Chapter Six
ELODIE
Ifound Lilian and the twins on the second floor.
I was lucky enough to notice them from the top of the staircase, waiting for me beside a wooden door melted into the stone.
Its surface was dark with age, and faintly etched with swirling patterns and moths.
Dozens of them, their wings stretched open and clinging to the wood in forever stillness.
Lilian drew a chain from the pocket of her skirt suit, and my eyes caught on the keys hanging from it.
They weren’t ordinary house keys, but ornate silver things shaped like fairy tales.
Their handles bloomed with detail: leaves, eyes, birds, even a small skull etched so finely it looked like it might whisper if I leaned too close.
One had a moth carved into its handle, wings outstretched like it had been caught mid-flight and frozen in time. That was the one she slid into the keyhole. The lock gave way with a soft groan, like it hadn’t been used in years.
“This will be your room,” she said, gliding inside and leaving a faint flowery scent in her wake.
The twins followed her in, while I paused on the threshold, my breath caught in my throat.
The room was enormous. Just the bed alone looked like it belonged in a museum.
Four posters draped in once-black curtains, now faded to a ghostly grey.
Opposite the bed stood a wooden dresser, crowned with an arched mirror that reflected only the dim light and the past.
The air inside was hushed and slightly cold…
heavy with age. My boots echoed softly across the stone floor as I entered.
A chandelier loomed above, its iron frame tangled with crystals that caught what little light there was and fractured it like falling stars.
The wallpaper, dark florals curling through shadows, was reminiscent of an oil painting left to wilt.
I tried to picture my mum here, with her rainbow kissed wardrobe and loud personality, but it would have been easier to spot a unicorn. She fit as much into Thornhill’s gloomy atmosphere as a birthday cake did at a funeral.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Myra’s voice stirred the stillness beside me.
“It is.” I nodded slowly, trying not to blink too much.
Lilian dragged the heavy curtains open, revealing tall, dust-filmed windows, and the afternoon grey staring at us. “Now.” She turned to me. “Let me show you around.” She gestured for me to follow and led me to a door tucked beside the nightstand. “Your bath chamber.”
The door clicked open, and I froze. The room was bigger than our whole flat was.
And it was beautiful. Dark wooden walls, marble-tiled floors, and a clawfoot bathtub that looked like it belonged in an old folktale.
I was waiting for my inner voice to break the spell and tell me I was trapped in a dream, but it never came.
Instead, realisation fought its way to my brain. It was mine.
Cecily walked past me and paused by the tub. “I wish I had my own bathroom,” she sighed with longing, running her fingers over the porcelain.
The other twin muttered something beside me, but I was too wrapped up in the sight of the tub to comprehend her words.
I hadn’t had a bath since I was a child.
It had always been that narrow shower in the flat, with broken pressure and cracked tiles.
But now, I could take baths every day for a whole year.
Maybe even twice a day if I really wanted to.
My toes curled in the safety of my boots.
“All right then.” Lilian glanced at her watch. “Dinner is being served at seven, which means you still have some time left to unpack. When you’re done, come find me in my study before the meal.” Her deep-set eyes focused on me, their weight heavy.
I nodded still too wrapped up in the idea of this being my new life to form an intelligent sentence. “Thank you,” I mumbled, the words feeling too little and too big at the same time.
She offered me a thin smile, then she was gone. Her keys jangled softly, like wind chimes in her wake, until the sound was swallowed by the house.
I set my backpack down as silence wrapped itself around me.
My fingers hovered over the zip. I glanced at my sparse belongings—books, clothes—and then at the room.
At the way the furniture sat like it remembered someone else.
Like it had known too many names and grown tired of learning new ones.
But it was mine, for now. Anhe Fei might have been right.
Maybe this was the new perspective. This strange house with its eerie characteristics was my chance. My choice. At least for a year.
I pulled out the books I brought with me and stacked them on the nightstand. The twins whispered behind me. I’d nearly forgotten they were still here.
“Preston loves this one,” Cecily held up my battered copy of Wuthering Heights, turning it over with reverence.
A strange burst of protectiveness bloomed in my chest, but I stopped myself from snatching the book back. Instead, I offered a small nod and turned back to the bed.
“We should let Elodie unpack,” Myra said, her tone soft, yet firm.
Yes. Please do. I was aching to finally breathe and take it all in properly.
“But—” Cecily started, but the argument died on her lips. “See you at dinner, Dee,” she said instead, making me pause with a stack of clothes in my hand. My brow twitched at the nickname, but I didn’t comment.
In a few seconds, the door clicked shut behind them, and I exhaled like I’d been underwater.
My body ached from the long drive. I set the clothes down and sat on the edge of the bed, laying back.
The mattress was hard beneath me, as my eyes followed the painted stars stretched wide across the ceiling above.
Why did Mum hide this from me? Why did she leave it all behind? Did she have a fall out with Lilian? Or was it something else? And if Lilian was her mother, whose funeral do I remember?
I had so many questions and no one to ask them to. I tapped my fingers together as I rested my hands on my chest. Lilian seemed okay. Sharp, measured, cold, but not evil. Nothing like the kind of person you would run from.
But people had layers, masks. Wounds.
A person can have a lot of faces, bug. Don’t let them fool you.
My mother’s voice echoed in my mind, soft but steady.
I pushed myself upright.
This wasn’t a family reunion, I reminded myself. This was a transaction. I was here for only a year. Then I would leave, move into a simple dorm room, study, breathe. I crossed to the bathroom.
Swan-headed taps, burnished silver fixtures, and a mirror that seemed deeper than its glass. It was like if I touched it, I might fall into another word.
My ghostly reflection stared back at me from the other side, my gaze unreadable, even for me. The tap groaned when I turned it, and water spilled into the basin with a coppered scent. I wet my hands, then pressed them to my face, blocking out the dim light spilling from the sconce.
Thump. Thump.
I froze at the sound of approaching footsteps, water trickling into my eyes and dripping down from my elbows back into the sink.
I looked up quickly, but the room was empty.
I was alone. The sound had come from somewhere just beyond the bathroom.
I listened, still holding my breath. Nothing.
I breathed out. Probably the pipes, or floorboards.
Both looked old and in need of replacement.
I grabbed a nicely folded towel and dried off, leaving the bathroom. I wasn’t used to homes with souls, where you could hear other people over the walls. I brushed my fingers over the small swans and moths carved into the fireplace, then stepped to the wardrobe to start unpacking.
I moved methodically, placing a framed photo of me and my mum on the nightstand last. It was the last picture we ever took.
Only days before she got taken into the hospital.
We were at Anhe Fei’s, and if I squinted really hard I could see her teacup collection in the background.
My mum was sitting behind me, trying to force a smile on my face by pushing up the corners of my mouth.
I swallowed the big lump in my throat then glanced at my watch; I still had plenty of time until what Lilian said would be the beginning of dinner.
I took one last look around the room, taking it in like fresh air. From the dark purple flowers sewed onto the drapes, to the swan head candlesticks on top of the dresser, and the gaping mouth of the fireplace. I twisted the cold crystals on my bracelet. It was hard to believe it was all mine.
I stepped out onto the dimly lit hallway, closing the bedroom door behind me and hiding the little moth-key into my pocket.
The walls around me were papered with old forest scenes at dusk.
The carpet beneath my feet was patterned with vines and thorns, their silvery threads still desperately holding onto a shine they must have lost long ago.
I walked past the staircase, passing portraits of dark-haired people with pale skin and deep-set eyes, and weird, colourful paintings of humans and animals. Some dancing, some crying. Like stolen pages of a folklore book dressed in ornate frames.
I moved from door to door, each holding a story on its surface—a bear in slumber surrounded by dancing fairies, wolves beneath snow-heavy trees, deer rutting in the meadows. And then, I stopped, my eyes landing on a nameplate.
Esmée
I touched the cold letters engraved into the silver.
My throat closed, the weight of her presence sitting on my chest like fog settling over grass.
Carved into the door was a lake. Swans glided over the water, the scenery peaceful.
I trailed the lines, my fingertips halting on two sharp ears.
A fox, half-hidden in a bush, watched its prey, ready to hunt.
My fingers trembled, and my hand slid around the cold doorknob, only to find it locked. I slipped a pin out of my hair and slid it into the keyhole, when the floor creaked behind me.
I whirled around, pushing the hairpin into my pocket. Preston Davenport was leaning against the opposite wall like he’d grown from it.
“Breaking and entering, are we?” he said lazily. When I didn’t react, he added, “Don’t stop on my behalf.”
I narrowed my eyes at him but kept my lips sealed. How long has he been standing there? I sucked the inside of my cheek.
“Such a rotten apple.”
My jaw clenched, but I still didn’t give in. He pushed off the wall.
“Why did you come here, poison?” He cocked his head. “Cold walls full of hollow… What does a girl like you want here?”
A girl like me? I huffed. “I was invited,” I bit out, and his lips twitched.
“She speaks,” he ignored my question with forced delight, and I grimaced. “Still, why come?”
I breathed hard like he had sucked away all the oxygen with his presence. “It’s none of your business is it?” I replied, my voice flat.
He took a step in my direction, his movements strained as if he was forced to do so. I held my ground, my boots rooted into the rug.
“Sad, little orphan, aren’t you?”
My stomach twisted, a cold hand digging its nails into my lungs. His words left venom behind, seeping into my skin.
“Are you here to discover mummy’s secret life?” His gaze flicked to the door behind me. “Don’t you—”
My hand moved before I had the chance to think, and my palm collided with his cheek.
My eyes widened as the sound resonated across the walls.
The air froze. Preston lifted his hand to his cheek, pink blooming like a flower beneath his fingers.
I could see the storm clouds brewing behind his fathomless green gaze as I stretched my fingers at my sides, the tips still tingling from the impact.
But I didn’t allow any sign of regret to show.
He was clearly testing me, trying to see where my limits lay, and he had found them. A cold, crooked smile curled on his lips. The kind that meant something was about to burn, and yet he was somehow still unapologetically handsome.
“Brave.” The blood chilled in my veins from his tone. He leaned closer, without blinking but I still didn’t move. “You should’ve never come here,” he whispered, then just like before, he turned and left, disappearing down the hallway.
I was left standing in front of my mum’s old room, unable to breathe.
Moments passed, dragging into minutes, but I still hadn’t dared to move, not yet.
Slapping him had been reckless, maybe even foolish.
If he told Lilian, I might be on the next train back to London.
Back to the smell of stale beer and night shifts.
I took a shallow breath. I shouldn’t have unpacked.