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Stay .
And, god, Jamie wants to say yes. She wants every night like this. She wants Dani’s arms around her, wants it with a ferocity that terrifies. Jamie hasn’t felt this reckless in a long time, hasn’t felt this much need for a person, ever. Something in the way Dani’s looking at her - her smile; the soft press of her fingers in Jamie’s; her own desperation reflected right back - makes Jamie want to say fuck it , press Dani back into the wall right outside Flora’s room and stay there forever.
“There will be other nights,” is what she says instead. Jamie tries to sound confident in the idea of other nights, unwilling to tug too hard on the fragile budding shoots of whatever this thing was between them. Give it time , she tells herself, there’s no rush . No need to dive right in all at once; suffocate this before it can really start to bloom.
Later, Jamie will curse herself for leaving. Much, much later, this moment will torment her in her quiet moments, late in the heavy spaces before dawn where the what-ifs become too loud to ignore. Later, later-
- but now: she leaves, and tries to tamper down the spring in her step when she feels Dani’s lingering gaze on her back. Can’t be getting too mad over one night with a girl. She has a reputation to maintain around here.
She leaves and drives home and changes her clothes and makes herself go through the same routine she’s done for years ever since settling in Bly. Tries to read a few pages like she always does before settling into bed, her eyes drifting uncomprehendingly over the words for several dazed minutes before she sighs and gives up and turns off the lights. Settles into the warmth of her blankets and doesn’t think about how nice it felt to have another body pressed next to hers. Sleeps.
Cold fingers press against her throat, constricting her airways and making her vision go hazy. Above her, long black hair sways in a hypnotic pattern, water dripping from tangled tresses with every unhurried step. Her legs kick out on instinct, body thrumming with the primal urge to run away, but her feet slip ineffectively on the polished wood floors of Bly. Someone is screaming, endless and wrenching - she tries to turn but the grip around her neck is relentless. She fights and kicks and tries to scream but nothing happens, nothing comes out, nobody comes. Only the unfeeling walls of the manor look on with terrible neutrality. Her vision starts to fade…
Jamie gasps awake, hands flying to her throat. There’s nothing but her own fluttering heartbeat, but she can still feel the phantom pressure; her blood still roars in her ears and the air still struggles in through her chest. She's still alive, yet cold travels from her neck down to her spine, dread pooling in her gut. Jamie’s body is moving before she even processes it; shrugging on her jacket and pulling on boots almost on instinct. The phone rings as she’s grabbing her keys; Jamie picks up impatiently, somehow unsurprised to hear Owen’s voice asking her for a pickup. Something is urging her to go faster, and Jamie follows, uncaring of road safety or other such mundane things. This isn’t the time for hesitance.
The dread only increases at the sight of Henry’s car; doubles at Hannah’s frantic yet frustratingly vague warnings. When she hears Dani scream, Jamie takes off. There’s no time to see if Owen’s behind her, no time to grab the shotgun stowed in the back of her truck, no time for anything other than running as fast as she can to the source of that voice. Henry’s limp body barely gives her pause. There’s only one person she cares about right now, every atom in her body gravitating towards the godforsaken lake and praying that she won't have to see another body floating lifelessly on the surface.
She sees her right as she clears the trees to the lake: Dani in the same pink knitted sweater and jeans as when she left her, fighting the current toward a figure slowly immersing into the water. The sight of black, scraggly hair immediately sends a jolt of recognition in Jamie, and she wills her legs to move faster, faster towards Dani who is recklessly splashing closer and closer to the figure, and why why why would she do that -
It’s only until Jamie is nearly at the bank that she sees Flora helplessly trapped in the woman’s arms. Dani’s shouting something, still reaching out towards the child, and Jamie senses a palpable shift in the air at the words.
It’s you. It’s me. It’s us.
A part of her thinks this should sound familiar, though she’s never heard it said before.
The woman- the thing- stops. It turns, and Jamie feels a scream building in her own throat as she sees the waxy, featureless face start moving towards Dani.
Dani, weaponless, helpless, brave Dani, standing as resolute as the sun, keeps repeating the words even as the figure walks steadily closer. Jamie wants to shake her, wants to scream at her to run, to move, to- to- do anything but stand frozen in the water, but her own legs won’t move, her own voice dies out. All she can do is watch.
Dani gasps and shakes as the figure moves up to and
into
her, her arms woodenly assuming the same position as the creature’s to cradle Flora, like a puppet pulled by hidden strings, and for a moment they stand superimposed, black against gold, as the waters still. Reflected by the moonlight, it's hard to tell which side of the water they're on, if they're upright and breathing or already dead under the lake.
The figure vanishes. Dani staggers into the water, clutching Flora like a lifeline. Jamie’s legs start working again; she wastes no time thrashing into the freezing water, arms coming up to support Dani, who doesn’t seem to register her presence.
“It’s us,” rasps Dani, violent tremors running up her arms all the way to her lips. “It’s us, it’s us, it’s us.”
“It’s okay,” Jamie whispers, prays, starting up a mantra of her own. “It’s okay, Dani, you’re okay. We’re okay.”
They slowly make their way out of the water, Jamie supporting an unsteady Dani and Dani still clutching desperately to Flora. Jamie doesn’t offer to carry the child. The decision becomes pointless anyway, as Flora struggles out of the au pair’s arms and runs to Henry, latching onto him with a relief almost tangible. Dani’s eyes follow her fanatically, her arm reaching out almost as if to pull her back.
Jamie grasps her outstretched arm and gently guides it around her waist; it works to snap Dani out of it, her eyes unlocking from the children’s tearful reunion to focus on Jamie instead. The dull light of the moon is enough to expose the discolouration in her left eye, clear blue giving way to dark brown. There’s a ring of red marks around Dani's neck, stark against her pale skin; most of her makeup has come off after their trek out of the lake. Her blonde hair, dark from the wet, sticks wildly to her cheeks. There’s a look of a cornered animal in the way her arms cling around Jamie’s, in the hard clench of her jaw. Lingers in the way she staggers with every step like the only thing keeping her upright is pure unfiltered adrenaline.
“You’re okay,” Jamie repeats, and prays whatever god is listening won't make a liar out of her. “I’m here. You’re okay.”
They make it back inside, Henry walking as best he can after a near death experience and two children clinging to his sides, Owen, shell-shocked and silent, supporting Dani on one side and Jamie holding on to the other. Hannah is nowhere in sight.
“Are you alright?” Jamie asks Owen once they make it to the fireplace.
“I saw her,” Owen murmurs. “Rebecca. I saw her.”
He looks right at her, eyes glittering with unshed tears in the firelight, a tragic parody of their last bonfire that day before it all-
“Jamie, Hannah-”
And Jamie’s no fool: she’s seen enough tonight to know that Hannah’s brief appearance bodes no good, but it’s at that point that Dani seems to lose her fight with exhaustion, collapsing inward like a puppet with all its strings cut. Jamie clumsily catches her, staggering back a few steps before regaining her balance and readjusting Dani’s weight in her arms.
She looks helplessly at Owen, and he nods, kind even in grief. “Go take care of her.”
So Jamie tucks her arm under Dani’s knees and lifts her as gently as she’s able, lays her down on the nearby sofa and lifts her head to tuck a pillow underneath. Her palm comes away bloody.
“Jesus Christ,” Jamie lifts her to the side and parts wet hair to reveal a sluggishly bleeding welt at the base of Dani’s skull. “ Jesus Christ , Henry, call an ambulance.”
Henry looks up from where he’s huddled with the children, looking almost no better than the au pair with his bloodshot eyes and bruised throat. “Yes, the ambulance. Right.”
He moves to get up but Jamie beats him to it and pushes him gently back down. “Nevermind, boss. I’ll get it, you stay here with the kids.” Henry exhales and nods back gratefully, sinking back into Miles and Flora, who have yet to let go of their embrace.
So Jamie gathers what energy she has left and dials the ambulance, her voice remaining steady as she gives the address, the names. As long as Dani needs her, she will not lose her composure. She won’t allow it.
When she returns with a cloth and a basin of hot water, the children are asleep and Owen is crying into Henry’s chest. Henry is doing his best to comfort him, but he’s clearly out of his depth, looking like a man unused to intimate contact but trying desperately to return it. The events of this night have yet to catch up to him, and it’s been a very, very long night.
“I am so sorry Owen,” Henry rubs circles into the cook’s back as he cries. “But she wanted you to know. She loves you.”
Jamie looks away, blinking back her own tears. There is little doubt in her mind what he means, but she can’t even approach the thought of it right now. Owen will have to shed enough tears for the both of them tonight. Instead, she goes to Dani; soaks a cloth in warm water and gently starts cleaning away the blood and the mud, swallowing around the lingering horror and regret as she carefully maneuvers around the rapidly darkening bruises around Dani’s wrists and throat. She works the cloth slowly until colour returns to Dani’s lips and cheeks, until her trembling breath settles into something more even. Only then does she stop and press her lips to the hair above Dani’s ear.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to Dani’s temple. “I never should have left.”
Dani twitches but doesn't respond, exhaustion bleeding through sleep. Here, unconscious and cradled in Jamie’s arms, she feels smaller than ever: bereft of the fierce determination and sharp curiosity that to shines through every waking moment in spite of her fear and anxiety.
Jamie makes her a silent promise then and there: she won’t ever have to deal with this alone. Jamie won’t make the same mistake twice.
The ambulance soon comes; the paramedics take one look at their sorry lot and load them all in. The ride to the nearest hospital is quiet, only the soft beeping of equipment and the occasional sniffle breaking the sombre air.
It’s only after Dani is wheeled into a room for examination that Jamie allows herself to collapse onto the hard plastic chairs outside the hospital rooms and cry. She buries her face in her hands and shakes with silent sobs, cursing herself for being stupid, for being scared, for running away from the one bright spot in her life and leaving Dani to fend for herself in that godforsaken manor. She should have known better.
At some point, she feels Owen’s big hands slide around her shoulders, feels him guide her upright to the toilets and press a bundle of dry clothes into her arms. Jamie changes mechanically and dries her eyes, hardly bothering to glance at her tired reflection. She walks into the waiting room with a bone deep exhaustion and tries to get some sleep.
The next few days will prove to be as hellish: she accompanies Owen back to the manor to find Hannah Grose, broken and forgotten, lying at the bottom of the old unused well. She will help Owen and five men from the village lift her body out, and she will wait outside the coroners as he tends to her for hours. They will wait together in the hospital as first Flora and Miles, then Henry, and finally Dani get discharged, and they will all go back to Bly manor for what Jamie hopes will be the last time as Henry enlists movers to pack every personal item in the house and ferry it out as soon as humanly possible.
Jamie tries to be as useful as possible: anything to hasten the process of leaving the damn house behind. It’s funny though, how the very air of the manor seemed lighter after whatever happened in the lake. Jamie never quite felt comfortable inside Bly; something in the imposing structure sent her fleeing to her gardens time and again, where she could be with her plants and breathe easy. Now, though, the dark edges have fallen away from the house; the sunlight lands a little softer on the wooden tiles, the yawning corridors seeming to guide rather than swallow. Jamie no longer feels watched.
It’s it’s own weird, in a way.
Whatever darkness that had haunted the house for so many years seems to have fallen away and tumbled straight onto the au pair’s shoulders: Dani walks around like a woman facing execution, her shoulders hunched painfully inward, her face constantly turned away from scrutiny. Even Flora has trouble rousing her from her thoughts.
Jamie can’t hide her worry. The details of that night have remained stubbornly unexplained, with only a few uncharacteristically short words from Flora and quiet agreement from Miles encapsulating the entirety of what was told from the people who witnessed the whole of it. Dani herself seems entirely unwilling to recount it: but Jamie catches her having a quiet conversation with Miles one morning that ends with a hug and many sobbed apologies from the boy. Dani whispers something in his ear and looks up to see Jamie watching.
I’ll tell you later , she mouths, and Jamie finds herself accepting without the need for further questions. She’ll hear the story when Dani is ready to tell it.
And she does. The story spills out of Dani like an oil slick, irreparably darkening every surface.
With her makeup off, her exhausted red eyes and bitten lips, she looks so human it hurts.
“She’ll come for me,” Dani tells her, sure as anything, and tears track down Jamie’s cheeks as the truth of it settles deep within her. Dani’s shoulders are hunched into herself, her face turned away, distant. Jamie slowly moves to sit next to her on the bed. She lets herself remember her promise, that night when she’d nearly lost everything. Takes a moment to search deep within herself, and finds that nothing has changed.
“Do you want company?”
Dani doesn’t look up, so Jamie tries again.
“While you wait for your beast in the jungle. Do you want company?”
She lifts a pinky and waits. Her whole heart is screaming to wrap Dani up in her arms and never let go, to bundle her into her truck and drive far, far away from this place and these memories, banishing the lingering monsters by sheer force of will alone. Her entire chest shakes with it: but Jamie has both seen the possessor and been the possessed, and she refuses to exchange one for the other. So she waits.
Dani shakes her head slowly, but her eyes drift to land on the outstretched pinky and her whole face seems to crumple. A simple promise, if only she would let herself take it.
The whole room seems to shudder as Dani wraps her finger around Jamie’s, the manor witnessing the sacred exchange and reorienting itself accordingly. The walls expand; the curtains exhale. The wood goes fuzzy under the light of the sun. The last of the darkness takes a quiet leave of them both.
It hasn't fixed anything. Jamie doesn't even know if this can be fixed. But it's a start.
For her, it's enough.