7. A Castle with Teeth
A CASTLE WITH TEETH
ERIC
S heffolk has too many fucking trees.They crowd the sides of the road, practically bending over, watching me as though they know I don’t belong here.
Wind brushes against their leaves, and I swear they’re whispering with one another, commenting on the irritated prince glaring at them.
I’m practically shaking because the road is winding.
It curves this way and that, testing the capabilities of the assigned vehicle sent to pick me up from the airfield. The roads are too narrow as well, narrow and bumpy like they were made with thoughts of waggons and horse-drawn carriages in mind. The SUV is barely surviving.
I shift in my seat, forcing my knees closer to Kai’s, and I almost lose my mind.
The space is cramped, and I can hear him breathing.
If I wasn’t already grateful he agreed to stay a few days with me, I would’ve thrown him out of the fucking car.
He’s typing away on his phone, and I’m a second away from hyperventilating.
My fingers start before I even notice, falling into the old pattern of Morse: three quick taps, one held tap, and a short-long, followed by a long-short-long-long.
STAY . The same word I hid during massive banquets and state dinners while internally repeating to myself, ‘Stay upright, stay in your body; you’re still here. ’
It was the only way to hide my unease or apprehension in plain sight, like right now.
Sheffolk is odd.
I can’t figure it out, and we landed almost two hours ago.
Every stone, every shrub, every tree and every goddamn cow seems to mouth her name.
In the trunk, the journal I bought her breathes like a caged animal, restless, sensing that it belongs to her and waiting for the inevitable introduction.
Ridiculous . A bloody journal. It was the only compromise my mother and I could reach in regard to getting Francesca a birthday present.
It feels appropriate and thoughtful enough without being too intimate.
Kai doesn’t look up from his phone, having read my tapping, and says, “I can feel you freaking out. Try box breathing.”
“I’d rather fucking suffocate.”
He didn’t need to remind me. I know I’m spiralling, and when that happens, I start noticing the wrong things. Not the stuff that brings me comfort, but rather the ones that make me want to bang my head against a wall.
I’m too aware of the squeak of the leather seat as I shift, the cloying scent of the driver’s cologne and the sound Kai’s foot makes as he taps it against the floor.
There’s muddy residue on the back of the passenger seat, and I imagine the toddler who must have occupied my seat at some point today.
Everything’s loud in my head, so I compartmentalise. I list everything, break it down, and then I throw it all away. Smaller pieces, edible enough so that my brain doesn’t freak. It doesn’t work. It hasn’t been working.
Kai sets his phone beside him. I zero in on the sound the screen makes against the leather. “Talk to me.”
“I am talking.”
“You know what I mean, Eric.”
I bite some dry skin from my lip before saying, “I’m fine.”
That’s the only warning he’s getting. Because if he asks one more time, I’m going to say something I’ll come to regret about three hours later when I inevitably replay this conversation word for word and then realise I sounded exactly like Father.
But Kai doesn’t give up. He just exhales slowly. “Please. I know I’m not Henrik, but I’m the only one here. So just talk to me, yeah?”
There it is.
Guilt twists in my gut, alongside that unspoken truth between us that I always go to Henrik. That Henrik is the only other person who knows how to turn the static in my head into legible words while Kai stands on the other side of the door, still fumbling with the keys, unsure which one to use.
He looks at me now, with messy blonde hair and a gaze as clear as glass, whilst he tries to understand. Trying . That’s what he does. Something ugly lodges in my throat, and I hate that it hurts.
Because this is Kai—my twin brother, my other half—and I made him feel locked out.
Him , the boy who used to mimic my knee-taps during state dinners just so I wouldn’t feel bad about counting my heartbeat.
I see that boy and hate myself for hurting him, but then I also see the criterion our father suffocated me with.
Be more like Kai.
And none of that is even his fault. So I force my shoulders to relax and inject softness into my tone. My voice comes out clumsy, but I try because he asked. “I’m not… trying to shut you out. It’s just—it’s too loud in here.”
“In the car?”
“In my head. In Sheffolk—this whole fucking place.” I wave my hand around, catching the semi-offended look of the driver in the rearview mirror when I look up.
“Fuck me, none of the landscape has followed any pattern this far. Father’s plan was vague at best; the Sheffolk family has no reason to like me, and I just can’t control any of it. I don’t know what’s happening.”
Kai goes quiet for a long moment. He looks like he wants to say something but ultimately decides against it. I’m grateful for it. I don’t need advice right now; I need action. Plans. Something fucking legible, because I may as well be illiterate with the way I can’t read this place.
We drive for another three minutes when I notice Kai staring dumbfoundedly at his phone.
“It’s gone,” he mutters, dragging the page down so it can refresh.
But the screen remains blank, with some sort of error message that I can’t see properly.
“Baked Bean’s thread has vanished. It’s not even archived—just gone. ”
Fucking Baked Bean, again .
I ignore the driver watching Kai through the mirror and say, “Maybe somebody reported it for violating community guidelines.”
“Then why is my account locked? It says my login credentials are invalid, Eric. They nuked my profile, the hell?”
My gaze lands on the screen when he shoves it closer, and sure enough, all traces of u/PostNutKair0s22 are gone. “What the fuck did you even comment on that thread for your account to be deleted?”
“I asked Baked Bean to personally drop me the receipts if he’s still alive.”
I make a dry sound, wanting to lob the phone at his skull. “That’ll do it, it seems.”
Kai curses beneath his breath, muttering on about how he had had that account since he was twelve and that free speech is fucking dead. He’s loud and dramatic about it, but still smart enough not to be too specific. Sheffolk doesn’t need to know about the sleuthing he did on Reddit.
We pass a sign that reads Lanorythe, 3 miles, but we don’t take that turn. Lanorythe. The name from Francesca’s file. The city where she was born and raised for the first six years of her life. I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t stop picking at it like a scab.
The country road drags on, monotony broken only by two buildings on either side.
One is a desolate-looking minimart still advertising loom bands on sale, and the other is a church with a massive ‘TO LET’ sign that’s been scratched out.
A banner hangs across the iron gates and reads ‘SRS’ in thick red paint.
Wouldn’t have given it a second thought if our driver hadn’t eased off the accelerator a bit, his eyes lingering on the duo carrying furniture inside.
Then comes the grunt, followed by the click of his earpiece before he mutters, “Suze, you’re not going to like this one.
Hm, yeah. You heard? Well, I just saw it.
Old church, the one down Repulse Road, fifteen minutes out from the castle.
Looks like they’re moving in today. Yeah, renting. Have Pascoe look into it. Talk later.”
As the comms clicks off, the driver catches my gaze in the rearview mirror. I don’t look away fast enough, and he measures what he thinks I’ve dissected. Which was nothing, really. But enough for me to file it under things I’d have to investigate.
Another sharp bend closes in, and I nearly retch. Kai taps my knee then points out the window. I half expect to see another herd of cows, but farther out, there’s the faint outline of a castle. It’s less Disney Princess than I imagined and more… Wuthering Heights .
The blood is rushing to my head again, and it seems Kai has grown better at reading me because he throws a distraction, “Still struggling to assign a font to her?”
“It’s not about finding a font that matches her; it’s about being able to stop finding one. She’s too inconsistent. I’ve even got her bloody grandmother down, and I can’t figure her out.”
We pull up in front of a tall set of iron gates; Kai points out the spikes above it and mumbles that he feels less welcomed and more threatened.
I agree, and a small part of my brain whispers I should return at a later date with an army at my back.
Any moment now, I expect Duchess Sylvaine to appear at the battlements— yes, there are battlements —and demand I be killed.
I stare hard at the crenels, as if I’m about to find thousands of arrows pointed at us.
There’s a sign that displays the words ‘ Domina Redfordia – Principal Residence and Seat of the Duchesses of Sheffolk’.
I’m almost impressed by it. Whoever reigns gets reminded whenever they pass these gates that there’s a title far older than theirs.
The castle, it seems, claims personhood before I’m even introduced to its duchess.
They’ve given it a title.
A soul.
Lady Redford.