belladonnacove | something wicked: prologue

Content warnings: death, grief, suicide, blood. I would probably give this an R-rating to be safe.

This is a horror story.

I try not to be too graphic (no screenshots or written description of sims in the act, but there are two brief screenshots of someone finding a body), but please be mindful if you are sensitive to the subject matter.

[Story Index]

And the chorus said to me
Don't be unwise
Soft feet skipping to the hum of a knife

“I couldn’t seal the portal in time.”

“She's here.”

2009

Death comes to Veronaville in whispers and a white dress.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” Hermia asks her sister, peeking into the steamy bathroom. “Or is pruning standard preparation for”—what did Juliette always call it?— “‘the biggest day of your life?’”

It wasn’t that Hermia necessarily agreed with that sentiment, but even she had to admit that Juliette’s wedding was going to be a sight to behold. And it wasn’t due to any extravagance, either—through all their endless planning, Juliette had insisted she wanted a traditional wedding in the aptly named St. Humble’s, the old Peteran chapel in the center of town that had always served as a neutral gathering place.

No, Juliette was doing something unheard of, and she had been for years.

Sure, there was an undying feud between Veronaville’s most powerful families—at least, it was still going strong for the older generations—but that was never going to stop her from claiming the Monty’s golden son.

(It sure had stopped their brother from making any reasonable decisions in his youth, though.)

Despite years of protest from their grandparents, Juliette had always insisted that love conquers all—even a fear of commitment and a wandering eye. Romeo and Juliette’s wedding should have happened in spite of their families, in spite of their grandparents expressly forbidding them to see each other, in spite of their time at different universities, in spite of it all. She believed this with all her heart—so much that even Hermia believed for her, even Tybalt was going to behave, even their grandfather was going to walk her down the aisle and give her away to the grandson of his archrival with only the slightest scowl.

Juliette doesn’t answer, but climbs out of the lukewarm bathwater at her sister’s behest and quietly wraps herself in a towel. Hermia doesn’t press further, and follows her back to her bedroom, unchanged since before they’d left for university, to help her dress.

Just nerves, Hermia thinks. It was her wedding day, after all. Nerves were to be expected. But Hermia hadn’t expected her to be this quiet. It was so unlike her. Hopelessly romantic, with a head full of daydreams, sure, but Juliette had never been quiet.

“Are you sure you don’t want to ride with me and supervise the setup?” Hermia asks, putting the final touches on her sister’s hair. “You know Tybalt has no sense for design, like, at all. And Miranda isn’t much better.”

The barest hint of a grin tugs at the corners of her lips, but Juliette insists on calling a taxi for herself, closer to the ceremony. She needs time to reflect, she tells Hermia. And besides, she doesn’t want anyone to see her before the main event.

Hermia rolls her eyes. That sounded more like her, at least. If Juliette wanted to take her chances with the clouds rolling in, well, that was up to her.

———

St. Humble’s was older than Veronaville itself, a relic of the ages past, but it was well maintained and well loved. Spending many a weekend day together there as children was most likely why most of the youngest generation of Montys and Capps had never really bought into the family feud. Sitting through boring sermons and playing together in the community room upstairs while their parents socialized—strictly on their own side of the aisle, of course—was a formative experience. Tybalt was another story, but he was, well, Tybalt.

Hermia makes her way into the chapel and finds her brother arguing with their cousin Miranda about how to set up the decorative arch where their families will soon be united.

Upstairs in the loft, Romeo’s grandmother, Isabella Monty, directs her younger grandson in setting up the buffet table. The real reception was to be held later, at Isabella’s restaurant across the river, but she’d be damned if she missed a chance to feed people.

Isabella lets out an exasperated sound and sends Mercutio away, then proceeds to rearrange the table completely.

“Think they could use some help?” Mercutio asks Hermia amiably, gesturing toward Tybalt and Miranda and their struggles in the floral department.

Hermia snorts. “I think they’re beyond help. At least I know Tybalt is.”

But she and Mercutio go and help them anyway. Someone had to make sure Juliette’s vision was fulfilled. All those late nights spent giggling in her room flipping through Juliette’s wedding inspiration scrapbook had permanently seared it into Hermia’s brain, and it most certainly was not whatever Tybalt and Miranda thought they were doing.

Mercutio takes direction well, and soon the arch is covered in cascading wisteria. Hermia and Miranda have covered Juliette’s path with rose petals—a scene straight out of a faerytale. Hermia notices that even Tybalt seems relaxed now, something unusual for him around anyone, let alone a Monty. But then, Mercutio had always been decent. It wasn’t his fault Tybalt could barely even get along with himself.

Soon the rest of the families trickle in, taking their seats. Oberon Gossamer and his two children arrive in their brightly-colored best.

There’s tension in the air and a great divide in the aisles but at least everyone is noticeably trying to be pleasant. Patrizio Monty and Consort Capp greet each other as civilly as they can. After they realized the engagement was happening whether they liked it or not, they mellowed—only slightly, but there was hope for them yet.

Romeo strolls in at the last minute, grinning like a devil and making lighthearted small talk with his guests.

Hermia glances down at her phone, frowning.

There’s been no word from Juliette since Hermia left her. She hasn’t answered any of her texts. No answer when Hermia tried calling her twice in all the hustle and bustle. It’s as if Juliette has dropped off the face of the earth.

Signaling for her brother to follow, Hermia ducks out of the chapel and into the gloomy mid-afternoon clouds.

Tybalt shoots a glance to Mercutio, who nods in understanding and draws everyone’s attention to himself. With flourish, he begins telling what sounds like it will be an entertaining childhood story about Romeo.

“I can’t get ahold of her,” Hermia says worriedly when her brother approaches, and Tybalt pulls out his own phone.

“She hasn’t texted me, either,” he says. “I’ll try calling her.”

Tybalt shrugs and hangs up as Hermia fidgets nervously. “Nothing. Maybe she finally saw some sense and gave up on this stupid fantasy. She’s probably halfway to SimCity by now. I wish I was.”

Hermia scowls. Sometimes—most of the time—even she can’t stand her brother. “Right, because that sounds exactly like something she would do. No,” she lowers her voice into a whisper, “I think something is wrong here.”

———

The next few days are a whirlwind.

Despite her unshakable feeling of dread, Hermia lets Tybalt convince her to take her place in the wedding party and wait for their sister.

The time of the ceremony comes and goes without its bride. Anxious whispers echo through the chapel, and when it’s clear that Juliette isn’t coming to her own wedding, the groom storms out. Romeo’s yelling into his phone before he even makes it out the door, slamming the door of his Smord pickup and peeling out of the parking field before anyone can get a grasp of what just happened.

After that, all hell breaks loose. Having not been able to find his granddaughter anywhere on the property, Consort Capp marches to the front of the chapel and begins shouting at Patrizio Monty as if he had personally arranged for her absence. Isabella comes to her husband’s defense. Soon nearly everyone in the chapel is involved.

The Capps blame the Montys. The Montys blame the Capps. Some, like Mercutio, try to reason with Consort and Patrizio, knowing that if they settle, so will the rest, but that only stirs the pot. Both Monty and Capp children watch their parents from the pews, mortified. Oberon tries to calm the crowd, but his words fall on deaf ears. There will be no coming back from this.

Hermia ducks out of the chaos to search for her sister. Someone had to get a hold of her and find out just what the hell was going on.

Puck Summerdream follows Hermia out to her car, where she is sitting, shaking, hands on the wheel. “Get in,” she says to her ex, leaning over to unlock the passenger door. They parted amicably when she left for university and he didn’t, and she has since wondered if that was the right decision.

“Where to first?” he asks, and pulls the door closed behind him.

———-

They don’t find her that night.

Veronaville’s small, useless sheriff’s department doesn’t take Hermia seriously. They know what kind of guy Romeo is. She probably came to her senses and hopped on the ferry to Bluewater. They don’t know what kind of girl Juliette is.

They don’t find her the next night.

Hermia and Puck are the only ones looking.

On the third night, Hermia takes respite in the Capps' garden. Everywhere Juliette might have gone, they’ve looked. No one can get a hold of her. Consort nearly put himself in the hospital from the stress. Tybalt is fully in denial. Tensions between the families are at an all time high.

Staring into the dark water, Hermia tries to gather her thoughts. They’ve looked everywhere Juliette might have gone to do the same.

The quiet stillness of the night suddenly becomes suffocating, her stomach a lead weight dragging her down. Not quite everywhere.

———

On the fourth day, they lay Juliette to rest in the Capp family mausoleum, where Hermia had found her sister strewn before the altar the night before.

Their grandfather hadn’t had the heart to have her cremated, not when she was so young, when she had been so full of life. Instead, she’d rot in her casket upon the altar, a symbol of everything they’d lost.

Hermia is the last to leave her.

———

On the fifth day, Romeo skips town. “For the best” was the general consensus, because Tybalt was hellbent on killing him if he ever saw him again, despite having no concrete blame to place on anyone. The funeral had been so rushed in part because of this, to prevent an already volatile situation from becoming worse.

Their grandfather had aged twenty years in five days.

In the short span of a decade, he’d lost his daughter, his wife, and now his granddaughter on what should have been the happiest day of her life.

On the sixth day, Hermia drags herself out of Juliette’s bed and logs into her sister’s computer. There had to be something, some sort of explanation for this. Something Hermia had missed. Juliette had been ready to be married for years. She hadn’t even graduated from Academie Le Tour yet. She was going to start the fall semester with a wedding ring on her finger.

Her Simbook messages say little and everything at once. At the top of Juliette’s chats, opened, but not replied to: a message from a girl named Brittany, dated the day of what should have been the wedding. “We’re so sorry,” it ends. “We didn’t know he had someone back home.”

We didn’t know. There was more than one. Of course, Hermia thinks. Of course that broke her.

———

On the seventh day, Hermia sets out to put things right.

———

It takes her all day to find the little hut out in the woods.

In the dead center of a clearing surrounded by a perfect ring of trees, Titania Summerdream makes her home. Four years ago, she had left her family in town—mostly unquestioned, as her neighbors knew enough not to meddle in the affairs of the fae. Oberon and his children would come and go as they pleased, but not even Puck would confirm where his mother went. There were only the rumors of the little hut with the red door that could only be found by those it allowed.

Titania is waiting for Hermia when she arrives.

Hermia has to stop herself from instinctively drawing back in fear. The faery looks different than Hermia remembers—sharper in the otherworldly glow of the firelight. More feral.

“I know what you seek,” Titania says, her voice like a siren’s, her eyes like a hawk’s. “But are you willing to pay the price?”

———

It doesn’t take long for Hermia to find herself back at the edge of the woods. When she looks back, the path she had been traveling is gone, as if it never existed in the first place.

The drive to the cemetery passes in a haze, almost as if someone else were making their way back to the mausoleum where Juliette sleeps silently in her casket.

The heavy doors slam shut behind her, almost loud enough to wake the dead.

In the flickering candlelight, Hermia slices across her hand with the ritual dagger given to her by Titania and paints symbols she doesn’t recognize around the cold stone floor, scrubbed clean only days before. She lights the bowl of faery herbs and places the crystals around the circle.

With great care, Hermia pries open the casket.

There was only so much the mortuary could do for her, with what little time they’d had. The rot had had too much time to set in. It takes everything Hermia has to look at her; skin discolored, torn and stitched in places. Buried in a white dress.

“I’ll give you anything,” Hermia had pleaded.

“Not my price,” Titania had warned her. “Blood pays for blood.”

Hermia pulls her sister out of the casket and into the circle and delicately slices through the long stitches holding her jaw closed. Juliette’s mouth slackens and falls open. Even more delicately, Hermia unpicks the tiny stitches holding closed her eyes. They stare blankly at the ceiling, milky white.

She places a strange golden coin in each of her sister’s hands—to pay the Ferryman, Titania had said—and then, with a small gasp, Hermia makes a deeper cut, a little further up her arm than where Juliette’s are stitched back together, and lets her blood drip directly into Juliette’s mouth.

When it spills over her lips and pools onto the floor, and the mausoleum starts spinning ever so slightly, Hermia pulls back, slathers Titania’s deathly-smelling salve into her cuts, cursing the sharp sting that somehow slows the flow of blood, and wraps her arm as tightly as she can one-handed.

The flickering candles send the shadows dancing, and Hermia whispers the words Titania gave her into Juliette’s ear, of which she has no understanding.

The lights go out abruptly when Hermia finishes her incantation. She sits in silence for a moment, too scared to breathe.

In the darkness, something stirs.

"Juliette?”