#and if you don't i'll dance anyway (adelaide ❧ thread)

[deathmaiidens]

@xsorrowofamanxx from [x]

"Again," Adelaide started, her grave countenance a stark contrast to her youthful beauty (at least until the old grandfather clock struck midnight and you could see right through her bones, right through to her broken heart). "You're gonna have to be more specific. Many things happened here. To start with, there was William and Eleanor Gracey, but I think the ground was cursed long before they built this place..."

Wide brown eyes darted towards the portraits in the hallway where you could hear a low howling sound (or was it only the wind?), then back at the man. "They came here from England with their only son, Edward Gracey. Eleanor went first, died of yellow fever, and then William followed hoping to find her in the other world, forgetting he'd be leaving a little boy behind, all alone in a house full of ghosts. None of which were ever his mom or dad -- only strange phantoms with white hair and see-through bones like blue glass. When he grew up, he fell in love; found his bride in the most beautiful woman in New Orleans, but history was doomed to repeat itself. She died giving birth to a baby girl who wasn't expected to survive the night. Against all odds, she survived many a night from then on. So did her Papa who promised he wouldn't make the same mistake his Papa did and leave her, as much as he wanted to be with her Mama. As tired as he was of wandering through the haunted ballrooms and cemetery parties every night hoping to find her in the crowd of spirits let in by his father before him.

"Pretty soon thirteen years had gone by and you know what they say about the number thirteen, non? He was always there in the shadows, I think, but for some reason, Death himself waited that long to take the girl and her father. I suppose to make sure they'd never leave and well..here we are, to this day."

She smiled sheepishly, as if she were an ordinary little girl telling an ordinary little story. Only for a moment though, before she took on that serious glower again. "I know it's a little trite to say 'beware' at the end, but believe me when I say that there's something here...something that doesn't just want to scare people like the others, something that's hungry."