Delhart's Spirit

Sylvia Delhart ate her lunch in the dining room of Regent’s Estate with a sense of eventual loss. Running to conclusions, she figured she will have to find a way to live on her own, the mere thought of losing everything made her dizzy. Thinking this may be her last proper meal, she ate slowly, a mouthful at a time. After her lunch was over, she left the room and strutted towards the door behind the stairs. She knocked.

“Yes?” answered the person inside.

Sylvia sighed and asked, “Can we talk?”

The door was opened by a woman who looked younger and taller than Sylvia. She wore a long satin robe which slithered against the carpeted floor as she made her way towards the great wooden armchair behind the great wooden study, both of which were one of the Delhart dynasty heirlooms.

“Why don’t you tell me what is troubling you so much?” asked the young woman, seated in the armchair, fervently.

Sylvia closed her eyes for a brief moment and inhaled the pressuring air into her lungs. She wanted to kill the young woman and then end the life of the body she was stuck in. She thought, ‘If both of us died, then nobody will get anything and nobody will suffer and nobody will blame me or anyone else and nobody will irk me and nobody will praise Maim for everything I did but she took and nobody will call me a demon and nobody w-’

“What is the matter with you?” shouted Maim, the young woman with her eyes bulged out in vexation, “Just snap out of it, will you! Have you heard a word I said since you came here!? I need you hear you!”

“Maim, please,” mumbled Sylvia, “I can’t say what I want.”

“Come again.”

“Nothing. I mean I don’t want anything,” Sylvia mumbled, staring at the daily swiped, carpeted floor, she wondered, ‘if I owned this place, it wouldn’t be so clean.’

“Can you hear me?!” barked Maim, the young woman.

‘I cannot! I want you dead!’ screamed the voices in her head.

“I am sorry Maim. I am feeling a little nauseated. Can I please have some water?” said Sylvia.

Maim, the young woman, handed her a glass of water. While Sylvia sat and drank the entire glass of water, the young woman wrote things on a paper and immediately tore and folded it. After Sylvia returned the glass, Maim, the young woman, gave her the torn, folded piece of paper.

“Listen Iria. We both know that your life is in great danger. I only want to help you out of this even though you have gotten me no good. Iria, at the end of the day you know that I am by your side, right? I want to be sure that you live a comfortable life and your grandfather wants that too.”

All the voices in Sylvia’s head wailed, ‘Uh huh? You want me you live a good life? Then give all that I rightfully inherit back. All my dangers will be gone if you died! I don’t want to know why you did this to my family but why though, like why? You had it all from the st-’

“What’s in your mind?” asked Maim, the young woman, with a thin smile, “Now you know what you have to do with this paper right? On your way out, show this piece of paper to the guards then they will take you to a safe ride. Got it?”

Sylvia said, “Yes. I will do exactly what you said, Maim,” and excused herself. Just as she bid farewell and closed the door, she unfolded the paper.

Busting through the door, Sylvia looked at Maim and spat on the clean floor.

“What’s your damage?” shrieked Sylvia.

“What kind of behavior is this?” Maim, the young woman, gasped in disgust.

“What else do you want from me? I really don’t have a penny to myself. I swear to God! I don’t have anything else you can take. You took everything. Every single thing!” cried Sylvia, “My parents, my grandparents, my brothers, my name, my body, my fortune, my security, my sleep. I don’t have a place,” Sylvia paused and exhaled all the gasses in her lungs, she then screamed, “You don’t know what you have done! You are so unaware of your actions!”

Maim sat down on the floor. Sylvia saw Maim’s teardrops trickling down her fleshless cheeks. The room was soundless. The grandfather clock in the corner looked sinister, dragging what little attention there was in the windowless room to itself.

“REGENTS!” screamed Sylvia, in her hollow demonic voice.

Maim quit crying and sprinted to the door but Sylvia grabbed her leg and pulled her down. Maim grunted, kicked free her leg and fled towards the main door while howling, “CALL THE EXORCISER! CALL THE EXORCIST IN!”

Maids from the kitchen ran to the entrance door and shouted to bring the family exorcist at once to the guards. Maim knew that the exorcist won’t be here any minute sooner, so she thought to enter the house and see what the demon has done. Maim asked one of the maids to come with her, in spite of being horrified, two of them offered to go.

She opened the door.

There were no sounds or movements. Maim knew the demon was in the room because it couldn’t escape the spells around the house. When Maim reached the door, she carefully swag it open and saw what shook her for the rest of her life. Her eyelids were squinted back, popping her eyes out and her hands shook violently and her lips moved vigorously. In the room was nothing alive. From the ceiling hung the dead body of Iria. Maim screamed as the two maids ran away. She screamed and hollered and cried and slapped her forehead in grief and horror. All the maids rushed to Maim and saw what was inside the room.

****

“Yes, sire? You called me?” asked Maim.

The exorcist turned around and looked at the sad party of people who came to attend Iria’s funeral. He looked especially sadden by Iria’s sudden, unforgettable death.

“Maim. I am sorry for your loss, dear,” the exorcist went on, “I was called early in the morning for what the mortician’s found on Iria’s body.”

Maim hesitantly asked, “Is this the right time to tell me about it?”

The exorcist seemingly ignored that question and added, “Her body was scratched and pierced with an old pen you said was missing. They know it was that pen because no other object had any stains of blood. Iria’s body had this scratched on it.”

By saying that, he handed her a small note which said:

Every last person who possesses Regents’ blood will dead!

A teardrop broke through the boundaries of her eyes. Maim sighed and nodded to the exorcist. He waited and uttered, “It’s a good service, Maim.”

“I see you haven’t had any chocolate cake from the bar, sire,” exclaimed Maim. The exorcist shook his head before Maim, the young woman, hurried to a cooler machine and carefully brought out a small piece of chocolate cake.