3. Something Dead Still Ticks #2
Leaning back against the counter, I peer out the window and am greeted with the quiet landscape of Redford Estate.
The castle isn’t too far, just a ten-minute walk—two if you’re late and your grandmother’s in a foul mood—but standing here in this tiny cottage, tucked away into the northern woods, it might as well be miles away.
Somewhere to the left of me, a cabinet door opens and shuts.
I sip my still scalding tea and watch the empty spot where I imagine tiny feet dancing around on the tile.
Moments later, the smell creeps in: old linen and mothballs.
“And where exactly did you creep off to, sweetheart?” I question, maintaining an aura of calm so as not to reveal how thoroughly her absence freaked me out.
She’d deem me paranoid, and being emotionally evaluated by somebody who hasn’t had a pulse in almost six hundred years would be a new level of insane.
Three raps against the wood follow in quick succession, and I nod, grabbing her pink mug and placing it on the island.
The barstool creaks, and the swirl of steam above the mug dissipates, as though an eager child blew at it.
With the puff, the cloying smell of mothballs intensifies, but I’ve grown used to it.
I don’t see it happen—or perhaps I do, and my mind just has no idea how to make sense of it—but the tea slowly drains from Tommy’s mug.
I remind myself that everything about Sheffolk cheats physics; questioning it would be futile.
The pace at which Tommy drinks has my earlier worries returning again.
“Tommy, is she bothering you again?” I never say her name.
Mavis .
Tommy hates that bitch.
The ghost of an eighteenth-century governess who had her throat slit by a nobleman.
Mavis haunts the old nursery whenever I stay in the castle, most probably because she knows that wherever I am, Tommy isn’t far behind.
She breaks the dollhouses and wipes Tommy’s chalk drawings from the board whenever she has the chance.
She once burnt the hair on the new Barbie I got Tommy, and the latter went silent for a week.
Percy would call me psycho for how badly I missed that mouldy scent in those few days. Tommy doesn’t answer me, just pushes her mug away. I don’t have time to move before I feel tiny, cold hands pressed against my eyes.
“What are you trying to tell me?” Her hands slide across my face, dragging a shiver from deep within.
She pauses, and I almost find myself wishing she were corporeal and that touch wasn’t this one-way thing, if only to assure her I’m not frightened of her. How could I be? Poor thing just happens to have the body temperature of a frozen bag of peas. Surprised I haven’t already caught pneumonia.
“Hey, show me, please. What do you need?” The air changes, and her hands are gone.
“Tommy?” No reply, only the faint sound of something shifting in the living room.
Then, a quiet click as my laptop shuts. Sending a mournful look towards the cabinet that holds my biscuits, I slip through the doorway and stand watch over the small space.
Creeping closer, I spot her message. Atop the coffee table and scattered next to the dead cuckoo are five keys, plucked directly from my MacBook keyboard. They’re arranged into a crooked word: W-A-T-C-H .
I down more tea as though it’s vodka and plant the half-empty mug beside Tommy’s message. Note to self: buy and teach Tommy Scrabble so she stops committing QWERTY murder every time she wants to tell me something.
“My Mac’s on life support because of you,” I mutter with a sigh, flicking the H and watching it catch in the cuckoo’s wooden wing.
When no response comes, I sink into the faded armchair.
“So, does this mean you want to continue watching the movie? Or should I boot up The Sims so you can watch me play?”
Nothing.
“C’mon, Tommy. You love choosing your outfits.” The cottage offers no reply, so I lift my hands in surrender. “Alright, fine. I know something’s wrong, but I can’t help you if?—”
A weight drops itself into my lap, cold as a bloody freezer. Frustration pulses off her, fogging the area around her invisible form. I try again. “Is she bothering you? Because you know you don’t have to go back to the castle, right?”
Tommy presses herself closer until her coldness seeps into my bones.
A chill crashes into the side of my neck, as though she forced herself to shout something, but all that left her was a language made entirely of air.
I can feel her frustration mounting into fear, which strikes me as odd because Tommy has zero reason to even be around her spectral tormentor. The temperature drops another degree.
“Look,” I whisper, raising my left wrist where a narrow bracelet encircles it. Silver twists around a ribbon of bleached fabric—fabric I stole from the undercroft at age nine; my first real act of theft and first ever promise. “You don’t owe Redford anything, not as long as I wear this.”
Castle spirits can’t roam beyond the stone that took them, but objects travel, and so can the spirits that are bound to them.
Tommy died wrapped in the linen that I now wear, suffocated and smothered in it, left to rot in a cupboard that nobody ever bothered to check.
Two palms slap over my eyes again, as if she can read my mind and wants to steer me away from a bad turn.
I wonder how close I am to the thing she cannot voice.
The legs of the table rattle as the homemade Scrabble bounces around.
Even the bird looks one second away from flapping off.
“I’m listening, Tommy.” As soon as the words leave my lips, the cold recedes, and the weight vanishes from my lap. Too many wrong guesses, enough to make her clock out for the day. “Right, ghosted again.”
The joke rings hollow.
I should be annoyed, but mostly I’m exhausted by these constant riddles.
My gut warns me that my annoyance is misplaced.
Fingers should be pointed at me because I’m the one who can’t figure out what’s causing the unease.
All I know is that something’s wrong, and Tommy knows too.
I tell myself I’ll figure it out tomorrow when she inevitably returns for tea.
What’s left of mine is cold by the time I finally remember I made it, and the sight of the liquid fills me with sudden melancholy.
I sigh, moving the coaster away and reaching for my laptop, eyes skimming over the gaps where some of the alphabet used to live.
Who needs A anyway? Not like I don’t have two in my name, or anything like that.
As soon as the screen flickers on and I exit the movie, I regret opening it.
Thirty-five unread emails, and I last touched this thing like six hours ago.
Parliament’s arguing again; nothing new, to be honest. The three duchies of Marzod were never meant to share a government; maybe that’s where all the tension stems from.
We banded together after a war, hundreds of years ago, and the Crown was born out of necessity.
They tend to forget that, though Sheffolk never will.
My laptop pings again, the sidebar showcasing a news update from my phone. Curious, I click on it.
Then instantly regret my actions.
My screen fills with the image of a young man climbing out of a glossy Mercedes-Benz, a scowl etched onto his face.
He’s instantly recognisable, solely due to the fact that he makes the headlines every goddamn week.
Prince Eryxon Atherbourne, eldest son of King Reginald, future ruler of Marzod.
Usually reporters try to lick his ass, but I snort at seeing the headline is more blunt than usual this time around.
ROYAL DISGRACE: CROWN PRINCE CAUGHT IN A VIOLENT ALTERCATION IN MILAN NIGHTCLUB.
I read further, bringing my knees close to my chin.
The sod punched a guy in the nose, and though the journalist tries to make it seem as though he had no idea, it’s quite evident Eric was aware that the nose he broke belonged to a foreign diplomat’s son.
One comment is calling it a diplomatic misunderstanding.
Um , I’m fairly certain that’s assault, but anyway.
There’s another link, taking me to already circulating videos on TikTok. A man walks beside a car, his posture suggesting he’s both used to being watched and repulsed by it. Comments are going feral for his strut. It’s just walking. That’s all he’s doing. Walking .
People are calling his name as he walks, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even look back.
Another link jolts through, and I’m taken to newer tabloids, where I have a clearer view of his features.
His hair is blonde, not exactly pale but golden.
He’s standing between two diplomats, his shirt wrinkled and his collar loose like he just pulled himself from something violent.
Nothing about him looks scandalous, I must admit.
The closer I look, I’m not even convinced it is him, really.
Could be Eric—could even be Kairos. Palace PR team’s worst nightmare?
Probably the Atherbourne twins and their identical faces.
Imagine a poor intern who’s frantically making sure she isn’t posting pictures of the prince who didn’t commit an international assault.
If who I’m looking at is Eric, he doesn’t seem to regret a damn thing.
Bet he’s unbearable in person.
As I’m about to swipe out of the app, an iMessage appears at the top of the screen.
Ed
I’ll be back in Sheffolk by Thursday night.
Tell Gran I won’t be home till Monday, though. Charlie’s invited me to some countryside gala his mum’s hosting over the weekend.
Free bar and fuckall press, yah!
I thumb out a quick reply before screenshotting and instantly forwarding it to Percy.
Francesca
[Attachment] doesn’t this make you wish you were a sheffolk son?
no ghosts, no stitching the dead back into dirt, no huskins or curses
oh, to be blissfully stupid
Percy