Chapter Text
Lucy Carlyle had always been a quiet person. She was the youngest of seven sisters. By the time she had come around, her mother had no love left to give. What little she’d had to begin with had long been scrubbed away by the stress of living in a world where ghosts came back and tried to kill you, or by the washboards she spent six days a week hunched over just to keep her children fed. Because of this, Lucy had learned not to draw attention to herself, for all that came from it was trouble.
You see, Lucy was a Listener. Her job, in any given situation, was typically to Listen for anything that could clue her team into what type of Visitor they were fighting and just where its Source was. For most Listeners, that was where their abilities ended, but Lucy, she could hear it all. She could tell if a note was perfectly in tune or not, could hear the change in a person’s breathing when they lied, the hum of electricity in appliances, and she could hear a pin drop in a crowded room. While this ability had saved her life a few times, it mostly just got her noticed. Her mum had noticed it first. When she was an infant, she’d cry all through the night and only sleep when the sun came up, which happened to also be when the ghosts dispersed. By the time she turned eight, Lucy had begun an apprenticeship with a man called Jacobs who ran the local Agency. By eleven, she’d passed her Third Grade, which was largely unheard of, not just in her small town but in most places. It was then that Jacobs had called her his agency’s largest asset. Lucy and her team were the top agents. The team to go to for everything from a simple Stone-Knocker to something more dastardly. She had been proud then. Proud of her team, of her status, of herself.
The Wythburn Mill Incident had changed that. She tried to tell Jacobs what she heard, what she felt, but he wouldn’t listen. Then, after all was said and done, after her team, her friends were dead, he blamed her for it. It had been declared a case of Death by Misadventure. That day had been the last Lucy had spoken more than a few words before arriving in London. A fair few had tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she said not a word the entire four hour train ride. Instead, electing to sketch the landscapes passing by or jot down poetry that encapsulated how she felt, despite not knowing exactly what feelings those were.
The next time she’d said anything more than an introduction (one which had been followed by rejection at every agency she’d been to as of yet) was during her interview with Lockwood and Co. Early that morning, she’d been at a cafe that boasted £1 sandwiches for agents when she saw a cork board full of notices. Some were looking for agents to do ghost proofing of houses and property, some advertising rapier sharpening and cleaning as well as other such services, and one that stood out from the rest. A notice for an independent agency in need of a Listener. It had been days of rejection and questionable places to sleep and this felt like either the universe telling her she was in the right place or that this was her last chance. When she went up to the counter to order her sandwich, she asked for two other things as well. To borrow their phone and directions to 35 Portland Row.
That interview had been two months ago now. Slowly, but surely Portland Row was feeling more and more like home. She had gotten to know Anthony Lockwood, the owner of Lockwood and Co, and George Karim decently well in that time. They were her colleagues, her roommates, and slowly they were becoming her friends as well.
They had all fallen into somewhat of a comfortable routine of breakfast late in the morning, then George would usually run off to the Archives to research their next case or the Problem itself. She and Lockwood would often find themselves either in the rapier room sparring with each other or in the library, him reading some gossip magazine or detective novel and her jotting down her thoughts or sketching a certain colleague of hers while he read. After that, most nights they would go out on a case, but every once in a while they had a night off.
Tonight was one of those such nights. Well almost. It was the night she had set aside this week to pop by Irene’s, but that was less work and more chatting peacefully with the older lady.
Lucy didn’t know why she found herself reflecting on the last few months rather than sleeping. It was peacefully quiet all through the house. Some nights she could hear George scratching down notes at his desk or Lockwood practicing his rapier work on Floating Joe and Esmeralda which would keep her up, but not tonight.
She thought about the guitar that was hidden under her bed. When she’d gotten her first paycheck, Lockwood had apologized for it not being very much, but Lucy was at a loss for words. She’d simply given him a small smile and a polite nod. She hoped he took it as a graceful acceptance of his apology and not for what it really was, which was complete shock. All the paychecks from Jacobs had gone to her family and now that she had money of her own, she had no clue what to do with it. Her living and equipment expenses had already been taken out since Lockwood was not only her boss, but her landlord as well and she’d been left with a sum that was sizable enough to her. Lockwood asked what she would spend it on and all she could do was shrug her shoulders. On her next day off, she wandered around central London looking for something to treat herself with. Somehow, Lucy found herself in a small antique shop sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a boutique. Antique shops were far less common than they’d been before the Problem since adults couldn’t tell what old relic was a Source and what wasn’t. So far she didn’t sense anything off, but you could never be too sure until you could take a look after dark. The guitar had been tucked in the corner of the shop on a stand. Lucy grazed her fingers across the strings only to cringe back when they were all horribly out of tune. It was a beautiful guitar though. An acoustic made of either walnut or mahogany, she couldn’t tell which. It reminded her of the one her father had left behind after he died. Her mother had almost burned it, convinced that if he were to come back, it’d be his Source but Lucy’s sister, Mary, had saved it. It lived in a dark corner of their basement, surrounded by an iron chain. Lucy had taught herself how to play it, but only in the daytime and only when her mother was at work, lest she remember that it existed and set it on fire just to be safe. Whether or not she was playing it correctly, she had no clue, but it was therapeutic in a way. Suddenly, an elderly woman tapped her on the shoulder, startling Lucy out of her nostalgia.
“It's a beautiful instrument, isn’t it?”
Normally in this situation, Lucy would politely nod and duck out of the shop, but this time she found herself staying and chatting with the woman, who was presumably the proprietor.
“Indeed, it is. How much are you charging for it?”
“Well that depends. You’re an agent, aren’t you?”
Lucy eyed her rapier. She never left the house without it, but it was a dead giveaway that you were an agent as they were the only ones permitted to carry them. Reactions to agents were, more often than not, a mixed bag. Small children often gawked with eyes wide as saucers, treating them like heroes. Whereas older folks, especially those that could remember a time before the Problem, were more skeptical and dismissive. That was what she expected from the proprietor of the shop.
Lucy was cautious, but polite. “Yes, I am. Is there something I can help you with?”
“As it happens, there is indeed! As an antique shop, I’m sure you can only imagine customers coming in and window shopping but refusing to buy anything before it’s been certified safe by a professional. I’d be prepared to strike a deal with you. If you come in every few days or so and take a peek at things before they go out on the sales floor and have you sign a letter as proof of safety, I’ll give you that guitar for free.”
That seemed like a somewhat fair trade to Lucy, but every few days was a lot considering Lockwood and Co’s current caseload.
“I can come twice a month and take a look for you, but I won’t sign anything. Sources can manifest at any time and I will not be sued for lack of due diligence.”
The older woman narrowed her eyes. She may look unassuming enough, but there was a shrewd businesswoman under that sweet old lady exterior. Lucy had to respect it.
“Once a week then and if any ghosts do crop up, you take care of them at a discounted rate.”
That was doable enough. Lucy nodded and extended her hand for a handshake. The woman took it with a smile.
“You’re quite the negotiator young lady. When your Talent fades, if you don’t end up at DEPRAC or whatever it is agents past their prime do, come find me. That’s a good quality to have in the antique business. Now follow me, I’ve got the case for the guitar in the office.”
Lucy followed her back as they idly chatted. The proprietor introduced herself as Irene. Her family had run this shop since before the Problem and she’d be damned if it went out of business because of some ‘silly ghosts’. Lucy left the shop with the guitar and promised to come back each week in the evening and check all the incoming wares, with the first of which being that evening.
Lucy had kept her promise to Irene and in the weeks since that first meeting, Irene had become something of a maternal figure for her. Irene lived in an apartment above the shop and was happy to keep Lucy company while she sifted through the stock. Though, Lucy always insisted that Irene stay within an iron circle, just to be safe. No Sources had cropped up yet, but there were a fair few pieces that had some psychic echoes. Irene was always curious what Lucy heard and Lucy was happy to tell her in most cases. After she got through everything, Irene always plied her with tea, biscuits, and conversation before calling her a Night Cab back to Portland Row. Lucy always insisted that she was fine to walk, it was only a few blocks, but Irene never entertained the thought.
Why she kept the guitar hidden under her bed, Lucy wasn’t sure. It truly was beautiful, but she was nervous Lockwood or George would see it. She didn’t think that they’d judge her, everyone needed an outlet after all, Lockwood had his magazines and detective novels, George had his experiments and research. It just felt like the music and lyrics she crafted were the innermost parts of her soul and she didn’t know either of them well enough to volunteer that to them. Half the time, Lockwood still called her ‘Miss Carlyle’ for christ’s sake, no matter how many times she’d told him to call her by her first name.
Lucy checked the alarm clock on her bedside table. It was four o’clock in the morning. She’d been tossing and turning and reflecting for several hours now and there was no way she was going to fall asleep. It was usually times like this when she reached for her guitar, but coincidentally, that was always when George and Lockwood weren’t home. She couldn’t risk waking them up, which she may do if she played it in her room. They were only a floor beneath her after all. It was that thought that had her sneaking down to the basement with her guitar in hand. On the way down the stairs, she peeked at Lockwood and George’s doors. There was no light coming from the space between the doors and the floor and no sound coming from either room which confirmed her suspicion that they were both fast asleep. She decided to settle in the rapier room. It had better acoustics and there was a comforting air about it. So, there she sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, fingerpicking out a melody. She added some more complex bits for fun and then once she liked how that was sounding, she added the lyrics. They’d come to her sporadically over the last two months and they encompassed all that she’d been feeling. Her inability to speak about her past, how everything had changed so quickly in her life, even her desire to feel like real people do. She imagined what her life might be like if the Problem had never existed and she poured everything into her song with Floating Joe and Esmeralda as her only audience. Or so she thought.