NEWS    Current / Submit    Archive    HELP    Walkthrough    Cheats    Editing    COMMUNITY    Forums    Fan Fiction    Fan Art    Links    FILES    Game Demo    Patch    Editing Tools    Community maps    Movies    Music    Submit    UNDYING    Game Info    Features    Requirements    Screenshots    Characters    Enemies    NPCs    Weapons    Spells    Inventory    Macintosh    Playstation2    FAQ    JERICHO    Game Info    SITE    Site Info    Contact Email Vignettes: Lizbeth The following is based on the game Clive Barker's Undying, ©. 2001 Electronic Arts Inc. [O] Covenant Family Vignette: Lizbeth London—Autumn 1913 What was his name? For the life of her, Lizbeth could not remember. She stood in front of the oval looking glass and adjusted her gown for the umpteenth time. Was it Alexander? No—he was the last one, the fellow with the limp. She didn’t particularly enjoy his company, found him rather boorish. Not only that, he was well over twice her age. Her father had tried to impress on her the fact that he was a military man of high rank but she didn’t care—military man or not, he had fallen from her favour rather quickly with his abrasive mannerisms. She knew her father was dismayed when she told him that she did not want to see Alexander again, but he did not try to persuade to change her mind, for which she was grateful.      Was his name Edward, then? Possibly. Edward was such a common name. So were Charles and James and Thomas and Henry. She had no idea. Her latest suitor would remain nameless for now. It wasn’t that important, anyway. Little did her father know that she had no interest whatsoever in any of the suitors that he arranged for her. She could never tell him that, of course. It was better to let him think that his efforts would eventually come to fruition. All she wanted, really, was to be left alone.      Lizbeth stared at herself in the looking glass. She did not consider herself a vain person but there were times when narcissism fluttered in her breast whenever she saw her reflection. Tonight, for example. Perhaps it was the gown. She had not worn it before and it flowed about her like sculpted silk. One of her father’s colleagues—a visiting scholar from some university in America—had given it to her for her last birthday as a gift, but she had refused to accept it because the man had struck her as nothing more than a lecher. Her father had been mortified by this, of course, but could not bring himself to scold her; he ended up apologizing profusely to his colleague, who left the dress behind and never returned. Lizbeth had taken the dress and placed it in her wardrobe despite her father’s insistence that she package the dress up and send it back to America. She simply ignored his requests and he eventually gave up trying to convince her to get rid of it.      It wasn’t that she did not appreciate the things that her father did for her. He was a very sweet man, if somewhat pedantic. She was the apple of his eye, after all, something her siblings resented but never admitted. And yet what did anyone know of the guilt she carried since the day she was born? True, she had her mother’s beauty and unique grey eyes, but also the guilt of her death. This was a subject she could never broach with her father. He would tell her of course that she had nothing to feel guilty about, that she was in no way responsible for the death of her mother, but Lizbeth could never bring herself to believe that. To be brought into the world under the pain of death was something she could never live down. It left a wound that no salve could heal.      Such thoughts were far from her mind on this night, however. She turned from the looking glass and went to the other side of her room, where a shelf lined with rows of books occupied an entire wall. Reading was more than a simple pastime for Lizbeth, it was something she could not go without. She craved books, obsessed over them. It was not uncommon for her to sit for hours on end reading and rereading a book, whereas her brothers and sisters (with the possible exception of Aaron) found it unbearable to sit for any lengthy period of time with an open book before them. On some mornings back home she would take a handful of books and sequester herself in a part of the house where she knew she wouldn’t be disturbed for the day; to ensure that hunger would not spoil her plans, she would sneak some comestibles from the larder and bring them along to snack on. Those were halcyon days, the memories of which always brought a smile to Lizbeth. She longed to return to Ireland and the estate, to lose herself in the family’s immense library and not concern herself with meeting suitors or trying to recall their names.      Lizbeth had been in London for only six months and already she was beginning to grow weary of it. The initial fascination for the city had diminished quickly after her arrival. London was nothing like she had expected. It was dirty and crowded and the terrible yellow fogs that seeped over the city wreaked havoc on her lungs. Had her father not paid a ridiculous sum to have her privately tutored she would have gladly packed her belongings and left London at the first chance. The only solace she found was spending time with her tutor’s feisty terrier Pepperpot—she’d always gotten along well with dogs—and visiting the bookshops in the Bloomsbury district, which was not far from where she was staying. Her latest acquisition to her own growing library had been an old edition of Dante’s The Divine Comedy that she had found in a small alley shop. She knew she had paid too much for it but money was hardly a concern; her allotment of the Covenant fortune was more than enough to keep her well provided.      A maidservant knocked at her door and announced that a gentleman was waiting for her downstairs. Lizbeth collected her opera glasses and Oriental fan—a rare gift from Ambrose for her last birthday—and studied herself one more time in the looking glass. The opera they were going to attend was La Traviata, quite possibly her favourite. The story of the consumptive courtesan and her doomed love for the leading man appealed to her immensely. She had been looking forward to the performance for quite some time and hoped that her suitor was refined enough to share her appreciation of it.      His name, it turned out, was William. He was by far the most handsome of her suitors yet. As they walked to the opera house he had surprised her by reciting some poetry that he had composed solely for her. The poetry was amateurish, to be sure, but it touched her nonetheless. And unlike most of the other suitors, who had spent more time talking about themselves and their careers and ambitions, William was attentive, and spoke very little about himself. By the time they arrived at the opera house Lizbeth had revealed things to him that she had never spoken of to anyone. Her dreams, for instance. For the last few years she’d had a series of recurring dreams—night terrors, really—in which a shadowy figure pursued her across the Covenant estate. Regardless of where she hid the figure would always find her and give her chase, its hand reaching out for her neck, only inches away. The dreams always ended with her running into the family mausoleum, where the sound of the wind haunted every corner like the voices of the dead. She would turn this way and that only to find that there was nowhere for her to hide, and her mysterious pursuer would make his way into the mausoleum, hand outstretched, at which point she would wake up, usually with a scream. Upon telling this to William he suggested that she keep a journal to write down her dreams; he had read recently that keeping a record of such things might provide clues to the origin of her dreams and a possible way to deal with them. She had laughed at his suggestion, calling it a “quaint idea,” and yet she was secretly flattered at the note of seriousness in his voice.      When they arrived at the Royal Opera House they were ushered to a box on the grand tier in which an older couple also sat. William introduced Lizbeth to the distinguished looking gentleman, a Member of Parliament, and to his wife, a talkative woman who held séances once a month at her salon. Once the formalities were done Lizbeth seated herself and tried to contain her excitement; she had never watched an opera from this vantage point. The box afforded an excellent view of the stage and the audience. Even though she knew it wasn’t polite to do so she brought the opera glasses to her eyes and scanned the balconies and seats below to see if she recognized anyone. When she peered at a young woman sitting in a balcony off to her right a chill skittered along her spine. Was it a trick of the light that gave the woman’s features a deathly pall? Or perhaps the woman was ill—though the smile playing across her face seemed to indicate otherwise. Unnerved, Lizbeth quickly turned her attention from the woman to the noisome crowd gathering in the auditorium below. Something was…not right. It took a few moments for her to register the horrifying fact that everyone in the crowd was in a state of decomposition. It was a scene straight from the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch that her brother Aaron so loved: faces and bodies darkened with rot, the gleam of bone and sinew. Had she gone mad?      With a small cry she dropped the glasses to the floor. William immediately came to her side and asked if she felt unwell. When she turned to him she expected to see a decaying skull staring back, but no, he was still whole, his flesh intact. She clasped his hand and took comfort in its warmth. As much as she wanted to tell him that she was fine, that she had simply had a spell of dizziness, she found she could not. Images of death filled her head, as if she had been witness to countless atrocities. She thought she could hear howling, too, over the din of the crowd in the opera house. Wolves in London?      And then she thought no more. This fan-fiction story © dr_coma 2003.