The very thought sours the words on my tongue. “Hard pass. I prefer my self-confidence slightly bruised as opposed to entirely annihilated.”
Percy rolls onto her back to rest her head on a pile of pastel fabric, giving me a glimpse of the polished hardwood floors and boxes of shoes off to the side. “Can’t even blame you. Mum has her eyes on this vintage dress, but we both know ‘vintage’ to her means?—”
“Made for somebody without a ribcage,” I finish with a thin smile, and the quiet laugh Percy gives makes my heart ache a little. She’s been saying that exact line since we were fifteen.
“You’ll look perfect,” I add, bringing my mouth to the microphone, close enough that my voice will buzz through the speaker.
Percy moves at the same time, phone tilting, and I know she’s resting it against her temple. She lets my voice land there, just like when we were younger, and I can almost feel her hair brushing against my lips as I whisper to her.
“Dad really likes the green one, says it goes well with my hair,” she mutters thickly, and the mic goes muffled as she repositions the phone on her chest. I have the perfect view up her nostrils as she stares up at what I assume is the mannequin’s ass. “He tried getting some pics to send Gran, and Mum started fussing over me, as she does, you know. Says,‘Tilt your head, darling, just a little; your jawline looks too loose’, and then tugs at the bodice of the dress.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” I ask, dragging my gaze upwards until it lands on the tapestry before me. A woman stares back, all demure and dressed in extravagant ribbons of fabric. Not unlike what Aunt Edith is trying to shove Percy into.
She blows a raspberry. “I think it means I have two chins; you never know with her.”
My fingers curl against the skirt of my dress, and I soften my anger enough to offer one of the maids a smile when she gestures towards the staircase. Gran’s waiting, it seems. I motion for her to go on without me.Percy still hasn’t looked back at the camera, but my view rises and falls rapidly as she tries to breathe through the situation. Marathid Manor might be beautiful, but I’d burn the entirety of it to the ground if given the chance. Under the command of Edith, those walls never made Percy (not even Edmund) feel welcome.
Call me superstitious, but homes absorb the lives that reside within them. Some are born cursed, and others, like Marathid, earn their curses. If a residue of broken promises, old arguments and harsh words braids itself together and finds a corner to fester in, there’s no getting rid of it. Percy’s home marinates in unhappiness like that. It’s funny to me, in a tragic sort of way, that this castle should be worse off. But the dead won’t let it become so. The ghosts keep the ceiling up out of sheer spite, refusing to let Redford fall.
The tapestry opposite me shifts slightly. Percy’s rant becomes background noise; a single filament has fallen free from both irises, the same green as my own. They drop, pendulum-slow, sliding down the nameless woman’s cheeks. My skin crawls. With every word that falls from Percy’s mouth, the eyes lose shape, unspooling into nothing.
Two black holes remain where there should be light, staring from a face centuries dead.
Somewhere in the hush that’s fallen in the corridor, the faceless press close, whispering through skin. There’s no menace, just soft hands on my arms. A voice without a mouth teases the curve of my ear. An unspoken‘Easy now, blood of our blood’. They absorb the anger in my chest, tasting what Edith’spoison does to me, what apprehensions Winifred’s impending arrival breeds, and they deaden it.
‘Go blind for us, dear girl, and we will keep watch.’
Heat bleeds from my body, and my fist unclenches. Delicately, the rage in my veins lessens, drained by fangs unseen and settling everywhere at once. Tapestries ripple, the rafters creak, and wind whips through the crawl spaces. I recall the glass I lifted just earlier, toasting to Winifred’s misfortune, the liquid sweet and the spite even sweeter. My sigh is half fear and half reverence. What happens when these corridors fill come the following Saturday—Edith, Winifred, and so many who hide behind ambition, who harbour concealed hatred for me? My anger, it seems, has found strong custodians, yet the price for this contract is yet to be named.
I make two mental notes in that moment.One: tell Tommy to inform the others that a sense of humour won’t kill them. They’re already dead, so what exactly are they so afraid of? Andtwo: stop making jokes about wanting people dead, considering I live in a castle with ghosts who have fuckall chill. It’s only funny until they actually kill someone and end up paying Godwyn for my insolence.
Percy’s voice rises. “Chess, are you even listening?”
I hover my thumb over the mute button, but I don’t know what I’m listening for through Percy’s rambles. Part of me wishes to say something, to acknowledge that I’ve heard their promise of protection. But two more footmen appear with trolleys, taking the bend of this corridor to reach the drawing room, and the moment dies down. I’m left staring at that hanging green thread, an omen in the colour of me.The space exhales around me, and I kiss my teeth, shifting my attention back to the screen. Percy’s cheeks are flushed with residual frustration, and she has no idea what an anchor she presents in this moment, my tether to the living.
“Yes, Percy,” I say after clearing my throat, “and I’ve decided what’s to be done. I’m driving to Marathid at this very moment.”
She cracks a smile. “You can’t drive.”
“I’ll walk.”
“For three hours? Your vitamin D-deficient legs would give in the first few minutes?—”
I interject with narrowed eyes. “Then I’dcrawl, you hear me? Your mum’s getting aklapfrom me as soon as I see her. She won’t see it coming.”
Her lips do an odd wobble, and I’m blessed with a proper grin from her, gap-toothed and everything. “If you’re whipping out the Afrikaans, then shit’s gotten real. You really think you and your bony wrists can handle a klap of that intensity?”
I lift a lace-gloved palm to the camera, giving my best imitation of Lydia and her no-nonsense glare. “Amoerseone, too. Open-handed, one time, and free ointment for the swelling.”
“Please do,” she wheezes. “I’d pay real money to?—”
A deep, smooth and amused voice sledgehammers into the conversation, too close yet simultaneously too far. “And what, pray tell, is a klap?”
My heart jumps into my throat, dies a dramatic death and then resurrects itself at x2 speed. The ghosts are giving me CPR; I can feel every cold touch trying to get me to breathe again, but I refuse to because EricbloodyAtherbourne is standing at the mouth of the corridor, one shoulder leaned against the wall and feet crossed at the ankles. With the way his hands are shoved into the pockets of his slacks and the crooked grin painting his face, I can tell he’s been there for a while.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him today, and he appears irritatingly composed. His white shirt is ironed to perfection, rolled up slightly to reveal those inked forearms. If I were to turn the camera, my cousin would have a heart attack at the mere sight of him.
Percy, still invisible to him, slaps a hand over her mouth and squeals. “Holy fuck, is that him? It’s him, isn’t it?”
