Chapter 6- The phantom of the opera part 2

It was still raining heavily and everyone was gathered in the dining room. "Damn it! Who killed Elizabeth?" asked Frederick while crying. He was mad and it could clearly be seen. "Oh and how can you be so sure she was killed and it wasn't an accident?" asked Hayden. "Because, because Elizabeth, Elizabeth promised to marry me and never leave my side...." responded Frederick, "What an idiot!" claimed Alexander. "It was definitely murder. The rope of the chandelier had signs that it had been cut with something very sharp." said Sophia. "How could something like this happen?" asked Madam Lafleur in drastic sadness. It was nearly midnight and the storm was getting stronger and stronger. Chlorine lead the guests to their rooms and asked if any of them needed tea.

"I cannot sleep..." thought Sophia. There was another sudden and loud crash of lightning and Judith hid under her blanket, shivering. Mathilda got out of her room at full speed and entered Hayden's room by mistake thinking it was one of her cousins' room in this utter darkness and crawled onto Hayden's bed. "Sophia? Judith? Is that you?" Mathilda asked while shaking the human body under the blanket to force them to wake up and respond. "Sophia or Judith, I'm scared of thunder and lightning, please respond ah..." a massive hand blocked Mathilda's mouth stopping her from talking and a head popped out of the blanket. The lightning stroke again and the head was that of a male, Mathilda's pupils grew wide and tried to loosen that person's grip over her but he was too strong and the man pulled her closer to him and whispered softly in her ear "It's me, Hayden. No need to be scared." On hearing Hayden's voice Mathilda relaxed and Hayden removed his hand from her mouth but his other hand was still holding Mathilda's back. Mathilda's heart was going 'LUB DUB' very hard and she was ashamed if Hayden were to notice thus she closed her eyes strongly. Hayden leaned in to kiss her but instead gave her a light kiss on her neck. Mathilda squeaked and slapped Hayden demanding why he did this to a defenseless young maiden; Hayden chuckled and said "Little angel, how am I supposed to react if you close your eyes like this while having your face all flushed in front of me? You just tried to seduce me." Mathilda slapped his cheek even harder and said "W-who on earth would even want to seduce a worm like you? I am innocent, you're the one who..." she was interrupted by Hayden who covered her mouth again. Mathilda was trying to push him away by force but he leaned closer and asked her to stay quiet for a while as an eerie sound could be heard from the hallway.

Silence.

The floor shrieked again, it was getting closer and closer, then there was a louder shriek. Then nothing else could be heard. Hayden let go of Mathilda. She was shivering like a leaf with dilated pupils. Hayden then pulled her close to his chest and patted her head, whispering in her ear that he promises to protect her. "It tickles, when thou whisper in my ear...it tickles." said Mathilda who felt her body temperature rising but she felt comfortable and eventually fell asleep in his arms.

"It's MORNING already! Come on Mathilda, how long doth thee want to sleep?" asked Judith while opening the door of Mathilda's room but to her surprise there was no one. "Eh? She is awake already?" asked Judith to herself. On closing the door she heard a shocked voice, it came from Hayden's room and Judith looked over to see William utterly shocked in front of Hayden's opened door so she went over to see what the matter was and her pupils dilated due to the shock. The room's door was opened to the view of Hayden's bed and Mathilda was in it while Hayden was sleeping on the floor. Both William and Judith stood there, dumbfounded and gobsmacked for more than ten minutes one would think they were statues. Sophia and Alexander both came up to look for William and Judith who disappeared fifteen minutes ago whilst they were given the task of waking Mathilda and Hayden up. There they both saw Judith and William being shocked statues and blocking the way to Hayden's room door and rushed over only to be shocked in return. "Ahem...We can't stay here forever, breakfast is ready and will get cold if you don't come down at once. I do not know how the two of them ended up in this situation but It's time to throw water on their faces." Said Alexander who was a little embarrassed and tried hard not to laugh.

Darjeeling tea and croissants were served for breakfast. Everyone was enjoying the feast except for two people. Apart from Elizabeth there was another student missing. "Oi Mari, you went up to wake Frederick, why is he not here?" remarked Arthur. "Well when I knocked at the door there was no answer and I was reluctant to unlock his door with the spare key that Chlorine gave us, maybe he is still sleeping so I thought and then I heard two knocks from inside and a mumble in a hoarse voice saying he did not want any breakfast. So I came back down without opening the door." she said. The rain had stopped but the sea was still very rough, making it impossible for any ships to approach the islet. "Hey if it goes on like this... at this rate Elizbeth's body will start to decompose before the officers of Scotland Yard arrives, furthermore we still need to rehearse for the big show on Friday so the Opera house should be cleaned or we can go back to the main island and perform in the university's theatre itself." Suggested Gray and the others from the drama department all agreed. Due to the majority agreeing to Gray's suggestion Elizabeth's body was moved to the wine cellar in order to slow down the decomposition process however Alexander and Lucas; with their strong character strictly forbade anyone to temper with the crime scene and locked the door to the opera house, keeping the key in one main drawer in the guest house and placing a crow in front to guard it. Alexander had the ability to tame any animals; even crows. The cast of the play thus rehearsed in the ballroom of the guest house.

After about two hours of rehearsal Mari went to take a bath. The water was not coming out and it finally came but it was cold and dyed crimson red, it also had the strong smell of Fe3+ ions. "Blood?" she thought then screamed to the top of her voice, ran out of the bathroom with a white robe on. Everyone rushed to where she was and Arthur asked her what the matter was, her unseemly appearance; the white robe that turned red partly, the red water on her face and hair, her eyes full of trauma. In all the shaking she managed to say those few words "Blood...Blood water is coming out of the shower." then fell unconscious. Alexander and his friends rushed over to the main water basin that distributes water to every taps of the guest house through water pipes, opened the lid to find Frederick's body. Hayden gave Alexander a helping hand to remove the body from the basin. Sophia examined his pulse and rigor mortis. "There's a deep wound in his chest, he was stabbed plus the body shows signs of washerwoman changes. I'd say he has been dead since last night and been soaked in the basin for about six hours or more. Judging by the position of the body in the basin, he was killed on land first then thrown into the basin after some time after the rigor mortis state." said Sophia. Frederick's body was also brought to the wine cellar. Chlorine and the other servants cleaned the water basin thoroughly and filled it with fresh water from the river. Judith bathed clean the still unconscious Mari. It was already dinner time and that's when it started raining heavily again.