Re: Character musings, flashbacks, journals and developments
'Indeed.' Penny admitted at last, strolling around the shore of the mire, speaking in words tight with suppressed outrage. 'Oh, I know all your crimes, Mister Stapleton – or is it Vandeleur? Oh, yes, we also know all about that ghastly business at that school in Yorkshire. You should have stuck to moths...'
'We know you discovered the truth of your heritage as a Baskerville, and though illegitimate, you sought to claim it as your own and plotted to kill your rival family members, using the Hound. I know what you discovered in the ancient Celtic tin-mine in Black Tor. I know you bound the Hound to your will and set it against the legitimate Baskervilles, well before their time.'
Her voice turned cold as ice. 'And I know what you did to Beryl... You cur! Your own sister!'
Penny walked on, circling the man. 'It is time to end the curse, and it might as well end with you. You, who had the temerity to trap and chain the Hound, to use the curse against your own family. You, who so closely takes after the monstrous Hugo Baskerville and is so deserving of his curse. Very fitting.'
'You know, of course, from the later 1742 account, that during the Civil War, Hugo Baskerville and his thirteen wicked companions kidnapped a yeoman's maiden daughter whom he desired, and imprisoned her in the Hall. And while they caroused and prepared themselves to commit their outrages, she escaped through the window, climbed down the ivy, and fled into the moor. Enraged and drunk beyond reason, Hugo declared that he, ah, "would that very night render his body and soul to the Powers of Evil if he might but overtake the wench." Now, you and I know from the darker sources that among his company was a certain black-eyed fiend, who there and then made the deal, and suggested setting the hounds on the poor woman. One Hound in particular.'
'What you don't know is that she was not, in fact, the daughter of Baskerville's yeoman, but actually a daughter of another noble family with whom the Baskervilles often feuded. The Darkmoore family.'
'She fled to a place between two standing stones, and was there found dead – of exhaustion and terror, it was thought. Or perhaps she'd made a deal of her own there in that sacred place. And, no sooner had Hugo overtaken her, as he said, then the terms of the deal were met and the Hound seized him to tear out his throat and carry his soul to Hell. That is what the last three companions who followed witnessed and reported, scared out of their wits.'
'And yet the deal did not end there. Instead, it became the Curse of the Baskervilles, for every male lord of the manor to die ten years after taking office. Perhaps young Elizabeth Darkmoore cursed the whole family line in her anguish. You thought you could lift the curse by dealing with the demon and binding the Hound. You could not. This curse must be re-enacted, its terms changed.' Penny stopped walking, laying a hand on the lichen-encrusted cold surface of the standing stone that marked the Great Grimpen Mire. She traced the spiral design carved into it, all the way to the centre. She turned back to face the middle of the mire, glimpsing the shadowy mist-wreathed form of Stapleton, struggling desperately against its relentless pull.
She shouted into the mire. 'Well, Hugo Baskerville, you have caught me, a Darkmoore maid! By the ancient gods of the moor, I lift the curse on the Baskerville line. I forgive them! Charles is a good man and does not deserve it. Beryl shall be happy with him. There will be no Hound for him and his sons and their sons, not even for you.'
But Stapleton could follow the sound of her voice now, could glimpse her in turn through the mists. He raised his gun, searching for her. Penny raised hers, but lowered her voice sadly. 'But, still, there must be sacrifice, in the old Celtic way of the threefold death.' Stapleton fired, the bullet exploding off the standing stone behind her in a spray of shards. Penny returned the shot automatically, and heard a distant cry.
Then Stapleton was yanked sharply downwards, almost as if pulled from below. He could feel tendrils grasping at his legs, his body, his arms. He shouted desperately, gurgling in the water that lapped at his face. The wet gun clicked uselessly. Penny couldn't leave even him to suffer that fate though, and called frantically 'The mire is hungry, Hugo! Spare yourself! Your pocket! The cyanide for killing moths!' Then Stapleton was gone, pulled below the water. Penny watched the bubbling water until it fell still, then fell back against the standing stone, closing her eyes, shuddering at the chill damp wind, shaking at the horror. Wounding, drowning, poisoning; a sacred threefold death. It was done. She'd saved the Baskervilles.
Then she heard a growl.
Penny opened her eyes, and looked up into the slavering jaws and burning eyes of the Hound. A dry laugh escaped her lips; Stapleton had painted it with phosphorous to make it visible and more terrifying. Long, sharpened fangs gleamed. Claws dug through the soft earth. The mastiff was massive, standing at her height, with powerful muscles rippling visibly. Had the demons really skinned a black dog? The seven bullets fired by Holmes and Watson had scarcely harmed it. Penny quivered, deep within, feeling the standing stone hard against her back. There was no running for her. The jaws opened and a black tongue lolled out.
'You're free now.' she whispered to the hellhound. 'No demons. No curse. Run wild on the moor.' The hellhound padded closer. She growled again. Penny felt hot, infernal, fetid breath on her face. She closed her eyes, shrank back, wishing she could melt into the stone. Let it be quick.
Then the Hound licked her cheek.
She opened her eyes, glimpsing the ghostly dog bounding away over the heath and across the moor. Penny smiled, then set off back for the manor. She would have to think of some way to explain all this to Holmes and Watson for the book.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:33, Sat 07 Nov 2015.