Chapter Nine #2
I turned my head in time to see a small gate creak open, its iron hinges groaning like they hadn’t been moved in years. A man in a crisp grey suit stepped through. He had an umbrella in one hand, the other resting in his coat pocket, as he headed towards Lilian with confident strides.
“Who’s that?” I asked, shifting on the bench, my eyes focused on the tall figure.
“Hudson Lamont,” the twins said in eerie sync.
The name meant nothing to me. “Is he someone important?” I asked, sucking the inside of my cheek, my eyes narrowing.
“He’s one of Lilian’s business partners,” Myra explained, adjusting the hem of her sleeve.
“She has business partners?” I hadn’t read anything about that. The article never really mentioned how the family maintained its wealth.
“Three.” Cecily chimed. “Two,” she corrected herself at the same time Myra did.
Their eyes flicked to each other with a look I couldn’t grasp, then Myra returned to her papers. I peeked at Preston from the corner of my eye, but he didn’t so much as glance up from his book.
“Elodie!” Lilian’s voice rang through the garden, and I ripped my gaze away from the blonde boy.
Hudson Lamont was now standing beside her, holding his umbrella under his arm and fiddling with something on his little finger.
Lilian’s eyes were on me as she raised her hand and waved me closer.
My stomach curled into a nervous ball, and I debated whether I should listen to her or not.
But her eyes stayed fixated like the gargoyles’ sitting high on the walls—stone-like and unnerving—until my skin started to itch and I pushed myself to my feet.
Only then, after making sure I was on my way, did she look away.
I navigated around the thorny plants frozen into the soil and stopped beside the two adults.
“Hudson, I wanted you to meet a very special person.” She lightly placed a hand on my shoulder, yet her touch felt heavy on me. “My granddaughter. Elodie Thornbury.” She spoke the last name pointedly, and the nervous ball jumped into my throat. “This is—”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Elodie,” the man said, extending his hand and cutting Lilian short. My gaze flicked between the two of them, realising just now the powerplay that lingered in the air. “I’m Hudson Lamont,” he said as I accepted his hand.
White sunlight broke against a silver ring on his pinkie. Probably a signet ring, but he withdrew his hand before I could have a better look. From this close, he looked to be in his mid-forties, around my mum’s age. It was foolish to think they could’ve known each other, but still—
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small box wrapped in azure blue paper. Then, to my utter shock, he held it out to me.
“For you,” he said, his sapphire blue eyes leaping over my face, analysing, like he was trying to see something he wasn’t sure was there. “I assure you, it does not bite,” he added, a faint flicker of humour behind his words at my hesitation.
I wrapped my hand around the silky paper, not sure what to say or how to react. Maybe this was something rich people did? Gave presents to strangers they encountered. Their way of saying, We don’t bite. My eyes caught the shine of his ring again. It had a single letter engraved into it. L.
“Open it later,” Hudson added, and I nodded, glancing down at the gift in my hands.
“Thank you,” I managed, my voice quieter than I meant.
The last time I got a present was almost two years ago. It was the last Christmas my mum and I celebrated in our flat. It seemed so long ago now. The lights greyed in my memory as the laughs faded.
“How nice of you.” Lilian smiled. “And as of what we agreed upon, can I count on you?”
My attention shifted with interest. What could she possibly mean by that? She wasn’t in politics, was she? My eyes flickered between them. Hudson’s expression was bored, almost blank, as his fingers trailed the carved bird on his umbrella handle.
“As always,” he said at last, and Lilian nodded, flashing him a pearly-white smile.
The small hairs rose on my nape. I wondered what conversation had passed between the two before she’d summoned me here.
“Splendid,” she said, her fingers curling into my shoulder.
I could barely stop myself from slipping out from under her grip, but I knew better than to risk my stay here with stubborn moves.
Hudson suddenly stepped back, just as a bird fell from the sky, landing on the frozen ground with a thud.
I flinched, its movement slow as if waving goodbye to life as it knew it, before going rigid.
“Poor thing,” Lilian leaned down, brushing the rusty-brown head of the dead nightingale. “How unfortunate that you stood back,” she glanced up at Hudson. “You might have been able to save its life.”
My brows twitched. “That’s not true,” I said, the words pushing past my lips before I could’ve stopped them. “Birds didn’t just fall from the sky if they were healthy.” Whether Hudson had somehow magically caught it or not, it would’ve died.
Lilian didn’t look up; instead, she lifted the limp body of the bird and stood, brushing its head as if it were s taking a nap.
“Interesting,” she answered, catching my gaze. “I didn’t know you knew so much about birds.”
I didn’t, it was just common sense, but I didn’t say that.
“Miss Elodie,” Hudson’s gaze found mine, and he bowed his head slightly. “Lilian, it was a pleasure, as always.” He nodded, and with that, he turned and left the way he came, leaving behind neat footprints in the dew-slick earth before any of us could react.
Lilian’s gaze lingered on his back. “Did you enjoy your breakfast?” she asked, her tone casual like she wasn’t still holding a dead bird in her hands.
I blinked. “I did.” I nodded. “Thank you.”
She smiled, then walked around me, placing the nightingale between the thorny flowers.
“I’ll take care of it later.” She straightened, and looped her arm through mine. “Come,” she murmured. “I want to show you something.”
My eyes drifted to the gift in my hand as she guided me through the sleeping garden toward the gaping entrance of the maze. Its hedges loomed high, thick with ivy and needle-like thorns.
“Your mum relished playing here,” Lilian said, as we walked into the dark throat of the green beast. “She would vanish for hours.”
I tried to picture it—my mum running wild through these paths, laughter in her throat, no weight on her shoulders.
And just like that, up ahead, a girl darted across the path.
Dark hair, pale skin, flushed cheeks. She was laughing, and for a breath, I saw her.
My mum. Not as she was before she died, but young. Alive. Whole.
She vanished around the corner like mist, leaving a pulsing ache in the hole in my chest. We reached a clearing at the heart of the maze. In its centre was the sculpture I’d seen from my window. Tall, black, twisting like nightmares breaking loose, but definitely not moving.
“What do you think it is?” Lilian asked, circling it.
I followed her example, moving around the rich and dark stone.
Not marble as I first assumed, something else.
I narrowed my eyes at the dark whirling casts stretching towards the grey sky.
Something about it felt…familiar. It wasn’t fire, or claws or bony fingers, but it looked like something just as powerful.
I shook my head, letting my gaze drop to the engraved words at the base of the sculpture. It was Latin.
“It’s a representation of the Thornbury family,” Lilian said, when I didn’t answer.
She brushed her hand across the stone, and for a moment I could’ve sworn it shivered under her touch.
“Your great-great-grandfather designed it entirely of obsidian.” She pointed at the name engraved under the Latin sentence.
Orion Thornbury. I remembered him from the article I read at Anhe Fei’s. He was the one who died of Tuberculosis. I tried to puzzle out the words carved above the name, but I couldn’t. My Latin was still non-existent.
“Darkness consumes, darkness takes, and from it, we rule,” Lilian said, her voice low, melodic. “It’s our family’s motto.” Her head twisted in my direction. “Did your mum ever talk about us?” she asked, and I shook my head.
She hummed and sat down at a forged bench embellished with thorny vines. She patted the empty space beside her and waited until I was seated. The cold iron bit into my legs even through the layers of my pants. She took my hand and squeezed it, the feeling caging and suffocating.
“But now you’re here, pet. That’s all that matters.”
I pulled my hand away and buried it in my coat pocket. My fingers touched the hilt of my knife, cool and familiar. A reassuring comfort as I trailed the vines and leaves decorating it.
“Do you believe in curses, pet?” The question caught me off guard but it was easy enough that I didn’t need to think about it.
“I don’t.” It wasn’t a lie, but the words felt shakier than they would’ve months ago.
“I wouldn’t have thought so.” She paused, then added, “Your mother did.” She adjusted her night-sky gloves. “She believed Thornhill was cursed.”
Knowing my mum, that didn’t surprise me. She believed in a lot of things. Magic. Tarot readings. Ghosts… She used to tell me bedtime stories about creatures with no eyes, forests that moved, mirrors that could lie.
“She was a fanciful child,” Lilian went on. “But she was convinced the house was watching her.”
I felt a question linger behind her words and my gaze lifted to the house. To the stone gargoyles that peered out from their perches, their mouths gaping in permanent screams.
“Was that why she left?” I asked, and Lilian tilted her head, her thin lips curling. It wasn’t quite a smile, it never reached her eyes.
“She feared what Thornhill was,” she murmured. “I believe curses aren’t things one can dismiss by simply choosing to believe in them or not. You have to look beyond them.”
My brows knotted. For a moment I contemplated telling her about what I saw last night, then I realised she would think I’m mad and I would find myself back home faster than I could argue for my sanity. So I stayed silent.
“You remind me of her.” Lilian stood. “I only hope you appreciate what fate has in store for you, unlike your mother did.”
The words made me go rigid. What was that supposed to mean? And why was everyone talking in riddles? While I was sinking by the weights of my questions, she turned and began to walk back through the maze, her voice trailing behind her like a forgotten spell.
“Little Swan, Little Swan,
Resting on a lake,
Careful now where you sweep!
The ice is thin, the wind is cold,
Little Swan, Little Swan,
You will freeze into a statue...”
The air chilled. Lilian slowly disappeared around the corner, the hedges closing behind her, her voice dying by the wind. Thornhill stood waiting, looking the same as when I arrived. Old walls hiding secrets. And maybe, but not likely, curses.
But it also held the key to my mum. If she was a puzzle, piece by piece I could uncover the parts she had locked away from me. The parts she had buried and thought I would never find.