00: The Gaunts’ Demise

In the small village of Little Hangleton dwelled the infamous Gaunts. Their generations were defined by treasures and wealth passed on from one to the other, but it was not to this that their names were known. The villagers had long since inferred they were beyond their understanding and sympathy; ever since the world began, they had not, even once, interacted with them. They had thought then that this was their way of saying they weren’t on their level. Bitter resentment swelling from an unsaid insult, the villagers witnessed the scandal which the Gaunts had to bring into their graves.

The Gaunt’s manor stood atop the hill overlooking the village, its features quite resembling that of a man who couldn’t recover from being sick. Despite themselves, the Gaunts had lost their financial stability over the years, and the villagers found glory in the fact that the once fine-looking manor ended up being unchecked, though it remained to be the grandest building for miles around.

Not too long ago, half a decade or so it seemed, the scandal that forevermore inscribed the Gaunts’ name in the hearts of the villagers had come to pass.

It was a sultry evening, the wind barely coming by when the street was suddenly filled with racing ambulances, its siren wailing in the neighborhood, waking up the villagers. They were heading toward the manor. It didn’t take long for the villagers to see three corpses being taken away, Senior Gaunt’s wife, Rose, sobbing, shaken so badly, a baby cradled in her arms as she went with the ambulance.

The villagers were all awake that night, for though they resented the Gaunts, they suddenly felt sympathetic to the poor old Rose. She was, after all, the only survivor. It was, of course, before the rumor swooped around that everything had something to do with the baby carried by the old woman. It was impossible for the senior’s wife to conceive one as she was already past her sixties, so it’s probably from her only son who had died together with his wife.

Their claims were confirmed when the Gaunt’s maid appeared before the villagers, quite as pale as the senior had been. She said that after the baby was conceived that night, all the lights went off and everyone lay dead on the ground, their neck severed, blood spreading all over their faces—everyone except her and Rose. The maid called the ambulance and Rose took care of the baby, crying her heart out.

An investigation followed through and the case was closed long before the week was over. It was odd in itself. There was no murder weapon found, no suspect, and their deaths were done so cleanly that there was only one swipe on their neck. The power outage was the best way to conceal the murderer’s deed, but they had found out that it only lasted about five seconds and none of them could explain it. If the suspects were to be the maid and Rose, how could they possibly kill three people within five seconds, let alone hide the weapon used and remove themselves from the possible stain of blood they might have acquired. Besides, a CCTV was monitoring the room. It only stopped working when the light was out and it captured the exact moment where the two survivors stood rooted on the spot, their hands free from blood but their faces splattered with drops of it.

No burial had taken place. The three Gaunts were cremated. Rose, as the remaining survivor, did not leave the manor, though she stopped taking care of it all the same. Every afternoon, she was to be found watering her garden even though most of her plants were already withered and dead. She was humming and whispering to herself. Most of the kids found it funny to poke around their fences to hear her screaming her lungs out, waving her walking stick dangerously in the air. None of the adults tried stopping them because Rose ended up hissing on them instead.

The villagers believed she had already lost her marbles, yet no one tried to phone a psychiatrist whatsoever. They were, somehow, enjoying her despair, because it made them feel that death knew no hierarchy, that even if they were not on the level with the Gaunts, they, at least, were still with their family. Besides, trying to help her only resulted in an ungrateful yelling match, led by Rose herself who found that she could no longer trust anyone, paranoid that people still believed her to be the culprit that ended her own family’s life. It was an outrageous assumption. She loved her family, even more than she felt for herself.

Rose Gaunt lost it all just as she had her wish to have a granddaughter.

As months passed by, agents after agents from certain banks were going in and out of the Gaunt’s house, the only one who did so ever since her family had died, bringing along with them almost every appliance present in the manor. The villagers saw it all, and they couldn’t believe how little it mattered to Rose who was almost glad to get rid of all of those.

Little by little, the manor became scarcely recognizable. It no longer had its handsome and well-kept look about it. The villagers were, somehow, half and half with what they felt. Indeed, it was hard to sympathize with people who didn’t want anything to do with them. Had the Gaunts been nice and interactive with the villagers, Rose wouldn’t have had to cope up on her own.

The baby whom they’d heard little about was also under their scrutiny. They’d only seen it once when the maid brought it out for a walk, owing for her to get a good reprimanding and a cut on her salary. She was unlike any Gaunts they’d seen. What was achingly familiar about this family was their pointed face and haughty features but the child had the soft look about her and a sense of warmth in her cute downturned eyes. It was almost as though it wasn’t one of the Gaunts, though that might only be because she was still a baby then.

But after that encounter, no one was any wiser of what became of the child, let alone be aware of her name. They did see a limousine parking on the hill and taking off again almost at once every first and last day of the week, and they could only think that the child was being taken away and back again at those intervals—as to why, they didn’t have a single clue.

They had no idea. It’s the truth to which they wanted to deny. They only knew the Gaunts as the family centered in arrogance that had suffered a great loss in one blow…

… none of them had the slightest of hint that at the very moment they were speculating the Gaunts’ existence, a monster had been born that would soon awaken the sealed curse.

The child, her presence, would one day open up the wide berth of and to hell…