses, but he always won, of course. She looked around hurriedly for something to clean her hands with. The motor had an irregular pattern of strokes. Every once in a while it coughed, and sent up a shot of smoke like the firing of a ship's cannon, its sound echoing upwards off the crowded houses. It was very loud, and very domineering. Standing nervously at the washbasin, she glanced back out the window and saw the two hundred and forty-five foot long hose had already been dragged up the walk and into the house. It swayed slightly, twitching like a serpent on the hunt for prey. She could see Blacksheath stalking around outside with two of his white-coated assistants like a crow among wolves. He had done something with the motor, she guessed, so that Greycrow could leave the house and connect himself to this machine. She had seen Greycrow clutching a little box on his lap while they were driving in the car. Blacksheath must have removed the machine-man's heart when they were back at Belskoye. Otherwise, she did not know how he could have left without his pills.
As she stood there watching, she saw the rag and bone man and his men carrying out the yellow sofa she had seen in the parlour downstairs. A large rolled-up carpet followed, carried by two men, then a table and a bust of the poet, Oleander. All these were carried onto the back of a steam-powered lorry that sat parked behind the rag and bone man's cart. They were sorting out the expensive from the worthless, sifting through her aunt's possessions to find what was salvageable. After a few moments, a man came down the walk carrying a cardboard box. This, whatever it might have contained, was tossed into the back of the cart with a crash. She turned quickly from the window. They were gutting everything.   
She backed quickly away from the window. They would not come in here. They would not take her aunt's soul. She would barricade the door. Then suddenly she saw what had made her hands so black. A small furry creature, about the size of a miniature lime, fell softly from the vent above the door, floating down serenely to land on the floor at her feet. The creature stared at her for a few moments, its small, beady black eyes regarding her cautiously, as its nose and whiskers twitched, trying to decide whether she was friend or foe. Lycoris gawked at it, her eyes filled with a look of confounded curiosity. She had heard tell of strange creatures like these. There were always rumours that spread once a wizard moved into the neighbourhood; rumours of strange goings-on, mutations that occurred when the accumulation of mana in a single enclosed space became too concentrated: unexplained noises, curious disappearances, enchanted objects, and sometimes even the appearance of monsters that moved in unnoticed to bask in the thick concentration of mana like moths drawn to a flame. She had been told that her aunt had never been able to control her own mana. It was the reason why she was always so exhausted. It was quite possible that all kinds of strange creatures lurked in her house, come to leech off the energy she could not prevent from deserting her. It would certainly explain the curious shifting of the walls.
Suddenly, there was a sharp knocking at the door, causing Lycoris to jump. She looked at the creature. The creature looked back at her. Her heart went out to its desperate plight. It was strange how fate seemed to enjoy placing victims of similar predicament into her hardly influential hands. Though she knew she must do what she could to help. If it was a monster, she wouldn't let them harm it. If it were an object animated by enchantment, she wouldn't let them take it away. She picked up the creature and stuffed it in her dress pocket. The knocking came again. With a hurried glance at the mirror to make sure her appearance was in order, she hastened to open the door-and was confronted with the ruined face of Mr. Thomas Blacksheath, Esq.
Oh man... XD here it is.... finally. Part 1 of "The Fate of the Fuzzums" a clip of randomness which fits in somewhere near the end of the book, but not quite yet at the beginning of the end... more like the prologue to the end. Anyways, here we have it: the setting, Hazel's house in Vespasia (possibly either in Bremmeth or Fortinbrass.. I haven't quite decided), the time, early in the morning, the reason... Hazel is lying dead on the dining room table. How did this possibly happen, you may ask? Well, the answer to that is, she died of the Swat. What is the Swat, you ask? Do you ever ask a lot of questions... >.>

Posting Sweat, the- also known as the Swat, the New Acquaintance, the Stoupe Gallant, or Knave Know Thy Master, a contagious 24-hour plague said to kill only the middle-aged of the First and Second Estates, recognizable by a burning fever, headache, delirium, faintness, drowsiness, intense thirst, difficulty breathing, and profuse sweating. Symptoms of the Posting Sweat typically reach their height by the seventh hour after onset, with delirium setting in by the ninth hour, often quickly followed by sudden death. The symptoms abate by the fifteenth hour, assuming the victim is still alive, and by the twenty-fourth hour, the symptoms vanish completely. There is no known cure for the Posting Sweat as of yet, besides the healing tincture of the Everlast Tree, which, for the common man, is often hard to come by.

Interestingly enough, the Swat can by caught by direct contact, or by the lacing of objects with the bacillus...essentially, a biological assassination... >.> dun dun DUUUHHNNNN!!!

Enjoy! XD
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ViperHaze's avatar
*transforms into Hazel* My dear niece! you have done well to try to keep people out of my room and to keep my dear spangal safe for now!

*goes back* yes, he most likely is just hoarse from the shouting, like always. But yes, I love Lycoris in this! She's so sweet to the dear Fuzzums!

And yes, the fuzzums finally did their work!

I was thinking of making a Fuzzum story about their last her days in House-Row (what they call Hazel's house) so that'll be fun! EEEEEH! WRITE MORE WOMAN!