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Come with me.
The cold necklace stung her skin, but she wasn’t passing up this opportunity to connect with Annabel Ward.
Lucy reached her mind out, allowing Annabel to bridge from the other side through her. She could see Annabel, so close yet so far, hear her even more clearly. Happiness bubbled in her chest as she and Annabel became one mind.
Come with me, the voice whispered again.
Determined, Lucy pushed herself to open her mind further. Annabel’s emotions were stronger now, the lines blurring from where Lucy ended and Annabel started. Lucy watched through their connection, seeing Annabel move towards her lover, vaguely feeling herself mirror her actions in the real world.
Lucy - Annabel - let herself enjoy it. The feelings of happiness and joy that flowed through her body from Annabel’s past were feelings Lucy hadn’t felt in many years. It was so tempting to just let go, lose herself in the memory…
Come with me.
But then things started going sour. Lucy felt large hands grab her throat, squeezing tightly, cutting off her air flow. Distantly, she realised she was living Annabel’s past and she fought to free her mind from Annabel’s grasp. But she had let herself slip too far. She couldn’t breathe.
Let go of me! past Annabel cried. Lucy might have said it out loud, too.
A far away voice called her name, bouncing through her skull but never reaching her consciousness. The scene that was playing out in her head dimmed as her lungs begged for air.
Come with me.
The ghost of Annabel cut through the growing darkness in her vision. She couldn’t fight it anymore, the pull was too strong. She had let herself fall too deep into Annabel’s mind and Annabel was taking over. Lucy reached out with an imaginary arm, allowing herself be extinguished, falling into a deep darkness.
***
Lockwood was heartbroken.
No, he hadn’t known Lucy long, but despite his best attempts, he had been in love with her. And now she was gone. Not dead. Worse than dead.
He allowed Annabel in Lucy’s body to wander about the house, her erratic behaviour keeping him and George on edge.
“She can’t stay here,” George had said one day.
“And where do you propose she goes?”
“I don’t know, a hospital? DEPRAC? Another agency?”
Lockwood just shook his head, a hard blank stare on George. “She stays here,” he said quietly.
“She’s not Lucy anymore. Lucy is gone, and she’s not coming back.”
Lockwood banged his fist on the table. “You don’t know that, George! No one does, this has never happened before!”
George opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Lucy’s giggling outside the door. She let herself into the kitchen, skipping straight to Lockwood, a large smile on her face. She grabbed one of his arms with both her hands and tugged.
“Come, my love! I want to go outside!” she giggled.
Lockwood’s heart ripped into even smaller pieces, hearing Lucy’s voice call him ‘my love’, but the words not coming from her, and not even for him. She couldn’t see him. She was Annabel, and Annabel was seeing her own lover.
Unable to stop himself from pretending she was still in there, a last tiny shred of hope clinging to his broken heart, he went with her to the garden. She ran straight to a patch of daisies and sat down in them.
Lockwood couldn’t help but think about how beautiful she was. For just a moment he let himself believe the child-like creature in front of him was the real Lucy, that they were hanging out in the garden together, because they loved each other. He would go kiss her and pick daisies to thread through her hair. A rogue tear slipped down his cheek.
“Come here!”
Sighing, Lockwood sat with her. He watched her hands as she fiddled with stems of daisies she’d picked, weaving them together in an intricate flower crown.
“Here,” she said, smiling widely as she placed it on his head.
Lockwood offered her a weak smile. He remembered a time when he and the real Lucy had sat out here on a lovely summer’s day, Lucy teaching him how to make a crown of daisies. She had guided his hands with her own, and her skin had been soft and warm on his own, leaving his hands tingling.
But now her hands were cold, colder than they should be. His skin now burned wherever she touched, her reanimated body just a vessel for someone, something else.
Lucy frowned suddenly. “You should wash your hands.”
Lockwood glanced at his hands. They seemed clean to him. He took a deep breath and asked, “What’s wrong with my hands?”
“They’re all red. You’ll stain your clothes if you don’t wash them.”
“Red?”
“From killing me.”
That’s when it hit Lockwood that Lucy truly was gone. She was a dead body possessed by a dead person. If he was less of a coward he would have checked her pulse. But now he didn’t need to. Because she was truly dead and gone, and she wasn’t coming back.
***
Life at Portland Row became increasingly difficult as Lucy’s - Annabel’s - behaviour became more and more unpredictable. She didn’t sleep, so often the boys would wake up to hysterical giggling echoing down the staircase or harrowing screams in the middle of the night. Sometimes she became horrifically violent, ripping up furniture, smashing kitchenware, breaking windows. Lockwood and George had started needing to restrain her so she wouldn’t burn the house down. But Portland Row was never silent anymore.
Which was why it was so disconcerting when one day Lockwood and George woke up after a full night’s sleep to a very quiet house.
Lockwood’s heart dropped all the way to his stomach. He scrambled all over the house trying to find her.
Eventually he did find her.
She lay awkwardly against the shelves of Sources they kept, completely still. Her eyes were open, unseeing, and the tips of her extremities were tinted blue. On one of the middle shelves lay a silver net, underneath which was Annabel’s necklace.
Lockwood froze, completely numb all over. He had been right. Lucy had still been in there, a tiny part of her. She had been there, the whole time, suffering, unable to escape. A small swell of painful pride rose as he realised how she must have fought. Fought Annabel in her head to gain enough control of her body to kill them both.
Lockwood crumpled in a heap on the floor, howling, mourning the death of yet another loved one, horrified that she’d had to resort to this. He should have had more faith, he should have tried harder to reach her, help her, do anything! But no, he’d left her to suffer.
George joined him eventually, doing his best to comfort Lockwood while shedding his own silent tears.
Lockwood couldn’t stay at Portland Row. After the funeral, he left to stay in the countryside for a while, away from all the pain in London.
His pain never lessened, but over time he learned to accept it. He’d hear her whisper ‘Goodbye’ to him whenever he heard the rustling of the trees in the wind. He’d trek over mountains and down valleys, hearing her name whistle and echo around him. He would hear the song she used to hum all the time through the leaves and bushes and rocks that surrounded him.
Finally, he felt ready to return. He would never be the same again, but he had accepted that. He knew he would see her again one day. But until then, he was ready to fight, avenge her, and, with George’s help, figure out how to solve the Problem. All for her. He knew she’d want him to keep going. He would do everything for her.
He let out his final wails for her, his final tears and sobs, then returned to George at Portland Row.
***
He lay on his deathbed, George beside him - old but surprisingly spry.
“I’ll miss you, Lockwood,” George said.
“I’ll miss you, too, George,” Lockwood replied slowly, taking a new breath between each word.
“No, you won’t,” George said, smiling with a hint of sadness behind the eyes. “You’ll be with her.”
Lockwood wheezed as he chuckled, quickly transforming into a coughing fit. Once he calmed down, he said, “Yes, I suppose I will. But we will both miss you.”
“I’ll join you soon enough. Enjoy your time together, without me. I want you to have it all out of your system by the time I get there.”
Lockwood allowed himself a single huff of laughter this time. “Okay.”
Lockwood stared at the ceiling, feeling his breath get shallower. He didn’t cry. He wasn’t afraid. He was going to see her again, so soon. He counted his final breaths. On the ceiling he saw her, reaching for him.
Come with me.
“Lucy,” he whispered.
George wiped away the tears falling on his cheeks so Lockwood wouldn’t see.
Lucy looked beautiful as ever, beckoning to him, a wild daisy flower crown woven through her hair. He heard her song, the one she was always humming. It had always been playing, there in the back of his mind. He smiled softly, and raised a shaky arm towards her. She beckoned to him again.
Come with me.
Lockwood took his final breath. His arm fell.
“I’m coming, my love.”