Keep Your Wits – Autumn
Keep Your Wits
Autumn
Two Weeks Later
I toss Adele’s laundry into a bin and realign the books on her shelf, falling into what’s become my new morning routine.
While she practices downstairs, the estate fills with activity, all for her. All on behalf of Ryder.
The chef prepares snacks and meals that she swoons over in the evenings, the car attendants rotate the vehicles in case she comes out to request a ride down an enclosed back road (she often does), the gardeners pick fresh flowers for her study table and her nightstand, and—according to what I’ve seen—the housekeepers craft small scavenger hunts to cheer her up.
To get her to temporarily forget that her father is gone again…
After smoothing her bedsheets, I pick up her set of crochet violin plushies that she insists on sleeping with every night.
Just like the ones Ryder had me tune long ago, they all feature ‘For A.R.’ and ‘From E.R.’ on their sides. As I’m placing them in order, I catch that she’s added a new engraving under the ‘E.R.’
M. J.
Miss Jane…
I let out a breath and continue cleaning.
As I’m organizing her music books, a charred piece of metal falls from the pages.
Curious, I pick it up and roll it over in my palm.
Shaped like an old locket charm, it’s engraved with tiny letters that bear Adeline’s full name, but the birthdate underneath is decades before her time…
I carry it to my room and return to the binder, flipping to the page where Ryder’s family members live.
The dates on the locket match perfectly with the woman who’s at the top of the page, the woman who is right next to the man who resembles Ryder the most.
I know that I should just leave this here—that it’s probably a simple heirloom and nothing more, but the charred edges have triggered something that I’ve pushed to the back of my mind since I arrived.
Taking the locket as a sign, I slip into the hallway and look both ways before heading down to the basement level that Gunnar showed me long ago.
Like before, the baseboards faintly glow with my every step, but they’re not glowing in a soft white.
They’re red.
And this time, the acrid burnt scent is so strong that it makes me cough. It makes my eyes itch.
Undaunted, I move forward, in need of getting a closer look at what I couldn’t see before.
Bypassing the secret wine wall, I reach the velvet rope that guards the abandoned dining room.
“The rest of this space is off-limits.”
Gunnar’s words play in my head as the baseboards glow in an even brighter red, but I don’t listen.
I unclip the rope and wander toward the table, walking around its plush cream chairs—straight to the portraits on the wall.
The one I saw before, the one that features a framed picture of this very dining room, has dark brown marks on its edges. And the others… As I get closer, I see that their frames aren’t “bronze” at all.
They’re charred just like the locket piece in my pocket, and the portraits they’re protecting are worn and damaged: a sun-faded picture of the former estate, a yellowed photo of a woman and a man dancing in the kitchen, and a grainy photo of three young boys standing in front of a man who looks exactly like Ryder.
Him and his brothers…
I look around the room again, wondering why it’s blocked off, why Ryder would hold this random space so dearly, and then I catch sight of a photo hanging in the corner.
It’s unframed and it’s the smallest of them all. In full color, all sixteen of his family members and Ryder are sitting around a dinner table, glasses raised, smiling, stuck in time.
I run my fingers along the edges as my mind runs wild with theories. With every race around the track, none of them quite reach the “mass murder” in the binder, but they’re almost as dark.
Tap. Tap. Tap!
The sound of footsteps nearing makes me still.
Shit.
I set down the photo and return to the rope.
The footsteps become louder as I attempt to click the rope back into place.
Come on. Come on. Come on…
“What the fuck are you doing down here?” Gunnar steps in front of me right when I hook it. “Didn’t I tell you this was off-limits?”
I nod. “I was just… I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
He shakes his head and looks over at the dining room.
“You didn’t touch anything in there, did you?” he asks. “I need to make sure it’s put back in place if you did.”
“The colored photo in the corner.” The words fall from my lips before I can bite my tongue.
“Thank you for your honesty.” He steps over the rope and readjusts it before returning to me. “Mr. Rochester would’ve noticed that for sure…”
“He comes down here?”
He blinks a few times, and I brace for more vagueness and a “get the fuck out,” but he lets out a sigh instead.
“Mr. Rochester comes down here quite often,” he says. “It’s one of few places that he considers a private refuge.”
“What really happened to his family?” I press.
“They perished.” He nods toward the picture. “Obviously.”
I hold back a sigh and nod; I’ll accept what he gave.
“Miss Jane?” Gunnar looks at me.
“Yes?”
“Get the fuck out.”
Days later, I’m tuning one of Adeline’s violins in the hallway, all while watching Ryder’s men roll crate after crate down the hall.
He’s still not back home…
Before I test out the strings, my phone sounds with a video call request.
Kylie.
Setting down the violin, I immediately rush down the hall, searching for a room without any decor, a place where she won’t be able to get curious about my location.
Slipping into an old staff bathroom, I shut the door before answering.
“Hey there, stranger.” She smiles at me from inside her car. “How are you feeling today?”
“Better.”
“Good, good. Sorry our call got cut off last time. Service out here is pretty shitty.”
“No worries. I um—” I pause. “Things have changed since we last spoke, so everything is better now.”
“Well, then that’s great! What did he say when you broke up with him?”
Huh? “I didn’t break up with him… I just—I’m starting to understand him and his ways a bit better now.”
“His ways?” She tilts her head. “Has he finally told you everything he really does or something?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t want to know the details.”
“Then what’s changed?”
“He’s taking me to a masquerade ball next weekend,” I say. “The dress I ordered is amazing.”
“I see… Did he pay for it?”
“Of course he did. I mean, yes, he did.”
“Did he buy you some shoes, too?”
“Yeah, they’re Christian Louboutin.” I smile. “They have a bow on the back. And the necklace is a custom piece.”
“So, it’s the money? That’s why you’re staying with him?”
“Nate had money, Kylie.” I don’t like her tone. “I would never stay with a man because of his bank account.”
“Then help me fucking understand.” Her voice is terse. “You’re going from a single red flag to diving into a sea full of them, and you think I’m going to keep my mouth shut about it?”
“Okay, Kylie. Look.”
“No, you look.” She glares at me. “He’s a murderer, Autumn. He’s killed people, and once you’re not of value to him, when he gets tired of fucking you—and your goddamn mind—he’ll get rid of you, too.”
“I don’t?—”
“Whatever you have with him is not real, Autumn,” she says. “Outside of money, what does he do for you emotionally? Does he even have emotions?”
I say nothing.
“Where do you honestly see this going?” Her skin is beet red. “You’re not going to be riding off into the sunset with him. Either he’ll die, you’ll die, or best case, he’ll end up in prison and you’ll end up barely clinging to life support until you finally give way.”
“You know what,” I say, my chest on fire, “I don’t think?—”
“You’re not thinking at all.” She interrupts. “But that’s okay. I’ll do it for you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, I’m done talking to you forever this time,” she says. “I’ll see you again at your funeral.”
End of Episode 19.1