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Surprisingly, it’s Kipps who answers the call. This is a detail Lucy will learn later as she stares at the neat handwriting of the note he slipped under her door. Kipps is the only member, or consultant as he likes to remind them, who doesn’t use the Thinking Cloth as their principal form of communication. He prefers to write notes using the posh stationary Holly ordered them with the company info in the header.
Kipps is only there to fetch some research notes. George is making breakfast, Lockwood is in his room, Holly is not in yet, and Lucy is asleep, so the morning finds Quill Kipps answering the 35 Portland Row phone. A stern woman asks to speak to Lucy and then leaves a message with a phone number. It’s simple, your mother is in town and is requesting you call her.
Kipps is only distantly aware of Lucy’s past, but it’s just enough to know this isn’t a good thing. He opts to slip the note under her door instead of waking her up.
***
It’s early on a Friday at Portland Row and Lucy is still in bed. She has the day off and her wish since last night has been to stay in bed as late as possible. Her plans are thwarted by the Skull calling for her persistently.
“Luuucy,” he screams. “Luucy you have a love letter. How romantic! Do you think it’s from your boy? Yes, must be. He seems like the type.”
“Fucking hell, will you stop?” She replies sitting up.
“Ugh. Don’t let him see you like that or he will take it back.”
“What are you even talking about?”
If it was possible for the Skull to look smug, he would. “Someone slipped a note under your door.”
Lucy tries to act like her curiosity is not piqued and goes to check casually.
A first glance of the note has her heart speeding. Once she sits on the edge of the bed and reads it more carefully, she starts wondering if she could pretend she never got the message.
A suffocating sense of dread washes over her and the tightness in her chest threatens to spill over. Her hands are going numb, a persistent pricking traveling from her fingertips to her wrists. Lucy takes deep breathes, but they’re not enough. She thinks the Skull is calling her name, but the ringing in her ears is louder than his voice.
Deciding she needs a shock to her system, she abandons the letter and runs to her bathroom.
Lucy hates the way she feels. She hates a lot in that moment. She sits on the shower floor letting the icy water wash over her and her nightshirt. She eventually can breathe properly and she takes off her sodden clothes and showers.
Wrapped in her towel, Lucy closes her curtains and the ghost jar valve. She leaves the note on her bed and decides to sketch to clear her mind for a bit after getting dressed.
There’s a knock on her door, Lockwood coming to discuss last night’s case. He’s still wearing his pyjamas, pink and silky. Lucy wants to feel the fabric under her fingers.
He sits down too far from her and frowns. “Are you alright?”
She both loves and hates how sensitive he has become to her moods, how in tune they can be with each other sometimes, yet not in the same frequency. Lucy debates whether she should tell him or not, but it feels too big for just her.
She hands him the note without looking at him. Lockwood stays silent as he reads it and Lucy sneaks a glance at him. His eyes are still glued to the paper and she wonders what he’s thinking. He knows the basics about her family. He has even met Mary when she visited London.
There has been a gap between Lucy and her family since she was a child. She’s never known how to close it. Her parents have been the worst of it. Her friends know her father is dead and she doesn’t have a good relationship–or any type for that matter–with her mother, but she has always been able to spare them the details.
She never wanted Lockwood to see the fragments she has worked so hard to hide.
Lucy risks another look at him and finds him already searching for something on her face.
“What?”
“Are you going to see her?” Lockwood asks. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can pretend you never got the message. Or I can schedule so many jobs you actually don’t have time to make plans.”
Lockwood is a fixer, something she appreciates most of the time, but right now it feels like the only way out of this is by going straight through it.
Lockwood remains seated by the foot of her bed.
“I think I should see her.”
“You don’t owe her anything, Luce.”
“I know. I’m afraid that if I don’t see her, she will show up here. I don’t want her in the house.”
Lockwood reaches over and puts his hand on her ankle. It’s a simple gesture that feels too big. “I could come with you.”
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t want to subject you to that. She’s…I’ve spent years separating myself from her. I don’t want her to meet you– any of you.”
“Let me do this for you,” Lockwood says. “You’re my friend…you’re one of my best friends. Let me support you with this.” She finds herself nodding after a few seconds. He squeezes her ankle. Lucy folds the note and puts it in the pocket of her trousers.
When they finally emerge from the room, Lockwood leaves her to take a shower and get ready for the day. She goes down to the kitchen and is met by George, and Holly having lunch.
Good afternoons are exchanged in levity and George places a cup of tea in front of her. By the time Lockwood joins them and starts preparing a sandwich for her, she has started doubting her decision to see her mother.
The note feels hot against her hip. She’s been doodling on the Thinking Cloth while the others speak. What will happen when Lockwood meets her mother? Will he think that’s what Lucy will turn into? Bitter and miserable? That was probably her path if she had stayed in the Cheviot Hills.
Lucy has had nightmares before about never leaving her town. She’s dreamt about never leaving her mother’s house, becoming one with it, sinking into the linoleum. What will Lockwood think when he sees her mother and realizes that Lucy is a wretched thing just like her? Will he be able to see the venom in her veins?
Her friends are speaking but she’s not listening. The scrape on the floor of her own chair startles her and before she can stop herself, she’s walking to the foyer to grab the phone and dialling the number on the note.
She immediately recognizes her sister Laura. Nine years older than her, she was out of the house by the time Lucy had joined Jacobs. Laura had some Sight, which got her a job in the Night Watch in Newcastle. Once her Talent faded, she had come back to their town and shacked up with one of the boys one street over. It stings to know she lives in London and never cared enough to alert Lucy.
“Laura,” she clears her throat. “Hi, this is Lucy–Lucy Carlyle.” She feels silly telling her own sister her last name.
“Oh,” the other woman clears her throat. “Lucy, hello. I’m guessing you’re trying to reach Mam?”
“Yes. I didn’t know you had moved to London.”
Laura is silent for a few seconds and Lucy wonders if she’ll try to lie and say they just arrived. Turns out, Laura doesn’t care enough to make up excuse. “Well, Ernie got transferred by his company about two years ago. We settled in Clapham last year.”
“Oh,” another reminder that she knows nothing about the rest of her family. They don’t know anything about her either.
“Do you want to speak to Mam?”
“Yes,” Lucy replies and she feels like she needs to say something more. “Laura, do you–do you think you would want to grab lunch some time? Maybe tea?”
“Sure,” Laura answers. “I stay home with the boys, so I’m pretty flexible. Let me know when you’re free.”
“Of course. Yes, I will.”
Lucy gets the overwhelming urge to hang up the phone while her sister locates their mother. But then Mrs. Carlyle is responding and there’s a knot in Lucy’s throat.
“Mam, hi.”
“You finally call back. Your boyfriend said you were asleep this morning. It was already nine. I have other things to do while I’m in London, you know?’
So go do them. “Yes, I understand. And that wasn’t my boyfriend, that was one of my colleagues.”
Her mother ignores the last part. “Do all your colleagues just roam around the house at odd hours of the day?”
She chooses to ignore that. “Your message said you needed to speak to me urgently. What is it about?”
“I need to see you this afternoon.”
No. Too soon. “That’s too soon. I have other things to do today.”
“I suppose I could come to that house before I leave.”
Lucy sighs. Her mother knows how to play this game. She knows how to get under her skin and dig up her anxieties. “Fine.” Lucy gives her the name of a café in Laura’s areas. She’ll do anything to keep her as far away from Marylebone as possible.
“And how do you expect me to get there?”
Lucy’s jaw clenches. She tells her she’ll send a cab to pick her up at quarter to four. Late enough that they will have a hard stop to their meeting before curfew starts. Her mother agrees and hangs up without so much as a goodbye. Lucy is grateful for the abrupt ending.
***
Lockwood finds her hours later in front of her dresser. Lucy is examining what she should wear, although her mother will find something wrong with everything. She chooses a simple and unoffensive knee-length dress to go with her black tights and ectoplasm-stained boots.
She goes into the bathroom to change, while he entertains himself with a book she’s been attempting to read for a month.
“Are you sure about this?” Lockwood asks from his place on her bed.
“Yes,” she says pulling the dress over her head and attempting to zip it up herself. “I need to do this.” No luck with the dress, she goes out and motions for him to zip her up. Lucy tries not to blush thinking how he can see her bra and exposed back. His hands are cold where he grazes her skin; they linger, traveling from the closure above the zipper down to her waist. She wants to reach back and curl into him.
He finally lets her go and they both awkwardly stand in her room.
“Should I change?” He asks her. “Maybe I can ditch the suit and go for something simpler?”
“Lockwood, us country bumpkins have seen suits before.”
“I just want to make a good first impression. I’ve never met a girl’s parents before.”
“That’s not true, you met Holly’s parents,” Lucy deflects like she’s getting paid for it.
“I suppose that’s true,” he says looking at his shoes. “I wish you had met my parents. And Jessica. I think they would’ve liked you.”
Her heart aches for him. “You don’t know that.”
Lockwood laces their fingers together. “What’s there not to like?”
So much.
“Don’t change.” She likes him in his slightly too tight suits and his white shirts that sometimes have random stains not even Holly can clear. She likes him like this and when he wears his ridiculous pyjamas and his soft white undershirts.
Lockwood nods and tells her he’ll go call the cabs.
Lucy takes another look at herself before leaving the room. Her clothes look fine, her makeup is light, but it accentuates her eyes, her hair is styled and shiny. With a deep breathe, she leaves the room as ready to face her mother as she’ll ever be.
The cab ride is short, but Lockwood keeps a hand on her knee the entire time offering her support.
Lucy is nearing eighteen, but walking into the café, she feels like the sixteen-year-old that ran away from her home–no, from her mother’s house. Last time she saw Mrs. Carlyle, was the beginning of one of the roughest periods of her life. It was the last time she visited and had found a newly hired Holly upon her return.
He helps her out of the cab and allows her a moment to gather her bearings. From where they stand, she can see her mother inside.
Mrs. Carlyle is wearing a brown coat over a green dress Lucy knows she wears to church sometimes. Lockwood leads her to the table. He introduces himself and she nods at her mother in greeting. Was she supposed to hug her? Lockwood is every bit of charming as always. He asks her mother about her other daughters and how she’s enjoying her time in London. Her mother answers cautiously. When the waitress comes to their table, Lockwood orders tea and biscuits.
Her mother looks older and as pink and strained as ever. While Lockwood makes small talk, Lucy examines her and wonders if she was ever happy. Maybe happiness is inconsequential when you must feed seven girls and yourself and keep the lights on at a home that’s falling apart.
Lockwood stands to get extra sugar for her tea, leaving them alone.
“Why did you bring him?” Her mother asks.
“He offered to come with me.”
“I didn’t realize you were dating your employer.”
“I’m not. He’s my friend.”
“And you live together.” It’s not a question. Lucy has carried the weight of adulthood since her mother dropped her off at Jacobs, but in this moment, a sense of childlike vulnerability washes over her. She still feels like she needs to defend herself from someone who won’t accept her explanations.
“Yes, we do.”
“So, he comes from money,” Mrs. Carlyle says. “Rich boys carry themselves differently. You would be smart to get a ring soon, before you find yourself in a…situation.”
Lucy knows exactly what she means and finds herself blushing at the implication.
“Here’s some more sugar.” Lockwood says re-joining them. He smiles at Lucy and she sees he’s trying to show his support. Lucy turns back to her mother.
“You said this was urgent.”
“Well, figured it would be the only way to get you to agree to meet me. You never visit, you never call. The only things I know about you are what I hear from Mary or read on the papers.”
And don’t you think there’s a reason for that?
Lucy feels annoyed and tricked.
“I’ve been busy.”
Her mother scoffs. “Busy? Doing what?” She points at Lockwood. “If your boss can accompany you to see your mother, he sure can give you time off. Unless you haven’t figured out how to take advantage of him–“
Lockwood looks ready to lose his composure. “If you’re implying that Lu–“
“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying it. This is what she does. She'll latch onto you until you don’t have a shred of joy left and you’re no longer useful. Then she’ll leave you without an ounce of regret because she only cares about herself.”
“Lucy wouldn’t–“
“She will. Don’t be so blinded by whatever she has said or done with you. A boy like you could do better.” Lockwood seems stunned at the insinuation and Lucy sees red.
Lucy stands up and starts leaving. When she reaches the door, there’s anger in her like never before so she walks back to a pale Lockwood and her angry mother.
“You,” she starts pointing at her mother. “You don’t get to speak to me like this anymore. You don’t know me, you never have. Just because you were there it doesn’t mean you were not as gone as dad after he died. Neither of you ever cared for us, especially for me. So many times I laid in bed at night growing up wishing you had stopped with Mary, wishing I didn’t exist because it would be better than the life I was living. I was a child and–I was a child and you sent me to die for a few pounds.”
“Luce–“ Lockwood starts but she puts a hand up stopping him. The entire café must be looking at the spectacle, but Lucy can’t find it in herself to care.
“I’ve spent so much of my life thinking all I was good for was my Talent. So much of it thinking that if my own mother couldn’t love me, no one ever would. And I– and I don’t know if that feeling will ever go away, but I left for a reason and you know what I learned? That I can always leave again. And I don’t want you in my life. I don’t ever want to see you again. Pretend I died in the Mill. I’m sure I would’ve been more useful to you dead when you cashed my pension.”
Mrs. Carlyle scoffs. “Have you told him about the Mill? Does he know you killed all those kids?”
Lucy is shaking her head. “That’s not what happened and you know it.” Lucy thinks of Norrie still ghost-locked up North, she thinks of herself still paralyzed by fear every time anyone in Lockwood and Co. experiences even 5 seconds of ghost-lock and make her think they’ll never wake up again.
“You have no right to speak to Lucy like that–“
“Oh, so that’s why she brought you, to fight her battles? Not so brave without your boy, Lucy? I suppose I should’ve known this is how you would end up.”
Lockwood stands up abruptly and Lucy fears he’ll throw his tea at her mother. She knows Lockwood would never hit anyone, let alone a woman, but there’s a small part of her brain that sees the anger she grew up accustomed to in his eyes.
Lucy digs into her pocket for some money.
Throwing a few quid on the table she looks down on her mother. She wonders if she should try to memorize her face. She might forget the creases on her forehead or the grey now flashing through her thinning brown hair. But she knows she won’t.
She wishes she could say some dramatic line, something hurtful that her mother will think about forever, but there’s no point.
Lucy doesn’t look back as she storms out of the café. There’s a pounding in her ears, but she feels detached from her body. She feels like she’s running 10 feet ahead of herself. She thinks Lockwood is calling for her. But she doesn’t stop to wait.
Lockwood reaches her and grasps her shoulders tightly. She shrugs him off.
“Luce–Luce, look at me.” He sounds desperate and Lucy doesn’t want him around right now. It’s an unkind and self-serving thought. Maybe now he will see her for the pitiful little thing she is. She’s having trouble breathing when he hugs her. They’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, her arms limp on her sides, his wrapped around her. He’s whispering into her hair that he’s sorry, that she will be fine. She doesn’t believe him.
“I need to be alone, please.” She hears herself whisper. “I’ll walk back.”
Lockwood says he’ll get her a separate cab and meet her back at the house. They stand there waiting and Lucy wonders what he’s thinking.
She gets in the cab and arrives back to Portland Row in a haze. She’s vaguely aware of George asking her if she’s ok as they pass each other on the stairs. She’s not sure if she answers. She keeps going until she reaches the loft.
She toes off her boots and lays on her bed. It started raining at some point and she realizes her hair is damp.
Lucy closes her eyes and hopes to fall asleep.
When she opens her eyes again, there’s salt crusted around them. There’s an arm helping her up while another holds a glass to her mouth and a voice encourages her to drink. The voice asks her if she wants to change into her pyjamas, but she shakes her head and tries to lay down again. She feels a kiss on her forehead and a blanket being placed over her.
The next time she wakes up, the room is dark. Her body is stiff and her eyes feel swollen. The zipper of her dress is digging into the skin of her back. She changes into a ratty shirt and sleeping pants and heads into the bathroom to wash the makeup off her face. She wishes the water was hot enough to dissolve her. She wishes she was a different person, someone with an easy idyllic childhood. Lucy avoids her reflection on the mirror.
She intends to go back to bed until she sees someone left tea and a sandwich for her while she was in the bathroom.
She eats and burrows herself in her blanket. If she can’t sleep, maybe she can just lay there and hope the house will swallow her whole. The clock on her bedside table tells her is just past 5 in the morning.
Two hours go by and she’s unable to go back to sleep. She decides it’s time to face the music and speak to Lockwood. She knows on a fundamental way that her mother’s actions and words are not her responsibility or doing. But there’s a part of her that can’t stop seeing herself in her mother. Maybe if she had married too young and endured an awful marriage, she would’ve turned out like her.
There’s a soft knock on the door and she knows it’ll be him, so she tells him to come in.
Lockwood is still wearing yesterday’s suit, but now it looks dishevelled. His carefully styled hair is messy and the circles under his eyes are more prominent. She knows she did that.
“Hey,” he greets her and goes to sit at the foot of the bed.
“I’m sorry for yesterday,” she says playing with the frayed threads of the blanket he placed on her at some point of the night.
“Luce,” he reaches to touch her leg. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one that’s sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve a better mother.”
“Oh.”
He sighs. “I wish…I wish you didn’t have to grow up like that.”
“I never wanted you to know these things,” Lucy replies. “If I could avoid ever speaking about her and my father, I was planning to.”
His silence makes her nervous. Maybe he’s had time to think about the things her mother said has decided to believe Mrs. Carlyle.
“Lockwood.” He looks at her. “I didn’t want you to look at me with pity. I didn’t want you to know how bad it was. You had a good childhood, the time you had with your parents was happy. I never had that. I don’t expect you to understand–“
“Lucy I just want to know you. All of you. I need you to believe me when I say that there’s nothing your mother could say to change my mind about you.”
She nods and forces herself to believe him.
“My dad wasn’t great to us.” She starts.
“Luce, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No, I want to.” And she finds that she means it. “And you can ask me questions.”
Lucy wraps her arms around her legs and Lockwood goes to sit next to her against the headboard.
“My dad was a drunk who hit my mother and my sisters. When he died…I think she was relieved. Until she realized now she had to raise seven daughters she didn’t even want to begin with.”
“Did your mum also…?”
She nods. “To a lesser degree, but just as bad compounded with everything she would say.”
“Was it the same to all of you? Or just you?”
“We all got some level of it, but I got it worst. I know I wasn’t an easy child. Always scared of visitors and complaining when I had to go work for Jacobs so we could keep the house but–“
“Lucy,” he says. “Luce, you were a child. It wasn’t your job to keep them afloat. I’m so sorry. You, Lucy Carlyle, you are the best person. And I wish you had a better family.”
“I do now.” She feels him smiling next to her. “I don’t think I want to see her again.”
“And you don’t have to.”
Lucy nods. “I want to speak to my sisters–some of them. Now that I know Laura lives in London, maybe I could, I don’t know, have a relationship with her?”
“Whatever you want, Luce.”
“Thank you,” she tells him holding his hand. His is as calloused as hers from years of wielding a rapier, they fit together. “For coming with me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Lucy doesn’t know what will happen. She will try with her sisters. She will stay away from her mother. Perhaps one day she will visit the Cheviot Hills again. But there’s a bit of hope inside telling her that she won’t become a poisonous thing. The people around her won’t let her.