Chapter 35
Leah pulled up outside Erica’s cottage, her headlights casting long beams across the garden wall. The mess came into view slowly – tools scattered across the grass, a rough pit torn into the lawn, half swallowed by shadow.
Maisie leaned forward from the back seat, peering through the windscreen.
“Auntie Eri’s been gardening in the dark?”
Leah didn’t answer.
Something was wrong.
It had sat wrong ever since Erica left her house earlier that evening – the things Leah had said, the way Erica had walked out without looking back, like the conversation had ended somewhere neither of them could reach.
Leah scanned the garden again, chewing the inside of her cheek.
Smoke drifted lazily from the chimney. The cottage lights were on.
The house looked lived-in.
But Erica wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Darling,” Leah said, turning to Maisie, “stay here. I’m just going to check on Auntie Eri, alright?”
She leaned over the seat and kissed the top of her daughter’s head, lingering a moment longer than usual.
After Dylan’s call – something about a fire, no details but just enough to make her come – her instinct took over and she bundled Maisie into the car.
Maisie now hugged her small grey teddy to her chest. It was her favourite, though Leah could already feel those days slipping away. The quiet moods lately. The thoughtful silences.
Soon cuddly toys wouldn’t fix everything.
Leah stepped out of the car and crossed the garden quickly, the headlights stretching her shadow long across the grass.
She knocked hard.
No answer.
She pushed the door open.
Inside, Lucky lay curled beside the Rayburn, eyes half lidded, barely glancing up. Lamps glowed softly around the room. A mug sat on the table, half-full.
The house felt warm, but the silence inside felt wrong.
“Erica?” Leah called, moving quickly through the rooms.
Bathroom. Empty.
Bedroom. Empty.
The warmth clung to the space like someone had just stepped outside … and never come back.
Then—
“Mummy!”
Leah spun around, heart kicking hard against her ribs.
She ran outside.
Maisie was in the garden, crouched at the edge of the disturbed earth, her raincoat flapping over her pyjamas as she scraped eagerly at the soil with both hands.
“Maisie! I told you to stay in the car. What are you doing?”
Her daughter looked up, cheeks streaked with dirt. “There’s something down there!”
Leah hurried over and dropped beside her. “Maisie, don’t—”
Too late.
Mud covered the sleeves of her pyjamas. Maisie was already digging, small fingers working furiously through the damp soil. “It’s a treasure chest!”
Leah blinked.
In the low glow of the headlights, something rectangular caught the light, wedged deep in the earth. Wood, maybe. Or metal. Its edges glinted faintly beneath the dirt.
The moon slipped between the clouds then, casting a pale silver wash across the garden.
Leah stared.
Maisie looked up at her, eyes shining. “Did Auntie Eri bury it?”
Leah didn’t answer.
She just watched the shape slowly revealing itself, like something waking after a long sleep.
Then she felt it – the sense of someone standing behind her.
Leah turned to find Erica a few paces away.
Beside her was a man.
They were standing close, closer than strangers.
For a moment Leah didn’t recognise him. The darkness softened the lines of his face.
Then his voice came quietly across the garden. “Looks like you found something.”
Something in Leah’s memory shifted.
The phone call.
The calm voice that had answered Erica’s phone weeks ago.
The landlord.
Gabriel.
Leah’s gaze flicked to their hands. She was sure they’d been holding on to each other a second ago.
Erica stepped forward, boots sinking into the churned mud. “What is it?”
“I thought you might know,” Leah said. “Maisie’s found something. Look.”
“I didn’t—” Erica dropped to her knees beside the hole. “I dug here. There was nothing.”
“Erica.” Leah’s voice sharpened. “Just look.”
Maisie beamed, hands muddy. “Like the cupboard one,” she said proudly. “I found that one too.”
Gabriel crouched down beside them. For a moment his hand hovered near the carved initials in the stone wall before he looked back to the hole.
“Would someone mind telling me,” she said carefully, “why my sister’s garden looks like a crime scene?”
Erica didn’t answer straight away. Her breath hung pale in the cold air. “But I thought …” she began, then stopped. “I thought I’d already looked here.”
Gabriel studied the half-buried box, his expression thoughtful. “Sometimes you just miss things the first time.” He glanced up at Erica. “Are you sure you want to open it?”
Or leave it.
The question settled over the garden like another layer of mist.
Erica paced across the damp grass, thumb pressed against her lip the way she used to when she was thinking too hard. “I don’t know.”
“Auntie Eri, you have to open it,” Maisie said, barely able to contain herself. “You found it.”
Erica shook her head. “No, Maisie. You did.”
Then she looked at Leah.
Properly this time.
The air between them shifted – heavy with everything that had been said earlier that evening.
“What if it’s nothing again?” Erica said quietly. “What if this is just another rabbit hole?”
Leah stepped forward. Cold mud soaked through the thin soles of her shoes. “You think opening a box is running away?”
Erica hesitated. “You said I always do.”
Leah held her gaze. “Opening it isn’t running away, Eri.” She gestured at the box. “It’s finishing what you started.”
For a moment Erica didn’t move. Then she nodded. “Okay.”
Gabriel crouched beside the half-buried box. Leah noticed the way his hand hovered for a second before touching it, like he wasn’t entirely convinced it was wise.
“Now or never,” he muttered quietly.
He lifted it free.
The box looked heavier than Leah’s first impression, and larger, the size of an old hatbox. Dark wood, worn smooth with age, a rusted iron handle across the top.
He carried it carefully to the stone wall.
Leah switched on her torch and followed, the beam cutting through the dark. “What do you think it is?” she asked.
Maisie had gone very still now, clutching her teddy to her chest.
Gabriel turned the box slowly in the light.
“I’ll need a screwdriver.”
“I’ve got one.”
Leah ran back to the car and grabbed Dylan’s emergency kit from the boot. For once, his habit of keeping tools everywhere was useful.
When she returned, Gabriel took the screwdriver. Their fingers brushed briefly.
He worked the rusted latch slowly.
The metal resisted at first.
Then—
Click.
The sound seemed louder than it should have been.
No one spoke.
Gabriel lifted the lid.
Inside, beneath a layer of yellowed muslin, lay a bundle of letters tied together with faded twine.
The paper had curled with age.
Gabriel lifted the bundle carefully.
Then something gleamed beneath it.
Gold.
Leah leaned closer.
Gabriel reached inside again and drew out a small medallion on a thin chain.
He turned it in the light.
“Initials,” he said quietly. “C. G. and I. G.”
“The same initials as the stone.” Erica looked from the medallion to Gabriel. “It has to be Charles Grigor.”
Leah frowned. “Charles Grigor... as in the Grigor family? The ones with the statue in the next town?”
Erica nodded slowly.
Gabriel set the medallion gently on the grass.
Inside the box, in a small hollow beneath the letters, lay two tiny curls of hair.
One dark.
One red.
They were tied together with thread so fine Leah almost missed it. She frowned. “Wait … why would someone keep that?”
Erica crouched closer and touched the bundle of letters carefully. “I think … there was more to the story.”
Maisie leaned forward eagerly. “Are you going to read them?”
Erica hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s ours to do.”
Gabriel nodded slightly.
Leah looked between them. “So what are you saying? That there was a forbidden romance or something?”
Erica gave a small, tired smile. “Something like that.”
“Maybe some wealthy landowner took advantage of her?” Gabriel suggested quietly.
Erica frowned. “I think there was love. Don’t you?”
Maisie’s voice came quietly. “But if they loved each other … why didn’t they get married?”
Erica looked at her. “Sometimes people didn’t get to choose.”
There was a pause.
Then Maisie said softly, “Do Mummy and Daddy get to choose?”
Leah stilled. That again. She had been over this many times. She knelt beside her daughter and brushed a muddy strand of hair from her cheek. “Maisie …”
Maisie shrugged a little. “You and Daddy shout sometimes.”
Leah felt that one land squarely in her chest.
“But you both still love me,” Maisie added quickly. “I’m still yours.”
Leah pulled her into a hug. “Always,” she whispered.
For a moment, Maisie stayed tucked against her, small arms wrapped tight around Leah’s neck, as if making sure the promise would hold.
When Leah looked up again, Gabriel was still beside the open box. The medallion rested in his palm, catching the torchlight. He turned it slowly between his fingers, studying it before setting it gently back in the box.
The movement felt careful. Respectful. As though he understood the weight of their history.
Erica lowered herself onto the grass beside Leah, knees drawn in, eyes fixed on the box.
“Who knows what really happened here,” she said quietly. “Maybe she stayed. Maybe that was the only way.”
Gabriel set the box down between them.
Erica’s fingers hovered over the letters but didn’t touch.
Gabriel glanced down. “Love letters, maybe.”
No one spoke for a moment.
Leah looked at her sister. “You found her, Eri. No one else would have kept going like that.”
Erica shook her head. “I didn’t find Mum though.” Her voice was calm, but Leah could see the old ache sitting just behind it. “I’ll never find her.”
“Oh, Eri …” Erica looked up then, and to Leah’s surprise she was smiling. Small, but real.
“But you were there.”
Leah frowned. “What?”
“For me.”
Leah didn’t know what to say to that.
“You were my sister and my mother at the same time. And I never really said thank you.”
Leah nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak straight away. Then, after a beat—
“You didn’t make it easy,” she said. A flicker of humour crept in. “Mind you … neither did I.”
That earned a small laugh from Erica. “That’s one way of putting it.” Then Erica reached for her hand. “But you never stopped showing up.”
Leah squeezed her fingers. “Of course I did. You’re my sister,” she said simply. “Looking after you was never a job.”
The wind moved through the garden then, rustling the grass around them.
Maisie leaned against Leah’s leg, teddy still tucked beneath her chin.
Leah looked down at her daughter – mud on her pyjamas, cold pink cheeks, eyes still bright with curiosity.
The strange old box lay open beside them, filled with someone else’s past.
For once, everything felt … quieter.
“Is Auntie Eri leaving?” Maisie asked.
Leah glanced up, but Erica answered first.
“No, Maisie.”
She said it softly, but with certainty.
Erica’s eyes met those of the man beside her for a brief moment, something unspoken passing between them, before she looked back at Maisie.
“I think … I’ll stay.”
Leah watched that small exchange.
Once, Dylan had looked at her like that.
Before life had filled up with school runs and bills and the slow grind of ordinary days. Before the distance had crept in so quietly neither of them had known how to stop it.
And if she was honest … it hadn’t just been him stepping away.
She had been busy too. Tired. Too quick to brush off the small gestures.
Somewhere along the way, they had both stopped reaching.
A thought settled in her then – uncomfortable, but clear.
If she didn’t try to find her way back to him, whatever was left between them might disappear entirely.
Maybe it already had.
She didn’t know.
Nearby, Gabriel closed the lid of the box.
Leah watched him a moment. “You’re the one who had Erica’s phone.”
He looked up. “Yeah.”
“The landlord.”
A small nod. “Guilty.”
Leah glanced at Erica, then back at him.
“So you’re Gabriel.”
A flicker of amusement crossed Erica’s face.
“I was just helping out,” he said.
Leah believed him.
Above them the clouds had thinned, and moonlight spilled across the garden, illuminating the broken earth where the past had finally let itself be found.
The wind moved gently through the grass.
The box rested between them.
Letters.
A medallion.
Two curls of hair tied together.
Someone’s love, kept safe all this time.