“Francesca,” Edmund says again, wiping sweat from his brow and smearing mud there. I take a few steps closer before I even know what I’m doing. I need to see him.
One last time.
Peering over the lip, I catch the edge of a red lock from behind the linen. He loved those curls and swore that our kids would one day resemble him. Looking back at it now, I wonder if I should’ve taken insult. If the darker parts of himself were always hidden behind that crooked grin and his family’s ambition.
I can feel Edmund watching me, but I can’t speak. It hurts too much. He shovels fast as if in a haste to return me to the comforts of the cottage. I can’t tell him comfort would be sparse there while Gabriel’s blood still mars the bed. The dirt covers him, slowly but surely. I whisper a prayer to these woods and its ghosts.Please, stay gone. I can’t bear to have him haunt me.
Not him as well.
“Francesca, look at me,” Edmund commands when he’s finished, dumping the shovel into the empty wheelbarrow. The clang of steel on steel has me flinching. “It’s not your fault. He gave you no choice.”
My head dips in a nod without any awareness of the action. I can see the front door shifting as I readied myself for bed. How Gabriel crept in with a smile too sweet and expectation in his voice.Darling girl, he called me. Saccharine and horrifying at once. I ignored it because Gabriel was Gabriel. If he stayed late on the property, drinking with Edmund, I expected him to take the couch. As always. But once in my room, I felt the change. Feltthe past shrivel into nothingness as something new and cruel bloomed in its place.
“Breathe.”
But I can’t, because the boy I grew up with changed, and I don’t know why. And perhaps I never will because is this not what Godwyn does? Slips in where devotion once lived and fills it with appetite? Guilt thrums beneath my skin as I try to convince myself this is how it goes. Legend is older than us both; I was only playing my part. In the hush that follows his quick burial, I soothe myself with the reminder that I passed the test.
That’s all that matters.
Redford’s ghosts care nothing for my remorse, Gabriel’s reasons or the truth of this night, only that I succeeded in earning my seat.
“He can’t hurt you. Nobody will. I’dneverlet that happen, do you hear me?” Edmund tries again after receiving no response.
Another nod. Do I believe him? Of course I do. With Percy visiting their mother and Gran spending her anniversary weekend in Lanorythe, there was no one else to turn to. Edmund didn’t hesitate when called upon. Gabriel’s blood was yet to cool when I sent him a message. Just four simple words.Cousin, I need you.He arrived from the castle ten minutes later, sleep-mussed but entirely awake.
Whatever he sees on my face right now must tell him all he needs to know, because the worry eases from his features. Just slightly. The walk back to the cottage is one of quiescence, save for the rattle of the spade jostling against bumps. I try not to look at it, knowing that it didn’t just bury a man who tried to hurt me but a future not taken.
A life I would’ve lived.
Edmund opens the chipped green door, yanks off his headlamp and guards my back as I enter. I don’t ask against what, focusing instead on kicking off my boots and saunteringtowards the couch. Where he should’ve stayed. Should’ve been sleeping until morning came, and we’d all tease him about being unable to hold his liquor.
I spot one of his cufflinks caught between the cushions; a simpleGFengraved there, and that’s when the dam breaks.‘Splinters’would be the more appropriate word, for a hairline fracture takes root in my chest, spreading all the way to my fingertips until I’m in pieces.
A strange, keening noise emerges from my throat, so tragic that the sound alone is enough to have me bending over and sobbing. I cry for gentle Gabriel, who sat outside my grandmother’s office whilst she discussed terms with his parents. Like the both of us were cattle to be bartered off. I cry for the way he held my pinky upon witnessing my gut-wrenching apprehension and how he tried to assure me he would be kind.
How he promised he would die before hurting me.
And I made him keep that promise.
Edmund doesn’t try to soothe what’s still too raw to be covered. He lets my grief breathe and leads me to the kitchen, where he gets a tap going. Not even the scent of rooibos that clings to the curtains and dishtowel is enough to pull me back to the present. Because just hours ago I stood here, offering Gabriel a mug and some of the shortbreadBaker’sbiscuits I had imported from South Africa. Now he’s gone, and I can still taste his blood in my mouth.
“He was my friend.”
My voice cracks, and I’m half-mortified by the juvenile words in my throat. A throat Gabriel nearly crushed. Had Edmund not been holding my hands, I would’ve reached for my pulse point, where Gabriel whispered his love for me despite me begging him to return to the couch and sleep off his intoxication.
Edmund shatters the delusions built by the hands of comfort—of childhood adoration. “He stopped being your friend the moment he tried to attack you.”
The truth of that statement stings. Blood swirls down the drain in diluted spirals as he washes my hands. His and mine together, like two conspiracies stitched into one. Watching him peel blood from my fingers like bark brings to mind Pascoe’s childhood nicknames for us. They’re more accurate than ever.
Crow for Edmund, who said too little and watched too long. I used to think he gave me ‘Wren’ because I was delicate, because he thought me a girl without claws. A ghost with more bones than feathers.
Tonight, I see myself anew, walking the fine line between terrified and dangerous and what that line forces us to do.
My eyelids droop, weighed down by equal parts exhaustion and terror. “His father won’t just…grieve; he’ll hunt us. You know that. I know that. That man will know something’s off by morning.”
“He can try, but he won’t know what to do once he discovers his son took a drunken, midnight drive. Right by Blackwell Wash on his way home. Come dawn and Gabriel’s BMW will be there.” He grabs a sponge and scrubs at my knuckles. “Nobody will question it, not when half this duchy has been petitioning for railings since last February.”
I yank my hands away and grab a cloth before the flood comes rushing through me. The more unmoored I am, the stronger the pull at the edges becomes. It’s there now, the urge to tug at his bone marrow until his memories pulsate within me. I don’t let him see the fear plain in my gaze.
