by R. L. Weeks
I hurry down the stairs, past the drawing room and out the front door. My hair whips behind me. Tom walks next to me. “Where are we going?” he asks, pretending to be out of breath as I quicken my pace.
“I’m going to the orphanage to see what I can find. I know someone there. I need you to go back to the place where you were killed and look for more clues.”
“I already did,” he says with a groan. “Come on, let me come with you.”
“You may have missed something,” I point out.
“I told you,” he says, exasperated, “the men and the girls are not there anymore.”
My lips twist in disgust. “There is something bigger going on here than we thought, Tom. The children disappearing are not random, not when all three have come from Littlemore Orphanage.” I pause and study his expression. “You can’t move on,” I say and look up, “until we figure this out. This is what I have been waiting for. Everything is happening for a reason. That little girl who died—the one you were talking about—she came to me as a ghost, and I placed her body by the gates of the cemetery, but no one found her. Someone came back and took her. I then see a ghost of a relation of mine that I have never heard of before telling me to be careful?”
I don’t admit the truth to him. I hate that I think it, but his death has kicked it into action. It has given me a purpose.
“Where did all this happen?” Tom asks.
I search my mind. “In the cemetery. Thankfully, each time, the owner of the orphanage, Emmett, was with me and helped me…”
Tom raises his eyebrows at me.
My eyes widen.
Of course he was there!
Ten
I storm into the orphanage and breathe in the dusty air and putrid stink.
“Hello, Miss.” A little boy with conker-brown eyes looks up at me.
“Hello.” I look around the dank passage. “Is Emmett White here?”
“Up here, Miss,” the boy says and leads me up the staircase that Emmett half-carried me down the night I banged my head. I touch the bannister, which weirdly feels damp, and smell the mildew as we reach the top. “He’s in there.” The boy points at a black door.
“Thank you,” I say and plaster on a smile.
The boy runs off, and I look at Tom. “If it is Emmett who killed you…” I hold my breath to calm my racing heart.
“I know.” Tom reaches out to touch me, but his hand passes through mine. “You don’t have to go in, Raven. It could be dangerous. If it is him doing this, then he may hurt you.”
“I don’t care. I have had enough of being cautious. It’s all I have done my whole life.”
“Please just be careful. I didn’t like you much before,” he says with a smirk, “but it would be a shame if my witch dies without sending me up first. I might even be stuck on the other side with you.”
I shake my head and laugh. “Well, that would be the worst thing that could happen.” I rub the raven on my ring for comfort. “I’m glad you came instead of going to look for clues. If he is the killer, then at least I am not alone.”
Tom laughs. “It’s not like I will be much use if he does try anything though.” He pauses. “What am I going to do? Blast some cold air at him?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s just nice not to be alone, I mean.”
I knock on the door. My heart pounds loudly as it creaks open.
Emmett’s stony gaze meets mine. “Miss Pride. How unexpected.”
I feel a shiver slither down my back. I glance sideways at Tom, who shakes his head and mouths “Not him.”
I sigh with relief.
“I need your help.”
He opens the door fully. “Come in.”
I look around the room. It’s warmer here than the rest of the orphanage. I sit on the bed that he placed me on the day he found me in the cemetery. “I want to know why children are going missing from your orphanage,” I say, not wasting any time.
Emmett sits across from me and takes out his pipe. “I just run the orphanage, Miss Pride. Orphans go missing all the time.”
“Not like this.”
“How did you find out about them?” He looks at me through a puff of smoke. “What do you know?”
Tom leans in. “Don’t let him intimidate you.”
“I know, Tom,” I say with impatience.
Emmett wrinkles his forehead. “Who’s Tom?”
I bite my lip.
“No one.” I pause. “Look, it doesn’t matter how I know about them, just that I know.” I sit up straight.
“Well,” he says, putting down his pipe, “if we are going to have this conversation, I am going to need a drink.”
He gets up and pours himself one. I look at the fireplace. The spitting and crackling from the wood fill the silence. “Want one?”
I shake my head.
He sits back down and takes a sip of his drink. “Five girls have gone missing under my watch.” He looks at the door and holds his breath. “It looks bad for me. Real bad. I have only reported one.”
I lean forward. “That’s awfully suspicious.”
Tom agrees, nodding along with me.
Emmett sits forward, matching my stance. “I am being honest with you, Raven.”
Oh, it’s “Raven” now, not “Miss Pride.” How convenient.
“Don’t try to sweet-talk me. Something suspicious is going on.”
He laughs. “Of course it is, but I have nothing to do with it. If I did, why would I tell you all this?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I…” I look at Tom, who shrugs. “I don’t know. Perhaps to make me like you again?”
Emmett raises an eyebrow. “Again?”
Tom also raises an eyebrow.
“That’s not what I meant.” I fumble for words. “I just mean you are trying to get me off your trail.”
I feel the heat rush through me.
Not again.
Emmett sits back. “Not true.”
He looks at me with a calmness that I could never exude. My body likes to show my emotions before I even know I’m feeling them.
He stares at me intrusively, and I feel myself redden. “Please stop that.”
The corner of his lip twitches up. “Stop what?”
I gulp. “You know what.” I look at the window. “Please open it. It’s too hot in here.”
Emmett doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he’s hiding a smirk. He gets up and opens the window.
“I don’t think it will help, you know.”
I bite my lip. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he says with amusement, “that it’s not hot in here.”
I shake my head. “We’re getting off topic.”
He puts his hands up. “You’re the one who did that. Not me.”
I hold my breath again. Please be steady, my racing heart. “So tell me what else you know.”
“That,” Emmett says, finishing his drink, “is not how this works, Raven. I tell you something, then you tell me something.”
I glance at Tom, who shrugs and says, “You may as well if we’re going to find any more information.”
“Hate when you’re right,” I say under my breath. Tom winks at me, and I look back at Emmett. “Okay,” I say, taking a breath, “I can see ghosts.”
I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t react. Instead, he stares at me blankly. Perhaps he doesn’t understand? “I have been able to since I was a child,” I continue. “Tabitha came to me that day you found me, and I found her body behind an old crypt.
I placed her body by the gates because I was scared I would get caught there alone. She disappeared after she told me that a bad man took her from her bed.”
He looks unfazed. “Well, when I went back to the cemetery,” I say, “when I was with you, I fainted because I delved into the memory of a woman named Alice Pride. Her ghost had come to me the day before in the cemetery too. She keeps trying to warn me not to let them get me like they got her, but I do not kno
w who they are.”
“Then what happened?” he asks.
I look up and to the left as I try to recall everything. “I saw another memory of Alice. She was sitting in the cemetery with a man called Benjamin Shaw. He left her,” I say and then pause, “and she was pregnant I think. Well, it seemed that way. But she loved him. It was when she was still alive, obviously. Grandmother never mentioned her to me before.”
Emmett stands up and walks over to the fire. “I know who that is.”
“Benjamin Shaw?” I ask.
“Yes. I think you may have just found the key to figuring this all out.”
I stand up too. “You don’t seem shocked by me being able to see ghosts or memories.”
He turns. “Miss Pride, I had already guessed. I have heard all about Alice Pride. I am not surprised, because like you, she was a seer.”
I gulp. “Is that why she died? Because she was found out?”
“Not quite,” he says. “It is quite the grim story, but I need you to believe me on something before I tell you any more. I need you to believe that I did not kill any orphans.”
Do I?
I look at Tom, who eyes Emmett suspiciously.
“I believe you,” I say.
“Good.” Emmett takes my hand and gazes into my eyes. “Because we are going to need to trust each other if we are going to resolve this.”
Eleven
I walk back to the house with Tom. “I don’t believe that Emmett is entirely innocent in this.”
“Me either,” Tom says. A wrinkle has set in-between his eyebrows. “He’s lying about something. I don’t think he killed them, but I’m not convinced that he didn’t sell them or something.”
I arch an eyebrow at him.
“It happens, ya know,” he says.
“At least we know he didn’t kill you.”
We reach the house, and I open the gate. “We need to be quiet. I don’t want to disturb my uncle.”
Tom makes a face. “I’ve been watching your uncle. Well, I did while you slept last night.”
“And?” I ask.
“He’s involved in something dark, Raven.”
“Emmett said he’s involved in sex trafficking.”
Tom scoffs. “And the rest. You need to be careful. Would he hurt you?”
I shrug. “I hope not.” I stop before we reach the door. “I am worried about Nora though. He says he fired her, but she wouldn’t have just left without saying goodbye. She’s been with us since forever.”
He bites the inside of his lip. “Can we try and reach out to her family?”
“They’re in London.”
“Then,” he says, “we will have to go London.”
I scoff. “How on earth can we afford to go to London? Uncle will not spare me a penny.”
Tom’s eyes light up. “Then we must steal some.”
Is he joking?
“Stealing is wrong.”
Tom shrugs. “Not when it’s your own. It is, after all, your fortune. He doesn’t deserve it.”
I look at the door and grind my teeth. “He doesn’t.”
I push the door open. The dusty air fills my lungs. He has dismissed half our staff, and the house is dustier than it has ever been. The chandelier tinkles as I walk through the passage and make my way over to the stairs.
My uncle steps out of the living room and stops in front of me. “Stop right there.”
I freeze. Tom’s ghost hovers next to me. “Yes, Uncle?” I say with as much innocence as I can muster.
His beady gaze trails up and down my dress. “Why have you stopped wearing corsets?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Because I had to. You dismissed all my maids.”
He glances back to the living area. I can hear voices and clinking glasses behind the door. I try to peek through the crack in the opening, but my uncle steps in front of it. “I want you looking your best,” he says simply.
I feel compelled to mention that how I look is none of his damn business, but I keep quiet after seeing Tom’s glare. “Then I need maids,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “Can you not put it on yourself?”
He seems more invested in my wellbeing today, which is weird, but I seize the opportunity. “No. They have to pull at the corset from the back and loop and tie it.”
He strokes the stubble on his double chin. “Fine. You can have a maid. I will get you one tomorrow.”
I bite my lip. “Can I have Nora back?”
He grinds his teeth, and I panic. “Excuse me?” he asks incredulously. “Be grateful you’re getting anyone. You will have a different maid.”
“Okay, Uncle.”
“Go have a bath,” he says, wrinkling his nose, “and make sure you scrub properly.”
I raise both eyebrows. Has he forgotten his “you can only bathe in front of me” condition? I don’t wait for him to remember. “Right away, Uncle.”
His thick lips curve into a creepy grin. “Good. I want you down here to join me and my business associates tomorrow.”
I part my lips to speak but am interrupted by a thin man in his thirties sporting a black goatee. “Jack,” he says, addressing my uncle. The man almost spills his glass of wine. “What is taking you so long?”
My uncle taps him on the back. “This is my niece, Raven,” he says.
“Ah, yes.” The man looks me up and down. “She’ll do nicely.”
My eyes widen. “It’s okay, Raven,” Tom says. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
I want to point out that, however sweet the thought, he literally cannot do anything to protect me. However, the man with goatee keeps looking at me like I’m a piece of meat he plans to devour.
“I should go bathe,” I say.
The man laughs. “Can I watch?”
My uncle laughs back. “Plenty of time for that, Aiden.”
I feel sick. I look at my uncle for some clue of what I should do. Can I dismiss myself?
He shoos me with a wave of his hand. “Go, woman.”
I don’t wait for him to tell me twice. I half run up the stairs and turn left toward my bedroom. I stop in the passageway outside my room and listen to the sound of tinkering glasses and chatter downstairs.
Please, God, don’t let him marry me to that man.
Tom hovers his hand over my shoulder in an act of sympathy. “Sorry, Raven.”
I reach out and punch the pinstriped-papered wall in front of me. “Ouch,” I yell as pain sears up my hand and wrist.
“Well, you sure showed him.”
I scowl at Tom. “Not funny! I’m seriously upset here.”
His expression softens. “I know.”
I rub my knuckles and blink back tears. “I’ll feel better after a bath.”
I write in my journal whilst Tom stares out my window. My hair is still damp from my bath. I close my journal when I hear the door shut downstairs. I hear the men say their goodbyes, laugh at each other’s tasteless jokes, and finally leave.
“Tom,” I whisper.
He turns around. “Yes?”
I smile. “I’m going to miss you when you’re gone—your company, I mean.”
He smiles. “Oh, come on. I bet ya can’t wait to be rid of me.”
“Don’t joke.” I pout. “I mean it. It’s been nice talking you. I’ve never really had anyone to talk to.”
He sits at the end of my bed, not disturbing my sheets. “I’m sorry you’ve lived such a lonely life. I judged you too quickly when I met you.”
“It’s okay,” I say with a smile. “I was stuffy and up my own arse.”
He gawps. “Raven Pride,” he says with a mischievous glint. “Who knew you were so crude?”
I laugh. “I learned from the best,” I say with a wink.
“Oh, dear.”
Our laughter fizzles out.
I fiddle with my ring, building up the courage to say it. “I like you.” I pause and let him take it in. “I know things are crazy right now, and that is why I must say it
. I need to hold on to any shred of happiness I have.”
I look at Tom for what he is: the only light I can see in the darkness that threatens to consume me.
“You’re all I have,” I admit.
It’s true. Without him and the thought of helping the children at the orphanage, I don’t know if I’d still be here. I’d never tell anyone else that though.
I eye Tom. “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I’m flattered, but…”
“You’re a ghost,” I say, “I know. I just wish you weren’t.”
He nods slowly. “I know, but Raven, I’m the first real man you’ve spent any time with in your life. It’s natural that you’d feel this way toward me, but I’m not the one for you. We are very different, you and me, and I’m dead. I could never hold you, kiss you…”
I blush at the thought. “I know. Sorry for mentioning it.”
He moves in closer. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. I mean, look at you.” His eyes light up. “Any man would be crazy not to.”
That makes me smile. “If you’re ever alive again,” I say with a laugh.
He doesn’t say anything. “Sorry this has happened to you.”
I could laugh.
“You’re the one who’s dead,” I remind him.
He grins. “Hey, you’re right.”
I smile and pull the covers over me. I look at Tom one last time before I blow out the candle. Moonlight spills through the window onto the bed. “Can you lie next to me? I’m scared,” I admit, thinking about my uncle and that man. “Having you here helps.”
He lies next to me, which makes my bed feel colder, but I smile as he pretends to snore. “Goodnight, Tom.”
His cheeks bunch up. “Goodnight, Raven.”
Twelve
“Morning, beautiful,” Tom says with a mischievous grin. “Someone’s here to see you.”
I panic as the man from last night pops into my mind. I sit up and look around the room in my half-asleep state.
“Don’t worry,” Tom says. “It’s not your uncle or his friend.”
I wrinkle my forehead. “Who then?”
“Emmett White,” he replies.
I jump out of bed. “He can’t be here!”