TO THE BONE ✷ OVERTURE, NO ONE GETS OUT OF THIS

IT'S LATE AUGUST and Amelie glows under the summer heat, a halo of light seeping through the window and shrouding her body. Iseult never considered herself to be holy, never considered devotion to anyone until now. She knows that it's blasphemous, because the nuns at school are so pious and the church next door so daunting, but Amelie is the closest thing there is to God.

She is everything.

And Iseult, her disciple, her shadow, was nothing before Amelie. If she were anyone else, Iseult would have broken her. But Amelie feels like home and she could never hurt her. Who would ever want to?

"Isa, listen," Amelie says with a strange somberness. They're sitting on her bed and the window is open and there's a breeze and Iseult thinks that it sounds like being underwater. It feels like that too when Amelie says, "I've been thinking... I've been thinking—" She sighs. It's not soft—no, frustrated. Iseult waits with bated breath. "I'm leaving."

Water, burning, drowning.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm leaving. I... I can't stay here."

Sinking, swallowing, suffocating.

She doesn't get it. She's freshly sixteen and God, she's trying, but she doesn't get it. "But we—but I thought—" And then: "You can't."

"Isa—"

"No," Isa pushes herself off the bed. Her voice has an edge, a darkness, the hunger clawing at her throat. It tastes the betrayal, can feel Amelie pulling away. "You promised that we'd leave together—go to London, leave this behind—but not me. You said you'd never leave me!"

Amelie's voice comes out choked. Iseult had never stopped to wonder if Amelie had some dark thing clawing at her throat too—but she was only sixteen. She just didn't get it. "I can't stay, Isa, I can't. It's getting worse. She's so angry these days and it's my fault. There's never anywhere left to hide. I can't keep hoping that I'll disappear." She doesn't say it but she means: I need to get out of this. And really: Any way that I can.

Iseult should have known then, should have seen Amelie for all that she was. Amelie could see her—could see her suffering, and the beauty in it. And Isa thought it was enough to be seen. But when she looked at Amelie, all she could see was God—all she could see was the crucifix.

Selfishly, she begged her to stay. And Amelie looked at her, ripped the grief from her body, and did what she asked. She would have done anything Isa asked. Because if Amelie was the shepard then Iseult was her flock. Amelie had always been her protector; Iseult could never have been hers.

But Amelie should have ran. If Iseult had known then, she would have begged Amelie to leave her. She would have killed that hunger to be wanted, to be loved—would have smothered it like a flame if it meant that Amelie could get out of this.

Hunger, rot, oblivion.

          There is nothing else.

AMELIE HAD STAYED like she promised. Another year had passed with Iseult in that small town with that punishing religion and her sanctimonious mother. And nothing got better and nothing really changed, but there was Isa, always Isa, and it was all worth it.

Isa was seventeen today and she doesn't get it yet, but she will. They had celebrated her birthday in secret, in their shared room with a cupcake and a flickering candle and silent smiles but not a sound. And it would be their last haunting in that town, with those people, with the looming martyr watching over them. Isa was freshly seventeen and soon she would have her fourth-year certification and everything would be good for once. And Amelie was eighteen and done with certificates and just waiting, waiting, waiting. And she had a bruise on her chin and a sweltering burn on her wrist where a candle had been put out on her skin.

And soon, Iseult would lose her protector and no one would tuck her into the closet when Amelie's mother got angry. No one would take a lashing for her, offer up their skin as an ashtray instead of hers. No one would protect her, would love her, would see her for all that she was. Not like Amelie.

But now, it's midnight when Amelie and Iseult and Mother Superior walk silently to the house up on the hill. There, in the distance, it seems so small, so harmless. But there is a darkness deep inside of it. Far beyond ghosts and specters and remnants of the living, there is a darkness that festers and twists and grows.

And when they reach the gate, the door seems more like a gaping mouth and the shingles like pearly teeth. And the windows are eyes, looking out at the rolling hills—looking down on them and seeing them with a truly horrifying depth.

When Mother Superior watches them enter, Iseult looks back one last time and she seems pleased. They both seem so pleased. Mother Superior's out of possession and Iseult's for the promise of freedom. And when Isa steps through the door again, later in the night, as the only thing alive, she is met with something worse than horror—apathy. Though she's covered in blood and wet tears and true, hollowed-out grief, Mother Superior just looks through her, says: I thought you were better than this, and nothing else.

And later, she'd rub her skin raw until it was wet and peeling, violently pink and stripped loose, rid herself of the blood and sweat, replacing her old tears with new ones. And she would still never feel clean, would still feel the sticky blood between her fingertips. But even with new bruises and scars across her once tender skin, she would still never know if she ever came clean. Or if somewhere small, unseen, hidden away was traces of dirt and blood and tears that she could never get off. And God, doesn't that just eat away at her.

But Isa's skin is still pure and Amelie is ruined, and she's only seventeen. Dear God, she's only seventeen. And as soon as they step past the threshold, it burns. It's so cold that it pricks at their eyes, blankets their skin with a chill. Still, even though they are just kids and even though they have been robbed of their girlhood, they carry on into the gaping mouth of darkness.

Their destination is the Red Room—they know that much. The thin spiral staircase, the lone noose of rope, and the red door waiting for them at the very top.

It's Amelie that goes first, of course. One hand on the rail and the other on her rapier. Iseult goes last, always last. She doesn't hold the rail, just looks below at the grated steps. She can't see below them even though she should be able to. There is only darkness. She can hear something falling. It sounds like being underwater, muffled sounds. And bone snapping so suddenly she jolts, can almost feel her own neck go limp with the violence of it. Reaching out into the darkness, she teeters over the edge of the railing, fingers stretched towards the waiting noose.

As soon as her fingers touch the coarse rope, she can feel fear falling over her. It's suffocating, constricting, like a noose around her neck. It's the moments leading up to it. A girl with hollowed cheekbones, the bruising around her throat, the final push, the bloody end. Iseult reels back as if it burns her, gripping the railing to keep her from falling to her own horrific demise.

She hardly notices how far Amelie has gone without her. She's out of reach, already has a hand on the doorknob of the Red Room by the time that Iseult reaches the top of the stairs. When Isa looks back down at the ground that seems so far away, she sees a heavy silver mist. They're shadowy, half-formed figures—harmless, just haunted in their own right. And they danced and wandered and died again. And in a strange way it was beautiful and infinite and sad. The beautiful thing about life used to be that it ended, but now even death is temporary. And the rest is oblivion.

Iseult feels a darkness looming over her, like a shadowy breath against her skin. "Amelie," she calls. Amelie stops moments before turning the doorknob. "It knows we're here."

Amelie nods sternly in acknowledgment, wielding her rapier in one hand and opening the door with the other. It creaks and groans like the house is alive. The windows its eyes, the door its mouth, and this cursed room a stomach. When they enter the room, there is nothing. The walls are red like blood or the lining of an organ, but nothing could ever live in there. There is nothing living there.

Amelie and Iseult look to each other in confusion. Most Type Twos would make themselves known. But there is nothing to see and the only thing that Iseult feels is the fear and confusion of the lost and wandering Type Ones. Yet when Iseult presses a hand to the wall, she swears that there is a heartbeat, a pulse from the bones of the house. It's alive. A living breathing thing and Iseult learns that a ghost can be anything.

The door creaks again—slowly, eerily. It's chilling and when Amelie and Isa turn, they feel stuck. It's not ghost-lock though, rather something more human. It's fear—thick, pulsating fear—almost as alive as the house. It's Amelie's mother, her tormenter, the only thing that they could ever really fear. In truth, ghosts are nothing when you have felt the true horror of humanity, the cruelty that calls itself love.

But it is her in every way, down the wispy flaxen hair, sunken eyes, the wrinkles at the corners of her mouth—haunting blue eyes, dead and barren. It matches even her silent violence, that loud look of disapproval. It mirrors her disappointment, the way she claims that bruises are kisses and her closed fist is the hand of God. But it says nothing because it is not her, no matter how much it looks like her.

Iseult is the first to break through her fear. Amelie is petrified, stilled by someone who is miles away. It taunts her, steps closer, just watching. It can feel her fear, how her gut twists, how the sickness rises in her throat. It sees Amelie's hand reach up to her own cheek, tenderly pressed against the aching bruise like a sign of absolution. She cradles it but it is not forgiveness. The ghost reaches out too, and it's not her mother, because it is far too gentle, too curious for its own good.

It is Iseult that shakes her of her stupor, though Amelie is still half-dazed as she pulls back.

"It's a fetch!" Iseult cries and she doesn't know what to do. She's so young, only seventeen. She's so young. "It isn't her—it isn't real. It's only us, Amelie." It's almost a plea at this point. She's begging to be believed. And Amelie listens, of course. She would do anything for Isa—anything.

And again: anything to get out of this.

Then they move, searching the room in a mess of limbs and lost girlhood, like they would be running through a field, hand in hand, or falling over each other in the streets of London—a dream, so far away, so out of reach. Instead, they are here, in this awful red room with a fetch hovering at the center, watching with a perversion as their fear spurs them into desperation. It's swimming in it.

And when Iseult finally finds a gap in the baseboard, she pries at it as her nails scratch at the walls, leaving streaks across the red paper. It almost bleeds, dripping onto her hands, but she doesn't get it. She can't tell where her fingers begin and the molding ends. She can't tell if the blood is hers at all. But when she calls out to Amelie that the end is in sight, the fetch turns to her. It knows what she means to do and lunges with its own desperation for the small box hidden behind the baseboard.

Iseult, with her rapier poised and her hands shaking at the sight of a violent woman. And Amelie, her protector, her only holy thing in this world, with her arms wrapped around Isa, gripping her tightly like the world might cave in on them. She can feel Amelie's fear flooding over her body, can feel the senseless devotion weighing down on her. This is not the first time that Amelie has curled in on her, protected Isa from a blow that was meant for her, but it is the last. The fetch pulls back. They can barely feel a breeze from its movement as it watches them. It pulls back because it was never violent, only feeding off their fear, doing anything it could to feel full.

And when Iseult tucks the source underneath the silver net, it's over. She knows it's the end and no one breathes. There's nothing else but them.

Iseult only pulls back when Amelie's arms go limp and she no longer feels any terror or love or warmth, only her own anguish. She doesn't know how she didn't see it before, the gleaming hilt of her rapier buried in Amelie's gut. It's unnatural. Gods cannot die like man. But as Iseult grips Amelie's tender hand, she finally understands. Amelie was never a god, never her protector. She was just a girl—small and feeble and so easy to love, but just as much, she wanted to be loved too. Iseult had never seen her then. But she saw her now. Still, too late.

Anyone would tell you that the ghosts in the house at the top of the hill were wailing that night. But only Iseult knows that agony to be her own. And as she cradles Amelie's body, so tenderly, she would protect her against anything. But there is nothing else to be afraid of.

There is nothing as violent as grief.

And even though Amelie was long gone, Iseult still wept like a child. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have let you go." Her throat goes dry from swallowing down the hunger. It knows that it will never be wanted again, will never be seen again. "Why couldn't I let you go? You can leave, you can run from me, I promise—but not like this. Please, God, not like this."

But no one was listening. Amelie was unmoving in her arms and even though Iseult was still there, no one got out of it alive—not really, not in a way that mattered. It was all sutures and shattered bones, broken things mending—a begging to be seen.

She never really got over that.

✷ AUTHOR'S NOTE: so iseult's backstory is pretty similar to lucy's but you know what? if anything lockwood and co stole MY plot! everyone knows that i write mommy issues and trauma surrounding death! how DARE they. but anyways my inspiration was haunting of hill house with the red room and everything but i forgot that lockwood and co has a red room to so i guess isa's just really gonna hate red rooms after this??

also, i don't know how well this fits into canon, but i made it so that isa can feel what the ghosts felt when they died. i kind of want to lead it in the direction of her being like an empath w the dead and the living