Chapter Text
Eloise answers the phone on the second ring.
“Hello, this is me--,”
“Eloise, why the fuck didn’t you tell me Fran joined an agency?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Well, Ant dearest, she asked me not to.” Eloise’s voice is carefully measured. Anthony steams.
“She is fifteen years old--,”
“Yes, perfectly old and mature enough to be making her own decisions.” Eloise cuts across heatedly. “It makes her happy, Anthony. She’s been through hell, she deserves--,”
“It’s dangerous. It’s fucking dangerous. You were never an agent, you don’t understand. She could’ve died any night and I would have had no idea--,”
“How is that any different from when she lived with Aunt Frannie?”
Anthony is shocked to silence. Eloise sighs.
“I get that’s it dangerous, Ant, I do. But it was either go with her or be against her, and I didn’t—I don’t want to lose her again. I’m her emergency contact right now, I make sure we see each other every couple weeks for tea--,”
“You mean she doesn’t live with you anymore? Where the hell does she…..?”
Anthony trails off, a picture forming in his head.
“Anthony--,”
“She’s fifteen years old! She should not be living unsupervised with two teenage boys--,”
“You worry too much,” Eloise scoffs. “They’re good kids, responsible kids. They live in a nice neighborhood, big old house. They’re fine. And, obviously, I bought her condoms after I saw a picture of that Lockwood fellow--,”
Eloise keeps talking, but all Anthony hears is white noise.
“Eloise--,”
“It seems pretty innocent right now, they’re just good friends, lots of will-they-won’t-they, so I doubt anything has happened, but it’s all very sweet--,”
“ELOISE!”
“What, Anthony?”
“You bought our baby sister condoms?” Anthony whispers.
Eloise scoffs. “Come off it, Ant, Daphne bought me condoms when I was her age.”
Anthony chokes.
“Anthony?” Eloise asks hesitantly after too long a silence.
Anthony can feel the vein in his forehead throbbing. One family crisis at a time.
“Ant--,”
“Shut up.” Anthony breathes. “Shut up, please shut up. You’re going to give me an aneurysm. Okay. Okay.” He takes another deep breath. “There’s a ghost on the grounds. Ned saw it. We think Type One. Kate hired Lockwood and Company to take care of it. They are here right now.”
“Ah.” Eloise finally replies. “Probably isn’t in Fran’s best interest then.”
“You think?”
Eloise sighs. “Any way you can hold her off? Convince her not to go out tonight?”
“No.”
Eloise sighs again. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Mum?”
“Probably not.”
Eloise makes a clicking noise with her tongue. “Well, Ben’s here visiting, and Col is probably camped out in Pen’s room. She moved in after Fran moved out, glad I can tell you that now. Not entirely sure how I feel about it, now that my best friend is fucking our brother--,”
“Jesus, El, please stop--,”
“But anyway, we’re probably too late for the trains today. We could be out there first thing tomorrow morning?”
“Come if you want to. I don’t know how much it will help.”
Anthony can picture Eloise’s shrugs. “At least she’ll know we care. At least she’ll know we want to see her. All of us.”
“You’re going to call Mum?” Anthony asks.
“Suppose I should. I am the one who hid it, I can take the thrashing.”
“She won’t thrash you. She’ll just be sad. And worried.”
“Aren’t we always worried about Fran?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”
***
***
***
Anthony picked up the phone after two rings.
“Whoizzit?” Kate asked sleepily. She rolled over in bed to face him. Anthony patted her cheek then turned over to focus on the call.
“This is Anthony Bridgerton,” Anthony answered gruffly. “How can I help you?”
“Mr. Bridgerton,” the solemn voice answered. “I am calling from Saint Mary’s hospital in Warrington. I must inform you that Francesca Bridgerton-Carlyle was admitted earlier this evening for a moderate case of ghost touch--,”
“What?” Anthony choked out, sitting up in bed. Beside him Kate stiffened. “What—where, what the hell do you mean? What happened? Is she--,” Anthony couldn’t breathe. “Is she alive?”
“It’s a moderate case as I said, on her left hand. She should regain full ability and feeling in the hand, the doctors see no reason for amputation,” The man said. He sounded nearly bored. Anthony’s whole body went cold at the words. “The doctors are keeping sedated currently.”
“How did it happen?” Anthony whispered. Kate sat up and put her head to his shoulder. Providing comfort. Listening in. “Our aunt, is she--,”
“Francesca Carlyle? We’ve actually been trying to reach her, do you have any other contact information we could try?”
Anthony paused. He swallowed thickly.
“They weren’t together when it happened? It didn’t—she wasn’t home? It had to be after curfew, how was she--,”
“That’s a question for the authorities, sir.” Then, the man sighed. Perhaps he could hear Anthony’s ragged breathing over the line. “She your cousin?”
“My sister. My little sister.”
The man sighed again. “There was an incident at the old Wythburn Mill. Type Two apparently, a bad one. Half dozen agents died, one ghost locked. Your sister is the only survivor.”
Anthony wondered that the phone didn’t crack in his hands.
“Agents?” Anthony rasped.
“Yes, from Jacobs and Company, local outfit. Lucy Carlyle is a bit of a legend around here. Didn’t realize Lucy wasn’t her first name…” the man trailed off.
“I will be there in,” Anthony leaned to the bedside table and grabbed his father’s wristwatch. “Four hours. If our aunt shows up at the hospital, you do not let her in my sister’s room. You do not allow her to remove my sister from the hospital. You call the fucking police if my aunt shows up, do you understand?”
“Mr. Bridgerton--,”
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.” Anthony Bridgerton hung up the phone.
“What happened?” Kate whispered into his shoulder. Anthony held himself taut. If he didn’t, he was rather sure he would burst into sobs.
“Fran was ghost touched. Call my mum, tell her she’s at Saint Mary’s hospital in Warrington. I have to go.”
“Anthony, it’s the middle of the night. It’s too dangerous.”
“I have to go.”
“Anthony--,”
“Katie, I love you. I will take every precaution, I promise. But I must go right now.”
He looked into his wife’s eyes, watched them fill with terrified tears. She leaned forward and hugged him close. “Will she be alright?”
“I don’t know. I don’t--,” Anthony’s breath rattled between his teeth. “I don’t know.
***
Anthony Bridgerton arrived at St. Mary’s hospital three hours and fifty-two minutes later. He drove through the countryside like a bat out of hell, iron chains and rapier rattling in the back seat of the car. He burst through the hospital doors like a wraith in the night and, after a brief interlude at reception, he sprinted down the corridor to Fran’s room.
She looked small.
She’d always been small to him though, hadn’t she? She was destined to always be that tiny baby Mum had settled into his arms with a smile just a few days before he’d turned fifteen.
“An early birthday surprise,” Dad had called her, wide grin on his face, as he’d brushed back her chestnut hair. “Francesca Lucy Bridgerton.”
“Big name for such a little thing,” Anthony had replied with his own grin, tapping his newest little sister lightly on the nose.
“She’ll do big things, our sweet Fran. I’ve a feeling. She has a big life ahead of her.”
Fran looked small, yet older too. Her braces were gone since last Christmas. She’d gotten her hair cut differently, shoulder length with long bangs across her forehead. It suited her.
She looked astonishingly like Mum.
Her face was blanched white, pale and sickly, sweating lightly. Her left hand was bandaged like a club, right weighted down with IVs and oximeter.
Her hospital gown was covered in teddy bears.
Anthony slumped down in the hard plastic chair at her bedside and dragged it across the tile floor, as close as he could to the bed. In the absence of a hand to safely hold, Anthony rested his hand on Fran’s upper arm, above the bandages. He sat for a moment and watched his little sister breathe. And breathe. And breathe.
Then Anthony Bridgerton buried his face in his other hand and finally allowed himself to cry.
***
Anthony only excused himself from Fran’s bedside when Mum arrived, harried and tearful and terrified out of her mind the next morning, Ben in tow. He filled them in briefly and excused himself from the room.
From the payphone in the waiting room of Saint Mary’s hospital, Anthony Bridgerton called his wife, his lawyers, the police, DEPRAC and Mr. Jacobs. Three hours later he made his final call.
“Hello?” The whispering voice answered. Anthony took a long, deep breath.
“Custody of Fran has been turned over to myself and my mother,” Anthony Bridgerton informed his aunt calmly. “There is a warrant out for your arrest, so take this as fair warning if you’d like to flee the country. It makes no difference to me, all I care is you never touch my sister ever again.”
“On what grounds!” Aunt Frannie exclaimed, indignant.
“Negligence. Child abuse.”
“I never--,”
“You made her a fucking agent!” Anthony finally screamed. “You knew why we sent her to you, what we were afraid of, and you made her a fucking agent and kept the money for yourself! You lied to us for years, manipulated us, manipulated her…Did she ever even get all the letters we sent? Did you tell her when we called, all the times we stopped by and she ‘refused to see us’, you--,” Anthony could not speak for a moment, he was so enraged. “We thought she could never forgive us. And she probably thought we hated her. And you—you—you sent her out there to die.” Tears flooded Anthony’s eyes. “How did you get her to keep the secret? What did you say, what the fuck did you do to her, you sick, twisted--,”
Aunt Frannie hung up the phone.
Anthony paused, wiped his eyes, and finally exited the phone booth.
Fran was awake when he arrived back at her room. Ben was asleep in the chair at her bedside.
“Mum went to the loo,” Fran informed him hollowly when he stopped in the doorway.
He approached the bed slowly and sat at the edge. Fran’s hazel eyes followed him glassily all the while.
“Can I hug you?” He finally rasped.
Fran’s eyes widened, then flooded with tears. She bit her lip and barely began to nod when Anthony wrapped her up in his arm so tightly it must have hurt at least a bit, but she didn’t complain. Just leaned into it, head resting against his collarbone.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, love, I’m sorry--,”
“They’re dead,” Fran whispered to him as though it were a secret, “My friends, they’re all—it’s all my fault, they’re all dead, I can’t—I can’t, Ant I don’t know what to do--,”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not, it’s not. Fran, it’s not your fault. Jacobs broke a half dozen regulations at least just with that job. Kate and my lawyers are figuring it out now. He’s done. It’s done, he’s finished, I promise.”
“You promise?”
“I promise, promise.”
“They’re still gone, they—it doesn’t even fucking matter, all my friends are dead,” Fran dissolved into helpless sobs. Anthony held her closer still.
“I know,” Anthony shushed. He did know. He understood. He knew better than most exactly what she was feeling. He’d hoped to God above since the day she’d first heard the ghosts on the moors that Fran would never understand the way he did. “I know, love. I know.”
***
***
***
If Lucy only had one word to describe Francesca Carlyle, it would be bitter.
Married too young, to a man who died young with too many debts. Childless, jobless, seemingly friendless, Aunt Frannie lived a bitter, lonely life, best characterized by the sour set of her mouth and the deep lines around her eyes.
She was probably lovely once. She looked enough like Mum that beauty could not be far away. But a lack of compassion and love for herself had left her grey in all the ways one could be.
Perhaps Anthony thought Fran and Frannie could turn each other’s lives around, be the hope they both desperately needed. Perhaps Mum had happy memories with her older sister, memories of care and love she wished to be passed along to her grieving daughter.
Perhaps Frannie Carlyle considered doing that, at least for a bit. But the moment Frannie Carlyle realized her niece had Talent, anything resembling compassion disappeared.
***
Aunt Frannie played the long game, Lucy must give her that. She spent years fostering both resentment and desperate need between a little girl and her siblings, years of withholding letters and phone calls, years of threatening to keep little Fran from her family if she told any ‘horrid lies’.
“They already don’t want you around, girl. You and your—unnaturalness,” Aunt Frannie had reminded little Fran before they both boarded the train to Kent that first Christmas together. “Tell them any horrid lies about me and I promise to make your life a misery. You’ll never see your precious Bridgertons again.”
Fran’s family thought all was well between Frannie and little Fran because, by all appearances, it was. They thought the two got along so well, in fact, that they agreed when Aunt Frannie asked to formally adopt little Fran just two years into the arrangement.
“My darling,” Mum had asked her, tears in her eyes, before they’d walked into the little courthouse that day. “Is this truly what you want?”
Don’t tell them horrid lies….You and your unnaturalness….More trouble than you’re worth….
“Yes, Mummy,” Fran had replied, eight years old, heart cracking in half with a smile on her face.
An hour later, she was officially Francesca Lucy Bridgerton-Carlyle.
Aunt Frannie took her in to Jacobs for an interview the very next day.
“I’m her legal guardian,” she’d told the man, smug smile on her face. “The money goes to my account.”
And six years later, everything went to shit.
***
“I started going by my middle name after that. I hated that we shared Fran, hated that I was named after her. And I know it’s stupid,” Lucy finishes the story, sitting on the edge of her childhood bed. George and Lockwood are standing in front of her, but Lucy can’t find it in her to meet their eyes. Instead, she hugs a frilly pink pillow to her chest and stares at their knees. “I should have known she was lying about never seeing my family again, it was ridiculous, I should have just told Mum or one of my siblings what was happening, but--,”
“You were seven, Luce,” Lockwood interrupts quietly. Lucy finally looks up. His eyes look astonishingly bright. “You were a child, and she took advantage of you. It’s not your fault.”
Lucy bites her lip and stares out the window. There’s a nest on the sill, with three little eggs. Lucy swallows thickly.
“Where is she now? This Aunt Frannie?” George asks. His voice is harsher than Lucy’s ever heard before. Lucy looks back and sees a fire in his dark eyes.
“Prison. After my last job with Jacobs and all the—the deaths, Mum and Anthony were notified. They didn’t even know I was an agent.” Lucy snorts. “It didn’t take them too long to put together the rest after that.
“I went back to London to live with my mum in Mayfair once everything was settled. Mum wanted me to go to school, but Anthony offered to help me get a job. We got into an argument when I realized that job wouldn’t be as an agent. Mum and Anthony point-blank refused to sign any of the forms so I couldn’t interview properly. I wrote them a note and left that night. They think I’ve been staying in my sister Eloise’s flat; she’s been covering for me.”
George stares down at her, blinking rapidly. “So, you’re saying your mum has lived literally three tube stops away from us the whole time?”
Lucy nods.
“This why you never wanted to be on TV or in the papers?”
Lucy nods again.
“Why did they send you away?” Lockwood finally asks, voice very soft.
Lucy shrugs. “Mum gave birth to my sister Hyacinth two days after Dad died. It was too early, they both nearly died too. And after, Mum was…” Lucy trails off, lost in the memory of her mother’s terrifyingly blank stare. “They loved each other a lot, my mum and dad. Mum wasn’t doing very well after. And the boys were at school and Anthony was leaving Fittes and Daph tried her best to keep the rest of us happy and I—I guess I was a lot to manage. Too much, I suppose. So, they sent me away.”
Lockwood sits beside her on the bed. “We don’t have to do this job, Luce. We can go home.”
Home.
The word makes something inside her jolt. Home. 35 Portland Row has turned into the best kind of home these past months, full of laughter and excitement and biscuits and tea and mystery. From her loft in the attic down to the skull in the cellar, Portland Row has become home.
But the walls surrounding her now, Aubrey Hall with its grand ballroom and cozy library, with its maze of corridors and riots of flowers climbing the walls…it’s home. Lucy is home. She’s entered the home of her happiest memories, the home of a childhood where the Problem seemed a faraway nightmare, family was forever and the world was always kind.
“This is my home, too,” Lucy answers finally. “Or it was, once upon a time. If there’s a Visitor haunting these grounds, I want to help.”
“What if it’s your father?”
Lucy swallows thickly. “Then I owe it to him to help him pass on. He was a good person. The best--,” Lucy’s voice cracks. “The best dad.”
Lockwood reaches out and squeezes her hand.
“Alright then. How much time do we have before tea?”
***
***
***
“Oi!” a familiar voice whisper-shouts as the trio makes their way down for tea. A hand reaches out and grabs Lucy, pulling her into a shadowed alcove.
“Jesus Christ, Kate,” Lucy mutters, “Give a girl some warning next time.”
“She did say ‘oi,’” George counters as he and Lockwood trail after her into the alcove. Kate shoots him a blinding grin. The grin falls quickly though as she turns to face Lucy.
“Anthony wants you off the case. You need to be prepared.”
“Of course. His reasoning?”
“You don’t have your Grade Four.”
Lucy smirks. “I do, actually.”
Kate cocks her head, seemingly impressed. “Good. He’ll mention the fact that it could be your father--,”
“He’ll bring that one up last. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Next?”
“Total guilt trip. He loves you, doesn’t want you to get hurt, et cetera…”
Lucy shakes her head. “He won’t bring that up.”
Kate looks at her consideringly. “He loves you very much, Fran. I hope you know that.”
“Sure. Next?”
“He’s going to call your mother.”
Lucy shrugs. “I can handle her. Next?”
“Well, his final argument will be that he’s the client and he’s paying. To which I will politely let him know that I am in fact the client and it is my money. And I’ve hired you three.” Kate beams. “So, please don’t let me down. And please don’t die, otherwise he may divorce me.”
Lucy scoffs. “Anthony looks at you like you’re the fucking sun, there’s no way he’d ever leave you.”
“Is that right?” Kate asks with a knowing smirk. She’s looking at Lockwood though, which Lucy finds particularly odd. Lockwood goes pink high in his cheeks and looks down.
Interesting.
“Alright then. Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
***
To Kate and Lucy’s great consternation, Anthony Bridgerton makes none of these arguments at all. Instead, he hands Ned to Lucy to sit in her lap, pours tea for everyone and passes out biscuits, then asks what time they’d like to get started tonight.
“Five thirty I’d say,” Lockwood says carefully, looking to the sky. “Would you like to walk us around the grounds now--,”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll be joining you.”
At which point, Lucy realizes her brother handing her his son was a very calculated move. Because Lucy is not about to shout and curse and scream with her sweet little nephew sitting in her lap.
“Anthony,” Kate sighs, cradling her face in one hand. “If you die, I will kill you.”
“Do you really plan on chancing having a baby you’ll never get to meet?” Lucy adds. It’s a low blow, the lowest of blows really, but Lucy doesn’t particularly care.
“I’m trained for this, Fran--,”
“So was Dad,” Lucy says waspishly. Ned looks up at her with big brown eyes and a frown.
“Are you mad at me, Auntie?” Ned asks her softly.
“Of course not, lovely,” Lucy says immediately, hugging Ned close and kissing the top of Ned’s shiny, dark hair. “I could never, ever be mad at you ever. You’re perfect. I do need you to go sit with your daddy though and give him a big kiss.”
Ned obliges, scampering over to Anthony and crawling into his lap. While he still can, Lucy mouths to Anthony over the top of Ned’s head. Anthony gives Lucy the finger behind Ned’s back as he pulls his son into his lap.
Lockwood chokes on his tea when he notices.
George pats him on the back good-naturedly as he snorts with laughter.
“Neddy,” Lucy asks quietly, once George and Lockwood have quieted down, “Could you tell us about the person you saw outside a few nights ago?”
“She hurted my eyes,” Ned replies, rubbing his eyes instinctively.
Lockwood leans forward in his chair. “How do you know it was a girl, Ned?”
Ned shrugs and hides himself at bit in the confines of his father’s arms. Anthony rubs his back soothingly and whispers something in his ear.
“Hair like Mama’s,” Ned finally answers. Lockwood grins at him encouragingly, and Ned grins slowly back. “And a long swirly dress.”
“Excellent. Well done, Ned. That’s really helpful.” Ned’s grin turns into a beam at Lockwood’s earnest praise. “Do you think you could show me where in the yard you saw her?” Lockwood holds out his hand. The little boy hesitates for only a moment before jumping from Anthony’s arms and scrambling to take it.
“This way!” he cries, hurrying down the hill with Lockwood. Lockwood has to cut his stride in half to keep from overtaking the sprinting child.
Lucy can’t quite keep the grin off her face as she watches them traipsing through the lawn, toward the little garden shed. She looks up and finds her brother staring at her, his face contemplative.
“Are you still living with Eloise?”
“I-um--,” Lucy swallows thickly. “I live at our headquarters, actually.”
Anthony coughs. “With Mr. Karim and Mr. Lockwood, presumably?”
Lucy nods. Kate smirks.
“At an agency which famously does not subscribe to adult supervision?”
“Don’t let Lockwood hear you use the word famous anywhere near us, his ego is big enough,” George jokes. Then he gulps and abruptly stands from the table. “I think I’ll go join—yeah, I mean, uh—good luck, Luce.” George pats her shoulder and sprints down the hill to follow Lockwood and Ned.
“You are fifteen years old,” Anthony reminds her sourly. “You should not be living unsupervised with two teenage boys--,”
“They’re my colleagues, Anthony.”
“Sure, Fran,” Anthony scoffs. He looks down the hill and watches George catch up with Lockwood and Ned under the old oak tree. “Mum isn’t--,”
“Mum isn’t going to hear about it. Unless you want me to tell her all about your after-hours ghost adventures steps away from where Dad fucking died while your wife is eight months pregnant.”
Anthony leans back in his chair, face expressionless.
“If you promise to come home for Christmas this year, I won’t say a word to Mum about your living arrangements.”
“You don’t say a word to Mum, Ben and Colin and we have a deal,” Lucy counters.
Anthony frowns. “Fine.” He finally says. He extends his hand. “Deal.”
Lucy takes his hand and shakes it firmly, meeting his eyes. “Deal.”
It’s like a poker to the heart, again and again and again, just how much he looks like Dad.
Lucy stands and leads the way down the hill to the shed. Anthony and Kate follow at a slower pace, their hands joined. When Lucy reaches her friends by the shed, George is already through the trees at the clearing Lucy really doesn’t want to think about. Ned is on top of Lockwood’s shoulders, showing him the pond.
“Auntie, look how tall I am!” Ned shouts. “I can see the whole world!”
“Please be careful, Mr. Lockwood,” Kate calls with a smile. “You have my whole world up there with you.”
Lockwood takes Ned gently down from his shoulders. Anthony looks to his wife in indignation. “I’m not part of this world of yours then?”
Kate shoves his shoulder. “Of course you are, you idiot. He’s the best of both of us.”
“Oh. Well, that’s rather romantic of you then.”
“For f-fudge suck, Anthony, stop making moony eyes at your wife, we have a job to do,” Lucy finally snaps, literally and figuratively, in her brother’s face.
“Where’s George gone?” Lockwood asks. Ned takes his hand again, beginning to lead him to the trees.
“He went to see Granddad. Come on!” Lockwood looks back at her with wide eyes. Lucy bites her lip and nods back to the shed.
“You lot go on. I’m going to take a look around here.”
“Are you--,”
“I’m sure. Go on,” Lucy says emphatically. Kate joins the boys as they travel through the clearing.
Anthony stays behind with Lucy.
“Eloise and I used to dance around under that tree, pretend we were will-o-the-wisps. The sunlight would come through the branches, and we’d tell ourselves it was fairy dust.” Lucy says quietly after too long a silence between them. “Dad was always the one to come get us at sundown, tell us to wash up for dinner. He’d smile at us, kiss us on the head, and tell us to fly away home. It’s the last memory I have of him.”
“I’m glad you have that,” Anthony says softly.
Anthony had been the one to find Dad, Lucy remembers, had been the one to leave the dinner table when the sun was already set, and Dad still wasn’t at its head. He’d rolled his eyes and left the table when Mum asked him and told the rest of us not to let the food get cold. He’d left the house with a flashlight and a smile, promising to be back soon.
Five minutes later came the screams.
Five days later was the funeral.
“Unless your son has appalling eyesight, I don’t think Dad is the ghost we’re looking for,” Lucy finally exclaims, turning around in a circle and examining the shed. “And I know you had teams from Fittes and Rotwell go over everything out here and in the house after he died.”
“Tendys, too,” Anthony adds. “And Grimble. They never found anything.”
“Has anything changed recently? Around here, I mean? New landscaping, trees, toys, paint--,”
“We painted the shed a couple weeks back, just a new coat inside and out, looked like it hadn’t been repainted in fifty years at least,” Anthony says with a smile.
Lucy frowns. “When you say we--,”
Anthony rolls his eyes. “You’re worse than Eloise. I hired someone to paint the shed, alright. Yes, I did not do it myself.”
Lucy’s frown deepens. “Could they have taken anything down? Iron nails or, I don’t know, a weathervane maybe?”
Anthony shakes his head. “No. I checked it all before and after, all the precautions are in place. No Visitors should be able to get in or out of the shed at night.”
“Ant,” Lucy asks her brother slowly. She watches him jolt at the familiar nickname, “Were they in the middle of painting when Ned saw the ghost?”
Anthony thinks about it for a moment. His face pales. He nods. “I didn’t—he didn’t tell us about it until a few days later. Had bad dreams, I think. That’s why I didn’t…Jesus Christ.”
“Did they clear the shed when they painted?”
He nods again.
Lucy looks to the sky. They’ve got an hour at least before the sun will set. She grits her teeth and opens the door to the shed.
Everything looks just as she remembered from her childhood: the gardening supplies on the shelves, the old bike hanging on the wall, the box of balls and games and other outdoor toys in the corner.
And of course, pride of place in the center of the shed, the pall mall cart.
“Dad was late for dinner because it rained that afternoon,” Lucy remembers aloud as she walks forward. “It rained that afternoon in the middle of our game of pall mall, and we left all the balls and mallets and wickets in the yard. And in the evening we started to pick up, because the rain had stopped, but the sun was setting, and Dad was nervous. Do you remember? He told us to go inside, and he picked up the rest at dusk.”
“Fran, what are you--,”
“Why do we call it the mallet of death?” Lucy asks quietly, walking forward. “Where did the name come from, why did we--,”
“What are you--,”
Lucy reaches her hand forward.
“Fran, wait--,”
She Listens to her gut. She Touches the black mallet.
Her world turns to screams.
Then it turns black.
***