The Turn of the Screw

[Prometheus Yaxley]

Prometheus guided the woman into his brother's house, side-eyeing her carefully as he went. He did not know what to make of her - oh, she was very interesting, but he did not trust her in the slightest, and if she took off running down the street he was going to be inconvenienced.

"This is in Wellingtonshire, Hogsmeade," Prometheus said absently as they waited for his sister-in-law, "The most superior neighborhood in Hogsmeade, of course." He did not need to talk to her, but it was more natural if he did - and he was responsible for her now, in some loose sense of the word.

He stood up when Honoria entered. "Honoria," Prometheus said, "I have someone to introduce to you." He waved one hand at the woman.

  

[Honoria Urquart]

Though it had been nearly three months since her husband's passing, Honoria still failed to have much motivation for social activities. Her last attempt—attending the opera in an effort to do right by Nigel—had ended…rather awkwardly, and she could count the times she had left the times she had left the house since on one hand.

With fingers to spare.

Still, she was not a rude woman; when company called she could hardly ignore them. With some reluctance she pulled herself from the library, what had been her husband's sanctuary, and made her way to the parlour.

When the butler had said Mr. Yaxley was present with a woman, she had simply assumed it was Rhea or Mrs. Avery. The figure whose appearance reached her eyes instead, though, was an entirely foreign one, but with a little bit of...something? around the face that rendered her familiar.

"Mr. Yaxley, to what do I owe the surprise?" Honoria questioned, eyeing the woman warily. She did not like strangers at the best of times (not in her home, at least), and the current moment was far from 'best'. She stared pointedly at her brother-in-law, waiting for some semblance of an introduction.

[Cecelia Yaxley]

Lia had no intention of running anywhere, where would she go? What would she do? No, she had no idea where she was and her best bet was to stay with Prometheus. She got the distinct impression that he didn't feel comfortable talking to her, she wasn't entirely surprised, she wasn't comfortable in her presence either but she had the misfortune of not being able to escape.

He lead her into a house she didn't recognize in the slightest, that seemed to be a running theme for the day, not recognizing things. A woman entered the room, Lia didn't recognize her either. She tucked her arms across her chest and effectively hid behind them. She had never found new situations so daunting and uncomfortable but things had changed over the years and she wasn't accustomed to new things. New faces, sometimes but not so much new in one place. A place that was also new.

She eyed the other woman 'Honoria' warily, taking in her features and wondering why Prometheus had taken her to her. If Lia had expected to be taken to anyone, it certainly wasn't a woman and certainly not a woman she'd never met in her entire life.

  

[Prometheus Yaxley]

"Extreme circumstances," Prometheus said vaguely.

He was not the only Yaxley who could keep secrets, so it seemed. Prometheus had never expected this to turn up - but it was no matter, now. He could use it to his advantage and that was all he really cared about, anyways.

He turned to the woman. "I would like you to meet Mrs. Honoria Yaxley," Prometheus said to his new charge, "Titan Yaxley's widow." He had not told the woman about any of that before taking her here, but Prometheus plowed ahead with his introductions anyways - he would rather deal with two potentially over-emotional women at once than in succession.

"Honoria, I would like you to meet Mrs. Cecilia Yaxley," Prometheus said, "Who is, I suppose - Titan Yaxley's Widow."

  

[Honoria Urquart]

Honoria had thought she knew how the end of the world felt when she had learned of Titan's death, thought it was not possible to lose all sensation quite so rapidly, thought it would be impossible to forget how to breathe ever again.

Cecilia Yaxley was dead—had been since before Honoria had even met Titan, had a headstone in a graveyard somewhere that Clementine had visited but which the redhead never had. Magic could do many things, of this the witch was sure, but it could not bring back the dead. Mr. Yaxley was surely mistaken, this could not be...

And yet, when she looked at the woman's face more carefully, she did not see the stranger, but Clementine—her own stepdaughter--looking back at her with equal parts suspicion and vacancy.

The word how formed on her lips, but Honoria lacked sufficient breath to voice it. White as a ghost (a true ghost, not the one that stood before her) Honoria stood dumbfounded in her parlour, mouth still gaping open, trying to speak.

[Cecelia Yaxley]

Extreme circumstances? What did that mean? The situation was getting more confusing by the moment, perhaps she had dreamed the entire scenario up?

Except then it got really weird. Too weird for anything she could possibly imagine, she wasn't even that imaginative to start off with. How could this woman be Titan's widow? That made no sense, Titan Yaxley wasn't dead and this Honoria woman couldn't be his widow, he was already married! He couldn't be dead, someone would have told her, surely?

"I don't understand," she muttered, her brow furrowed in distress and confusion. It just didn't make sense at all! A man couldn't have more than one wife and she had most certainly married Titan Yaxley without his having secret other wives. They had a child together, Clementine - that reminded her, she hadn't seen her baby in so long. Was she dead too? How much had she missed? How long had it been?

Why was this imposter wife gawping?

  

[Prometheus Yaxley]

Neither of them were crying yet. Prometheus took that as a small victory and decided to try and explain things to his sister(s)-in-law - he was not sure that Cecilia would quite be able to understand, but Honoria should, at least, get some of it.

"We all thought you were dead," Prometheus said impassively, "Titan did a very convincing job of it - there was a funeral. He may even have shed a tear or two. After he finished mourning, he met Honoria." Prometheus almost wished that Titan had been alive when he discovered this; it was the most interesting thing Prometheus had ever heard about his brother, by far.

"Cecilia is unstable," Prometheus said, for Honoria's benefit, "The - doctors, I suppose - said that she was prone to violence. Titan had her put in an asylum after she threatened - who did you threaten, Cecilia?"

  

[Honoria Urquart]

So it was real, then. Mr. Yaxley had a solid explanation for the appearance of the other Mrs. Yaxley. This was not a cruel joke or something that could be explained away.

Unless her madness had progressed. Unless Honoria had moved past hearing voices and towards the mental creation of people, of scenarios. She was not a fool: she could surely have imagined whatever excuses her brother-in-law would spout, could surely—in her insecurity as to Titan’s demise—have conjured up so ridiculous a set of circumstances.

And ridiculous they were! Titan had loved her, and she him; there was no room for another woman in that equation.

But violence? Though this ‘Mrs. Yaxley’ was decidedly a falsehood, Honoria could not help but to take a step back. Even a fictional Prometheus should have known better than to bring a thread to her home!

[Cecelia Yaxley]

Titan said she died? Her face fell like a sack of potatoes. She had never loved her husband and he had never loved her but she had liked him and she had understood when he sent her off that he was doing it because she needed it, even if everyone had misunderstood. The people-doctors would fix her but they hadn't fixed her and he had never come back for her and she had never seen her baby again. How old was she now? Was she even alive still? Had Clementine been replaced too?

As her brother-in-law continued, she found herself slowly crumbling on the inside into one of her hysterical messes. Titan had gotten rid of her. He hadn't sent her away so she could be cured of her madness, he had sent her away so he could forget about her and marry this redhaired woman! Years she had spent locked away with people telling her she was insane and she believed it, something was wrong with her and she'd always known it.

"I di- I did- I d- I didn-" she sputtered in failed response to his question. She hadn't threatened anyone, had she? Who was it? She didn't think she had threatened anyone but maybe what she remembered was a lie and she had. Who had it been? Surely not Titan or Clementine, she would never lay harm to a single hair on her little Clementine but things she liked had a way of ending up dead.

  

[Prometheus Yaxley]

Prometheus sighed and gave Cecilia a glance that was mostly pity. She had seemed largely harmless so far - but she had been away for a very long time, and he knew better than anyone that appearances could be very deceiving.

"She doesn't have a wand anymore," Prometheus added, which seemed like a slightly helpful contribution. "I'm not sure that she even knows what year it is." He had not told her about that, either - really, all Prometheus had said to her was that he was her brother-in-law and that they were going to visit the family.

It was not as though she needed to know anything.

"You can see how this puts us in an interesting position," Prometheus said.

  

[Honoria Urquart]

Even if it was all real—and this woman was the mad one, not Honoria herself—the redhead still struggled to figure out just what it all meant. If Cecilia Yaxley was not dead, than Titan’s second marriage had not been legal. The ramifications of such a position terrified her, and she could not even think of them all.

And then there was Clementine, who was magically no longer an orphan. Clementine, who had examinations and a debut on the horizon. Honoria could not say in honesty that she loved the Hufflepuff like a daughter, but she damn sure loved her husband’s eldest like a particularly close niece, and that was enough to make her protective. The last thing the poor girl needed right now was this!

“You’re certain?” she asked Prometheus quietly, voice shaking a little as the words left her.

[Cecelia Yaxley]

Her wand. Wands were an integral part of a wizard or witch's identity, she missed hers. Celia had never been a hugely talented witch but she liked making pretty things to amuse herself, or rather, she used to. Cypress and unicorn hair, twelve inches. She still remembered it, it had been the only wand she'd ever owned. Where was it? Was it amongst Titan's things? Could he really be dead? Had it been snapped? She hoped not. Maybe someone knew where it was and would give it back to her? Then again, apparently people hadn't even known where she was, her wand was probably long gone.

She ought to be used to hearing people speak about her as though she wasn't there but it still made her uncomfortable, as though she were so mentally deficient that she couldn't understand things when in reality, she usually could. The fact she was in an alien environment having suddenly been ripped from the asylum she had lived almost half of her life in, didn't help. At the mention of what year it was she let out a tiny whimper. It was hard not to feel crazy when she was so lost and confused and it was true - she had no idea what month it was, what year it was or how old anyone was, herself included. She was hoping one of them might enlighten her but it seemed she would have to wait for that scrap of information.

"What's going to happen to me?" she asked tentatively, feeling she didn't like the sound of where the conversation was going. What interesting position? What could her brother-in-law and Titan's fake new wife have in store for her? Why had Prometheus even come for her? She might have thought he was using her to disgrace the impostor wife but he didn't seem to dislike her that much. "And Clementine... What about Clementine?" Celia noted the panic in her own voice but proved unable to hide it.

  

[Prometheus Yaxley]

"I'm certain," Prometheus replied. This was the woman Titan had married - oh, she was much older than he remembered, but it was unmistakably her. He had not been certain that this entire situation was true until he had seen her again - now he was convinced, and he was internally gleeful.

"Clementine is well," Prometheus said. Clementine was, actually, a lovely girl - pleasant and quiet and not at all threatening to his plans. He hoped that she was not secretly mad like her mother was, but she didn't seem that way - though Cecilia didn't either, really.

Yet.

"As to you - I'm not sure," Prometheus said. He wasn't, actually. He supposed that he would have to share some details on their lives with Cecilia before introducing her to the rest of the family - she had been away for a very long time, and things had changed. "What do you think, Honoria?"

  

[Honoria Urquart]

Having never met Cecilia Yaxley—for obvious reasons—Honoria had to accept that Prometheus was speaking the truth, unless she was imagining this terrible ordeal. As the ‘truth’, such that it was, sank in, however, Honoria doubted it less and less; she had never hallucinated to this extent before, after all, and of all the things to imagine, this was hardly at the top of her list.

“Clementine has her examinations next week, and her debut after that,” was all the redhead could think to say, her tone sharp as a sword as she spoke. “I think it would be in her best interests if this,” she gestured at the woman, “was kept from her until she returns home from school.”

[Cecelia Yaxley]

Good, Clementine was alive and well. That was a relief.

Cecelia looked between the two as they seemed to dwell on her fate; it was quite possible they would send her back but she didn't want to go back, her treatments weren't so harsh anymore for she was usually very benign but no one really wanted to live out the rest of their days in an asylum, did they? She didn't, she wanted to catch up with her only daughter, her little Clementine. She wondered what she looked like, when she had last seen her she hadn't looked terribly different than most infants her age but Celia had thought her the sweetest thing she had ever laid eyes on and certainly the most fragile living thing she'd cared for that hadn't died under her watch.

Then Titan's impostor wife spoke and Celia's heart sank for more than one reason. She couldn't decide which was worse; the fact that it seemed Clementine was at the opposite end of her schooling than she had expected or the fact that if the woman had her way, Celia wouldn't be seeing her any time soon. Her face crumpled almost in slow motion. "No," she wailed like a kicked dog. "She can't be, it can't have been that long, you're wrong!" She was starting to cry, her hands clenching into fists and unclenching as she tried to get her head around everything. "I have to see her, I need to see her! She's my little girl, she needs me! I'm her mother, she needs me!" She had by then started sobbing hysterically while trying to cover her face with her arms as if it would make any difference. She'd missed Clementine's entire childhood, she'd missed everything.

  

[Prometheus Yaxley]

Prometheus' nod was cut off by his first sister-in-law's breakdown. He turned to the woman.

"Cecilia," Prometheus said rather sharply. He was not in the mood to deal with this, and hoped that she would get a handle on things sooner rather than later seeing as she was going to be in his care until further notice. "Clementine is fine, and she is safe, and if you cannot keep control of yourself you will not be seeing her."

He sighed and turned to Honoria. At least she wasn't throwing a fit; Prometheus definitely preferred her to her predecessor.

"That seems reasonable," Prometheus said, "I would hate to cause her stress at such a crucial time, and I'm not entirely certain that her mother is ready to see her anyways."