“How’s your head?” William asked, wincing at the thought of chipped skull, and ruined flesh.
Edward waggled his eyebrows, cautiously lifting his fingers to the sore spot. “Not bleeding, if that’s what you mean. Slight lump. Nothing life threatening. If I pretend it’s one monumental fresher’s weekend hangover, then I can cope.”
Guilt was William’s closest friend. At this point, it was practically a family member. The reality of what he’d done to Edward yesterday hit him with the same force of a candle stick – penance for his actions. The backs of his eyes stung so suddenly that William had to bite his lip to stop tears from releasing. “I’m really sorry, Edward. You were mad and screaming, I didn’t know what else to do. If I didn’t knock you out, you would’ve kept hurting yourself.”
“Shh,” Edward rocked forward, resting two bandaged hands on either side of William’s face. There was a sadness to the man’s expression, something that wet his brown eyes and widened them to blood-stained saucers. “I don’t need you to apologise to me. Not now, not ever. It’s wasted breath, I can promise you that.”
William dropped his chin to his chest, but Edward was having none of it. With gentle guidance, he made it so William looked back up. Both men locked eyes, imprisoning one another with the intensity of the stare.
“I could have hurt you,” William said. Killed you.
“Youdidhurt me.” Edward winked, the right corner of his mouth lifting to a smirk. But the desired effect didn’t work since he looked like he’d suffered. “But something in me is telling myself to thank you for it. Anyway, it was only going to happen soon enough. Remember how you first met me, waving that poker around like a–”
“Does everything need to be one big joke to you? It’s not funny.”
“It was worth a try.” Edward’s smirk faded until there was no sign he’d ever shared one. “Don’t you dare punish yourself for this, William. I refuse your self-pity, okay? It’s not like I didn’t do some considerable damage last night either.”
“I thought I lost you.” A single beaded tear rolled down William’s cheek, soaking into Edward’s blood-stained bandages.
“Never.” Edward exhaled. “Okay?”
William shook his head, nodded and shook his head again. “The drawing room looks like a crime scene.”
“It does?” Edward said, gaze lingering elsewhere. He looked horribly pale, with heavy dark shadows beneath his eyes. “I don’t remember much to be honest.”
William could see the lie in his eyes’ diversion and the draw of his mouth. But he didn’t press. Clearly, last night’s events had affected Edward deeply, to the point that he’d lost himself. William didn’t want that to happen again; he worried he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself.
This was his fault, after all.
The room flashed as lightning sliced across the sky. They both looked towards the back doors as a strong gale rattled the glass in the old frame.
“Doesn’t look too good out there, does it?” Edward asked although the answer was clear. “Another storm to keep us stuck here. I’m beginning to think Hanbury doesn’t want us to leave.”
“But we must. Leave that is.” Now more than ever.
Every time William closed his eyes he saw the blood, the scratched words into the walls. He didn’t care if Hanbury won, he just wanted to get away before that chance was taken from him.
“You’re right.” Edward swallowed hard, the sound audible. “We do.”
William always believed he was the cursed one. That everyone unfortunate enough to be around him would end up six feet under – even Edward. William’s actions last night could’ve been terrible, and then the drawing room really would’ve been a crime scene.
“Do you… do you remember how you hurt them?” William whispered, taking Edward’s hands and holding them between each other.
It was strange to see a person close themselves off. Edward did just that. He withdrew his hands as though William’s touch was that of pure fire. He rested them on his lap whilst staring at the bookcase beyond William.
“No.”
Another lie.
Perhaps Edward required a prompt. “You were scratching the walls with broken glass, Edward,” William started. “All of them. Up in the attic, down the stairs. Every god-dammed wall. You were rightfully scared, so I don’t blame you. But that doesn’t mean I understand. Words were being etched into the walls by something unseen – you used the glass to… scratch them away, like you were trying to hide them.”
“Please, Will.” Edward snapped, making William recoil. He buried his face into his hands, breathing harshly and unevenly as his next words were muffled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
That didn’t seem fair, but William found himself recoiling back into silence. Opting to change the conversation, William quickly told Edward all about Robert’s final journal entry. It was easier to talk about someone else’s issues than those William faced in his reality.
“So he was interrupted,” Edward said, chestnut eyes glazed as if he was physically here but mentally elsewhere. “Seems like only more mystery. But if Robert never got to read Teddy’s warning about the spiked tea, then maybe it was that day when they all drank it, and their plans never went ahead.”
It was all speculation because Teddy’s journal entries weren’t dated like Robert’s had been, but it felt right. “That still doesn’t answer what happened to your great-uncle, does it?”
