Hearing the whispered voices at first Penny thought it was the sound of the wind which was coming through the windows until she noticed the windows were closed and it was from the corridor. Walking out of the powder room, she came to the end of the corridor to see a man who had his hand on the wall with a girl who stood with her back against it.
Like many other mansions, this place was not lit with candles as it was only the time of noon.
But the weather outside was cloudy and with the snow, the environment turned dark and dull. She saw the male who looked as if he were angry while the girl stared at him. Penny could tell the way the man stood he had meant to corner the girl.
Feeling more than out of place and having to walk through the same corridor where the couple stood now, she cleared her throat. Hearing her, the man was the first one to move away from the girl, a look of disappointment falling on the girl's face.
Penelope bowed her head as if wanting to excuse herself and left the place to get back to the room where Damien was. Returning back, she caught him talking to a maid. His stance intimidating the young girl. He waved her off to see Penny approaching him,
"Did you make her cry?" she asked him suspiciously while looking at the maid who scurried out of the room.
"Girls are often sensitive. One word and they have tears," he said looking at the room.
"Not everyone is like that."
"True, you are not like that," he said nonchalantly, his eyes then looked at someone coming behind and she instinctively turned around to see it was none other than the man and the girl she had come across moments ago.
Damien walked towards the girl, "Ms. Adam's, our condolences for what happened to your parents and people here. It was hard for us to believe that something so drastic took place here."
"No one could have imagined it to happen," the girl replied back with a small smile. Her reddish-brown hair was half tied from up and left open below which was wavy in nature. She looked young, her unblemished skin making her look nothing less to a porcelain doll.
With Damien who stood closest to the entrance of the room, the others gave them time to speak while Senior Mr. Quinn walked towards them to offer his words of sentiments. In the meantime, Penny could feel the gaze of the man who was with the girl. Her eyes met his eyes where he offered her a subtle bow.
By his clothes, one could tell that he was the butler of the mansion. He appeared to look calm and composed. Put together just like when she had cleared her throat. Penny bowed her head subtly before shifting her gaze back to the girl. As more time passed she could still feel the continuous gaze which made it evident as if she saw something she wasn't supposed to.
"Would you like us to recruit some new servants to help here, Belle?" asked Damien's father like he knew her parents well.
Instead of the girl answering, it was the butler who came to answer, "We're fine, Mr. Quinn thank you for your generous offer," the butler bowed his head, his voice coming out crisp and clear while his expression remained blank.
The girl's eyes darted back and forth between Senior Quinn and her butler, she said,
"He is right. Right now we're still sorting things around. I will let you know if I need one,"she said with an assuring smile.
"Of course, when you have a butler like Lucas, his is worth at least ten other servants," said the man, "Don't hesitate to ask if you need anything."
The girl named Belle smiled, her smile though tried to reach her eyes there was something forced, "That is very kind of you," the butler then interrupted to say,
"Would you like to move to the drawing-room, Sir?"
"Sure."
The Quinn's stay for dinner and left Adam's mansion to head back to their own mansion. On their way back, Damien stopped the carriage, getting down before they reached mansion to get Penny down and send Maggie back home which was a few minutes of the ride, not that his sister minded it.
Penelope followed Damien who walked one step ahead of her. It was as if something was weighing in his head since they had reached Adam's family.
"Everything alright?" asked Penny after some time of the silence that passed by. She didn't know if he got down for some fresh air instead of traveling back to the mansion. The sky started to snow down slowly. Soft, cold snowflakes falling one down after another with the temperature that dropped down.
"There is a pattern," he murmured, "My mother had a gift like me but different which was incomplete. The gift of premonition. Though it was more of an inkling you could say which passed on to me."
"Most of the mass murders the black witches caused were in the village and town to source powers. Black witches share the skill of foretelling things by making use of potions and sacrifices. Though they killed people for setting up something more, some of the houses that have been attacked which makes one wonder why? Why specifically us?"
Penny continued to hear him in silence.
"It wasn't just Bathsheba who noticed the alignment of stars. The houses that were attacked had a person each that had an alignment of stars."
"How do you know that?" Penny asked slightly confused not able to follow his guesswork.
Damien smiled, "Because nothing happens out of coincidence. Before you arrived here from the slave establishment. There was a family who got corrupted. If you see Adam's, there was corruption too. My guess is that is wasn't just to cause havoc in the family and the people who lived around but that their intention was more than that."
It might have been some kind of coincidence that the switcher who had come home knew that Damien would kill the people he had encountered to lay back as a fake Penelope back in the abandoned city. A coincidence that he had carried the potion of corruption with him. At the same time, the two houses he was aware of something was off about it...