25. Remnants of the Lake
REMNANTS OF THE LAKE
FRANCESCA
I feel kind of like Eric, all freaked out and wondering where the mouldy aroma is coming from.
Except, I’d take Tommy any day over the rotting sweetness of pomegranate clinging to my sense of smell.
I walk without really looking where I’m going, rather watching each of Percy’s messages ping through.
The screen lights up again as I take the stairs to the second floor.
Percy
okay im currently on section 15 of ‘castle redford: private observations and accounts’
Chess
isn’t that the sixth journal bertie gave you??
Percy
yes and i left my kindle at your fucking place, so this is what im reading
now listen. ive just learnt that g-spot and adelina were basically feral for each other at some point
it’s their honeymoon chapter and i wanna die. nanna says g-spot was leaving her notes in the chapel omg
and adelina would rub POMEGRANATE OIL on her wax seals
im gonna vomit?????
nanna’s being SO detailed with these memories im cryingggggg
nada on cilly-boy
Chess
huh, you just might’ve given me smth. gimme five minutes.
Percy
WHAT?
WHAT DID I GIVE YOU?
I don’t respond, shoving the vibrating device into the pocket of my trousers and changing course.
Desperation for a victory drives me from asking Lydia what’s for dinner to breaking into my grandfather’s study.
Told myself I would never ever do it again because last time I was sixteen and Percy convinced me Grandfather wouldn’t notice if his Mouton Rothschild Pauillac 2000 went missing.
All I had to do was find it.
Instead, I discovered that two hexagenarians are still fully capable of getting it on against a bookshelf. Came for wine and left with trauma—a price I’m willing to pay once more if it means understanding this dream the locket has inflicted upon me.
What little luck bleeds through the curse takes pity on me, and I find the space empty.
His laptop’s still open on the desk, the screen filled by an email from Lord Octavian Halpine.
Considering it was sent three weeks ago, I’m guessing he was confirming the time again; he has the memory of a fish sometimes, I swear.
Good news is that they’ll be at that charity gala until morning, at the very least. Thus, I take my time perusing the walls, tracing every newspaper clipping that’s meticulously framed and dated.
Lord, Lady, and Heir Lost in Boating Tragedy.
Flags Lowered, Bells Toll: Mourning Period Declared Across the Duchy.
Three Members of the Sheffolk Family Lost. Dark Day on Lake Mirethia.
Francesca Lanorythe: The Girl Who Survived the Unthinkable.
Lake Mirethia Drinks Blood: Was It Really an Accident?
That last one from The Redford Record sinks its teeth into my unease, but I resist little-me’s request to bolt from Frank Sheffolk’s museum of misery.
Gran buries and perfumes her rot (as I warned Eric), but Grandfather believes it stinks more when you try to hide it.
My father was his firstborn, his mirror image—a Blythe in all but name, until the lake reminded him that even love can drown.
I look at these clippings, feel the grief trapped behind glass, and find myself pitying him.
One frame stops me, and I almost lose sight of what brought me here in the first place.
There’s a photograph of me and Lucy, taken on my sixth birthday.
Last one I celebrated with her. I remember the confetti, the little hats Pascoe handed out, the sound of Mum’s laughter, and the smell of baby lotion as Lucy covered my eyes, whispering for me to make a wish.
We look so similar that it hurts to see, to remind myself that one’s dead whilst the other still breathes.
I press my palm against the picture before I even realise it, and when I feel glass instead of my sister’s jaw, I jump back as if I’ve been burned.
I fish my phone from my pocket before the tears have a chance to fall. Percy picks up on the first ring, offering a quick, “Please tell me you found what you’re looking for. Because the suspense is literally fucking killing me.”
I can hear a nib scratching against paper, she’s probably trying to make sense of Nanna’s later journal entries.
Lucy’s image receives my back as I walk towards the desk.
“Yes, um, I was thinking… since that man’s been dragging me into the water every night, it made me think of Lucy.
” The scratching stops. “She carried me as far as she could that day. I always assumed that she got lucky, in a way, because she died before Gran could introduce her to the curse.”
“Bleak, but same.”
“I mean, she couldn’t have known about the test. I would’ve been called to the chapel as the spare, wouldn’t I?
” Percy hums in agreement. “No, Lucy was too young; that’s what I always thought, but the more he pulls me under, the less I believe that.
” I’m looking at The Redford Record’s clipping again.
“I don’t believe the accident was an accident, Percy.
Because after my family died, a man held me.
Tried to drown me. And I could see the shoreline in the distance.
None of these articles mention him, and he couldn’t have vanished that quickly, not unless he wasn’t fully corporeal to begin with. ”
The other end of the line goes silent, disrupted only by a careful, “Chess…”
Lake Mirethia Drinks Blood: Was It Really an Accident?
Lake Mirethia Drinks Blood.
Blood.
There’s blood in the water—there always was: our name, our secrets.
In light of my recent suspicions, it sounds less like ramblings and more like Nanna warning me about the lake. Perhaps she saw blood in the water before my family even went under because the boat was marked. I feel his hands on my throat again, the only target he didn’t manage to hit.
“Lucy failed her test before anybody could even warn her.” I say, confident in that conclusion despite my throat burning with the effort. “And I would’ve failed mine too if Hildebrand had succeeded in the water.”
Percy splutters for a moment and her bed squeaks as she presumably pushes to her feet.
She stutters at first, then says, “How… how did you even come to the conclusion that it was him? Look, I’m not invalidating what you’re saying, but you know that lake holds ghosts just as well as this castle does. ”
“His smell.” I let that sink in, but Percy only lets out a confused ‘ huh? ’. “You know how Tommy carries mildew?”
“God, if only I could forget.”
I’m rambling now, clammy palm lifting to my throat and feeling the pulse there.
“Hildebrand’s ghost smells of pomegranates, Percy.
Not sweet, but sour, like it’s gone off.
It only clicked when you mentioned the letters and the wax seals.
The oil Adelina used would’ve soured after a time; maybe he kept one of her old letters on him the night he died—something he couldn’t let go of.
That’s what he smells like… old sweetness that rotted. ”
“Okay, what the fuck, Chess?—”
“He tried to drown me after Lucy let go.” I can hear my own panic, can practically see how air rips through my lungs in their desperation to oxygenate my trembling body.
Grandfather’s laptop shifts when I knock into the desk in search of something to stabilise me.
“Oh my God, my test began way before Gran even woke us up that night.”
Percy makes every effort to soothe me, but I can’t help but see that tiny version of myself struggling to stay afloat until the people standing ashore have seen her.
There’s water leaking into her mouth; the arm around her tightens but she can’t fight any longer.
Luck alone has Godwyn’s ghost vanishing as someone from the rescue team yells that they’ve found the girl.
“I can’t pass this,” I mutter, shaking my head and blinking through the wooziness. “There was never even a chance of me?—”
“Hey, no, we’re not doing this. Stop ,” she snaps, all traces of her usual nonchalance gone from her voice, and it hits like a slap.
“Starting the test early doesn’t change a damn thing.
Barring Gabe’s attack, normalcy only started glitching after we dug up Cillian.
Think about it: years of nothing and suddenly you feel someone watching, then Prince Eric brings him up and boom—your nightmarish song is back.
Cillian’s a lead and G-spot knows we’re circling it.
So take a deep breath and use your brain. ”
“I am breathing,” I tell her, hand moving from my throat to the back of my neck.
The skin there is on fire. “But it’s like part of me can’t accept it because if he’s this aware of me, then it means I’m closer than I’ve ever been.
Every time I get somewhere, he wakes up a little more. It’s like he’s waiting for me.”
She laughs incredulously. “And that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s a two-way street; he’s waking up because you terrify him too. Now, I want you to go find that prince of yours, get off that cursed property, and calm yourself down. Understand?”
My throat tightens around about a hundred different worries I could voice in this moment, but I end up petulantly mumbling, “He’s not my prince.”
Percy gives a one-syllable laugh, and I can practically hear the question mark at the end of it.
My breathing evens in that brief second of levity, but the fear doesn’t fully leave.
Rather, it feeds my paranoia, and I know that I’m going to say what I ought to have said days ago.
Percy can’t touch those journals anymore. I’m not taking chances.
Before she can comment on my muteness, I add, “What would calm me down even faster is if you promise to stay out of it. Stop directly interfering in my test; no more journals and notes from Bertie. I’ll go through them myself.”
“Girl, you’re so funny.”
“I’m serious. I asked for your help to break the curse, Percy, but that was before I knew the test wasn’t over. With the rules back in play, I can’t turn to my family. And I won’t make you a target.”
There’s a long pause, and I can almost picture her biting her tongue.
After a few heavy (and dramatic) exhales, she speaks.
“I’m not gonna lie, Chess, I’m willing to become a target for you.
Gladly. Just so you wouldn’t be alone in this.
” I try to interject but she tuts. “However, it seems like someone else is there to fill the slot, hm?”
“No need to sound so smug.”
She laughs again. “So, here’s my deal; I’ll back off if— and that’s a big fucking if —you spend the goddamn coin that is Prince Eric Atherbourne.
You say he makes G-spot antsy? Good. Use that.
Fucking cling to him if you have to. And for once in your life, stop pretending you’re fine—tell that man everything. ”
That simple command feels like standing on the docks again, watching Papa load the boat.
I know the water is freezing and the lake frightens me, but I still contemplate climbing on.
Taking that risk means there’s a chance we’ll drown, that I’ll lose everything.
And just like that day, there’s a strange calm that settles over my shoulders.
With that, I step forward. “Alright,” I whisper.
“Okay, good,” she breathes out. “Now tonight, I’m begging you, unbury yourself. Let us here in the living have you, even for a few hours. Take some shots, touch the prince, maybe both. Please, do both.”
Her voice fades upon receiving my reluctant agreement, but the echo lingers.
Unbury myself. It’s an easy enough thing to grasp, a little more difficult when you’ve made a home of your coffin, though.
Every time I try to climb out, something heavy is added to the lid, whether it’s survivor’s guilt, fear, or despair.
Perhaps that’s how the curse keeps breathing through me, on my quiet surrender.
I press my phone to my chest and straighten.
Alright then. Let’s see what happens when I stop being quiet.
The door to the study creaks open, like the castle knows I’ve made my decision.
Knows I’m leaving.
“Let’s go find him,” I murmur to Lucy’s picture.