Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

After Marian’s death, everyone’s life in the Hooper household changed overnight. Lord Hooper isolated himself inside his grief and dark rooms. Months turned to years and he was only leaving the house so he would go to his office until even that he did only if it was necessary. His daughter, that as years were passing was looking more and more like her mother, barely knew him. Her eyes - the same beautiful chocolate brown eyes that her mother had - were like knives in his wounds. Marian’s beautiful long brown lock that he loved seeing them while she was lying beside him, were now in her head, and he couldn’t beat to see them shine.

To him, it looked like this copy had sucked out the breath from the original, the one that was so necessary for him to keep living. He felt like she had stolen his way of breathing.

Richard Hooper was fading away. In only forty-five years of age, he looked much older. His body caved in, his eyes got darker, his hair turned white, his friends went away without really meaning to. They offered their help but it was denied. They got terrified with his reaction when they told him that he should remarry if only so Molly could have a mother. He turned into a beast and threw them out of his house. He refused to see anyone ever again, firmly believing that they showed disrespect to his late wife. One night he destroyed all the roses in the garden with his bare hands. Full with blood he nearly gave Ginny and Mike a heart attack when he appeared in front of them before they start to taking care of his wounds. They were the only ones that dared to get close to him, especially Ginny that was his wife’s favorite.

He fell asleep in her arms that night, after crying like a baby in her warm embrace. That same embrace, the only one that Molly ever knew. Ginny’s tender caresses she had instead of her mother’s. She got raised in her arms, Ginny was the one that heard her first confused attempts to form words, the one that was worrying for her first unsure steps, that loyal woman that stayed up all night by her bedside every time she had a fever.

Her shadow.

Molly felt immediately the change in the weather. When her eyes met with the dark clouds it only confirmed it for her. It was just a matter of minutes before a new storm was about to begin. The sea got darker, the mermaid’s shadow disappeared, like she also sensed the storm that was coming and rushed herself to the peace of her ocean. Small white waves suddenly appeared and her boat started shaking.

With steady hands, she turned on the machine and turned the boat towards the land. Mike must have already been on the beach waiting for her. The storm would probably be started until she got there and he would get soaking wet.

The first raindrops fell on her when she stepped on the little deck. ‘’You are lucky you made it back just before the storm started my lady,’’ said the old man, scolding her with his sweet eyes while helping her to tie up the little boat safely.

Before Molly even tried to answer, they heard a clap of thunder and the rain came fast and hard. They both started running in the middle of the rain and by the time they got into the house they were both completely wet.

A second later Ginny appeared in front of them. ‘’Oh, what am I going to do with you two?’’ she nearly shouted. ‘’You’ll get cold. Run my lady to get changed, you’ll get sick. And you, you crazy old man… I will have to rub you up and down with oil again.’’

‘’Enough with your fussing woman,’’ he complained. We got touched by barely three raindrops.’’

As soon as the last word left Mike’s mouth a big thunder shook the entire house. Ginny crossed her heart. ‘’God, help us,’’ she whispered. ‘’The skies are open.’’

Molly exchanged a mischievous look with Mike just like she did when she was a little girl and then run to her bedroom to put on dry clothes. If she didn’t do it Ginny was capable to follow her and dress her up herself, as if she was still a five-year-old girl.

When the time came for Molly to go to school, Mike and Ginny had put on their best clothes and escorted her to the class. Mike was the one that carried her books when they returned home that noon. People were wondering how could Lord Hooper send his daughter to a public school and didn’t think that that was the result of him completely ignoring her existence. No matter how hard Ginny tried to talk to him and make him care, to make a decision for Molly schooling he listened to her with empty eyes and then left without a word. So Mike stepped in and signed her up to the closest school.

‘’But how are we going to take up that responsibility?’’ had asked Ginny.

‘’You think that we can wait any longer?’’ answered Mike. ‘’Lord Hooper is perfectly capable to leave his only child uneducated. He doesn’t listen to us my love, or he can see anything when it’s about his daughter. Let the girl start to school now, and then we’ll see what else we can do.’’

And so Molly went to the public school of her neighborhood as if she was the child of Mike and Ginny Stamford from the poor but beautiful village of Mousehole, not the daughter of one of the wealthiest men from Penance, with noble origins and great fortune.

Molly covered herself with her comfortable and warm robe and stepped closer to the window. The storm was now very intense. Water fell on water and land, the fire created beautiful cracks in the sky. The waves fell with anger on the rocks. Not a single sign of the sun.

She sighed loudly at the same time that a thunder made the windows moan. Her hands crossed in her chest and she realized how empty they always were… They were empty for years. Empty from love, empty from a child. She was always holding on the void, the moment she thought that the entire world was hers.

She had told him that once and he smiled at her, like every time that he wanted to change the subject. Just before he kissed her, knowing very well that it was the only way to make her forget all her complains, all the questions that burned on her brain. All of that seemed a lifetime ago. But they still hurt deeply, the wound was still open. Time hadn’t erased the past. On the opposite. It carried with him the pain because it was so far gone now. There was no return back, not a single opening to try and change, to correct… Old debts, she carried them with her. What if she left, what if she buried herself in a corner of the land she adored? Her entire life was teared up pieces of paper, that she was hiding in her pocket.

She touched her forehead to the glass, trying to erase from there the scars of the time and pain. The touch with the gold glass brought her back to the present. Ginny would be waiting for her in the kitchen and of course, she would be worried. She was always worried about her. Ever since Molly could remember herself, Ginny’s eyes were always filled with love and worry.

The first year at school was a revelation for little Molly. Above everything else, she got lots of friends and that made her happy. She may always have Ginny by her side, she may always have Mike to give her anything she wanted, but it was different to have companions that could run for hours without losing their breath, that weren't afraid to soil or tear their school clothes and make up all kinds of mischievous deeds with her. Ginny was at her wit's end with her. She was spending a lot of time to comb Molly’s long hair or to pick the loveliest bows for her braids, only for Molly to always coming back home with her hair in complete disarray, with no bows and her school clothes so messed up, that poor Ginny was struggling for hours to bring them back to their original state so her little princess to go back to school looking like the little lady she was. But the little girl didn’t have a damn. She was having the time of her life on the recesses. Inside the classroom, however, things were different. The naughty dirty little princess wasn’t taking her eyes off of the teacher and wouldn’t remove them from her until the bell ring. She was taking all the knowledge like a sponge and the questions she made were strange for a six-year-old kid.

She soon started begging Ginny to take her to her friends' houses so they could play and hesitantly she soon asked permission to bring them to her home too. But that couldn’t happen without her father’s permission, so Ginny found herself in front of him while fidgeting with her hands.

‘’What do you want Ginny?’’ asked Lord Hooper sounding bored.

‘’My Lord, it’s about the kid…’’ she started hesitantly. ‘’Our Molly…”

‘’So? I told you not to bother me with that. Make anything you want with her.’’

‘’But my Lord, the girl goes to school now…’’

‘’So you want money?’’

‘’No, no. But she has friends now and she would love to have them here to play with them.’’

‘’Here? At my house?’’ Lord Hooper looked at her with anger.

If it was about herself, Ginny wouldn’t care. She would have run away after the way he was looking at her, but it was for her little girl so she didn’t back down.

‘’My Lord, the house is hers too. She’s so alone, it’s not good. It’s a shame. After all, Lady Hooper wouldn’t want that kind of life for her only child,’’ she said, with the last words coming out of her mouth with bated breath.

‘’Don’t bring up my wife at this,’’ he shouted, just like she was expecting.

‘’Your wife my Lord, yes, but she was our Molly’s mother too. After all, I’m not asking for something impossible.’’

‘’And you will bring into my house little kids that will run and shout in here? I want to have my peace.’’

‘’Please, do it for me. I never asked for anything all those years that I worked for you. Besides, you will be closed up in here. I will keep the kids away from your door and your window. You won’t even know they are here, I promise. Don’t tell me no my Lord.’’

Lord Hooper throws her a strict look and then turned his eyes to the window and stared at the garden. Mike was there, looking after the flowers with Molly by his side. Hooper observed the girl for a few moments. She was entirely focused on the movements of the gardener, trying to mimic him on how to take care of the flowers. The image of his wife came to his eyes again. She loved flowers so much. She often soiled her hands with dirt, with Mike tenderly scolding her that a lady like her shouldn’t bother with these things. Marian had laughed happily and answered him that since her favorite flowers were growing in the soil, then there was nothing if her hands got dirty.

‘’So my lord?’’ Ginny pulled him back from the memories.

‘’They can come… But be careful Ginny. If I hear any shout from them, I will not hesitate to throw them out at the same time,’’ he said. ‘’And now leave me alone.’’

She was ready to kiss his hands with her joy, but she didn’t. Since that night that he cried in her arms, he never allowed anyone else to touch him. And Ginny felt sorry for him, but she loved her little girl more… her Molly.

Molly returned to the kitchen, but the smell of the hot chocolate had reached her already from the stairs.

‘’You’re back my lady?’’ Ginny welcomed her with a smile. ‘’Where will you drink your chocolate, my sweet girl?’’

‘’Here, with you…’’

Molly loved the specious bright kitchen, with the colorful curtains and the big windows. Half of them were looking at the beautiful garden and the other half at the sea. All around there were little pots with the aromatic herbs Ginny used for her delicious foods. It was her kingdom, where she spends most hours of her day and Molly had tried her best when she was building the house for the kitchen to be its best room, full of modern amenities so her guardian angel wouldn’t get tired.

Ginny’s only complaint was that they never had guests coming to the house so she could cook for more people and Molly always ate too little. She was trying the hardest to find aways to make her eat at least one extra bite, and usually, she was finding the solution to the sweets that were her weakness since she was a child.

The first time that her friends came to her house, Molly was agitated. When Ginny was trying to fix her hair she was jumping up and down and her plaids didn’t come out as they should, but it couldn’t be helped. The five little girls that arrived shortly after, stood frozen when they saw the big house. Their mothers, that were escorting them, hesitated to go through the door that had the Hooper family crest on it. They knew of course for the rich classmate of their children, but when they saw the mansion in all its glory, they considered to ran away. And they would do it, had not Ginny jumped out of the house in a hurry to let them in and welcome the children.

Molly’s room was worthy of a princess. Marian was certain that she would give birth to a girl and had decorated it appropriately. Richard was teasing her, telling her that if the child was a boy she would have to fix it all over again, but she was pulling at his ear playfully and told him to not underestimate a woman’s instinct. She turned the room into a true palace, without knowing of course that her daughter would grow up in it all alone.

The little girls' eyes and mouths went huge when they saw a true paradise, filled with toys, where everything had arrived from France and Italy. Dolls that looked alive, with long well-combed hair, with blinking eyes not painted and with silken clothes. There was also a small table at the side of the room, made for them, with tea sets from porcelain on it, while on its other side they saw pots of metal, also looking very real.

In the end, Ginny didn’t have to do anything to keep the children quiet so they wouldn’t bother Lord Hooper. None of them felt like stepping out from this heaven. They sat down and played quietly for hours, and only when they were finding a new toy that in their eyes seemed like a little miracle they were letting small gasps of admiration to come out of their mouths, however, it was impossible to pass through the thick walls of the house and reach the library where the master of the house was burying himself.

Ginny couldn’t get enough of watching Molly’s happy face as she shared her toys with her friends, and she knew that she was looking at them with a different perspective now, through the other kids' admiration. For her, all of these toys were her everyday life, a standard that she never questioned. But as she was noticing the other kids’ expression and comparing their houses that she had visited, with her own, she might realize for the first time the difference between their social standing.

Nevertheless, the kids very quickly accepted their friends’ different standing and succeeded to love and want her for who she truly was and not for her rich home or her magical room.

Even though at the beginning Ginny was worried, she soon saw with relief that the girls not only didn’t insist on coming to Molly’s house all the time but they also kept inviting her to theirs as they did before. Of course, in the spring, the home invites were over. The weather was warm, the strolls in the mainland and playing tag on the big square was more fun. Ginny and Mike were sitting in a coffee house and Molly was enjoying the sun and the games with boys and girls her age.

As she was growing, she looked more and more like her late mother, but only on the outside. Luckily she hadn’t inherited Marian’s fragile health. She never got sick, her cheeks were rosy and fever was something very rare for her. She was beautiful and healthy and the couple was proud of her as if she was their own. After all… wasn’t she? Nearly six years of marriage - they got married just before Marian’s death - and Ginny had started to accept that the miracle of motherhood wouldn’t happen for her even if they were both still twenty-six years old. But none of them talked about it. Slowly but surely, Molly got the place of that child, without them even paying attention.

The next morning was calm in the little private deck. The sea, almost regretful for the previous days’ anger, was caressing the sand sweetly, submitted, obedient, and playful at times, like a child that knew that it had misbehaved and tries with sweet eyes to get back the love of the adults. The white boat was rocking softly in the deck.

Molly reached it and caressed the wood softly. ‘’You survived once again, my sweet old lady,’’ she said tenderly and the boat moved with the waves as if it wanted to nod at her.

She stepped away. For the first time, she wasn’t interested in traveling on the boat. The waves touched her feet. The frozen touch created goosebumps on her skin, but she didn’t move away. She walked for a while, with the water reaching her calves, with a sweet numbness from the cold. She turned her eyes to the sky. No, the sun hadn’t come out. It was trying to reach out with weak light, but it wasn’t enough to give her some warmth. It was November now and from the looks of it, it would be a long and heavy winter that year.

‘’Molly! My lady!’’

Ginny’s voice made her look back. Half of her body was out of the window, looking scared to death.

‘’What’s going on Ginny?’’ she asked, even though she knew the answer.

‘’Have you gone mad my lady? What are you doing inside the sea in this weather? Come inside right now. You’ll catch a cold.’’

Molly knew that it would be pointless to deny her. She was capable of running out and grab her by force even if she knew how tired the many stairs would make her until she moved from the house to the beach. Ginny didn’t like the sea at all, she had never been inside her and she couldn’t understand why her lady had this bizarre love for her, as she used to say. Mike used to tease her about, that as a woman born and raised on an island didn’t even want to look at the sea. He was telling that she should be born in a mountain, but Ginny wouldn’t change her mind.

The first and only time she entered the sea when she was very young, she nearly drowned. Since then she never went close to the water again.

Molly returned fast to the house. The couple was waiting for her, however, Ginny had her hands in her waist, a sure sign that she was planning to scold her.

‘’What on earth are you doing, my lady?’’ she started shouting the moment he saw her. ‘’Swimming in the summer wasn’t enough for you? What were you doing at the sea in this weather?’’

‘’I just got my feet a little wet Ginny, I didn’t swim.’’

‘’I would like to see you dare. You would fall on the bed with pneumonia and I wouldn’t know what to do.’’

‘’You are overreacting but ok. Fine, you win. I won’t do it again. But you have to understand my sweet Ginny that I’m no a child anymore. I’m nearing my fifties and you behaving as if I’m still ten.’’

‘’Stop acting like a child so I won’t treat you like a child. And nevertheless, you are not fifty yet. You just turned forty-six.’’

While Ginny was talking, Molly noticed the couples’ clothing. They were both wearing their best clothes. ‘’Ginny, why are you both dressed like this? Where are you going?’’

‘’Well, my lady, is Sunday today…’’ said Mike.

‘’So? Are you going to church? How so?’’

‘’It isn’t any other Sunday today though. Is the 5th of November.’’

‘’Oh, right… I see…’’

There wasn’t anyone in Cornwall that didn’t know what that day meant. In the mainland, they had a big litany with the preserved bones of Saint Kea. She felt a pain in her chest that had nothing to do with her health, but with her memory. Twenty-nine years had passed since the first time she saw him. She was only seventeen, following the litany with her friends. And him… he had just arrived in Cornwall to walk as a lawyer.

A shadow went through his face and covered it. Or had her eyes were filled with tears again? No… she hadn’t cried for him in years. She couldn’t recall his face anymore either. As if her memory was trying to protect her from the pain.

Ginny’s hand in her arm brought her back to the present. ‘’What’s wrong sweetheart? You’re not feeling well? Mike, call a doctor.’’

The panic in her voice made Molly smile at her tenderly. ‘’Don’t worry Ginny, I’m perfectly well. I just got distracted for a moment, that’s all. So you’re going to the mainland?’’

‘’Yes… I mean, if you’re allowing us…’’ whispered Mike.

‘’What? Mikey how can you say that?’’ she scolded him. ‘’Who am I to forbid you to go wherever you want? I was just thinking… well… I think is time now… I mean… I’ll come too.’’

The elderly couples’ eyes went wide and looked like they had been hit by thunder. Ginny sat down heavily in a chair and Mike moved forward on his own.

‘’What happened?’’ asked Molly. ‘’Is it so bad that I want to come to the mainland?’’

‘’You haven’t done it in over twenty years, my lady,’’ said Ginny.

‘’So? It’s about time. I want to see again the places where I grew up to… the places that I… Anyway. I’ll go to get dressed.’’ she said and disappeared.

Ginny hit her hand on the table. ‘’I don’t like this,’’ she said.

‘’Why? You scream and shout all these years that she’s isolated and she doesn’t see anyone else anymore and that she became just like her late father. It could be good for her.’’

‘’What could be good for her? To relive the past? No, my darling. That’s not good. And to be honest… I’m afraid of any bad encounters.’’

‘’What encounters, Ginny? There’s no one from the past in the mainland. All those times we’ve been there did you see anyone? They’re all gone. Friends and foes. The town is only filled with tourists in the summer. All the ten races of Israel.’’

‘’In the summer! It’s autumn now and soon winter will be here. Oh, Mike. I’m scared. Not just of the living. I’m terrified of the memories.’’

‘’Those, my love… they can hunt her here too.’’

Just before Ginny fell into complete despair over the behavior of Lord Hooper’s only child, Molly discovered books. She had finally finished third grade, her performance in the classroom get better every year, but her mischief nature kept growing. And then, suddenly, she discovered the library.

Richard Hooper nearly had a heart attack when a Sunday the door of the library got opened with cheekiness and Molly appeared. She looked at him without fear. Her father was for her an indefinable concept. A shadow that she saw passing through the night when he was going to his bedroom. His voice didn’t exist in her memory, she very rarely listened to it, mostly when he was talking to the servants. He never talked to her. So with complete ignorance of danger, she passed the threshold. Her eyes passed him indifferently and turned with admiration to the full of tomes of books walls.

‘’Oh my, so many books!’’ she exclaimed and then finally decided to do him the honor to look at him. ‘’You’ve read them all?’’ she asked him.

Richard swallowed hard. He was almost afraid of this lean creature that was a faithful copy of Marian’s. When her eyes turned to his eyes, he nearly stopped breathing. It was Marian that was looking at him, but the love that existed there before wasn’t there anymore.

‘’Most of them…’’ he struggled to answer.

‘’That makes sense…’’ she commented thoughtfully. ‘’That’s why you never leave this room. Of course, it takes so much time to read all of these! But really… do you have to read them all?’’ she asked as she was touching the leather-bound books.

‘’Wh… What do you mean?’’

‘’I mean, that my teacher gives me too, books to read and I have to learn all of them by the end of the year. But yours are countless. Is it necessary to read them all, and if yes, when do you have to do it?’’ she asked but without waiting for his answer, she pulled a book and opened it. When she tried to read it though, her little face got clouded with a frown and looked at him with disappointment.

His breath stopped again. Her eyes were full of the green specs that Marian also had when something was troubling her.

‘’It doesn’t even have one picture and I can’t understand what it says,’’ she said.

‘’Those books aren’t for you!’’ said Richard, trying to get back to his strictness.

‘’What a pity. I would love to find something to read. I thought that a library would have many books and that’s why I came here. But maybe I should go to the library upstairs.’’

‘’The library upstairs belonged to… your mother!’’ he struggled to say it, but little Molly didn’t notice.

‘’I know,’’ she answered. ‘’Is right next to her room! I go there almost all the time!’’

‘’Where? In her room?’’

‘’Yes… I like smelling her dresses… They still have perfume on them… My mom was beautiful.’’

‘’How do you know that?’’

The little girl laughed loudly, and the sound of that laughter terrified him more than anything else. ‘’You’re funny! I have all her pictures! Three albums! One of them is at your wedding! You were both glowing! I like those more than anything else! You’re smiling too!’’

‘’Where did you find them?’’

‘’Ginny gave them to me. She talks to me about her. She left when I came… Isn’t it sad? Couldn’t she wait for a while so I would get to know her? But since God wanted her, it seems like she couldn’t… Like Ginny, that runs every time you call her. But she always comes back after a while. It looks like mom has more work to do alongside God!’’

Richard touched his head as he felt it burning hot. A reality, that he intentionally ignored for nine whole years, invaded his world and tear it apart with just a few words, said by the daughter of the woman he adored. Just then he realized what he had done, for what crime he was responsible. Marian appeared full of life in front of him and she looked at him with anger. How did he behave like this to the child that she gave up her life to give birth to? Who did he think he was that he took his revenge for her death against the only creature that wasn’t responsible?

Without realizing it, he moved closer to the little girl that was staring at him with interest. He lifted his hand to touch her cheek at the same moment that Ginny entered the room with bated breath.

When she saw him, she misunderstood his intentions. ‘’No, my lord! Don’t hurt the child! It’s not her fault! I just got distracted! I swear on St. Kea she won’t come here again!’’

‘’What are you talking about Ginny? Have you lost your mind? Why would I hurt her?’’ he asked. ‘’I was just going to caress her.’’

Ginny’s eyes went wide as if she was looking at some mad man. ‘’Yes, my lord… Whatever you say…’’ she whispered and moved closer to Molly. ‘’Can I take her back now?’’

‘’Yes…’’

Ginny, with slow movements and without moving her eyes from her boss, embraced Molly and pulled her to the door. There, they were stopped by his voice.

‘’Kid… I mean… Molly… You can take any book you want from the… library upstairs. But take good care of them. Like she did.’’

‘’Thank you, but I would do that anyway. Your books aren’t readable,’’ she told him with a smile and disappeared before she had time to see her father falling exhausted to his chair and put his head to his hands.

Even from that position, he could feel the eyes of his wife staring at him through the picture that was always in his office.

As usual, the old car took a while before it got started but in the end, it moved. Molly used it very rarely, she didn’t like to drive and she rarely left her house. If that had to happen she usually used her boat to the closest little port where tourists boats were found, and from there she took a bus for short distances. But even that only when it was really necessary. She hadn’t ever gone to the mainland. Now, seated in the backseat, she was staring at the landscape they were passing by and didn’t participate at all in the couples’ conversation.

The moment that they entered the mainland, Ginny felt her moving forward at her seat and she didn’t need to put her ear in her chest to know that her beloved girl's heartbeat was rising. The sea was wide in front of them and soon they passed the street where Molly grew up before she sold her house there. Mike hesitated for a moment but then turned left to find a parking spot in the central square.

Molly got out of the car and looked around as if she had just wοke up from a long slumber. She took a deep breath and immediately felt surrounded by the familiar scent of the city she was born and raised to before she turned to look at the old couple that was watching her carefully.

‘’I’m okay,’’ she whispered and smiled sadly. ‘’It’s been so many years… Everything looks the same and yet it’s so different.’’

‘’Come on now. Let’s go, we are late…’’ said Ginny.

‘’No. You go to the church and light up a candle for me too.’’

‘’You won’t come? What will you do on your own?’’

‘’What? Do you think I’ll get lost? I want to walk for a while. To learn this place all over again. Don’t worry about me. We’ll meet in the square for coffee. And then we’ll go somewhere to eat.’’

‘’In the square!’’ Ginny looked as if she had been shot.

‘’Yes, Ginny! In the square! Just because that was where I met…’’ Molly stopped abruptly. No, it was difficult to say his name. But maybe it was finally time. ‘’Jim!’’ she finished. It sounded like a gunshot. Even her, that she spoke his name, put her hand in her chest to guard it against the bullet.

‘’Oh, Saint Kea, please help us,’’ prayed Ginny.

But Mike pinched her hard in her arm. ‘’Yes, my lady,’’ he said softly to Molly. ‘’That’s where you met Jim, and that’s where you made your first walks with Sherlock. Go remember your youth, it’s not bad. It’s been too long now…’’

‘’You’re right Mikey. It’s just that, sometimes, I think that those years never really left. I’m carrying them with me…. and they are heavy.’’

Molly stepped away then, and soon she disappeared in the crowd.

Ginny turned to her husband while rubbing her abused arm. ‘’Damn you, Mikey. You bruised it! What came over you and you started pinching me in the middle of the street?’’

‘’You don’t get it? You grew old and you still don’t have a brain in your head, you crazy Cornish woman! How did you react like this just because she said his name! And you know what? It was wrong to not say it all these years! A memory that you’re not talking about, you don’t share it, it grows bigger and it chokes you! A worthless man, that fooled our girl because she was young and void of love, and seduced it and tricked it and…’’

‘’Will you shut up, or will you go to the church to beg Saint Kea to fix your broken head?’’ she threatened him and Mike understood that he took it too far.

‘’Come on, let’s go, we are late!’’ he said and took her by the hand, mingling with the other people that were running to follow the sermon.

It was that same day that Molly sneaked into her mother’s bedroom and as usual, she stood for a moment to admire the furniture, the curtains and the full with little bottles dressing table, that had stayed untouched with orders from her father. But this time, a chest draw her attention. It had beautiful carvings with roses and butterflies and the kid went closer to it.

Without any difficulty, she opened it and her eyes went wide. Wrapped up in a silken muslin, was her mother’s wedding dress. With trembling hands, she set aside the white fabric and with enormous attention she pulled out the incredibly beautiful dress. Everything was in the chest. Even the embroidered shoes that the bride had worn, that went along with her gloves, the diadem, and her veil. Without a second thought, Molly took out the shoes and wear them. In front of the mirror, she tried on the diadem and the veil. The dress was too big for her, so she only held it in front of her body and looked at the mirror satisfied.

Then, as if she felt shame as if she did something wrong, she removed them from herself and placed them back in the chest carefully. No one could know what she had done, because they may berate her and never allow her to enter the room again. She didn’t know why, but she needed to be able to go there, to breathe the same air that her mother used to breathe, to see the same things that she used to see. Afterward, she moved to the next room, that Marian used as an office. Behind the delicate desk was her library.

Molly felt like a tourist in her own home, after all these years since the last time she set foot in the city. She stood to admire the statues she met in her stroll. If she had the camera with her she may have taken pictures. But the camera was also abandoned somewhere, like everything else from the past. A light breeze played with her hair, the leaves of the trees mumbling a welcome, and Molly realized that she wasn’t ready to go to the square. At least not yet. So she passed the street that was leading there and entered the graphic alleys. She felt protected from the houses that surrounded her, the atmosphere was familiar, the smells as if never left her memory. Without wanting to, she found herself walking withing the hundreds of tourist shops. They were so many now and even if someone would say that some of them were looking bad, all of them combined gave a color that came out straight from the heart of Cornwall.

She stopped at some of them, touched the things they were offering, but everything around looked like a celebration and she suddenly realized that she didn’t belong there. The procession would begin soon, the people there would become more, she had to go. On their own, her feet lead her to the square.

Molly got distracted in her mother’s office. The beautiful books got her attention. She didn’t understand them either, but just the fact that she had touched them was enough for the little girl to feel enchanted. She caressed them ecstatic, looked through them and then placed them back in their place carefully.

At some point, Ginny entered the room looking upset. ‘’There you are? I was looking everywhere for you, I even looked at the attic! You scared me!’’

‘’But I told you where I would be!’’ complained Molly.
,
‘’I didn’t imagine that you would stay here for so many hours! Come on now, let's go eat and you’ll come back in the afternoon. The books will continue to be here!’’

In the years that followed, that room became Molly’s most favorite place. After her visit to her father’s office, things changed. Richard started asking Ginny for Molly’s progress at school, pretending to be indifferent. Without anyone knowing, he started watching her when she was in the garden with Mike. However, he still wouldn’t dare to go closer to her.

When Molly finished primary school he made a move that no one expected. He signed her up to the best private school for girls in Cornwall. Ginny felt very happy when she found out. Her little princess would finally get what she deserved.

That was the year that everything changed as if a magical wind blow in the Hooper household. The mansion right next to theirs was bought by the family of Siger Holmes from York. Their house got destroyed by a devastating fire a year back that took them away from their youngest child, their daughter Eurus. They rebuilt the house and got back on their feet again but in the end, they decided that they couldn’t live anymore in a place that now brought them only pain and grief. They sold everything and moved to Cornwall that was the place where Violet Holmes was born, the elegant lady from next door. Siger Holmes, her husband, was much older than her, but he adored her, and she adored him. They had two sons, Mycroft and Sherlock. Sherlock was a beautiful young man, only one year away from finishing with the school for good and his only love was music. The beautiful melodies he was creating were traveling to the Hooper household from the open windows when his fingers touched the large piano.

Mycroft was much older than Sherlock, so he hadn’t moved with his family to Cornwall, as he occupied a minor position to the British government.

Normally, the two families wouldn’t move closer above a typical hello, but Violet Holmes was very curious to meet the lonely owner from the house next door, the touching story of who she had already learned from the other ladies, that she met almost immediately after she moved to Cornwall. It wasn’t difficult to convince her husband for them to make a typical visit to the house of Lord Hooper. After all, he could assign him all his businesses. Wasn’t he a lawyer?

That first visit found Richard in his office, as usual, except Molly was there too. She had chosen that day to return a book that she had found in her mother’s library and was misplaced. When the maid announced the visit from the Holmes’, Molly with the air of a proper hostess gave the right order.

‘’Let them in. Lead them to the living room and we’ll be there too. Prepare coffee and sweet treats.’’

Richard was speechless, seeing her behaving as the lady of the house since he had no idea what a great work Ginny had done with his daughter’s upbringing, preparing her to become a real lady.

‘’What are you doing?’’ he asked strictly. ‘’Who told you that I want to accept to my house people that I don’t know?’’

‘’But father, the Holmes’ moved next door months ago. That’s what they want, to get to know us. It would be rude to not accept them. Ginny always says that someone first meets the neighbor and then God. Come on!’’

Richard couldn’t believe what was happening. His daughter, out of the blue, had stepped up at the duties of the hostess as if it was normal. He watched her as she walked to the living room. She wasn’t tall, but her femininity was growing more and more. Every day she was looking more and more like her mother. He heard her talking to the visitors and understood that he should finally show up too.

Molly arrived at the square without realizing it. Her eyes caressed tenderly its gates. She shook herself and got seated in one of the coffee places that were in line. She was sweaty, but it wasn’t from the heat or the stroll, but from the effort. From the effort to convince herself to not start running. The bells were ringing now. The litany was about to begin. Soon it would pass in front of her too. Behind it, people would follow and among them, boys and girls ready to feel the first hit of love, just like her, once upon a time.

She gave her order to the waiter that fortunately was a stranger and dared to look around. She was among strangers. No one reminded her no one. She wondered where her old friends were now? Adelle with the loud laughter, or Anette with the big eyes? They would surely be married by now, they would have children and maybe even grandchildren… She searched for her cigarettes but realized that she had left them at home. There was a kiosk across the street and she went there. The man that gave her the new package was staring at her. He was the same man that was there many years ago. A bit older, but she recognized him. But he wasn’t sure and he didn’t dare to ask if she was Richard Hooper’s only daughter. Molly took the package of cigarettes in a hurry and returned to her seat at the same moment that the waiter placed the coffee at the table.

The familiar procedure relaxed her, Caffeine and nicotine, her two worst habits, helped her to clean her mind and regain her composure. A few minutes later, half-hidden from a column she watched the people passing her by as they followed the litany. Her eyes found Ginny and Mike, looking for her with nervousness and she smiled at them to calm them down. She could feel their worry. They never left her side ever since she could remember herself. They experienced her every joy and sadness, they were there to wipe off her every tear and they were so many tears… She sighed loudly. If she didn’t have them she would be lost. She knew that very well now.

Sherlock could understand that his behavior may seem odd, but he couldn’t help it. The beautiful creature that was in front of him had stolen his breath, she fired up his brain. Her movements looked like dancing and his heart was dancing the tango with her. Her voice, still a child’s voice, but soft like velvet, full of harmony. Their fathers were talking about work and she was listening carefully, the moment that in his ears he could only hear a humming sound.

His isolation in the sweet rhythm of love got interrupted by her when she leaned on his side, her brown eyes focusing on his blue/green ones.

‘’Excuse me, I hear very beautiful music coming out of your house every day. Someone is playing the piano. Who?’’ she asked him in a low voice so she wouldn’t interrupt the adults.

‘’I... I do.’’ he struggled to say. ‘’I hope I’m not bothering you.’’

‘’Quite the opposite. I don’t have any musical talent. The daughter of a Lord and I don’t have any education in the subject. Can you believe it?’’

‘’I, on the other hand, love music more than anything else,’’ he answered and hoped that all that blood that had risen to his cheeks hadn’t turned them red. A grown man blushing because of a girl no older than thirteen years old.

‘’Would you mind it if I can visit you one day and play for me?’’ she asked him.

‘’I… I would love to. When do you want?’’ he whispered, not being able to believe his luck.

‘’How about tomorrow afternoon?’’ she proposed. ‘’I don’t have much homework to do.’’

‘’Then I’ll be waiting for you.’’

Even if Richard wanted to keep this neighboring relationship a typical one, it would be difficult, with his daughter and Sherlock being inseparable since that first moment of their acquaintance. Violet loved the beautiful girl, that she almost became one of them, and the truth was that she completed Molly’s education on everything related to a lady’s behavior. Even though they were in the middle of the 1980s and people were more free of the typicallities, she was carrying very strong opinions about a woman’s behavior and she was trying to pass them down to Molly, but it wasn’t easy.

Molly’s disobedient spirit was a great obstacle.

Violet wasn’t blind. She could see, she understood how madly in love Sherlock was with Molly. She was happy about it at first, but then she started worrying. The kid was thinking of him as a friend, as a brother, and wasn’t even imagining that young Sherlock was bleeding out of his every pore of his body for her. Day by day, Molly was turning into his entire world. His fingers were touching the piano with a passion, that his mother could see that for him it was as if he was touching his dream. His music was turning more passionate as time was passing by and the intensity to his face, revealed to her that her son would walk on difficult paths, with an unrequited love.

Ginny sat heavily in the chair and soon after, Mike followed her example.

‘’Oh, I’m not for litanies anymore,’’ complained the old woman with a frown. ‘’My feet are on fire.’’

‘’They why didn’t you stop? Did you had to follow the whole thing?’’ said Molly as she was signaling the waiter to give him another coffee order.

‘’That’s what I told her!’’ jumped Mike. ‘’But does she listen? No, she doesn’t! She never listens to me and then she complains!’’

‘’Shush you!’’ his wife throw him an angry look. ‘’We hadn’t come for years in Saint Kea’s litany and I would care for my feet? You watch your tongue! After all, we’ll sit down now to drink a coffee and I will rest. How about you, my lady? What did you do all this time on your own?’’

Molly ordered more coffee and then turned to Ginny. ‘’I walked in the alleys… Tourist shops everywhere!’’ she answered. ‘’Everything is different, but then again… everything’s the same… Isn’t that strange? I wonder what happened in my home?’’

‘’It turned into flats now, my lady,’’ told her Mike with sad eyes. ‘’So did the Holmes’ house. The mansions were torn down. But their front is still the same, thank goodness…’’

‘’How do you know?’’ Molly wanted to know and her hands were shaking slightly as she lights up another cigarette.

‘’I do visit the city, every once in awhile,’’ said Mike with a guilty look, as if he had committed a crime.

‘’You don’t have to apologize. I was the one that didn’t want to set my foot back for years, you didn’t have a reason not to. You miss the city, don’t you Mike?’’

‘’Yes… I lived well here, my lady. This is where I got married to Ginny, where we met your late father… where you were born and we hold you in our arms. There, just across the street, you were playing when you were a child and we had our coffees here and were looking after you…’’

‘’Damn you, Mike.’’ his wife scolded him. ‘’You decided to remember everything today? What’s wrong with you?’’

‘’He’s right Ginny, don’t get mad. It’s my fault. I took you and put you away in the solitude all these years. I never asked you how you felt when I sold the house. I uprooted you because I couldn’t stand my mistakes anymore… And it was the only way to escape from everything….’’

‘’Oh, why did we had to go out?’’ Ginny sighed. ‘’I knew that it wouldn’t do us any good. And to have you my darling girl to talk nonsense!’’ Ginny didn’t interrupt her ranting not even when the waiter returned with their coffees. ‘’Where did you expect to go to, when you were leaving? Did you think it possible that we would leave you alone? You go to solitude, we go to solitude! Even if you wanted to move to the North Pole, we would still follow you. We don’t have anyone else besides you. You are our child! Our beloved! Our lady! It’s just that…’’ Ginny stopped abruptly.

‘’What is it, Ginny? Why did you stop with your speech?’’ Molly joked, trying to hide her emotion.

‘’Well, my love… I think you made a mistake…’’

‘’Just one?’’

‘’The most serious is only one… You shouldn’t send Sherlock away. Only Sherlock truly loved you. Only with him, you would be happy and with you, we would be happy too. We would rest peacefully when the time came…’’

‘’ Oh woman, that’s enough! You’ve opened the box with the nonsense again and you don’t know what you’re saying,’’ Mike scolded her, seeing how Molly got paler with Ginny’s last words. ‘’Don’t listen to her, my lady! The incense and the long walk messed with her head.’’

Molly lost herself at the sea for a while. In that shadow, that it may have been a mermaid and saw her every time she traveled on her boat for the caves. Maybe she was following her only to reveal her at which point her life took the wrong turn. Maybe now Ginny was talking with the words of the mermaid. The memories rushed to drown her, her mouth filled with seawater, the mermaid was pulling her down, in the bottom, and was pointing her in a chest, that time had decorated it with corals and algae and broken seashells.

‘’There,’’ she said angrily. ‘’This is your life… buried… along with your mistakes… Open up the chest and face them! Count them! In there you will find what you did wrong! That was what you were asking me to give you all these years! Now it’s time.’’

The hair of the mermaid got wrapped around her body like snakes the moment she turned to run away. Her tail moved softly and then she disappeared behind some stones. And she got left alone with the closed chest. Her hands moved, she lifted the lid. Hell rushed out of its depths, dozens of voices filled her ears, the faces all confused. And then… suddenly… everything got in order.