Chapter Twenty-Eight
AGNES
Sometime in the Seventeenth Century,
Thornhill
The grass is soft beneath my palms, and the sunlight clings to everything like honey.
Eli is in the water. The river bends around him like it knows how to love him—how to hold him without breaking him.
His light brown curls catch the light, his skin glowing faintly, as if the sun itself has decided to settle only on him.
I watch him from the shore, my arms wrapped loosely around my knees, the hem of my dress brushing the soil.
Everything feels…gentle. The kind of day you never want to end. Warm like a hug, soft like the clouds.
He turns, his eyes meeting mine, and smiles.
It’s not his usual grin—the mischievous one that always makes my heart stutter. This one is slower, quieter. It makes my heart sing even louder.
“Come in,” he says, his voice warm.
I shake my head. “I can’t swim,” I admit, petting the soft petals of a Forget-Me-Not beside me.
“I’ll help you.” He steps closer, the water swirling around his legs, sunlight dancing over the blue surface. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
The river is clear and bright, so shallow I can see the smooth stones scattered across its bed like coins tossed into a wishing fountain. It should feel safe. And yet—there’s still something in me that resists. A small, old part that remembers being afraid of what lies beneath.
I chew my lip, and glance at the trees. They rustle like they’re trying to soothe me.
“I’m not sure,” I murmur.
Eli doesn’t press, but before he can pull back his hand, I reach for him.
The moment our fingers touch, the world seems to exhale. The birds begin to sing again—soft, trilling melodies from branches heavy with leaves. The breeze wraps around us like ribbon. The water greets my ankles with a gentle chill, enough to ground me, to remind me I’m still here.
“You’re doing fine,” he says, guiding me deeper. “Just breathe.”
He never lets go of my hand. Never lets go of me.
The river comes to my waist. I shiver, not from the cold, but from the quiet thrill of it all—how strange it feels to be here with him, this close, this… safe.
“Here.” He steps behind me, one hand steady at my back, the other brushing my wrist. “Relax. Let your body float. Like this.” And he tilts backward into the water, as easy as falling asleep. His curls spread like seaweed while his eyes close, his lips pink and slightly parted.
I try.
The water holds me, strange and cool. My heart beats a little too fast, but his hand is there, steady and warm. I close my eyes and let the river rock me.
For a moment, there is no time. Just the drift of my body, the weightless hush, the warmth of sunlight on my eyelids. Eli’s voice hums from somewhere near, a soft melody I don’t want to let go of.
I feel myself smile.
And then—
I turn my head.
And suddenly, we’re on the grass.
The shift is seamless. There’s no splash, no stumble. Just—now. We’re lying on the shore. The grass is brushing my cheek like a sigh. It’s soft, overgrown, and dotted with Forget-Me-Nots that tilt their heads toward me.
Eli is beside me, one arm tucked under his head, the other holding his Forget-Me-Not brooch like he had just plucked it off its stem. The silver edge catches the light and I squint. It’s too bright. Too sharp for this soft day.
He twirls it slowly between his fingers. The tiny petals spin.
“You look happy,” he says, not looking at me. His voice is quieter now. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you like this.”
I blink, and something in my chest tugs. “I don’t understand.” I whisper. “We just met yesterday and I was the same.”
He hums, but doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns to his side and tugs a damp lock behind my ear.
I sit up slowly. Something feels different.
Colder. The light hasn’t changed. The trees are still here, old and watching, the breeze still kind.
But something is off. Like a note played just slightly out of tune.
“Eli,” I say, and my voice sounds smaller than before.
He finally looks at me. His eyes are a little sad. A little knowing.
“Is this a dream?”
His smile doesn’t falter, but it softens.
“Maybe it is…maybe it isn’t.”
The air thins in my lungs, my throat tight with something I can’t place. It just…hurts.
In my dreams Eli visits me.
A tear rolls down my cheek, landing on a red ladybug. He reaches out, swiping his thumb over my skin. His touch is distant, barely there, like a memory, and it only hurts more. I pull away, sitting up, unable to bear his absence.
“Why am I dreaming? Why are we here?” I whisper, watching a family of ducks cross the river.
“That’s a question only you can answer Agnes of Thornhill.” Eli says, sitting up as well.
I swallow, clinging into the soft grass around me. I want to stay here, wrapped in this impossible stillness, where nothing can be broken and everything is warm and safe and mine.
But the brooch glints again, and when I look down at my dress, I realize I’m wearing my nightgown.
“I don’t want to wake up,” I whisper, my breath catching.
Eli’s hand finds mine in the grass. “I know,” he murmurs. “But you have to.”
Only in my dreams does he visit.
Only here does the world feel still enough to hold us both.
The wind curls between us, and I can feel it changing. The warmth thinning, the colours dulling around the edges like water soaking into paper. The Forget-Me-Nots close just slightly. The grass hushes.
I want to cry again, but I don’t. I just watch him.
And he watches me too. He opens his mouth like he wants to say more, but no words come. Instead, he presses something into my palm—his Forget-Me-Not brooch.
It’s cool and slightly damp. Real. My fingers close around it. I look down.
When I look up again, he’s already beginning to fade.
His outline is softening, like mist burning away in the morning light.
“Eli…” My voice cracks.
But he just smiles, the same slow, quiet smile from the river. “Don’t forget me.”
The world turns white at the edges. My skin burns. How could I?
“I won’t. Never—” I can feel the tears rolling again.
Then, the air cools.
The river is gone, and I’m in my room. Alone in the dark. My hand is still curled tight, pressed to my chest. But when I open my fingers, there’s nothing there. No silver. No Forget-Me-Not brooch. Just the cold ache of missing him.
The air smells of summer now. The heavy scent of honeysuckle clings to everything, as if the garden has forgotten the chill of spring entirely. Each morning the sun rises higher, its warmth pressing against the world like a hand, coaxing everything into bloom.
I find myself standing at the window more often, hands resting on the cool sill, watching the leaves tremble in the breeze. My eyes are always glancing at the wall beyond the garden. At the stone that divides Thornhill from the outside world.
It’s been days since Eli visited me in my dreams. Even longer since he came, climbing over the wall.
Each day the garden grows, but my heart feels colder.
I don’t speak of him to the Monster anymore.
It’s easier that way. Easier to ignore the ache of longing in my chest, the gnawing feeling that something is wrong.
And yet, every time I move through the house, every time I walk past the stone wall where he used to climb over, my gaze slips to that spot. I can almost hear his voice in the rustling of the leaves. In the distant melody of the river.
The Monster watches me with a kind of knowing that makes my skin crawl. Its eyes are always too sharp, always too intent.
By mid-afternoon, the garden is quieter than usual, the soft rustling of leaves the only sound breaking the silence. I move slowly through the rows of flowers, my thoughts too heavy to carry.
The air is thick with heat as I cut through the garden, and the altar shimmers between the soft silhouette of the brushes. There’s a glint of something in the grass sitting at the feet of the altar, catching the sunlight, pale and precious.
A flower—a brooch.
Made of iron, delicate but unmistakably wrought in the shape of a small Forget-Me-Not.
Identical to Eli’s. The one he showed me weeks ago, when we were sitting under the wall in the tall grass. It fell out of his pocket, and when he picked it up, he looked at me. “It reminds me of you,” he said. “That’s why I have it with me all the time.”
I had smiled back then, blushing like a blooming rose, but now, the sight made my chest twist even harder.
My hands tremble as I reach down to touch the iron flower, but I pull back, suddenly unable to bear its coldness. It felt wrong. It shouldn’t be here.
Why was it here? If Eli had been here, standing on this ground, I could have sensed him. But there’s nothing.
I look around, my heart pounding. The garden feels emptier than ever. The only thing I feel inked into the ground beneath my feet is the Monster.
But why would it have Eli’s brooch?
I remember my dream. The way Elis pressed it into my hand as if for safekeeping. As if he were heading to a place where he couldn’t carry it with him. The ache in my chest sharpens. The air feels too still around me.
I move through the garden, my breath shallow, my steps slow, heavy, but purposeful. I find the Monster in the library, its long fingers tracing the spines of the books.
I feel my voice catch in my throat as I force the words out.
“You did something to him, didn’t you?”
The Monster’s fingers still for a moment. Then it raises its gaze slowly, its eyes gold, unfathomable. It’s clear as day, looking at the rage and grief sitting on my chest.
“What do you mean, Agnes?” The Monster’s voice is a low hum, almost gentle, but there’s a thickness to it that I can’t ignore.
I hold the brooch tighter, the cool metal biting into my palm.
“His brooch,” I say, my voice tight. “I found it at the altar.”
For a moment, the Monster simply stands there, its presence filling the space like a shadow that refuses to leave. I can feel the weight of its gaze on me, its judgement settling like dust in the air.
“Some threads are meant to be cut, Agnes. Some people—some souls—are meant to stay in the dark,” the Monster says, its voice low and filled with something I can’t quite name.”
My pulse pounds in my ears. The Monster’s words are like poison, slipping into the cracks of my heart and twisting it, making it bleed even more.
“Why?” I whisper.
It sighs, then trails a long finger along the edge of the nearest shelf.
“You have your path, Agnes,” it says. “It was always meant to be this way. There is no place for him in your world.”
“Eli made me believe that perhaps there was more to the world than just fate and the endless weave of magic,” I say, my voice low. “But it’s exactly that. Poisonous and endless.”
The Monster’s eyes narrow, something flickering in them—anger, regret, or something entirely different.
“You don’t understand. The threads of fate are not kind.
They pull and tear, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake.
I’m protecting you. You can’t see it, but I can. It’s better this way. For you.”
I stand there, frozen, the brooch in my hand as heavy as lead.
“I will never forgive you,” I say. My voice is so low I’m not even sure it’s mine.
“For taking him from me. And I’ll never forget.
Not him. And not you.” I storm out of the room before the tears can fall.
Not only because I know they will never stop—but because I will never trust anyone else to see them.