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With a knot in his throat and a drink in his stomach, Henry Wingrave set foot on the haunted grounds of Bly Manor again for the first time in years. He’d been led here by an instinct, a powerful sense of dread that he couldn’t explain but which left no room for doubt: Something was amiss at Bly. And when he left his car it only took him a moment to see Flora, and another to take in what kind of creature was carrying her, and then there was no time left for him to to make sense of any of it before an icy cold hand clamped down on his throat with a bone-crushing force.
“Uncle Henry! Help me!”
Flora! Desperate to answer her plea, he clawed at the hand around his neck, trying to find purchase and pry it loose, but he was no match for the supernatural strength of the Lady of the Lake as she lifted him up off the ground like he was nothing but a doll.
No… no, fuck no, not like this, not when Flora was in danger and she needed him, and she was so close—
“Stop it! You’re killing him!”
Unable to breathe, unable to help her, help her, help her… his vision grew dark as the oxygen ran out. No, no, no—
The Lady’s stranglehold tightened further before twisting with a wicked snap, and his body went limp. My neck, he realized. She snapped my neck.
And then he stood in a daze, watching the Lady toss his body aside and resume her march towards the lake. Flora cried out, screaming his name, and he needed to move, needed to reach out and free her, to save her, but a horrific chill crept into his bones as he realized he couldn’t. He was standing over his own dead body, as useless in death as he had been in life. He could only watch as Flora was carried to the shore, forced to witness the horror unfolding before his eyes, his niece desperately struggling against the grip of the Lady, still screaming for him as she became submerged in the icy cold water…
“Uncle Henry!”
Henry awoke with gasping breath, ice cold and shivering. He blinked against a light that blinded him as sat up, scanning his bedroom in a panic, expecting to see a vengeful ghost towering over him to strangle him once again. It took him a moment for reality to dawn on him. Another nightmare.
He took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself, his heart thumping away wildly in his chest. Only then did he notice a small figure in the doorway silhouetted by the light from behind her.
“Uncle Henry?”
He rubbed his eyes and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “Flora, what on earth are you doing up at this hour? You ought to be in bed.” As his vision adjusted to the light he got a good look at her. Only then did he see the tears in her eyes, and his drowsiness evaporated instantly as worry took over. “Oh my darling, what’s wrong?”
“I had a terrible nightmare,” she said, her voice trembling as words came spilling out, “I dreamt I was at Bly, and there was a lady, only she didn’t have a face and she took me to the lake and you tried to stop her but she was too strong and… and…” she struggled to continue. Henry felt his heart ache — the thought of her reliving that horrific night just as he had cut deep. Though she didn’t seem to remember much of the actual events that had transpired at Bly, it seemed some of it would still spill over in her dreams.
“Oh dear. Come here,” he said softly. She rushed to his side and he wrapped her in a tight hug. “It’s alright, it’s just a dream… You’re safe now.”
“You died,” she croaked, her voice somewhat muffled as she buried her face in the fabric of his pajamas.
“It’s just a nightmare.” The words sounded hollow to him, but what else could he say? “She can’t hurt you or me anymore. It’s alright. It’s alright…”
Flora was crying now, her breath coming in uneven gasps as she clung to him tightly as though he might vanish at any moment. “Please don’t leave again,” she sobbed.
Henry suddenly felt as if all air had been knocked out of him. In the end, this had all been his doing. He squeezed his eyes shut to keep his own tears from falling.
“I won’t,” he whispered, and he’d never meant anything more in his life. “I’m right here, darling. I’m staying. I promise. I’ll be right here.”
How useless he felt, unable to take her pain away, the pain she never should have had to suffer in the first place. He wanted to fix it all for her, and not for the first time he wished he could swap places with Dominic. He was the one who should be here, he would know what to say; her father would know how to make it better. Henry was just an imposter, only here because of a cruel twist of fate.
But he was all there was left, and so he held Flora tight as she cried, rubbing little circles on her back and murmuring reassurances. Eventually her breathing evened out as the tears stopped flowing and when she relaxed against him, he realized she’d fallen asleep. He didn’t have the heart to wake her, so he carefully lay her down in the bed and tucked her under the blanket before going to switch off the light.
He lay down next to her and stared at the ceiling for a long time. How she could still trust him after the way he’d abandoned her and Miles, he’d never understand. Flora was so vulnerable, so innocent, and if she’d been any wiser she’d know that she couldn’t count on him, that he would inevitably screw up no matter how hard he tried or how well he meant. He was just a miserable alcoholic trying desperately to fill his big brother’s shoes.
You don’t have a brother anymore. Or a niece, or a nephew. Dom’s last words to him echoed through his mind as they often did. You’re alone.
Only he wasn’t. The awful bitter truth of it was that Henry was still here, and both his brother and the woman he loved weren’t. He didn’t deserve it, but here he was, with a second chance to be in the children’s lives; a chance to love them, to nurture them, to see them grow.
His mind drifted to memories of Charlotte, of lazy Sunday morning breakfasts at Bly when Dom was away, of her easy smile and sharp mind. It had always felt so right in spite of it all, yet now he couldn’t remember her without their fate looming over him. The phone call. The funeral. His part in it.
It was all just so fucking cruel. They hadn’t deserved to die. The kids hadn’t deserved to lose both their parents.
Only Flora hadn’t, had she.
It wasn’t a thought he allowed himself to have often. It felt like a betrayal of his brother even now, and he knew he’d take the secret to his grave. But this was how he knew he wasn’t a good man: because in spite of it all, in spite of what it had cost them, when he looked at Flora he couldn’t bring himself to entirely regret it. Not when it would’ve meant her not existing. His daughter. The one good thing he’d been a part of. And she was, she was nothing but good and he had no idea how someone like her could have come from someone like him, but she had.
She had.
He couldn’t help but wonder what Charlotte would say if she could see him now, the man who she meant to disappear from her life forever, raising her children. Would she resent him? Would she think he was doing too much? Or was he not doing enough?
Did it really matter?
Henry let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes.
He was all there was left. He’d simply have to make sure that it was enough. Somehow.