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Love of mine, someday you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the “no”s on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
—“I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie
His first thought as he pressed his lips to hers for the first time was why did I wait so long to kiss her?
The second thought wasn’t so much a coherent sentence as it was just a steady stream of Lucy Lucy Lucy Lucy…
He had never been more terrified of anything, any Source or Visitor or whatever insane thing he’d faced in the past seventeen years of his life, than of the moment he set the pile of papers on Lucy’s bed with the sapphire necklace hidden inside and walked away.
It was risky. It was so risky. What if she didn’t join him on the walk? What if she didn’t find the necklace in the papers? Worse, what if she found the necklace and didn’t understand what he was trying to say or, did understand but was completely repulsed by the thought of him?
He had walked so slowly, hands in the pockets of his new coat, his heart sinking in his stomach with every step. But he hadn’t even gotten to the end of the street before he heard Lucy calling his name.
He’d stopped under the street sign and waited for her. She ran towards him, a familiar sight in her black leggings and boots and her cobalt blue jacket, but as she drew closer all he could see was the gold necklace and the brilliant sapphire, bright against her fair flushed skin and her dark plaid dress.
His heart squeezed in his chest. She found it. She was wearing it. Hopefully she understood.
“Lockwood!” she called, and without even realizing it he reached for her, cupping her face in his hands, and she raised herself up on her toes and grabbed the lapels of his coat.
She knew what I was trying to say , he thought, and then her lips pressed against his and then he couldn’t think straight, he couldn’t think of anything but her name thudding in his chest at the same rhythm as his wild heartbeat.
He kissed Lucy, finally, finally , his fingers tangling in her hair and her grip tightening on his coat, as if she wanted to keep him pressed against her forever. She tasted like burnt sugar, her lips soft and insistent against his, and he kissed her like he was a dying man and she was bringing him back to life.
They finally broke apart, his hands dropping to hold her waist as she stayed up on her toes. “So,” she said breathlessly. “How about that walk?”
He laughed, the sound bubbling out of his chest. “Lucy Carlyle, you just kissed me and you want to go on a walk?” he said.
“Well, you kissed me back!” she said. She hesitated, sinking down on her heels. “Oh. Oh god. Did I…the necklace, I just…was I not supposed to-“
He tilted her chin up and kissed her, his other arm tight around her waist, hoping it would erase any doubts that might be rising in her thoughts. Judging by the way she sighed into his mouth, it worked.
Their second kiss was as sweet as the first, maybe better. Definitely better. He didn’t know it could be like this.
This time when they drifted apart he smiled dreamily at her. “You were saying something about a walk, I think?” he said.
She laughed, poking him playfully in the chest, and then grabbed his hand. “Well, come on then,” she said.
They’d gone on walks before. They’d held hands a million times before. But he had never noticed how perfectly her hand could fit into his, or how easy it was to talk to her. And even though they were following paths they’d wandered before, now every so often they would stop to kiss, soft and sweet and eager, and he would memorize the places they paused as he counted. Third kiss, fourth, fifth.
Uncharacteristic shyness rose in his chest. He’d never been given to shyness, especially around Lucy. But every time he kissed her there was a brief bubble of worry threatening to expand and suffocate him. What if he was dreaming and he was about to wake up and find himself alone, the sapphire necklace still tucked away in its box? Or worse, what if Lucy pulled away and punched him lightly on the arm and said something playfully cutting like “come off it, Lockwood, I was just kidding”?
But every time she would lean into the kiss and he could feel her smiling against his lips and the bubble of worry would pop.
He could have walked for hours, but the sun was about to set and a light mist was starting to fall, so reluctantly they turned back towards home. It wasn’t until they’d turned onto their street that the first reminder of reality started to sink in.
“Are we going to-“ “Should we say anything-“
They spoke at the same time and they both laughed. Lockwood couldn’t help it, he kissed her lightly. “Not just yet, I think,” he said. “We can tell them later, but right now I think this is just for us.”
“Good,” Lucy said. “That’s what I was thinking too.”
She wrapped her arms around his and leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked the rest of the way home. His heart swelled in his chest and he brushed a kiss lightly on the top of her head.
He unlocked the front door and ushered her inside out of the light rain. “Lockwood, is that you?” Holly called from the kitchen.
Lucy braced one hand on the wall and unzipped her boot. “Yeah, we’re back,” he called as he kicked off his trainers.
“You’re just in time for dinner, we’re just waiting for Flo and Kipps,” George said. Lockwood took off his new coat and hung it up, then helped Lucy out of her jacket. She tucked the sapphire necklace under the collar of her dress with a reluctant little sigh. “Is Lucy with you?”
He caught her eye and grinned. “Yeah, she’s with me.”
Lucy grabbed his hands, tugged him closer, and kissed him. He made a little noise of surprise and squeezed her hands.
“What’s taking so long?”
They broke apart, breathlessly smiling at each other. “We’re coming,” Lucy called back.
He let got of her hand reluctantly as they walked into the kitchen. This was going to be so much more difficult than he thought. How could he just pretend that nothing happened? How could he not hold her hand and kiss her when she was that close and that beautiful?
George was standing at the stove, a pink floral apron tied over his clothes, and Holly was setting the table for dinner. The new Thinking Cloth was still mostly blank, but that wouldn’t last long. “Oh, there you are,” Holly said. “Where did you two go?”
“Just on a walk,” Lockwood said, relieved that his voice sounded as studiously calm as Holly’s.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Holly said. “Have a nice time?”
“It was nice until it started raining,” Lucy said. She caught his eye and smiled at him, her fingertips briefly brushing against her collarbone where the necklace was hidden. The light rain had made her chestnut hair curl lightly at the ends, her cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes were bright and her lips were rosy from kissing him. His heart flipped against his ribcage.
“Hopefully it won’t rain tomorrow, we have our first case since Fittes exploded,” George said. He switched off the burner, his back still turned towards them. “Dinner’s ready, but we can probably wait a few minutes for Kipps and Flo.”
There was a clatter in the foyer as the front door was unlocked and banged open. “Oh, there they are,” Holly said.
Lucy frowned. “You all right, George?”
“Of course I am. Why would you say that?”
“You’re acting a little squirrely.”
George scowled at her over his shoulder, not making eye contact with either of them. “That doesn’t sound like me at all,” he scoffed.
Kipps walked into the kitchen brushing rain out of his hair, Flo right on his heels. “I was hoping we could make it in before the downpour, but no such luck,” he groused.
Flo stopped dead in her tracks, looking from Lockwood to Lucy and back. “You’ve snogged,” she accused, pointing at him.
Lockwood’s mouth dropped open. “Wh- I don’t-“
“They’ve snogged!” Flo crowed. She clapped her hands. “About fucking time!”
“We haven’t,” Lucy protested weakly.
Kipps rolled his eyes. “Don’t even try to lie, Carlyle, it’s written all over your faces,” he said.
Lockwood looked over at Lucy in panic; she was wide eyed and looked just as stunned as he felt. What were they supposed to do? Should they lie? Should they try to keep up some kind of pretense? Should they just tell them?
George whirled around from the stove, still brandishing the wooden spoon. “I can’t keep it anymore, we saw you!” he blurted out, waving the spoon in excitement. “We saw you two!”
“You saw?” Lockwood said.
“We?” said Lucy.
“We weren’t spying, we promise,” Holly said. “It’s just that we saw Lockwood leave, and then we saw Lucy running down the stairs and bolt after him, and it was just so unusual that we had to watch from the window, and, well-“
“And he kissed her!” Flo said. She grabbed Lockwood by the shoulders and gave him a little shake. “I knew this day would finally come! I knew you had it in you!”
“Technically Lucy kissed me first, I think,” he said.
Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “Well, you certainly kissed me back!” she said. “ And you kissed me right after that.”
“That’s fair, that’s fair,” he said.
“I’ve never seen Tony concede an argument that quick,” Kipps said. “It’s a miracle.”
“That’s love,” Holly said fondly.
Lockwood felt himself turn red all the way up to his ears. They hadn’t gotten to that part yet. Just the kissing. Oh god.
“Okay, but can we discuss this later?” George said. “We’ve been putting off dinner waiting for everyone to show up and I’m starving.”
He’d sat at the same table with Lucy hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times. They always sat next to each other, elbows bumping and knees touching under the table, and he would fix up her plate while she made his tea the way he liked it. But the inexplicable shyness had crept in again, enough to make him clumsy and drop his fork the first time he tried to pick it up.
He tried to focus on dinner and their conversations about continuing to renovate the house and their new case tomorrow night and what was happening with the fall of Fittes. There was just no way he could focus, not with Lucy just a few inches away.
She could carry on a conversation just fine, just as teasing and sarcastic and smart as ever. But her hand rested on his thigh under the table, gentle and sweetly possessive, and he rested his hand over hers, stroking her fingers. The touch grounded him. He felt connected. He felt safe. As they finished dinner he wrapped his fingers around hers, holding her hand in secret under the table. Her thumb brushed over his in a soft light rhythm and he squeezed.
“Anyone want dessert?” Holly asked. “There’s a Victoria sponge in the fridge that Kathleen brought by from Arif’s this morning.”
“Only because she was hoping that Kipps might be here,” George said.
Kipps reddened. “We’re not dating or anything,” he said defensively. “We’re just…”
“Going on dates? Yeah, Quill, there’s a big difference,” Flo said. “Look at all of us pairing off. Holly and her ladyfriend, Kipps and Arif’s girl, Lockwood and Lucy…”
“What about you, Flo, you fancy anyone?” Lucy said, clearly trying to deflect attention of off them.
Flo shrugged. “I might, I might not,” she said airily. “In any case, I’m better at hiding it than any of you lot.”
“I don’t know, Flo, it took us an embarrassingly long time to realize that Holly had a girlfriend, not just a roommate,” George pointed out.
Holly laughed as she got up from the table, brushing invisible crumbs off her skirt. “I’ve always been a bit private about my personal life,” she admitted. “Although I probably should have mentioned it sooner, at least to Lucy. Then maybe she wouldn’t have left during the Black Winter.”
“That wasn’t why I left, I swear!” Lucy protested. “I keep telling everybody that!”
Kipps laughed as he leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, yeah, sure, but it was at least a small factor in you running off, Carlyle,” he said. “Every time we ran into you before that you looked like you’d just tasted a sour lemon. Admit it, sweetheart, you were jealous as hell.”
Lockwood looked over at her. Her cheeks had turned scarlet. “Were you jealous of Holly, Luce?” he said. “There wasn’t anything between us, ever. Even before we knew about Julie.”
“Well, I know that now,” she said.
Without thinking he raised their clasped hands and kissed the back of her hand. “You never had anything to worry about,” he reassured her.
George coughed. “Have you two been holding hands under the table the whole time?” he said. “Dear lord, is that what I’m going to have to deal with all the time now?” He was smiling broadly as he said it though, broad enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes.
Holly set a generous piece of cake down in front of George and held one out for Lucy. She half stood to reach it, and as she bent forward the necklace dipped out of the collar of her dress, the blue sapphire flickering in the warm light of the kitchen. Lockwood’s heart flipped. He had a sudden flashback to the same necklace in the same kitchen, but in his memory his mother was wearing the necklace while his father held her like they were waltzing at a formal gala, even though she was in her socks and his shirt front was damp from washing dishes. Even though he couldn’t have been more than five he could feel their love encircling them, drawing him in, and he had wondered if he could feel like that someday when he was grown.
“Lockwood, do you want any cake?” Holly asked, and it shattered his reverie.
“Oh, no, I’m…I’m fine,” he said.
“You should, it’s really good,” Lucy said. She dipped her fork into her slice and held it out. “Try it.”
He and Lucy had never had any qualms about sharing food; she’d finish off his toast and he’d take sips of her tea when his had been forgotten and cooled, and on the rare occasions they went out to eat they’d let each other try what they’d ordered. George teased them about mercilessly, spouting information about germs that they tuned out with a laugh. But this was different though, and his heart beat a little faster as he let her feed him a bite of her cake. If they kept this up, his heart was going to explode within a week.
For the first time since they came back from the Other Side, maybe even before that, he felt hungry. “Oh, yeah, that is good,” he said. “I think I’ll have some.”
He didn’t miss Holly’s pleased smile as she cut him a piece and handed it over. Under the table Lucy squeezed his knee again; he took a bite of his cake and smiled at her. He knew they worried about him, how he could never manage to eat enough or sleep enough. He needed to fix that, and for the first time he felt like he finally had a reason to do better.
George checked his watch. “We’d better get a good night’s sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow is our first case back, and now that all of London is watching us, we’d better not disappoint.”
Kipps stood up and pushed his chair under the table. “Meet here at four?” he said. Holly nodded.
“I shan’t, but that’s to be expected,” Flo said. “Excellent dinner though, Georgie, thanks for inviting me over.” She adjusted the brim of her hat and winked at him. “Keep an eye on the lovebirds for me.”
Lockwood avoided looking over at Lucy. “Yeah, yeah, I will,” George said, smirking. “Come on, I’ll walk you two out.”
“I’ll help with the washing up before I leave, I’ve got a little time before my bus ride home,” Holly said. “And I’ll be here at nine sharp tomorrow morning, so be ready with the list of what everyone needs from Satchell’s.” She grinned. “I wonder if they’ll give us a nice discount after all the good press we’ve been getting.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it, it’s been good but not that good,” Lucy laughed.
The three of them made quick work of cleaning up, falling into their individual tasks like a well oiled machine. Lucy filled the chipped ceramic sink with hot soapy water and pulled on the rubber gloves without protest as Lockwood gathered up the dishes and Holly put the leftovers away. He set a saucepan down beside her and she smiled up at him. Her hands were submerged in the water and there was a wet spot on the front of her dress from splashing; her socks were mismatched, one striped and one solid. He couldn’t help it and bent to kiss her, one hand resting lightly on the small of her back. She tasted like vanilla cream and strawberries and she relaxed against him as they kissed.
He drew back reluctantly, smiling foolishly down her, and turned to see Holly studying them with a soft look in her eyes. “Well,” she said, a little too briskly. “I’d best be going. You two have a good night, okay? Get some sleep.”
“Get home safe,” Lockwood said, and she smiled at them one last time before slipping out of the kitchen.
He stepped up to help Lucy finish the dishes, drying as she washed and stacking things in their proper cabinets. They’d done this a million times- since George usually cooked, they usually did the cleaning up- but it felt like they’d never done this before. They talked as they washed dishes together, like they always did, but every so often he would stoop to kiss her, or she would nudge his upper arm with her elbow and tilt her face up, expectantly. It took a lot longer to wash dishes than it usually did.
She pulled off her rubber gloves and drained the sink, and he waited for her in the doorway before he turned off the lights. They walked hand in hand up the stairs, and when they reached his bedroom door he drew her close and captured her lips in a soft, slow kiss. She wrapped her arms around his waist and sighed into his mouth. Their first goodnight kiss.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said breathlessly when they finally came up for air.
“Mm-hm,” he said, gazing down at her. The little beauty mark by her lower lip was so adorable and he was desperate to press a kiss there.
“We both need sleep,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said.
Her arms were still tight around his waist. “I ought to go,” she said. He let his intrusive thoughts win and kissed her beauty mark. “Oh. You missed.”
He laughed softly and trailed kisses along her jawline, her cheek, her temple, her forehead. “No, I never miss,” he said, and then kissed her lips again. “But we ought to sleep.”
Lucy let go of him reluctantly. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning,” she promised.
“First thing,” he echoed. “Goodnight, Luce.”
I love you lingered on the tip of his tongue, threatening to spill out, but he swallowed it back. Too soon, too soon for that. There should be at least twenty-four hours between the first kiss and the first “I love you.”
He watched her walk up the stairs to her attic, and once she disappeared he sighed, tearing his eyes away, and jumped in shock when he saw George standing in his doorway grinning at him. “Holy shit, Georgie, how long have you been there?” he said.
“Oh, long enough,” George said. “Trust me, I haven’t gotten any desire to spy on you two sucking face, I have a feeling you’ll be doing it around me often enough as it is.” He shifted his weight and smiled at him. “I’m happy for you, Lockwood. Truly I am.”
“Sorry to be formally making you a third wheel,” Lockwood said, half joking.
George laughed. “Don’t be sorry, I know you’re not,” he said. “You two have been pining after each other for ages, I saw this coming a mile away. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. You’d think I’d still be around if it did?”
The corner of Lockwood’s mouth tugged up in a rueful smile. “Was the…pining…really that obvious?” he said.
“Oh, you could see it from space,” George scoffed. “I’ll have to give Barnes a ring, he owes me five quid on this.” He tilted his head. “Just…just don’t hurt Lucy, okay? Don’t break her heart. And don’t worry, I’ll be giving her the same warning about you. Only fair.”
“I won’t, if I have anything to say about it,” Lockwood promised. “Never again.”
George smiled at him and ducked his head in a slight nod before disappearing into his room, closing the door behind him. Lockwood exhaled deeply. Somehow in the span of just a few hours it felt like everything had changed, and yet nothing had changed at all.
He got ready for bed, which was unusual for him. Typically he stayed up long after George and Lucy had gone to sleep, practicing his fencing in the basement or pacing the lower levels of the house with a book in his hand, trying to tire his body and mind out enough that he could sleep without dreaming. He was rarely successful; half the time he was still awake by the time the two of them got up, and the other half he slept poorly, sometimes without changing out of his clothes or making it up to his bed. But tonight he wanted to try, if being well rested would make Lucy worry less about him.
He brushed his teeth and combed his hair, the natural wave pattern making it fall over his forehead, and changed into his softest pajamas. So far he didn’t feel tired, but he would at least lie down.
He pulled the covers back on his bed and checked his shelves for a book- for once nothing for research, just something light and easy to read for fun. Maybe that would help him fall asleep. And if that didn’t help, he could always go downstairs and make himself a cup of tea, Holly had a chamomile blend that she swore by and she’d been trying to get him to try for months.
He had just started to settle down when he heard a timid light knock on his door. That was unusual. George usually barged right in without knocking, and he would never describe Lucy’s knocks as timid.
But when he opened the door, that’s exactly who he saw. Lucy stood in the hall, dressed in a soft light blue oversized tee shirt and black leggings, her face scrubbed clean and pink without a trace of her eyeliner. She held her pillow under one arm and a blanket under the other. “Hi,” she said, then bit her lip, as if she regretted knocking on his door in the first place.
“Hi,” he said. “Everything all right, darling?”
The pet name slipped out without warning and he could feel himself blushing. It just seemed right. “I just thought,” Lucy stammered. “Since you usually…I mean, typically you don’t sleep well, but the other night…I was just thinking-”
His heart squeezed in his chest. “Oh,” he said, and it clicked, that’s what would help him feel calm and safe enough to sleep. He opened the door a little while. “Luce, could you come sleep with me?”
Her smile was bright with relief. “I just didn’t want you to think I was being forward, or…or trying to go too fast,” she said. “Not…not sleeping together, just…sleeping together.”
“I would love that,” he said, taking her pillow from her. “Which side would you like, left or right?”
“Doesn’t matter, wherever you want me,” she said.
He moved the pillows around, setting hers on the right side of the bed. “That all right?” he asked. She nodded.
They both hesitated, as if they weren’t sure who should get into bed first, until finally he broke the stalemate and climbed in first. Lucy laid down beside him, pulling the covers around herself, and he draped her blanket over her. “I don’t think I kick or anything, but just kick me back if I do,” she said.
Lockwood laughed. “I’ll be sure to remember that,” he teased. He dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “Goodnight, Luce.”
“Goodnight, Lockwood.”
He turned off the bedside table lamp and shifted around to get comfortable. The sheets were cool but Lucy was warm beside him and he gravitated towards her, reaching for her blindly in the dark. She nestled her head against his shoulder; he draped his arm over her waist as she threw her leg over his. All he wanted to do was hold her and feel her holding him. His hand crept under the hem of her shirt, his palm pressing against the soft skin of her lower back. Her hair tickled his nose and he could catch the last traces of her perfume, citrus and rose mixed with the heady warm scent of her skin. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. He wanted to remember this forever, the softness of her skin and the press of her body and the rhythm of her breath.
Lucy snuggled close to him, dropping a tiny kiss on his shoulder, and exhaled deeply. It didn’t take much time for her to doze off, and before long her breathing was slow and even, hot against the crook of his neck. He kissed the top of her head, envying how quickly she fell asleep. That never happened to him. It would take hours. At least now it would give him hours to hold her, memorizing every last detail about her as he stared into the darkness of his bedroom.
But somehow he managed to drift off, sleep tugging him down as his eyes closed slowly, and his last hazy thought was the surprise at how much easier this was with Lucy next to him.
He dreamed they were on their walk again, Lucy’s hand tucked tightly into his. It wasn’t raining, though, and he wasn’t wearing his long coat, and Lucy was wearing a different dress under her familiar cobalt blue jacket.
That’s odd, he thought. Why are my memories so different in my dreams?
“Don’t be nervous,” he told Lucy. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’ve been over for dinner a million times before.”
Why did I say that? She lives with me. Of course she’s had dinner here a million times. Unless we’re going somewhere else?
Lucy leaned her cheek against his shoulder and he smiled foolishly down at her. He so rarely had pleasant dreams that he wasn’t sure what to think.
Oh, hell. Just enjoy it while it lasts.
“I know, but this is different,” she said. “I’ve never been over before as…” Her cheeks pinked. “Well, you know. Your girlfriend.”
His heart skipped a few beats hearing her say it. “They loved you before and they’ll love you now,” he reassured her. “Maybe love you even more, now that I think about it. They’ve been after me for ages to ask you out.”
Lucy laughed. “That’s fair,” she said. She scrunched her face. “I’ve been waiting for ages too, you know.”
He stopped, tugging her back against him, and kissed her softly. “Better late than never, I hope?” he said.
“I suppose,” she teased, brushing her nose lightly against his.
They turned the corner on Portland Row, and as they approached 35 he could see warm lights in the window. George must be home. Although, now that he looked at it…things seemed a bit different. Different curtains hanging in the windows, and there were neatly trimmed flower bushes flanking the steps. And his sign was gone.
I’m not sure if I like that , he thought.
They walked up the steps together, still hand in hand. “Don’t be nervous,” he told Lucy again, and knocked briskly.
Wait, why did I knock? I have a key. Maybe I just wanted George to answer the door for me. Make it feel proper.
The door opened, but it certainly wasn’t George.
“Anthony!” Jessica cried.
He couldn’t breathe. She was older now than when he last saw her, her dark hair cut stylishly around her shoulders instead of held back with a pink ribbon, but he knew. He just knew it was her.
“Jess,” he choked out.
Jessica flung her arms around him, hugging him tight and pressing kisses against the side of his head. He clung to her like he hadn’t seen her since he was nine years old, but she was laughing and kissing him like she was just a doting older sister who’d been gone at university for a while and wanted to tease him. “Surprise!” she said. “I know I’m not due home for another week, but I finished my project early, and when they told me you and Lucy were finally official and coming over for dinner I just had to be here.” She smacked a last kiss on his cheek. “Were you surprised?”
“Very,” he managed to say.
Jessica laughed, licked the pad of her thumb, and wiped her lipstick off his cheek. “You look appropriately shocked, I’m pleased,” she teased him. She turned to Lucy and pulled her into a hug. “And Lucy! Oh, I’m so glad to see you. I can’t believe my little brother finally got his head out of his ass and made it official.”
A lump rose in his throat as he watched his sister hug Lucy. “Was everyone waiting for this to happen?” Lucy asked.
“Oh, absolutely, for ages,” Jessica said. She took a step back. The diamond pendant she’d gotten for her twelfth birthday, her last birthday present from their parents before they died, twinkled in the hollow of her throat. Somehow she looked exactly like he remembered, with her dark eyes and the stubborn set to her jaw and the way her ears stuck out just a little like his, but she also seemed completely different. She was the adult he had never gotten to see in real life.
In his dreams Jessica was always fifteen. Sometimes younger, but almost always fifteen. He’d never dreamed about her as an adult, older than him.
Oh, he thought. I’m taller than her now .
Jessica stepped back into the foyer, holding the door open for them. “Come on in, you two, dinner’s almost ready,” she said. “And I want to hear all about how school’s going.”
He followed them inside, taking off his jacket and hanging it up before reaching to take Lucy’s. The girls were chatting happily, but as he reached to take off his trainers he couldn’t help but glance around the foyer. It was the same and yet it wasn’t. Still the same rug- minus Carver’s deathglow, thankfully- and there were still rapiers in the umbrella stand, but they were dusty, as if they hadn’t been touched in ages. Masks and artifacts lined the walls, and there were unfamiliar jackets hanging up on the hooks. They weren’t his or Lucy’s or George’s. And not Holly’s or Kipps’s or Flo’s. Who could-
“Jess, love, is that Anthony?”
A man’s voice, rich and warm. He didn’t recognize it, and the sense of fight-or-flight crept up the back of his neck.
Without thinking he followed the voice into the kitchen. There was a man standing at the stove, not a half-grown teenager like George but a full fledged adult. His light brown hair was streaked here and there with salt and pepper strands, his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he wore a pink floral apron over his clothes. “Welcome home, Anthony,” Donald said.
“Hi, Dad,” he said, and the name felt foreign in his mouth.
His father. He hadn’t seen his father since he was six years old, and he hated himself for not recognizing him sooner.
Donald switched off the burner and gave him a warm tight sideways hug, his arm wrapped snugly around his shoulders. His father was still a bit taller than him. “It’s good to have you home, son,” he said. “We’ve missed you.”
“I’ve…I’ve missed you too,” he said, bewildered.
Donald squeezed his upper arm. “We wish you could come visit us more often, but we understand,” he said. “Between you and Lucy studying for your A-levels and Jess working on her thesis, nobody quite has time for anything. Besides, we’ve got another trip coming up next month. We got asked to give a presentation in Austria, that’s a new one for us.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. He wasn’t able to come up with any kind of coherent reply.
“We won’t be gone too long, though,” Donald continued. “And you and Lucy are still okay with housesitting, right? You can bring George along too, we know you’re not given to throwing wild house parties.”
There was a teasing note in his father’s voice and he smiled. For years he would have given anything to hear his father teasing him. “I suppose we can manage,” he said.
Donald laughed and clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “We’re just about ready for dinner,” he said as he turned back to the stove. “We’ve been on pins and needles all day, I’m certain you and Lucy have too.”
We. He kept saying we. Because of course, it only stood to reason that if he was dreaming about Jessica and his father that-
The backdoor to the kitchen opened and Celia walked inside, dressed in a cream colored coat with her dark hair spilling down her back, a paper wrapped bundle of red snapdragons in her arms. “Anthony, you’re home!” she said happily. She set the bundle down on the table and held out her arms. “Come here, baby, give your mum a hug.”
He was frozen for a moment, and then before he realized what was happening he was crossing the dozen or so steps towards her, and then suddenly he was in his mother’s arms. Celia held him tightly and he buried his face in her shoulder, his eyes burning. The scent of her perfume was so familiar, orange blossoms and bergamot and a hint of coconut. He remembered being hugged like this when he was little and breathing in that scent, but now he was so much older.
Celia stroked his hair, letting him hug her as long as he needed. He could have stayed there much longer, but he stepped back, swallowing down the lump in his throat, and she held him at arms’ length. “Let me look at you, dearest,” she said. “I swear you get taller every time I see you. What are they feeding you at that boarding school?”
“I haven’t grown that much, Mum,” he said.
Celia clicked her tongue. “You’re too thin, my love,” she said. “You need to look after yourself better. Maybe you ought to come home and go to a closer school so we can take care of you.”
“Celia, darling, aren’t you the one who insisted that he go there because all the local schools are shit?” Donald said dryly. Celia laughed and stood on her toes to kiss him. “Dinner’s almost ready, by the way.”
“Oh! Give me just a moment,” Celia said. She picked up the bundle of red snapdragons and held them out to him. “Here, Anthony love, can you put these in a vase for me, please?” She paused. “I did get the right kind, right?”
“Oh, yeah, these are Lucy’s favorite,” he said.
Celia beamed. “I’m glad,” she said. She squeezed his arm. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried out of the kitchen, and he crossed over to the sideboard where he knew extra vases were stored. Usually there were just a few of them, whatever had survived over the years, but now there were at least a dozen, and somehow he just knew they were from years’ worth of anniversaries and birthdays and random Tuesdays when his father would bring home flowers for his mother.
He picked a cut glass tinted a light blue, filled it partway with water, and started arranging the snapdragons. Jessica walked into the kitchen with Lucy and he didn’t know what made his heart squeeze more, seeing his sister living and breathing in front of him or the love of his life.
Oh. I think I do love her.
“Jess, Luce, do you mind setting the table and setting out drinks?” Donald asked. “Anthony’s been assigned to flower duty.”
Jessica laughed. “I suppose we can manage,” she said.
Lucy’s eyes lit up, the clear hazel catching amber in the warm kitchen lights. “Snapdragons, I love those,” she said.
“Well, I remembered, and I told my mum, and she remembered, so these are for you,” he said. Lucy paused to kiss him, light and sweet and chaste, and Jessica faked a gagging noise, laughing as she did. “Hey, haven’t you wanted us to get together for ages?”
“Yes, which reminds me,” Jessica said. “Dad, you owe me five pounds.”
Donald sighed dramatically. “I should have known not to take that bet,” he said.
Celia walked back into the kitchen. She wore a maroon dress and gold clips held back her hair, and around her neck she wore the light golden chain and the beautiful sapphire pendant. “All right, I”m here,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
“I think we’re just about ready,” Donald said. “Maybe help Anthony, I think those snapdragons are getting a bit out of control.”
“I’ve got them, I’ve got them,” he protested.
Everything seemed so…so right. His father making dinner, his mother helping him fix the flowers. Lucy setting the table while Jessica poured drinks. Was this what he was supposed to get, if he hadn’t had the rug pulled out from under him?
He sat down next to Lucy and reached under the table to squeeze her hand. She squeezed back, smiling up at him. He could tell she was still a little nervous, but he knew deep down there was nothing for her to worry about. There was nothing for him to worry about either.
For the first time since he was a child he had dinner with his family. He remembered this, Donald taking charge of cooking because Celia was hopelessly terrible at it, Jessica setting the table because he was still too small to be of much help, Celia reading to him or playing the piano with him on her lap to keep him occupied. Now it was different from his hazy memories. His parents discussed their upcoming trip, Jessica talked about her progress on her masters in library science, Lucy shyly described what she was working on in her painting classes. There was never an awkward lull or an argument, just the comfortable ease of a close knit family sharing dinner together.
It was everything he’d ever wanted but never acknowledged.
After dinner Celia and Jessica offered to clean up, and he found himself shooed out of the kitchen with Lucy, being told to go watch television or something while they waited for dessert. To his surprise, Lucy led him out to the back garden. There was a bench swing out back now, and even though the sun had long since set and the air was starting to get a little cool, they curled up together under a thick tartan blanket that he vaguely remembered having picnics on as a child.
“I think that went okay,” Lucy said as she snuggled against him.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “More than okay,” he reassured her. “They love you. They love you as much as I do.”
She laughed a little. “Really?” she said skeptically.
“No, no, I love you more,” he said. “I swear.”
She leaned closer, her hands curling into gentle fists against his chest, and she kissed him. He shifted around to hold her closer and kissed her back, his lips soft and insistent against hers. They kissed until he felt a shiver run through her.
“Cold?” he asked.
“A little,” she confessed.
He kissed her again, then kissed the tip of her nose and then her forehead, and then sat up, tucking the blanket around her shoulders. “I’ll be right back,” he promised her. “I’m going to make you some tea.” She smiled at him, drawing the blanket tighter, and he slipped into the kitchen.
Jessica was sitting at the table with a notebook propped up in front of her; even though he knew she was working on her thesis she was still writing in purple glitter gel pen. His parents stood at the sink, his mother washing dishes as his father dried. “What’s wrong, Ani?” Jessica asked as he walked in. “Everything okay?”
“Lucy’s just cold, I’m making her a cup of tea,” he said. Her favorite blue mug was in its usual place, but missing the distinct chip he remembered.
“Go ahead, darling, the kettle’s still warm,” Celia said. She handed a plate to Donald and he started to dry it. “We love her, you know. Lucy. We like her so much.”
Something warm spread in his chest. “I’m glad,” he said, his throat unexpectedly dry. “I’m really glad.”
“She’s good for you,” Donald said. “You should’ve let her in ages ago. Let some of those walls down.”
“I know,” he said, and it felt so good to be gently scolded by his father that he felt like he might cry.
Jessica rested her chin thoughtfully on her palm. “You’ve got to take care of her too, though,” she said. “She takes good care of you and she deserves the same.”
“I know,” he said again.
Celia took off her gloves and draped them over the side of the sink. “Here,” she said. “I think you ought to give her this.”
She reached back and unclasped her necklace. “No, Mum, you can’t,” he protested. “Dad gave you that, it’s special.”
Celia let the blue sapphire fall gently into her palm. “He did, but it’s time, my darling,” she said. She held it out, letting it dangle from her fingertips. “Go ahead.”
He stared at the necklace, then back to her, and he realized that she wasn’t wearing the maroon dress anymore. She was wearing a long light blue coat, the vintage one with the embroidery, and his stomach twisted.
“Mum, no,” he whispered.
The last time he saw that coat he was six years old, and she was gazing at him from the garden with so much love in her dark eyes.
“Yes, darling,” she said. She placed the necklace in his palm and closed his fingers over it, then cupped his cheek gently. “It’s time. I never wanted it to sit in a drawer, you know. It was meant to be worn.”
The tears he’d been holding back threatened to spill over. “Why can’t you stay?” he whispered. “Why can’t-”
Donald squeezed his shoulder, and he saw with another sickening twist of his stomach that his father was in his long dark coat, the one he always wore. The one that he started wearing once it started to fit. “We can’t, Anthony,” he said softly. “We haven’t been that far off, though. We never have been.”
The tears did spill over them, so hot against his cheek that he was sure he couldn’t be dreaming. “Oh, my baby,” Celia breathed, and he dropped against her shoulder, his arms around her neck. She hugged him tight, running her hand up and down his back.
“Mum, please,” he begged. “Mum, Mummy, please don’t go. Please.” Celia pressed her hand to the back of his head and kissed his temple, and even though she didn’t say anything he knew it was just a matter of time before this would be over. “I love you. I love you, please don’t leave me.”
Celia made a soft choking noise in the back of her throat and Donald rubbed his back, and he remembered being six years old and seeing them through his window, watching the tears roll down their cheeks as they looked up at him. He remembered wondering why they didn’t just come inside.
“We love you too,” Celia whispered in his ear. “We always did. We always will.”
He didn’t want to let go but she was releasing her grip on him, slowly and gently, and he took a step back, staring hungrily at his parents.
“I love you too,” Jessica said, and when he turned around her hair was tied back with a pink ribbon. She smiled at him; everyone always said she took after Donald and he took after Celia but they always had the same smile. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
He choked on a sob.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jessica said again, and she wasn’t wearing the dress she was wearing she when she died, she was wearing a dress so brightly white that all he could think about was her deathglow, lingering in her bedroom like a guardian angel for years. “You were just a little boy. You were only nine. Even if you’d been in the room with me when it happened, there was nothing you could have done to save me.”
“I could have tried,” he whispered. “I could have…I could have done something .”
She shook her head. “I’ve never hated you,” she said, and he tripped over his own feet in his haste to reach her. Jessica seized him in a tight hug, squeezing the air out of his lungs as he sobbed into her shoulder.
“I let you die,” he gasped. “I let you…if I’d just come when you told me, if I hadn’t argued, if I’d-”
Jessica shushed him. A thousand memories came crashing back of those lost years when it was just the two of them, when she was just twelve and trying to care for a grieving little boy while handling her own sadness at the same time. She had done so much for him, she had loved him and cared for him and sacrificed for him, and all this time he’d assumed she hated him.
Jessica kissed his forehead. “You’ll be all right,” she told him. “You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?”
He didn’t know what to say.
“Lockwood?”
The voice was soft and miles away, but he paused, tilting his head.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Donald reassured him. “Don’t worry, son.”
“Lockwood?”
The voice was closer now.
Celia brushed a tear off his cheek with her thumb. “Take better care of yourself, dearest,” she said. “I worry, you know.” He nodded.
“Lockwood, it’s okay, you’re just dreaming.”
The voice was even closer, and the panic in his chest was subsiding.
“Just stick with her, all right?” Jessica said. “She loves you.” She grinned at him suddenly, the familiar impish grin that he knew so well from his childhood. “By the way, I like what you’ve done with my room. It’s about time you covered up that floor.”
“Lockwood, it’s all right, just open your eyes,” the voice said.
Lockwood finally obeyed, and when he opened his eyes he was in his own room, in his own bed, and Lucy was leaning over him. Her eyes were anxious in the dim light and she was stroking his hair away from his forehead. “Lucy,” he breathed, reaching up to touch her face.
She pressed a kiss to his palm. “You were dreaming, babes,” she said. “I heard you crying. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”
Already the dream was softening around the edges, but nothing could erase the most important parts. His father’s strong embrace, his mother’s gift, his sister’s absolution.
“I’m fine,” he said, tracing his hand along the curve of her cheek. She was still wearing the sapphire necklace and it swung down from her neck, the facets of the gem catching threads of starlight. He smiled up at Lucy. “I love you.”
She pressed her hand over his and smiled back at him. “I love you too,” she said. “You’ve got to stop scaring me, though.”
“That I can’t promise,” he said. “But I promise I love you.”
He drew her down to kiss him, and as he wrapped his arms around her he felt the ache in his heart that haunted him for years finally begin to lift.