The car slows to a stop outside Redford Castle, and I stumble into Philip’s arms as he helps me out. Again, he asks me if I’m alright, and this time I can’t even open my mouth. I just shake my head and jet off towards the stairs, ignoring the looks being tossed my way. I don’t take the path towards the cottage.
Won’t.
Can’t.
What I need right now is people, noise, proximity. So I make my way to the west wing, where my quarters are. Far enough from formal rooms but still close enough for me to still feel held.Protected. The corridors smell like wood polish from whatever the maids used to clean the tables, and I focus on that before I spiral.
The locket presses deeper into my palm.How long has someone had it? How long have they been watching?The questions make me turn away as I pass the painting of Gran as a young girl. I can’t meet her gaze. Her eyes only remind me that she isn’t the only one staring.
There’s someone else. I can feel it but can’t find it.
I pause at the mouth of the main corridor just as I hear a choked voice. Rough. Quiet. They sound almost as frazzled as the voice in my head. The door to the drawing room is open, but just barely. I take a step closer, quieting my footsteps, and peer inside. Though I can’t see his face, I recognise that voice as it rises.
Uncle Hamish. He stands with one hand pressed against the window jamb and the other holding his phone to his ear. I had no idea he was even back.
“No, Edith,pleasedon’t do this.” His sentence frays. “Look, I know things haven’t been easy, but this isn’t the way. We don’t need to make this public; I’m begging you.”
My heartbeat slows, and I sniffle to myself, pushing the door further. Hamish still hasn’t noticed me. “You want the houses? Fine, take them. Take everything. Just… don’t drag the children into this. You see how Edmund’s struggling—no, don’t spin this on me.Edith.”
Aunt Edith must’ve hung up on him, because he curses softly and then places his phone on the ledge. He lets out a long, tremulous sigh that sounds a second away from being a full-bodied sob. Before I can decide what to do, my feet are already moving.
“Uncle?”
He turns slowly, like his body struggles to catch up with the command. And when his gaze lands on me, I feel struck. For a second, he’s not Uncle Hamish at all. He looks likehim. Not in some vague, oh-they’re-related sense, butreallylike him. Thelight hits the glass the right way. I look at his hair, neat and dark, sitting in perfect curls atop his head. The shape of his mouth, a full bottom lip that always makes it look like he’s pouting.
And those eyes. Those same greenish-brown eyes that crinkle when he smiles. For what feels like a full minute, I forget how to breathe. It’s pathetic, but tears burn behind my eyes, hot and heavy. My nose feels on fire, and I’ve let go of the locket, allowing it to sink further into the folds of my coat.
I mean to ask if he’s alright, if he wants tea or if I should ring up Percy because she always knows how to cheer people up. But I can’t manage any of that. He takes one step forward, his own agony receding at the sight of mine.
“Chess, are you alright?”
And that’s Papa’s voice right there. Or at least close enough that it absolutely devastates me. That singular sentence rips the first sob from my chest so hard that it burns, and I’m choking.
I don’t remember moving, just that my feet are suddenly toe-to-toe with his and my face is buried in his coat as I cry. I’m in his arms, just like that first night without them, when I could barely sleep without having terrors. He rubs my back, mumbling variations of‘I’m here’or‘I’ve got you’.
It’s like I have Papa’s arms around me, and I’m suddenly back in the gardens as we watch Mum try and paint the view. Lucy is posing on the bench, insistent that she features. Papa kisses my head and sways me, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone. Hamish holds me tighter, like he knows what I’m thinking.
“I’m sorry,” I force through another cry, trembling when I realise he’s swaying me side to side. “Sorry—I’m, it’s just—you looked just like him?—”
He doesn’t laugh it off like he usually does with others, just nods, his beard bristling against my hair. “I know, love. I know. Are you alright? You’re a mess. What’s going on?”
The concern is almost nauseating with how thick it is, and it only makes me cry harder because I miss my dad so much.
“Something… somethingawful,” I whisper, each word shaking. I grip the back of his coat, trying to ground myself by focusing on the feeling of the tweed. After another deep breath, I dip my right hand into my pocket.
Hamish’s brows furrow in the same confused expression Percy sometimes wears, and his lips part in surprise when I drop the locket into his hand. “Where did you get this?”
The whole story still sounds so silly, but Hamish stays patient as I gather up the courage to tell it. “At the lake. It was just… buried there. Not too deep. But in the exact spot where I always sit when I visit.” My voice catches, and he rubs my back again. “With ahorriblenote inside it, Uncle. It was an ugly thing, but I got scared, and I ran, and then I lost it.”
“What did it say?”
“Oh, it was so horrible,” I sniffle again, trying to take a steady breath. “It said something about how I wasn’t supposed to survive. The note wasnew, Uncle. And it was in Lucy’s locket and?—”
I’m cut off by another cry. That’s when all the thoughts come rushing back. The walls of the drawing room blur, and I’m back here, just a few days ago, seated beside Charlie Henderson as he drones on and on about the colour of my eyes. Somehow the conversation went to greenery, then his orchard and then the lake.
What was it that he said?Tragedy draws people back, doesn’t it?It was idle talk I brushed off, but why does it now feel like a warning? Why does the drawing room feel like the place where a crime was committed?
“Charlie…” I mutter. Even as I say it, I feel that flicker of doubt. Thatknowing, that it’s not him. Not truly. But he’s the only real name my mind can produce right now. So I cling to itas though it’s a lifeline. “He was here, Uncle, and he was saying odd things…”
