Chapter 10
KENNA
M y relentless knocking was making my knuckles hurt. A light was coming from under her door, so I knew she was inside.
“I know you are in there, Laney. Open up!” I halfway yelled.
It was just about to turn nine o'clock and the lingering echoes of commands and instructions are starting to fade. All that remained was my steady beating on Laney's door. Sharing a wall meant that I learned her routine fast. At this time of night, she'd be curled into bed with the fire roaring, the flipping of pages the only sound. But whilst the fire crackled, the paper wasn’t shuffling. Had something changed?
As I continued to knock, the growing redness around my knuckles made me pause and in that split second of silence, I noted a different kind of shuffle. Not of pages, but of boots.
“Miss Whether, what are you doing at my daughter’s door screaming?”
Jesus Christ, again? Richard Ravencroft stood behind me, watching, about ten feet away. He was flanked on both sides by a rotation of men, his usual entourage. I held still to avoid rolling my eyes.
“I noticed how you’ve become close with her quickly. What are your intentions?” He narrowed his already dead eyes. Twenty-three days.
Turning toward him, I held my hands up and smiled. “Completely chaste ones, Sir, I promise. Just wanted to see if she wanted to have a cup of tea with me and sit by the fireplace.” Even my most polite voice couldn't hide the simmering anger and disappointment of his daughter's decision to ignore me.
He hummed and came closer, leaving his guards a couple steps behind him, until his body loomed over me. “Your racket could be heard all the way in my office. I don’t enjoy interruption.”
“Of course, Sir.” I laid the charm on thick. “Do you know where Laney is? If not here?”
Flicking his wrist upward, he prompted his men to leave.
I love when a man underestimates me. He clearly didn’t think of me as a threat as my hand slipped behind me, out of view from his glaring eyes. They stayed fixed above me, intimidating only if I hadn't been fuelled by the irritation of his family name.
He ignored my question. “Tomorrow is Tilly’s funeral. Do I trust that you will attend without causing a nuisance? Drama seems to follow you.”
I nodded. Under the hem of my shirt, I found the butt end of a handgun. His grating voice beamed over me as I cocked the safety off. It always paid to be prepared.
This wasn't the perfect time. But it was a rare opportunity where I had caught him alone. I looked up at him, wondering if, in his arrogance, he could see the damage he bestowed onto his surrounding soldiers. He wasn't going to win the war.
A faint giggle from outside the manor rattled through the open windows with the wind. It was a chilly evening but the old insolation in this building often made the air thick and stuffy. That sound anchored me, and my hand let go of the cool metal weapon at my back.
I wasn't going to end this war.
Not now. It was too reckless, too soon, and I wasn’t done with Laney yet. I recognised her laugh from a mile away. In Richard cold eyes, it seemed that he hadn’t noticed.
“Words, Whether.” Richard said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Yes, Sir.” I replied as I turned on my heel and followed in the direction of the sound. “You can trust me.”
And as I strode toward the backdoor, Richard Ravencroft returned to what I presumed was his office. No harm done.
As I grew closer to where Laney’s laugh originated, my lungs filled with a smell akin to gunpowder. Smoke. And Laney’s giggle had been replaced with a soft rhythmic humming. It was a stark reminder that that was way too close. I had twenty-three more days to do this. If I had pulled my gun out then, I would lose her forever.
Exiting through the backdoor, I entered the fresh air of the forest, and after a minute of walking, I saw a distant fire pit with two bodies either side—Neenan and Laney. When I approached where they sat, the temperature increased, and the humming morphed into singing. I couldn’t yet decipher the lyrics, but the voice was powerful and beautifully feminine. Laney.
There was no background music, just the acoustic notes of sustained vocals. It almost made me stumble as I kept my eyes on the target, negating where my feet landed on the uneven ground.
I stopped before I reached them. Simply overcome by her grace, my aggression and need for answers were stifled. Instead, I stood and enjoyed the ambiance in the bubble that Laney’s singing had created. Even Neenan appeared transfixed where he sat opposite to her with his bare feet out. Both their heads bowed, and I could now see a necklace shimmer in the light of the flames clutched in her hand.
Tomorrow is Tilly’s funeral. This was a vigil.
As she finished the song, reality dawned on me. I have no business being here. Especially as Neenan looked right at me and nodded for Laney to look too.
In an instance, I turned around.
As I was leaving, I heard Neenan’s faint whisper. “She wouldn’t understand.”
But I understood. The Ravencrofts destroyed my family. It was only right that they felt an ounce of our pain, but I was na?ve in assuming that death would hurt leadership. Collateral damage came with war, I knew that, but Richard wasn’t wallowing in grief, Laney was. And I couldn’t stand it.
Instead of heading inside, I walked into the surrounding forest and kept a steady pace. It was safe enough. The gates were secured, my gun was in my jeans, and my boots could fracture a face if I swung it hard enough. I would be alright.
The dark night didn’t have the allure that I thought it once might. The deep foliage was empty, still, and even with minimal light carried a natural splendour that eclipsed any fear I might have with comfort. There weren’t many paths to follow so I straddled fallen beams and evaded nettles and brambles.
A prickle halted my movements as a branch of brambles stuck to my clothing. It pierced the skin on my leg, but only enough to lift skin, not draw blood. It still stung though. As I nursed the wound, something caught my eye. A beam of moonlight lit a green open space ahead.
I strode right to it, so soon the woods opened to a path of gravel overgrown with weeds. At the end of the gravel path was brick, blackened as the stone crumbled with age.
Mama warned me to not go too deep in the forest. Bottom lip entrapped in my teeth; I was afraid this was what she’d feared I’d find—our ancestral home turned to dust.