Chapter Text
A soulmate is irreplaceable. You get one, one and only one, carefully chosen by destiny, since the moment of your birth. Once your future bonds are defined, you are stuck with whoever got chosen for you. There’s no changing them, no trading them, no replacing them. You were selected for each other because you are perfect for each other. Destiny makes no mistakes.
I was happy to think I had everything I would ever need in my little town of Cheviot Hills. I big family where, even though not everyone was too attentive, things were pleasant. I had a job as a ghost-hunting agent in which I was brilliant, and that promised a good future. But more than anything, I was joyous to know that my soulmate lived here.
His name was Benedict Wentworth. We met at agent Jacob’s agency (the local company) on one of my first jobs. It was Mr Jacobs who introduced us to each other; before we left for the case. The moment his hand touched mine, my eyes cleared: the colorless fog that blurred my vision of the world vanished and the word ‘love’ took a meaning to me. Benedict’s eyes shone with the same colorful enlightenment. His hands enveloped mine in a perfect grasp. It was, of course, destiny. Fate. Love at first touch.
We were inseparable. Ben (he told me to call him that, or Benny, while he called me ‘Lulu’) was the sweetest boy in town; he endeavored himself in becoming my friend, on getting to know me, on learning about my life. Everyday he would talk and play with me, and during the night we worked together fighting the ghosts that threatened the town. He once risked getting ghost-touched for me.
“This world is not safe for you, Lulu” He told me “But with some sacrifices, I can make this place better for you” He was only a child, but he was a hopeless romantic. He was my hopeless romantic. It was the most meaningful phrase I had ever heard. I couldn’t wait to be grown and marry him. Be his wife, be Mrs Lucy Joan Carlyle-Wentworth. We were both impatient.
But destiny likes to play games with us. The Wythburn Mill incident can only prove that.
Mr Jacobs, the team, Ben and I were there. The Changer trapped us inside the mill and got all my friends. Ben and I tried to ran in the door’s direction, but the ghost had us in place, our salt bombs did little against it and we were out of flares. Everyone else was gone, it was just him and me.
Then it was just me.
Ben pushed his rapier into my hand, placed a kiss on my cheek and ran out of the chains. The Changer was after him in seconds, and I heard him yell at me from somewhere in the dark.
“Run, Lucy! Run” So I did. I escaped the mill and ran as fast as my legs would take me when I couldn’t find agent Jacobs where he said he’d be.
Then the colors of the sky blurred and vanished into an all-too familiar murky grey once again.
The next morning all the bodies of my comrades were found, ghost-touched. Including my dearest Ben. My sweetest Benny. Swollen and dead. But I couldn’t see the purplish-blue shade all bodies turned to after being touched. The gift of color had been ripped from my eyes when my Ben was taken from me.
I cried alone that night. I felt myself be torn. The sweet little girl that got swooned with compliments and flowers lay broken and desolate inside me, lost in the grey and black of the world. And so, a new feeling was born in me and I left. Things packed in less than an hour, I took my rapier and placed Ben’s inside my rucksack, then ran for the station.
The next morning I was out of Cheviot Hills and in the colorless streets of London. I walked about the place and went to as many agencies I could find, in search of a job, but none of them would take a girl who hadn’t taken the last certification.
Until I saw a poster, flying around the street. It was a “Help needed” sign, from this agency called Lockwood and Co.
Oh well, it couldn’t hurt to try.
So I walked to the given direction, number 35 of Portland Row street in Marylebone. A nice house in a very nice-looking neighborhood. I was greeted by a bespectacled boy in a very grumpy attitude, and I wondered if I may have come at the wrong time. He told me, however, that I was just in time to be last interview of the day.
It took less than a minute for a scream to echo around the house and girl to ran out of the place while muttering a string of curses I could easily make sound like a baby’s version of bad words.
“Come” The boy in glasses told me as he walked away. I followed him down a small corridor and into another room, in which this other, much taller boy sat behind a table.
“Ah, see George, I told you there was still someone else” He said with a giant smile. His colleague only grumbled in response, however “Hello, miss, has George here offered you some tea already?”
“I was thinking about waiting to see if she stuck around” The bespectacled boy said.
“George, bring the tea, please” The taller of the pair said kindly, and the other, George, left the room with a grumble “Please excuse my comrade. You see, he was convicted the last girl was the last one of the day”
“I’m sorry” I said.
“Oh, don’t be!” Then he extended his hand towards me and smiled with great delight “I’m Anthony Lockwood”
I took his hand and gave it a firm shake, however, he gasped when my hand touched his. His eyes lifted from me and were filled with a colorful enlightenment I had witnessed before, his face showing the surprise he felt and then the joy.
His eyes fell back on me and a smile stretched across his face.
“Miss,…did you-”
“No” Realization sank in me like a rock “I did not”
My sight was still colorless.
—————
All studies say destiny is a flawless force of the universe. Doctors assure fate is an entity of greatness. A being of all-knowledge. An almighty presence. Irrevocable, transcendent and above all kind of mistake.
Well, that’s a lie.
I looked restlessly for answers to my questions, but no one could tell me. No doctor, no researcher, no psychic, not even George could tell me; why was I the soulmate of two men, but only one of them was mine?
My sight remains colorless to this day, while Lockwood’s, however, has been colorful since we first shook hands. When it happened, it was almost like Ben was back with me, but in the form of another man; Lockwood was so nice, so attentive. He was constantly worried about me, always looking to protect me.
I had been very reluctant to accept him, since our touch hadn’t changed me back. I couldn’t understand how it happened, and I didn’t wanted to love a man who had somehow skipped the rules of destiny.
Nevertheless, Lockwood wasn’t going to let himself be discouraged by my stubbornness. It took him years and effort, but he snared me on with his charm. I soon saw him like I once had seen my beloved Ben.
Today, he is the only man in my life, even if I can’t see his by the colors he goes on. He can see mine, and he tells me about his, so I can imagine how handsome he is with the memories of colors I hold.
We weren’t destined. Fate didn’t think of us. Didn’t decided us. But we chose to stay together.