Ambivalent | Alois Trancy

04|Graves

You found it a bit odd that he was drinking tea alone, Claude was usually there with him, but you didn't want to spend your time worrying about him. You passed by some Pasque Flowers, the petals looking more like a dark purple than their normal purple. They were fully opened, the morning sun having awakened them, and their bright yellow center shone at you. You sent Hannah off, seeing no reason for her to be there when she had much better things to do.

You felt goosebumps go up your arm, a breeze was passing, and you quickly rubbed your exposed arms. You walked back down the path, passed Alois, and continued to the other side of the garden.

"What're you doing?" You heard Alois's voice call for you, which made you stop briefly, before you continued walking. Was this what Hannah was talking about earlier? Him wanting to know what everyone was doing at all times in his manor.

"If you really must know, I'm seeing if you have a lake or something with fishes," you huffed, looking behind you. You saw that Alois was still sitting there, his calculating eyes looking everywhere but you, and his legs were crossed while he sat. He reminded you of a fox. An annoying, definitely not cute, fox. "Wouldn't be surprised if you didn't," you remarked, turning your eyes back to the path.

You heard him scoff. Hearing that, you had a feeling that he was rolling his eyes at this very moment. "Of course we do, why wouldn't we have one? The old coot put one in," he said, disgust ingrained in his tone.

"Bit conceited to refer to yourself in the third person," you found yourself raising your voice, finding it hard to hear him the farther away you got. You sighed and took a deep breath, the air filling your lungs before leaving. You hadn't heard Alois respond, so you assumed he screwed off.

That's why you were terrified when you heard his voice from next to you, "You're going the wrong way." 

You let out a scream, almost whacked his face, and took a few steps back. "Holy shit I almost had a heart attack," you rested a hand on your chest, before letting it drop. 

Alois snickered and smirked, his chest rapidly rising and falling from his stifled laughter, "What a little scaredy cat you are [y/n]. Seems like you aren't as tough as you pretend-"

You quickly cut him off, "Do you want something? Or do you get some sort of sick enjoyment out of people screaming?" You clenched your teeth, about ready to sock him in his face.

"Both," he said, "just thought I'd let you know you're going the wrong way." Alois pointed to the right of you, "That's where the pond is and, unless you're illiterate, just follow the signs."

"I'm perfectly capable of reading," you rolled your eyes and muttered, "not that I can say the same for you." Looking down the path you were taking, you asked, "Where does that lead then?"

Alois looked at you through the corner of his eye, "Nothing, just a field." He looked down the path as well, which disappeared in the trees surrounding the mansion.

You nodded your head, looking down it. "I'll keep on walking down it then," you started walking again, not waiting for him to respond.

"Are you that stupid?" He rhetorically asked, and you heard his footsteps behind you. 

"I'm about as stupid as trees are fire proof," you shrugged your shoulders. He soon caught up to you and you were both almost to the trees, "So there's this thing called leave me alone."

"It's my land," he said simply, not looking at you in the slightest. "Which you have no right galavanting all over."

"Do you ever stop talking? You're just annoying."

"And you're a pain in my ass."

"Bastard," you said it loud enough so that he could hear it. The trees loomed above you, large and terrifying. Some of the branches stuck out into the path, so you had to move them away.

Alois ended up letting go of a branch too early, which ended up striking him in the face. There was some blood that he got on his hand from holding his cheek. 

"Wow, that was very smooth of you," you slow clapped, watching as he glared at you. 

"Oh, shut up you idiotic wretch," he said, pulling his hand away. He didn't seem too effected by it, continuing to walk along the path. 

"So defensive," you cocked your head to one side and folded your arms. You looked at Alois, who was now walking in front of you, and wondered why he wasn't crying. Most of the boys you've met started bawling when they tripped. "Say, haven't you got a father?"

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"Well, where is he?"

He stopped walking and looked at you, "Did your parents tell you anything about me?" You shook your head, "Weird." He turned back to the path and started walking.

You drew your bottom lip into your mouth and continued to press, "So your parents?"

"Didn't know my mother, returned home and met my father before he croaked," was all he said. He didn't seem to care about it at all, nor did he seem to have an issue talking about it, but you decided that that was enough of getting to know him. 

A silence fell over the two of you, which was broken when he said, "Don't think I'm telling you this because I 'trust' you or anything. As far as I'm concerned, your father didn't want you so he dumped you on my shoulders."

You rolled your eyes and continued walking, not having enough energy to deal with him. You would've been fine just going down this path by yourself, but he just up and decided to come along. The day just started and you already wanted it to end. 

You'd been walking for a while now, so when the trees started to clear you sighed in relief.  You quickened your pace a bit, stopping when you saw the engraved cobblestones sticking out of the ground. The land was flourishing here and a building was in the center of the headstones. 

The path led to a graveyard. 

You knelt down near one of the headstones, reading the lettering on it, "James Quinn, 1873-1885, 'May those who pass here think of me at least once.'" It seemed he died when he was twelve. 

Alois knelt down by it as well, reading what was on it, "I knew him. Squirrely boy, too nervous for his own good." His eyes had softened a bit, reading the epitaph.

"Bit rude to say that about a dead boy," you said, looking at the next grave. "George Ryan, 1871-1880 'Never thought that being dead would be so freeing.'" This whole grave reading thing was making you sad.

You saw that the newest ones had stopped after 1886, the oldest ones being 1850-1860. All of them were kids. You wondered why this graveyard was back here, maybe the Trancy manor had a history of children getting ill. However, none of them bore the name Trancy, so maybe they were all servants.

That would explain why Alois only had five workers in his house.

You watched as Alois stood up from a grave, stuck his nose up, and started to leave, "This is bloody stupid! Stay here if you wish, but I'm leaving."  

You took one last look at the graveyard, before following him out.

"Wait up loser!"

"Scared that you'll get lost without me?"

"No, I just don't want to miss you smacking your face again!"