Chapter 9 - The Precipice of Judgment
Through the thick curtain of rain and smoke, Arthur saw a figure moving toward the dark edge of the ocean cliff—the sheer, three-hundred-foot drop where the violent waves smashed against the jagged black rocks below.
It was Eleanor.
She was walking slowly, deliberately, her graying white clothes dripping with rain, heading straight for the edge of the abyss.
"Stay here!" Arthur ordered Maria, turning his back on the burning mansion and sprinting across the slick grass of the lawn toward the cliff edge.
The wind near the cliff was deafening, carrying the spray of the ocean three hundred feet into the air. The rain slammed sideways against Arthur’s face as he closed the distance between them.
"Eleanor! Stop!" he yelled, his voice barely carrying over the roar of the sea and the crackle of the burning estate behind them.
Eleanor stopped right at the precipice. Her toes were hanging over the edge of the sheer granite drop. Below her, in the pitch-black darkness, the white foam of the Atlantic churned like a boiling cauldron of acid.
She didn't look down. She turned her head slightly, looking back at Arthur over her shoulder.
Her pale face was eerily beautiful in the flickering orange light cast by the burning mansion behind him. For the first time, there was something resembling emotion in her eyes—a deep, tragic, hopelessly broken sadness.
"Look at it, Arthur," Eleanor said softly, gesturing toward the burning estate. "Your castle is gone. Her memory is ash. Everything you built to keep her alive is burning."
"Step back from the edge, Eleanor!" Arthur pleaded, reaching out a hand toward her, taking a cautious step forward over the slick, muddy grass. "It's over! The fire is out of control, the police are on their way! Come back!"
"There is nothing to come back to," Eleanor whispered. "You will never love me, Arthur. You never could. You were always bound to a ghost."
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"That doesn't mean you have to die!"
"I died the day I realized I was just a living monument to a dead woman," she replied, her voice terrifyingly steady. "I tried to burn her out of your life, Arthur... but I see it now. She isn't in the paintings. She isn't in the house. She's in you."
