6. The Watcher Knows #3
He turns slowly, like his body struggles to catch up with the command.
And when his gaze lands on me, I feel struck.
For a second, he’s not Uncle Hamish at all.
He looks like him . Not in some vague, oh-they’re-related sense, but really like him.
The light hits the glass the right way. I look at his hair, neat and dark, sitting in perfect curls atop his head.
The shape of his mouth, a full bottom lip that always makes it look like he’s pouting.
And those eyes. Those same greenish-brown eyes that crinkle when he smiles.
For what feels like a full minute, I forget how to breathe.
It’s pathetic, but tears burn behind my eyes, hot and heavy.
My nose feels on fire, and I’ve let go of the locket, allowing it to sink further into the folds of my coat.
I mean to ask if he’s alright, if he wants tea or if I should ring up Percy because she always knows how to cheer people up. But I can’t manage any of that. He takes one step forward, his own agony receding at the sight of mine.
“Chess, are you alright?”
And that’s Papa’s voice right there. Or at least close enough that it absolutely devastates me. That singular sentence rips the first sob from my chest so hard that it burns, and I’m choking.
I don’t remember moving, just that my feet are suddenly toe-to-toe with his and my face is buried in his coat as I cry. I’m in his arms, just like that first night without them, when I could barely sleep without having terrors. He rubs my back, mumbling variations of ‘I’m here’ or ‘I’ve got you’ .
It’s like I have Papa’s arms around me, and I’m suddenly back in the gardens as we watch Mum try and paint the view.
Lucy is posing on the bench, insistent that she features.
Papa kisses my head and sways me, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone.
Hamish holds me tighter, like he knows what I’m thinking.
“I’m sorry,” I force through another cry, trembling when I realise he’s swaying me side to side. “Sorry—I’m, it’s just—you looked just like him?—”
He doesn’t laugh it off like he usually does with others, just nods, his beard bristling against my hair. “I know, love. I know. Are you alright? You’re a mess. What’s going on?”
The concern is almost nauseating with how thick it is, and it only makes me cry harder because I miss my dad so much.
“Something… something awful ,” I whisper, each word shaking. I grip the back of his coat, trying to ground myself by focusing on the feeling of the tweed. After another deep breath, I dip my right hand into my pocket.
Hamish’s brows furrow in the same confused expression Percy sometimes wears, and his lips part in surprise when I drop the locket into his hand. “Where did you get this?”
The whole story still sounds so silly, but Hamish stays patient as I gather up the courage to tell it.
“At the lake. It was just… buried there. Not too deep. But in the exact spot where I always sit when I visit.” My voice catches, and he rubs my back again.
“With a horrible note inside it, Uncle. It was an ugly thing, but I got scared, and I ran, and then I lost it.”
“What did it say?”
“Oh, it was so horrible,” I sniffle again, trying to take a steady breath. “It said something about how I wasn’t supposed to survive. The note was new , Uncle. And it was in Lucy’s locket and?—”
I’m cut off by another cry. That’s when all the thoughts come rushing back.
The walls of the drawing room blur, and I’m back here, just a few days ago, seated beside Charlie Henderson as he drones on and on about the colour of my eyes.
Somehow the conversation went to greenery, then his orchard and then the lake.
What was it that he said? Tragedy draws people back, doesn’t it? It was idle talk I brushed off, but why does it now feel like a warning? Why does the drawing room feel like the place where a crime was committed?
“Charlie…” I mutter. Even as I say it, I feel that flicker of doubt. That knowing , that it’s not him. Not truly. But he’s the only real name my mind can produce right now. So I cling to it as though it’s a lifeline. “He was here, Uncle, and he was saying odd things…”
My uncle’s expression darkens for a moment, and then he wipes my tears.
“Chess. Stop. Look at me. You’re frazzled, and your hands are still shaking.
” His hands are on my cheeks, forcing me to meet his stare.
“Breathe, sweetheart; you don’t have to solve everything this instant, alright?
The young Henderson might be many things, but I don’t think he’s cruel?—”
“But the note! What he said?—”
“I know, Chess. But listen to me; I’ve been here before.
The moment a question cracks open, your mind rushes to fill the space, because anything feels better than uncertainty.
You’re scared, and that kind of fear wants a face to blame.
We’ll sort this out together, but not with answers stitched from panic, alright? ”
I nod, unaware I’m even doing it. “But the note…”
“Was it handwritten?” Again, I nod. “Name? Seal?” I shake my head.
Hamish narrows his eyes, thinking quietly.
“Alright, then. That means it could’ve been anyone.
An online dare? Someone with a grudge against this family—I wouldn’t even blame them, really.
But what I need you to do for me, right now, is calm down. Please.”
I reach out, fingers tangling in the chain and taking it back from him. “Even if the note was a dare, Uncle, this locket belonged to Luciana. I was there when Gran gave it to her.”
He speaks gently, in a way that assures me he’s not brushing me off but still in the process of making a plan.
“We’ll figure out where the locket came from.
Piece by piece. I’ll help you, but we do it properly.
Not through panic. Do you want me to get Susannah?
” I hesitate, and he catches it. “One step at a time. If someone touched that locket, they left a trail. There’s always something. ”
The locket hums in my hand as he calms me down, like it has a heartbeat, forcing me to remember all the things I tried to forget.
Hamish doesn’t say it outright again, but I feel the shape of the suggestion.
Susannah . He wants me to hand this over to her.
But this isn’t just your average security breach.
This is a wound ripped open, and I’m still standing here bleeding all over Gran’s carpeted floors.
With each breath, my mind clears, and the truth makes itself known.
Hamish is right. I don’t have proof that it’s Charlie, that he has anything to do with this.
I yelled his name because I needed a shield, someone far enough to cast the blame onto.
Someone safe. Not many people knew about the locket.
Fewer know it was given to Lucy.
Hamish subtly nudges me towards that road, the one where Susannah stands guard. He doesn’t understand that I can’t take it. Because that road leads to reports, to names and to the downright revolting possibility that someone here , within Redford, left me Lucy’s locket.
That someone who knew her, knows me, left that note.
Someone who isn’t Gabriel.