Chapter Twenty-Five
“Lily? Are you okay?”
My vision slowly comes into focus as I see Zoe standing in front of me.
She’s staring at me with worried eyes, and her hand is on my shoulder.
My heart is beating in a strange rhythm as I look at her, and there’s a quiet buzzing in my ear.
I turn my gaze further to see where we are, and I’m standing just outside the chapel, next to the open door.
This evil, cursed chapel. I look inside, and there are red velvet ropes all along the interior, and people taking pictures with their cell phones.
Oh my god. I made it back. I actually made it back.
Zoe is holding both my shoulders now, her expression filled with concern as the soft buzzing begins to fade. I feel immobile as my feet stay planted just outside the chapel doors.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says.
Oh, if she had any fucking idea.
I reach a hand up to feel hers on my shoulder, needing physical evidence that she’s real. “You’re really standing here, right? And you see me?”
“Of course I see you. Are you sure you’re okay?”
She takes hold of my hand and lowers it between us. I look down at the contact, still bewildered and in a daze. The fingers I’m moving seem the right size. They have the right feel. These are my hands. These are my actual hands.
I use my other hand to reach up and grab the tips of my hair. My distinguishably red hair.
“Take out your phone,” I suddenly tell Zoe. “Take out your phone and pull up your camera. I need to see what I look like.”
“What’s going on?”
“Zoe, please!” I shout.
“Okay, okay!” She fumbles as she pulls her phone out and quickly switches it into camera mode. She hands it to me, and I reverse the angle to see myself. I look for a very long time.
I’m me.
I’m me.
I’m me.
I stare and stare, and I start to cry. I drop her phone to the wooden floor and squat down, covering my face in my hands and cry until it feels like I’m going to burst.
I’m home. I’m here. No one is trying to kill me. No one is trying to marry me. No one is coming to lock me away. Because I am Lily Whitaker. Lily Whitaker.
I feel Zoe crouching next to me, rubbing my back even though she has no idea what’s wrong with me. She wouldn’t be able to guess it in a million years even if she tried.
“It’s all right,” she tells me in a soothing voice. “Everything’s fine. You’re fine.”
Her comforting words pull me deeper into the present moment. I’m home. I’m here. I’m safe. I’m finally safe.
But what about everyone else? Catherine? Simon? Lady Rochford?
Taking a breath, I pull my face out of my hands and rub underneath my eyes.
“What happened to her?” I ask.
Zoe seems puzzled, leaning back a bit to look at me. “What happened to who?”
“To Catherine Howard,” I clarify. “Did you see anything about her? What does it say about her now that I’m back?”
I push myself into a standing position and start walking briskly down the hall.
I scan the walls as fast I can, looking for any evidence of her.
This is the Haunted Gallery. Is it still the Haunted Gallery?
Where was the sign I saw when I first came here with Zoe?
I run to the end of the hall where I remember it was.
The sign isn’t there anymore. Spinning around, I leave the gallery and set off down the wide set of stone steps through the corridor.
“Lily! Wait up!” I hear Zoe, but I can’t stop. I need to find Catherine. I have to find out what happened to her. Reaching the landing, I set off down another hallway, and I spot an employee standing along the wall.
“Can you tell me about Catherine Howard? Queen Catherine Howard. Was she killed? Did he kill her?” I’m panicked and breathing unevenly, but I don’t care. This is more important than breathing. Zoe appears at my side, also huffing and puffing from her run.
The employee looks blank for a moment before he quickly stands up straight. “Yes, I’m sorry. This is my first day. Catherine Howard. I remember memorizing her part from the packet they gave me.”
I continue to stare at him like all our lives depend on his next words, and he takes a nervous breath. I’m about to start shaking him when he finally speaks.
“Little is known of the one-month queen, Catherine Howard. After her brief marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, the king ordered all records of her destroyed. Not a single portrait of her remains, and much of her story remains a mystery. Some say that she lured the king into marriage with her youthful beauty and charm; some even claim witchcraft. Today, nearly all scholars agree that the young girl was an unwilling participant in the dangerous games at court and was unjustly abused by those around her, including her uncle, the disgraced Duke of Norfolk.”
My throat catches. History remembers Catherine and remembers her as they should. Despite Henry doing what he could to hide her story, the world knows the truth now.
“It is believed that Catherine Howard lived out her days peacefully in the country, along with a small group of her former ladies, one being Lady Jane Rochford, the once sister-in-law of Queen Anne Boleyn. Some historians believe that Catherine went on to write and publish several chivalric tales under a secret name, but the claims were never substantiated.”
I wait for him to say more but nothing comes, and we end up staring at each other for several seconds. “Is that it?” I ask.
“That’s what I’ve memorized, yes.”
Okay, all that is good. Catherine was safe. She lived in peace. Lady Rochford was with her. “Do you know anything about Simon Gainsford?” I try next.
His gaze turns blank again. “I’m sorry, I don’t know him yet. Like I said, it’s my first day, and I really better be going.” He walks off, and I can feel my heart beginning to race.
“Zoe, I need your phone again. Please, I need it.”
She immediately hands it over to me, and I see it’s scuffed from where I dropped it a minute ago.
I know her code, and so I move my fingers across the screen and go straight to the first search engine I see, typing in Simon’s name.
I skim the results and find him mentioned in a few variations of Tudor-dedicated websites.
The second option seems the most legit, so I click on it with shaking hands and read the small paragraph it directs me to.
Simon Gainsford was an English courtier of Henry VIII.
Gainsford was believed to be a favorite of the king and was said to be a “handsome youth.” Simon fell from the king’s favor and was executed in the Tower of London in 1541 after he was found guilty of unknown charges.
Many believe his downfall was linked to the enigmatic one-month queen, Catherine Howard.
He was executed. Catherine didn’t save him. I didn’t save him.
I frantically check the rest of the links, hoping to find something else, anything else, besides what I’ve read already, but everything is the same.
He was a favorite of Henry’s. He was handsome. And he died.
My chest feels hollow, and my legs feel weak. Everyone made it, except for him. Why not him? He deserved to live. We all did.
I morbidly start to wonder where he was buried and foolishly hope it was near a tree. He would have liked that. My eyes once again fill with tears, but I hold them back. I need to see. I switch my internet search of Simon over to the images section, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
He isn’t there.
Of course Henry would have had his portraits destroyed as well. My hatred for that man is fucking boundless.
“Lily? I think that we should leave now.”
I look at Zoe, who is watching at me with growing worry. She wants to leave Hampton Court. It’s all I’ve wanted for these past weeks, too. I would have done anything to leave this palatial prison. To get as far away as possible. But now that I’m ready and able, I can’t even comprehend it.
“I don’t think I can go,” I tell her, my voice cracking. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Just walk with me,” she says calmingly. “The bad vibes of this place are getting to you.”
I look around the audience chamber we’re still standing in. Everything seems so old and patched up now. I saw it in its glory, but even then, its beauty was carved with cruelty. A sparkling house of horrors.
I let Zoe take the phone from my hand, and once she tucks it away, we start to walk. We walk and walk until we’re outside the palace. Until we’re at the Hampton Court railway station. Until we’re on the streets of London. Until we’re back in our hotel room.
Zoe orders room service, and I go to the bathroom and lock the door.
There’s a shower and a sink and a toilet.
They seem so luxurious to me now. I strip out of my modern clothes and turn the shower to hot before stepping inside.
I stay in for an outrageously long time.
The water hits me like a baptism. Like a rebirth.
I know that whatever I experienced is over now and there’s no going back.
Not that I would ever want to, but I think it’s possible to still grieve for something you hated.
But there were lots of parts that I didn’t hate—people I didn’t hate. Bessie. Lady Rochford. Cecily. Bartholomew. William.
Simon.
I turn my face to the hot, still-running water and hold my breath under the almost burning spray.
They weren’t all just a dream. I know they couldn’t have been. They were real. As real as anything.
I imagine what it would be like if they were here with me now at the hotel.
At any moment, Bessie would burst through the door, dying to tell me something or conducting an exam to see if I’m concussed.
Lady Rochford would be sitting back on the bed, scowling at the two of us as she tried out the TV, but she’d be smiling on the inside. Bartholomew would be scrolling TikTok.
And Simon . . . Simon would wait for me on the balcony. When I go out to join him, he’d touch my cheeks and kiss me, not caring in the least who saw us. We wouldn’t have to hide anymore.
Each one of my friends is there with me in my mind’s eye, so vibrant and real and free. But then I return to reality, and I know they’re lost to me. Irrevocably, heartbreakingly lost.