Glancing back into the empty dining room, I hesitate for a moment, but my feet seem to have a mind of their own as they begin moving in the direction in which I’ll likely come to regret. I stalk Loxen down the multiple hallways leading to the front foyer, making sure I stick to the shadows so I don’t get caught. Watching him slip quietly out of the front door, I wait a few moments that feel like an eternity before following him out. It’s warm tonight, the sun just beginning to set, and when I scan the front of the manor for the direction he went in, I watch him disappear past the iron gates of the garden, a place in the estate I’ve yet to discover.
“Shit,” I mutter, making my way as quickly as possible to the gate across the driveway in nothing but my slippers. When I get there, Loxen is nowhere in sight.
The garden is split into two sections, blocked by largeshrubs. In the middle, just past the entrance, is an opulent, antique fountain. I glance right, then follow my intuition and go left, praying it’s the direction he wandered off in. I’m light on my feet as I follow a dirt path through another small iron gate. Bushes line the walkway, blocking my line of view from anything but forward, making me feel like I’m getting lost within a maze. Picking up pace, I spot an opening in the distance. My steps falter as the end of the path gives way to an open field with hundreds of black flowers blooming from it and…gravestones. Thick stones lay scattered throughout the field, and I realize I’ve just stumbled upon a graveyard. My breath hitches when the air shifts, and a strong breeze blows past me, whipping my hair to the side, causing my dress to cling to my skin.
Spinning on my heel, I’m suddenly on edge, eager to get out of this place. I startle when I notice the tall figure standing directly behind me, blocking my exit. His hood is still pulled high over his head, casting a shadow over his eyes.
“Looking for something?” Loxen cocks his head to the side, gracing me with a knowing grin.
“No.” The word comes out quickly, though I don’t sound convincing in the slightest. “I was just leaving,” I tell him, walking past him in a hurry. He doesn’t move a muscle.
“I knew you’d end up here sooner or later.”
I stop in my tracks and peer over my shoulder at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
He jerks his head towards the graveyard. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
Loxen doesn’t wait for me to follow; he just begins to walk like he knows I will.
It takes a long moment before my curiosity gets the best of me, and I follow his path.
When I catch up to him, he’s crouching in front of a tombstone, placing a black flower on top of it. The air is warm with abreeze, the last streaks of sunset peeking out from behind the trees.
Mara Grayis engraved in a delicate Gothic font on the front of the tombstone.
He stares at it for a moment, and I’m unsure if I should speak, the silence settling between us like calming waters after a magnificent storm. Just as I’m about to ask him who this woman is to him, he stands, wiping the dirt from his hands onto his jeans.
“Mara Gray was my mother,” he says, as if plucking the question from my mind.
Something in my chest cracks. God, the other day in the kitchen, I said he had no idea what loss does to a person. Little did I know, his mother was buried right outside the manor.
“Loxen, I?—”
“Don’t. You didn’t know.”
My gaze falls to the tombstone. “How did she know my grandfather?”
“She ran away from home one summer, said Ambrose found her on the side of the road one night, just outside of Hollowcrest. She had a bruised cheek courtesy of her abusive boyfriend and found out only days after arriving at the manor that she was pregnant with me,” he explains and begins walking. I follow his lead. “Mr. Gravenhurst took her in, gave her a place to stay, a job as a cook though she had never made a home-cooked meal before in her life.” He huffs a laugh, as we stop at the entrance to a stone mausoleum that’s half swallowed in vines. “She was best friends with your mom, though your mother was a few years older than her. I was only two years old when Lilliana left the manor pregnant with you, so I don’t remember a thing, but my mother always spoke highly of her and how devastated she was when she left Hollowcrest behind.” I peer up at him, and his features soften.
“Did she ever mention why my mother left?”
He shakes his head, and I swallow hard, reading the name engraved into the stone above the door.
Gravenhurst.
“Is she in there?” I ask so quietly that I’m not sure he could even hear me over the whistling of the wind.
Loxen nods slowly. “Your grandparents, too.”
Anger, sadness and grief hit me all at once. I was never told where my mother was buried, or if she had even been buried at all. As I got older, I began pursuing information about her death. But receiving answers as a child of the foster system was like pulling teeth. I clench my fists so hard my nails dig into my palms. “I—” I begin to say but can’t find the words. Being so close to my mother after all this time feels a lot like ripping the scab off a slow-healing wound. A lump forms in the back of my throat. I can’t do this right now.
My gaze drifts to Loxen. Tears brim my eyes, blurring my vision, but I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. A quiet understanding settles between us. “Come back when you’re ready,” he says, and jerks his head, a silent command for me to follow. I wipe the tears from my eyes, giving the mausoleum one long glance before peeling them away.
Past the graveyard, sits an open field, with thick grass and black flowers blooming from its soil. A towering willow tree lines the property, its branches swaying against the light breeze overhead. Loxen comes to a stop in the middle of the grass and lies down. My brows pinch together. He doesn’t say a word, just pats the grass beside him, keeping his eyes fixed on the sky. I look around the area to make sure I’m not being pranked. But no one is out here. Just the moon, the girl who wears grief like a second skin, and the boy who’s clearly losing his sanity. I’ll be the first to admit that giving in to madness doesn’t sound like such an awful idea tonight.
Loxen is so hot and cold it gives me whiplash, but something about his current demeanour tells me I can trust him, if only fortonight. Lying down beside him, I stare up at a full moon and the hundreds of thousands of stars that keep it company. We lay there in silence, and I’m surprised that it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. It’s quite the opposite, actually. A quiet calmness, like I’m not Verena, and he’s not Loxen. Like we’re just two people existing without the weight of the world pressing down on us.
Plucking a flower from the soil, I run my thumb over a dark, velvety petal. “What kind of flower is this? I see them everywhere.”
