6. The Watcher Knows #2
I poison the paper with my dirt-stained hands as I slip it free.
The locket finds its place in the pocket of my woollen coat, and I stay standing.
Trembling. Aching. The ink is painfully fresh, in handwriting I’m unfamiliar with.
The words slowly thread into a sentence, and the air leaves my lungs all at once.
You were never supposed to survive. But I’ve made peace with it now. You’ll be enough, little duchess.
There are already tears leaking down my face, and my heart starts hammering.
The world tilts on its axis as I gasp for air, the words raking through my mind and leaving claw marks.
There’s no incantation, no intention; the locket doesn’t ask my consent.
It forces out the memories, and suddenly I’m in the lake again.
I’m floating; I hear the muffled sound of the rescue team through waterlogged ears.
There are hands on me, tugging me free, draping a blanket around my shivering form. Their arms are too big and too hard.
Flashbulbs explode, burning my eyes. Reporters, policemen, civilians.
Everyone is clamouring to see what’s happening.
People are carrying away pieces of the wreckage.
I see Mum first. Her face doesn’t look like hers.
It’s bloated around the eyes, skin grey-blue, lips cracked open.
She’s staring up at the sky. Waiting. Forever waiting.
Papa’s not far from her, half covered by a sheet, but I see his legs. Completely crushed. Something about the hull. I remember how funny he fell. His wedding ring is tight around his swollen fingers.
Lucy is on the stretcher. They say they found her floating close to me as though she wouldn’t leave me, even then.
She’s a gently laid-out porcelain doll, one which they’re terrified of breaking.
Her stomach is grotesquely bloated. They try to block my view, but I see her and try to run to her.
Bruises bloom across her waxy skin because the water held her too tightly, and I want to scream.
One of her arms is missing. The left. Not cut— ripped .
The flesh around the stump already turned black.
I don’t know how I didn’t see it. We were in the water together.
She held me. Saved me. I remember her telling me to hold on, her voice getting smaller and smaller.
I thought she let go because she was tired; now I see why.
She was losing blood. Dying. Bleeding into the water around us, and I didn’t even know. Her blood was in the lake, metallic around us as we floated. I remember how it stung my eyes, my mouth.
I breathed her in.
They’re wrapping her in plastic, moving too fast. Lucy hated being moved in her sleep. I try to tell them to stop, but they won’t listen. There are cameras on me, and people are asking if I’m okay, but my eyes are on my sister. I see her foot as she disappears into the van.
There’s a nick on her heel, like she tripped and fell. The kind of wound that you would kiss better. I call for Mum to do it, to kiss it better so Lucy doesn’t cry. But Mum’s sleeping, so I have to do it. I have to do it, but arms are around me, and I’m screaming.
The sound of the lake breathing drags me back into the present.
Something groans deep within the woods; the wind is shifting, and I stagger back.
I lean over and vomit. Hard. It splashes wet and yellow, sticking to the reeds, and they drink it up.
Wanting any part of me, wanting what it was denied so long ago.
My stomach’s convulsing as though trying to expel the memory from my body. The lake is moving like it remembers me, and I scramble away from it, stepping in my own bile. The note’s still in my hands. I read it again. One part stamps itself onto my brain.
You were never supposed to survive.
I bloody run. I don’t think; just move .
The reeds claw at me as I sprint, brittle stalks catching on the sleeves of my coat.
The air tastes like moss and rot, and I swallow down more vomit.
The wood of the docks creaks loudly behind me, something rising from the lake to drag me back.
I can’t scream; my voice has vanished, but I keep running, straight onto the familiar path through the woods.
Shadows are shifting beneath the trees, and I hear a whisper. Not a voice. But something close to it.
The path twists, and I stumble over roots, nearly ripping the skirt of my dress in the process.
There’s breathing behind me, but I tell myself it’s mine.
It has to be mine. But I still feel it. Right there.
Right behind me. I duck under a low branch, leaving thick dirt on my boots.
I can’t even care that Gran will scold me.
Can’t care about anything right now. Trees blur past, and I’m so close to the end.
Something’s watching me. I can’t see it, but I can feel it.
“ Adelina, scutum mihi esto ,”? 1 I pant, swiping two muddy fingers across my brow before flicking them forward, as if tossing away the panic. For a moment, the air clears, and I think the ward has held, but then the cold presses back in. Fuck , need to get home.
Finally, I break through. The trees open up like a door swung wide open, spitting me out onto gravel.
More bile crawls up my throat as I hunch over, hands on my knees as I dry heave.
I can see my driver in the distance. His name takes a moment to emerge through the fog.
Philip . He dropped me here. As always. He’s safe.
Always safe. He’s standing there, leaning against the car with a coffee cup in one hand and a phone in the other.
The panic doesn’t leave me. It clings, wrapping around my spine and becoming part of my body.
I turn back towards the trees, just a glance. Just to prove I imagined it. The forest watches back kindly. So green. So light. I hate it. How normal it pretends to be. But I know what I saw. My heart is still beating fast; there’s vomit on my dress, and the note?—
I look down. It’s gone. My hand is empty.
No . It was real. I know it was. My hand flexes, and I stare harder, like the ink is burned onto my skin.
Fingers trembling, I reach into my pocket with my eyes shut.
The moment of truth. I’m too frightened to discover that I did, in fact, hallucinate the whole thing.
That the therapy sessions weren’t enough.
That I’m still being haunted by memories.
My blood runs cold as my fist closes around a chain. It’s there. The locket is still on me. And though I can’t see it, I know the lake is still there.
Watching me.
Philip asks questions when I climb into the car, but I’m too frazzled to answer any of them.
Mud smudges against the back of the passenger seat once I’m inside.
I can’t think straight; my brain is fogged.
The drive passes by wordlessly as I stare out the window, contemplating what to do.
Philip quietly asks if he should ring up the head of security, Susannah, but I decline.
Not because I don’t trust her. The woman’s loyal, efficient and downright scary on the best days.
But she’ll ask questions I don’t know how to answer yet.
She’ll start logs and protocols and lock the gates and call the Duchess.
I’ll be forced to say that someone left a fifteen-year-old locket by the lake with a message for me.
There’s no version of that sentence that doesn’t sound ridiculous.
No matter how I phrase it, I’m still six years old again, wet, dazed, and drowning.
The car slows to a stop outside Redford Castle, and I stumble into Philip’s arms as he helps me out.
Again, he asks me if I’m alright, and this time I can’t even open my mouth.
I just shake my head and jet off towards the stairs, ignoring the looks being tossed my way.
I don’t take the path towards the cottage.
Won’t.
Can’t .
What I need right now is people, noise, proximity.
So I make my way to the west wing, where my quarters are.
Far enough from formal rooms but still close enough for me to still feel held.
Protected . The corridors smell like wood polish from whatever the maids used to clean the tables, and I focus on that before I spiral.
The locket presses deeper into my palm. How long has someone had it? How long have they been watching? The questions make me turn away as I pass the painting of Gran as a young girl. I can’t meet her gaze. Her eyes only remind me that she isn’t the only one staring.
There’s someone else. I can feel it but can’t find it.
I pause at the mouth of the main corridor just as I hear a choked voice.
Rough. Quiet. They sound almost as frazzled as the voice in my head.
The door to the drawing room is open, but just barely.
I take a step closer, quieting my footsteps, and peer inside.
Though I can’t see his face, I recognise that voice as it rises.
Uncle Hamish. He stands with one hand pressed against the window jamb and the other holding his phone to his ear. I had no idea he was even back.
“No, Edith, please don’t do this.” His sentence frays. “Look, I know things haven’t been easy, but this isn’t the way. We don’t need to make this public; I’m begging you.”
My heartbeat slows, and I sniffle to myself, pushing the door further. Hamish still hasn’t noticed me. “You want the houses? Fine, take them. Take everything. Just… don’t drag the children into this. You see how Edmund’s struggling— no , don’t spin this on me. Edith .”
Aunt Edith must’ve hung up on him, because he curses softly and then places his phone on the ledge. He lets out a long, tremulous sigh that sounds a second away from being a full-bodied sob. Before I can decide what to do, my feet are already moving.
“Uncle?”