Time at Bly Manor had gone by, and the Lady of the Lake had walked,
and walked,
and walked.
Waiting, until she no longer knew what she had been waiting for initially.
And just like those who had walked before her, she too, had faded away, as time had passed.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pont, the gardener had walked through her own Bly Manor. Waiting for her time to go by too.
The gardener, so much was obvious, had given her lifes purpouse to the shop they had found together. And so her days passed on. One year went by, then two and two soon became ten. Before she knew, the gardener, had spent her life walking in place, planting flowers. One day at a time.
She would sell those flowers, day after day. All the while the memory of her lover never faltert to stay before her inner eye.
Never forgetting her features, the sound of her silly laugh or...
NO. The gardener was certain, she ought not think so far as the legacy of her lover would never manage to escape her mind. It was tucked away safely.
So her time continued to pass on. And she would continue to walk in place,
sell her fowers,
and wait.
She would wait patiantly, and the longer she waited the faster it seemed, her time would pass.
In fact, there came a time upon where her physical body aged backwards. Time was taunting her. So before she knew decades had gone by. Leaving her as merely a shodow of her self.
They had taken a toll on her, greedyly taking so much. Lastly, her ability to walk properly.
Yet, she felt no pity in the lost.
In fact, it made her more feel alive, as that meant, each passing day, would bring her closer to the one she had mourned for for all of her life.
Having, lived such a long life, notwithstanding that it had been shadowed by a all to well known longing. She had walked,
and walked,
and walked.
Always on her own until she no longer could.
Finally, the gardener had grown old.
And ultimately time, once her greatest enemy, became an equal.
The both of them, albeit an odd pair, were living side by side like old friends.
She wasn‘t scarred. Because being scared of something so mundane as death did her no good. She had experianced far worse during her life.
But finally, her time walking among the earth was coming to an so long anticipated end. And so it was that the gardener found herself back at Bly for one last time.
Where she would learn to walk again.
Although, the gardener wasn´t able to go by the lake, due to her situation, she had watched from afar. And she could have sworn that there amid the fog stood her woman. But in the end she could not tell for certain so she made her way up the grand entrance of Bly.
A familiar pull towards the house led her inside. One she knew to follow, and so she walked behind the way the house guided her, without fear.
Proudly, she held her head up high emulously stepping over the threshold of Bly Manors portal doors, towards her wanted doom.
By her side unbeknownst to her, walked Lady Bly. Who lead the old lady to their room just like she had done with those before her.
Come nightfall she would be taken.
And as night fell over the grounds of Bly, the Lady of the Lake, once more, emerged from the drapery fog of the lake.
Strideing aloft the path to the Manor.
She would walk,
and she ought take.
But the Lady of the Lake hadn´t been the same since the au-pair had sacrificed herself.
Ever since then she had felt a sort of peace just like the au-pair had felt her pain before that.
Part of the peace within them though, had been missing for decades.
Until, the gardener had returned. And so this time Lady Bly ought walk...
alone.
During her lifetime, not only time had turned its back on the Lady of the Lake, but it had taking everything from her, that too was to end in that night.
For One last time, the shuffleing sounds of Lady Blys footstepps rang through the halls of Bly, as the faceless figure dissapeared through the thick portal doors of her Manor.
Silently and without remorse she went.
This time, through the hellfires deep down resting under Bly Manor. Responsible for her fate in the first place.
She walked among the fire that took her in like an old friend.
Over the burning hellfires she strode.
Perpetualy singing a lovely melody.
We lay my love and I beneath the weeping willow
But now alone I lie and weep beside the tree
Tears fell down her featureless face on to the raging fires. Suffrocating them one by one.
Ending a feud that´s been haunting the inhabitans of Bly and those who fell victim to it for centuaries, for good.
Leaving behind nothing but the ashes of a mournfull past.
At last Lady Bly too, crumbled away.
And the Manor..?
It simply left the ashes behind.
It fell silent.
And the au-pair..?
She waited, at the gardeners side, for the sun to rise. Tucking her in.
And the gardener...?
She dreamed about all those nights the two of them had spend watching their moonflowers.
With the first rays of sunshine falling upon the glasspanes of Bly Manors portal doors, that were emblazoned by a pompous arrangement of colors depicting a beautiful dove and a woodpecker interwoven, the au-pair woke her gardener.
The spell had been broken, something of those memorys the gardener had been tucked in had, for some unknown reason, moved something inside of the faceless lady of the lake.
She felt... something peregrine evolve within herself.
That made the au-pair stay.
So she had been waiting.
It was only with the moment that the gardeners eyes opened, the moment that they found a faceless figure next to her, that complete realization washed through the Lady of the Lake.
All of a sudden her body was drowning in a warmth that had been long lost. It returned to the au-pairs body.
And with it her features returned to her face.
First her pointy nose,
then her happy mouth,
small ears,
eyebrows
and at last her so familiar brown eyes. Not one day older then then the day she had last seen them.
Unable to fathom her luck, that after all this time, she had finally gotten back what she had desired most in her life, the gardener started laugheing, in disbelief.
The happiest silly laugh escaped her lips.
She remembered. The spell had been broken and she had remembered. She thought.
Right before she got taken under the au-pairs spell.
You see, the old woman knew, deep down she knew that it was really her lover.
She had suffered enough she was ready to walk again.
And that in itself was reason enough for the gardener to not fight those honey colored brown eyes of the au-pair.
They radiated such a calmness, tennderness, that the gardener became sleepy again.
She didn‘t fight it.
Anything but that.
In fact, her body gladly invited it.
To be consume by it completely, was all she had ever wanted.
So she let go.
And the au-pair...
she watched.
Until once more, her lover had been tucked in.
Bravely a single teardrop sneaked away,
spilled over the rim of her eye,
flowed down the valley of her face until it droped,
on the other womans forhead.
And like that she slept away.
Slipped into the realm of Bly.
The gardener awoke in their room. She stood up but it was only her soul had that left the bed. Her body stayed put. At first she didn´t realize, but as she walked over to the mirror, and it hit her. She was able to walk. A smile crossed her face. She threw a look over her shoulder and caught her own body laying there. The smile widened. She was at peace. No more suffering, no more grief, would shadow her days.
She would walk,
and walk,
and walk some more.
Together they would walk. The gardener corrected herself.
With that she made her way through the halls of Bly. Walked upon the wooden floor like she had done so many years ago.
Only, when she had reached the top of the grand staircase she stopped. Down, in the middle of the hall she stood. Smileing up at her, like she herself had done so many years ago, when thy had gone out to do a bonfire.
There she stood. Her au-pair.
They didn´t need to look for each others eyes as they had found themselfs instantly.
Their smiles widend an impossible amount,
and gardener made it´s way down the stairs, slowly but surely, there was no need to rush, none at all, in fact as
they had all the time in the world now.
With that in mind the gardener, after an awful lot of time, met the au-pair at the bottom. She had reached out her hand, which was takein greedyly by the gardener. Who didn´t waver to pull her close and lean in looseing themselves in a long lazy kiss. All tongues and teeth.
And as they were kissing like that the strangest thing happened.
A bird was heard.
Crying out loud as it flew through the pompouse windows above the two lovers. Smashing them whole and letting it pour down on them in the most beautiful colored pieces of shards of glass.
The bird unimpressed amids the event simply left left.
The lack of windows had let lose a strong breeze that now blew through the Manor. On it´s way it picked up, the long forgotten ashes of Lady Bly.
Sweeping them through the nightmarish halls of Bly Manor with a little scratching noise.
Slowly, but surely making their way from the basement up to the main hall. Which by now had been filled with hundreds of thousands of the utmost beautyful shards still falling from the ceilings.
The gardener and the au-pair amid.
The ashes crept through under doors and all kinds of questionable objects on their way to the entrance hall. Not once vanishing within the deep cuts of the outwalked floors of Bly Manor.
Soon enough the pile of ashes reached the main entrance.
And with it, something magical entered this world.
The shards of glass where still falling from the sky of the hallway, glistening in the sunlight in all kinds of colors, when a breeze, belonging to Lady Blys ahses, turned into a small windhose. Circleing slowly towardsto the ceiling.
On it´s way up it swallowed the pieces of glas.
It was a painting in disguise. And it created a body. A fluid glas body of colors that reflected and broke the light like a diamond. A body so extraordinary, not even the Manor knew what to think of it.
After all these centuaries it had never seeen anything like that.
And for a short moment in time, Bly was flushed by light as the body stood steady in the threshold, arms held up in victory while a light emerged from within the body. A Light, so powerful that it broke through every little crack in the fassade, eliciteing those who had been lost along the way.
By that time the two lovers had parted, they needed air. But they were soley at peace. One reached out for the others hand and together they walked into the light, sourrounded by the most beautiful colors they walked,
and walked,
and walked.
Leading everyone of those lost souls into a new tomorrow.
Together at last.
And ultimately, the strange glowing body extinguishing. The light vanished, but the body remained for some time.
Until it too, changed smoothly it turned into a white dove.
Lady Bly had been granted peace to, and so she flew out the same way the bird before her had come in, through the now broken window of the inerwined birds.
Eventually, she made a short stop before leaving Bly behind her completly and landed on top of one of Bly MAnors chimney tops, mocking it with pleasure.
She was ought to fly.