Chapter 1
LANEY
W e got the news early one morning.
“His body was found.” My father announced to the new soldiers on the estate in Great Tenor. His words lacked compassion. No one in this room even flinched. “Power has been transferred to me. My first action as de facto leader is to raise an army. Consider this your warning: we are on lockdown. His death has been ruled as suspicious. The last of the incoming cadets arrived yesterday and are training now. Prepare for the worst at any time, lads . Someone is after us; your task is to defend Ravencroft to your death.”
While the group stood at attention, my jaw dropped. Death. It had been a long time since this family faced serious conflict. Since before I was born, nothing more than a pub brawl or casino fraudster threatened our existence. Was this the end?
Richard Ravencroft looked out at the crowd in perfect control. “Dismissed.”
Half my mind said he did it, but even his cunning nature was skilled, not incidental.
As the room emptied, I went to follow, but Father gripped my elbow. A grave expression dawned on his face. “Laney, this is bad.” His deep baritone voice wavered. It was unnatural. Leaning closer he said, “It was a targeted attack.”
A generation ago, the Ravencroft family had a sister family, the Karsteins. Their union evoked a bloody reign of transatlantic drug trades and backroom charades, garnering fortunes that no bank could hold. The Karsteins dealt in controlled substances and artillery fire, while the Ravencrofts specialised in money laundering and blade work.
It was a dark time for the city of London, but the children of the syndicate were sparkling gold. I didn’t grow up in the same grandeur. The partnership broke down before I was born. The Karstein family home was scorched, killing their entire lineage, and we retreated to a quiet neighbourhood. Reserved to rebuild our wealth and stature in the quiet corners of the world. Initially, we endeavoured to blend into the London cityscape keeping our less-than-legal business close to our chest, but now, this was our hiding place—the little village of Great Tenor.
There was something about it that felt eerily familiar.
“How do you know?” I looked him up and down. “The man was old, Father.”
“A shot to the head is not a symptom of old age, Laney.” He snapped. “This is serious.”
It was murder? My thoughts stuttered. “Oh…Well, I-”
“No, not ‘oh well’!”
This was all coming out wrong. It just didn’t make sense. “I didn’t mea-”
“Keep your voice down.” I am. “This is a declaration of war. Find me the culprit with whatever cyber security bullshit you tout so often. Trust no one. ”
“Do you think it’s…?”
“No.”
He said firm. “They are dead. All of them. I can prove it.”
I couldn’t understand his certainty, but he was already walking away in a slow commanding stride before I could ask. I rolled my eyes in frustration. It was a routine that we excelled at. I talked, he didn't listen. He spoke, and I must obey. A cat-and- mouse game like that wasn’t rewarded by a father-daughter hug afterwards, regardless of how much I wished it was.
He beckoned me with two fingers over his shoulders.
So, I followed his back. Perusing each maroon painted wall adorned with a vast collection of family portraits and looted artworks as I went. Since the Ravencroft-Karstein split, the fissure, when we were evicted to London, the confines of these walls had been stifling with unresolved drama. What had been an untouched relic now had footmen scurrying along its many corridors—the speed of their movements partly out of duty but primarily out of fear. Father already ruled with an iron fist.
Amidst that chaos, it was difficult to find peace and even more challenging to find friends. The added isolation of this Hertfordshire village depleted me. Any hope that I’d find somebody like Tilly found her husband vanished by the day.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked. Nothing but forest hugged the property. It hummed with a haunted knowing. The canopy of trees shrouded it in complete darkness. I noticed the shift even with my eyes shut. We walked into its embrace, and with a breath of fresh air, it suddenly hit me.
I’ll never see my grandfather again .
He was dead. At the hand of a gun.
In this life, we were taught to anticipate the loss, but you can never quite predict the grief.
“You’ll see,” was all he said.
As the foliage thickened, we slowed our pace. I restrained a sob that threatened to erupt between clambered breaths. Edward Ravencroft was not a good man. He never claimed to be. He made his mistakes and certainly didn’t deserve my tears. Still, the overwhelming sense of absence filled my bones, my grip on the present moment slipping. I hoped he didn’t feel that emptiness as he passed.
“How was he found?” And I didn’t mean with a hole in his head. “Was he alone?”
He didn’t say anything, he just walked to a large dark square imprinted into the grass clearing outlined with blackened brick. It took a minute to gather that it wasn’t grass I was walking on, but gravel intertwined with weeds.
A branch snapped below my feet, taking me from my thoughts. Light filtered back into my vision as we reached a clearing.
“You’re wondering why we had to move away from London?” He shrugged, nonchalant, but there was something unkempt in his posture, unresolved as he pointed at the tarnished ground. “This is what happens in war, Laney. Do not underestimate the brutality of it.”
Great Tenor. It suddenly occurred to me. The place of union, but also…“The fire was here.”
…the site of the Karstein massacre.
The bird song echoed rather than flowed. The wind stilled. My heart raced. I can’t be here.
I jumped off the blackened gravel onto a patch of untainted grass and whipped around to return to the house, but Father wrapped a hand around my waist, pulling my back to his front. “This isn’t a fairytale, Sunshine. Not like in your books.”
I shook my head. “War won’t fix this.”
“Diplomacy won’t either. That broke down the second they murdered my father. But this place could protect us.”
“It doesn’t have to–”
“It does.” He pointed toward the scorched rock. “No one made it out of this house. A whole bloodline. Gone. There are no winners in this world, just survivors. Land. On. Top.”
This wasn’t a battle I could win. Not with him. I had to concede. “Yes, Sir.”
Most likely, I wouldn’t land on top, but maybe I could not get crushed at the bottom of the pile.
I owed Grandad a resolution that he never seemed to find in life. And it started with this place, with this family name and the union. If I could find the cause for the fissure, I could heal his posthumous heart. I had to beat Father’s quest for violent revenge and show him that Grandad could have a dignified remembrance without spilt blood.
I need my laptop.
Grandad gave me my first laptop when I started school. It was my refuge when my surrounding world wanted me gone. I could live an alternative life online and find a purpose beyond staring out windows I couldn’t jump from.
I stepped out beyond the cover of the trees onto the pavement in front of the soldier’s quarters. More men than I’d ever seen before in one place milled around the tarmac beside the barrack block.
The barracks, built behind the grand manor house during the Union, have sat hauntingly empty ever since. They housed the cadets, foot soldiers, and our artillery storage and security offices. That was where my laptop was.
With my head down, I entered the building. I nodded at the men guarding the door, avoiding their gaze. They returned a slight look of sullen pity. I hated it. Neenan caught sight of me as I turned midway through an eye roll. I picked up my pace.
“Laney!” Neenan shouted after me, “Laney, stop!”
I turned and held a pointed finger to his chest. “Do not ask me if I’m okay. I can’t take it.”
The moment of silence confirmed that was what he was going to say.
I continued walking.
I didn’t want to talk about it unless it was three drinks deep with my cousin, Tilly. She’s coming this week, but I couldn’t feel the full brunt of the excitement that I usually would.
Turning the corner to where my bedroom was, I saw a figure standing there.
Beautiful .
She stood outside my bedroom door, looking up at a picture of the family. At the time of the image, I was at St James’s. Miserable . The attempt at a smile marred my face, regardless. After years of begging, I couldn’t admit defeat to my father.
Was she here for me?
I approached her slowly, not startling her. “I swear, I learnt how to smile since that picture was taken,” I chuckled under my breath.
She turned, and my laugh got caught in my throat. I smiled confused, yet suddenly relaxed.
She was the girl. The girl was she.
It took effort to hold my jaw in place. “Oh-I-uhh-Hi Hello!”
She gave me a sceptical look, her skin as pale as I remembered. “Hi,” she replied, reserved.
Neenan took that moment to stomp down the hallway. “Laney are you o-” He stopped behind me, taking note of the girl before me. “Oh Kenna, nice to see you found your way.”
Kenna.
“You know each other?” I looked between the two. They both looked at me, heads tilted.
“Only briefly, I gave her a tour earlier. Your father hired Kenna as part of the heightened security measures. A junior enforcer. She’ll be staying in this room.” He pointed to the room beside mine and shrugged. “Away from the boys, you know.”
“Father? You’re Laney.” Kenna spoke in a soothing cadence, shoulders pushed back.
I tried to mimic her stance, but I could only hide a shy smile as I brushed my hair behind my shoulders. I wasn’t as suave as her. All I could do was nod.
Neenan inched closer to us as if to get between us.
“Goodnight, Neenan,” I said and rested a hand on Kenna’s arm. I guided her into my room, paying the guard no mind, not when she was in my vision. “I’m so glad you are here.” I breathed the words out in a similar way one would release a sigh of relief.
She followed me, closed the door with a stilted smile, and sat on the edge of the bed. “I would’ve preferred different circumstances.”
“Yeah,” I considered, “But still.” A sudden giddiness filled me. It was bizarre that the figment of my endless daydream sat politely on my bed. It wasn't with the ease that I’d hoped though. I shivered when I sat beside her.
The weight of the day, of my loss sat heavy on my chest.
Before I could succumb to my grief, the sting of tears threatening to spill already, I had to know if it was really her. “This is going to sound unbelievable, and I-I don’t quite know how to start this.” I took her hand when I spoke. I was shy, as lonely people often were, but her presence lent me an unexpected eloquence, even boldness. To my surprise, she pressed into my hand and laid hers over it. Her eyes beamed at me as she smiled again and blushed. It spurred me on. “…I know you. At St. James's Academy in Islington. Eight years ago.” I didn’t ask her in the end. I was overcome with the same certainty with which I would say that the breeze ruffled leaves.
“No,” Kenna said simply, and a boulder fell on my chest, knocking all the air out of my lungs. Her glossy brown hair captivated me into a brief stupor as I reclaimed my breath. “I was homeschooled.”
My face dropped. This can’t be happening. After all this time. Now that she sat right in front of me. I couldn’t be wrong.
“No,” I said. “No, no…I’m sure it was you.” I am not crazy.
With her head tilted, she leaned her face in closer. “Couldn’t be, Miss Laney.” She took one of my hands into her lap. “I’d remember a pretty face like yours.”
I was stunned into silence and stared straight ahead avoiding her.
“My deepest condolences for the passing of your grandfather. His absence is felt in the community,” Kenna brought our clasped hands to place them over her heart. Community?
I retracted my hand. Confusion clouded my head as my eyes closed. “No,” I whispered, “No.” It was another loss. Keep it together until Tilly gets here, keep it together until Tilly gets here, she’ll tell you what to do.
Kenna took my muttering as confirmation of my grief, but she didn’t move to comfort me like she had before. No hand was resting on my back nor were there any rhythmic thumb caresses.
Slowly, she retreated from the room. If you need me, I’ll be next door . I heard her mumble, but it didn’t register because it didn’t feel genuine. When she closed the door, she left me in the deja vu-stricken confines of crushing solitude. I memorised each of her eyelashes each time she passed me in the school corridor. The warmth of her skin. The shine of her hair.
I remember her , I’m sure of it, and I wasn’t wrong.
When I heard her door click shut, I scrambled for my yearbook hidden behind the vanity and desperately flicked through the pages. I found myself easily, under a fake name, but no trace of her. I looked up old group emails and messages. Class registers. Pictures from sports days. No evidence. Kenna, Kenna, Kenna. I scoured the internet. Nothing. Not even amongst the endless galleries of images that mums seemed to harbour on Facebook.
How strange.
My vision wavered as I stared at my laptop, a migraine beating a rhythm into the left side of my skull. The steady thump was a red signal to close the laptop and sleep.
Dread filled me. Was Father right?
No.
I wasn’t seeing things.
It would be agony if she wasn’t real. My mind tentative for a push down, the spiral of thoughts and feelings and considerations of fallacy and reality, I couldn’t decide what was right. Grandfather was still here, and Kenna was the mystery girl. No doubt about it. Or was there?
Somewhere in the cloud of confusion and incorrectness of it all was the profound feeling of grief that underpinned it all, and with it, a pervading sense of injustice for grandfather.
This was his retirement, death wasn’t meant to touch him, and conflict wasn’t going to avenge him either.
Despite the taxing day, sleep was difficult. I need medication .
As I stepped out of my room to go to the bathroom medicine cabinet, a shift in the air drew my attention away from it. To my left, I narrowed my eyes to see a figure drowned in oversized black clothing. Flicks of hair waved in the breeze as they strode to the backdoor. My tired eyes betrayed me; within a blink, they were gone.
Father was right. Hallucinations.
The pill was a bitter one to swallow.