18. Pretty Little Baby #2
“You’ll learn, soon enough, I don’t often repeat myself. But no, I already know what you’ve found.” I pivot towards the woodland path, and she follows. “Permission.”
“Permission?”
“To stop doubting yourself.”
Though I don’t look back, I detect the rustling of her palms against her jeans, trying to rub away dirt.
It’s a distraction, and I’m merciful enough to not call her out on it.
She’s bled enough today. The irony of it all arises as a shriek hidden in the wind, for how is one already injured and the sun is still nowhere to be found?
Grief and trauma, it seems, don’t respect the hour.
So I choose to and let her follow alongside me wordlessly.
Moonlight filters through where the canopy breaks, illuminating the path slightly.
There’s no sound but our footsteps and the effort Francesca makes to quiet her breathing.
Roots bend beneath our shoes, and part of the ground is softer due to decades of people trodding this exact path.
I imagine it must’ve seen hordes of families once upon a time, before the tragedy.
Doubt last decade’s teenagers are likely to bring their kids to the lake when they know what happened.
Differing paths veer out to the sides, and in the dim light I can make out signs. There are a few parks, a hiking trail and some camping grounds. This entire land carries the scent of something long dead. Sheffolk is possibly the worst place my father could’ve sent me.
We’re fifteen paces away from the clearing that leads to the parking bay; I’m certain of it because I counted on the way in.
However, facing this direction feels strange for some reason, which I dismiss as my imagination playing tricks.
There’s no wind, and my vision blurs slightly as though I’m peering over flames.
Tree trunks are vibrating. No, that’s not right.
That can’t be right. I blink hard, yet the bark still looks like there’s a certain tremor to it. On each tree.
Francesca walks close to me, the air around her face is white from the little puffs she takes as she hops over roots.
I wonder if she notices, or maybe I’m just fucking sleep-deprived.
The trunks continue to shudder, and neither of us says anything.
We’re almost at the car anyway. I’ve never had a problem with quiet before, yet this one sharpens into a needle that presses beneath my fingernails.
She moves closer, arm brushing against mine, but still doesn’t say anything.
Then, impossibly, the hush ruptures. Rather than shattering or cracking, it folds into itself before exploding with sound.
You can ask the flowers, I sit for hours…
The lyrics twirl around bark, as if the entire wood swallowed a jukebox.
Francesca stops so abruptly that she nearly dives headfirst over a thick root but manages to catch herself at the last moment.
The song continues to drift through the air from between the trees.
I open my mouth, but the woods eats my question.
Tellin’ all the bluebirds, the bill and coo birds
My pulse slams against the wall of my throat as the song plays out.
There’s no speaker, no lights, nothing except Connie’s voice leaking from the bark.
I whisper Francesca’s name, but she doesn’t look at me.
She’s turned to face the dark, peering through hundreds of trees like she can see the artist herself standing there and singing directly to her.
Logic leaps to the mundane; I think of those boys from the articles.
Those idiots with too much free time on their hands.
Maybe even that anti-Sheffolk hobby group who won’t stop yelling about demons.
I know there’s a hidden camera somewhere, a Bluetooth speaker positioned perfectly behind one of the trees.
Either that, or Cousin Edmund has something to do with this shit. After all, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t even be out here right now.
“Is this your cousin’s idea of a prank, Francesca?
” I scoff, shoving my hands into my pockets as I search for the origin of the song.
It’s all a little too neat, catching her sneaking out and suddenly needing a chauffeur.
“You’ve both made your point. Ghost stories, ancestral letters, gravesites, threatening notes, and now eerie music—what’s next, a projector? ”
The lyrics curl in like fog. She finally looks over, and it floors me.
Her pupils are massive, swallowing the green until almost nothing remains.
She won’t speak. I know she wants to. I can fucking feel it.
But no words come, save for the barest whisper of my name.
That’s not the face of somebody playing a joke.
She looks like a girl remembering her own funeral.
Pretty little baby
I square my shoulders and try to count my breaths.
The tune creeps through the brush like scavengers on the hunt for carcasses, and the moonlight feels as though it shines onto us, stage lights guiding the path for whatever awaits in the darkness.
Francesca sidles up to me until her arm is pressed against mine, her body making the decision her mind can’t.
Safety . She wants safety. Just yesterday she would’ve teased me for being afraid of shadows, but now I can hear her throat clicking as she tries to swallow.
“If it’s those boys, I’ll wring their fucking necks,” I mutter, eyes sifting the darkness for the prank I still want to believe in.
Twigs crunch as I take the first step forward, but Francesca’s fingers close around my wrist. “Eric, no . Please, stay.”
I look down. Tears cling to her lashes, and she’s shaking hard now. A chasm opens up between the woman I first met almost three weeks ago and this version pleading with me. This isn’t Lady Sheffolk the Younger; this is the girl from the lake.
Meet me at the car hop or at the pop shop
Meet me in the moonlight or in the daylight
I force composure that I don’t feel, not when she’s like this. “Someone’s hiding a speaker out here. There’s a perfectly rational?—”
“Sheffolk eats logic,” she hisses, shaking her head in horror.
A tear, bright as mercury, trails down her cheek. Followed by another. Then one more until they flow steadily. I curse, wrapping both arms around her—one sealing her shoulders to me and the other curving around her ribs.
Pretty little baby, I’m so in love with you
Ooh-ooh-ooh
Her tears soak through my shirt like acid as each note rises from the soil itself.
“I’m going to check it out,” I tell her, using the voice my mother always did when Henrik was frightened during thunderstorms. “Nothing will happen to you. I’ll take a few steps, identify the speaker, and smash it. End of mystery, alright?”
She trembles violently, throwing her head back to peer up at me. Each word cracks as they leave her mouth, and she shakes her head again. “Eric, this is the song that was playing the day the boat sank. On repeat. Over and over.”
The temperature drops ten fucking degrees inside my gut.
She whimpers. “I can still hear Mum screaming over Connie Francis as Papa gets crushed.” The confession slices me open as I picture it: water swallowing an entire family as this lullaby croons about devotion.
Pretty little baby
I said pretty little baby
“Francesca—”
“Take me home,” she gasps, clutching my lapels. “ Please , I want to leave.”
Oh, now, pretty little baby
The melody stops. No fading the way it did inside the car, but an abrupt end, the woods biting off its own tongue.
The hush that returns feels monstrous, and Francesca exhales a heavy, broken sob.
She’s still begging me as I gaze out into the darkness, so I cup the back of her skull and begin steering us towards the car.
We only manage to take two steps before her knees just switch off.
“Whoa, hey— fuck .” I haul her against me before she can hit the ground, and a strange sound leaves her as she goes frighteningly limp. “Francesca? Tell me, what is it?”
Her forehead hits my shoulder, mouth parted and panting like she can’t catch enough air. “I can’t—Eric, I can’t; my legs— I can’t feel them .”
I do a rerun of the last few minutes, and despite digging through shit, there was zero opportunity for head trauma. Doubt she inhaled anything bad either. Psychosymptomatic, then, but still equally as terrifying because her whole lower body is dead weight in my arms right now.
“Hey. Eyes on me, darling.” She looks at me like she has no choice but to obey, trapped inside her own body and unable to do anything about it.
“ I can’t feel my legs. ” Horror ghosts over her expression, and I read the question before she has a chance to voice it.
“They’re still there; you’re fine. You’re fine.” And her legs are still there, covered in mud, knees knocking like they forgot how to work. “Listen, I’m gonna lift you, alright?” She nods once, fast.
I close my hips to hers and crouch just enough to curve one arm around her abdomen, left hand splayed wide enough to pin her to me.
Right hand commits to the underside of her dirt-slicked ass, finding flesh and muscle—and then I lift through quads and glutes as her weight travels up the length of me.
She folds exactly where I want her, face in my neck and pelvis riding my hips.
Her jeans are soaked through with mud, but that’s the least of my concerns.
I should hate the mess, but all my hatred is aimed at the way she’s trembling, like her body’s trying to wake itself up with little jolts of electricity.
She’s whispering nonsense against my throat, and I feel the shape of every damp word.
Kai would laugh at me for the way I triangulate as I walk, keeping a sense of our surroundings.
Heat trades between us, and I count the seconds between each shudder until I’m no longer worried she’s going to pass out.
Every step involuntarily jostles her, the seam at her crotch catching against my belt buckle before I have to hitch her higher again.
It’s an indecent amount of contact between two people not actively fucking.
Is this how I lose my morals? This is absurd. I’m probably the world’s worst gentleman, sharing the podium with the one and only Henry VIII.
Keep walking, fucker.
Keep scanning the treeline.
I see nothing, but something is watching. Someone is watching. With each step, I wait for the needle to drop again.
It doesn’t.
I help her into the passenger seat, but I can still taste that song in my mouth. That sweet, impossible melody. With the way Francesca refuses to let go of my hands, I know Sheffolk has only just cleared its throat; it’s nowhere near done speaking yet.