Gothikana

"We shouldn't be doing this." "No we shouldn't", he agreed, thankfully not stopping

Main Characters

Jade - first friend and roommate of Corvina.

Erica - friend of Corvina

Roy - older girl senior. She seems mean but she is trying to look out for Corvina in her own weird way.

Troy - friend of Corvina’s and boyfriend to Jade.

Jax - friend of Corvina’s. As a crush on her which pisses off Vad. 

Kaylin - Recruitment specialist at the school.

Ajax - a friend of Vad’s from the Boys Home. Troy's brother. An investigator. 

Fury - a friend of Vad’s from the Boys Home

Zoe - Ajax’s girlfriend that disappeared at the last Black Ball.

The Black Ball - a dance that occurs every 5 years, on a full moon. Someone has gone missing every single time. 

“Madness” - What Vad and Corvina refer to as their uncontrollable attraction to each other.

Gothikana’s main female character is Corvina Clemme. Corvina was raised by her schizophrenic mother, homeschooled, secluded. Corvina would be considered odd to most people. She has purple eyes, dark black hair, reads tarot cards, keeps to herself, and dresses in dark colors (she sounds amazing). When Corvina turned 18, she had her mother committed to a psychiatric facility due to her symptoms worsening. Corvina checked herself into said facility voluntary for testing. Both of her parents were diagnosed with schizophrenia, her father committing suicide when she was only a year old. Corvina hears voices off and on her entire life. The most common voice is a male voice that she has nicknamed Mo. Doctors conclude that even though she is at a high risk of mental illness due to her genes, she doesn’t have anything wrong right now. They believe Mo is her subconscious. He shows up in times of uncertainty, or something highly emotional happening. They believe she hears a male voice to make up for the lack of a father figure in her life. 

When she is 21, she receives a letter from The University of Verenmore. It states that they got her name from the psychiatric facility and they offer her a full ride for a two year degree. They state that they are an exclusive school - exclusive to those who would not normally be able to go to college, usually due to mental illness, drugs, or just a hard knock life. The college is situated on top of a mountain. Of course it's secluded, real foggy, very little cell service, one landline available, and no TV. It’s also a castle with outbuildings surrounded by woods. Not creepy at all right? Even though she has never heard of this school, and can’t find much about it online, she decides to go for it. 

She arrives and the cab driver tells her how the school has a reputation for being creepy and haunted. She immediately meets a young girl named Jade, who will be her roommate. Kaylin, recruitment specialist at the school, greets her and gets her settled. On the way to her and Jade’s new room, a boy yells out at her to be careful of Jade, her last roommate committed suicide by jumping off the roof. 

Jade tells her that yes her last roommate jumped off the building, she believes it had something to do with her affair with a teacher, Mr. Deverell. He is technically still a student, working on his doctorate, but he also teaches a class at the college. 

Corvina gets her first interaction with Mr. Deverell when she hears a piano playing late at night while she is trying to go to sleep. She goes to investigate, climbs to the top of the tower, and sees someone playing. His back to her but he stops and tells whoever is out there to get the fuck away from the door. So she does. As she is going down the spiral staircase she looks up and locks eyes with him. 

black ball - people go missing every 5 years on the full moon.

Troy, Ethan, Jax. Roy. Erica.

A week later, in her literature class, she gets her second look at Mr. Deverell. He is her professor. The sexual tension is palpable according to Jade and Erica. 

Corvina has trouble sleeping and she likes to explore which leads her wandering through the woods very early one morning. She finds a lake. There’s a crow hanging out there and Corvina has always had a pull towards crows. She feeds it some nuts she has and talks out loud to it. And then a male voice behind her responds. They talk for a bit, he makes cryptic, slightly creepy comments. Calls her “little crow” (god I love a good nickname). He leaves and she hears a female voice in her head saying “help me”. The voice leaves her with an icky feeling and a gross taste in her mouth. 

A week later, when she is back in Mr. Deverell’s class, she keeps seeing a light flicker in the corner of the room. Her lack of attention irks him so he calls her out in front of everyone. Jax makes a comment about how if she’s bored he can come sit with her. Which further irritates Deverell and (paraphrasing) tells Jax to stfu. Deverell tells her to stay behind after class ends. Banter/sexual tension ensues until he notices her attention on the corner of the room again. He grabs her chin and asks what she keeps looking at. She denies seeing anything. He tells her he doesn't want to reprimand her in class because he doesn’t want to bring attention to her, he doesn’t want others fantasizing about her. 

Her friends tell Corvina about a legend surrounding the school. There was a group of students, about a hundred years ago, who would sneak down into the village, kidnap someone, bring them into the woods, perform rituals, and then kill them. Once someone went into the woods with them, they were never seen again. They called this group The Slayers. After awhile, a larger group of students followed them, and killed them all. Later that night, alone in her room, Corvina sees a flicker of light in the corner, and a female voice saying “Find me”.

During a walk through the woods, she finds some ruins, with 15 unmarked graves, and a piano hidden under a new tarp. Later that day, she goes to the library, and when she pulls out a book, there are eyes staring at her, saying “they are here”, “the slayers”. Mr. Deverell shows up, cages her in with his arms, against the shelves, tells her she needs to stop him, but she doesn’t. He calls her a witch and she calls him a devil.

Corvina, Jade, Troy, Jax, and a few other boys, take a walk through the woods. They find a shack and see a shadow moving inside. Corvina hears the girl's voice again saying “please help me”. Mo tells her to go back, she tells the group they need to head back. 

Corvina has a dream about the lake, something holding her in place by her ankles, and a girl floating face down. She sees her mom holding tarot cards - The Devil, The Lovers, The Tower. Her mom tells her to stay with the devil, the one in her heart, he will keep her safe.

She wakes up screaming and decides to take a walk, in the middle of the night, to the ruins. And guess who is there? Mr. Vad Deverell. They end up kissing, and he tells her this cannot happen again.

A few weeks later, Corvina needs to send a letter to her mother. But they only send mail out every few weeks. She is asking the admin dude at the desk how she can get to town? She hears a voice behind her say “You can ride with me”. Of course its Deverell. On the way, they talk a little, enjoy some silence that isn’t awkward. He tells her when they’re alone, she can call him Vad. After mailing her letter, talking to Ms Remi who works at the post office, who is sisters with the librarian, they head back up the mountain. It starts storming and they have to pull off to avoid sliding down the mountain or wrecking. They end up, I was going to say having sex, but no they definitely fucked. Seemed intense for a first timer (which she is). Since teacher-student relationships are a no-no, he says everything has to go back to normal when they get back. So he ignores her for weeks. He watches her..a lot..but other than that. He catches her in the library again, makes out with her, and asks if she has fucked Jax yet. Which pisses her off. 

During Dr. Kari’s class, she hears Mo telling her she needs to get to the tower. She looks up and sees a shadow hovering near the door, like it's waiting for her. She makes an excuse and leaves the room and starts running toward the tower. She ends up smacking right into Vad. He is very concerned for her, she is obviously very freaked out and keeps looking behind him at the shadow. She tells him she sees a shadow and that she just really needs to get to the tower now. When she gets there, there’s already a crowd gathered. Troy is standing on the very tip top, just like Alissa had. Vad had followed her, he ran into the building with Ethan and Jax, to try and get up there to get him down. Troy took a step toward the edge and Corvina yells out, he looks down, right at her, smiles, and walks off the ledge. As soon as he hits the ground, she hears his voice in her head, saying “Purple, tell my brother”.Later that night, she goes for a walk and ends up at the gates looking up at the castle. Vad appears by her, says he wants to show her something, and takes her to his room. He wants her to tell him about the shadow, she denies everything. He tells her that he knows she was admitted to the facility. She starts hyperventilating. She doesn’t want to be crazy, and she is so afraid of him thinking that she is. He calms her down, tells her he knows facts about her, but he wants her story, but obviously she isn’t ready. He tells her to stay there, he is going to go work out. She falls asleep, and wakes up real early in the morning, with him cuddling with her. She sneaks out and goes back to her dorm. She decides to take a shower, while in there, the lights go off and she hears a mirror shattering. She gets out and looks at the mirrors above the sink, one of them was broken, but she steps up and looks at her reflection. As she is looking, her eyes turn black and her reflection leans closer to her, crying, saying “I know you can hear me”. Her reflection kept coming and started bulging like someone was trying to get out. She starts screaming and Roy and another girl rush in. She swears she is fine and leaves.

The castle had another area that they recently opened called The Vault. A place where students could hang out like a rec room. With classes canceled, the library closed, and her feeling uneasy about the woods, she decides to go see if the Vault is open. It is, with a seating area, and a piano. It's the same piano she had first seen Vad playing on her first night. She curled up with her book and ended up falling asleep, only to be woken up by Vad playing the piano. 

He asks her to talk about the Morning Star Institute. She really doesn’t want to because she doesn’t want to seem crazy and she doesn’t want him to hold it against her. He swears he won’t and he will even incentivize her to talk. He’ll distract with his fingers and mouth and she can talk. She tells him about her mom, about Mo, about getting tested for mental illness. After she tells him everything, he rewards her, and then tells her “You’re mine now. For as long as this madness ensues.”

The next day, Troy’s brother arrives. He also attended Verenmore and is now part of the International Investigation Squad. Vad comes up to Corvinas lunch table and tells her that her request for a phone call has been approved. She had told him that she had wanted to call her psych doctor to tell him what was going on. On her way to make the phone call, she runs into Troy's brother. Now, let’s go back in time for a hot minute. Vad grew up in a boys home. There was an old woman there named Old Zelda who had gone blind but was a Seer (psychic whatever you want to call it). She had told Vad that he would go “to a castle where none go” and that he would find “many things. Purple eyes. You will find purple eyes.” It unsettled him but she had made other statements that would prove to be true. Some of his friends were there and heard her say this - Fury and Ajax. Now, back to the present.

So Corvina is headed to the admin office when she gets distracted by some roses. A guy tells her to be careful of the thorns and she looks up at him. He stops, looks shocked, and says “Purple eyes.” Turns out Troy's brother is none other than Vad’s old school friend, Ajax. She follows Ajax into the office and asks him so you’re an investigator? And then Kaylin appears, and basically tells Corvina to get out. Ajax slips her a note telling her to meet him at the lake.

On her way to the lake later, she hears the girl’s voice again “Can you hear me?”. She ignores it and continues on. She tells Ajax she just finds it really weird that Troy killed himself because he was suicidal. He was fine that morning. And isn’t it weird that another student did the exact same thing last year? Vad gets mentioned (as someone who has stayed there awhile) and Ajax says “Fucking bastard found you.” Ajax tells her that Vad’s grandfather had shown up shortly after Old Zelda had made the prediction and he hadn’t seen him until they both showed up as students at Verenmore. Corvina is confused because Vad had told her he grew up in a boys home but he made it seem like some random old guy had adopted him, not his grandfather. Ajax tells her that the day after Vad turned 18, his grandfather died of mysterious causes. Vad then became the sole and legal heir of everything that was his grandfathers. Vad shows up, Ajax says it looks like Old Zelda was right and you found your purple eyes. Vad says “Let’s hope for your sake she wasn’t right” (even after reading the whole book, I still have no idea what this means). Ajax says he will getting off his cursed mountain tomorrow. Corvina is confused and Ajax says “Verenmore has always belonged to the Deverell family.” The castle, and the mountain, is Vad’s. Vad gets pissed and tells Ajax to leave before he throws him off the damn mountain. Before he leaves, Ajax drops one more bomb. Tells Corvina to be careful, wouldn’t want to end up like Zoe (Ajax's ex-girlfriend). She disappeared during the last Black Ball.

Corvina is obviously a bit pissed. She has told Vad everything and he has told her half truths and lied by omission (smells like a Xaden….). She tells him he is a stranger to her and takes off running. He chases her because of course he does. And then (in a very Zade from Haunting Adeline move) catches her and fucks her against a tree. She admits to herself, and him, that she is his. She tells him that she is his but he can’t lie to her anymore, whether it's straight out or by omission, he has to be truthful with her. He tells her to stay after class tomorrow and he will tell her everything. 

Vad tells her that his parents abandoned him and he lived at the boys home until his grandfather showed up. As Vad grew up, he was taught all about properties, controlling them, and how to take on the board at the college. When Vad became an adult, his grandfather told him all about Verenmore and the Slayers. His grandfather had been a student there, and his girlfriend at the time claimed to be a witch. Him and another friend took a maid out of the castle because his girlfriend had said she could make her do things. Things went wrong, the maid died, and they buried her. But then they liked it. They would go down to the village using one of the many tunnels that were hidden on the property (that his grandfather would know about because he had a map that had been passed down in the family) and kidnap someone, they would “play” with them, and then kill them and dispose of their bodies. When others found out what was happening, his grandfather flipped and led the charge. He’s the one who led them into the woods and helped kill the Slayers. His grandfather believed that his witch girlfriend cursed him and the land and that's why people always disappear on the night of the Black Ball. She asks Vad how his grandfather died and he said “That I can’t tell you, little crow. I will say I have no regrets about it.” So basically, he killed him. Vad says no one else knows, his grandfather only confessed to him and he hasn’t told anyone. Vad says no one knows that he owns the mountain or the school. The admin knows he's on the board but that's it. He knows weird shit is happening around there and he thought he could find out more if he came in as a regular student and not announcing he owns everything. Vad says Ajax’s ex-girlfriend had told him about a shack in the woods that looked like someone was living there. Corvina says yeah I saw the same shack. At the Black Ball, Zoe went missing. They searched everywhere for her, but never found her. Vad says the suicides (Alissa and Troy) are staged. He doesn’t know how someone is convincing two happy people to walk off the roof. 

Vad says his grandfather never told him what they did with their victims but Vad had set up fifteen empty graves at the Slayers Ruins anyways. 

Corvina asks about Old Zelda. He says that she told him he would find purple eyes one day and he needed to follow them. His boys home was called “Morning Star Home for Lost Boys” before it burnt down. Vad says being on the board, he’s allowed certain access, and three years ago he was looking up Fury trying to see what happened to him (Old Zelda also told Fury that he would “eat flames”, and he died in the fire that destroyed the boys home). Somehow, that led him to the institute’s data, where he saw Corvina’s mothers photo. He saw her eyes, and went to visit her. He talked to her mom, but her mom not only has schizophrenia but also dementia so she didn’t talk much and was confused. She did ask him if he’d look after her daughter who is all alone now. 

Vad says he saw Corvina across a room while he was at the institute. Not sure why he waited three years, but he eventually had Kaylin send Corvina an admissions letter.

Later that night, Corvina snuck out of the students tower and snuck into the faculty tower. They have sex, take a bath, actually have a conversation, and he tells her to spend the night, but not to sneak out on him again. She has another dream - she’s in the lake, something is holding her ankles, dragging her down. She hears a female saying “We know you hear us. Help. Find.” Vad is there when she wakes up and she tells him that the bodies are in the lake. He tells her he will call the board and drag the lake, but he wants her to call Dr. Detta sooner than later. She wants to go to the lake right now. Vad goes with but tells her there is a short cut, through this creepy ass tunnel. She hesitates because .. what if? What if he is the evil that is lurking around? No one knows where she is. He could kill her and she’ll just be another disappearance. She hesitates so long that Vad asks “Do you trust me?” She says yes and takes his hand. He tells her “You have no idea what you’ve just done, little witch. There’s no going back now. I will never let you escape.” She responds “Just know that if you kill me, I will personally haunt you. Good luck getting yourdick wet after that.” 

He tells her there are many tunnels around the property. He had the tunnel leading from the castle to the village closed up since that is what the Slayers used for their victims. They get to the lake, the crows are there. Vad says he has been giving them treats since she hasn’t been going into the woods. Corvina hears “Find us” and tells Vad to have the team look under the bridge. 

They go to the admin office to make their phone calls. They see Kaylin and Vad tells her “I trust you to keep this confidential”. She doesn’t know who he is, but she knows he's on the board, and has more authority than her. Corvina calls Dr. Detta and leaves a voice message. She mentions the bathroom incident. When she gets off the phone Vad wonders why she didn’t tell him about that. He knows she has always been alone but she isn’t now. He will be there for her, forever, whatever she needs. He said when he had Kaylin send that letter, he just wanted to see her in person because he was curious. He never intended for any of this to happen. 

Madness

They drag the lake that day. They started finding bones on day 1. It took three days to bring everything up they could find. Fourteen skulls. 868 fragmented bones.

A few weeks later, Jade and Corvina are outside. Corvina’s shirt slides off her shoulder and Jade sees the hickey that is always on her shoulder. She can’t tell Jade who it is, but she tells her it's someone older, and that it's new, so they’re keeping quiet. Jade asks if Corvina will use her tarot cards and do a reading for her. This ends up drawing a crowd, all wanting readings. One of the teachers, Dr. Kari, asks her if she can find out if he should buy a house. Then, Vad appears, and asks if she’ll pull a card for him. She says yeah, what about? He says “A woman I’m in love with.” Corvina freezes, but has to remain cool because they are surrounded by people. She says “What about her?” “I’d like to know if she feels the same.” The card she pulls is the Two of Cups, and she says “She feels the same Mr. Deverell, she feels exactly the same.” “That's a relief” he says as he walks away.

Three days later, they are having sex in the room at the top of the student tower, when she hears a voice say “You didn’t find me. I needed you to find me. You’re next.” Which obviously ruins the moment, but Vad is every understanding. Corvina is so afraid of becoming her mother but he assures her he is there for her, no matter what happens. 

A week before The Black Ball, classes are over, and it's hard for them to see each other so they can’t see each other without a high risk of getting caught. The school takes everyones measurements so they can get outfits for the ball. While waiting for her fitting, one of the admin office guys comes and gets her. In the back office is a beautiful dark purple dress with a note attached. Vad had bought her a dress, shoes, and a mask. While leaving the admin office, Corvina hears Mo say “That house, Vivi”. 

She sees Ajax and goes over to him and asks him to go into the woods with her. She wants to check that creepy shack that she saw before. When they get there, the door is open, there is a body laying on the floor, half burned. They head back so Ajax can get his team. 

The night of the Black Ball, Corvina heads to the Main Hall with all of her friends. She finally sees Vad, in a dark suit, wearing a crow mask. He tells her that things will heat up pretty quickly and not to let anyone else touch her. He plays the piano for a bit with the band. They leave together, he takes her to the Slayers Ruin, and sits her on the piano. He asks to see if her mothers bracelet that she always wears on her left wrist, and he places a ring in her hand. He says he isn’t proposing…not yet. But he wants her to have something of his. They go to the Vault and he tells her that if nothing happens tonight, he will come out to everyone as a board member, and he won’t be able to teach any of her classes, but they won’t have to sneak around anymore. They hear yelling coming from the ball and when they arrive her friends are freaking out. Jade and Roy are missing. Everyone starts searching. She sees smoke coming from the Ruins and Vad, Ajax, and her go searching the woods. They find the piano, that she was just sitting on, on fire. Ajax wants to split up to search the woods. Vad isn’t keen on that but they do it. (Bonus scene later shows what Vad experienced during this time, he went to investigate the tunnels. He went to the tunnel that he had closed up that the Slayers used. He gets into it and heads down, noticing how quiet it is, there aren't even any spiders or snakes. He sees five skulls and more random bones. He then feels a random breeze, when there had been none, he backs up and leaves the tunnel. When he gets back to the entrance he hears a laugh from inside the tunnel). Corvina heads to the lake and finds Roy floating face down. She screams for help and jumps in, even though she isn’t a good swimmer, she gets Roy, Ajax shows up, and helps them both get out of the water. Roy is unconscious. They take Roy back to the castle, she wakes up, and has no memory of what happened. Ajax gets a phone call, the body from the shack has been identified. A female who has been dead for two years. It’s Jade. As in, her roommate Jade. Corvina automatically jumps to maybe she had imagined Jade this entire time, but Ajax assures her that he also talked to her. Ajax walks away and Corvina is alone when something attacks her from behind. She wakes up on top of the tower. She can’t move anything except her eyes. Fake Jade is there. She tells her that her grandmother had told her all about a tree in the woods that grows these special leaves, that if you powder them, you can blow it in anyone's face and control them, called Devil's Breath. (Think the Imperious Curse). Jade’s grandmother was a Slayer. Who claimed to be a witch. Corvina asks how her grandmother survived since they killed all the Slayers. She said she escaped that night, and she was pregnant. She was raised by her grandmother after her mother died. Corvina asks her why she killed the real Jade. She said because she was running her mouth in town about getting in, and fake Jade wanted in. So she brought her to the shack and killed her. She said she wanted to see the place that belonged to her bloodline. That’s when Corvina realizes that Fake Jade is a Deverell. (Her grandmother got knocked up by Vad’s grandfather. So Fake Jade and Vad are cousins.) Fake Jade admits to burning the body because people were getting interested in the woods, thanks to Corvina. She used the Devil's Breath to get Troy to walk off the tower because he was suspicious of Alissa’s death. She used it on Alissa because she slept with Vad. Fake Jade admits to everything but says she has no idea why people disappear on the Black Ball night, her grandmother didn’t either. Corvina asks her about Roy, and Fake Jade is seriously confused, and had nothing to do with it. Fake Jade tells her Corvina will die for the same reason as Alissa - Vad is her’s. She says she will use Devil’s Breath on Vad to make him love her after Corvina is dead. 

Fake Jade makes her get up and walk to the edge. Corvina grabs her wrist. Because if Corvina is going down, so is Fake Jade. At this point, they have drawn a crowd down below, and Fake Jade is yelling that Corvina has gone crazy. Then she hears Vad behind her. She tells him to stay back because Fake Jade has this drug that she will use on him. But Vad isn’t listening to her, or looking at her. He is looking at Fake Jade. “You beautiful girl. You wanted to get rid of her? For us?” “I’m so proud of you. You’re a true Deverell”. Fake Jade is like YES I knew you’d understand me. He tells Corvina to let go of her hand. Vad comes up and cups Fake Jade's face and tells her they are perfect together, but how do you undo the drug? Fake Jade realizes he has been lying. He asks her again how to undo it. She says you don’t, you can make her do whatever you want, make her your plaything, she’ll even watch. Vad says “Watch from hell” and throws her off the tower. 

This entire time on the top of the tower, Corvina has been hearing this voice in her head. An evil voice and Mo’s. They have been arguing. Once Fake Jade is on the ground, multiple voices explode in her head. She starts to tip forward but Vad grabs her away from the edge. He is panicking because something is obviously wrong with her. She manages to tell him the voices won’t stop before passing out. .

Vad takes her to the institute. Dr. Detta tells him that she is ok for now, but they put her in a medically induced coma, to try and flush this unknown drug out of her system, and then he’d like to monitor her for a month. Vad says well I’m staying too then. Dr. Detta tells him it wouldn’t be good for her to go back to Verenmore, at least not right away. Vad decides that even though Verenmore has been his life, and is in his blood, he’d rather have Corvina than have Verenmore. 

They stayed there for six months before she was discharged. Vad left the board and Verenmore.

Five years later - Vad and Corvina are living in the mountains, in their winter home. They have a husky named Count. 

Corvina has written a book (called Gothikana). Vad is a professor at a local college.

For their anniversary, Vad tells her he had his vasectomy reversed (he had had a vasectomy forever ago because he didn’t want to risk a child) and she gives him tickets - back to Vernemore. She says it's been a long time and she knows he misses it, and she wants to raise their children there, she knows it has a dark past, but they can make it better.

She ends it with “The End…For Now”