The Cherry Hung With Snow

by Hermaline75

Summary:

Fresh out of her journalism major, Edith is shocked when she gets the job of a lifetime, following British brother/sister band Crimson Peak on their epic tour to break America, even if it means temporarily leaving her life behind.

But eccentricity is one thing. The Sharpes may be quite another.

Notes:

Road trip anyone?

(In case you're interested, 'A Little More Than Kin and Less Than Kind' is not dead, it's just sleeping and probably has a couple more chapters to go, one of which is currently under construction. It's just taking a while to knock into place, trying not to tread over old ground too much. It's being very unhelpful.)

Chapter 1: Meeting in Buffalo

"So dedicate it to me
When there's no more words to say
When your lips are cracked and dry
I know you'll cry out for me..."

"Who're these vampires then?"

Edith almost jumped out of her skin, headphones rudely lifted from her head and laptop dangerously jostled.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack," she complained.

Alan mumbled something about being her best bet to survive if that happened, rattling in the fridge for yesterday's leftovers.

"You didn't answer," he said. "Who are you looking at so intently? Trying internet dating again?"

She sighed, stretching for the first time in hours, toes curling on the inside of her knit socks and scalp feeling so much better for a bit of rubbing. How had it got so late? She should have been in bed hours before Alan got in from his hospital shift.

"It's research," she said. "Job interview. Of sorts."

"Of sorts?"

She sighed. It was difficult to explain without sounding ridiculous. Probably because it was.

"They're a rock band looking for a tour writer. Lucille and Thomas Sharpe, AKA Crimson Peak."

Alan snorted as he set the microwave whirring, coming to look over her shoulder as she scrolled through their Instagram page.

"Crimson Peak, huh? Sounds like period sex."

"Why are you always so gross?"

"I'm a doctor. We have our embarrassment glands surgically removed, you know that. So, what's their deal? White Stripes-style married couple band?"

Edith scrolled through a few more pictures before responding. Thomas Sharpe tuning up his guitar in moody black and white and photographed walking away into a nebulous misty morning, the dawn sparkling a thousand times in the water collecting in his hair. Lucille at the piano making notes on hand-drawn music manuscript and in an antique bathtub, her breasts floating in the clear water but concealed by the reflected light, her eyes huge and dark and arresting.

"No, they're more like The Carpenters in that sense," she said, trying to stay in the conversation. "Brother and sister. Not musically. They'd probably be offended by the comparison either way, though."

"Are you sure? I mean, I've never looked at Eunice the way he's looking at her there."

"Yeah, well, Eunice isn't your professional and creative partner. It's different, probably."

The microwave dinged as Edith clicked back over to her document of facts, trying to remember them as much as possible.

"How big a tour is it?" Alan called. "State-wide?"

"No, bigger. Way bigger. They're well-known in Europe, if a little cult. Now they want to crack America and they mean crack it. A gig in every state except Hawaii and Alaska."

The warm smell of macaroni rolled over her, good old-fashioned comfort food, as Alan flopped into the threadbare couch opposite. It was unfair, really. He had to be burning stupid levels of calories running around the hospital to get away with what he ate.

"That would be months," he said, frowning. "What about the rent?"

"It is a paid gig, you know. In the unlikely event I got it, the money would go into my account and be there for the rent as usual. But I won't get it. I'm too inexperienced, especially on the music journalism front. I don't even know why I'm invited to meet them. It's like they've deliberately gone looking for nobodies."

"Huh... Well, maybe that's what they want. Someone fresh. Someone to discover. You interested?"

"In a paying job? Sure. And in them, I guess. They're very mysterious. They contradict themselves all the time. I mean, I found an article from England in 2013 where they say they're orphans, but then 2015 in Italy, they talk like their parents are still alive. And the TV interviews... They're just weird."

She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but the Sharpes always seemed to be having fun at the interviewer's expense. They seemed to be highly intelligent, but would deliberately misunderstand questions, smiling at each other before giving obtuse answers, being as evasive as they could possibly be.

The sensible side of her wanted to steer clear of such evidently manipulative people.

The journalist in her wanted nothing more than to try to to get under their skin, to try to uncover the real them.

And she loved their sound. Or maybe 'loved' was a strong word, but it was certainly interesting. They were self-taught multi-instrumentalists - or so they claimed, anyway - and their music erred towards a dark moodiness, a restrained anger, their voices blending constantly and swapping lines and harmonies so often that you sometimes lost track of which of them was singing what.

"But I'll never get it," Edith said. "Never in a million years."

That was still the attitude rolling through her head when she arrived at the small office they'd rented downtown for the interview, joining a whole line of other nervous faces.

Much like her, they'd obviously agonised about what to wear. The men were a mish-mash of faded classic rock band t-shirts, dark suits and one or two aping Thomas's stage style of crisp white shirts and eye-liner, hair artfully touselled. The women were much the same, one looking thoroughly self-conscious and rather chilly in a black satin corset and little else, most looking anxious.

Edith was already wondering if she'd chosen the wrong look. It was one of the smartest outfits she owned, a neat pencil-skirt and matching blazer in peach. It brought out what little colour there was in her cheeks. But maybe with her hair tied up so tightly, so proper, so elementary school teacher, they'd reject her out of hand. She hardly looked like a rock journalist after all. Opera maybe. Certainly not laid back enough for life on the road.

The line seemed interminable, and yet all too soon she was passing through the doors of a small meeting room and finally seeing the Sharpes for the first time in the flesh.

They were beautiful. That was her first thought. Smooth skin and bright eyes, effortlessly casual, dark hair swept back from their faces. They weren't twins, she knew, and yet they might have been. They were that similar.

"Smile, please."

She didn't have a chance to react before a flash almost blinded her, an old-style Poloroid camera whirring. Lucille plucked the square little picture from it and shook it lazily, taking the lid from a marker pen with her teeth.

"Name?" Thomas asked.

"I, er... Cushing. Edith Cushing."

He chuckled.

"Sharpe. Thomas Sharpe. And this is my sister, Lucille. But you knew that, I expect."

Edith watched as her name was neatly inked onto the white edge of the photograph and saw it placed on the table among many others. She looked pale, washed out from the flash. There was a tall pile of discarded pictures, people already rejected.

"Where did you get a Poloroid?" she heard her own voice ask. "I didn't think they made those anymore."

"The internet is an incredible thing, Miss Cushing," Lucille said. "Don't you agree? I'm sure you've relied on it heavily for your research on us."

This was so strange. Edith felt like she was off the map, unsure where to tread and where to avoid. Honesty seemed best though.

"I certainly had a long look at your Instagram and Twitter," she said. "You clearly have a love of photography."

The Sharpes shared a long look before turning back to her, like cats playing with a doomed mouse.

"We've used it to our advantage," Thomas said. "A few million followers is very nice. But we've decided we want to do something a little different on this tour."

"Do you know shorthand?" Lucille asked.

Edith found herself blinking stupidly, taking a moment to replay the question in her head. They were testing her, seeing how she'd react to being off-balance.

"Yes. I learned it in junior high. Well, not in junior high, but when I was at junior high. I wanted... I always wanted to be a writer."

"Not a journalist?"

"Not specifically."

There was something about the two of them. Some magnetism, something making her want to talk to them despite her instinctive wariness..

"The trouble with social media is that it's made everything too easy," Thomas said. "At any second of the day, our fans have access to us. Or a filtered version of us at least. Most can't remember a time of having to wait for news of their favourite band. We want to recapture that bygone era. The excitement, the mystery."

Lucille unfolded a map, 48 cities marked with circular stickers.

"A tour with no internet," she said. "No mobile... Sorry, no cellphones. No digital cameras, no vlogging. A travelling journalist who will write dispatches for magazines on both sides of the Atlantic by typewriter and post them through the mail along with Poloroids from the shows and behind the scenes. The whole thing will be collected and added to any unpublished work and photos for a coffee table book. Writer's by-line, of course."

Edith's head whirled. This was ridiculous. An old-fashioned tour, meeting deadlines by post, typed articles, no handy delete key, no copy/paste? But a published book at the end of it. An exciting experiment. Practically art.

"Would you be paying in cash as well?" she asked. "The old-fashioned way?"

"Oh, no," Thomas said. "Accommodation, meals and transport included, plus wages paid automatically. We know you journalists have rent to pay. And, of course, a percentage of the profits of the book goes without saying."

"Do you live alone?" Lucille asked.

"No. No, I live with an old friend. He's a doctor. Or... No, he is. He's a resident."

She didn't know why she was telling them that. It was hardly relevant.

"Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Both?"

"Erm..." she felt herself blushing, finally drawing a line in the sand as far as her life story went. "No, neither at the moment. No one to miss me."

Another long look. Thomas picked up her picture, raising his eyebrows as he placed it to the side. Lucille shrugged one shoulder, but nodded, reaching for her purse.

"Come to our show tonight," she said, handing Edith a ticket. "Write a stop-press report on it, by hand, and give it to one of the security guys. We have your number. We'll be in touch."

Edith sat still for a moment, stunned. Then she stumbled to her feet, mumbling thanks and showing herself out.

A hand-written report, written on the night of the show? She'd never heard of such a thing. Then again, everything about the last twenty minutes had felt like a particularly odd dream.

It didn't stop feeling like that when she walked into the venue, showing her ticket only to be frogmarched over to a little holding pen. Judging by the other people in there, this was the journalists' section. A dark-haired, thin man with constantly moving eyes, a red-haired woman so statuesque she might have been carved from marble. Edith suddenly felt very out of her depth, very underprepared. And very short.

It was a small-ish venue, not an arena by any means, more like an old bar that had had all its walls knocked through to make a sort of concert hall.

There was a gentle hubbub. Not particularly excited murmuring, just quiet conversation, someone laughing at the bar. People who had come out to hear a band, but weren't too fussed about what kind.

Edith had watched videos of Crimson Peak in action. Shaky camera work, mainly from phones. People singing along in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, almost drowning out the Sharpes with their devotion. She'd thought the shows looked strange. Intimate even in huge stadiums, theatrical even in dive bars.

It was so different in person.

The lights were dim when they started singing. No words, just notes that sounded almost improvised. Lucille set out a phrase, Thomas elaborated on it, she harmonised, and then it began to repeat and the lights came up to reveal them both in front of ancient-looking electronic keyboards, setting their voices into loops, adding synthesized organ tones and the wail of a theramin, summoning an ethereal choir of their own voices out of nothing, layering and layering and layering and...

Silence.

The whole room seemed to hold its breath for a few moments, spellbound. The first clap sounded confused, but then the applause began in earnest, a room of people who hadn't quite expected something like that.

And they were stunning. Beautiful, yes, but more importantly imposing. They didn't have stage presence, they were the stage. They had eyes only for each other and yet whenever one of them glanced outward, a shiver seemed to run through the room. When they spoke to the crowd in low, warm voices, like lovers murmuring in the night, it felt as though they were speaking to each and every individual.

It was like they had studied how to activate primal responses. How to enchant, how to mesmirise.

After three songs, Edith realised she hadn't written a single word. All around her, pens were scratching and she hadn't even opened her note book.

But what could she write? What was there to say that wasn't being written all around her a thousand times more eloquently?

This was pointless. Might as well enjoy the show.

They sang numbers she'd learned during her research and pieces she'd never heard before. They played snippets of Beethoven and Mozart and... and the Beach Boys, she was sure that was the Beach Boys.

When it becames obvious that they were winding up, Edith finally put pen to paper and figured she might as well be honest too.

Until two days ago, I had never heard of Crimson Peak. After seeing them in action, I'm still not quite sure what to make of them. But I know they're interesting. Very much so...

She tried to hand in her writing, all half page of it in sloppy shorthand - just to prove she could - but the security guard refused to take it.

"You need to sign first," he yelled over the sound of the crowd leaving.

"Sign what?"

"Contract. Says they can publish whatever you wrote in their book or something."

Well, fine. They wouldn't want it, other than as a piece of trivia. One of many rejects. She added her name to the list and went to join the taxi line, shivering in the cold. She ought to walk, she knew. Save a little cash. But it was freezing out in the spring night and she was tired and her ears were still ringing.

And Alan would tell her off for that. He'd given her those earplugs for a reason.

"Good night?" the driver asked as she got in.

"Um... Sure."

It was easier to lie. Explaining that she genuinely didn't know how she felt would be too complex.

She got home and almost fell into bed, barely managing to change first. She felt like she'd been dancing all night for all she'd barely moved.

A nice day in pyjamas was called for.

She never got the chance for it.

Chapter 2: An Offer That's Hard to Refuse

The apartment phone rang at seven in the morning. Edith ignored it. They only had that phone as part of their internet package. Only telemarketers ever called it.

It rang over and over again while her head was under her pillow, and then Alan was in her doorway in his boxer shorts, yawning and telling her there was a man on the phone for her.

She grunted and hauled herself to her feet. What was so important? What couldn't wait?

"Hello?"

"Miss Cushing, good morning. We liked what you wrote very much."

Thomas Sharpe. His voice, the clipped vowels, the sudden realisation was like an ice cube down her spine, shocking her awake. She wasn't ready for the rejection call, not this early, not wearing a faded old t-shirt and leaning on the wall of their hallway, wires tangled on the floor.

"It was very honest," Lucille's voice and Edith winced as she realised they'd put her on speaker.

A strange image of the pair of them laughing as they called each hopeful sprang into her mind, taking pleasure in crushing false hopes. Maybe the successful candidate was there too, already part of their strange games.

"Refreshingly free of clichés too."

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"We'd like to invite you to be our tour writer."

She blinked. She couldn't have heard that correctly. Or it was some kind of joke.

"What?"

"You're exactly what we're looking for," Thomas said. "We want someone fresh, someone new. Not a hard-forged cynic or a devoted fan. How better to reach a new audience than through the eyes of a newcomer?"

"Edith, you are perfect," Lucille now. "No commitments, no partner, no children... No reason you can't take a few months to travel the country and help us create something unique. Fresh from college, a new voice. Unless... Unless you have family to take care of."

It was almost like she knew somehow. Like in that short meeting, she'd picked up on it, spotted some sign that told her that wasn't a problem.

"I... No. No, I don't."

"So you accept," Thomas said. A statement, not a question.

"Well, I... I'll have to think about it. I mean, no phone, so I'll have to make a note of my emergency numbers. I'll need to get a huge paper supply, and... And set up automatic payment for my rent and talk to my room-mate. And what about laundry?"

Laughter. They really were laughing at her.

"You see?" Thomas said. "Practicality. Thoughtfulness. Pragmatism. That is what we want. And honesty, of course. Come and meet with us again. We can talk the whole thing over."

She agreed, writing the time and place on her arm before practically sliding down the wall to lay the phone back in its cradle, head in her hands.

Get on a bus with no phone and travel around 48 states with some eccentric strangers? It was stupid, reckless... A once in a lifetime opportunity though.

Should she do this? Could she? Or should she tell them no and spend the rest of her life wondering what if? What if she'd gone, what if she'd written that book?

What was there for her here? Sending off freelance piece after freelance piece while her savings dwindled ever further, looking for a job just to make ends meet? Knowing she hadn't taken a chance literally handed to her.

There was Alan, she supposed. Could she leave him all alone for all that time? Well, not alone. His family dropped round often enough. He'd probably be fine. He'd probably love having full control of the bathroom.

But she should probably talk to him about it first. With coffee as a placating gift.

He groaned when she opened the door, mumbling about night shift, but sitting up frowning as she explained it all from a careful perch on the edge of his bed.

"So... So you're considering it?" he asked.

She shrugged, tracing circles on the duvet with the tip of one finger.

"Maybe. There's no harm in meeting them, right? And I can decide then."

He fixed her with one of his more serious looks, a doctor look, and she groaned internally before he could even start speaking.

"Are you sure you're well enough to do something like this?" he asked. "It will be stressful. You have to put yourself first, no matter what."

She sighed and tried not to be angry with him. He was trying to look out for her, trying to look after her.

"Alan, I got through my finals and... And everything else just fine. I'm not worried about that. Besides, sitting around here is hardly helping. Maybe it's exactly what I need... Something completely different."

He was still giving her that look, but he shrugged and finally agreed that just meeting the Sharpes couldn't hurt, but that she mustn't be afraid to say no to them.

"And dress normal! They can't expect you to be in a suit all the time."

He probably had a point. They had been casual yesterday, why shouldn't she be too? If she went on this trip, they'd probably see her in all kinds of getups. Unless there was some clause that said she had to wear Crimson Peak merchandise at all times or something.

The meeting place was their hotel, a small family-run business in the centre of town. Not exactly where you'd expect an internationally renowned band to be staying, but so little about them was what she expected that Edith couldn't even be surprised. The teenage girl on reception looked at her curiously and pointed her along to the stairs, up to the second floor.

Well, if they were murderers, they certainly had their location right. Every step creaked, every door squeaked and even the locks looked as though they'd make hideous noises if anything even remotely key-like was brought near them.

She knocked at room 23, trying to ignore the way her heart was hammering.

"Come in."

If the corridors had been spooky, at least the rooms showed effort. Very clean, bright bedsheets, scatter cushions on the small couch they'd managed to squeeze in alongside the twin beds. Not that the Sharpes were using it. They were on the floor, surrounded by pieces of paper, a laptop whirring and glowing, paper plates covered in little sandwiches that looked like they'd come from a gas station.

"I am not sure if the Sharpe siblings are pathological liars," Lucille read out loud. "But I do know that they sometimes lie. This adds to the appeal, of course - fascination with the unknown. The fact that people believe whatever they say seems to amuse them. If they ever told the truth, it would probably be hard to tell."

She looked up over the top of it and Edith knew she'd blushed bright red. Yes, she had written that, hadn't she? She'd called them liars and implied they had borderline contempt for their fans, or at the very least deemed them mostly stupid and enjoyed making fun of them.

"Honesty," Thomas said, laughter in his eyes. "Something we are missing, apparently."

"I... I mean, when I wrote that I... Well, I didn't expect you to actually read it. I thought... I thought you'd pick someone better long before you got to my piece."

They looked at one another, smiles tugging at their lips.

"Come, sit down," Lucille said, reaching for a cushion. "Have a sandwich. We have sparkling water. Unless you'd prefer sparkling wine."

"Oh, er... No, water is fine. Thank you."

She sipped from the little glass bottle nervously, waiting for the ordeal to begin.

"So..." Thomas said. "We have a few forms for you to fill in. Bank details, insurance, publication contract. Do you have a passport? Can you travel into Canada?"

"I'm sorry?"

"We're going to Niagara Falls before the tour starts," Lucille said. "And apparently the Canadian side is more impressive."

"And though our itinerary does not hinge on taking the direct route north, it would make it easier if we could cross over the border to cut between New Hampshire and Michigan."

Edith stammered slightly.

"Yes, I have a passport."

"Excellent."

"But... But I haven't said yes yet."

They stared at her, Lucille frowning as though utterly baffled and Thomas looking concerned. The carbon dioxide from the water was bubbling uncomfortably in her stomach."

"Miss Cushing," Thomas said carefully.

"Edith. Using my full name makes me nervous."

He smiled.

"Edith... Perhaps we have approached this a little strongly. You must understand that we have been planning this project for over a year. Plotting the route, applying for working visas, sorting out the legalities of employing other people, organising the venues and hotels and motels and budget and so on. It has been quite a task. It must be a little overwhelming, having it suddenly laid out in front of you."

"A little," she agreed.

"Alright. How can we make this easier for you? The decision, I mean."

Well, wasn't that a heavy question? Really, there was no way, just like a mountain couldn't be made suddenly smaller.

"It's just a bit of a whirlwind," she said, looking at the patterned carpet. "It's so fast. I don't know..."

She got the distinct feeling that Lucille was exasperated and trying to hide it. Her nostrils were slightly flared, her dark nails tapping against her thigh. Edith swallowed hard.

"We'd be off by the end of the week, right?"

"The first gig is in New Haven, Connecticut, on Saturday. We realise that for so many performances, no magazine is going to print an article on all of them. Most of your work would be sent directly to our publisher in London, along with pictures."

"And would you... Would you read what I wrote before I sent it?"

A moment of silence and another look. If there was ever a time that Edith thought she might believe in telepathy, it was around the Sharpes.

"Giving up a little control," Thomas said.

"Full creative control given to an expert in the field," said Lucille. "Unedited truth."

"Pure observation."

They seemed excited by it. Edith had expected them to demand to see every keystroke, every speck of punctuation.

"Your writing," Lucille said. "Your words. We will forbid any editing except in cases of typing errors. And we will read the finished work at the same time as our fans, in the final book."

"And what if... What if you don't like what you read?" Edith asked.

"Have you never heard the expression 'There's no such thing as bad publicity'?"

It certainly sounded exciting. Nowhere else would offer her that kind of creative freedom. Not even novelists could bypass the editor. But maybe that was a good thing. What if her writing was awful, what if...?

They pushed a clipboard into her hands, forms to fill out, a map of the tour route. She looked at the squiggling line, like a great snake meandering around the country. She'd never travelled so extensively. Never got the chance to. Might not again.

Now or never. Bravery or fear.

Her hand shook slightly as she began putting in her details. Name, address, social security number, insurance...

Next of kin. Um. She frowned lightly before putting Alan down. He was close enough to being family to count.

The main contract promised her food, board, travel and minor expenses, plus a moderate fee. It would easily cover her rent and more besides. 40% of profits from the book - 20% going to the publisher and 40% to the Sharpes themselves.

And then she turned to the last page. The list of things banned from the tour. Cellphones, computers, internet, digital cameras...

Well, maybe it would be good to try out a simpler lifestyle. People managed without such things for centuries. A few months, a digital detox as they said.

Besides, she'd hardly miss much.

She signed and dated the form, feeling a great rush of exhilaration that was almost immediately replaced by crushing anxiety as she handed the clipboard back.

"Thank you, Edith," Lucille said. "And we have some presents for you."

The first was an enormous old typewriter, clunky but somehow beautiful in its function, along with several mile's worth of ink ribbon and corrective fluid.

The second was a diary.

"We've put in all the dates, all the stops," Thomas said. "And there's a space at the front for all your important phone numbers. After all, hotel lines and payphones are allowed."

Edith mumbled her thanks, still feeling like she must be in a dream, especially as Lucille patted the space on the floor between her and Thomas.

"Come here, then," she said. "We must introduce our followers to the woman who will be their only link to us during this tour. And wish them farewell. The only activity on any of our social media accounts will be done from London, listing the show dates. And maybe they'll scan in a Poloroid or two. Come, sit."

They took the picture with the laptop webcam, Thomas on Edith's left, looking at her with that strange dark smoulder he wore on stage. She hadn't seen it at all when he wasn't performing. Lucille smiled sardonically into the camera, red lipstick making her face seem ever paler, ever more porcelain smooth.

Between them, Edith thought she looked like a mannequin. A resuscitation prop. They were real and vibrant and she was dull, barely present. Not even smiling, really.

Crimson Peak are proud to introduce Edith Cushing, who will be reporting and authoring the book on our first American tour, #Titleless.

They said they'd come by with the bus on Friday to pick her up.

Only the typewriter sitting in its case on the kitchen table helped convince her she hadn't dreamed the whole thing.

And it was only hours later that she realised she hadn't actually said the word "yes" before they'd given her the forms to sign.

Chapter 3: Fear of Falling

Who is she? Never heard of her.

She's cute. Doesn't look like your type tho.

Bet she doesn't know who you even are.

Venha para o Brasil, vou lhe mostrar um bom tempo.

Bitch. Why didn't you pick meeee?

She has no idea what she's getting herself into, does she?

I want to punch her right in her fucking mouth. You should have got a real fan for this.

I'd fuck her. Bet Thomas does within the week.

A szemei! Elájul!

Don't leave us, I'll die.

Edith sighed. She'd told herself not to look at the picture because the comments were unlikely to be complimentary, but then she'd looked anyway. It could have been worse, she knew. Far worse. But still. It was hard to read strangers judging her.

The pinned tweet at the top of their feed announced their upcoming absence. She did a similar thing with a status on Facebook on the offchance that anyone missed or worried about her. It got a scattering of likes, the usual well-meaning old friends asking if she was OK or wishing her luck with it. Painfully ordinary for what felt like a momentus decision.

The typewriter caught her eye as she closed the screen, sitting on the kitchen table still in the squat case built to carry it in. She'd never used one before. It probably wasn't difficult, but she figured she ought to try it sooner rather than later. There would be no handy googling of how to thread the ink ribbon - if that was even the right word - or free a seized... whatever the letter stick parts were called. Arms, maybe?

She fetched some paper from her clattering old printer and practically forced it into the mechanism. The first piece tore, but she got the hang of it quickly enough. The keys were so strange, firm to press, springing back up under her fingers. Not quite the same as the soft, responsive - over responsive maybe - keyboards she was used to.

e-d-i-t-h... edith

Capitals though, she would need to...

The shift key took some effort to press and moved the entire wall of metal letters up to press a second, uppercase character to the ink. Oh... It shifted them. Well, that made sense, didn't it? She was amazed she'd never realised that before.

What to type? Just to try it out.

Shift, clack, clack, clack, clack, shift, clack, clack, clack...

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Ha.

There was a little bell that dinged when she was approaching the edge of the paper, a little warning sound. Funny. In films, she'd always somehow thought the ding was caused by pushing the paper carriage back across. Which made little sense, now she thought of it.

She liked it. And felt almost embarrassed for liking it. She'd never used one, had never seen one up close, so how could she possibly feel this nostalgic glow for it?

Typical pretentious hipster journalist.

Still, there was something about seeing the instant thunk of metal against ink and paper, seeing each letter appear one by one, so neat and crisp. The feeling of it beneath her hands, firm and yielding to pressure, mechanical and somehow friendly. She could already see herself at a hotel room desk, middle of the night, a distant rumble of a post-show party as she typed up disjointed notes into proper, flowing prose... For some reason, there was an ash tray smouldering in her fantasy, even though she didn't smoke.

Alan would probably worry that she'd imagined being separate from other people, not with the band at their party but working all by herself. He always worried.

Even knowing that, she wasn't quite prepared for the way his jaw dropped when she told him she had signed all the forms and would be leaving on Friday.

"I... I thought..."

"What?"

He hesitated and she almost knew what he was about to say, but didn't want to believe it.

"I didn't think you'd actually accept."

Bristling a little was inevitable. Didn't he hear how patronising that sounded? Like she couldn't be trusted to make her own decisions or look after herself.

"Why wouldn't I? It's a huge opportunity. People would kill for this chance, probably."

"But... But the cellphone ban. You'll be completely cut off."

"Not completely. I'll call you all the time from the hotels. And I'll write. You'll get actual letters in the mail for once. It'll be fun."

"What about the news? You'll be last to hear everything."

"There are still print newspapers, you know. And you're always telling me that current affairs overdosing is bad for me. I'll survive. I'll have a bunch of wonderful experiences and tell stories about it for the rest of my life."

He sighed heavily.

"You practised saying that before I got in, didn't you?"

She had. And why not? This was going to be a calm conversation and she was not going to let herself worry that she'd made the wrong decision.

He sat down, the typewriter still on the table, looking at it curiously and flicking the little bell with one finger to hear it ring.

"I'll miss you," he said. "That's what I'm trying to say. And I'll worry, probably."

She pressed her lips together, trying to breathe steadily.

"I'll miss you too. And I... I put you down as my next of kin on the form. I hope that's OK."

He seemed surprised at first and then nodded almost grimly. It made sense. Who else could she have realistically put?

"Are you sure you're going to be alright out there?"

"Of course. Chance of a lifetime. Moving forward and all that."

She forced herself to smile.

Friday rolled around far too quickly. She felt like she'd hardly packed at all, even with two large bags and the typewriter. Then again, she really only needed clothes. Her computer and phone and all their associated wires and chargers were locked into drawers on her desk, paper pads and notebooks in their place in her backpack. There would be opportunities to do laundry. Shoes were her biggest problem. Comfortable day to day sneakers on her feet, neat pumps just in case, red heels that hurt and made her feel ridiculous, but maybe she'd want them...

She thought the buzzer was the mailman until she heard Alan talking to someone in the hallway.

Looking out through the smallest possible gap between door and frame, she felt her stomach lurch. The Sharpes walking in, looking faintly unreal and out of place in their little apartment. Alan was loudly showing them through to the living room as an attempted warning, asking if they wanted coffee. They asked for tea. Of course they did...

Edith rushed to her mirror, brushing her hair, wishing she'd straightened it or curled it properly, anything but the frizz it had settled itself in, knowing she wouldn't have time to do any makeup. The heels and brush landed in the top of her larger bag before she zipped it shut and hauled it onto her back, like a turtle beneath a huge shell.

"Hello!" she said brightly, eyes downcast as she shuffled into the living room, not ready to look at them fully. "I wasn't expecting you so early."

Alan was filling an ancient kettle that probably belonged to the tenant before the tenant before the tenant before they moved in. Did they even have tea? Oh, dear...

"We told you about Niagara Falls, didn't we?" Lucille asked, shoes on the floor so she could curl up in one of the armchairs like an enormous cat. "A local girl like you must have been hundreds of times. We thought you could show it to us. And besides, it's about time Thomas did some heavy bag lifting. We couldn't possibly leave you to carry everything by yourself."

"Oh. Well, that's very kind of you, but I'd have managed."

Alan had emptied two cupboards and suddenly held a dog-eared cardboard box of teabags triumphantly above his head. God only knew how long that had been rattling around.

"How does everyone take it?" he asked, trying to be subtle as he read the instructions.

"Oh, Lucille likes her tea as she likes her men," Thomas said.

"Sweet?" Edith guessed.

"Lemony and dark. No milk for her and just a splash for me. No sugar, thank you."

"We're saccharine enough already," Lucille said.

There was an awkward silence as Alan made tea to the best of his ability, unearthing an ancient bottle of lemon juice from the fridge. Edith was deeply grateful that Lucille was scanning their bookshelf with what appeared to be a mix of amusement and curiosity and therefore not seeing what was about to be inflicted upon her. Edith felt restless next to such stillness, pulling out a couple of small tables from a nest covered in envelopes and junk mail.

She was horribly aware of every crumb on the carpet, every stain on their furniture, the fact that they hadn't dusted in weeks, or was it months?

"Is this your father?" Thomas asked from behind her.

Edith span round to find him holding it, the only photograph she had on display, the brass-effect frame and plastic protecting a picture of her father with his arm around her shoulders, smiling proudly. Alan had taken it on the morning of their high school graduation, before they'd put on their gowns.

"Yes, it is," she said, resisting the urge to take it out of his hands and carefully put it back on the shelf in its proper place.

"And how does he feel about you running away with the circus, as it were?"

"He, um..." Deep breath. "He passed away last year."

It still hurt. And it was the one place where words didn't seem nearly enough. She couldn't express the pain, physically did not have the ability.

He looked at her, eyes full of sympathy, but not pity. It was a subtle difference, but one she appreciated.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, putting it back, taking care to straighten it.

"Tea!" Alan said brightly, even managing to spirit up a tray from somewhere.

He was good at this, polite conversation. Asking about the tour and their music and travel. Good bedside manner, as they said.

Edith was barely listening. What would her dad say if he was still here? Would he be encouraging her or warning her? It was difficult to say. He'd always told her to follow her ambitions but he was never a fan of rash decisions.

She wished she'd been able to talk to him about it.

They finished their tea, bitter on her tongue, and she could put it off no longer. Alan and Thomas helped her carry her bags down the stairs and to what she supposed could charitably be called a bus. A mini-bus maybe. It was old and gray, sliding doors on the sides that seemed to scrape as they were opened.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" Thomas said, carefully placing the typewriter into the back as Lucille climbed up into the driver's seat. "First thing we bought in dollars."

"She's certainly something," Alan said, his face not hiding his true feelings at all.

He hugged Edith tightly, his arms seeming to completely envelope her as he made her promise to call and promise to write. She knew better than to tell him not to worry. He would anyway.

She waved at him until they turned out of her street, heading through town.

"Your friend is jealous," Lucille said, glancing left and right at traffic lights.

"What? Alan? No. He's just... No."

In the rearview mirror, she caught a little snippet of an expression that said Lucille was not buying that for a second. But she was definitely wrong. Alan had know her for a long time, he'd seen all her ups and all her downs. He'd just be worrying like he always did.

"So are you going to be sharing the driving?" Edith asked, trying to change the subject.

"Alas, no," Thomas said. "With the trailer back at the hotel and everything being on the wrong side of the road, we decided we ought to get a professional. We'll meet her after we see the Falls and then it's off to Detroit."

"Have you been?" Lucille asked.

"To Detroit? No. It's close though. Three or four hours through Canada I think. But... But I thought you said we were going to Connecticut first?"

"My mistake," Thomas said. "Wrong itinerary page. That comes much later."

"Geography was never exactly his strong suit," Lucille said. "Misread the map, didn't realise driving all the way across New York State made no sense."

"That's why she does the planning and I focus on enjoying myself."

Edith made herself smile, wondering what it must be like to be so laid back as to completely mistake your next destination and yet not care. But she was more thinking about the idea of the driver. A female driver, another outsider. Maybe someone she could bond with.

She'd have to wait and find out. Lucille was heading out towards the freeway, towards Canada and waterfalls and months of the unknown.

Please let this have been a good idea.

Chapter 4: Off and Away

Edith had indeed been to Niagara Falls many times. Half an hour away, it had been the site of many school trips down the years. But crossing over to the Canadian side was at least going to be a little novel.

Still, it was 30 minutes when surely she was on the clock, as it were. Maybe not a full-scale interview, but she should start getting to know them. Gaining their confidence. Learning about them.

Maybe that was why other journalists had fallen foul of their tricks. They hadn't had time to understand them and figure out what was true and what wasn't.

"What made you want to become musicians?" she asked.

Lucille laughed.

"Oh, very good," she said. "Subtle, really."

Thomas tutted lightly.

"Be nice. What else was she meant to try?"

A shrug and Thomas sighed.

"Our mother was very determined that we should learn instruments," he said. "She spent a lot of time and money trying to cultivate a love of classical music in us. Piano from the age of three, Spanish guitar, cello, flute..."

"I thought you were self-taught?" Edith asked.

He fixed her with a stare in the mirror.

"We're self-taught rock and roll stars," Lucille said. "If it was up to Mother, I'd be a concert pianist and Thomas would be a conductor. If it was up to Father, he'd be a banker probably."

"And what about you?"

A pause, bitterness practically radiating from her.

"I'd be a convenient womb in a loveless marriage to one of his friend's idiot sons. If he cared to think about my future at all."

Edith knew her eyes had widened, knew she must look shocked. The way they talked about their parents, so formally, so distant. Mother and Father, not Mum and Dad. It was strange. And such old-fashioned thinking too.

Thomas was squeezing Lucille's shoulder comfortingly, and her death grip on the wheel eased as she sighed.

"Trust me, Edith, I need to have a significantly elevated blood alcohol level to even start wanting to talk about our family. Suffice to say, we've spent a long time rebelling. I used to say we'd do what they wanted over their dead bodies, but even that hasn't happened."

Could she mean... Were their parents really dead then? Or were they just extremely estranged?

It reinforced to her just how lucky she'd been with her own parents. They might have both passed now, but they'd given her more love and encouragement in that time than some managed over fifty years. She felt oddly guilty about it.

Border control was visibly surprised by them showing up on a quiet day. Two glamorous Brits and their strange American friend, just popping over the invisible line to look at the waterfall, nothing to worry about officer.

"What's in the back?"

"Oh," Edith said. "It's my luggage. They just picked me up, we're going travelling. But since we're so close, we figured..."

He looked at her passport carefully, the blue cover looking strange next to the maroon-ish purple of the Sharpes' ones. Birthplace Buffalo, NY, that's probably what he was looking at.

"Work visas..."

"We're musicians," Lucille said. "We're playing a few little concerts and it's very important to have the correct paperwork."

From her seat behind, Edith could just see her smile, the way she was sitting up just a little more, her shoulders curved in slightly. Not flirting, not really, but something close to it.

"Have a nice visit."

The barrier raised for them to pass, Thomas passing Edith's passport back for her to put away as they drove up the road and pulled into the busy parking lot.

It was always busy, even so early in the season, even when it was still freezing. Edith kind of liked it, the way the spray would freeze and cover everything in a beautiful, sharp second skin of frost, spiky and glittering. And she liked the icicles that grew too, huge white spears.

"Do you know anything about the hydroelectrics?" Thomas asked.

"Um... A little. We did it as a project at school, but that was years ago."

"I'm sure there will be plenty of information about it provided," Lucille said, zipping up her parka. Dark green and a little battered, probably vintage. "Our tutors used to call him the little engineer. Always wanting to know how things work."

She opened the back of the bus and pulled out a holdall, handing Edith the Poloroid camera.

"You never know," she said, clanging the door shut and heading off towards the welcome centre.

It was surreal. Edith felt like she'd accidently gone on vacation with strangers and been charged with taking their photos. Not to mention that she wasn't quite sure how to use the camera in the first place. It felt strange to raise the viewfinder to her eye instead of looking at a digital screen for one thing as she took an experimental shot of the Sharpes' backs as they read the first information board, the icy blue curve of the falls just about visible behind them.

Clunk, whirr, a little white square. Shake it like a Poloroid picture...

Not very good. Over exposed, the figures like dark shadows against a white background with only the vaguest hint of something else there.

But the quality wasn't the point, the point was that the little picture was unique. There wasn't even a film to order more prints from, no negative. This was it. Of course, it would be scanned and copied and so on later, but it she tore it up now, there'd be no trace of it, not even ghosts of megabytes.

"Edith?"

They looked amused, Lucille waving the marker pen teasingly.

"You have to keep that one," Thomas said as she caught up with them. "The first one is special."

He let her lean on his back to write on it. First - T + L @ Niagara Falls

Lucille tilted her head to the side.

"That's interesting," she said. "Using that symbol. I don't think your typewriter even has it. But I like it. It's a sign of how even use of punctuation evolves over time."

"What was it before?"

"It was for accounting. Two items at a rate of $4 is $8, that kind of thing."

They paid her entry fee for going behind the fall, souvenir rain poncho and all. No amount of protesting convinced them otherwise.

"We haven't even paid you yet. Think of it as work expenses."

Despite how awe-inspiring the waterfall was, as always, Edith couldn't quite shake her faint feeling of unease during the couple of hours they spent doing the rounds of viewing platforms and museums.

"Are you being extra nice so that I write that you're nice in my first article?"

Lucille smiled at her, frowning slightly.

"Do you think everyone you meet has some kind of ulterior motive, Edith?"

"No! And I... Not ulterior, just..."

"Oh, don't pay attention to her," Thomas said, glancing at his watch. "She's just playing with you. And we should be going or we'll be late for Finlay."

He drove, taking them back across the border and into the suburbs of an unfamiliar town. For all she was born and bred, Edith didn't go beyond the city limits... ever, really. She had no idea where they were. It could have been anywhere, really.

They pulled into an ordinary street, neat little square lawns, white wooden shutters.

"Look at this place," Lucille said. "It's every movie ever. Or it will be, when the leaves come in properly."

They stopped by a house like all the others, children's trikes on the driveway. Not going to be stolen. A safe neighborhood.

Edith watched as a young woman came to the door, a toddler on her hip. Surely they weren't intending to take a baby on tour?

"That must be the daughter. Charm offensive needed, Thomas. She thinks her mother has seen quite enough excitement for one lifetime without going off with us."

As if on cue, a suitcase appeared, an older woman right behind it, a look of determination on her face. Edith did not like the idea of arguing with her, but that was clearly what was happening. Something about bad ideas, blood pressure.

"Don't you go telling me off about blood pressure. Sitting around getting fed by you isn't gonna help me shift any weight. I need to be out there, Juney. I need excitement in my life. I'm not dead yet."

She hadn't slowed down, bypassing her daughter and grandson to hand Thomas her bags.

"Mrs Finlay," he was saying, practically bowing. "I would hate to think that we're in any way causing conflict here. And what a handsome fellow this is! Hello, young man."

Lucille chuckled as before too long, Thomas was holding the little boy, having his nose and eyebrows thoroughly explored by small hands. The mother was clearly not prepared to be moved, so the daughter dutifully embraced her, still evidently disagreeing but finding peace somehow.

And then she was in the bus in a flash, adjusting the seat, waving, demanding that Juney give her husband a hug from his mother-in-law, and with that they were pulling away.

"Edith, meet Mrs Deborah Finlay," Lucille said. "Finlay, this is Miss Edith Cushing, our writer."

"Nice to meet you."

"You too. Very excited to be part of this little trip. Of course, June thinks I'm going to combust or something, but I keep telling her, if you've been shot like I have, you take every opportunity that life throws your way."

Edith head whirled a little, trying to make sense of what she'd just heard.

"Sh-shot?"

They all laughed, all three of them. Lucille leaned close, conspiratorily.

"Mrs Finlay now, but formerly Detective Finlay," she said. "Injured in the line of duty."

"Get to know me better, maybe I'll show you the scar," Finlay said. "Now, where's this trailer I've heard so much about? Let's get this show on the road!"

She cackled, the lines around her eyes clearly showing where they'd come from.

"I've always wanted to say that."

Chapter 5: Familiar Names

Geography really wasn't their strong point... There was no other explanation of the ridiculous way they went back to Buffalo to pick up a rickety trailer from a paid parking lot. Apparently all the instruments were in there. Guitars, keyboards, synths, probably dozens overall. Worth an absolute fortune.

They had an early dinner in a tiny local burger restaurant, all chequered tablecloths and formica counter top.

"This isn't quite right," Lucille said, turning over the laminated menu, faded and stained with the ghosts of generations of spilled drinks.

"How do you mean?" Edith asked.

"Not nearly enough clichés. The waitresses ought to be on rollerskates for one thing. No red stools at the counter, no pot of coffee for top ups."

"I promise," Thomas said. "At some point, we will stop at a diner and you can experience being topped up by a skating woman."

"I want her to have one of those names too. Like Marge. Or Ginger. Lorraine. Julia."

Finlay laughed. She seemed to do that a lot.

"And milkshakes served in the bottle?" she asked. "I know what you mean. Trust me, you young folk always manage to find the good stuff in the past. The fashion, the music, whatever. But I was there and, my God, I would not go back if you paid me."

It was strange. The Sharpes had a kind of magnetism about them, but Finlay radiated warmth. Edith had barely known her grandparents, but Finlay had that kind of grandma air about her, like she'd been waiting all her life to offer little tidbits of wisdom.

"It's not an era or a nostalgia," Lucille said after the disruption of food arriving was over. "It's a faintly unreal sense of the country. That's what's interesting. Americana, that's what we're after. All-night diners, mom and pop businesses, eagles all over everything."

"You don't have family businesses in England?"

"Of course we do," Thomas said. "But we have a somewhat filtered image of the States. It mostly comes from films and television. Every bar is the bar from 'Cheers', every school is the school from 'The Breakfast Club', that kind of thing. Everyone in New Orleans loves jazz, everyone in California is blonde and tanned, everyone in the South sits on their porch swing drinking sweet tea, everyone in Maine is in a Stephen King story. Preconceptions and fixed ideas from popular culture. In much the same way the rest of the world takes 'Downton Abbey' as some kind of documentary."

"Though of course, we are genuine nobility," Lucille added.

Edith blinked at them. Was that a joke? Was she walking into it if she believed it?

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Extremely minor nobility," Thomas said, picking up his burger bun to look suspiciously at the drooping lettuce beneath. "Barely worth mentioning. No one knows what a hereditary baronetcy is."

Well, he was correct on that front and it just made Edith more unsure. That might not even be a real thing. It might be more attempts to fool her.

"She doesn't believe us," Lucille said, tasting a drop ketchup from the tip of her finger before deeming it acceptable.

"I don't know... Hereditary means you got it from your parents, but..."

She glanced at Finlay. Was it alright to talk about such matters in front of her? Where was the line?

"But we hated our parents," Lucille finished for her. "So why maintain any part of the family line? For a start, a baronetcy is not like monarchy. It doesn't just transfer. You have to go to the registrar with birth certificate, marriage certificate of parents, death certificate of the previous baronet, proof that you are the eldest surviving male heir of the first baronet..."

"Our seven times great grandfather," Thomas said.

"All that to be Sir Thomas. So much effort. But then again, just thinking of how furious Father would be, the proud legacy on the shoulders of a libertine showman."

"Less of the libertine, please. You'll scare her off."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Don't worry, Edith, my brother is three steps from monkhood and wouldn't dream of trespassing against your modesty."

Edith was fairly sure her face remained pink though the rest of the meal, no matter that Finlay told her to pay no mind to such teasing. It was difficult though. She felt like a half-plucked chicken sitting between two peacocks.

They slipped back across into Canada without a problem, different border guard, planning to hit Detroit in the evening for supper and bed.

Lucille seemed to be keen to go shopping during the day before the show and Edith got the distinct feeling she was going to be taken along whether she liked it or not. She wasn't exactly keen on clothes stores at the best of times, let alone going with someone so glamorous. Then again, maybe by herself Lucille would be different to how she was around her brother.

They seemed to find everything they saw strangely amusing. Especially going past towns called London and Chatham, evidence of the British colonialists. Edith wasn't entirely sure she got it. There was an edge of irony to it, a faint hint of superiority.

By the time they crept back across the border and into Detroit, it was getting dark.

"Motor City," Finlay said. "What a place."

What a place they were staying at, for a start. A real old-fashioned motel, flickering lights and all. And only three bedrooms booked.

"It's cheaper this way," Thomas said when Edith questioned it. "Besides, we're used to sharing dressing rooms with no privacy. Don't worry about us."

A tiny room, really just a square with a bed in it and a cupboard that held a bathroom of sorts. Toilet, sink, shower, all crammed in together. Still, it was clean. Comfortable enough.

The travelling and second-guessing had tired her out a little, rubbing her eyes while chewing gas station sandwiches, but Edith felt she ought to call Alan before going to sleep, let him know she hadn't been murdered.

"Yet," he said, after she'd carefully followed the 'calling outbound' procedure on the motel phone. "They're biding their time."

"They're not. They're nice. Well, nice-ish. And we have a driver now. A witness."

"The driver's in on it."

She laughed, yawning a little with it. At least he seemed to be more relaxed about the whole thing now.

"I'll be out late tomorrow night at the first show," she said. "But I'll try to tell you all about it the day after."

"Just call regularly. That's all I ask. And be careful. Seriously."

"I will. I'm practically asleep here, sorry. You on lates still?"

"Yeah. I should be going actually. Sleep tight. Don't let the rock stars bite."

He was ridiculous sometimes.

Chapter 6: Panic in Detroit

Notes:

I have never been to any of the places in this fic, FYI. My apologies for any glaring mistakes.

"Oh, you need to try this on."

Edith tried her best to stifle a yawn. She felt like Lucille had woken her at the crack of dawn, graciously letting her quickly wash her hair before reappearing with a greasy breakfast bought from a van - and Edith was really starting to wonder how she kept her figure so well if they were going to live on this stuff for the next few months - and now they were in a fairly deserted store that sold...

Well, if you were into this sort of thing and had the look for it, it was very nice. But it took the right kind of person to get away with tailored leather trenchcoats and so many chains and artful spiders and bats.

She turned to look at what Lucille had found and instantly scoffed. Red PVC corset, really?

"I... I don't think..."

"Just for the fun of it. Not to buy. Unless you look really good in it."

Edith's cheeks were probably in danger of becoming the same shade as the plastic as Lucille pressed it into her hands and continued flicking through everything from camisoles to full ball gowns.

It wasn't the worst changing room she'd ever been in. The lighting was soft and yellowy, not the harsh fluorescence of some stores that seemed determined to make everything as unflattering as possible and point out every imperfection. All the same, Edith was incredibly aware of her body as she tugged off her t-shirt, every freckle, every stretch mark from her teenage years, the strange gray-peach of an ancient bra making her skin look dull. Like she needed to exfoliate so hard that it would come off, shed it like a snake.

The corset went on surprisingly easily, wrapping around her back and hooking together with steel fastenings. She only started to have trouble halfway up, the sheer lack of space forcing her breasts upwards into an unusual angle. It was fine once it was on, but she already felt awkward. It had completely changed her shape, lifting and squeezing, forcing her body to yield to its plastic boning.

"Can I see?"

"Um..."

Lucille leant round the curtain and grinned, Edith wrapping her arms around herself defensively.

"No, come on, let me look."

Trying not to wince or blush too much, Edith turned back to the mirror and was sure she could physically feel Lucille's eyes roam over her. She possibly had never been less comfortable in her entire life. A mongrel being examined by a sleek pedigree. Rust next to chrome.

"You look good like this. Really. But I know, it is a little over the top. And $90 dollars is steep. But still. You look sexy."

Edith met her own stunned gaze in the reflection.

"I, uh... I don't..."

"Sorry," Lucille said, laughing as though it was nothing. "Probably counts as sexual harassment since I'm your employer. I'll let you change back into yourself."

She vanished, leaving Edith to extract herself from the corset and pin it back onto its little hanger. She tried to compose herself, taking the time to pull her hair back, maybe just a little too tight. This was a test, a game Lucille was playing with her. Seeing what she'd do, teasing her, seeing how far she could go.

Hopefully she'd stop it after they got properly used to one another.

She caught up as Lucille was paying for a few items, noticing the nervous young man hovering nearby.

"Is that... Is that Lucille Sharpe?" he hissed.

Edith frowned.

"Yes?"

"Oh, my God... Oh, my God..."

Of course. Crimson Peak were famous in exactly this kind of scene. He was probably going to the concert later. He ran his hands through tight curls, nervous.

"Do you know her? Does she mind people asking for selfies?"

"I... I work for her, but I don't know..."

He'd already approached, the very second she turned with her bags, babbling, telling Lucille he was a huge fan, how he loved the music, how it would make his life if she would deign to take a picture with him.

"Put your phone away," she said. "You'll have it on my terms."

Edith found herself taking a Polaroid of them together, worried about the lack of light in the store and what it would do to the exposure, but getting an atmospheric picture out of it. Lucille seemed to glow, the fan standing with a rictus grin, awkward and stiff.

"Collect the set," Lucille said as she signed it. "I believe my brother is exploring the Henry Ford museum. If you're lucky, you might find him."

As they left, Edith looked back to see him trying to take a picture of the photo with his phone. It would be online in seconds, looking like it had been artificially filtered into submission.

"Do you mind that kind of thing?" Edith asked, remembering the blank paper back with the typewriter. Anything she could jot down would be helpful.

"Honestly, it doesn't happen often enough to bother me. Not in person. Not out in the street like this. Maybe if they interrupted me one too may times I'd snap at them, but I find it amusing more than anything else. I don't really understand it. Smiling together in pictures, like we're friends."

"They want to document having met you."

"Yes. It's just funny that he might frame that picture and have it on the wall in his house. They remember these moments so clearly and yet, apart from a few, they mean absolutely nothing to me."

Edith stumbled over a loose paving stone, only just staying upright.

"But... I mean, they're the ones who buy your music..."

Lucille laughed, high and loud.

"Not the fans, the pictures. I couldn't tell you where I've had my picture taken or who with. It just makes me think about how often something might mean the world to me, but be hardly remembered by someone else. You know, like how you remember kids being mean at school, even though it's been twenty years and it couldn't matter less, but you still remember and ache a little."

Edith couldn't imagine that anyone had ever been mean to Lucille. She couldn't imagine that anyone would dare. But she knew the feeling well. The strange things remembered and focussed on at 2am, the classmates whose names and faces had long ago faded but whose thoughtless words seemed burned into her memory forever.

They took a (highly expensive due to the distance) cab to the Henry Ford - or the Edison Institute as it was more properly known - planning to meet Thomas for lunch. If they could ever find him.

The museum was enormous, a huge entrance like a town hall and an entire park of space in behind it for exhibits. Then again, it was supposed to have dozens of important vehicles.

Which, in turn, meant Thomas could be anywhere.

"Should have known," Lucille said as they headed for the Michigan Café, the only eatery that didn't require a museum ticket. "Say one o'clock but then put him in a building full of machines and he vanishes."

"Should we wait?" Edith asked.

"Not if we want to eat before it closes at four."

She ordered for him with a casual assumption that she knew what he would want. Though to be fair, when Thomas did arrive, twenty minutes late, he barely seemed to notice what he was eating, bright and cheerful with excitement. He looked softer somehow, younger almost. Renewed and refreshed.

"They have everything here! Prototype helicopters, all kinds of experimental engines, the car Kennedy was shot in, Rosa Parks' bus... It's amazing."

Lucille tilted her head to the side, carefully spearing a piece of celery on one tine of her fork.

"You know as well as I do that there were others before Rosa Parks," she said. "Where's Claudette Colvin's bus for one? Practically written out of history for being too young, too loud, too teenaged girl..."

"The ends can justify the means, as you are well aware. The cause needed the right kind of unimpeachable, respectable, strong adult to rally around. They won, that's what matters. Besides, you've read about her. The information is out there for anyone to learn from. That's hardly being written out."

Edith sipped her water, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. She couldn't quite put her finger on what was upsetting her. Something about the tone of their voices. As though they were interested in winning their little rhetorical battle rather than the history or the fact that it was still in living memory and vitally important.

Maybe it was the distance they implied. Like they were examining something on a distant moon hundreds of years ago instead of something relatively recent and tangible. They were observing the facts, not engaging with them.

She wished she hadn't had that thought. Feedback from an early assignment flashed through her mind. Well written, but fails to engage either reader or subject. Not so much dry as shallow. Work on crafting a profile, not on merely reporting words.

Was taking an impromptu journey engaging with her subjects enough? Or had she now swung too far the other way?

"Where's Finlay today?" she asked, trying to wriggle out of the awkward feeling.

"We'll join her after we eat," Thomas said. "As I understand, she's been on a Motown themed walking tour and invites us to join her to visit Hitsville USA before we prepare for the show. And I trust you had a good time shopping this morning?"

"I, um... Yeah."

"You don't sound very sure."

He seemed genuinely concerned and Edith tried her best to force a smile.

"I made her uncomfortable," Lucille said. "Tried to push an outfit on her that she found distasteful."

"No," Edith said. "No, it was fine. Just... It just didn't suit me, that's all. I wasn't uncomfortable. I was fine."

She was protesting too much, she knew it, but Lucille was making her sound like a child, raising her eyebrows at her insistence like she didn't believe a word of it and leaning over to rummage in her bag.

"I got some nice things though."

She held up a camisole in deep red in front of her chest, the deep neckline somewhat disguised by lace that seemed to be attached to a kind of choker collar. It was a strange combination. The silky material of the bulk of it looked like lingerie, but the modest chest covering was almost Victorian to Edith's eye.

And it would suit Lucille. It would stand out so clearly against her skin, make her neck seem all the longer. Would she wear it for one of the shows? Edith could see it in a Polaroid already, surrounded by smoke on the stage.

"I'll model it for you later," Lucille said, getting a half smile from Thomas. Edith was a little surprised that he would care much for clothes, but then again so much of their identity was caught up in appearances and look. Maybe they always critiqued each other's outfits.

The show seemed far too close and yet not nearly close enough when Finlay arrived to collect them, positively giddy to have a chance to see relics from some of her favourite artists.

The first show Edith would ever write a report on, and it was due as soon as she could get it done and sent off.

Somehow, she wasn't sure she'd get much sleep that night.

Chapter 7: Scrivening

Edith sat in her little motel bed, pen in hand, and crossed out her opening sentence for the fifth time.

Her ears were still ringing from being so close to the instruments, standing in the wings with the camera, trying to get good shots. She'd spread them all out on the second pillow, trying to decide if any were useable.

There was one of the crowd she liked. Just the front row visible, singing along, mouths all open in the same shape, reaching for the stage, some with phones to try to capture something, others with their bare hands. And there was one of Thomas almost silhouetted, his hair wild and slightly damp, the slightest hint of shining eyes in the shadow.

But a good shot of Lucille... That was proving more elusive. Which was very strange, because Edith had been hardly able to keep her eyes off her. It was almost hard to believe that the creature she had seen on stage, aloof yet giving, accessible yet strangely Other, was the very same person who spoke so bluntly and was untroubled by nuance and social norms. She was a little prickly, a little guarded in person, at least about herself. Edith found herself wondering which of the was the 'real' Lucille. Maybe neither. Maybe both.

Eventually she chose one of her playing bass guitar, the curves of the instrument complementing her slender frame, her wrist looped delicately around the neck like a coiled snake.

She thought of how long she'd watched those elegant fingers moving up and down the frets, soft pads pressing on the strings, holding them down to draw the notes out, and swallowed hard.

What was wrong with her? This was so inappropriate. And it made no sense. Yes, Lucille was beautiful and skilful and Edith had to admit that she had always enjoyed watching people who were good at what they did - she liked watching artists drawing for example and dancers and science demonstrations - but there was absolutely no reason to be blushing over it.

She'd had crushes before, on boys and then on men. It was possible to find someone objectively attractive without it being anything deeper. Lauren Bacall was beautiful, for example. Women in Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Kim Min-hee. Lea Salonga.

They'd spent half the afternoon looking at pictures of beautiful, talented women at Hitsville USA. Gladys Knight. Diana Ross. Mary Wells.

She was quite capable of appreciating attractive women without getting the giggles, thank you.

It had to be the elusiveness drawing her in. She was trying to see who Lucille really was and as such she was getting a little too single-minded, too focussed, and mistaking that for interest. Maybe if she spent a little more time with Thomas by himself she'd get more perspective.

Or maybe she'd develop an inappropriate fascination with him as well.

Detroit greeted Crimson Peak cautiously but soon opened its arms wide to them, she wrote. This city of innovation and experimentation was ideal for their strange blend of classical and classic influences. Attendees did not imagine the insertion of more than one borrowed Motown phrase, though the sweet tones of 'Baby Love' were perhaps a little too ironic when slipped into the middle eight of 'Progestin', the Sharpes' cheerfully devastating ode to emergency contraceptives.

Was that harsh? The song made her uncomfortable enough with its driving, pulsing beat that seemed to echo in her ears and the way the strong note never fell where she expected it to. And then when she'd listened to the lyrics and realised what it was about...

She couldn't help wondering if it was fictional or not. And if it wasn't, then which of them had written it. Was that Lucille waiting breathless in a pharmacy and weeping through the cramps and ultimately relieved that it had worked or had Thomas had an accident with a girlfriend and then written a song from her perspective? And if there was a woman out there who inspired it, what did she think about her experience being used like that?

And did the Sharpes even care?

Music was their passion but also their product. If someone provided the inspiration for a song, Edith couldn't quite imagine them asking permission or even mentioning it.

Maybe they'd write about her one day.

She wasn't sure if she'd like that or not.

The little room wasn't helping her creative process. She'd been in a smoky environment all night, inhaled far more dry ice than she was used to. Air, that's what she needed. Fresh air.

The concrete floor of the motel walkway was chill beneath her feet despite her socks, but the cold was just what she wanted to soothe her throat. A few good gulps and she could get back to it.

She was leaning against the railing, watching the headlamps of cars moving on and off the freeway like glowing ants, when she realised the wasn't alone.

"You should be in bed, young lady," Finlay said, looking right at home in a bulky robe and thick woolly slippers. "You've had a long day."

Edith made an attempt at a smile.

"I'm supposed to write about the show," she said. "But I can't quite find the words."

Finlay joined her in her leaning, a cup of what looked like hot chocolate steaming gently into the night.

"Seems to me lots of journalists will be writing up the shows," she said thoughtfully. "But none of them will be able to write what you can. You're the one with the inside scoop. You're the one getting to know them personally."

The little laugh was out before Edith could stop it.

"I think I could spend years with them and not get to know them."

"Well, early days yet. They're strange folks but it takes all sorts to make the world go round. Just got to get used to each other. Between you and I, it feels like they haven't met too many people, not properly. Very self-reliant pair. Which is good but, well, might take a little while to get behind the armour. But that's what people want to know. What are they like, really? What don't you see in public? What goes on after the lights go down and all the wires are packed away? Keep trying. You'll get there. But a sleepy writer is no good to anyone. You need your rest."

She was right, Edith supposed. And she already had some insights. At least, she thought they were insights.

Her own words about lies from her audition article came back to her as she wished Finlay goodnight and promised to go to bed right away.

The Sharpes lied. They did. So her insights might not be insights at all. She was the lead in a detective novel and she had to interpret the clues as best she could.

Right. New page in the notebook. That other paragraph could come later, after she'd set the scene.

I do not know if the things I am going to write over the next few months will be true. My own observations will be as accurate as I can make them. However, when it comes to the enigmatic Sharpe siblings, I don't believe anything can be treated as absolute truth.

Especially anything Lucille says, she added internally.

Along with their tour, they are here to explore both notable and common parts of the cities they pause at. Tour-ism is the order of the day.

"Order of the day"? Cliched, fix that in the edit. And the section about the Detroit show could go here.

Some songs are easy to interpret. Lyrical storytelling seems to come easy to them. As for the more abstract or the instrumentals, asking the meaning would be unlikely to be met with a simple answer. Or rather it would, but that answer is unlikely to be all there is to it.

They change their answers as readily as they change keys.

The next tour stop is Columbus, Ohio, and I believe we will have travelled through Cincinnati and played in Louisville, Indiapolis, Chicago and perhaps even Milwaukee by the time I send another article.

So many places. And so many other little towns circled on the map, ideas for places to stop.

And she was already tired.

She hauled her things down to the bus the next morning, notebook tucked into her belt, and had to type up her article on the road. Even with Finlay driving as carefully as she could down the lakeside, there were bumps in the road that made the letters dance in front of her eyes, having to close them tight to avoid feeling sick. The Sharpes were carefully giving her space though, not trying to look at her notes. Complete creative freedom.

Singing songs from Hairspray as they drove through North Baltimore didn't help her stress levels though.

"That's Baltimore, Maryland," Edith found herself saying, unusually harshly, fingers juddering against the typewriter keys. "Whole different state."

She didn't miss the look Lucille gave her, surprised and maybe a little intrigued. Edith wondered if she was annoyed at being corrected or if she was glad that Edith wasn't afraid to challenge them.

Maybe it had been yet another test. She carefully didn't look up again and willed her cheeks not to go pink.

They drove into a town called Findlay where the Sharpes insisted on stopping and taking a picture by the sign. They had to be in odd sight, a beat-up bus pulled over, a woman grinning as a Polaroid whirred. A scene from the wrong decade.

Edith wrote on the back of the pictures which she thought could go to magazines and which were for the book as extra content. Finlay @ Findlay, one of the Sharpes at Niagara Falls, a picture from sound check showing wires and clutter everywhere.

She was putting them all in an envelope when they were waiting for their for lunch to arrive in a town called Delaware - the Sharpes saying something about not even Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle-under-Lyme being this confusing - and looking around for a post office when Thomas frowned at her.

"You don't have to show me," he said. "But have you put in any pictures of yourself?"

She hadn't even thought about that.

"No. I haven't taken any."

"Well, that won't do. We'll have to fix that."

He wouldn't let her seal it, squeezing Lucille's shoulder at he stood up and beckoned Edith to follow.

She stopped dead when he approached the single bathroom at the back of the cafe.

"In... In there?" she stammered.

"How do you think they took selfies on these things? We're just going to use the mirror."

And thankfully it was on a wall perpendicular to the cubicle and not opposite it. Edith stared at her own reflection, how short she looked with Thomas looming behind her, smiling.

"If you line up the shot and then bring the camera down to chest height, so everyone can see your beautiful face..."

She blushed hotly, almost cringing in embarrassment. It was just an expression, for goodness sake, he didn't mean anything by it...

"It's alright," he said softly and, God, she could feel his presence right there, not touching her but close enough to her back that she could feel his body heat. "Just relax, it's OK."

She lined up the shot and brought her arms down, keeping her gaze steady, not looking at him even in the mirror, keeping her face carefully blank as she pressed the button.

"I look like a mannequin," she said, trying to break the tension once the picture had resolved into focus.

Or a puppet he was controlling, looking at her, eyes on her face in the reflection, arms folded but slouching to the side with effortless cool.

"You remind me more of those porcelain masks. You know the ones? Smooth. Painted so delicately."

Her laugh was too shrill as they came back out, getting frowns from a few other patrons.

"That sounds more like Lucille than me."

"Mm. But I know that she keeps under her mask. I'm not so sure about you."

Edith was still wondering exactly what he meant by that as Lucille carefully wrote T and Edith in Not That Delaware along the bottom, slipped it into the envelope and smiled as she sealed it up.

Chapter 8: Dolls

"I have the article right here in front of me. And you're one of the cover headlines so that's good."

Edith swapped the motel phone to her other ear. She had invested in anti-bacterial wipes to clean them and the TV remotes after Lucille had told her about a news report she'd read about hygiene in such places in more graphic detail than was necessary, but now she was regretting sitting on the floor. It might have been vacuumed, but perhaps not thoroughly enough.

"How is it?" she asked.

Alan made a moderately impressed noise.

"Well, it sounds like you. Either they're keeping their promise and not editing it, or whoever's doing it is really good at imitating your style. You sound kinda... I don't know. Critical. But it's good. It's fine."

Edith frowned at the wallpaper border, terracotta orange and almost crusty-looking. Maybe it had matched the faded curtains once upon a time.

"That doesn't sound good," she said.

"No, it is. It is. And you look good in the picture too. You're, uh... You're getting along with Thomas then?"

Ugh...

Ever since that day with the camera, she'd felt hyper-aware of his presence. And she'd noticed how strangely quietly he moved. It wasn't like he deliberately snuck up on her. Half the time he didn't even seem to notice. She'd startle and he wouldn't even react. Or he would by smiling and laying his hands on her shoulders and asking how she was, as if she was completely ridiculous.

She'd started glancing at him too often. And he was never looking when she did. She might as well not exist half the time.

It was stupid. He'd made her deeply uncomfortable one time, that shouldn't translate into attraction. Or not... Not uncomfortable as such. He'd made her realise that she liked having his attention. When he spoke to her, she felt like he really listened. And even though she felt incredibly unintelligent next to him - next to both of them - on the rare occasions she was able to add something to a discussion, he seemed genuinely interested.

She had something akin to a crush and it was awful.

"Yeah, he's fine," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "I tend to spend more time with Lucille and Finlay though."

"OK. Just be careful around him."

"Why?"

Maybe he had sounded a little defensive. But she didn't need to be looked after. She was fine. Alright, so she'd forgotten what day of the week it was and she was starting to lose track of their exact location on the map - somewhere near Cinncinnati she thought - because of all the stops and the way they were weaving around to see dozens of small towns and hamlets, but she was fine.

"Well, you know. He's a rock star. They have... reputations."

"Reputations? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you know what it means."

She scoffed.

"Well, he's not like that. We're friends, that's all."

Maybe not even that... She honestly wasn't sure if their relationship went beyond professional.

"I don't want you to get hurt, that's all."

"I can look after myself."

Did he not hear it? How patronising and imposing he was being? Thomas had no interest in her. At all. And he'd made that abundantly clear.

"Look, I just... I'm sorry, of course you can, I'm just asking you to be careful. They're manipulative people."

"What makes you say that?"

There was a heavy pause.

"Did you sign any kind of non-disclosure agreement, Edith?"

That was a very precise question all of a sudden. Had she? Surely not. After all, they'd given her full creative freedom, they weren't checking her work and she was allowed to write whatever she wanted.

"I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

"Just I was doing some research on them and I came across this girl who says she worked in their recording studio and..."

There was a crash from through the wall. Like a glass smashing. Edith flinched forwards, heart hammering. Weren't Thomas and Lucille in that room?

"I think I should go check on something," she said.

"No, Edith, this is important. She said she couldn't talk about it for legal reasons but that she was praying for you and that anyone who knew you should tell you not to trust the Sharpes under any circumstances."

"Me? Me personally?"

"It was in response to the article. I'm trying to contact her, but she hasn't got back to me yet..."

A door slamming. Stamping footsteps. Something was definitely wrong.

"Alan, seriously, I have to go. It's probably nothing. She'll just be some bitter groupie or something. It's nothing. I'll call you tomorrow."

She didn't even bother waiting for him to say goodbye before hanging up and rushing for the door, grabbing her room key on her way out.

She knocked without giving herself time to be worried about it.

"Did you forget your fucking key?" she heard Lucille snap before opening the door, her scowl instantly softening. There was a faint fuzziness about her eyes, liner running a little. She'd been crying.

"I..." Edith started. "I thought I heard something. Are you alright?"

Lucille sighed, leaning against the door jamb.

"Of course. I dropped one of the tumblers and Thomas is pissed that we'll have to pay for it, that's all. Come in and sit with me."

Edith wasn't really given a choice, just led inside by the hand, having to sit in the only chair as Lucille flopped back on the double bed.

Yeah... "Dropped a glass." Never mind the obvious splash mark on the wall. No, that had been thrown. It had clearly been thrown.

Her stomach rolled. Had Thomas done that?

Maybe Alan really was on to something. Maybe he wasn't as nice as he seemed.

"I feel like going dancing," Lucille said. "We should go dancing, you and me. Tonight."

"Oh, I... I'm not sure I really have an outfit suitable for that."

"You can borrow something of mine."

There was a sudden rattling in the lock, and Edith couldn't help but go tense. Surely Thomas wouldn't do anything in front of her?

He was holding a dustpan and brush, freezing the moment he entered the room, faint guilt passing his face before settling into a gentle, concerned frown.

"I hope we didn't disturb you, Edith. Dropped a glass... Such butterfingers."

"We're going dancing just the two of us," Lucille announced, digging through clothes on the floor. "Is that alright?"

The tension was incredibly high, thick and choking, as Thomas crouched to sweep up the broken glass.

"Do whatever you like," he said, shrugging.

"Great!" and Lucille's voice was far too bright now. "Don't wait up."

Edith looked back as she was dragged out of the room, catching Thomas's clenched jaw and fists. Lucille obviously wanted to be away from him.

"Do you have scissors?"

She was trying to unlock her door, unsure what that meant.

"Only nail ones."

"Oh, that's fine. I just need to cut some stuff."

For a moment, Edith was scared to get them. What exactly was "stuff"? She wasn't going to hurt herself or anything, was she? And, of course, they were right at the bottom of her washbag, taking forever to find...

When she turned, Lucille had taken off her blouse and was apparently trying to pick between two t-shirts, lips pursed critically. Edith's eyes hit her breasts first, black mesh bra barely actually concealing them, and then down her stomach, the slight swell of her hips hitting her jeans, trying desperately to look away.

She looked so normal. Yes, slim and beautiful, but she had the pale lines of stretchmarks, freckles, dark hair under her navel. Real flesh. A real body.

There were even scars...

Edith turned away, mortified, stammering out an apology.

"Oh, come on, Edith. I doubt I have anything you haven't seen before. Here, try this on."

She caught the pink shirt Lucille threw at her, facing the wall as she hurriedly pulled it on. It was far too big, swamping her.

Arms wrapped around her, circled her waist, a belt scooping the fabric in. Lucille moved her by her shoulder, frowning lightly as she started cutting around the neckline.

"Hold your hair up," she murmured, very close to Edith's face. "I'd hate to catch it by mistake."

A deep V-cut revealed more cleavage than Edith was usually comfortable with, the sleeves hacked off, the shirt turned into more of a voluminous mini dress.

"Lose the jeans," Lucille said.

No, no, it would barely cover anything...

"I haven't shaved in days," she said truthfully. "I'd... I'd rather not."

Lucille tutted and shrugged, fluffing out Edith's hair into waves.

"OK. Let's do your makeup."

Edith wasn't particularly good at staying still when someone was coming at her with pointed things, but she did her best. Heavy shadow, contouring, the kind of thing she never did for herself. She wasn't sure it really suited her, but then Lucille was smiling at her and she seemed so much happier and Edith was so glad just to be there with her as they went down to reception to call for a cab.

"Take us somewhere with music," was all she said to the driver, so free and spontaneous and everything Edith wanted to be but was afraid of.

Naturally enough, they ended up in a cheap club, complete with laser lights and sticky floors.

"This is exactly what I need," Lucille said, heading for the bar, pouring herself into one of the stools and ordering two cosmopolitans.

They didn't serve those. Edith suddenly found herself with a shot in her hand and then burning in her throat.

"Two more," Lucille said.

"Bad night, huh?" a man said, tilting his beer in their direction.

"Want to make it better for me?"

He laughed nervously. He was at least ten years older then her, not in the best shape, and clearly hadn't been expecting something like that.

"You're kidding?"

Another shot. Edith coughed heavily, Lucille rubbing her back and then draping her arm around her.

"Sorry," she said. "Happily taken."

With that, she led Edith to the dancefloor, in amongst sweating bodies, elbowing anyone who got in her way. It was easy for her. She was tall, she could see. Edith felt like an ugly duckling in her wake.

"Why did you say that?" she yelled over the music, Lucille having to lean down to hear her.

"I thought it would be funny to see his face. Come on, dance with me."

She tried. She tried so hard. But it was difficult to get into the moment. Yes, she had rhythm, maybe even something like grace, but... But nothing in comparison to how Lucille could let the music flow through her. So loose but so controlled, every motion, every sway of her hips and movement of her head so perfect. Pushing anyone who tried to dance with her away gently bit firmly. She was a swan indeed and if you weren't careful, she might break your arm.

She moved sinuously, smiling, beckoning, teasing just like she did on stage.

A performance. A performance just for her. What was she hiding behind that smile?

More shots. More dancing. And then suddenly Edith was alone. Lucille?

Lucille?

The alcohol had hit her gradually, moving her from tipsy to drunk, heat in her cheeks, images becoming more separated from one another, music pounding in her brain.

Someone was grinding against her from behind, touching her... Uh, no, no, stop... Please stop.

She tried pulling away, but hands tightened on her hips, pulling her back...

Lucille loomed out of the press of bodies, plucking the wandering hands from her body, growling something and pulling her away, back towards the bar, big glass of iced water in her hands and freezing its way down into her stomach.

"I think your girlfriend needs to go home," the barman said pointedly. "She looks beat."

There was a horrible taste at the back of Edith's mouth, not enough air in her lungs and she couldn't even figure put what was wrong with that sentence. Her head lolled against the taxi window, vibrating and buzzing.

Stairs were hard. She needed help. Lucille had her arm around her waist, easing her up to her room, rummaging in her purse for the key.

Oh, Thomas was going to be so angry...

She didn't remember going to bed, just that she felt thoroughly awful by the time she realised that pounding sound wasn't in her head and it was morning and therefore that was the door and...

And Lucille was fast asleep in bed next to her.

She stumbled to her feet in a daze, finding Thomas was the one knocking, unsurprisingly. His eyes flicked down her body and she was suddenly aware that she was only wearing the shirt Lucille had cut onto her the night before and it didn't cover much. It was only for a moment before he looked away.

"Is she here?" he asked quietly.

"Uh... Uh, yeah. Yeah, she is. Come in."

Was this wise? She wasn't sure.

She'd just have to hope.

"Lucille?"

She groaned, flopping onto her back.

"Edith," she croaked. "How about you take a shower? I think my brother and I need to talk in private."

Good idea. But she couldn't quite resist pressing her ear to the door in an effort to catch a little of what they were saying. Just in case.

Quite what she intended to do if she heard anything worrying, she wasn't sure.

"...nothing," Lucille was saying. "Some dive, barely even a club. Full of kids and gross old men. I just needed to get some frustration out. I'm... I'm sorry."

Why was she the one apologizing? He ought to be doing that...

"Did you sleep with her?"

Edith's heart throbbed painfully, eyes wide. She hadn't even thought about... that when they woke up together. She couldn't remember anything after arriving back. Surely they hadn't? Oh, God, she felt sick.

She still had her underwear on. They hadn't. She was almost certain they hadn't.

"Of course not," Lucille scoffed. "She was drunk. Blackout drunk. Even if I'd given her the fuck of her life, she wouldn't have remembered it. We just slept in the same bed. It was nothing. Back off."

"You back off. You're the one... What?"

There was a sudden knock on the door, right under her ear.

"Are you OK, Edith?" Lucille called. "I don't hear the water running."

She leapt away from the door. Caught listening...

"I'm fine," she said, yanking the shirt off. "Couldn't quite figure out how the shower worked, but I think I've got it now."

Standing under the weak stream of warm water soothed her aches a little. The outer ones anyway.

She wished it was so easy to rinse out the creeping sense of unease from her stomach.

She definitely didn't have all the pieces of this puzzle yet. Something was wrong here.

And she didn't know what.

Chapter 9: Truce in Chicago

"This city is called Gary," Lucille laughed. Quite why it was so funny, Edith wasn't sure.

She was trying to at least start the article she'd be filing from Chicago, trying to gather her notes from shows in Louisville and Indianapolis, but her brain kept shutting down. She'd been spending too long listening to their lyrics, really listening, hearing references to soft skin and long hair and, well, OK, they weren't necessarily written by Lucille and even if they were, they didn't necessarily refer to women, but...

But what if they did? And what if Lucille liked... liked her?

She wasn't sure how she felt about that as a possibility. Flattered, maybe. Shocked. Scared. And she didn't know why that last one. It was just Lucille. It was just attraction. Nothing had to happen.

She hadn't called Alan since that night they went dancing and he was probably worried sick. And then there was that girl he'd spoken to. What if she wasn't a jealous Thomas groupie but a jealous Lucille groupie?

"Sure, Gary, Indiana," Thomas said from the front seat. "They filmed Nightmare on Elm Street here."

"No, they didn't. It was Los Angeles. I'm certain of it."

"Not the original, the remake."

Lucille scoffed and huffed, arms folded.

"Lucille hates remakes," Thomas chuckled, doodling in the corners of his map.

"Oh, me too," Finlay said. "I don't mind a new version of an old book from time to time, but if the original said what it needed to, there's no need to mess with it. Though I never did like those scary movies much anyway. I saw enough murder in my work life without making up pretend ones too."

"How long did you work homicide?" Edith found herself asking.

"I didn't. But, well, every so often a robbery goes wrong or you get called to a domestic and find... You know, I don't really like to talk about it so much actually."

"I'm sorry."

A smile in the rear-view mirror. Edith liked Finlay's eyes, their dark brown colour so warm and with such depth. Rich. They had an alertness to them, but no sharpness at all. You could tell she would see right through any attempt to lie to her, but that she would be kind. She'd pretend not to see embarrassing things or she'd overlook a trace of tears. Compassion, that was the word. They were full of compassion.

"You reuse bits of music all the time in your songs," Edith said, trying to break the awkwardness that had fallen upon them. "Is that really any different from a film remake?"

"Of course," Lucille said. "My problem with remakes isn't the remake itself, it's the lack of imagination that goes into it. The same story told the same way with slightly better effects, if that. Retellings and reimaginings and even reboots are different. And with music... Well, that's just theme and variations. That's music theory. For example, every single album we've ever released has a track based around a lullaby from our childhood, but even if you're listening for it you might not hear it. Maybe we've put it into a major key. Maybe we've put the chord structure backwards. Reflected it, so every up tone becomes a down tone and vice versa. Making a new thing out of something old."

"All art is theft, Edith," Thomas said. "And I can't even remember who said that."

"Probably lots of people. It's true. But you have to change it, that's the point. Otherwise it's not art, it's... photocopying."

Edith found herself scrawling that one down. It would sound good as a headline. It raised questions, it would get a reaction.

There was a lot to see in Chicago, she knew that, but if she was going to get the bulk of this thing revised and typed, she really didn't have the time to go out anywhere, much to Lucille's dismay.

"If it's not due until later in the week, surely you can come keep me company," she said as they hauled their stuff up the stairs of a hotel - an actual hotel, not a motel this time.

"I really think I should get it finished."

Lucille grunted, leaning against her suitcase for a moment and then picking it up again.

"You know, I read somewhere that the human brain can only concentrate for two hours at a time," she said. "So you do two hours and then I'll bring you lunch."

It wasn't a suggestion. Edith desperately tried to think of a way out, an escape. She'd been avoiding being alone with any of them, even Finlay. She was scared of giving something away, of being too obvious.

"You don't need to do that."

"I'd like to."

The carry case for the typewriter banged against Edith's shins. She almost hoped it would bruise, just for the distraction. And she knew that was an unhealthy thought and not a helpful one, but she couldn't find much energy to care.

Maybe she should call Alan...

Work first. Rattling keys as she dumped the typewriter onto the little desk, even the rustling of paper upset her, seeming much, much too loud and yet not nearly loud enough.

Two hours. She could do this. This was journalism, it was what she loved. She tried to think back to her college seminars on detachment. They had been more for aspiring television reporters, but the tips they had provided were still useful. Use emotive language, but remain aloof. You can't cry while reading the news, no matter how awful or unjust or upsetting the subject matter.

For God's sake, Edith. They're just musicians. It's hardly a war zone or a famine. It's not a murder.

Where was that quote?

"You have to change it, that's the point. Otherwise it's not art, it's photocopying."

So says Lucille Sharpe before Crimson Peak roll into Chicago for another concert. As someone who has been to all of their performances, I can confirm there is no Xeroxing occuring.

Was that a brand name? Were they allowed? Shit. Maybe it was one of those ones that was so common it was a verb now? She wrote a question to the editor in pencil in the margin. They could always take it out if there was a problem.

The Sharpes have a deep interest in a sort of Anthropology Americana. They examine the people they interact with like butterflies in a collection, as something beautiful but fleeting. To be under their gaze is to be beneath the microscope. Fortunately, they have not yet brought out the pins.

Not that their songs aren't spiky. Indeed, perhaps somewhere out there are the inspirations for some of their more explicit story songs, feeling the stab of having been pierced.

Get under their skin. Reveal things. Give insights.

Though they are striking together in their similarity, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the Sharpes is in how they differ. As always, performance is different from reality. In private moments, Thomas is restless, doodling or reading, always tapping his fingers. Lucille, on the other hand, has the air of a deep lake, the ripples of the surface barely revealing any turmoil that might lie beneath.

And what that turmoil might be was no one's damn business.

That was the problem. Since that night, along with worrying about her own feelings and Lucille's and where they might intersect, she'd been thinking about the run up. The fight Lucille had obviously had with Thomas.

Which of them had thrown the glass? And why? It wasn't her right to ask. Everything was normal again, or apparently normal. She shouldn't ask. She had no right to ask.

But with the kind of intensity and dependency their lifestyle demanded, any kind of violence should be a red flag. They were barely ever out of each other's sight, each other's company. It couldn't be healthy to live like that, regardless of how heated things got.

Maybe that was why Lucille was so determined to spend time with her. A bit of peace and respite. A little time with someone who wasn't her brother.

Was she being terribly cruel? Here was Lucille doing her very best to be friends and she was interpreting all sorts of things into it that might not be intended. How conceited to think that even if Lucille liked girls that she'd therefore like her. That wasn't how it worked. You weren't necessarily drawn to someone just because they fell into your broad preferred category.

But she was thinking too much again.

Edith forced herself back to her work and wrote up accounts of show after show. She had to take notes every night or they just blurred into one. Half the time, she couldn't even tell where she was when she woke up.

Several hundred words later and there was a knock at her door. A childish urge told her not to answer it. Just pretend not to be in. Like that would work...

No, she opened the door and there was Lucille, fresh-faced and happy, holding out what seemed to be sort sort of artisan salad box as a peace offering.

"Vitamins and minerals for working brains," she said. "I wasn't sure if you'd like tuna, so I just got veggies."

It was delicious, Edith couldn't deny that, sweet chilli sauce countering beets in a way she wasn't sure completely worked but liked anyway.

Lucille sat on the bed, carefully as far from the typewriter as possible, not even trying to sneak a peek while Edith took out her pages and laid them face down. Integrity was important.

"So about the other night," Lucille said with no preamble. "I've been wanting to talk to you about it. I do hope you weren't embarrassed."

"Oh, well, I... It's none of my business."

Head tilted to the side, like a bird of prey contemplating something small and fluffy, Lucille looked at her intently.

"I meant that you were drunker than is perhaps usual for you," she said. "Why, what did you mean? What's none of your business?"

"N... No, nothing."

"Edith... You can tell me, don't worry."

Everything about this situation told her to run, told her not to do this. She felt over-tightened, about to warp and break. Out of her depth.

"You and Thomas had... You had a fight," she said in the smallest voice possible.

It was a subtle difference, the shield going up. A change in the eyes, maybe. Barely visible. Just a hint that internally, Lucille had taken a step back.

"And why would you be embarrassed by that?"

"Because... Because it's private and I intruded."

A softening, faint but there. Edith wondered what answer she'd expected.

"It's difficult sometimes," Lucille said quietly. "Thomas and I have no secrets from each other. None at all. It's hard to have someone who knows you that well, no matter how much you love them. I lost my temper, that's all."

"What about?" Edith asked, the question slipping out before she had even thought about how intrusive it was to ask.

A sigh, not of annoyance. More like tiredness.

"Creative differences. We were sketching out a new song. He was hearing things in my lyrics which weren't there. And I got upset. It was nothing a night of dancing couldn't fix."

She leant back against the headboard, thoughtful as she stirred her own lunch a little, fingers delicate on her plastic fork. Holding it more like a needle.

"I had fun, even if we did drink too much," she said. "And I'm sorry you had to deal with creeps."

She'd barely remembered that what with everything else, the horrible feeling of unwanted hands on her.

"I knew you'd keep me safe," she said, surprised to realise it was true.

A smile. A real, genuine smile without even a hint of artifice. Edith felt almost blessed by it, glad to have made it happen. Maybe Lucille didn't get to play the hero too often.

"Have you nearly finished your article?" she asked. "I feel bad leaving you cooped up indoors when there's so much to see out there."

It was nearly done. And though she had wanted to call Alan, she could always do that in the evening. He was more likely to be both at home and awake then anyway.

And Chicago was nice, as cities went, she thought. Skyscrapers and boulevards and so on probably. Big and important. She ought to go out and see it, since she was here.

"Alright," she said. "Where shall we go?"

The Cultural Center was Lucille's first choice. All gorgeous marble in a rainbow of shades, semi-classical architecture and the fabulous glass dome, the Tiffany ceiling.

"It's like being inside one of those lamps," Lucille said, the yellow-tinted filtered light reflecting off her skin.

"You know, for years I thought that Tiffany's was, like, an upmarket bakery," Edith said. "I'd only heard of the film. I thought they were famous for breakfast pastries."

"And have you ever been?"

"What? To a Tiffany's store? No. Much too expensive for me. Have you?"

Her eyes were drifting to Lucille's jewellery and wondering. Those earrings, that necklace... Could they be worth thousands of dollars? Maybe. Edith couldn't pretend to have much of an eye for that kind of thing.

"Only to look and laugh. My stuff is all either fake or inherited. Plastic and cubic zirconia. If it looks good, I don't much care what it's made of. The ring is real though. Rubies and diamonds, gold."

The famous ring. She never seemed to take it off. In her research before getting the job, Edith had read a lot of theories about it, everything from it being a gift from an old flame who had died - and wearing it on her ring finger could support that - to tin-hat explanations of magic, claims that the stone was in fact glass mixed with blood from one or both Sharpes.

And considering that in interviews Lucille didn't reveal or deny anything about it...

"If I asked where it came from," Edith said carefully. "Or why you wear it, would you tell me the truth?"

It was difficult to describe Lucille's expression. Not smiling, more thoughtful than that, but with a hint of amusement in there too.

"Depends on what you count as truth."

Well, that was an incredibly helpful answer. Edith decided to bite anyway. What was there to lose?

"Why do you wear the ring?"

"It's important to me."

So far, so not earth-shattering.

"And where did you get it?"

This was a smile now, but all amusement had gone, leaving mischief in its wake. Edith knew before those red lips even parted that she was about to hear pure fiction.

"I took it from my mother's cold, dead finger."

Edith blinked once or twice and then shrugged. If you can't beat them...

"I suppose she wasn't exactly going to miss it," she said.

Lucille let out a cackle that was much too loud for the atmosphere they were in, grabbing Edith's hand and pulling her towards the exit.

It was a nice day, if a little chilly, and there was a large park just opposite, so they took their time walking hand in hand out to see Lake Michigan. It was strangely nice, though Edith still felt awkward, her skin probably horribly clammy. And she still wasn't sure if this was a sign of anything beyond friendly intimacy or not. Or how she felt about that.

It was a lovely place, a huge central fountain surrounded by rose gardens and four smaller ones, water feature statues with odd names. Crane Girl, Fisher Boy, Dove Girl, Turtle Boy.

"Do you think they're actually meant to be children?" Edith asked.

"With abs and tits like that? Hardly."

Was it coincidence that they bumped into Thomas? Or had they decided to meet earlier and failed to tell her? It was difficult to say. Given that he was also heading for the Field Museum, maybe he just so happened to also be out in the sunshine, looking so out of place among the families and older couples in their bright colours and pastels.

"They have the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found," he said, not even a hello in passing. "And apparently she's named Sue."

"Really? That's adorable," Lucille said. "Can't wait to meet her."

There was no tension between them, any storm well and truly blown over as they linked arms. Feeling intrusive, Edith tried to let go, to let their hands drop, but Lucille just squeezed her fingers.

She only let go so Edith could take Polaroids of them surrounded by the bones of long extinct creatures and looking suitably spooky with it.

The red ring had left a little indentation on the meat of her palm.

Chapter 10: A Name

First thing to do in Milwaukee was to call Alan. It had been days and Edith was starting to feel guilty. Though it didn't feel like days. Or rather the days all merged together and made it difficult to tell when each began and ended. And napping during the afternoon to keep up with the Sharpes at night wasn't helping.

Their fight seemed totally forgotten. They had reverted exactly to their playful, irreverent selves, singing in the car, commenting on every little thing they saw as either being strange or just the same back at home and then that in itself was strange, wasn't it?

Then again, she doubted their home was exactly normal for most people in England. Allerdale Hall. Edith felt like she'd read the name during her research, but she couldn't remember looking it up.

"How is it?" she asked. "Living in a castle?"

They laughed. They always laughed at her questions.

"It's not a castle," Thomas said. "Not in the real sense. The current house is only mid-eighteenth-century for a start. There weren't too many wars at that point. Not internal ones anyway; we were much too busy invading everywhere else. But there was no need for big defences like you'd find on a fortress. It's more a statement of wealth and power than actual use."

"And of course we've had to gift most of it to the National Trust," Lucille said, slightly bitterly. "So there's always tourists poking around. Though I think of what our mother would say if she knew they were selling organic flapjacks and cafe lattes in the old kitchen and I can't help but smile."

The National Trust. Held for the nation. Virtually held for everyone rather than owned by the family.

"Isn't it awful though?" Edith asked. "I'd hate having people in my house all the time."

"Oh, me too," Finlay said, flicking the blinker on to merge lanes. "I'd be so embarrassed. But I suppose you two are classier than I am."

Thomas smiled at the back of her head.

"I doubt that very much," he said. "No, we have the top floor closed off from visitors and mainly stay up there. It's maybe a little unconventional to have a freestanding oven in the old nursery, but it does us well enough."

How odd to think of them hiding away anywhere. Maybe that was why they liked touring. Getting away from the people snooping around them and their ancestors.

"Is it haunted?" Finlay asked. "I've always kinda wanted to spend the night in a haunted house. A real one, I mean, not a fairground one."

"Well, put it like this," Thomas said. "Our house is a few decades older than the founding of your country. We've had plenty of deaths over the years. We must have had. It wouldn't surprise me if a few of the maiden aunts or crusty grandfathers were still holding on."

Edith shivered a little despite herself. She didn't like thinking of living where people had died. Too active an imagination as a child, too many fears about what was under the bed or under the stairs or under the couch. Always under things.

Years later she'd read about a theory of instinctive fears that suggested little girls were more likely to fear what came from below as female apes slept in trees and therefore feared predation from beneath, whereas male apes patrolled on the ground and so little boys were frightened of things hidden at the side; in wardrobes or behind curtains.

Quite how much store could be put in that, she wasn't quite sure. But she'd certainly never been frightened of the monster in the wardrobe, no matter how often it appeared in films.

Ghosts on the other hand... Maybe at one time she'd wanted to believe in them. Back when... Well, it was understandable. But not so much anymore.

"Where does the word 'Milwaukee' come from?" Lucille asked as they drove past the sign. "Is it Native American?"

Edith wasn't sure, but that sounded plausible. She'd never really given it a second thought.

"Lots of Germans came here," Finlay said, a little tentatively. "But I suppose it would be pronounced Mil-vau-kee in that case."

She was following road signs and soon enough had them pulling into their home for the night, faded three stars on the sign suggesting its heyday had passed some time ago.

Still, it was clean and there were beds and that was what mattered.

"What's the plan for today, then?" Thomas asked. "I'm keen to see the Grohmann Museum, but I'm sure Lucille will want to see the bird's wing at the art museum."

"Of course. But come on, a mechanical wing would be right up your street, I'd imagine. Think of the engineering! Surely you can bring yourself to come with me."

Smiling, cheerful and playful, more like children than adults. They'd been travelling together for... was it weeks now? And Edith still couldn't completely get her head around them.

"I really need to call Alan this morning," she said apologetically. "He'll be really worried if I don't check in."

She was expecting a real telling off from him, if she was honest. They'd had an understanding and she had broken it. He'd have every right to be angry. It was only because he worried.

"You go," she said as they dragged their cases out of the bus. "I'll meet you back here for dinner. Maybe catch up on a little sleep. Maybe write a little."

They didn't much like it, but they relented when she reminded them that it wasn't that far from Buffalo if you took a more direct route. They could tell her where was interesting and she'd come back herself some time.

Wiping down the phone with her antibacterial wipes, like she was wiping off fingerprints. It was amazing how quickly that little ritual had taken hold. Would Alan even be home? She ought to have tried to make a note of his schedule for all that it would be almost impossible to follow.

Ringing. Ringing. A click.

"Hello?"

Edith hadn't expected to be this nervous.

"Hi. It's me."

"Edith? Oh, my God. Where are you? I've been going crazy."

"I know, I'm so sorry. It's been busy, that's all. We just got to Milwaukee."

"And everything's... fine? Nothing's happened?"

Edith thought about broken glass, about shouting, about Lucille cutting off bits of t-shirt and telling Thomas that no, they hadn't slept together and holding hands in Chicago and...

"No," she said. "No, everything's normal."

He exhaled heavily.

"Good. And you're eating right? Getting your veggies? Not just living on chips and coffee? Sleeping OK?"

"Yes," she lied. "Absolutely."

Maybe those were bigger bags under her eyes than normal in the mirror...

"Listen," Alan said, very seriously, even more serious when that hadn't seemed possible. "I've been speaking to the woman I told you about. She can't tell me anything, but she agreed to give me her number to give to you so you can speak to her yourself. Have you got a pen? Her name is Enola Sciotti."

The number he gave her seemed very strange.

"It's Italian," he said when asked. "She's Italian. She's from Milan and she went back there after working for the Sharpes. But her English is perfect."

Edith hesitated suddenly. Call Italy from this phone? But the Sharpes paid the hotel bills and they'd definitely know if she made an international call...

"Alright," she said. "I'll contact her when I can."

"Please do. Seriously."

She'd need to find a payphone.

Were there even payphones anymore? Oh, and then the change... Feeding coins into the slot for hours, how much was it going to cost?

And it was probably nothing anyway. A working relationship that hadn't worked out, that was all.

She couldn't believe that it could be anything more than a misunderstanding. The Sharpes were easy to mistake, she thought. Their humour, their manner; maybe they had offended this girl, Enola.

All the same, she couldn't help but be a little concerned. Maybe she should try to subtly ask Lucille and Thomas about it, get their side of the story. Not directly, but maybe ask if they'd ever travelled with a journalist before. See what they offered about it.

It felt wrong to suspect them somehow. Yes, they sometimes made her uncomfortable, but it wasn't deliberate.

She'd hate to see what it would be like if they were trying.

She managed to find herself things to do. Organising some of the pictures she'd taken over the last few days. She needed more Polaroids already. Was it the publisher who was handling that? Yet another thing to ask the Sharpes about.

No sooner had she got them out of her mind then the pair of them appeared at her door, Finlay in tow, talking about how silly it was they had forgotten about lunch, but they'd seen the most darling park to have a picnic in and she simply must come.

Sitting on a park bench with cheese and sliced ham and crackers - and, yes, they had Lunchables in England too, though Lucille couldn't recall ever actually having them - watching as Thomas let Finlay use his back as a vaguely flat surface on which to write a postcard to her daughter (but mostly her grandson) and Edith felt even more sure that whatever this business was, it could only be a misunderstanding.

They were unlike anyone she'd ever met and, yes, they were strange and sometimes a little tone deaf and maybe their close working relationship got a little intense, but they weren't actively cruel.

At least she didn't think so.

"Have you been on tour before?" she asked, unable to fully get the thought out of her mind. "Overseas, I mean."

"Oh, of course," Lucille said, deftly wiping crumbs from her lips. "We've done a few in Ireland, and in Europe. There's a big goth scene in Scandinavia, so we've been there a few times. Germany. France. Italy. Not Spain yet, but I'd love to go."

Edith's heart thudded in her chest, willing herself not to look guilty. Italy, where Enola was. What had happened? Was that where they met her?

"And did you have someone like me with you on any of them? Or in your studio?"

Was that too obvious? Would they become suspicious at these sudden questions?

Lucille laughed.

"Oh, Edith, I don't think we could have found someone else like you if we'd done interviews for years."

That shouldn't feel as good as it did, being told she was special. And yet she practically glowed with it.

"No, I meant... I meant a journalist, you know."

Lucille shook her head.

"Not a journalist, no. We had assistants sometimes, but that's not quite the same, is it? But no, none of them were like you. You're far more interesting, not to be rude about them. Nice people, mostly, but we were always strictly professional."

Edith blinked a little.

"What do you mean?" she stammered. "Aren't we professional?"

"Oh, just... Well, yes, but I meant that I never went out dancing with any of them, that's all."

Oh... Oh, of course.

Of course that's what she meant.

Chapter 11: Time with Thomas

They paid for everything. They were always around. Edith felt unbalanced by the realisation, the fact that the only times she was left alone really were when she was writing and when she was sleeping, and even then, the Sharpes were seldom further away than in the next room.

She could hear them sometimes. Conversations she couldn't quite make out, calling through the bathroom door to one another, laughing.

The laughing was the worst. No matter how much Edith tried to tell herself they weren't laughing at her, part of her couldn't resist thinking that they must be. She was a joke to them. Like when the popular boys at school would ask out plain girls for a dare and then laugh regardless of the answer.

She couldn't sneak out. They'd know. They'd ask what she was doing. They'd think she was breaking contract somehow.

Of course, she could just come up with an excuse. Say she needed to buy a card for an aunt's birthday or something, sneak off. But what if they wanted to come with her? It wasn't like she could say no.

How strange and unsettling to realise she was in a cage.

The question rattled round in her head. How to get a little time? When could she get away from them, just for the length of time it would take to make a phone call?

But to Italy. And to hear... well, what exactly? How long would it take?

She told herself to stop worrying. It was probably nothing. Just a professional dispute. Happened all the time. Alan was just freaking out, like he always did.

Still, maybe she could still learn a little more if she tread carefully. And maybe if she focussed more on Thomas than Lucille.

It almost made her blush to think like that, but he was the more open of the two. Or at least he appeared to be. Then again, she was still suspicious of that fight, the idea of him "hearing something" in Lucille's lyrics. Hearing what? A criticism? A jibe of some kind? Something about himself?

Something important enough that in the ensuing argument a glass was thrown. Edith had had her share of rage, but never even been tempted to do something like that.

Or rather she had, but she'd never acted on it. Think about doing bad things, but don't listen. Ignore the intrusive thoughts. Almost everyone got them sometimes.

Her thoughts had been wandering around all day. How to get him alone, how to get a chance to talk with him and subtly ask about Enola. Not by name, but the same vague questions about previous assistants. Maybe he'd let something slip that he wouldn't while his older sister was listening.

Come on, Edith. Journalists ask things. Bite the bullet and do it.

She waited, smiling through dinner, waiting for her chance. Waiting for Lucille to not be there, even for a second, so she could ask...

Nothing so much as a bathroom break.

"Are we boring you, sweetheart? You seem far away."

Lucille's voice cut through her thoughts like a scalpel. Precise in tone and content to startle her. And it was getting difficult to remind herself that it probably wasn't deliberate.

"No, not at all. I'm just a little tired."

"Do you need to go back to the motel? I can head over with you."

"Please don't trouble yourself."

"I have to go anyway. I left my make-up bag behind."

Edith's heart leapt, though maybe it was more of a lurch. She was going to be away for a while. Not long, but a while. And that meant Thomas would be alone...

"No, I think I'd rather power through or I won't sleep properly tonight. I'll go to soundcheck. Ask Thomas some searching questions."

If she said it jokingly enough, they wouldn't think anything of it. And she gave Lucille her best smile, the nothing-is-wrong smile, the carefree, happiest smile.

She'd learned to fake that smile a long, long time ago.

"Only if you're sure."

She was sure. Incredibly sure. Practically vibrating through the rest of the meal waiting for it to end. Trying to work out how far it was going to be to walk to the concert venue. How even Finlay was going to be busy, not overhearing their conversation, so she could ask him anything.

And then the fear hit. The nerves. The last time they had been alone together, she'd been so far out of her depth that it was a wonder she'd ever resurfaced at all.

Thomas gave her a quick smile as they set out to walk together, Finlay planning to drive Lucille to the motel and back. Which was going to severely cut down on the amount of time Edith had to talk to him, but maybe that was a good thing.

For every step he took, she had to take about one and a third. The rhythm was strange. Jarring.

"What are these hard questions you wanted to ask me, then?" he asked, the hint of a laugh in his voice.

What happened to your last assistant?

No. No, she couldn't be so blunt.

"Um... Whose idea was it to start the band in the first place?"

So searching. So deep... Edith could practically hear the thousands of times down the years that the question had been asked before.

"Oh, Lucille's. Absolutely hers. I'm a good enough technical musician, but she's the artist. She was always writing poems and songs and music. It's natural for her. I have to work at it."

He'd given her a proper answer all the same. That was kind of him, she supposed.

"She likes you, you know," he said softly.

"Who?" Edith said, realising how stupid a question it was a second too late.

"Lucille. And that's not something that can be said about many people."

If it was darker, the blush probably wouldn't have bothered her so much, but as it was she quickened her steps to hide it, trying not to seem flustered.

"Do you not like me then?" she asked jovially, reaching for the stage door handle. Make a joke. Shrug it off.

He paused, looking at her as she swung the heavy sheet of metal open.

"I do. I like you very much."

The clang of the door closing echoed in her ears, the crunch of crumbled plaster underfoot, the smell that theaters all seemed to have - paint and smoke and sweat - filling her head.

Why was her heart beating so fast? What did it matter? He meant it in a friendly way, they both did.

Edith thought about the night she and Lucille had been dancing. How the next morning he asked if they'd... If they'd...

The memory still made her feel a little ill. She shouldn't have drunk that much. It was embarrassing. But then that lead to other questions.

If she'd been more sober, would Lucille have done something?

And would it have been unwelcome?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But that wasn't Edith. She didn't do that sort of thing. She didn't act on her desires. Braver people did that, she just sort of waited for sex to happen on someone else's instigation.

So, was she waiting for Lucille to instigate something? No!

Of course not.

"Did Lucille like your other assistants?" she asked, almost chasing Thomas up the corridor towards the stage where the instruments were waiting.

"She tolerated them. Why do you ask?"

Why did she ask?

Because she wanted to know. Wanted to understand what was happening between them all.

"I... I just... wondered."

Even with the auditorium lights on, the actual performance space seemed dazzlingly bright. Edith's instinct was to hang back, to stay out of the way, but Thomas beckoned to her.

"I should check the tuning," he said, as though nothing odd had been said between them. "Would you mind dreadfully helping me? I'll need an A on the keyboard."

Forgotten piano lessons reared in Edith's memory, the boredom of playing scales that meant she never practised and finally quit. She pressed the key only to hear no sound while Thomas waited politely, guitar in his arms.

"You have to turn it on first."

Of course. Of course, how stupid... And, of course, it wasn't plugged in, a Frankenstein of adaptors attaching it to an extension lead and then the wires weren't in at the back so she had to crawl to get them and...

"Ow!"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just... Just a splinter from the floor."

She could feel it, her ring finger throbbing, turning red around the second joint, but she couldn't actually see the tiny shard of wood.

And suddenly Thomas was there, crouched beside her, slightly blurry in the tears that had leapt unbidden to her eyes.

"It's not even that sore," she said, even though it was, it was sharp and urgent pain.

"Let me see."

He took her hand so gently, not squeezing or pressing, looking at it critically and then, to Edith's horror, bringing it to his lips.

The gasp was out before she could stop it as he sucked gently on her flesh, tongue occasionally flicking against her skin, feeling for the splinter. The heat, the care, the way he glanced at her from under his lashes wearing a little frown of concern.

It could only have lasted a few seconds before he let out a little hum and released her, carefully picking the sliver of board from between his teeth.

"Better?" he asked.

Edith looked down at her hand, damp and pink, wiping it on her top without thinking.

"Yeah. Thank you."

He smiled at her, helping her back to her feet.

"When we were children, I was forever getting splinters," he said. "And it was much quicker and easier for Lucille to suck them out than to go crying to Mother. Tweezers and a telling off. No sympathy. It's not bleeding, is it?"

She didn't have time to react before he took her hand again to check. Not much blood if it was.

"My sister feels things very deeply," he said softly and out of nowhere, nearly a murmur that seemed to rattle in her chest, low and startling. "More than other people do. She's passionate and that can make her seem demanding or... smothering sometimes. But you'd tell me if she made you uncomfortable, wouldn't you?"

Would she?

"Of course," Edith said, not sure if she meant it. "And she doesn't. She's... just a little intense. Sometimes."

He smiled warmly at her, easing her towards the piano stool like she might faint.

"Good. We do love having you with us and I'd hate for you to be scared of us."

A dozen thoughts raced through Edith's mind. Broken glass and shouting. Laughter through the walls. Treating everything like a joke and how that made her so frightened that they thought she was one too. The feeling of Lucille's arm around her. The feeling of Thomas's lips against her skin. How frequently they touched her, just a little, just in a friendly way. Fingers at the nape of her neck as they passed behind her. Hands touching as they checked the map. Feeling their breath in her hair as they looked over her shoulder, waiting for a Polaroid to develop.

"You don't scare me," she said, truthfully but so unsure of what emotion her body and brain were trying to express. "But maybe... Maybe you make me nervous."

She turned away, fingers on the keys to find the right note.

"You'll get used to us," Thomas said behind her. "I'm sure you'll relax soon."

Notes:

(I do not think this is a medically approved way to remove splinters, by the way.)

Chapter 12: Rude Awakenings

A sound entered Edith's foggy dreams, distant and distorted, slowly dredging through the mists to her. The room was in darkness and for a moment it was difficult to focus or to believe that she was really awake at all.

The phone? Was that her room phone ringing?

Flopping sideways in a too-soft bed, she lifted the receiver, attempting to mumble a greeting into it, but her lips didn't seem to work. She managed some kind of sound at least.

"This is your five-thirty wake up call, ma'am. Good morning."

"I didn't... I didn't ask for one. You must have the wrong room."

"Room 36, Miss Edith Cushing?"

"Yes, but..."

"And you're accompanying Mr Sharpe?"

Despite her disorientation, Edith felt herself flush red, trying to burrow into the blankets as if she could hide from her own embarrassment. That moment of something like intimacy before the show was still prominent in her mind and when Lucille had arrived, there had been a rush of... of guilt, almost. Like she was lying to her somehow by not mentioning it.

But nothing had happened! What should she do, confess that she'd had a splinter and that Thomas had helped her? It was nothing. It was less than nothing.

And why would Lucille care anyway? It wasn't like they were... They weren't...

"I'm travelling with the Sharpes, yes," she said, wondering how the receptionist could possibly be so chirpy at such an hour.

"It seems they mean to leave at six, ma'am. Long journey ahead?"

Maybe. Where were they on the itinerary? She couldn't even think of it.

"I guess so," she said. "Thank you."

"Good morning, ma'am. Have a nice day."

She'd try, but it hardly seemed likely. Her dad used to say that nothing good happened before seven or after midnight. Go to bed and get up at sensible hours.

Mind you, he also used to say that rain drove spiders indoors and that you couldn't trust a man whose hands were too soft, so maybe she shouldn't put too much store in his wisdom.

Getting out of bed was torture but a shower helped her feel a little more human, throwing her things into her bag without care and dragging both it and the typewriter to the door, only to open it and come face to face with Thomas's middle section.

He moved back from being about to knock, looking her up and down.

"Would you like to dry your hair?" he asked. "I'm sure we have time."

"I... No, it's fine," she said, even though she knew it was scraped into a wet bun that promised to tangle up horribly. "Why didn't you tell me we were leaving so early?"

A smile, a chuckle that might be self-deprecating.

"Well, I always find that if I know I have to get up early, it's impossible to get to sleep. Therefore, I thought if you didn't know, you'd be more rested. It's four hours to Des Moines, give or take, and Lucille is simply desperate to see the instrument collection in Salisbury House. We thought we could arrive there at around ten, spend a few hours and still have time to have an afternoon nap and visit a laundrette before the show tonight."

He'd picked up her bags and set off, knowing she'd follow him. And everything he said made sense. Kind of. Perhaps she was overreacting.

Lucille looked perfectly poised as she loaded up her bags, bare-faced and with her hair in a long braid down her back, smiling at their approach.

"Don't be angry with me," she said, coming forward and laying her hands on Edith's shoulders - damp from her hair, shirt probably gone transparent and showing her bra straps.

"I'm not," Edith said, trying to sound convincing. "Just tired."

"Aw," Finlay said. "I'll try to make it a smooth ride. You get your rest."

Usually, Edith couldn't sleep in cars. No problem when she was a kid apparently. They would soothe her as a baby by taking her out, the hum of the engine helping her drift off. She wondered when that had changed. When the fear of falling asleep in a moving vehicle had slipped into her very being.

Still, she must have been exhausted because she woke with a start and, mortifyingly, something like a snort. Had she been snoring? She didn't think she snored...

Oh, her hair was a thicket, lopsided and knotted.

"We're nearly there," Thomas said from the front seat.

"Wait till you see it," Lucille said. "It's based on a building in England. Some rich guy had it built, even imported 16th-century oak beams for the aesthetic of it. A house built to imitate something that had been knocked down and rebuilt over and over for close to five centuries. Isn't that fascinating?"

"Yeah," Edith said, wishing she could muster up a little more enthusiasm.

Lucille smiled at her and rummaged in the seat pocket until she unearthed a tiny hairbrush.

"Turn round for me. It's the least I can do after waking you up at such an ungodly hour."

In truth, Edith didn't want to. She wasn't a child. She could do it herself. But things were already so awkward. How much worse could it get?

Freeing her hair from the cheap tie she'd put it in, Lucille began easing out the tangles, holding it at the roots to make sure it didn't pull or hurt, humming as she worked.

It wasn't a familiar tune.

"Is that a new song?" Edith asked.

The brush froze in her hair for a moment. Or maybe she imagined it did.

"Yes. Maybe. I'm still playing with it. We both are. But I like what Thomas has done with the music. Just trying to squeeze lyrics into it now."

This was interesting. Their process. They rarely spoke about it.

"Can I hear what you've got so far?" she asked, pushing her luck.

A long pause and then a cough from the front seat.

"I think that's a no, I'm afraid."

Lucille sighed.

"I'm just trying to pick a part I'm sure of," she said. "Let me think about it."

She finished brushing Edith's hair and swiftly put it into a braid like her own. Matching, in different shades.

"She's good, isn't she?" Thomas asked. "She was the only one who could get my hair to lie flat when we were children."

"Wet comb," Lucille said, looking out the window and pointing. "Look. I think we're there."

It was an odd building. Pretty. Edith could easily understand why it had been a passion project. All the same, it seemed so out of place. Out of time.

They were on the wrong day for a guided tour, but they could take themselves round with the help of little information cards in all the rooms. They read about the man who built it - he seemed to have made his fortune by inventing a new kind of face cream - and his wife. She was called Edith too.

"Is that all there is about her?" Lucille asked the friendly volunteer in the dining room.

"Uh..." the woman said, blinking rapidly in a way Edith identified with strongly. The Sharpes brought out that rabbit-in-headlights response. "Well, she had four sons..."

A smile, but one of her false ones.

"Funny, isn't it? So many women in history and all we talk about is who they married and who they birthed."

"And that's if they get talked about at all," Finlay said.

She was examining a statue of the Madonna and child, its antiquity obvious by how decrepit it looked. Edith had a strange urge to try to clean it, but maybe washing it too harshly would damage it beyond repair.

Perhaps it was the unsatisfactory answer that sparked Lucille into mischief. Or maybe she would always have done it. Maybe being that rich just gave you a sense of immunity to the usual rules.

They entered the rooms with the old instruments, some Edith couldn't even name and a large, beautiful, antique piano as a centrepiece. It was enormous, the strings shining like necklaces, a wonderful carving of twisted plants on the side panels.

"Is there a lock on the door?" Lucille whispered.

"What?" Edith asked.

"Close the door and lock it. I've thought of part of the new song I like enough to give you a little preview."

"I don't think we should..."

"Please?"

Edith looked to Finlay, the most adult among them, a former detective no less. Surely she'd put a stop to this.

"I'd like to hear it," she said, shrugging.

Still unsure, Edith found herself walking slowly to the large wooden door and pushing it shut, turning the large brass key that was conveniently in it as Lucille played a chord on the piano.

"Ugh," she said. "Needs tuned, but it will do. Thomas, you play. From the bridge."

Edith had seen them play so many times, but not like this. Not intimate like this, only four people in the room, the pair of them back-lit by the huge window bathing the room in sunlight.

Thomas played a few notes and then began playing an actual tune, though at least he was leaning forward to touch it and not sitting on the delicate-looking stool.

Lucille beckoned, bringing Edith and Finlay forward to look at the little hammers striking the strings. And then she began to sing.

"You don't know," she began before adjusting for the strange notes. "You just don't realise... La-la-la, I haven't quite got this part yet, but then it goes two, three - What are you writing? Won't you write to me some day? Show me the words noted down if you can't get them out..."

Every hair on Edith's body stood on end. She'd had shivers listening to them before, but not like this. Hot and cold and terrified and thrilled all at once. This was about her, she was sure of it. This was a song about her...

"Write to me what you can't bear to say, write to me and don't delay, write to me what you don't know and maybe I'll... Maybe I can help you let go..."

What was her heart doing? Did she like it? Was she scared? She didn't know. Nothing made sense...

There was loud hammering on the door, plaintive calling to open it and stop touching the antiques immediately. And Thomas laughed. He was having fun as he headed for the door and began to apologise, explaining that they were professional musicians from England and very sorry but they couldn't resist such a wonderful instrument...

Edith didn't hear most of that. Finlay was trying her best not to giggle and hiding by pretending to look at a painting of some women possibly singing or playing the lute or something...

It was hard for Edith to tell since Lucille had pushed her into an alcove, one hand on her waist squeezing hard, and pressed a harsh kiss to her lips before turning away fast enough to make her almost question if it had happened at all.

No lipstick. No trace.

She was always one step ahead.

Chapter 13: Laundry Day

Edith stumbled through the rest of the museum in a daze. What had just happened? Had that just happened? And what did it mean?

Lucille was acting perfectly normally. Or normal for her, anyway. Little biting comments about everything they saw, laughing lightly from time to time and shaking her head.

Was she... Was she hiding? From who? From Thomas? But they were so close, why would she hide if she... liked someone?

By the time they headed back out to the bus, Edith had almost convinced herself that it hadn't happened at all. She was so tired that she'd dreamt it and then forgotten what had and had not really occurred.

"You should sleep," she heard Thomas saying to Lucille. "I can handle the laundry, don't worry."

"No, you always put the wash on too hot and then it all shrinks."

"Good thing you suit undersized things, then."

Something had been sitting at the back of her mind ever since Thomas had mentioned going to a laundromat and now it clamoured for attention. You needed quarters to operate the machines. There would probably be a dispenser of some kind, bigger money in and coins out. She could get change and while the clothes were spinning she could find a payphone and...

"I've already had a nap," she said, even though she was still tired and quite shaken generally. "You should both sleep so you're fresh for the show and I'll go."

Thomas smiled at her. Lucille did not, at first, but then she seemed to brighten up.

"You're an angel," Thomas told her. "But are you sure you can manage? We have quite a lot."

"I used to take all my roommate's stuff down in college. I'm sure I'll be fine."

'Quite a lot' turned out to be quite the understatement. Edith and Finlay's week's worth was only three quarters of Thomas's alone. How had he gone through so many shirts?! Edith stood in the doorway of their motel room trying not to look judgemental as he squeezed it all into a hurriedly emptied backpack.

"I'm afraid her ladyship is still organising herself," Thomas said, dressed in something that might be pyjamas and which was much, much too loose around the neckline.

"I just don't want to forget anything," Lucille snapped, appearing in a short, white silk nightdress that forced Edith to desperately look anywhere else than at her as she took three more plastic bags.

She was turning pink, she knew it.

"I'd say separate out the darks," Thomas said. "But, well, you've seen our outfits."

"Are you sure you can manage?" Lucille asked.

"I'm sure."

Edith had just turned to leave them to sleep when Lucille called her back, reaching under her flimsy nightgown to take off her underwear, folding them neatly before handing them over.

"Might as well," she said.

They were warm from her body, soft and painfully ordinary, just black cotton briefs.

If Edith hadn't been blushing before, she certainly was now as Lucille looked at her with something strange in her eyes, a faint pleading.

"I'll see you later," she said, almost a question, though Edith wasn't sure what she was asking.

"Yes," she heard herself say, somehow, voice almost croaking her throat was so dry.

She was still clutching them unconsciously when she got to the front desk to ask where the nearest laundry place was. After all, surely the girl on reception looking it up on her phone didn't count as her using modern technology, right? She was just asking.

As if that was what she was concerned about as she set out with a scrawled set of directions, looking out for payphones as she went. She was going to betray them. Call someone from their past because despite everything else she was feeling - might be feeling - she didn't trust them.

How could she trust people who lied all the time and who would kiss innocent bystanders and then say nothing about it and leave those people floundering and not sure at all what was going on or where they stood or anything?

Ugh...

The laundromat staff were extremely helpful and friendly, almost overly so, one of them coming to help her separate things out - Thomas apparently forgot his own white, flowing shirts and how little they'd appreciate going in with Lucille's scarlet blouses or any of their jet black jeans.

"Wow!" her new friend said. "This is nice stuff. Where'd you get it?"

"Oh, it's... It's not mine. It's just my turn to do the laundry."

One or other of the Sharpes normally did it. Edith found herself wondering if they went through her pockets hoping to find something interesting.

Several minutes of forced conversation later, she had three machines going - lights, darks and one with anything that looked like it might prefer a delicate wash - and she could finally try casually asking if there was a payphone nearby.

"We have a phone in the back you can use."

"It's an international call, I'm afraid."

The woman looked at her strangely, and no wonder. Who used a payphone these days, especially to call another country?

Eventually, after some discussion, one of the staff said she had a friend who used to call her parents from a sort of internet cafe a few blocks over when her cell got broken and she was pretty sure they had international rates.

Edith cemented her position as someone who would be mentioned at home today by putting a twenty through the quarter machine, setting three aside behind the desk for the dryers, and setting out with her coat pockets faintly rattling.

It was a surprisingly long walk and Edith's nerves did not settle on the way. She'd told Alan she would call Enola. She was just getting it over with.

Italy was not a place people regularly wanted to call, it seemed. The old man running the place scratched his beard and hummed before calling to his daughter to ask her opinion. A ledger had to be produced to find the base charge to call mainland Europe, and only after paying it with a chunk of her coins was she let into a tiny booth with a dusty phone and a distinctly less dusty computer in it.

The keyboard looked very tempting after wrestling with the typewriter, all worn keys, so soft and easy. But no. She was here to load up her quarters and dial Enola's number. And to sincerely hope it wasn't the middle of the night in Italy.

It took a long time to connect, a faint ticking sound in her ear, and then finally the dull buzz of a ring tone.

"Si? Ciao?"

"Am I speaking to Enola Sciotti?"

It would be typical if Edith had somehow had the wrong number.

"Yes. Who is calling?"

"I'm, er... I'm Edith Cushing. I'm working for the Sharpes."

There was a long pause, longer than the time delay, and then Enola spoke with a distinct tone of fear in her voice, her accent going slightly thicker as she whispered.

"Are they with you now? Are they watching you?"

Edith startled slightly. That hadn't been what she expected at all.

"No. No, I'm alone. They don't know I'm calling."

A long exhale.

"Do not trust them. Do not tell them we spoke."

The machine was already beeping at Edith to add more quarters. Overseas calls were expensive.

"I won't, I promise, but I don't have long," she said, loading in coins. "My friend said to call you."

"Yes, Alan. He is very nice. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but..."

"What?" Edith asked, desperate. "What is it? What do you need to tell me?"

"You must understand that they did their best to ruin my life when I asked about it. They made me sign the non-disclosure forms, they threatened me with libel, they refused to give me references, they pretended I'd been inappropriate with Thomas and that's while they fired me when that isn't true and I had to come back to Italy with nothing and..."

"What is it?!"

Enola took a long, damp breath, like she was close to tears.

"I... I don't think the death of their mother was an accident."

Chapter 14: Enola's Message

Edith felt her stomach drop through the floor, scrambling for her notebook, pulling the lid off her pen with her teeth.

"Quickly," she said, feeding more quarters into the phone. "Tell me everything."

"It was a car accident, long before I worked for them. The brakes failed. Worn out, an old car and she wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Except... Except they had me clear an office in the house - which wasn't even my job, but they made me do it anyway - and I found the... The piece of paper from the mechanic and it said the, uh... The things for the brakes, you know, the things that make them work..."

"The brake lines?" Edith asked, shorthand appearing on the page almost before the words had gone through her head.

"Yes. They were replaced only a month before. They could not have worn out. I think... I think Thomas or Lucille swapped them for the old ones, knowing it would look like an accident."

No... No, surely not. That kind of thing didn't happen in real life. That happened in TV movies and airport mystery novels. It didn't happen to real people, certainly not without someone being caught.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm certain!"

Alright, the Sharpes were a little... odd, but murder? No. She couldn't believe that.

"I would be offended if someone accused me of killing my mom, that's all. Maybe enough to refuse references."

"You don't understand! It's a game to them. Everything is a game and they don't care who-"

The line went dead. And she had no more quarters.

Edith placed the phone back in its cradle with trembling hands.

What was she supposed to do now? And what was that about being inappropriate with Thomas? Had it really been that he'd been inappropriate with her? Or was it a complete lie, based on nothing?

She wasn't jealous. Just curious. Curious about people the Sharpes used to work with and whether they'd been as off-balanced by them as she was.

She left the cafe even more confused than she'd entered it somehow and made her way back to the laundromat with her mind swirling.

The women there had put her loads on to dry. Very thoughtful of them, nicer than they needed to be. And then she had the embarrassment of asking to use the phone in the back after all. She had an urge to call Alan right away.

He had to be on shift as she heard the robotic voice of his answerphone. It was a relief, really, not to have to share what she'd just learned with him. She needed to sort it out in her own mind first.

"Hey, it's me. I'm in a laundromat in Des Moines. Listen, I called that Enola girl - can you tell her I'm sorry the line went dead? I ran out of quarters. I'll call you after dinner or maybe tomorrow. Bye."

Her voice had sounded so normal. She was proud of that. Almost as proud as she was of coming up with a plan of what to do next.

She separated out Lucille and Thomas's clothes, warm and smelling of something pretending to be jasmine flowers from the machines, but left her own and Finlay's muddled up. She needed an excuse to hang around in her room for a few minutes.

Retracing her steps back to the motel, Edith tried to rehearse how she would ask the question.

"Hey, how would you... Is it possible to... Did you ever hear of someone...?"

When she finally managed to drag everything up the stairs and find the right room number, she had about six different possible ways of saying it.

Finlay yawned as she opened the door, her hair out of its usual bun and standing like a cloud around her head, smiling as Edith hefted the bags in and began making two piles.

"Mmm. I hope they didn't charge you too much. This smells like it's had softener on it and everything."

"They were very nice, but I think mainly admiring of Lucille's things rather than ours if they gave them special treatment."

Finlay chuckled, rolling some socks into balls. There was never going to be a good time to ask, Edith figured. Might as well just go for it.

"How easy is it to stage a car crash?" she asked, avoiding eye contact by folding a t-shirt.

Spluttering. An unexpected question. Obviously.

"Why would a nice young lady like you go asking a horrible thing like that?"

Ah... Ah, why would she?

"Because I... have an idea for a book. A murder mystery."

That seemed to placate Finlay at least a little.

"I told you, I never worked homicide," she said. "But I reckon it'd be hard. Those smart cookies down in forensics can spot all kinds of things. A deliberate crash? Yeah, I'd bet they could detect that. There'd be something wrong with the marks on the road or something."

That ought to have made Edith feel better than it did. Really, she needed more details about the accident before she could decide if Enola's story was credible. And where would she get those? Asking the Sharpes outright would be suspiscious as hell.

"Maybe I won't write it," she said, fishing out the last of her underwear. "Maybe I'll write something nicer."

Worn out brake lines. Not cut, just old. She still couldn't help wondering. That was suspicious, it couldn't be denied.

Oh, she needed a nap... Too many thoughts and feelings and questions and then dinner and the show and notes. Too much for one day.

Lucille opened the door on her third knock, hair mussed from sleep. She looked softer. Glowing almost. Maybe she'd just done her primer.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked. "We've got the travel kettle on. Nice cup of chamomile will help you sleep."

"Oh, no, that's alright. There won't be enough cups. I'll just... I'll... I'll see you at dinner."

Edith wished she hadn't seen the way Lucille had been surprised. Maybe even offended. Certainly confused.

Perhaps she was taking this as a rejection of her advances. Was it a rejection? Maybe. Maybe not. Edith wasn't sure yet. There was a lot to think about. Lucille was her employer, for a start. First job and already considering sleeping with the boss? What a cliche.

And then there was Thomas. Edith couldn't deny finding him attractive too and she didn't think she was good at hiding that. She wouldn't want Lucille getting jealous of her own brother. They were too close, in life and art. The risk of causing a rift was too much.

Enola's accusation sat heavily in the back of her mind, a toad on an egg ready to hatch out a monster.

She didn't want to get involved with murderers or even potential ones. She needed to know more. After all, if they'd been accused of something so awful, maybe that would be enough to get rid of their assistant. And they were quite ruthless - she could easily see them seeking retribution if they were offended.

Oh, God, she hoped Lucille wasn't offended...

The motel bed creaked as she flopped down on it, sending up a faint smell of damp. She just needed to sleep, she figured, kicking off her sneakers and wriggling out of her jeans.

It wasn't easy to drift off with her mind so full, but she must have managed it. Knocking woke her for the second time in twenty-four hours. Dinner already? Ugh...

"Hang on," she called. "One minute."

"It's me," she heard Lucille say. "It's just me."

There was something about the intonation. 'Just.' Alone. Secret, almost.

Edith opened the door, jeans on but not done up. And there was Lucille, clutching a dark red shirt.

"You accidentally mixed this into your own laundry and I want to wear it tonight," she said, stepping inside without being asked.

"No, I didn't."

"No, but that's what I'm going to tell Thomas when he gets out of the shower and asks why I came through here. We need to talk about this morning."

Edith blinked a few times and closed the door, stomach rolling. This was too fast. Too blunt. There ought to be more dancing around first.

The morning felt like it had been weeks ago.

"How did it make you feel?" Lucille asked, sitting down on the very edge of the bed. She didn't bother specifying exactly what she was talking about.

"I don't know," Edith said truthfully.

"Then let's cut it down. Did you dislike it?"

That was cutting it down? Edith paced like a caged tiger, trying to escape the truth.

"No," she said eventually. "No, I... I didn't dislike it."

"Good," Lucille said, standing up. "That's all I wanted to be sure of. Thank you for returning my shirt."

She made it to the door before Edith felt able to speak up again.

"But... But we can't!"

Lucille turned on her heel and shrugged.

"We can't what?"

"We can't... have an affair."

Jesus, who was she? What decade was this?

"An affair? I didn't realise things were so serious."

"You know what I mean," Edith said, blushing angrily. "You're my boss. We can't have a relationship. It's unethical."

Lucille stood at the door, nodding slightly.

"The kiss was an experiment," she said softly. "One we both enjoyed. I was merely suggesting more experiments, not a relationship as such. You could say no to any or all of them. But, frankly, you seem like you could use the closeness. The intimacy. The stress relief. A little fun. Think about it and let me know. No hard feelings either way."

She left. And Edith decided to sit on the floor for a little while, unsure of what else to do.

She didn't want to be anyone's experiment.

And yet the idea didn't completely repulse her.

No strings. Lucille probably wouldn't tell anyone. And she was very attractive, that much was obvious. The thought kept returning to the back of Edith's mind that maybe she could do this, maybe she could get away with it...

Ugh, she didn't know what she wanted.

Or maybe she was just scared to admit it.

Chapter 15: Research

Edith almost sleepwalked through dinner, distant and distracted but strangely jumpy all the same, practically leaping out of her chair when Finlay pressed a hand to her forehead to check her temperature.

"You look so peaky."

"I'm fine."

None of them looked convinced, though Lucille was the one who spoke.

"Maybe you should sit this show out. Take an evening for yourself."

It felt like an insult and that made Edith all the more determined to go.

"I just need to freshen up a little," she said carefully. "I can handle it. I mean, I've barely eaten today, that's probably all it is."

Excuses. She knew it. Lucille knew it. And for all that there had been some indication of secrecy, Edith had the distinct feeling that Thomas knew it too. Or at least knew something. So what did that mean? And how much of Lucille's... suggestion was he aware of? It was none of his business really, and yet she couldn't help but wonder what he thought about it. His sister's sex life.

He probably didn't give it a moment's thought. They were rock stars, after all. They probably slept with whoever they wanted and laughed together afterwards.

Finlay was the only one she could trust, and yet Edith felt if she was completely open with her about all her worries and concerns and thoughts that she'd sound irrational at best.

"Don't force yourself," Lucille said. "Don't make yourself ill."

Edith wolfed down her remaining food and excused herself from the table while everyone else was half done. She needed to get away. She needed to be alone for a few moments.

She needed to call Alan.

The smell of anti-bacterial wipes made her feel slightly sick, but she wiped the receiver and buttons down anyway, tapping in the number with the ease of repetition.

Please be home... Please be home?

"Hello?"

A huge sigh of relief. She needed grounding and Alan had always been good at that. Good at being realistic. Good at talking her down.

"Hi," she said, feeling very small and tired.

"Are you alright? You sounded a little shaken earlier."

How could she explain this without sending him into a panic spiral?

Well, for a start she wasn't going to mention murder or that she was considering a fling and definitely not in the same sentence.

"Can you look something up for me?" she said. "I thought I had notes on it, but I can't find them and it's a really sensitive issue. I don't want to just flat out ask about it."

She listened to him chat about his day as he turned on his computer, wishing she could be a better friend and actually take in anything he was saying.

"OK," he said. "Go ahead, what do you need looking at?"

Deep breaths, Edith.

"I need the news reports from when their mother died if you can find it."

Alan went very quiet, making her cringe.

"Why do you need that?" he asked.

"Because... For my articles. I think losing both parents gives an insight into their psyche."

Shallow. Sloppy. Obvious.

He sighed and she could hear him typing.

"OK..." he said. "Right... I've got 'Lady Sharpe Dies in Accident'... I've got obituaries. Ooh, here's one. 'Baronet's Daughter Cleared of Manslaughter.'"

Despite herself, Edith's heart leapt. Cleared? Perfect! An accident. It was a mistake, that was all. All the same, she tried to keep her voice steady when she asked him to read it to her.

"OK. Wow, this is some old web formatting, hang on. Uh... Right, 'Lucille Sharpe, daughter of the late Baronet James William Sharpe of Allerdale Hall, was cleared today of causing death by dangerous driving and manslaughter. She was driving her mother, Lady Beatrice, to a social event when she lost control of her vehicle and collided with a tree, suffering whiplash and fractured ribs. Her mother - who witnesses reported refused to wear a seat belt at any time due to discomfort - was killed instantly.'"

The idea that Lucille had been driving the car... That put a different spin on things. Either it was a very dramatic way to avoid being accused of murder or a clear sign that they had nothing to do with it. Surely the risk would be much too great.

You'd have to be very certain or quite mad to do something like that.

"Does it say anything about what caused it or just that she lost control?"

"It implies that she was accused of speeding but they found that the brake lines had worn out and she was unable to slow down on a hill. She paid a fine of £250 for not ensuring passengers were wearing seat belts. I guess they figured causing your mom's death would be punishment enough. Imagine the guilt."

Edith thought about how much the Sharpes seemed to hate their parents. How badly they spoke about them.

"Yeah," she said. "Must have been awful."

"Are they going to be OK with you writing about stuff like this?" he asked.

Ah. Yes. Write about it.

Come to think of it, she couldn't remember ever hearing them talk about it in all the interviews she'd read and watched. They avoided questions about their family where possible.

And her job was to get the inside scoop. To write things other people didn't or couldn't.

"I guess I'll find out," she said. "What was that you were saying about your new schedule?"

"Oh, it's the worst..."

She wasn't really listening, again. But that was a secondary worry. She was much more concerned about a dreadful idea that had begun to surface in her mind.

If she became intimate with Lucille, then she might be more open to talking about more personal things. Now, arguably that was unethical, but on the other hand they knew that she might write about anything she learned on the tour. They hadn't implied that anything was off-limits.

Of course, she might never work again after this. They could easily blackball her from the industry if they wanted to.

Then again, she could always see what kind of revelations her fishing dredged up and decide whether to share them later... And music journalism had never really been the plan anyway.

Was she just making excuses for herself? Maybe. But maybe that was better than having no explanation even in her own mind.

She had to excuse herself from Alan eventually and get ready, genuinely wanting to freshen up a little. She took a quick shower and used the little motel hairdryer to fluff her tresses out, put on make up, heavier than normal. She wanted to cover up any shadows. She wanted to look the part.

The camera felt like a shield, or maybe a weapon, weighty around her neck. Powerful.

She looked at herself in the mirror, a last check, and suddenly felt a strange calling, pulling out her darkest shade of lipstick to write a message on it.

Yes, she'd have to clean it off before leaving the next day, but as she lined up the camera to take a picture for Lucille, she really didn't care.

It was a pretty good shot. Her hair flowed out around her head, gold like a halo, her face obscured by the Polaroid, her arms seeming more graceful than she thought they were in reality.

She'd tuck the little square photograph into the strings of Lucille's bass when her back was turned. Hide it in the pocket of her coat. Something spontaneous and reckless.

Of course, she just ended up handing it over silently in the back of the bus as Finlay drove them to the venue, watching the way Lucille's frown of confusion turned to a smile as she managed to read what it said in the orange glow from the street lamps.

Yes. When?

Chapter 16: Picturing

Notes:

Hope you weren't expecting plot, cos, um...

It was hard to begin writing without worrying that she was committing some kind of betrayal. You couldn't be sleeping with someone and also be planning to write about a time in their life that they'd done their level best to keep private.

Not that they were sleeping together. Not yet anyway. Edith had spent the whole evening during and after the show in a state of nervous excitement. The concerts had always felt like a strange combination of intimate and epic, but Edith flattered herself that parts of Lucille's performance were just for her. Like secret messages.

She sounded like one of those people who became obsessed with celebrities they'd never met, who thought every press conference contained something just for them. But this was different. Those smiles were for her. She knew it.

The night was long. Edith had rather... Well, she'd expected... She'd hoped... that Lucille would come to see her in the night. But then again, how would she explain to Thomas why she was sneaking off in the night?

And besides, she wasn't ready when she really thought about it. She didn't even know how that kind of sex worked and... Well, she knew how it worked, but she'd never done anything like that. The idea of it was almost frightening. It was easy with men; she'd never really had to actively participate much if she hadn't wanted to. They just sort of got on with it.

Not that she'd never had good, fun sex, of course. She'd had her flings and her holiday romances. One or two.

And that's what this would be. A bit of fun. She was a young, open-minded young woman who could totally have sex with her kind of boss.

She really was not good at lying to herself.

On the third night that she spent alone, listening for a knock at the door and not even able to remember where they'd driven to after getting out of the most recent venue, she tried to imagine what it was going to be like.

Or, more accurately, she tried to fantasize.

It was surprisingly easy. She already knew a lot of details to help her. The scent of Lucille's perfume, the way her fingers tended to be on the chill side, the sound of her laugh.

The softness of her lips even.

She started there. They had already kissed, even if it was brief. It wasn't difficult to imagine something longer, more intimate, open lips and brushing tongues. Maybe they'd begin standing? No. No, she didn't want to spend time thinking about the logistics of ending up horizontal.

Lying on her side, she started slow, imagining cool hands stroking her shoulders and down to her waist. Lucille would reach under boldly, pull off her t-shirt, eager to feel skin.

The rest of her body was warm, Edith remembered from the night they went dancing. Like her heart radiated heat that never made it to the tips of her fingers.

After a moment or two, Edith took off the shirt she was sleeping in, the feeling of the sheets helping her feel more immersed, trying her best to be present within her own mind.

Pulled close, lips against hers, a hand through her hair, maybe gripping there...

Huh. Yeah, she quite liked that idea. She could hardly imagine Lucille whispering sweet nothings to anyone after all. Flint-hard Lucille, sharp and beautiful like a diamond, surely she would be a little rough, soothing any stings with kisses that could easily turn to nips of teeth.

She'd never thought she'd like something like that, but the idea of trying it out with Lucille was exciting. She could feel her pulse quickening, heat rising in her core, lips parting around sighs as she ran her own hands - too warm, too small - over her own body.

Lucille would use her nails. Those always perfect nails, red or black or sometimes deep midnight blue, not hard enough to break the skin or leave marks, but enough to let her feel that she could, that she was holding back. And Edith would have to trust that she would.

Gently, experimentally, she teased her own nipples, gasping at the idea of Lucille exploring her body like this, with fingers and maybe even with her mouth.

She'd like how easily she could make Edith gasp, she'd enjoy having that power. She'd grin, one of her legs pressing between Edith's own, giving her that little bit of friction she was suddenly desperate for.

The heel of her own hand was a poor approximation, her hips jerking forward in search of more, and soon she rolled onto her back, tugging off her underwear.

What would it be like to be totally bare before Lucille? She shivered even to think of it, how she'd be scared, embarrassed, excited, wanting, she didn't know exactly.

Lucille probably wouldn't let her hide behind the blankets as she was doing now. She'd lounge beside her watching her face as her hand strayed lower and lower, running feather-light touches up the line of her thighs before insistently moving between them.

She couldn't pretend it was someone else's fingers, but that didn't really matter. Everything was easy, slippery beneath her touch, eyes clenched shut and her own gasping breath in her ears.

Too much... Not enough... She needed more, she wanted Lucille's lips against her skin and her voice whispering to her, praise perhaps, telling her how good it was of her to let go and let the sensations run through her body.

Closer and closer, fingers moving frantically, she chased her climax, nerves alight with it almost. She could almost hear Lucille chuckling at her predicament, wrist growing tired and aching but so close, so close, slipping one finger inside herself in the hope of getting enough sensation to...

"Ah! Hah..."

She didn't nornally make a sound. She didn't want to risk Alan hearing what she was up to. But it had been so long in coming, she'd worked so hard for it, that the little cry was one more of relief than anything else. Satiety. Completion.

Edith lay in the dark, breathing hard, trying to wipe her fingers on her clothes and not the bed sheets for all the hotel staff probably dealt with worse. Her body hummed, warm and relaxed even awkwardly shuffling her way back into her night things.

It was easy for her to imagine being acted upon. Imagining acting on someone else? That was harder. Stranger.

But she wanted to. She wanted to touch Lucille, wanted to make her feel good.

In a way, she wasn't even sure she was really attracted to women as such. Just Lucille. She didn't want to do this with just any woman, just Lucille.

Then again... it wasn't like she wanted to do stuff with just any man either. And that was an odd thought. She'd always kind of expected to be interested in men and then she was interested in specific men and that was how it was meant to be. Being interested in specific women?

That was a little unexpected.

She lay in bed and wondered why. Why that was surprising to her. She had no problem with anyone else's sexuality, whatever it was. Was it just her own that gave her pause, questioning herself? Whether she knew what she was feeling at all?

Bisexual. It wasn't like she didn't know the word. But applying it to herself? That was a big step. One she wasn't ready for yet.

And yet she could so easily imagine kissing Lucille, moving down her body, between her legs, trying her best with her mouth. Because, despite it all, she liked her. And she wanted to please her. Impress her even.

She sighed, alone in her motel bed, rolled over, and tried to sleep.

Chapter 17: Conjecture

Edith pulled her most recent sheet out of the typewriter and screwed it up. No amount of Wite-Out was going to save that bullshit.

The next sheet tore as she tried to insert it and soon had a bloom of red spreading everywhere where she somehow managed to cut herself trying to free it. Stupid machine. Stupid words...

Stupid Edith.

She couldn't type like this, tasting iron from her bleeding finger. Band aid, band aid...

No band aids. Great.

She didn't want to see Lucille. Though she didn't want to admit it, that was the source of this block she had. They'd been through Omaha and Sioux Falls and then driven for days through the - admittedly beautiful - South Dakota wilderness. Which had mostly involved marvelling at beautiful rock formations while the Sharpes kept singing 'Take Me Back to the Black Hills' regardless of which mountains they were actually seeing.

Stupid song followed her into her sleep even...

Meanwhile, her bed remained lonely. And she didn't know why. Lucille wasn't even flirting with her that much. It was frustrating, to say the least. What was this? Did it only count when Lucille was the one making the moves?

Or did she want Edith to take control? Did she want her to make a move?

Well, how was she supposed to do that when Thomas was always there?! She felt hyper-aware of him, certain that he knew what was going on between her and his sister. How he felt about it was a different question.

She crept along to Finlay's room, knocking on the door a little too hard, a few flakes of old varnish fluttering to the floor.

It was evidently later than she thought. Finlay opened the door in her dressing gown, hair loose and wet and skin glowing even more than usual. She'd had a bath.

And she'd clearly been crying.

Edith was a little taken aback. Cheerful, laughing Finlay, crying? It seemed wrong. Completely and horribly wrong. Unnatural even.

"Oh, it's you, sweetheart. Everything alright?"

"I... Uh, do you have a band aid?"

"Of course. Come in."

Bustled into the room, Edith found herself being tended to by the gentle hands of someone who had soothed dozens of skinned knees and paper cuts.

"Oh, it's not so bad," she said. "Fingers are the worst. Always bleed far too much. Heads are much the same."

The sting of antiseptic was almost nice. Grounding.

Dangerous thought. Push it away.

"Are you alright, Finlay? You seem a little..."

"Oh, don't you worry about me. Just reading something sad, that's all. Got myself all worked up about something I can't change."

That sounded familiar.

"Why can't you change it?"

"Well... Mostly because it happened over a hundred years ago. I've been reading about the history of this place. Thought it would be interesting to take a history anthology along, read a little something about every region we pass through. So I've just learned what happened to the people who lived here when the European settlers came. Chopped up the land into farms that were too small to cultivate properly. Sold it back to them at inflated prices in return for citizenship. Imagine that, having no instant right to citizenship of the country you've lived in your whole life. And then I thought about the people who still face that issue now every day and how powerless I am to help with that and... Well, I let myself get a little upset. Injustice never sleeps."

Ah. Well, that did rather make her own worries pale a little in comparison.

Somewhere in the depths of her mind, a voice spoke up. A kind woman from her teenage years. A woman assigned to her.

You must grieve, Edith. It's not good to store these things up to this extent. Yes, yes, I... I know, Edith, but just because others are going through worse things does not invalidate this feeling for you. Shall we talk about your father, Edith? How is he coping? Is that why you're doing this, Edith?

She'd hated how often her name was mentioned.

"It's good to cry sometimes," she said out loud.

"Oh, you don't have to tell me. I made a career of being tough. Gotta be tougher than the boys, of course. Can't let them see you cry. No matter what I saw and dealt with, you get through the day and let it out when you're alone. But you've gotta do it. Bad things can happen if you don't."

Yes. Yes, they could.

"Of course, Miss Lucille gets rid of it in her music instead of crying," Finlay continued. "I wonder if it works well enough, though. You see it sometimes. A sadness in her. And in Thomas too, though somewhat less. They could do with letting it out more often, I fear."

Edith forced a smile and nodded. But an idea was growing in her mind now. Something to help with this wretched article.

"We're going into Yellowstone tomorrow," she said. "I hope we'll have time to stretch our legs a little. Get some fresh air."

"Doesn't it smell of sulphur? From the volcanoes?"

"I don't know. I expect we'll find out. Thank you for the band aid. I'll let you get some rest."

It was even later now, but all the same, she managed to force a piece of paper into the typewriter. She had to get this down before it rushed out of her head like water out of a net.

Forgive me if I begin with a personal confession. I did not cry at my mother's funeral. My father was heartbroken and I wanted to be strong for him and I locked my tears away. I was ten years old.

Being orphans is something which connects me to the Sharpes. I almost feel as if they knew that about me before employing me to be their tour writer. If I were in a more fanciful mood, perhaps I would call us kindred spirits, in a way.

I fear however that we feel very differently about our parents' deaths.

Was this going too far? It wasn't like she was accusing them of anything. It was common knowledge that they hadn't got along with their parents. They didn't hide that.

Of course, it's rather a different situation. I can trace my family back only a few generations of steel workers and laborers. The Sharpes carry their family with them everywhere.

I am not only talking about the hereditary title of baronet which they have carefully maintained, even for the pure irony of the fact, nor the stately mansion they reside in when at home in England, filled with the belongings and memories of their ancestors.

It is no secret that the Sharpes did not have a good relationship with their parents. It is in their music, when you know where to look. But what some will not know is that Lucille witnessed her mother's death. She was driving the car when it suffered a fatal accident and was injured herself.

Edith's hands were trembling slightly. Her cut finger throbbed.

I am yet to ask her about the precise circumstances. It doesn't seem appropriate somehow, not yet. But such an experience cannot have left no mark. A duo who discuss everything from philosophy to cartoons in their lyrics surely haven't missed out a life-changing event like that.

Unless they don't want to talk about it. Understandable. But that does beg the question of what else they don't talk about. What other things they keep out of sight and reserved only for themselves.

What was she even trying to say? Was she implying that Lucille liked women and ought to talk about that publicly? What right did she have to say someone ought to come out if they didn't want to?

Then again, she wasn't actually saying that. This wasn't pettiness over their stunted love affair. She was just saying that the Sharpes were not as open as they sometimes acted.

They have a reputation in journalism for changing their answers and stories frequently. In my time with them, I've learned that you can't always trust what they say. But I believe when they sing, there is truth.

Get out your albums and listen again. Listen well. You might discover something new.

Oh, it would do, wouldn't it? A couple of hundred words for a side column. A few recent Polaroids from shows and on the road and she'd still manage to meet her deadline.

She proofread it in passing, thinking to go to bed right afterwards.

And one sentence needed changed. It would haunt her if she didn't alter it.

She carefully blanked out the word accident and corrected it in black pen - a fatal collision.

After all, she still wasn't completely confident that there was anything accidental about it.

Chapter 18: Livers and Love

She hadn't been reading her map well enough. She'd been imagining a brief drive through to Yellowstone, but apparently this was the day they had to cover Montana as well. Hours and hours of driving, getting just north enough to reach Billings and then down to Cody in Wyoming.

To her shame, Edith ended up napping most of the way, being woken up in the early afternoon having entirely missed a whole state.

Thomas smiled at her, his voice soft.

"Where's your article?" he asked. "We're at a post office. There's still time to head off to Old Trail Town."

"To... To what?"

"Open air historical buildings," Lucille said from the front seat, reading a tourist leaflet.

Edith rummaged through her day bag to find the large manilla envelope, entrusting it to Thomas to post. And then it would be done and gone.

"It looks so interesting," Finlay said. "There's a school house and a general store, real old buildings all transported to one place and preserved just as they were."

"Mm," Lucille said. "And the grave of someone called Liver-Eating Johnson. What a nickname to have. I wonder if he drank Chianti with it."

So tasteless. All the same, Edith was a little surprised to see her disapproving look met by Lucille's eyes in the mirror. What expression was that? It wasn't amusement or offence, just... Just observing. Watching. Seeing what she thought.

"Maybe he just really liked liver," Edith said. "Lamb's liver or something."

Of course, it was exactly as Lucille said. He'd sworn revenge for the murder of his wife by a neighboring tribe and reportedly ate 300 people's livers.

"You know," Lucille said as they looked at the man's grave marking, a statue of him upon a horse. "At some point I think it stops being about revenge and starts being about liking the taste."

"Of liver?" Edith said, possibly unwisely.

"Of killing."

It meant nothing. It was just a comment, not an anecdote.

All the same, worry lanced down Edith's spine, like being struck by lightning.

"Well, revenge is very complex," she tried. "Who knows when it's satisfied?"

Lucille hummed slightly. Like she agreed.

What had her mother done to her?

No, no, no, that was jumping to conclusions about both Lucille and the old Lady Sharpe. You could have a bad relationship with a parent without there being some big, dark secret buried away back there.

They explored old cabins each with their own stories of former occupants from outlaws to heroes, the old post office, the school house with its tiny benches and smell of chalk. The amount of skins and horns made Edith uneasy for reasons she couldn't quite figure out.

Or maybe it was something else. The fact that these were real buildings, real things and yet they looked like they were props from a film set. Real things shouldn't look this unreal.

Not the saloon, though. It felt more like a contemporary bar, if you ignored the jugs and the animal heads. Then again, taxidermy was having a resurgence, wasn't it?

Thomas was instantly at the ancient piano, playing a little ragtime with only a few out-of-tune notes. Edith didn't even have it in her to worry about whether that was allowed or not, touching the antiques.

For one thing, she was much, much too worried about the way Lucille was hovering near her at the bar, like she was a flame attracting a moth.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, under the music, out of Finlay's hearing where she was examining the old posters and news cuttings, bright white against the scarlet wallpaper.

"What for?" Edith asked, all innocence.

"You think I've been ignoring you. It's not deliberate. It's just been... hard to get away."

Edith had nothing to say to that.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to be... flexible."

"Wait, you mean?"

She hadn't meant for it to come out like that. So cutting. But still, Lucille had broken down her defenses, stormed the battlements, overcome the portcullis and then retreated. It didn't make sense.

"Sorry."

That seemed to be a yes. On the other hand, it wasn't like she was going to meet anyone else out here...

Edith gave the smallest of shrugs and blushed at how good Lucille's smile made her feel. They were OK. They still had intent for... things to happen.

She wasn't a teenager anymore, she shouldn't get flustered at being strung along like this. Ugh.

"What even is sarsaparilla?"

She hadn't realized Finlay was nearby, hence an innocent question. Like they'd just been talking about the artefacts.

"Oh, it's... It's a plant, but they made a drink out of it. Non-alcoholic. Temperance movement, you know. An alternative to whiskey."

"This girl knows so much," Finlay said, squeezing her shoulder.

She was being so kind to her, even more than normal. Maybe she'd seemed particularly vulnerable last night. In need of support.

Thomas hit a clump of notes all at once, a horrible, discordant sound, spinning round on the piano stool looking animated and gleeful.

"Lucille, will you play for me?"

"Sounds like you have something particular in mind," she said, smiling wryly at him.

"You're much better at transposing than I am. But we're in Calamity Jane country. Will you play Secret Love for me?"

She chuckled, taking his place and testing the notes.

"You know that after Bill Hickok died, she went after his killer with a meat cleaver? Or so they say. That's the kind of woman I can get behind. Right, what key do you want it in?"

It was interesting to see them try out chords until Thomas was happy. Instinctive almost. In sync with one another.

Lucille's playing was fluid and florid, adding far more ornamentation than Edith remembered being in that song. Still. Pretty.

"Once I had a secret love, that lived within the heart of me..."

Thomas started, a rich tenor. Edith had never heard it sung by a man before. So smooth and gentle, rising and falling in the shy verse before surging up to the triumphant chorus.

"Now I shout it from the highest hill..."

Other people were coming in, following the siren call, some of them even joining in, and applauding politely afterwards as Thomas leant down to whisper something in Lucille's ear and kiss her cheek.

Every inch the loving brother. Maybe she hadn't got a good grip on him after all, Edith thought. One fight didn't mean anything terrible had happened.

When did she start second guessing every little thing?

Whatever he'd said, Lucille seemed to agree, laughing as she started playing something more lively. Showing off. Always ready for an audience.

Thomas left her with a squeeze to the shoulder, coming close to Edith and speaking quietly.

"Are you looking forward to seeing Old Faithful tomorrow?"

She nodded, not wanting to disturb the music.

"I plan to walk some of the route. I'd love for you to join me."

"Lucille's not planning to go?"

He chuckled a little, smiling at her.

"Oh, no. Too much risk of getting a tan. It would ruin her aesthetic."

Edith hesitated. Being alone with Thomas had been very confusing last time. Then again, it could be like exposure therapy. If she spent more time with him, he wouldn't be so scary. And the idea of a real, proper walk in the fresh air was wonderful...

"OK," she mumbled. "Sounds fun."

He slung an arm around her, giving a quick squeeze. There was nothing in it but friendliness and companionable camaraderie.

Her racing heartbeat was probably palpable under his thumb.

Chapter 19: Nature

If Yellowstone did have a sulphuric smell, either Edith had got used to it quickly or it was subsumed by the stronger scent of trees, moss and general outside.

After so long in a small bus and then in motels and sweaty concert venues, it was very welcome, even if Edith was kind of dreading having to find conversation with Thomas for a couple of hours.

Finlay pulled into a small car park with a large information board with all the trails marked on it to drop them off. All the way though, Thomas had been consulting a paper map he'd picked up in their most recent motel's lobby. He seemed confident that he knew where they were and where they were going.

He obediently stood still while Lucille rubbed sunscreen into his face and neck, her hand slipping inside his shirt a little to make sure she didn't miss any inch of potentially exposed skin.

"Are you sure you know the route?" she asked from behind oversized sunglasses and a wide hat. How that had survived being in their bags without being crushed, Edith wasn't sure.

"It's well marked and it's not strenuous. We'll be fine. And we have plenty of water and snacks if we get too hungry before lunch."

"Alright. Have fun. We'll see you at the Inn."

Even waving goodbye for a temporary period made Edith nervous. Lucille had lent her a large water bottle and Thomas had a backpack with bug spray and blister band aids and food, everything they might need for a relatively short walk, but suddenly she was thinking about all the things that could go wrong out in the wilderness.

Weren't there bears out here? Wolves and elk and forest fires?

Thomas adjusted the straps of his pack, inhaling deeply.

"That's better," he said, setting off with Edith at his side. "A bit of nature. I've been missing it."

"Do you do much hiking at home?"

"When I can. Lucille doesn't much like it. Parks and gardens suit her, but she prefers mud to come in mask form. Likes her wildness to come from within. I haven't always liked the outdoors. Father used to try to make me go fox hunting and grouse shooting when I was young and I never much took to it."

People passing them had large packs, the occasional tent. Even out here, Edith felt out of place in her t-shirt and sneakers and fraying jeans. They could tell she didn't belong out here, even as they smiled and said hello.

"I've always thought how odd it is that people speak to strangers on a country walk," Thomas said. "In the town, they wouldn't even look at one another, but out here..."

"Maybe they feel like they ought to prove they're friendly," Edith offered. "There's not much by way of police out here. It would be a good place to kill people. For serial killers, I mean. The bodies wouldn't be found for ages, probably. So you say hello and say what a nice day it is to gain a little trust."

"So mistrustful! I don't expect that kind of idea from you."

"Well, maybe I'm more cynical than you think."

It was good to get some exercise, even gently. Her thigh muscles tingled slightly, breathing fresh air, hearing birds and bugs. This had been a good idea after all. Even Thomas was surprisingly good company, talking about the trees and spotting the flash of feathers or flutter of butterfly wings.

"Does this remind you of home, if you do a lot of walking there?" Edith asked once a silence had stretched a little far for her liking.

"Maybe in the summer. Temperature in the mid-twenties. Or, er... I don't know. The fifties Fahrenheit, is it?"

"That's a bit chillier. This is more like the seventies."

"Never can remember the equation for that conversion. I can do pounds to dollars and kilometres to miles and kilograms to the other kind of pounds but temperatures... No. But, yes, the trees are familiar, for the right kind of forest. No oaks, as far as I can see, but they're a little south of our home usually. Of course, the estate's forest was all cleared centuries ago. I considered trying to have it replanted, but the National Trust prefers to keep the grounds as they were when the family were at the height of clay production. I'd love you to see Allerdale one day. The earth is bright red, you know. It's very striking."

"I've seen pictures. Online, when I was researching you."

"Oh, of course. I used to play in it when I was a child. Painting my face like it was make-up. Building mud castles. Of course, I'd be soundly punished for it. The stains were a nightmare to remove, worse than grass."

This was unusual. He was telling her about his childhood without much prompting. The outdoors making him expansive perhaps, feeling free and easy. Still, it seemed like an interesting vein to mine, Edith thought, wearing her journalist hat.

"Were they terribly strict, your parents?"

"Yes. And no, I suppose. They were neglectful more often, but any time they did pay proper attention to us it was to criticise or punish us for whatever we had or hadn't done. Lucille wasn't ladylike enough and would never snag a husband and I had neither a stomach nor a spine. I'm sure they remain thoroughly disappointed in us now if there is an afterlife."

Not ladylike? That was strange.

"But Lucille is so... elegant and poised."

A fond sigh.

"Yes, but she's also headstrong and stubborn. And angry. They felt she ought to behave herself better. By which they meant be more submissive. Or at least less contrary. Idiots. They'd have stripped her of almost everything that makes her who she is if they'd had their way."

"What's she angry about?"

A brief beat, their feet crunching on the ground.

"Is that a trail marker, do you think?"

He acted like he hadn't heard her. It was strange. Then again, maybe he figured he shouldn't be telling her Lucille's very personal business without permission.

It did make it sound as though something had happened though. Something bad.

It put a shiver up Edith's spine. She had so many questions unanswered, but being clumsy in the asking would get her nowhere.

The rain crept up on them. One minute it was a sunny day with a little breeze, the next a heavy shower rolled into view. The trees offered scant shelter, their branches dripping even more heavily upon them.

No coats, not even rain covers. Edith could feel her hair becoming stuck to her scalp, her clothes clinging. And she knew they had to be because Thomas...

Thomas was wearing a white shirt. The rain did what water did to white clothes. It cleaved to his flesh, revealing stomach muscles beneath pale pink skin and dark chest hair and even...

She was looking at his nipples and hurriedly looked away, thoroughly mortified. She was practically sleeping with his sister, this was not right, it was voyeuristic and pervy and wrong.

He laughed, running his hand through soaked hair, slicking it back, just visible out of the corner of her eye.

"Edith," he said gently, and despite the soft tone she practically trembled.

He moved round her, too deliberately for her to turn away without being obvious, doing her best to seem natural as she folded her arms much too high, trying to hide how visible her breasts were through thin cotton.

Water dripped down his face, like tears or like it was caressing his cheeks and lips that he was openly biting while looking at her.

"You know, I really like you, Edith," he said. "There's no pretence about you."

"That's not true," she heard herself say, vulnerable, unable to protect herself.

"Maybe you hide things," he conceded. "But what you show is entirely yourself. You might conceal some of what you are, but you don't try to project something you're not."

He'd come closer and Edith found herself backing away, only aware when her foot slipped off the side of the trail.

"Hey, careful," he said, reaching out for her shoulders. "We can't have you tumbling off the edge."

His hands were so warm and he looked so handsome like this, like all those tortured heroes she'd spent her teenage years reading about, but Lucille was high in her mind, the promise they had almost made to one another...

Or, well, not a promise, but they had an understanding at least.

"I wonder if you realise how interesting you are," Thomas said, looking at her with such intensity, his thumb moving slightly over her collar bone and she couldn't choose which was worse to look at, his practically naked chest or his disarming face and...

"That's why Lucille likes you so much. And why I do too."

"Lucille?"

A chuckle, low and soft.

"I've seen the way you look at each other. She's really quite taken with you. But I see the way you look at me too."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hm. I think you do. But it's your choice. I'm just letting you know that the option is open."

"What option?"

Her voice had risen close to a squeak. She couldn't decide what she was feeling, whether this was frightening or exciting or something else or both.

Thomas wiped a stray hair from her face, his fingertips so soft.

"Perhaps I've misunderstood," he murmured, stepping back.

Edith felt herself slump slightly, out of relief perhaps, but also something worringly close to disappointment. He'd been so close, like he was going to... do something.

If this was supposed to make things less awkward, it had failed miserably. She tottered after him like a baby deer, shaken almost. But he hadn't done anything or said anything bad, not really. He'd just been close to her and stopped her falling backwards and told her he knew about her and Lucille.

"Does Lucille know you like me too?" she asked, voice almost back to normal.

"Of course. We have similar tastes and very few secrets."

"And... And what did she say about... About you and me...?"

"That it was up to you."

"To choose between you?"

A snort.

"Not exactly."

"So, what, you'd share me? Take turns?"

Was that insulting or intriguing? She'd never been wanted by two people before. Not as far as she knew anyway.

It was quite exciting to feel wanted, but want wasn't the same as get...

"If that suited you. But you're not interested, so we'll say no more about it."

That's right, she wasn't interested, was she?

Was she..?

Then again, she'd never get a chance to do this again. And no one would ever know.

"I never said I wasn't interested."

Thomas stopped walking, looking at her in surprise and grinning, that wide, laughing grin he had.

"I knew it," he said. "You are wild."

She felt wild even considering it. Where was her meek, cautious self? Who was this woman who had come on this trip, the one lying and suspecting but also wanting and desirous, and so unlike herself in almost every way? Or was this how she really was? How she would be if she was free?

She needed to call Alan. Alan kept her grounded, kept her herself. Kept her sane.

But Alan wasn't here. Thomas was here and he was approaching her again, curious, leaning down and capturing her lips.

Her arms flew of their own accord, wrapping around his shoulders as she let herself be walked backwards until she hit a tree trunk, solid at her back, scratchy against her scalp.

And then he lifted her, forcing her legs apart for him to step between, something like a whimper escaping her throat as a strong hand ran daringly up the outside of her thigh, stroking hard, the heat from his body so palpable through her sodden clothes...

She pushed against him, getting a confused look as he moved back and put her down.

"Someone could see," she said helplessly. "And I still need to think about it a little. It wasn't a yes. It was a maybe."

He nodded, adjusting his shirt a little.

"Of course," he said. "Of course. Take as long as you need."

Maybe she wasn't so wild after all, she thought, even if her lips felt like they were burning and there was a distinct thrum through her whole body.

Chapter 20: Old Faithful

How could she walk into the Old Faithful Inn like everything was normal? She couldn't even appreciate the beautiful building inside or out.

Thomas was getting some looks from other visitors as he swept in. He did look striking, she supposed, so tall and dramatically windswept. She felt like a drowned rat next to him.

"Oh," she heard from somewhere to the left and then Lucille swept towards them. "Look at you! Poor things. Like puppies in a canal..."

Her eyes hadn't reached Edith's face. They were lingering decidedly further down.

Maybe the embarrassment would heat her up enough to evaporate the rain out of her clothes.

Before she really knew what was happening, Lucille was brushing her hair, plaiting it up with practised fingers.

"You look delicious," she murmured softly. "But you're shook up. Everything alright?"

"Mm," Edith mumbled. "Just... talking with Thomas."

The man in question was happily heading towards an impressive wall clock, Finlay offering him tissues to at least dry his face off.

"Talking?" Lucille asked, but with a certain depth to her voice. "And what were you talking about?"

"He asked me a question and I said that I needed to think about it."

Lucille knew, didn't she? She had to know exactly what had gone on.

"Oh, quite right. Take some time. But just remember that I saw you first."

She did know. Good. That was... good.

Edith didn't know how exactly she felt about being claimed like that. She had her own desires after all. She wasn't just a thing, some cake that they both wanted a piece of.

But then again, she was thinking how exciting it was to have kissed Thomas in the woods and Lucille's fingers were brushing the nape of her neck and just that simple touch felt good. Her wants were her own but she wanted them, both of them in slightly different ways.

It wasn't like she was expecting a relationship after all. It was just a fling. It wasn't that deep. Friends with benefits, as they said.

Waiting for the rain to ease, they ended up learning about the history of the building. It was quite patterned, full of the earthquakes and forest fires that came with being in such a dynamic landscape. Edith looked up to the upper floors, out of bounds for being structurally unsafe, and tried not to worry about the roof falling in on them.

"Built with electricity between 1903 and 1904," Finlay said, her voice low, as though they were in a cathedral or a temple. "I never really think about when that must have come in. Power at the flick of a switch."

"Well, in 1850, future Prime Minister William Gladstone famously asked Faraday why electricity was valuable," Thomas said, right in his element with all the engineering. "And he replied, 'One day, sir, you will tax it.' I believe our forebears had the house hooked up to a local grid in the 1890s, but I'm not certain."

"They still stumble across some of the old wires from time to time," Lucille said. "And then it's all panicking and getting the electricians out. Most of it's long unconnected. They'd be much happier if they just kept old cupboards shut."

The shower passed and Edith felt almost damp rather than sodden as they headed towards the geyser itself.

"We'd have had to wait anyway," Finlay was saying, leaflet in hand. "It only goes off every ninety minutes or so."

As a result, the path was busy, full of hikers and families with matching raincoats and sandwiches, bored kids kicking their heels until the steaming crater began to spit plumes of water upwards, little by little.

In a strange way, it reminded Edith of a firework show. Maybe it was the noises people were making, maybe the sense of beauty tied to the knowledge that touching it was a terrible idea.

"Reminds me of something," Lucille murmured, smiling faintly.

There was something about the way she said it that put Edith horribly on edge, hearing Thomas let out something between a sigh and a laugh.

"What?" she asked, not sure she wanted to know.

"An overfull kettle. I hope we can get a cup of tea before we have to set off. I bet they used to drink it straight from the geyser."

"They certainly used to wash clothes in it, apparently," Finlay said. "I'd be worried about losing them, personally. Dropping things in holes in the earth and expecting to get them back again? Doesn't seem likely."

They sold tea in the Old Faithful Inn, but it was rather busy. They elected not to bother, to wait until dinner time. There was water, after all. It wasn't like they were going to get dehydrated.

Edith was ravenous by the time they pulled into their hotel for the night, a family-run place in Jackson, Wyoming. She hadn't even realised her stomach was rumbling over the sound of the engine. Too much energy expended, lunchtime much too long ago.

Come to think of it, had she even had lunch?

"I'm going to shower," Thomas said. "In hot water this time. Any dinner ideas?"

"Lots of it," Finlay suggested.

Yeah. That sounded good. Half an hour to have a quick refresh and then food...

Peeling off her clothes, a faint layer of fluff left clinging to her from rain and then sitting in a hot vehicle all afternoon, Edith felt like she was shedding a skin. Her hair had become looping waves under Lucille's attention, but she couldn't preserve them under the stream of water even if she'd wanted to, swapping the plait for a high ponytail.

She went to knock on Lucille and Thomas's door once she was ready, but got no answer. Maybe they were already downstairs waiting.

Finlay was, at least. She looked very elegant in linen trousers and a blouse, so different to the way she normally dressed, all comfort.

"It's nice to be fancy sometimes," she said. "Besides, you young folk are so effortless. It's really not fair."

"They are. I'm just ordinary."

A light chuckle. Edith wasn't quite sure what that meant.

As if on cue, the Sharpes arrived, each with their hair slicked back. Quick showers if they'd both managed to have one in that time.

The receptionist recommended a local place, nothing too special but the food was hot and filling and the house wine was drinkable. Very drinkable.

No. No getting drunk. She'd made that mistake once before in present company. This was a pleasant night between friends, that was all.

And very pleasant it was too. Laughing together, chatting about what they might see over the next few days. There was an elk sanctuary nearby apparently.

"Which ones are elk?" Lucille asked, casually stroking the stem of her wine glass. "Are they caribou?"

"That's reindeer," Thomas said. "I'm fairly sure elk are just elk. Though it doesn't help that I keep thinking of moose, which I think are different again."

Seeing them talk together by candlelight, Edith was struck by how similar they were. The dark hair, the high cheekbones. Maybe she had a type and that was why she was so attracted to them both.

Maybe her type was faintly snobbish mysteries. It would be typical.

The question of what had happened to their mother had taken something of a back seat in her brain, but it was still there, faintly bubbling away.

"I didn't believe reindeer were real as a kid," she said. "I found out about Santa when I was about eight and just made the assumption that they were mythical too."

She was angling to ask about childhood Christmasses at Allerdale. But just asking outright would be much, much too obvious.

"They're all female, you know," Lucille said, not taking the bait. "Santa's reindeer. The males shed their antlers after the mating season at the start of December while the females keep them through to calving in spring. So they're either females or juvenile males under a year old."

"Do they use them to fight?"

"I think it's for discouraging rivals away from food supplies. Can't grow a strong calf if you have nothing to eat."

"And if you have a biggest knives on your head, I suppose you're getting first choice," Finlay said.

"Sounds like a good system to me."

Thomas was shaking his head and talking about how elk were just big deer, like the red deer in Britain, but Edith wasn't really listening. Her brain had been somewhat short-circuited by the distinct feel of a hand on her thigh.

Lucille was masterly at this. Her eyes were still on her brother, listening intently, but her fingers were trailing up and down Edith's leg, gentle but unmistakable.

Was she turning pink? She couldn't let Finlay know, couldn't let her suspect. It was important somehow. She wanted to try to maintain at least an illusion of professionalism, even if she was failing horribly at it.

She could push Lucille's hand away. She was fairly sure that she'd stop.

But Edith didn't want her to. That soft, tingly sensation was just too good.

The hand stayed there even as Lucille asked the waiter to take a photo of the four of them, the old-fashioned camera getting quite a reaction.

Despite the relatively low light, it was a good picture. Thomas's arm casually on Finlay's shoulder, the paleness of his skin contrasting with hers, Edith slightly pink but in a glowing manner, not like she was embarrassed or drunk.

And nothing visible from the waist down. Any under-table activities safely hidden.

"I hope they use that one," Lucille said, carefully writing the date and place on the border. "It's exactly how I want to remember this trip."

Somewhere along the walk back to the hotel, her hand slipped into Edith's, squeezing lightly.

There was a question hanging in the air between them.

Chapter 21: A First

"Goodnight, Finlay."

Cheek kisses and yawning and happy smiles and then Finlay's door clicked shut and Lucille span on her toes, her face impish and keen.

"Shall we?"

Despite herself, Edith felt her eyes slide to Thomas where he was standing behind his sister. Was he really alright with this? Or would he be jealous? She didn't want to cause a rift between them.

Oh, that sounded so conceited...

He winked at her, half smiling.

"Have fun."

It ought to make her feel better, knowing they were all entering into this with their eyes open, but now the nerves had set in.

Her hands were almost shaking as she opened the door to her hotel room, the light seeming much too bright, making her rush to swap its glare for the softer bedside lamp.

"I've never..." she began. "I've never done anything like this before."

"Of course you have. It's just sex."

"Not with... Not with a woman though."

She couldn't even look at Lucille, too nervous, keeping herself half turned away and practically shivering when she felt hands on her shoulders.

"Don't be frightened."

She gently pulled Edith's hair out of its tie and then moved it to the side, her breath so warm against her skin as she began kissing her neck, so softly. Edith could hear her own breathing, shallow and tense, acutely aware of body heat behind her.

And then Lucille's hands began to move, slipping down her body, stroking over her waist and under her shirt, feeling her skin, exploring.

She couldn't hold back the sharp gasp that slipped out when Lucille moved to her breasts, the touch electric even through her bra. The sensation of laughter had her flushing scarlet, embarrassed at being so easily responsive.

"You need this, sweetheart. You're so tense. I'll be very gentle, don't worry. Unless you don't want gentle, of course."

Her voice... Pitched low and almost melodic, somehow dizzying.

Edith thought about her fantasies, of being pleasing, not... Not submissive as such but maybe a little... Maybe a little bit?

"Edith?"

"I don't know..."

"Do you want this?"

"Yes! But I want... I just want to make it good for you."

If she wasn't mistaken, Lucille was thrown for the first time. Confused.

"It will be good for both of us. Come here. Let me look at you."

Her underwire had left imprint marks on her skin, every blemish or imperfection seeming amplified, but Lucille's eyes rolled over her like she was perfect, followed quickly by her hands, down her thighs, up her back, her ass, her stomach, everywhere.

"You are so beautiful," she said softly. "Thomas was quite right."

How could she mention her brother at a time like this?

"What about?"

"That if you were so attractive clothed, nude you'd be irresistible."

She was dreaming this. She had to be. Stunning, aloof rock stars did not find ordinary journalists irresistible. They just didn't.

She needed a distraction and reached for the hem of Lucille's t-shirt.

"It's only fair."

Lucille gave her something of a smirk, peeling off her black jeans, like a snake shedding its skin. How could she look so confident? How was she so sure?

Were those scars on her legs?

Edith didn't have a chance to wonder, finding herself pushed backwards, flopping onto the bed, the breath knocked out of her.

Lucille crawled up her body, her eyes blazing, capturing her lips in a burning kiss.

Was this really only their third? Or fourth maybe? Lucille kissed like she was claiming, like she was taking ownership, and Edith found herself letting her, lying still like a startled rabbit.

A faint grunt and Lucille took her hand, planting it firmly on her back.

"You can touch too, you know," she whispered. "Go on. It's alright."

It was difficult somehow. It felt like trespass. Like she shouldn't. But she made herself be brave, made her hands move, stroking Lucille's back and then lower, feeling the curves of her body, daring to slip down to her thighs...

She was so warm. Her hands were chill, but her body was so warm, rolling to the side and pushing a thigh between Edith's legs.

The pressure was good. Lucille's touch was better. She knew what she was doing.

Edith did not.

Lucille took her hand again, guiding her, the heat, the slick...

"I don't... I don't know what to..."

"Shh... Of course you know. Show me how you like it."

"The angle's wrong..."

A beat and then she moved, turning onto her back and settling between Edith's thighs, almost lying on top of her, heads right next to each other on the pillow.

"Show me now?"

Right. OK. She could do this.

It was strange, reaching down further than usual, touching someone else's flesh. Her body expected sensation that didn't come, a mounting sense of anticipation growing in her core.

Pressure, using her whole hand at first before daring to move her fingers into Lucille's slit, almost lost as she tried to find the right spot through touch alone.

Not entirely alone. Lucille let out a pleased hum, rocking her hips upwards, touching her own breasts in a way that made Edith unexpectedly excited. The red ring glimmered, catching her eye, hypnotising.

Still, she felt very inexperienced, rubbing little circles, hoping it felt good.

"Press harder."

Instructions were good, that was helpful. Lucille moaning was even better, the way her body rolled, breathing growing heavier.

"Mmm... Mm, that's good. A little faster."

She was doing this. She was actually doing this. It was difficult not to feel a sense of shock, of surprise. This was not a situation she'd ever expected to find herself in.

Her wrist was going to start hurting soon but she couldn't stop, especially not when Lucille reached past her, sliding a finger into her own body.

It was easier then. Lucille gasped and almost writhed above her, going tense as she strained towards coming, arcing upwards in a way that put all the weight of her shoulders onto Edith's chest, but it was a good ache, a good, solid, grounding feeling.

And then she was shaking and sighing, eyes closed as she gasped for air, all the tension gone from her body.

She'd done that, Edith realized. Her touch, her fingers. It felt like magic. Powerful somehow.

Lucille kissed her cheek and turned over, sinuously making her way down her body.

"What are you doing?" Edith asked, suddenly feeling nervous again, exposed.

"Taking my turn," Lucille replied, settling between her legs.

She almost wanted to say no. She'd only had a guy go down on her once and the sheer embarrassment of being seen like that had made her panic...

"I..."

"Shh... Just relax."

It felt strange at first. Alien. A sensation she wasn't used to, her arousal still humming within her but tempered by worry and then...

"Oh..."

Then Lucille changed position slightly, moving higher, paying attention to her clit with a strong, impossible rhythm.

Edith gasped, gripping the sheets, feeling the vibrations as Lucille laughed at her.

"See?" she said. "I knew you needed it. No one's ever treated you right. I can tell."

If the color wasn't already high in her cheeks, Edith knew she'd be blushing helplessly.

"Look at me."

"No..."

"Edith."

It was torture, but she did it. She looked down, trying to ignore her own body, focussing on Lucille and her beauty. The way her hair was slipping out of its braid around her face, the hints of pink on her cheekbones, those eyes...

"That's better."

She couldn't keep it up when Lucille bent back to her task though. She seemed to completely lose control of her spine, head tipping back, harsh gasps echoing around the sparse room, all the want and need of the past days culminating in a rushing crisis, finally crying out, almost a yelp.

She never made a sound normally...

Lucille looked decidedly smug as she crawled back up the bed, angling Edith's head as she wanted her for kisses.

And then she sighed happily and got up, pulling on her clothes.

"You're not staying?" Edith asked, dragging the blankets over her body, cold suddenly even as her body glowed.

"Oh, I couldn't. What if Finlay saw me leaving tomorrow morning? I'd rather she didn't have any inkling of the tangles you, Thomas and I are getting into."

That was fair. Maybe.

"But this was fun. We must do it again some time."

She laughed at Edith's expression, being talked about as though she was afternoon tea or something.

Another kiss and she swept out of the room, leaving Edith to tingle and wonder and finally pull on her pyjamas.

It had been fun. She didn't think she'd ever come like that with another person involved before.

And she was definitely, on balance, having thought it through, not averse to doing it again.

Some time.

Some time soon.

Chapter 22: Reflection and Ruffled Feathers

The morning after. Edith woke sprawled across the mattress with a faintly heavy heart. She'd felt much the same when she'd lost her virginity, she remembered. Not regret. Not as such. More like disappointment that it couldn't happen for the first time again. There was a loss of potential experiences, different ones, different ways the first time could have happened.

It was a strange, mixed feeling to have.

She showered, examining her memory. A lesbian experience. And not just a kiss or two, but a proper sexual act.

She'd been embarrassingly unsure at the time, but in the cold light of day, she felt somehow accomplished. She hadn't let her fear ruin things. She was so free and... cool, almost.

That was a ridiculous thought. It wasn't some feat of style or even skill.

All the same, sleeping with... fucking rockstars was pretty rock and roll.

She called Alan. It had been a few days. She needed to let him know she was doing well.

He groaned as he answered, distinctly in pain.

"Ooh," she said. "Late one?"

"You are much too cheerful for this time of day," he croaked.

She did her best not to laugh. It was cruel. Poor thing. He got terrible hangovers on the occasions he went out with his resident friends.

"I'm feeling pretty upbeat. Woke up on the right side of the bed, I guess."

"Did you get a breakthrough, then?" he asked, maybe a little reproachful about her good cheer. "About their mother's death?"

He might as well have made her swallow a rock. A hot one, one that would scald her lips and sear her insides. Her stomach dropped, a horrible ache there suddenly.

"Er, no. Not yet. I just had a fun day yesterday. We went to Yellowstone. Got some fresh air and exercise, slept well. It was good for me."

"Nm. Lucky you."

Suddenly she couldn't bear to talk to him. He knew her too well. He'd hear she was hiding something. She ought to have prepared better before even thinking of calling.

"I'll let you go back to sleep," she said.

There was an awkward pause.

"Did I say the wrong thing or something?" Alan asked.

"No, no. It's just you sound like shit. You need to recover. I'll call you tonight if you'll be in."

She'd been having such a good morning...

"You didn't used to say stuff like that."

"What?"

"You said I sound like shit. You didn't used to say things like that."

Hackles well and truly up, she felt herself tensing, angry.

"You do sound like shit," she said. "And in case you forgot, I am an adult. I'm allowed to curse if I want to."

"I never said you weren't, I just meant... It was just a comment, I didn't mean anything by it."

Sure...

She sighed.

"OK. I'll call you later. Bye."

Her unworn pyjamas were still on top of the desk and they wouldn't fit back in her bag for some reason and...

And there was a knock at the door.

She opened it to find Thomas standing there, looking a little surprised that she seemed so frazzled so early.

"Good morning?" he said, a faint question in his tone.

"Hi. Just... Just packing up. Are we leaving?"

"Not just yet. I'm going to get breakfast if you'd care to join me. Lucille's taking her time getting ready but she'll be down soon and Finlay's off for a morning walk."

She didn't exactly have an excuse to not go...

She could feel his confusion. Wondering why she was out of sorts.

"I got the impression from Lucille that you had a good time last night," he said as they walked side by side down the corridor.

Bright red really wasn't Edith's colour, but she couldn't keep it away from her face no matter how badly she tried.

"We did," she said quietly. "It's not that. I called Alan and he made a comment, that's all..."

Thomas span round in front of her at the bottom of the motel stairs.

"You told him? About you and Lucille?"

"What? No! God, no. No, no. It wasn't anything about that. It was nothing. I shouldn't even be mad about it."

He let it go and they headed for what was called a restaurant but seemed more like an open breakfast area. They served bacon and scrambled eggs. Toast. The usual. Thomas ordered on Lucille's behalf from a quiet corner table.

"I was worried that she'd... upset you somehow," he said softly. "Maybe been too rough."

This was not happening.

"I'd rather not discuss... that with you, if you don't mind," she stammered.

After all, it was his sister! Surely he couldn't want to know the details.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding it remotely. "I was... You know, fishing for tips."

She raised her eyebrows, lost.

"Tips?"

"What you like, what you don't like in the bedroom. You never know. Maybe you like things rough."

The combination of the calm voice and attitude had thrown her completely. How could he just talk about it? So openly, where anyone could hear?

"Do you?" she asked, trying to fight back, to unbalance him.

"Sometimes. Depends on my mood. Sometimes I like sweet and sometimes I like to give up control. To let go and know the other person will catch me."

He liked it when other people were rough with him? When women were rough with him? Somehow she'd expected... something else.

She tried to imagine playing that role. Ordering him around. Wrapping her hand around dark curls and pulling, hearing him moan half in pleasure and half in pain, running her nails down his back, making him wait, making him beg...

The plate being put in front of her made her jump.

Thomas smiled knowingly across the table.

"We can discuss this later," he said.

Was Lucille's arrival a blessing or a curse? A welcome distraction, but a different issue in herself...

"What are you two conspiring about?" she asked, slipping elegantly into her seat, spearing a piece of butter for her toast on the tip of a knife in the same motion.

"Nothing," Edith said immediately.

"Ah. Don't worry. We all have our secrets."

Edith thought about their mother. Lady Sharpe. How she'd died. What Enola had said, what she thought she'd found. Secrets everywhere. Secrets she needed to get at.

"Yes," she said automatically, just to fill the empty air.

Thomas chuckled.

"Oh, I doubt you have anything to hide, Edith," he said. "Certainly nothing dark."

She wasn't so sure about that, but she wasn't going to let him twist her around anymore. She'd had quite enough of that for one morning.

"We could find out," she said, slicing her bacon. "You go first."

A beat of silence and then Lucille laughed.

"Be careful, Thomas. She bites."

"Ah, but I like that kind of thing."

"Where are we off to today?" Edith asked, desperate to change the subject. "I've lost track."

Thomas glanced at her, a faint knowing in his eyes. Recognizing her discomfort. Had he been pushing? Testing her limits?

Just playing?

"We're taking a long drive south," he said. "Down to Utah. I can't wait to see the salt flats. I've never been anywhere like that. A little sight seeing if we have time and then into Salt Lake City."

"All I know about Utah is it's where Mormans started. Though I'm sure they're not how I imagine."

"How do you imagine them?" Lucille asked, wiping a tiny speck from her lip without even smudging her make up.

"Oh, I just... I meant the stereotypes. Multiple wives and so on. I mean, you see it on TV, but I'm sure that's a minority."

Then again, were they not in something of a similar situation? Who was she to judge?

"Then again, I suppose if everyone is happy..." she said, backpedalling a little.

"I'd have no problem with it if only it was a little more equal," Lucille said. "They call it polygamy when really it's polygyny. One man, many women. It's only fair that a woman ought to be allowed multiple husbands too."

That made sense, Edith supposed.

"And anyway, the average guy interested in that sort of thing tends to just want a harem," Lucille continued. "They think being polyamorous means they'll get all the sex they want and have none of the emotional responsibility that comes with being in a relationship. If you can't be there for one person, what makes you think you could be there for two or three?"

Thomas set down his mug of coffee with a faint clinking sound.

"Almost sounds like you have experience," he said.

"I've had a proposition or two. Oddly enough, I was never tempted. If it had just been sex then perhaps, but none of that... possessive bullshit. You know, 'I can sleep with whoever I want, but you have to ask first.' It's dumb."

"I can't believe anyone would try that on with you," Edith said quietly.

After all, Lucille was so... spiky. She clearly wouldn't put up with anything like that.

"Never underestimate the stupidity of the overly confident. That's part of why we chose you for this trip, remember? You're clever, but you also knew your limits. You didn't try to blag your way here. Do Americans say blag? It means lying, or twisting the truth slightly. Or it can mean talking your way into getting something."

Edith could feel herself blushing, unsure what exactly to make of that. And the phrase stuck in her mind as Finlay returned from her walk, sticking with her long enough to start making notes for her next article in the back of the bus.

The Wyoming countryside was glorious even as they drove through rain showers, Thomas sat next to her. If she wasn't mistaken, the Sharpes were almost... taking turns with her.

"Never underestimate the stupidity of the overly confident." Another expression from Lucille Sharpe that seems both straightforward and contradictory.

After all, anyone who has seen their performances on this tour would be hard-pressed not to describe them as confident. The ambitious set changes from show to show might only be possible for such a small group, often seeming to switch on the fly. If they could be in charge of lighting too, I'm sure they'd like to be.

Perhaps the confidence is well deserved.

She really shouldn't keep focussing on Lucille so much. People would think she had a crush. Or know she had a crush.

People probably already thought she had a torch for Thomas.

"What do you think of 'fake it till you make it' as a concept?" she asked the vehicle at large.

"Hate it," Lucille said, sunglasses perched on her head.

"Why?"

"Well, generally because if I'm hiding something, I don't necessarily want that to go away. Or I might be performing something I don't want to be the rest of the time."

Hmm. Interesting. Edith glanced at the back of Finlay's head, spotting her frown in the rear view mirror, concentrating on the road. She was not to be spoken in front of freely, but that meant she could equally be a shield.

"Like... vulnerability? Do you think you have to hide that?"

The change in Lucille's demeanor was small but just perceptible. Her shoulders moved forward just slightly, her head tilted to the side.

"We tell stories for a living," Thomas said. "More or less. Vulnerability is useful. It can bring out truth."

"So are they true stories?"

"Depends on your definition of truth."

That wasn't an answer. Not a real answer. Time to go back to her first point of attack.

"I don't think of either of you as vulnerable. Not outwardly. Was it the music industry that hardened you or something else?"

A silence. A bad silence. Finlay glanced at her in the mirror, maybe silently pleading her to stop.

"What are you getting at?" Thomas's voice was calm, but there was a hardness behind his eyes. Like a shield.

And he'd reached through to the front, squeezing Lucille's shoulder. Comforting her.

Ah. Shit. Maybe there was something there, something really, properly private that she shouldn't be prodding at.

"Nothing," she said, looking away. "Nothing, just... Wondering."

The atmosphere was horrible. Good job, Edith. An enclosed space was just the right place to ask an awkward question where nobody could walk away.

"Sorry," she said quietly, trying to sound as sincere as she felt. "That's a hard line. I understand."

Lucille sighed, reaching up to take Thomas's hand, reassuring him she was alright perhaps.

"It's fine," she said. "I understand too. Got to have that killer headline. Tragedy On Tour: Sharpes Tell All maybe. What Really Happened..."

She trailed off and Edith itched to know the end of that sentence. What really happened where? When? To who?

"All the same, I shouldn't pry into your private business," she said carefully. "There are lines that probably shouldn't be crossed between employers and employees."

The look Thomas gave her could have curdled milk. There was definitely something they were hiding and even if she didn't write about it, curiosity was rising right to the brim of Edith's being.

"Curiosity killed the cat," they used to say to her. And then her father said, "Ah, but satisfaction brought it back."

Strange saying. How could they bring the cat back if it was dead? Or was this part of the nine lives thing?

Pretty powerful satisfaction to bring something back from beyond the grave.

But not now. There was far too much tension in the air.

Chapter 23: Information and Suspicion

Four hours on the road didn't actually feel very long anymore. All this travelling had started warping Edith's sense of time almost.

Breakfast or no, she was starving by the time the reached Salt Lake City. Ravenous.

"I'm going to take a nap before sound check," Lucille said, dragging her bag out of the van.

"Not coming for lunch?" Finlay asked.

"Just bring me back some crisps and I'll be fine."

Chips, Edith's mind supplied. She felt a little guilty. There was still discomfort in the air.

They were staying in a small boutique hotel, all doilies and frills in place of the functional cleanliness of the motels they'd spent most of their time at so far. It was nice, but Edith felt a little like she was walking into the home of a distant great aunt. There ought to be a bowl of dusty hard candy or a furious cat somewhere.

The receptionist was too young to be that great aunt. She was maybe in her late fifties or early sixties, smiling widely at them.

"Yes, of course," she said as they checked in, fetching keys from a glass cabinet. "We've been expecting you. Miss E. Cushing, Mrs D. Finlay and Mr and Mrs Sharpe..."

"Oh," Edith said awkwardly. "Oh, they're not..."

"Don't worry. Mr and Mrs is perfectly fine," Thomas said, smiling and slipping his arm casually around Lucille's waist. "Technically it's Sir and Lady Sharpe, but we don't stand on ceremony too often."

The poor woman's eyes had gone very wide, stammering apologies. Like she thought some minor royalty had stumbled into her little guesthouse.

"I'm so sorry... Please, let me offer you the honeymoon suite. No extra charge."

"You're so kind," Lucille purred. "Thank you, we'd be delighted."

Edith had a strange feeling as she and Finlay made their way up to the second floor.

"That was... odd," she said.

"They're just playing," Finlay said. "You know how they are. Like kittens with a canary."

Yes. Blood on the carpet and feathers everywhere if you weren't careful.

How had this day gone so wrong? She'd woken with no regrets, feeling good. And now she'd been snippy with Alan and she'd upset Lucille. Ugh. Maybe she'd feel better after a meal, but she wasn't exactly betting on it.

The sunshine seemed to mock her. Too cheerful, too bright. And it must have shown on her face too if the conversation was anything to go on.

"You mustn't torture yourself, Edith," Thomas said, the pair of them and Finlay walking down a quiet street. "You can't avoid what you don't know about. It's not your fault."

He'd changed his tune. Maybe in the five minutes he and Lucille had been alone they'd had a little calming down session.

"It's mainly a defence mechanism, if I'm any judge," Finlay said. "If you don't mind my saying so, I've seen a lot of trauma. People react to it in different ways. Some like to talk, some clam up completely. But I've had more years of experience than you've been alive, I would say."

She was so wise. And Thomas wasn't trying to dispute anything she'd said. That was interesting. It played into some of the vague indications she'd been thinking over.

"So it was... It was trauma?" Edith asked. "That made her... cautious?"

Thomas didn't reply right away. He was examining the menu of a sweet-looking cafe, but clearly decided to keep looking for the time being.

"Both our parents died in traumatic circumstances," he said eventually. "And that wasn't even the full extent of it. What's that Larkin poem? 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad...'?"

"'They may not mean to, but they do'," Finlay supplied.

"Exactly. I don't think there was any lack of intention from our parents, that's all."

An unguarded admission. Or was it? Was this another careful answer, rehearsed and repeated? It was difficult to say.

Edith wanted more though. Much more.

"How did your father... pass?" she asked.

Thomas sighed. He didn't seem distressed though. More like... irritated, and not with her.

"Well, he had a drinking problem, which didn't help matters. It's different with our background, though. If someone living on a council estate - projects I think you'd call the same thing, inner city deprived areas - got up and started drinking at ten o'clock in the morning, they'd be called an alcoholic. Father starting on the port at breakfast and having a few pints over lunch and wine at dinner and then brandy at night was treated like it was perfectly normal. That's just what landed gentry do. Some of them anyway."

"So it was liver disease?"

"No. Stupid man tried to fix the heating in part of the house himself instead of calling in a professional. Ended up with a carbon monoxide leak and of course we didn't have any alarms for that kind of thing. I was away on an orchestral course at the time, but Lucille was home and had to be hospitalized. He could have killed them all. They think Lucille would have died if she hadn't had her window a little ajar."

A horrible shiver ran up Edith's spine. Oh, she felt sick suddenly.

"How old were you?" she asked.

"Fourteen. So Lucille was sixteen. She was in hospital for three days in an oxygen mask. She was very thin at the time, thinner than she is now, and so her body was very badly affected. Selfish fucking idiot. I might have killed him myself if he hadn't done the job for me."

That angry side. Edith thought of the fight she'd overheard, of thrown glasses. He was still something of an unknown, really.

"Mother had been out with friends, as she often was. Came home to find them both unconscious, called ambulances. I think it was a bit of a relief for her, really, becoming a widow. She'd probably have preferred it if they'd both gone though."

What an awful thing to say. Edith was a bit shocked and Finlay clearly was too.

"I don't much feel like a sit-down lunch, do you?" Thomas said, a smile falling into place like a mask. "How about we just get something from 7-11, find somewhere to sit outside? There's got to be a park or something."

Yeah, that sounded good. Something was clawing at the back of Edith's mind, though. Losing one parent in an accident was one thing. Losing both?

Was that less likely? After all, both her parents had got sick and died. It just happened. Some people were unlucky that way.

Still... Enola's voice kept echoing in her mind. She had suspected things. She had suspected foul play. Did she know about their father too?

But in both events, Lucille had been at risk. Thomas just said, she could have died in the gas leak and she was injured in the car crash. Surely that meant she couldn't have had anything to do with it?

But there were those scars on her legs, the ones Edith had only been able to glimpse when they slept together, not look at properly. What had caused them? The accident? Some other incident?

Had someone else done that to her? Or were they self-inflicted?

They hated their parents so much... Could it be more than just a personality clash? Could there be something more sinister there? And could that have driven them to...?

What did she eat for lunch? She had no idea. She didn't taste it.

Both parents dead and Lucille the only witness to what happened. It wasn't like Edith could just ask her about that.

Would she have risked herself? Her own safety? Had she cared about her own well-being at all?

Edith wished she didn't recognize that feeling. She wished it felt foreign and alien and strange. But it didn't. Not really.

"You're miles away," Finlay said gently.

"I... Yeah. Maybe I'm tired."

She wasn't. Not in the sense of wanting to sleep. But she did want this day finished. She wanted to be waking up again, feeling like she could start over.

"Maybe a little nap needed? We should take Miss Lucille something to eat. Sorry, Lady Lucille."

She giggled a little, taking it all in good fun. Was Edith the only one not seeing the funny side? Wasn't it a bit odd to pretend to be married to your sibling?

Maybe it was just to get a free upgrade. Lucille certainly seemed much brighter when they returned and Thomas insisted on having Edith help him deliver a picnic's worth of food.

"You have to see this bed," she said, pulling Edith inside. "It's incredible."

It was certainly... pink. Satin sheets, or at least the polyester equivalent. Lacy edgings. A huge, quilted headboard.

"Do you think it's padded to stop anyone banging their heads?" Lucille asked, leaping onto the mattress. "I mean, seriously. All it needs is to be heart-shaped and it would be perfectly cartoonish."

She seemed to get an idea suddenly, smiling, taking Edith's hand.

"Go get the camera," she said. "I want this immortalized."

What exactly? She'd get to find out, she supposed, obediently going up to her room and returning with the Polaroid.

Thomas was sitting on the bed, casual, his legs extended and crossed at the ankle, looking like a witch's cat in a fairy's cottage. Lucille was excited, grinning at her.

"Do a little photoshoot for us," she said. "It'll be fun."

It started normal. Funny. The two of them so out of place, sitting very primly in their dark clothes. And then Lucille shuffled down onto her back and told Edith to stand on the bed, get a few shots from above with the pink as a backdrop.

They were both looking at her. Like it so often did, the camera became a shield, the clunk and whir of it, pictures falling like leaves, Thomas suddenly breaking eye contact and leaning over to whisper something in Lucille's ear.

They were always whispering together...

In the final picture she'd taken, Thomas was looking away, looking at his sister, lips parted slightly in speech but still somehow achingly handsome.

And Lucille was gazing straight at the lens. Daring. Hypnotic. Challenging and beckoning all at once.

Edith felt like her whole being was exposed. Like she was being pinned down and dissected.

And she didn't like that feeling one bit.

She was the journalist and they were her subjects. She shouldn't be the one on the back foot. She should be in control.

Despite what they'd done together, she couldn't trust Lucille, she was realising. There was so much she still didn't know.

Complacency was the enemy. She ought to be vigilant for any opportunity to discover what had really happened in their past.

She was examining the pictures at the shabby-chic desk with its branded notepaper when Lucille wrapped her arms around her from behind.

"I'm sorry for earlier," she murmured. "I'll talk to you about it eventually. I'm just not ready, that's all."

In spite of everything, it still felt good to be held. Like a cage, but one Edith wanted to stay in.

Maybe because staying on Lucille's good side seemed to be safer than the alternative.

"I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to dredge anything up."

That was a lie. Of course she had. That was her job.

Lucille kissed her neck and Edith tried to imagine her sick in hospital, poisoned by the very air she was breathing.

And wondered whether she'd knowingly taken that risk.

Chapter 24: Discomfort

Calling Alan. She had the beginning of a rift to heal.

"Hello?"

He sounded better. Probably eaten something. Slept it off.

"Hi," she said softly before getting to the point. "Sorry I was such a... Sorry I was so snappish earlier."

He sighed softly.

"Something put you off suddenly. Do you want to talk about it?"

Not really, but she ought to.

"I'd been neglecting the actual journalism side of why I'm here, I guess," she said, sinking into over-soft pillows, the sharp scent of disinfectant wipes comfortingly familiar. "I'm not on vacation. I'm here to work. It was just a bit of a bumpy reminder is all. Not your fault."

He didn't sound fully convinced, but he was happy enough to let things slide, it seemed.

"So where are you now?" he asked.

"Utah. We're in a cute little hotel, but there's a show tonight so I guess we might see some of the city tomorrow."

"The sightseeing is practically a job in itself by the sound of things. When are you finding time to write?"

"Oh, you know... Evenings. And when we're driving sometimes, writing stuff by hand and typing it later. I need to get some done before we head out, but I had been so mean to you this morning, I couldn't leave it..."

"Oh, shush. I get it. I'm the same with patients sometimes. It's hard, when you're around someone all the time, to remember that they're not your friend. Not really. They're work."

Edith blinked at the ceiling, all swirls of plaster and strange shadows.

"Yeah," she said, feeling a little numbness in her lips as she spoke. "You're right. They're not my friends."

They were... something else. Some undefinable relationship. Her bosses, but her lovers too. And they terrified her, which probably wasn't healthy regardless of there being sex involved.

But they certainly weren't her friends. She had to remember that.

"So why the big night last night?" she asked, trying to change the subject. "Any particular reason?"

"Not really. Just got invited out. Wouldn't normally go, but I've been a bit bored without you here."

Ah. That was sweet.

"I'll try to call more often."

He chuckled, maybe a little sleepily.

"Yeah, I'd like that. Go write. Speak soon."

"OK. Bye."

Yes. Write.

She dragged out the typewriter, but something in the back of her mind was bugging her. Really bugging her.

Carbon monoxide, Thomas had said. What was the chemical code for that? CO?

Didn't they have a song with CO in the title?

She'd been at every one of their shows so far and she couldn't quite bring it to mind. Yet. She'd have to pay extra attention tonight.

She looked at the pictures she'd taken in the honeymoon suite. Some of these were... intimate, almost.

And if she was wearing her journalist hat, she knew that people liked intimacy.

She selected one of them lying together, pale against pink, their hair so dark. And on the bottom, she wrote L & T in the honeymoon suite

Right...

Thomas and Lucille Sharpe are brother and sister, but they're so close that it's perhaps not surprising that people sometimes don't realise this. And they positively revel in that fact.

Today, we arrived in Salt Lake City. The Sharpes share hotel rooms, ostensibly to save money but also I believe to discuss and plot together. And this includes sharing beds.

Many siblings, especially male-female mixes, might prefer their own rooms and would correct anyone who mistook their relationship immediately. Not the Sharpes. Not only did they trick the receptionist into thinking they were husband and wife, but they accepted an ungrade to the bridal suite, complete with its individual decor.

It's safe to say, they are rather closer than most. They are all they have and always have been, through unhappy childhoods and the death of both parents. Which perhaps explains why they do things that others would not.

For one thing, they

Her fingers trembled. She'd been about to write that they shared sexual partners. But how would she know that? They wouldn't have told her something like that so openly. She was saying too much. She was giving herself away.

What could that sentence turn into? What innocent thing?

For one thing, they perform love songs together.

Right. Yes. Good. Not exactly relatable to most, probably, but, well... A lot of their music was highly personal. Not the kind of thing you'd want to share with family. Songs about love, hate, loss, regret...

Why couldn't she think of the one song she was thinking of? It was something with CO... Co-something but spelled capitalized. Maybe she'd leave the article for now to include something about it, something about their father.

She couldn't even sleep when she tried, lying awake in the dark, unable to get comfortable. It was annoying her too much.

She took a shower - had she already had one today? Maybe - and tried to remember. It had to sound different. A subtle little joke.

Without thinking about it, she braided her hair. Like Lucille did. Even unconsciously, they were affecting her.

She was putting on her make-up and trying to gather her pens and spare pens and notebooks together when there was a knock at the door.

Surely it wasn't time to go yet?

"Edith? Are you decent?"

Thomas's voice. His hand on the door handle, coming in before she could even speak. She should have locked the door.

Her hand had frozen, her eyebrow pencil stuck in the air as he smiled at her in the mirror.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding like he meant it in the least. "Still, I think we're rather beyond worrying about not being quite put together in front of one another."

Were they now? She blinked and tried to get back to it, like she wasn't rattled by his very presence.

"Am I late?" she asked. "I can miss sound check if I am, get a taxi to the venue."

"No, not at all."

A pause. Was he here for a reason or...?

"So," he said vaguely, sitting on her bed - a far more conservative yellow and blue flower pattern. "When do you want to do this?"

"Do what?" she asked, like she didn't know.

"Well, while I understand entirely, your and Lucille's relationship is progressing a little faster than yours and mine."

Her heart stuttered a little. Why were they like this? Hadn't they ever heard of taking things slow?

"What do you mean, you understand?" she asked.

"Just that it's different. You and I have more to discuss. Are you on the pill?"

What?

She was blushing right through her foundation, even as she tried to keep her breathing steady and consider that they were both adults having an adult conversation and that was allowed and even sensible.

"No, I'm not," she said. "I'm one of those lucky people who gets... side effects."

She'd started on it young, hoping to get some control over an irregular cycle, but a combination of it and... other things had meant she'd had to give it up. It hadn't been good for her.

"Mm. Coil? Implant? Although I expect they're pretty expensive over here."

"No, I haven't... needed anything for a few years. Not long-term anyway."

Not that that was any of his business.

"Right," he said, nodding. "We'll just be extra careful, then. I gather that the morning after pill is deeply unpleasant."

Edith carefully started on her mascara, something to focus on.

"I haven't decided yet if I want to sleep with you," she said.

Oh, and that had him surprised. She couldn't see clearly, but she saw the motions blurrily. The tilted head, like he thought he'd misheard, the forward lean, getting closer.

And then a slight laugh, covering himself.

"I thought we understood each other," he said. "And I think we could have a good time together. I see the way you look at me. It's just us out here, you, me, Lucille and Finlay. You don't have to deny yourself anything, if you want it."

Despite his body language, he was on the defensive and she liked that. The pair of them, him and Lucille, spent their days rattling other people, keeping them off balance, and they didn't like it being turned back on them.

Maybe that was why they liked her. She intrigued them.

And she liked being in control.

Finished with her make-up, she turned to face him properly.

"Please don't assume anything about me, Thomas. And I'll do my best to pay you the same compliment."

He looked at her, a strange, hungry look. He liked this assertiveness.

"Do you want it?" he asked.

She thought for a moment. About her own desires for once and not what anyone else would think. About how Lucille demanded and took, how Edith sometimes liked that and wanted to give up control, but how equally she was interested in experimenting with being powerful.

Thomas could give her that power. That feeling.

"Yes," she said carefully. "But on my terms and my terms only."

The skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled.

"Then I await your command. Ready for sound check?"

Yes. And maybe she'd finally remember which song she was thinking of.

Chapter 25: Hidden in Plain Sight?

Edith sat in the center of the little auditorium - was it weird to have a completely seated venue for a show like this? It seemed weird - checking the acoustics and taking the occasional photo. She was going to need some new Polaroids soon.

The tune hit her suddenly, cutting through her thoughts. Yes, that was it! That was the song she was thinking of, or she thought so anyway. A lighter piece with Lucille on vocals normally, though for now they were just testing the cello tones of the keyboard and the softer drums.

It was coming back to her - one of the less angry ones. Melancholy. Bitter more than enraged.

And why she couldn't remember the lyrics; because Lucille practically whispered them. Soft and harsh all at once.

Maybe it was more reflective. Kinder perhaps. The feelings they'd never reveal in speech.

A thumbs up from one of the sound engineers and they were moving to the next instruments. Edith could do nothing but scrawl down what she remembered. Artificial cello, muted but constant, steady bass drum, whispery vocals. She'd have to listen out for it.

It was important somehow.

And she wasn't going to just ask them outright if they'd written a song about the trauma of their father's death. She already knew too much.

Journalist hat. Keep your sources sweet and in the dark.

Excited by potentially having something new to reveal, she found herself beginning to sketch out the rest of her article. In shorthand. Just in case any of the crew found it.

I recently wrote about the Sharpes' mother's death, a terrible accident that left Lucille hospitalized...

She crossed out "accident" and replaced it with "incident".

Their mother can be felt in several of their songs, but their father's presence is more subtle. It requires some background knowledge, such as the fact that he died due to a carbon monoxide leak.

She really hoped the song had some relevant lyrics. She was having horrible flashbacks to writing complete nonsense in English assignments and trying to back up her assertions with irrelevant quotations.

Though they don't speak of him much, a picture is formed of a troubled man, an alcoholic in an unhappy marriage.

She wasn't going to accuse him of... anything without evidence. Unless the Sharpes wanted to talk about it and she wasn't going to push them.

He'd clearly been neglectful of both his wife and children, but when it came to anything more than that, it wasn't for her to speculate.

The usual hustle and bustle of getting show ready mainly passed her by, finally settling in by side of stage near the technician's light so she could see to write.

This did not seem to be the usual audience. More a theater audience than a gig one, like this was a classical concert. It was more subdued than usual, but professionalism was setting in. The music was the important thing, more so than the audience, or certainly that was the impression Edith got. Like Thomas and Lucille would perform just for the sake of it. Like they were just playing at being rock stars some of the time.

And when the song came, the one she was waiting for, it shocked people. Woke them up. Audibly made them worry.

Mainly because Lucille began it with a horrible gasp, like something had happened, like she was hurt. The only reason Edith didn't panic was because Thomas was carrying on, like he'd expected it.

She was sure it didn't normally start like that. That was a new addition. Maybe because they'd been thinking about the incident?

Lucille was holding her own neck, making a choker of her hand, eyes closed. So striking and Edith could only just tear her eyes away to take a picture.

"I can't breathe," she whispered right against the microphone, almost not speaking at all. It was just the sense of words, the idea of them.

Edith shivered.

Thomas knelt and played the bass drum by hand, softer than using the pedal, solid, steady thumps, like a heart beat.

With a trembling hand, Edith noted down the lyrics she could make out from Lucille's strange, airy singing.

When I'm done
You'll be gone
And I'll breathe

Once you leave
I'll be free
And I'll breathe

It hurts, but not much
I'll be out of your clutches
I'll breathe

My mind is crushed
Face is flushed
Soon I'll breathe
But I must
Trust
Me...

The way she performed it, punctuating the lines with desperate gasps, like she was suffocating... It made Edith feel sick. It sounded so painful, aching, horrible rattling in her throat.

But there was nothing specific or concrete. Maybe it was just a metaphor. Maybe it was about struggling to break up with someone, some toxic relationship. Probably she was just reading into it far too much.

During the polite, stunned applause, she sidled over to the technician again. He was relaying instructions to the lighting and sound crew above.

"Do you have a set list?" she asked quietly. "Can I check what that song was called?"

He didn't even answer her, just pointed at the title on a hand-written list. Thomas's handwriting.

And suddenly she felt very cold.

COdependent

CO. Carbon monoxide.

"Is there a phone I can use around here?" she hissed.

"Try front of house," he grunted.

"Thanks."

She didn't know what she was going to ask, but there was one person she knew who would know about these things.

Reception was more or less closed and they didn't seem to care if she needed to make a phone call. It wasn't like they were using the landline.

Edith's fingers trembled as she dialled Alan's number, listening to the ringing tone, hoping he wasn't out somewhere or at work...

"Hello?"

"Alan?"

"Yeah? What's up? Aren't you at a show?"

"I am, but... Listen, I need you to tell me everything you know about carbon monoxide poisoning."

Too blunt. Too rushed. There was a long, heavy pause.

"Edith, what's going on?"

Her heart was pounding. She couldn't tell him what she half suspected. He'd panic.

"Years ago, there was a leak at their house and I think that's what one of the songs is about. It would be great to write about, but I'm not certain. What are the symptoms?"

He sighed. He didn't like this, evidently.

"Kinda like flu. Headache, nausea. Increased heart rate. Shortness of breath. Confusion. Loss of consciousness, convulsions and death. But that's pretty rare in adults, especially accidentally."

"What do you mean, accidentally?"

"Well, most serious cases we see are people trying to... You know. Kill themselves."

"And how long does that take?"

Another pause.

"Edith, are you alright?"

What?

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just want to know how much danger they were really in."

"Well... In sufficient amounts, sufficient concentration, it can be a matter of minutes. If it was a sudden leak, like a burst pipe, they were in real trouble and they're lucky to be here. But like I say, most deaths by it are deliberate. Especially with detectors these days."

Deliberate. Delib...

"Could you murder someone with it?"

"Oh, sure. If you put them in a car or trapped them or something. Be easier if they were already unconscious of course."

Like if they'd passed out drinking. Already asleep, breathing in the fumes, not even aware that they were suffocating...

"OK," she said. "Thanks. That's really helpful."

"Are you sure you're alright? You sound shaken."

"Oh, it's just a horrible thought, isn't it?" she said, trying to force her voice to sound normal. "Just an awful thing to happen."

"Mm. Alright. Look after yourself though. Don't dwell on negatives."

Familiar words. Familiar instructions.

"I will," she said. "Look after myself, I mean. Take care. Bye."

The Sharpes wouldn't even know she'd been gone.

Chapter 26: Tea Time

Edith managed to sneak back into the stage wings like she'd never been away, trying to look neutral. Like her brain wasn't rushing at several hundred miles an hour.

Could they have killed their father? Their mother? Yes. They could. But that wasn't the same as saying they did. Ability and culpability were very different. Anyone could be a killer but hardly anyone was in the grand scheme of things.

And, yes, it was probably possible that it wasn't an accident, but then again what were the actual logistics of killing someone like that?

Having to make sure he was passed out drunk, then, what? Dismantling the heating? Unscrewing a pipe? It was pretty outlandish, wasn't it?

But that song... There had been hatred there in Lucille's voice. Real malice and melancholy.

She didn't know what to think any more. Enola had suspected too and they'd ruined her. She couldn't breathe a word to them. After all, if it was true...

The concert finished and she hadn't written another word. How could she? Even writing that COdependent might be about their father's death seemed like an accusation. An admission of her suspicions.

"You look exhausted," Thomas said, beside her suddenly, making her almost jump out of her skin.

"Uh," she said, slamming her notebook shut. "Uh, yeah, a little."

"I think Lucille is too. You two should go back to the hotel. I can pack things up here. It won't take long."

There wasn't a reason to say no...

It felt so strange being alone with Lucille. Strained. Bad.

"Have things changed between us?" Lucille asked softly, their driver talking to someone else on his phone - hands free but enough to make Edith nervous nonetheless.

Had things changed? Well, they'd slept together and they hadn't really had a chance to talk about that. Not properly.

"I... Yeah, a bit," Edith admitted.

"We should have tea while Thomas is busy."

"At this time of night?"

"Green tea. No caffeine."

Hmm. Maybe it would help. She'd stop imagining things, stop mythologizing the Sharpes into remorseless killers.

"Alright."

It wasn't particularly late, maybe only ten o'clock, but the hotel already seemed deserted. The room keys worked in the front door though, probably via some very clever mechanics, so they didn't have to disturb anyone.

And so Edith found herself back in the pink room as Lucille fiddled with socket adaptors to plug in her tea kettle.

"In England, the entire electricity system is based around the production of tea," she said. "Higher voltage to boil the water quicker. Peak time at the end of the weeknight soaps or after football matches when everyone goes and puts the kettle on. I heard once that to have a British-style kettle in an American home would need the whole house rewired to prevent the fuses being blown. I don't know if that's true though."

She was speaking very softly and quietly, gentle. As if she could sense Edith's fear.

"We should talk about this," she said. "I thought you had fun."

"I did," Edith insisted. "I really did. And it's not that I regret it or anything, it's just... things are progressing quite quickly. I'm not used to that."

"Mm. I told Thomas he shouldn't go up and bother you. Too direct, that boy."

That wasn't really the problem at all, but Edith wasn't about to correct her. Maybe... Maybe if she heard what had happened to their father from Lucille, from the actual witness, it wouldn't seem so scary.

"He told me about when your father died," she said, the cup very hot beneath her fingers. "The accident. How you had to go to hospital."

"Mm. Do you feel sorry for me?"

Did she?

"It certainly sounds unpleasant."

"Well, the poisoning wasn't fun, but I didn't exactly weep at his grave."

Should she ask why? Should she try to find something out?

"It must have been difficult," she tried. "Living with an alcoholic."

"Yes."

Was that all she was going to say?

"Do you want to... talk about it?"

"Well, like I said. One day. Not now. Drink your tea."

It wasn't fair to push. But maybe she could share something instead. Try to build some trust between them.

"I remember when my mom died. I was ten. And it was just... strange. The house was full of memories, everywhere, waiting to surprise you. I felt like I had to grow up suddenly, I had to be the householder. My whole life revolved around trying not to let my dad get too down. I hated it when he was sad."

"What about you?" Lucille asked. "What about when you were sad?"

She really did have an uncanny ability to cut right to the heart of things.

"I got good at hiding it."

Lucille sighed gently and clinked their cups together.

"I'll drink to that."

Edith smiled a little. There were some similarities between them maybe, deep down. Just they'd been hiding rather different emotions, she thought.

Still, it had helped. She was being ridiculous. People didn't murder their parents in carefully planned accidents. That kind of thing only happened in murder mysteries.

An unhappy childhood didn't make people into killers. And thank goodness or there'd be a lot of them around.

Unless she was just thinking what she wanted to think and ignoring the evidence... Then again, what evidence?

"Do you want me to talk to Thomas for you?" Lucille asked. "Ask him to back off?"

"Oh... No, I think we have an understanding."

A knowing smile.

"He's accepted that you're in charge, then?"

"Mm. Is he like that with..." and she could feel herself blush even to say it. "With all his girlfriends?"

"Only the ones he really likes."

Was she being teased again? Maybe. Still, she felt rather better, both from the talk and the tea.

"You should get some sleep," Lucille said, getting up and stretching, beginning to let down her hair from its complex braids. "I think Thomas is keen to visit the Planetarium tomorrow before we head off. I doubt we'll have much time for sight seeing really, not that I particularly want to go into the big Mormon temple. I'd probably burn up on entry."

"I'm sure that's not true."

A soft sigh and she approached, gently resting her arms on Edith's shoulders and looking down at her tenderly.

"You're very sweet," she murmured. "Don't lose that."

She leant down to kiss her forehead and then further down, tilting Edith's chin up to access her mouth.

And despite it all, despite all her fears and misgivings, it was still electric. She still wanted more, even while a sensible part of her brain screamed that she should be more careful.

Especially when the door opened and Thomas was there, leaning on the door frame, looking at them fondly.

"Joining us?" he asked.

Lucille threw one of the frilly scatter cushions at him, laughing.

"I, er... I'm just heading upstairs," Edith said. "Goodnight."

She was maybe relieved to be out of the room, leaning against the wall a little. Trying to get her breath back, like she'd been running.

And then she was struck my the idea that she could listen at the door. This was an old building. She might be able to catch something.

Was that unethical or was it just journalism?

Heart hammering in her throat, she tried.

Murmurs only. Nothing audible. A sigh. Something terse. They were disagreeing about something.

And then Thomas said something in a low tone and Lucille laughed. Her reply, when it came, was playful, giggling.

If they were disagreeing, it was quickly made up. And she wasn't hearing anything clear and should really stop being so nosey. It wasn't like they were just going to casually confess the moment she left the room.

"Ah, another wonderful day without our parents, whom we murdered in convoluted ways..."

She tried to be quiet, creeping away up the stairs. The faint sound of Finlay already snoring gently when she passed her room was comforting, soothing almost.

At least she didn't need to worry about Finlay being a possible murderer.

Probably.

The typewriter seemed to be looking at her, like a great squat toad sitting on the desk. Faintly accusatory. Asking her what she was going to do - accuse them publicly of murder? Or even allude to the possibility?

Where was her proof? A song? Suspicion from a former employee with an axe to grind? It wasn't like postmortems would show anything they didn't already know; alcohol and carbon monoxide on the father, trauma on the mother.

She was stuck and she knew it. Couldn't ask them. Couldn't ask anyone else. She'd already put Alan into a spiral of worry.

If they were killers - and that was a big if - they were very clever about it.

If risking your own life could be considered clever.

A horrible thought suddenly entered her mind. What if Lucille had nothing to do with it? What if both incidents had been deliberate, but meant to kill her too? What if it had been Thomas all along?

No. She tried to calm the sudden fluttering butterflies in her stomach. Thomas loved her with a fierceness that was unusual, even in the closest of siblings.

And Lucille loved him. Maybe enough to risk her life to protect him from parents who weren't just neglectful.

The very idea made her shiver as she got into her pyjamas and slipped back into the oversoft bed. She needed to get these thoughts of abuse and murder out of her head if she was ever going to sleep.

Or maybe not. She was exhausted after all, and the bed was very comfortable.

The next thing she knew, sunlight was streaming through the frilled curtains, announcing a new day. And she felt rested. Strangely rested, in fact, considering.

Right... Planetarium and maybe a few other sights and then on to Idaho.

And further and further from home.

Chapter 27: Flirtation and Fossils

"I love how it sounds," Lucille said from the front seat. "Boise. Boys-ee. It's like 13-year-olds rejecting a t-shirt."

Edith felt like she hadn't left the bus in days even though it couldn't have been more than an hour or so. The scenery was beautiful, stunning mountains and shimmering lakes and bright snaking rivers, but she really had crashed since the morning's peace into a kind of cranky, tired limbo, unable to sleep but unable to really engage in anything either.

"What do you mean?" she asked, trying to drag her mind towards the present.

"You know. 'I can't wear that, it's too boys-ee.' Though I suppose you'd say boyish. That's odd, isn't it, that it's girly but boyish? Girlish is more to do with size."

"What would you prefer?" Thomas asked.

"Girl-esque."

It was nearly a five hour drive from Salt Lake City. They'd spent the earlier part of the morning sight seeing, but Edith was quite glad they hadn't gone into the temple. Maybe it was the height of the building, but it just felt ominous to her somehow.

She was restless. And hungry, if she was honest. They'd had breakfast at the hotel, which had also made her antsy as Lucille described the honeymoon bed as springy, sending their poor hostess away blushing.

Finlay was saying something about boys being much worse about not wanting to wear anything with even a hint of pink anywhere on it, some grown men too. Edith was only half listening, distantly becoming aware that Thomas was gently stroking her wrist with the side of his little finger.

For a moment, she just stared at it. It almost didn't feel like her flesh. Or it felt like her arm was separate from her, a phantom.

"You OK?" he murmured softly, looking at her from under his lashes.

"Mm. I slept really well. I don't know why I'm so tired."

"Stress, maybe?"

Ha... He didn't know the half of it. And he couldn't know the half of it because that would mean admitting that she thought that he or his sister or both had murdered their parents. No matter how she tried to rationalize it, the risk kept coming back into her head.

"Might be," she admitted.

"Well, you know where I am if you want to... talk about it."

At least he wasn't being overly pushy. The ball was very much in her court. And while she was used to pursuing what she wanted from a professional standpoint, this kind of thing was very different.

What were you even meant to say?

He gently slid along her hand and linked their pinkies together. A childlike gesture, especially considering what they were discussing.

Sweet, in its way. She couldn't keep the smile from her lips.

"Should we stop for lunch soon?" he asked, louder, no longer in their private conversation.

"Ooh, that sounds good," Finlay said. "A bit of fresh air too."

"How far away are we?" Edith asked.

"Another two hours, give or take."

Yeah, she definitely wanted to stop then. Actually stretch out her legs if they could find somewhere suitable to stop.

"Do you know there's a large Basque diaspora around Boise?" Thomas asked. "Nearly five percent of the population, or something like that. From that sort of north Spain, south France area all the way over here. I've no idea why. Maybe we can find out."

"I don't trust them," Lucille said bluntly. "You can't trust a language with no close relatives. Too many Xs for a start."

Not for the first time, Edith felt like they were the ones speaking another language. She was distantly aware of European politics, but hardly knowledgeable on it.

"Are they the ones that want to be their own country?" she asked.

"Some of them probably do, but you might be thinking of the Catalonians," Thomas said. "The right to self-determination and all that. You lot know all about it."

Edith frowned, confused.

"'You lot'?" she asked.

"Americans."

Finlay laughed, tapping her hands against the wheel.

"You almost sound like you were there at the Boston Tea Party," she said. "Still bitter about it?"

Thomas's eyes twinkled, mischief about them.

"On the contrary, it helped keep our family afloat by scuppering our eight times great grandfather's business rivals."

Edith couldn't imagine knowing about such a distant ancestor. Although maybe they didn't. Maybe it was just more playing at being mysterious aristocrats.

"I'm quite looking forward to Boston," Lucille said. "It's only an hour to Fall River. We can visit Lizzie Borden's house."

A gut-wrenching jolt went through Edith's entire body, practically snatching her hand away from Thomas. Oh, she felt sick... Lizzie Borden, famous parent murderer. Accused, anyway. The very idea of Lucille seeing her as some kind of role-model for getting away with things...

"Oh, you can count me out," Finlay said emphatically. "I know you like all that spooky stuff, but I can do without it, thank you."

"Edith?" Thomas asked.

His eyes had changed. No more sparkle, no more softness, a kind of darkness there, intrigue too.

God, she wished she didn't find that attractive...

"Oh, you know," she said. "I'm not sure I'd like it. I just find it a bit ghoulish, that's all."

"Ah, ghoul-esque, there's another one," Lucille said.

Edith forced herself to chuckle. She was frightened to look back at Thomas, feeling his gaze on her. Did he suspect what she suspected? Was she too obvious?

They could destroy her at a moment's notice. She had to hide in plain sight. Avoid suspicion.

Very carefully, she opened her purse, used a tiny bit of moisturizer on her hands, and then offered her pinky back in Thomas's direction. Like it had just been incidental movement.

He looked at it slightly suspiciously, but then smiled and seized her entire hand in his own.

Smile back. Let that latent attraction out. Go along with them.

Lucille was wrestling with a paper map, squinting at it.

"Alright," she said. "I think if we take a minor detour west of the highway, we can find somewhere to eat in a place called Hagerman and stop by some kind of fossil museum if that sounds good."

Edith didn't especially mind, but it sounded interesting. When else would she get a chance to go to these places after all?

It wasn't quite what she expected. Not dinosaurs, but prehistoric horses. Apparently they'd dug up dozens over the years, but on display they only had a cast of one, both for the safety of the fossils and the fact that it could emit radon particles.

"Of all the things I expected to see on this trip, a radioactive horse skeleton wasn't exactly up there," Thomas said, reading the sign over Edith's shoulder.

Standing just a little too closely behind her, if she was honest. The warmth of his body was radiating through her T-shirt. He'd let go of her hand as they stopped in the little town, probably so Finlay didn't see. Edith got the feeling that he and Lucille liked disguising what was really going on from a former detective.

She tried to push that thought from the forefront of her mind.

"Did you have horses growing up?" she asked. "On the estate?"

"We certainly practised equestrian pursuits, but the horses weren't ours. They're too expensive to keep. We rented from local stables. But it wasn't really my scene. Lucille's always been a better rider than me."

"I've had more practice," Lucille said, hearing them from across the room.

"Father always wanted me to get into blood sports. Fox hunting. Shooting. I was never terribly interested."

"I was. But Mother felt such things weren't ladylike. And, of course, being ladylike was the most important thing in her world. That and breeding. Like pedigree dogs."

"What did your mum think was most important, Edith?"

The question surprised her. She was the one who asked things and they answered, offered information now they were more at ease with her. And besides, she'd been very young... Her mom hadn't really had time to give her much advice for adult life.

"Um... Well, she always wanted me to have faith in myself. That I shouldn't write anything off just if someone said I couldn't do it. So self-confidence, I suppose. Sometimes I don't think I'm doing very well with that though."

"She sounds like a very wise lady," Finlay said. "And I reckon you're doing alright."

Edith made herself smile. She was hiding her doubts well, then. She wondered idly if Finlay would think so if she knew what else was going on right under her nose.

Such as in the cafe they found to eat in since the fossil centre didn't have its own food outlet. It was subtle, she'd give Thomas that. Probably didn't look like much to anyone else, but she could feel his hand drifting just a little lower than was normal as they stood at the counter.

"You must tell me if I make you uncomfortable," he murmured very close to her ear, almost making her shiver. "Or if you want me to stop."

She shrugged, like she couldn't care less about his flirting. Like she was impervious and immune, waiting to be impressed, which, of course, encouraged him to try harder.

In reality, her heart was pounding when he sat next to her and began stroking her thigh beneath the table gently at first but then more insistently.

Two fingers on the outside, then his palm over the top, then reaching round, like he was asking permission...

Conversation floated around her head, incomprehensible, her brain completely taken up with the fact that she'd parted her legs at his touch and was letting him run his fingers up and down the inside seam of her jeans, higher and higher...

If she was wearing a skirt, even a short one, she'd be completely exposed now...

Couldn't they see? It seemed the most obvious thing in the world to her, feeling like she was waking up, sudden embarrassment slamming into her, jerking her legs shut even though it trapped his hand right there...

He chuckled as though at something Lucille had said, stroking inwards once, hard, so she felt it right through to where she was suddenly almost distressingly aroused, before withdrawing subtly as though nothing had had happened. Like he hadn't been practically groping her in public.

Her nostrils were flaring slightly, trying to breathe normally, hoping her face hadn't lit up bright pink.

She needed a moment.

Chair scraping across the floor, she leapt to her feet, mumbling something about going to the bathroom and took refuge in the dark little cubicle behind the security of a locked door.

She gulped for air, resting her head against the tiled wall, enjoying the coolness, trying to make her body calm down.

For a mad moment, she considered trying to finish herself off, but she wouldn't have time. It would be better to relax, to cool off. To breathe and let her heartbeat return to normal levels.

Once the embarrassment had mostly subsided, she went to the sink to at least wash her hands, rubbing the soap aggressively between her fingers, scratching herself, just catching with her nails.

Deep breaths. Nice and calm.

The dryer made marks appear on her skin, red against white. And then they faded. Like they'd never been there. Like her blushes.

She was proud of how normally she managed to walk back to their table, eating her tuna melt panini and actually listening to what was being said about the best route to Boise, the potential places to visit once there, what time they had to get to the venue tomorrow.

"There should be new Polaroids waiting for you, Edith," Lucille said. "We called up and requested them a week ago. There should have been time for them to order some online."

"Ooh," Finlay said. "Isn't that cheating the no internet rule?"

Lucille hummed vaguely.

"Well, sometimes the best way to do something is via a surrogate. I'd have preferred to do it by post, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be an option anymore. I don't even have a chequebook these days, so unless they'd accept cash sent recorded delivery, it seemed like the only way."

"Sometimes you have to compromise, I guess. And you'll need more pictures for your articles."

Edith thought of the three-quarters finished piece that she had notes for, the uncertainty of exactly how much suspicion she should reveal just yet, and heard herself agreeing.

Things were growing clear to her. They were nearly on the west coast, as far from home as possible, far from anyone or anywhere she knew. She had some fears, which she couldn't yet be certain of, but which could be a risk to her career or even her safety regardless of their basis in fact. And she was going to sleep with Thomas soon.

Both because she wanted to, wanted to bring this tension to a head, but for other reasons too like pretending she didn't know anything about their past or Enola or any of those things, and that compromise sat very ill with her. Was it really her decision if it came with caveats like that?

As for how she felt about the Sharpes, that was less clear. She was attracted to them both, certainly, drawn by some irresistible magnetism, but at the same time they terrified her.

Like a moth circling a candle flame, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that sooner or later - maybe sooner rather than later - she was going to get burned.

Chapter 28: A Visit

Notes:

So somehow this fic is two years old now and still going. Very, very slowly, but still going.

Thank you so much for sticking with it, whether you've been here from the beginning or more recently. I really appreciate it. Have some mildly creepy Thomas and a happy new year.

"Are you not... worried?"

Edith was sitting on the floor of yet another motel room, another questionable carpet design, another phone cord that didn't stretch far enough for comfort. And another call to Alan to confirm she'd made it to Seattle safely, even if they had ended up getting takeout on the road for dinner.

"Worried about what?" she asked.

"Well, I've read your most recent article. It sounds like you... I don't know really. Like you're implying something. At best that they never loved their parents and at worst that they... facilitated their deaths. But if that's true, then they're very dangerous people and you should get out of there."

Knees bent, tapping her foot, Edith tried to think of an excuse to stay when she knew he was right.

She was restless. They'd gone through Boise without much incident other than Thomas taking every opportunity to touch her, to talk to her in that low tone that went straight to some primal part of her, speeding up her heartbeat, making her mouth go dry.

They both used it, she'd noticed. Him and Lucille. But Lucille only used it when she was overtly and definitely flirting; Thomas would use it for the most casual remarks. She was convinced that he knew what it did to her. That he liked watching her squirm.

"You're reading too much into it," she said. "Their parents died in tragic accidents. All I'm saying is that it could mess you up."

"You'd know."

She rankled a little at that. He'd jabbed a sore spot, a forgotten wound.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He sighed. He actually sighed at her, like she was somehow being unreasonable.

"Just that... you really weren't OK when your mom passed and you tried to hide it. It just makes me worry sometimes that you might be hiding other things."

Guilt blended uneasily with annoyance. He was right. She was hiding. But her sex life was none of his business.

"I'm fine," she said firmly. "I loved my parents. The Sharpes didn't. It's a different situation. I'm just trying to explore it. I'm not... I'm not having a relapse or anything."

"Be careful, that's all I'm asking. When your dad was sick, he asked me to look out for you. That's all I'm doing."

Ugh, he was insufferable sometimes.

"I don't need to be looked after," she insisted. "I'm not a child."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Well, you could have fooled me."

An awkward moment, a pause.

"You've probably had a long day," Alan said, being unfairly calm. "I know I have. I'm going to go to bed. I'm sorry. I'm not expressing myself well."

She couldn't quite let it go, but she made herself apologize back, leaning her head against the wall afterwards.

She was just so... frustrated. Lucille had been suffering from migraines the last day or so, sleeping a lot beneath an eye mask, and Edith had found herself growing more and more desirous of touch. Actual skin contact. Thomas's teasing made it worse, always pushing but never crossing the line.

She'd caught herself fantasizing about him. Stuff she wouldn't ever do in reality, like having sex in public places or in concert venues. She wanted him. Wanted them both. But somehow she felt like she'd lose something if and when they slept together. Like the reality wouldn't be what she'd imagined.

Still, even a make-out session sounded good right about now.

She made herself take a shower. Maybe freshening up would help. And sleeping, even though it was early.

The hot water did make her feel a bit better, brushing her hair into a braid afterwards. Right. Everything was fine. Nice, relaxing evening. Next deadline still ages away.

She'd only just come out of the bathroom when she heard the knock.

Cautiously, she went to the peep hole. Thomas. What was he doing here?

He knocked again and, a little flustered, she opened the door.

"Oh," he said, his eyes flashing over her towel-clad body. "I'm sorry. Lucille's still not feeling very well, but I'm not quite ready to go to bed yet and I wondered if you'd like some company."

She blinked at him, feeling so exposed, so vulnerable. His eyes kept flicking down, noting her bare skin, her modesty only barely protected.

"I'm disturbing you," he said softly, gently. "Good evening."

In a split second, Edith thought about opportunities lost, of chances not taken. She was scared, yes, but she wanted too...

"No," she said, grabbing his wrist. "No, you should come in. It's fine."

He looked at where she was touching him and seemed to loom over her for a moment, so much taller, following her into the room.

She was alone with a man. Almost nude too. Obviously not for the first time, but this felt different. She was off the edge of the map.

Here might be monsters.

"More migraines?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so. She just needs to lie very still in the dark and sleep. Doesn't need me bothering her."

He was so different in these moments. Unguarded. Concerned for his sister, considerate. Not at all like he sometimes was, when she found him genuinely unnerving.

Even though it had been weeks ago, she still remembered shouting through the wall and broken glass, his face the next morning. Of course, people had disagreements, but that generally didn't involve violence, even against inanimate objects.

And then there was all the stuff about their parents...

"Are you alright?" Thomas asked, sitting in the desk chair. "You seem a little distracted."

"Oh, I'm fine. Just... frustrated at Alan."

"Can I ask why?"

How to put this? She found herself sighing, sitting on the edge of the bed and tracing a puckered stitch in the cover with her fingernail.

"He just worries too much, that's all. He thinks I need to be taken care of. That I need to be rescued from myself or something."

"And do you?"

What kind of a question was that? Edith adjusted her towel awkwardly where it lay against her thigh, feeling even more exposed somehow.

"No," she said uncertainly. "No, I'm fine."

He half-smiled at her, leaning forwards just a little.

"It's alright to be scared," he said gently. "Especially when you find out you're capable of things you would never have dreamed of."

His tone was kind, but it sent a chill down Edith's spine.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Like dropping everything to run away with the circus. Like getting involved with thoroughly unsuitable characters. Like following your wants regardless of what society says."

Her heart was pounding, eyes wide, like a rabbit in front of a big rig, frozen in place. Her arms and chest rippled with goose flesh, hair standing on end. Something was putting her on edge and she didn't know what, some instinct yelling from the back of her brain.

"I'm not scared," she said, though it came out closer to a whisper.

He moved towards her suddenly, deliberately, like a panther or a snake maybe, almost into her space.

"Aren't you?" he asked.

She shook her head no, even though she was suddenly terrified, worried that she'd made a terrible mistake in letting him in and now she couldn't go back.

His touch made her flinch, a hand on her thigh, leaning close so he could whisper in her ear.

"Are you sure?"

She pushed him away, panicked, unable to hide it, trying to scramble away back up the bed.

"OK," he said, hands help up. "Sorry, sorry. Relax, I won't do anything you don't want."

"What the fuck?"

Her voice was breathless, clearly scared, and she hated that.

"You need to know yourself better, Edith. I could tell you were lying. But I mean it. It's alright to be scared. It's how you deal with that fear that matters. It can even be helpful. Why are you so determined not to be afraid?"

She got under the covers, a physical barrier, protection of a sort.

"I don't know," she said, trying to force herself to sound calmer.

"Oh, I think you do. Lucille told me about how you tried to look after your father when the two of you were bereaved. And now you're alone and you want to take care of yourself. You want to be completely self-sufficient, completely self-reliant. You don't want to admit any vulnerability, even when it's written all over your face."

She fumed a little, feeling her nostrils flare. How dare he?

"You don't know me," she said, shaking her head furiously. "You might think you do, but you don't. You don't know anything about me."

He sat down again, maintaining a careful distance between them.

"I know you're an orphan," he said. "That you loved your parents. That you fear failure and disappointing people."

"Doesn't everyone?"

He shrugged.

"Personally, I couldn't give a shit."

Edith scoffed. They were all talk, both of them.

"You care," she said. "You care so much about people thinking that you don't. It's obvious. If you really didn't care about what your parents thought, you wouldn't put so much effort into disrespecting their memories. You wouldn't bother being a baronet, you wouldn't live in the big house..."

His face had changed, his lip curling.

"Disrespecting," he said flatly. "They're lucky that's all we do. We could have their memories stamped into the dirt."

"Well, why don't you?"

He was angry. Really angry. And Edith was intrigued, smelling a lead.

And, of course, pushing the focus away from herself.

"Because..." Thomas said. "It would bring scrutiny we wouldn't welcome."

"You're rock stars. You're not exactly recluses."

"Our personas are not us. You know that. We're... constructs. Archetypes. The romantic hero. The femme fatale. The bad boy. The vamp. We're not real. Our real selves are only for us."

"And are you your 'real self' when you're being creepy as fuck?"

He let out an amused huff.

"I was just playing with you," he said, like that made it alright. "Pushing your buttons. Seeing what you would do. And you tried to be brave and tried not to show that you were scared, even though I was being dreadful to you. That's intriguing. And that's me speaking, not 'Thomas Sharpe'."

The air quotes fell into place so easily. Edith shifted uncomfortably, the towel cloth rough against her skin.

"You have to realize how hard it is for me to trust you, either of you, when I can't tell the difference. I understand that something... bad must have happened in your childhood, but sometimes I don't think even you two know what's real anymore."

He nodded vaguely.

"That's fair. It's difficult. There are some things that are private, even from lovers."

Edith felt herself blush.

"Is that what we are?" she asked.

"You and Lucille certainly are. Or getting there. You and I are still flirting. Deciding what we want, how far we want to go. And your fear of vulnerability makes it difficult for you to vocalise your desires."

Maybe that was true. Maybe he was right.

"It's easier with her," she said. "When she's unhappy, you know about it. She gets angry or she clams up. But you... You just go... strange. I don't know how to describe it."

"And does that scare you?"

Deep breath.

"Yeah."

He smiled at her, open and honest.

"See?" he said. "Was that so hard?"

She gave him a withering look, sighing and flopping her hands onto the blankets.

"I want to sleep with you," she said softly. "But part of me can't shake the feeling that it would be a bad idea. I mean, I'm already involved with your sister. It's weird. Even though it's not like I'm cheating on her, it's weird."

"Alright. Why do you think that is?"

She sighed.

"You sound like a psychiatrist," she said.

"Have you ever seen one?"

"Have you?"

"Yes."

That was surprising somehow. And yet not.

"Can I ask why?"

He shrugged, looking away.

"Our parents were not very nice people. We were scarred by them. And I tried to get myself fixed."

"Did it work?"

He laughed, a little bitterly.

"Did it fix you?" he asked.

Edith hesitated.

"No," she said. "But that's not how it works. They helped me develop techniques and strategies to feel better than I was. To look after myself better. It's not like things can just... be solved overnight."

He was looking at her oddly. Like he hadn't expected her to say something like that.

"That's good," he said after a moment. "That it w helped you. I found that I couldn't open up properly to a stranger, which rather hampered matters. And Lucille never went at all."

"I mean... They have client confidentiality. You're supposed to be able to say anything."

He chuckled. That had really tickled him for some reason.

"Yeah, well. I didn't think so. Music became our therapist. That and each other."

Edith didn't think that was the healthiest of approaches, given that they had both been negatively affected, but she wasn't saying that out loud.

"Maybe one day we'll know each other well enough to talk about some of it," she said instead.

"Maybe," he agreed. "But for now, I should leave you in peace, I think."

He stood up and came towards her so differently, not with any kind of threat, soft-footed and gentle, leaning forward to place a kiss on her forehead before turning towards the door.

"You could stay," she said, hearing her voice before she really knew she was speaking. "Just to sleep, I mean. Not to... do anything. Just so Lucille isn't disturbed."

He looked her right in the eyes, trying to gauge what she really meant. But she meant what she said. Just platonically sharing a bed.

"Alright," he said. "But one of us ought to be wearing something other than a towel."

Yes. She should. And she was going to take her pyjamas to the bathroom to change into in private.

Was this a mistake or was it just exposure therapy? If she managed to stay with him and nothing bad happened, maybe she could begin to calm down and stop being so on edge all the time.

She spotted herself in the mirror, the braid down her back, so similar to how Lucille did her hair. She hurriedly undid it, brushing out the damp tresses until they almost weren't wavy at all

Thomas's clothes were neatly folded on the chair when she emerged, his body mostly hidden under the blankets, though she almost stared at what she could see. Bare shoulders, the top of his chest. The parts of him she'd glimpsed that day in the rainstorm.

"You wouldn't have a t-shirt I could borrow?" he asked. "I'm feeling somewhat under-dressed."

She found the biggest she had, an old one from her college writers society that she'd only brought along to use as pyjamas anyway. It sat strangely on him, a little too small for his shoulders. But still. Better to have him covered. It would make them both more comfortable.

The thought of his bare legs was one she tried desperately to put out of her mind as she slid in beside him.

"You confuse me, Edith," he said, conversationally. "You're so wild and yet so restrained. It's a strange combination."

What an odd choice of words.

"I'm not wild," she said. "I'm very boring really."

"We wouldn't have invited someone boring along with us. You intrigued us right from the beginning, when you challenged us in your audition article."

That felt like a lifetime ago.

"I called you liars," she said.

"Do you still think we are?"

"Yes. But sometimes you tell the truth too. But it's surrounded by enough myth and... fog that it's difficult to spot. And you're the confusing ones anyway."

He frowned lightly, seeming genuinely surprised.

"How so?"

"Well... Sometimes you're really nice to me and we have fun and then suddenly everything turns and I can't predict when or why that happens. Like, is it a negging thing? Is that why you do it? To make me want your approval?"

She definitely wasn't admitting that it was kind of working. She'd found herself strangely enchanted by them. She wanted to make them happy, even while she was terrified.

"It's not deliberate," Thomas said, his voice kind but in a way that felt forced. "We struggle a little with vulnerability too, especially Lucille. So when someone starts to matter to her, she finds that difficult. They have the power to hurt her and she doesn't like that one bit."

Hm. So she 'mattered'. And that's why they blew hot and cold with her.

It sounded a lot like an excuse.

"Lucille is the most important person in the world to me," he continued. "We are all each other have, in terms of family. Growing up, we had to take care of each other. Still do. But we both like you very much."

Edith hesitated.

"Lucille said it was just sex," she said uncertainly. "Just playing."

"Well, she doesn't exactly play with just anyone. And nor do I."

"I bet you have groupies following you around everywhere."

He shrugged, turning out the light on his side of the bed.

"They don't interest me in that way."

Edith tried to ponder what that meant as she followed suit, plunging the room into darkness.

The bed practically vibrated with the force of her heart beat when he took her hand beneath the covers.

Chapter 29: Waking

Somewhat to her surprise, Edith woke first. The whole room seemed strange, stranger than most, Thomas lying next to her even more so. He seemed softer than usual in sleep.

She observed him for a moment in the weak sunlight. The bones in his face, the almost straight lines of his eyebrows, the pale pink of his lips.

And then he stirred slightly and she hurriedly closed her eyes, feigning sleep, hiding. She didn't want him to know she'd been staring.

A deep inhale, a stretch, a sigh.

"I know you're awake, Edith."

She'd gone a little tense. Perhaps that was what gave her away. She tried her best to breathe evenly, naturally. She didn't know why it was so important suddenly.

He chuckled lightly, tracing a cheek with his fingertip, gentle and careful.

"Sleeping Beauty," he murmured. "And maybe that's the key."

The touch of lips against her own made her almost shudder, keeping her eyes closed even as she kissed back, very clearly alert and active in this game, deepening it of her own accord and unable to resist a little sigh when he withdrew.

"Still asleep," he said. "Clearly I'll have to do better."

The sound of him moving sent thrills through her, though she wasn't quite sure if they were good thrills or not.

When he next spoke, it was right into her ear.

"Do you know what happens to Sleeping Beauty in the older versions of that story?"

His hands were on her now, gentle but firm, stroking down her back and thighs, her bare legs where her shorts ended, firmly pulling her until she was hooked around his hips.

Skin to skin, she couldn't resist arching closer, his hand straying beneath her T-shirt, up her spine, pressing his thigh between her legs hard enough to make her gasp, clutching at him desperately.

He was in no rush suddenly, no pushing, just the firm grind and the heat of his skin, the insistent press of his lips, a mounting wave of pleasure deep within Edith's core that made her want more, that tempted her even as a more sensible part of her brain was murmuring about safety, about talking first...

He moved his attention to her neck, the sensitive skin there, her fluttering eyelids still closed as he rucked up her shirt, breathing heavily against her skin and continuing downwards...

A knock at the door startled her, eyes flashing open, a held breath finally slipping from her body in a rush that almost made her ears ring.

Thomas groaned and moved off her, his cheeks slightly pink, sweeping his hair back. And Edith almost didn't want to move, wanted to pretend she'd heard nothing, but the idea of someone being there listening to them made her skin crawl.

The room was chilly next to her heated skin as she went to the door, checking the peep hole only to find Lucille looking the very picture of misery, holding herself, eyes wide and plaintive.

Edith opened the door immediately.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

Lucille barely even looked at her. She stumbled forward, still clutching at her own arms, her eyes flicking from side to side like she was lost.

"He's gone," she whispered. "He's left me."

"Who's gone?" Edith asked. "Thomas? He's right here."

A faint frown, a look towards the bed where Thomas was sitting up and then a sigh of utter relief. Almost a sob, really. Lucille tottered forward like a newborn fawn, falling into his arms, muttering about being alone, being afraid.

"Hey," Thomas said gently, rocking her slightly. "Hey, it's OK. You're alright. You're safe."

It was like she was trying to hide in his arms, almost like a child, Edith closing the door awkwardly. What on earth had happened? Why was she so... small?

"Can you give us a minute?" Thomas half whispered over Lucille's head.

"Sure. Of course, I'll just... Yes."

She took one of her cases into the bathroom, like she was just going to get dressed.

She'd never seen Lucille like that. Maybe she was still ill. Maybe that was it. Maybe she'd had some kind of nightmare. Or a fever dream. Thomas seemed to have seen this before, though. He knew how to handle it.

She hurriedly tugged on some clean clothes and tried to listen at the door. It was just plywood, not very thick. A screen on hinges more than a door.

At first she couldn't hear anything but Thomas's gentle reassurances. Soft words about never leaving, about always being there. About how he should have told her first before staying away for the night.

"Has it happened, then?" Lucille asked, her voice still a little scratchy, though she was clearly trying to modulate it back to her usual tones.

"No, not yet. You interrupted us."

"Sorry."

A brief pause, a loud sniff.

"Look, if you don't want this to happen, we can just stop," Thomas said. "We don't have to."

"No. No, it's fine."

"There are no guarantees anyway. Don't... You know."

"Yeah."

They spoke in half sentences. Don't what?! Edith practically vibrated wanting to know.

"It's just a little difficult not to be jealous, that's all," Lucille said, sounding much more like herself.

She really could put the mask on easily.

"I think that's a little rich coming from you."

"Yes, well... You know me."

Ah. So she was jealous. Edith felt a shameful glimmer of pride. Lucille wanted her all to herself. And yet she seemed very keen for her and Thomas to get together. For the audacity of it? The taboo of sharing her lover with her brother? That surely had to be it.

There was another quiet moment, a decidedly strange one really and then Thomas said, "I do know you and I know you won't want anyone seeing you with puffy eyes."

"Mm. I'll go shower."

"And I'll be down soon."

Edith lunged for her toothbrush as she heard footsteps, pretending she'd been innocently preparing for the day ahead and not listening in on a private conversation.

"Edith?" Lucille called through the door.

She opened it where it had never been locked, looking a little sheepish in a way that was most unlike her.

"I'm afraid I rather embarrassed myself," she said while Edith shook her head and tried to protest through a mouthful of toothpaste. "A little night terror, that's all. Nothing a bit of breakfast and fresh air won't fix."

Waving lightly, Edith finished up at the sink and found Thomas changing back into his clothes from the night before, sliding his belt on with an efficiency that she found strangely alluring.

"When we were children, our parents confined us to two rooms," he said casually, as though they were simply discussing where to visit in Seattle. "A nursery and a sort of day room. We weren't generally allowed elsewhere in the house. It was dangerous. Or we might break things."

"Even for meals?" Edith asked.

She was remembering her own childhood, sunshine-tinged memories of omelettes and cereal at a scrubbed wooden table, lasagne and stews and other hearty meals with her parents.

"Sometimes we ate up there. We had a nanny from time to time to watch over us, but they never stayed long. We'd be brought down more for inspection than anything else. Dinner parties, trying to play at happy families. And when she was seven, they tried to send Lucille to boarding school."

"Tried?"

"She had to come home. She'd been... unwell. I remember crying when she left and crying while she was gone, crying when she came back. I missed her terribly. The only person I had in the world."

"Why was it bad for her to come back, then? If you missed her so?"

He fixed her with a look, one of cold and open honesty.

"I was five years old, but even then I knew that bad things happened to Lucille. And I knew, deep down, that she came back deliberately because she wanted to protect me."

Edith's heart ached, tears pricking in her eyes. Seven years old... She couldn't imagine that. Her own life at seven had been dolls and ponies, schoolyard games, story books, day trips to the beach. Idyllic. It was awful to even think about.

"Oh," Thomas said, seeing her distress, pulling her into a hug. "It's OK. It was a long time ago. But she still has nightmares sometimes. She still... You know. Suffers. She hasn't had a turn like this in a few years, but a combination of a strange place and not knowing where I was must have shaken her. She'll be embarrassed. Just act normally for her, OK?"

Edith nodded against his chest, trying to get that phrase out of her head. Bad things. It seemed so monumentally understated. Such a small, vague phrase.

There were a lot of things she wanted to ask.

She wanted to confirm that that was why they had killed their parents, as she suspected.

But that would mean admitting that she suspected them of something awful, regardless of how justified it might be.

"Was it..." she tried, having to steel her voice before trying again. "Was it just physical abuse or was it...? Was it...?"

She couldn't even say the word. She couldn't.

"Was it worse than even that?" she settled on.

"I'd really rather not talk about it right now."

That was fair. It was a lot. Edith found herself sniffling all the same, gulping for air as he stroked her hair.

"Shh... Don't worry. They're dead. They can't hurt us anymore."

That felt almost like a mantra. She wondered if he'd been whispering that into Lucille's ear a few moments ago.

He gently pushed her back a little, hands on her cheeks.

"Take a bit to compose yourself," he said, running a thumb over her trembling lips. "And we can resume where we left off later."

How he could even think of things like that after what he'd just told her, she had no idea.

He kissed her softly, licking into her mouth just a little to push it into more intimate territory, and then left her.

It was one thing to suspect, quite another to be told outright that their parents had abused them. One of them anyway. And the other presumably... turned a blind eye? Failed to protect their children?

And now she had some ethical questions. Her first instinct was that this was not for publication. This was private. And yet...

She sighed and flopped on the bed for a moment.

And yet now she was automatically wondering if this was even true. She thought it was, but she couldn't be certain. Everything they did was calculated and none if it could be trusted.

Except the music. Thomas had said that music was their therapist. Music had the song about their father's death and Lucille was always singing about being hurt and scared, wasn't she? Maybe there was something more concrete there, something more solid.

She didn't especially want to eat. There was a hollow clawing in the pit of her stomach and she didn't want to risk feeding it. But breakfast was a good idea. Sitting down together. Forcing a sense of normality.

She'd do it for Lucille. To comfort her, to help her back to a waking world where all was well.

And now she was thinking of Sleeping Beauty again.

The breakfast room was light and cheery and she could hear Finlay chortling, a warming, pleasing sound. Lucille had clearly made a joke, her hair still wet and in a variation of the usual plait; she'd coiled it round and round, pinned to her head, like the style you saw on Greek statues.

Thomas brought them toast from the buffet bar. It would be rude not to eat it.

And, of course, they acted like everything was normal. They talked about where they'd go in Seattle.

"The Space Needle, of course," Lucille said. "We have to do that."

"There's something nearby that you'll like too," Thomas said, sorting through a pile of leaflets he'd managed to collect from the motel lobby and proffering one at her.

"Pacific Science Center," she read. "Sounds more like your scene than mine."

"Ah, but..."

He turned a page and her eyes lit up.

"Tropical butterfly exhibition. Live ones?"

"Mm. A whole greenhouse of them that you can walk through. I thought you and Edith could enjoy yourselves there while I look at something thoroughly boring and mechanical and then we can meet Finlay over at the Museum of Pop Culture."

Bugs. Pretty bugs, but bugs nonetheless. Edith was not totally sure of this. But then again, seeing Lucille smile, so different from that shaking, fearful creature she'd seen a little while ago...

"Sounds good," she said.

And maybe, a treacherous little voice said, in such a calming and apparently joyful environment, maybe she wouldn't mind Edith asking a few painful questions.

If she was brave enough.

Chapter 30: Butterflies

At least bugs were on the ground, Edith figured. She'd never thought of herself as being concerned about heights especially, but the Space Needle had left her feeling somewhat woozy, hiding behind the camera as if looking through the viewfinder made the world less real.

Lucille was very clingy, she noticed, trying to cover it a little but very rarely far from Thomas's side. It wasn't so obvious on the viewing platform, where even unflappable Finlay was holding on tightly to the railings, but elsewhere it was almost like she needed support to walk.

And as the two of them made their way to the butterfly house, as they were told to remove anything hanging about their persons so as to avoid accidentally harming any fluttering wings, that clinging transferred to Edith.

In many ways, she was flattered. She felt trusted and wanted. When Lucille somehow thought Thomas had vanished, she'd immediately come to her for comfort and support.

Maybe there were more to these feelings after all.

It was good to see her smile, open and happy, flashes of color rushing around them, the rich scent of flowers and compost floating in the warm air.

"So why do you like butterflies?" Edith asked. "They're not exactly... Well, they don't fit in with your whole aesthetic."

"Maybe why I prefer moths really," Lucille said. "But for the same reason. Because they're beautiful. And because they change completely during their lifetimes."

Edith watched as one landed nearby, its wings beating gently in a shaft of sunlight, warming its blood.

"Metamorphosis," she said vaguely.

"Exactly. You'd think the body of the caterpillar and the butterfly was the same, like it just sprouted wings, but that's not really true at all. They completely break down into a sort of soup and rearrange their body parts into something different. They go from being a small, ugly, wriggly thing to taking flight."

She sounded very wistful for a moment and then returned to her usual flippant tones.

"Of course, the caterpillars only want to eat and the butterflies only want to eat and breed, so it's not like they gain any particular enlightenment during the process, but all the same."

They read about the different types housed here, endless Latin names, strange abbreviations.

"I wish we had pretty ones like this in England," Lucille said.

"You must have a few, surely."

"Well, red admirals. Peacocks. Tortoiseshells and painted ladies. I hear people get purple emperors, but I've never seen one. Nothing big and beautiful like this."

Edith wondered how best to begin asking personal questions. It seemed like a good time, relaxed and gentle. No pressure.

Lucille gasped suddenly.

"Don't move," she whispered as Edith froze in panic. "Give me the camera. There's one in your hair."

The picture came out well, considering how uneasy Edith was at the idea of a live insect on her head. She looked like she was from a bygone era. Like a late-60s folk album.

In fact, she looked strikingly like her mother had at the same age. She could only remember seeing one picture of her before her marriage. After she died, those things had been put away. They were probably still in boxes from the old house under her bed. Some kind family friend probably put them aside for her.

And she still hadn't gone through any of it. Too busy.

"You're very beautiful," Lucille said, writing the location and date along the bottom of the picture. "Have I mentioned that today?"

The heat in her cheeks came easily, bretraying her as she tried to be brave.

"So are you."

Lucille chuckled, stroking her cheek gently.

"I meant on the inside too. And I'm not that. This is my cocoon, this body. Inside, I'm... I'm not a very nice person."

It was lucky it was quiet in here and Edith felt bold enough to take her hand, squeezing it lightly.

"I'm sure you aren't," she said. "Or that it's not your fault."

A sigh, a stroke of her thumb.

"Thomas has been telling you stories, has he?"

"Nothing... Nothing specific. That you were sent to boarding school but that you had to come back. Because you were sick. And that it gave you nightmares and that's why this morning you were... not yourself."

"Oh, Edith..." she breathed. "I'm afraid I was born sick."

That was a strange sentence. Was she being literal and talking about a diagnosed mental illness? That was how it tended to be, right? It wasn't like the cold. You didn't just catch it one day.

The word "predisposition" hunkered down uncomfortably in her mind, even as she tried desperately to evict it.

They had to carefully check themselves for stowaway butterflies before leaving, but Lucille headed for outside instead of the rest of the museum.

"I need some fresh air," she said. "And we need some privacy."

It felt very cold after the warmth of the greenhouse, a chill wind rushing through them almost, both of them unconsciously hunching their shoulders for warmth.

"I needed to go home," Lucille said very softly. "Because Thomas was still there and I needed to protect him."

"What from?"

"They'd have broken him if I wasn't there. You don't... You're going to find this difficult to believe, but some parts of the aristocracy still operate in the old ways. Especially our parents. A good marriage for the heir, that was the main thing. That was the only reason our parents were married. Because Mother had money and wanted a fancy, historical house and she wanted the perfect children too. Unluckily for her, she got us instead."

That was a very different reason to what Thomas had said. He'd said she was protecting him from... from abuse.

"Thomas said they hurt you," Edith said quietly. "Physically, I thought."

"Well, they resented me. I was an albatross, a millstone around their necks. Thoroughly unsuitable in most social situations. An embarrassment."

That wasn't an answer. That wasn't a confirmation or a denial. And so Edith made a decision.

"I promise, I won't put any of this into my articles," she said. "I get it. This isn't a public thing."

Lucille looked at her strangely.

"You write whatever you want," she said. "That's our agreement. Besides, what will people do? Arrest them for it? They're dead. They can't hurt us anymore."

Exactly the same words Thomas had used. Definitely a mantra.

"You still have nightmares about them," Edith said, trying for vague, trying to leave empty air that Lucille might want to fill.

"I have..." she sighed. "I have nightmares where they take Thomas away. Where they hurt him, change him, make him like them. Where he hates me. Where he's married to some insufferable breeding sow."

There was a bit of an awkward pause where Edith tried to work out if she was just being cruel to an imaginary woman or if she meant a literal female pig.

And wasn't that another fairytale? The princesses wed to a boar who gored them to death on the wedding night... The symbolism wasn't exactly subtle, was it?

"I know what you're thinking," Lucille said. "That we have a deeply unhealthy relationship."

"That wasn't what I was thinking."

An arm snaked around her waist, cuddling her close, a welcome warmth as lips pressed to her hair.

"I'm sorry I disturbed the two of you this morning," Lucille said.

"Oh, that's alright," Edith said, blushing awkwardly. "We had a talk last night and I think we're... We're on the same page now. It's a bit of fun, but there's... There's more between us. All of us, in different ways. And that's a little frightening for me."

"For us too. We're not used to someone else being in our little duo."

Edith thought about what she'd listened in on in the morning, that talk of jealousy.

"I don't want to come between you," she said. "You and me can be exclusive if that's easier. I'm sure Thomas won't mind."

Lucille laughed, steering them back towards the museum building.

"Edith, I really don't know how much clearer I can be," she said. "I want you to fuck my brother. What more permission do you need? Would you like it in writing?"

"No... It's just a strange situation, that's all."

A family with excited children barrelled past them, loud and happy. Much more like Edith's childhood than the Sharpes'.

Then again, you never knew what was behind closed doors. Money worries or relationship problems. Illness.

"You should do it soon," Lucille said, dragging her back to reality. "Everything will be easier then. Once the tension gives way."

Maybe she was right. Maybe she'd finally be able to calm down a little, relax into their company.

Of course, it was still a big step. It would be irreversible. She'd be sleeping with two people at the same time, which was big enough without all the other complications. Like the fact they were siblings. Like the fact she suspected they'd murdered their parents.

Like the fact that she felt less and less horrified by that idea the more she learned about the former Sir and Lady Sharpe.

"Did you know what in some species of butterfly, males have been known to mate with females that are still in their chrysalis or that have just emerged? I guess because they can't run away."

That was quite the mood whiplash.

"That's horrible," Edith said.

"Well, it's nature."

"Just because things are natural doesn't make them not horrible. Parasites are natural. Things eat their own young in nature."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe that's why Thomas prefers unnatural things."

She'd spotted him in amongst some kind of robotics exhibition, squinting at the wires in one of the displays. He was unaware of their presence, his mouth a little twisted as he tried to work something out.

Edith felt a slight chill as Lucille let her go to sneak up on him, running her fingers over his shoulders, making him shiver slightly as he smiled.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"Getting there. Edith?"

"What?"

"Are you getting there too?" Thomas asked.

It was pretty clear what they were really asking. And it was becoming more clear to her what she was eventually going to do.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'm getting there."

Notes:

Next time, I promise! Honestly. It's under construction.

Chapter 31: Warnings and Ignoring Them

Notes:

An extra long chapter, perhaps? (And an uncharacteristically fast update.)

I hope the wait was worth it.

"You know, you're exactly the kind of woman I'd have wanted Thomas to marry and exactly the type our parents would never have accepted."

Edith choked into her lunch salad.

"Oh, what?" Finlay asked, her bag of t-shirts from the Museum of Pop Culture squished into the side of the booth. "What's wrong with our Edith?"

"Well, she's an American, for one," Thomas said. "Father would have considered that a fundamental character flaw."

"And our great grandfather never knew her great grandfather. Obviously you can't really know someone unless you knew at least four generations of the family. Thomas was supposed to end up in the House of Lords, you know."

Well, Lucille was definitely back to her normal self.

"I don't think I'd want your parents to like me," Edith said carefully. "Since they're so prejudiced."

"Ah, but the real question is would your father like us?" Thomas said. "Everyone knows it's the bride's father whose opinion counts most."

Edith genuinely tried to think about it. What would her dad think about these strange people with their dark past, their habit of lying, their peculiar ways, even before the sexual mix they were in?

"Probably not," she said.

Lucille cackled delightedly, wrapping an arm around her shoulder just as Thomas's foot tangled with hers under the table.

Having them both touch her at once sent a strange pulse through her. A strange combination of excited and sickened. She liked them both, she wanted them both, but something in her felt it should be kept separate. They were brother and sister, for God's sake!

At least it was a friendly touch from Lucille and a more intimate one from Thomas. She could keep this divided in her mind.

Or she could until Lucille let go of her and then placed a hand on her thigh...

"I'm just going to go to the bathroom," she said, leaping up, figuring that was the easiest way to step away.

"Oh, me too," Finlay said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. "I haven't seen a sign for them though."

They found it with the help of one of the servers, a simple tiled room with three cubicles. Plain and a little run down, with a heavy door that thudded shut behind them.

"What's going on, Edith?" Finlay asked quietly, very stern, unlike her usual jovial self.

Edith's heart pounded loudly in her ears.

"What?"

She was stammering, blinking far too often.

"You think I don't see the three of you? You've got it bad for one of them. Now, I don't know which and I know it's none of my beeswax, but let me just tell you they are bad news."

It was almost shocking to see her like this. Yes, she was a former detective, but she was normally so cheerful, so friendly and bubbly. Seeing her being so serious was very disconcerting.

"What do you mean?" Edith asked, pretending she didn't know anything, knowing the guilt was likely written all over her face.

"I looked into them before taking this job and either they have the worst luck in the world or they contrive to have calamity follow them around. I decided to come along partly to keep an eye on them. And I understand why you like them. I like them too, despite it all. They're charming, intelligent, funny... But you don't have a mama to look out for you anymore and I can't sit there and watch you go like a lamb to the slaughter."

She was trying to help and Edith knew that, but she was very curious all the same. What exactly did she know?

"What did you find out?"

"Well, for one thing, they've settled a lot of claims out of court with injunctions attached. Employment stuff. It's a red flag, that's all. Either they continually mistreat their staff and have them silenced or they have secrets they don't want getting out. Or both. And worse than that, their parents' deaths... Well, the circumstances are very suspicious."

So she thought so too.

"I've been investigating too," Edith said. "And I think you're right, but I think I know why they did it. If they did it. Their parents were monsters. I'm trying to find out the details, but..."

"I understand there may be mitigating reasons, but it's still murder. Just be careful. That's all I'm asking."

"I will. I promise. I'm taking a calculated risk. I'm staying safe. Keeping them happy. Besides, I've done nothing to them. They have no reason to harm me."

"I hope so. I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to you on my watch."

It was nice to think she had a guardian angel, even if it was bringing home just how crazy her current course of action was. "Maybe" was fairly quickly giving way to "definitely" where the killings were concerned.

And yet her fear was giving way a little too. She understood why. They'd been abused, they'd finally snapped. It was understandable.

Except they hadn't done it in a moment of anger, had they? The carbon monoxide leak had involved planning, research, premeditation...

She needed to know the full story. Needed to. And that meant gaining their confidence, making them think she was fully seduced and wrapped around their fingers.

Finlay hugged her, warm and comforting.

"Thank you," Edith said. "For looking out for me."

A smile and she left, adding more credence to their cover by returning to the table separately. Edith was left alone, looking at herself in a cracked mirror. Did she even recognize the person looking back at her?

Means to an end. That's what this was. A bit of fun and a good story and for her own peace of mind to finally know the truth. She had to know.

She washed her hands and got back to her food, aware that she was going to have to wolf it down probably to catch up.

"So, plans for the rest of the day?" Finlay asked.

"Not many," Lucille said. "Just resting up before the show, I think. And I might start a new song. The butterflies have inspired me."

"A little different from your usual subjects."

"A little bit of something different can do you a world of good, I think. Edith, what about you?"

She swallowed a large forkful of rocket hurriedly before replying.

"Writing too. Getting my notes together before the West Coast."

Starting her notes, more like. She'd been very remiss of late. Too many other things going on.

"Well, remember to take breaks, won't you?" Thomas said. "We can't have you getting worn out."

"I think Edith has more stamina than you think," Lucille said, somehow making it sound utterly innocent when Edith suspected it was anything but.

Oh, this was so uncomfortable...

She tried her best to focus on her food and not what she now knew was Finlay's careful mask of happy indifference. The Sharpes thought they were subtle, but they clearly had nothing on her.

"Well, I'm going to explore Seattle a bit more," Finlay said. "Time outside before the drive tomorrow. I'll see you later."

She gave Edith something of a pointed look as she left. A very clear warning. Which she ought to take.

"She knows, you know," she said softly.

A pause and a glance between the Sharpes.

"Knows what?"

"That there's something going on between us. She's not blind or deaf. You might think you're being subtle, but... But you're not."

Lucille sat back, folding her arms a little defensively.

"Do we embarrass you?" she asked flatly.

"Honestly, yes."

"That's funny because sometimes you don't seem to mind."

Edith could feel herself blushing, wishing she was better at confrontation.

"Sometimes I don't just... Just there's a time and a place for it and it's not in front of her. She told me off in the bathroom about it. It was mortifying."

"Why? What's wrong with us?"

Ah... Oops.

"You're my employers. It's unethical. Even if I do... like you."

There was a horrible pause before Lucille wrapped an arm around her again.

"Alright," she said. "That seems fair. It's important to have boundaries. No more flirting in front of Finlay. We'll just have to save it all up for other times."

Edith felt a heavy breath leave her, more a sigh than anything else.

"Thank you."

Lucille frowned at her, like she was dreadfully concerned for her health suddenly.

"Thomas, this poor young lady is positively vibrating with tension. You really should sort her out."

"Gladly, if that's something the young lady wants," Thomas said, looking at her over the top of his coffee cup with an intensity that felt almost palpable, almost like it could burn her. "I confess I have been daydreaming about just what might have occurred this morning had we woken a little earlier."

Edith was glad he wasn't going into details. She'd had quite enough embarrassment for one day. She felt like they were laughing at her, that they enjoyed teasing her. Sweet little inexperienced Edith. So easy to make her blush with just a few words.

"Maybe you can tell me what you daydreamed," she said, trying for casual. "In private."

She couldn't miss the way his gaze had settled on her lips. And, yes, she was nervous but also determined. She wanted this. It felt like proving herself somehow, making a definite step forward, showing that she wasn't something fragile and delicate but a woman who knew her own mind.

Which might be easier if she felt she actually did know her own mind, but she was learning from the best as far as pretending went.

"Alright," Thomas said. "And what else would you like to know?"

"Do you have protection?"

"I'm going to settle the bill," Lucille said, sidling past Edith's knees.

Thomas watched her go, waiting for her to be out of earshot maybe. Worried she was jealous perhaps, despite being given so many assurances.

"I got some when we first discussed it," he said.

"Wow. Someone was confident."

"Someone was hopeful."

She blinked at him a little. How strange that that was what disarmed her, that was what made her pause. A flicker of humility and doubt.

It made him even more attractive somehow.

"I'm not used to... planning it like this," she said. "I'm used to it just sort of happening."

He smiled and took her hand, squeezing it lightly.

"Let's just see where we end up, shall we?"

Edith ended up back in her hotel room, waiting for him to arrive, unsure what to do with herself. This felt very awkward.

The knock on the door made her almost tremble, scolding herself for being ridiculous. It was just Thomas. It was just sex. She'd feel better once it had happened, less tense, less worried.

Thomas looked very soft when she opened the door. Not looming or intimidating. Almost apologetic. But still, his eyes ran over her heatedly, a smile around the corners of his mouth.

"I'm glad you're not undressed," he said, closing the door behind him. "I was rather looking forward to that part."

Edith didn't even have time to blush. He was already tilting her chin up, steering her into kisses. Firm, unrelenting, making her head spin. She didn't realize how much she was leaning on him until he pushed her effortlessly onto the bed.

Her breathing was fast already, watching as he tugged off his belt and unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it aside. She reached for the bottom of her top only for him to tell her to stop.

"Let me," he said, crawling on top of her and capturing her lips again.

His hands ran eagerly across her flesh, going very quickly, moreso than she was really comfortable with for all that she was excited too.

And then she remembered what he'd said about liking the lady to take control. How enticing an idea she had found that.

She ran her hand into his hair and gripped hard, getting a confused but aroused moan as she pulled his head up to look at his face. Smouldering didn't really cover it. His eyes were dark, cheeks pink, an almost feral expression. Like he was planning to devour her.

Right. Taking charge.

"Slow down," she said firmly. "We haven't been dancing around each other all this time just to rush now."

He licked his lips, grinning at her.

"Mm. You're right. I'm just a little eager. You've been driving me crazy for so long."

He sat up, kneeling between legs she hadn't even realized she'd parted for him, and pulled off her shirt, just staring at her for a moment.

"I've been waiting for this," he said, touching her, running a thumb over one of her nipples, grinning when she shivered. "The things you do to me, Edith..."

They were still wearing far too many clothes. She awkwardly managed to unhook her bra and get rid of it, but she couldn't really do much else.

"We need to... Need to move up the bed."

"Not yet," Thomas said, running a finger down her chest, biting his lip. "This angle is perfect."

He replaced touch with kisses, moving down her body and flicking open the button on her jeans. She felt the cold as he pulled them off too, embarrassed as he stood at the end of the bed and finally looked at her completely naked, hungry and wanting.

"Oh, look at you," he breathed. "Lucille was right. You really are beautiful."

She barely had time to be even more mortified as he dragged her across the mattress and dropped to his knees.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Seeing if you taste as good as you look."

Oh...

He teased her first, kissing his way up the inside of her thighs, squeezing her flesh, making her wait.

"Thomas..."

"You want it?"

"Mm-hm."

Finally feeling his mouth on her made her keen. Oh, he knew what he was doing here. His tongue moved unpredictably at first but then steadily, constantly, making her grip the sheets helplessly, gasping for air.

It was relentless. He was like a machine, an unending rhythm back and forth against her clit. She was barely able to think about how strange this was, how unusual in her experience to be so focussed on.

Fuck, she was getting close already. So close, so close, just needing a tiny bit more, yes, yes...

And then he stopped. Just as she was on the edge. A sob slipped out before she could stop it, making him chuckle.

"All in good time," he said, reaching for his fly. "After all, we're not rushing, are we?"

She somehow managed to get up the bed, actually getting her head on the pillows, and watched as he produced a condom from his back pocket and rolled it on. Good. Right.

He really was teasing her now, joining her on the bed, kissing her again, a slight bitterness on his tongue that made nerves rear their head again, but then again, she was almost dizzy with want now. Delirious with it.

He ran a thumb over her cheek, probably tracing a blush.

"You OK?" he whispered.

It was a surprising question.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Another kiss, passionate, almost strangely so, as he finally - finally - pushed into her.

She found herself clinging to him, taking a moment to adjust, eyes closed.

"Still OK?"

"Mm-hm."

He stroked her hair, being very gentle with her, little kisses and slowly rolling his hips. And suddenly she managed to relax into it, canting upwards, meeting his thrusts, making him groan so quietly.

"There you go," he murmured. "There you go, sweetheart."

She couldn't remember the last time sex had felt like this, strangely new.

Except she did remember. With Lucille. Because that was new and different and she'd been so frightened but she'd wanted so much too and now the whole world was strange and she didn't know who she was anymore.

A particularly hard thrust made her cry out, forcing her back to the present. And yet she wasn't sure Thomas was there. His eyes were strangely glazed, like he was thinking of something else.

"Hey," she said, not able to manage much more, placing her hands on his face, making him look at her. "Hey."

He shook his head a little.

"Sorry," he said. "Trying to picture unsexy things. Make it last. But you're making that rather difficult."

It was good to laugh together. She didn't want it to end either, but on the other hand she felt that if she didn't come soon she might explode.

"Just let go," she said. "Just... Mm..."

His heavy breathing as he sped up was almost unbearably erotic to her, so quiet, tinged with moaning. She couldn't help herself though, trying to hold back her cries, lips tightly pressed together and moaning into Thomas's mouth as he kissed her.

"Let me hear you," he whispered. "Don't hide. Tell me what you want."

It was difficult. She didn't like talking during sex. It embarrassed her, the way her voice went high and pleading.

"Edith..."

"More," she sighed. "Please, I'm... Ah!"

She was used to handling most of her own pleasure, but Thomas was apparently not having that, supporting himself on one arm and managing to get his other hand between their bodies.

"Tell me how you like it," he said, using his thumb right against her clit, rubbing in little circles.

It was difficult to speak. She was busy gasping, but she still needed more...

"Faster," she managed. "Oh, faster."

She was so, so close now and having someone else's hands on her somehow made it all the more intense, the rush coming through her quickly, a pulsing, desperate push, feeling herself clench around him, gasping for air.

"I'm nearly there," he said, going fast and hard, sending aftershocks through her oversensitive body, finishing deep inside her with an almost inaudible moan.

It had probably only been a few minutes, less than ten, but Edith felt like it had been hours. Feeling his cock slip out was strangely like a loss. Made her feel empty.

Thomas flopped on top of her for a moment, just a moment before rolling off and pulling her into an embrace, kissing her breathless.

"You are spectacular," he said, ensuring that if she wasn't already pink-cheeked, she certainly was afterwards. "Maybe we can do this again some time."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd like that."

Another few kisses and he got up, knotting the condom and dumping it in the trash can, getting dressed.

"I'll let you do some work, then," he said. "And I'll see you later."

"Yeah," Edith said, feeling maybe a little bereft that he was leaving so quickly. "Cool."

At least he kissed her again before he left, running a hand over her naked hip.

Strangely, as she slipped beneath the blankets for a moment of recovery, she was almost certain she heard him talking to someone in the corridor.

Specifically, talking to Lucille.

Chapter 32: Some Truths

Notes:

We're into heavy things now - this chapter contains brief discussions of miscarriage and physical abuse.

The Sharpes are...

No.

As Crimson Peak grow close to the halfway point of their epic tour, certain revelations...

Ugh, no.

Edith groaned at the desk in her Portland motel room. She knew what she wanted to write. About how the Sharpes had suddenly changed somehow over the last few days. But that would mean admitting a few things.

Lucille in particular had gone a little strange. Bright and cheerful in a way that seemed a little forced with only occasional flashes of her usual caustic wit. Like when they had been talking about the Oregon Trail.

There had been a lot of talk about dysentery. A lot. About how it was still a problem in many parts of the world, the lack of sanitation making disease prevention difficult.

"You don't realize how lucky you are sometimes," Finlay had said. "Just having plumbing makes such a difference."

"We only got on the main sewer system when the National Trust took over house," Lucille said, managing to lounge in her car seat. "When they put extra toilets in round the back of the old stables."

"What were you on before?" Edith asked.

"Private water supply, courtesy of an ancestor. It used to run blood red at first whenever you turned a tap on because of the clay. Every shower was like that scene in Carrie. I think Mother believed it had some kind of skin rejuvenation property. Like a mineral treatment."

"And did it?"

"I think there are other things she could have done. Like not scowled so much. I'm just grateful she never discovered botox or she'd have blown what remained of the family fortune. Then again, I doubt she could have become more poisonous, even with injections of botulism."

Edith had scrawled that down, though she didn't know where she might slip it into an article. And now she was finally at the typewriter, finally alone, and she was completely failing to get going.

She'd started the article that day after sleeping with Thomas. Or rather she'd tried to. She couldn't concentrate. She kept thinking about Lucille waiting outside the room.

She must have imagined it. It didn't make any sense. Why would she be waiting outside, listening in on her brother having sex? Gross.

It must have just been housekeeping or something.

The Seattle gig had been much the same as most of them, a mostly goth audience. It had gone well, but there wasn't really much to say otherwise.

A knock at her door was something of a relief, just for a distraction.

"Laundry," Lucille sang, holding up bags. "It's my turn to do it. Unless you'd care to join me. Bit of company."

Maybe a break would help.

"Writer's block?" Lucille asked, carefully not looking at what was written on the notes scattered about the desk. "Yeah, me too. New song is just not coming together at all."

"I feel like I'm just retreading old ground," Edith said, getting her things together and zipping up her jacket. "Nothing much has happened since my last article."

"Ooh, Thomas would be very upset with that review."

Edith tried to give her a withering look.

"You know what I mean. Nothing much that I can write about for public consumption. The concert was much like the others. It's fine, I just need to get my head together. But my head is full of you two and not journalism."

Lucille seemed to think about that for a moment, her room key clinking against the quarters in her pocket for the machine as they descended the stairs.

"My head is pretty full of you too," she said. "You keep coming into my songs."

This was a potentially interesting vein to pursue. After all, if she was inspiring music, the past might have done too.

"How many of them are real?" Edith asked. "The story ones. I mean, there's that one about emergency contraception for example."

"That one's based on reality. Some of them are, but not too many. They're not really literal. They're metaphors, you know?"

"So that song is... It's about you?"

"Mm. A pregnancy scare when I was seventeen. It was probably nothing, but safety first. Deeply, horribly unpleasant safety."

A horrible ache went through Edith's stomach.

"Seventeen is young," she said, doing her best not to infer anything else.

"Above the age of consent where we're from. With caveats, of course. You can't sleep with your teachers or anyone else in positions of authority or they'll be in trouble."

Still...

"Who was the dad? If you don't mind me asking."

Lucille laughed. Like it was a fond memory.

"Oh, you know," she said. "First love, love of my life and all that. But we were just kids. It was the best option."

She seemed fairly carefree about it. And that was three years after their father died, right? Maybe once he was gone, their lives weren't so bad.

"Did your mom not mind you bringing boyfriends over?" Edith asked. "My dad would have freaked if he thought I so much as knew a boy. Except Alan. He liked him."

"I was very good at hiding what I was up to," Lucille said. "Big house. Sound didn't carry that far. And she went out in the evenings a lot."

"And what about Thomas? Did he mind?"

"Not a bit."

Setting a precedent of keeping one another's secrets was probably in his interest, she supposed.

She waited until they had reached the peace of an automated laundromat before daring to ask anything else.

"Is that the last time you had to use it, then?"

"What, the morning after pill? Mm. I learned to be more careful. I had an early miscarriage a couple of years later, though. Only a couple of months down the line."

She said it so very casually. Edith was almost shocked. Then again, if she hadn't wanted it...

"I wasn't in the right frame of mind anyway," Lucille said, separating out Thomas's white shirts. "Mother was still alive for one thing. She'd have dealt very badly with me being an unmarried mother. Probably make me put it up for adoption. Or worse."

"Worse?"

"Adopt it herself. She fucked us up good and proper. I'd hate to think what she'd have done to a grandchild."

They occupied three of the rattly machines - lights, darks and delicates - Lucille pulling herself up onto one of the tables for folding on rather than using the chairs. Forever slightly rebellious.

Edith wrestled with what to say. She had to be careful not to reveal just what she thought she knew. Had to pretend she believed stories of accidents. That she had no suspicions at all.

But she also had to be brave.

Deep breaths, Edith.

"You have scars on your legs," she said carefully.

Lucille pulled said legs up, hugging her arms around them, resting her head against her thighs.

"Yes," she said.

"I... I wondered how you got them."

Her eyes seemed huge where she gazed at Edith, enormous and sad.

"I have a lot of scars," she said quietly, like she was worried someone would overhear although they were quite alone.

"But they're all in easily hidden places. Your legs and back... There aren't any on your arms or..."

"So what about this one?" Lucille asked, pointing to the faint scratch above her lip. "It's not exactly hidden."

Edith had noticed it, of course. It was the only flaw on her otherwise perfect skin. A tear on an oil painting, moth damage on a silk dress, a chip in bone china.

"How did you get it?" she asked, knowing she was being led, but willing to go along with it.

A soft sigh and Lucille closed her eyes. Maybe it made things easier if she didn't feel observed.

"Have you ever been slapped?" she asked. "Hit on the face?"

"I... No. No, I haven't."

"I got this from the back of my mother's hand. Her ring caught me. Normally she was very careful not to leave marks, but... Well, she was very cross that day."

Her voice had gone very soft. Gentle. Like she was telling a bedtime story.

The ring, though... The red ring? Then why did she wear it, literal evidence of mistreatment? A weapon that had literally left its mark on her.

"Why?" Edith asked. "Why was she so angry?"

"Oh, she caught me doing something I shouldn't have been."

"And how old were you?"

Another gentle sigh.

"Twenty. And then she died about a month later."

"The car accident?"

Lucille's eyes flashed open, suddenly sharp and hard.

"How do you know about that?" she asked. Not angry, not surprised, just... flat and cold. Like plunging into icy water.

Edith blinked and stammered. Had they really not told her? She felt sure that they had, at some point. Maybe Thomas had mentioned it?

Shit. Shit, shit, no, Enola had told her, hadn't she?

Think, Edith, think...

"I read about it before we met," she said. "When I was looking you up. Old news reports. But... But it sounded so awful that I didn't want to ask. I'm sorry."

She had a sudden urge to flee. To run away into Portland, a city she'd never visited, and just hide. Where, she didn't know. No money, no phone...

Lucille sat up, her legs stretching like a spider's, head slightly tilted.

"Well," she said icily. "You certainly were thorough."

It was like she could read Edith's thoughts, see right through her skull to where her mind was whirling. A less planned killing than the carbon monoxide poisoning, the crime of passion she felt she could excuse. A lifetime's abuse, a young adult deciding to end it. A simple switch of the brake lines.

And if she was twenty then Thomas was eighteen and conveniently ready to inherit the house...

"It must have been traumatic," Edith said carefully. "Since you were in the car at the time."

A tiny softening. That harshness leaving just a little.

"It was the inevitability that was the worst of it. Like when you trip and see the ground coming up to meet you and you know it will hurt. I knew we were going to crash. But I lived, more or less unscathed. And I suppose she can rest easy, knowing the last mark she ever put on me is on my face forever."

She daintily jumped to her feet just as the machines finished and began transferring their wet things to the dryer.

"I don't think anyone who hits their child should be allowed to rest easy," Edith said. "Which rules out both your parents, I think."

A clunk and whir as it started up, Lucille humming lightly.

"You're much too clever, Edith," she said. "So many people can have the truth right under their noses and never see it. You can take all kinds of fragments and put them together. We've been telling you things without even realizing."

Maybe she felt a little guilty that she'd been going over their heads. Talking to Enola, asking Alan to look things up for her, sharing her concerns with Finlay.

She put the lace and other drip-dry garments into a plastic bag to take back and hang up at the motel as Lucille hugged her from behind.

"No show tonight," she murmured. "After dinner, we should have tea."

Despite herself, Edith half-relaxed into her embrace, still pleasant regardless of it all.

"Do you mean tea or tea?" she asked.

"Both."

Edith was somewhat aware of the security cameras as Lucille kissed her neck. Hopefully no one actually monitored them.

"Only if I get enough writing done," she said.

Chapter 33: Scars

Edith dumped her bag of fresh laundry on the bed and practically leapt on the desk to dig through her photographs. She needed a good one, an obvious one.

One of Lucille's face...

She found one that was absolutely perfect, an introspective image she'd got in Seattle that had previously been put aside in favor of more dramatic shots.

It showed Lucille at her keyboard untangling some wires, her head tilted in such a way that the stage lights made her scar all the more evident.

Yes. That was exactly what she needed.

Her hands flew over the typewriter, the keys clacking loudly, the carriage return clunking and dinging.

EXCLUSIVE: Lucille Sharpe's pain at hands of mother

Oh, God, this made her feel awful. Made her feel dirty and sick. She was becoming what she'd always hated, a sensationalist hack. It was one step from clickbait.

On the other hand, the truth was important. It told you a lot about the Sharpes when you knew what they'd been through. The isolation, the abuse... Well, alleged abuse maybe.

Besides, she'd be sensitive about it. No exaggeration here. Just facts.

To the extent that anything the Sharpes said could be trusted as a fact. Still, Edith felt she was beginning to read them better and Lucille had seemed very genuine when she talked about it.

Right...

Scars often have a story, whether an accident on a bike ride or the marks of surgery. But some have a far darker history.

Lucille Sharpe recently shared with me the story of how she received the prominent mark above her lip.

Did she really want to say prominent? It wasn't all that obvious. Only in certain lights.

She drew a line through it. She was being careful and sensitive after all.

And maybe she was thinking about Alan's feedback on the article about the carbon monoxide when she composed the rest of it. She didn't want to imply Lucille had had anything to do with her mother's death, regardless of what she suspected. A tragic accident, all the more so since it happened so soon after they fell out. Over whatever that was about.

A short time before the elder Lady Sharpe's death, she and Lucille had an argument that escalated to violence. Lucille was struck across the face with a backhand, her mother's ring slicing into her flesh. It left a permanent mark.

The red ring Lucille wears is the very instrument of her injury, a constant reminder. I doubt most people would want to carry such an object, maybe not even keep it, something tied to pain and betrayal. But perhaps there is a logic to it - owning and controlling the very thing that hurt you.

Hm. That was echoing something in the back of her mind. Maybe something a kindly teacher had once said about taking control over grief, turning that yawning emptiness towards something productive. Controlling what you can, finding something to be in charge of.

That last bit hadn't been particularly helpful in the long term in retrospect.

She wanted to write about the other scars, the hidden ones, but she needed a plausible excuse for having seen them.

Hmm...

While changing for shows, sometimes further marks can be found on Lucille's body, all in carefully concealable areas. While I don't particularly want to cast assertions onto the dead, I wonder if Beatrice Sharpe had raised a hand to her children more than once. I don't think it is too far a leap to wonder if these scars were left on Lucille by her or, indeed, another person, especially since the positions of some would be very difficult to achieve through self harm.

Well, that was something else the editors would have to put in a content advisory for. Still, she'd thought of it right away. Others would too. It was probably the first conclusion people came to with... with scars like that, lots of them. That they were self-inflicted.

She was sure they couldn't be, though she'd need to look closer.

And Thomas didn't seem to have any, or at least she hadn't seen them. It was like only Lucille had been hurt physically, or at least in such a way that left marks.

Well, why? Because she was a girl? Because she refused to conform to some idealised vision of a daughter? Because she led her brother astray somehow?

Or maybe they'd thought it would be easier to hide. Self-harm was more commonly reported in girls. Easier to explain away as the lies and exaggerations of an ill child.

Edith tried to put some of her thoughts together into something tangible, spurts of clacking keys and long silences where she tried to find just the right words.

It was important to get it right. One day, Lucille would read this, would read all of it, and the idea of her feeling upset by it...

Well, it didn't sit right in Edith's stomach. So much for total artistic freedom. It was difficult when your conscience kept bothering you.

She didn't realize just how much time had passed until there was a knock on her door, Finlay coming to remind her about dinner.

Had she had lunch? Maybe. Maybe not.

Come to think of it, she was quite hungry. If there weren't other people around, she might forget to eat altogether, commenting as much to Finlay on their way down to the van.

"Oh, you want to be careful with that, sweetie. Those yo-yo diets will ruin your metabolism. I'm forever saying to Juney, you got to eat - maybe not a whole lot, but your brain can't run on nothing and nor can your body."

Edith let a beat of discomfort slip away out of her heart, hoping it hadn't been too evident on her face.

Driving into Portland proper maybe wasn't the best plan as they took a while to find a place to park and then even longer to find somewhere to eat. At least the Sharpes were being true to their word - not so much as a double entendre all evening. No touching. No licentious hints.

They were just friends and colleagues having dinner together. Nothing strange about it.

"Are we still on for tea before bed, Edith?" Lucille asked casually on their way back.

To give her credit, it really did sound like she was just talking about the hot beverage.

"Um," Edith said, thinking about the page currently emerging from her typewriter. "I'll need to tidy my desk first, but sure."

After all, if they were going to have sex, it seemed rather rude to do it in the bed where Thomas was also sleeping.

"Well, you head up while I'm getting the kettle."

The nerves began to grow in her again, putting her papers neatly in her folder. Things had been strange earlier. But then again, this was an opportunity to really look at Lucille. To really look at her scars.

She had just put everything away in a desk drawer when the knock came, a soft, gentle rapping. Everything felt a little off. She had something of an ulterior motive here perhaps, wanting to see Lucille's body.

Or maybe she was just telling herself that, trying to avoid the thought that she was rapidly falling deeper into this mess than she had ever meant to.

The kettle was a bit of a surprise. She'd assumed tea was just a cover.

"Making sure Finlay doesn't suspect?" Edith asked. "If she sees you?"

"I thought we could have some afterwards. Extra warmth in the afterglow."

At least that implied she was planning to hang around long enough to cuddle. Edith watched her fiddling with the sockets and felt a real sense of tenderness towards her. A desire to take care of her, maybe like no one else ever had.

Lucille flinched a little when touched unexpectedly, Edith moving her braid aside to kiss the back of her neck, right at the top of her spine. A little sigh echoed around the sparse room, leaning back into Edith's touch just slightly, letting her run her hands over her.

Outside her clothes at first, but then growing bolder, touching her skin, the soft smoothness of her stomach, easing off her shirt.

And now she saw them. The scars on her back, from a far better angle than ever before.

They had a variety of widths and lengths, depths too. Silvery lines. The dark shade of her bra straps bisected a few of them.

Some of them definitely couldn't be self-inflicted without some serious contortion.

"I know," Lucille said, so soft it was almost a whisper. "They're ugly."

Edith hesitated. They certainly weren't beautiful, she couldn't say that. They were marks of pain and suffering. They were awful, really.

"Beauty doesn't matter," she muttered, undoing her bra, faint red marks revealed beneath it.

She leant forward to kiss them, gently pressing her lips to channelled skin, like stretch marks, like she'd grown after receiving some of them. Edith hoped it seemed... accepting. She wasn't scared of them or disgusted by them.

"Trying to kiss them better?"

Always making jokes...

"I would if I could," Edith said.

Maybe Lucille was surprised by such sincerity, turning to face her, the perfect, unmarked skin of her chest so different to her back.

"I can think of better places to try," she said, her breath warm against Edith's lips as she brought their mouths together.

Almost without her noticing, Lucille had her out of her t-shirt, running her hands over her back, those chill fingers making her shiver.

Somehow, they tumbled onto the bed together, Edith trying her best to undo buttons on jeans without much success, especially when Lucille rolled on top, half pinning her in place.

"You have no idea how envious I am of you," she said softly.

Edith blinked, unsure.

"Why?" she managed.

"A lot of reasons."

She was kissing her way down Edith's body, letting her wrists go, though Edith didn't move them, her heart hammering in her chest as Lucille pulled of her jeans and dumped them off the edge of the bed.

There wasn't really enough room, the metal bedframe creaking rather alarmingly with every shift, Edith trying to pull herself further up, resting her head amongst the tangle of her pyjamas.

And suddenly Lucille was there again, looming over her, stroking her cheek so gently, running fingers through her hair.

"I'm glad we picked you," she said.

Edith's breath was stolen by a simple press of her still-clothed thigh, the strange texture of denim rough against her skin, just the briefest moment of pressure before Lucille once again slipped down between her legs.

"Is this alright?"

"Uh-huh..."

"Mm. Good. Getting more confident to ask for what you want."

Was she? Really she felt she was kind of letting the Sharpes do things with her. Which she enjoyed, but she wasn't exactly an active participant as such.

Maybe she could change that.

"I want to do this to you," she said breathlessly.

Lucille looked up at her, all hooded eyes, shining lips.

"Are you sure?"

"How hard can it be?"

Lucille just laughed and fixed her lips to the inside of Edith's thigh, sucking a mark there, her teeth digging in just a little. Marking territory, soothing the sting with kisses afterwards.

Her nails dug into Edith's hips, pain mingling strangely with pleasure, a sharp sensation that spoke to a long buried part of her brain, something she'd tried to push away. But it was alright here. She felt... She felt strangely safe. Lucille would take care of her.

Funny how much surer she was of that when half her brain was practically shut down by excitement.

Did that make her judgement better or worse?

She gasped out at the first pass of Lucille's tongue, still a somewhat alien sensation. She was teasing, little licks, even gentle sucking, making Edith squirm in her grasp.

A memory of Thomas slipped through Edith's mind. Unbidden, unwanted. He'd been relentless, but gentle with it. Lucille was harsher, spikier, more in control.

Fingers slipping into her was a welcome distraction, no tentativeness here, two straight away, the surprise making her let out a little cry.

"Too much?" Lucille asked, stroking her with firm presses.

"No... No, it's fine. Just... wasn't ex... Ah! Wasn't expecting it."

Half a chuckle vibrated through her core, the relentless rubbing of those fingers sending her a little dizzy, wanting more, trying to arch herself to the right angle.

"I know," Lucille murmured. "I know."

She finally gave Edith what she wanted, what she needed, flicking her tongue back and forth across just the right spot, hard and fast, practically beckoning orgasm on from inside with the tips of her fingers, steady as the drum beats in her music.

It was almost embarrassing to come so fast, but she couldn't help it, biting her lip so hard, feeling herself growing close sooner than she expected. It was like there was some sort of switch that just flipped, her thighs trembling, growing more and more tense and then suddenly feeling that tension release.

A snap almost. A piano string breaking.

She couldn't help the sounds. She'd been holding her breath without realising and the sudden rush of air she was desperate for came with something close to a yelp.

And Lucille was not stopping. She kept going until Edith physically pushed her away, overwhelmed, practically seeing stars.

She felt like a doll in Lucille's arms, barely able to move her own muscles for a few moments. Helpless really.

"You don't have to reciprocate if it's too much," Lucille said, finally taking off her jeans. "I can handle myself."

"No," Edith managed. "No, no, I want to."

"Want to prove you can?"

"Want to make you feel good. You deserve it."

The air was thick for a moment, Lucille almost visibly taking an internal step back. Protecting herself?

"Alright, then," she said, settling herself on the pillows. "I suppose you can have a go."

Determination rolled through Edith's whole being. She could do this. She wasn't some kind of prude and she'd prove it.

Still a little sluggish, she tipped herself upright and shuffled her way down the bed.

Like she'd said, how difficult could it be?

Chapter 34: Slumbering

Curiosity had once pushed Edith to try tasting her own fingers after masturbating. It was a little bitter, a little strange. Not completely unpleasant, but she'd understand people not liking it.

She also remembered the first time a guy had come in her mouth, an early boyfriend who had been a bad idea all round, neither of them knowing what they were doing really. She hadn't been expecting it. She'd almost choked, surprised, gagging. He'd apologized, at least.

But it was different to be looking a vagina in the eye, as it were. The soft flesh, the deep pink. No one's genitals could exactly be called beautiful, she didn't think, but... Well, she'd definitely seen worse.

Right. And all you had to do was go for it, right? Enthusiasm went a long way, probably.

She glanced up, finding Lucille lying with her eyes closed, serene, waiting. Waiting to be impressed.

The first pass was easy, quick, ripping off a band-aid, trying to copy what had been done to her. What she'd learned. Focus on rhythm and consistency... Exactly where was the clitoris from this angle? Was it better to be intense first or more gentle?

It was probably sexier if you could get your head out of the technicals.

She swirled her tongue around it, gratified by a gasp from Lucille, feeling her leg muscles jump just a little. That was good, she was doing it right.

Or was she?

"Tell me if I... do anything wrong..." she said.

Lucille chuckled, though it seemed a little forced, a little tense.

"Oh, don't worry. I know how much you need positive reinforcement."

Maybe that cut a hair too close to the bone if Edith was being honest, but she couldn't deny it really. She thrived on being told she was good at things. On encouragement.

"Well, I intend to deserve it," she said, faux confidence probably not convincing in the slightest.

She decided to start gently, wide licks before pointing her tongue, flicking it back and forth, hearing Lucille hum in pleasure. A hand ran across her scalp, a gentle rub of nails at the nape of her neck, a firm grip in her hair. She could see why Thomas liked that, though Lucille wasn't pulling. It didn't hurt, but the slight tug was grounding, drove her to keep it up.

"Mmm... Mm, that's nice."

Thinking of Thomas, Edith tried to mimic what he'd done to her, that strong, steady rhythm.

It wasn't as easy as it seemed. Her tongue was already a little tired, but she was determined. She wasn't ready to try using her fingers inside yet, too worried in case she accidentally hurt her.

A little suction maybe? Just to rest her muscle for a moment?

Lucille practically yelped, her whole body jerking.

"Fuck," she gasped. "Oh, God..."

That was exactly the kind of reaction Edith had wanted, her heart throbbing at it, feeling a hint of arousal pooling in herself once again, doubling down, being careful not to let her teeth come into contact with such sensitive flesh.

The grip on her hair grew sharp for a second, making her grunt in pain, trying to take a moment to breathe.

"Don't stop," Lucille said, trying to soothe her scalp with soft stroking. "I'm so close."

Right, right, OK. A last push, a final surge...

It was the gasps that would stay with her. The desperate intakes of air, the muscle spasms and the knowledge that she'd done that. Her. Those sounds, however quiet, were all for her.

It was a clumsy flop back up the bed, but worth it for kisses, Lucille's hands upon her back, just to be held for a moment.

And it was just for a moment before Lucille sat up, sighing happily.

"Right," she said. "Tea."

Edith tugged on her pyjamas, wondering how to ask for cuddling without sounding horribly needy, watching Lucille sway to the bathroom to fill up her kettle in the sink.

"Was that alright?" she tried. "I've never done that before."

She could see Lucille's wry smile in the mirror.

"Better than alright, I'd say," she said. "There's very, very few people who have ever seen me like that."

Edith was a little confused. Did she mean in a sexual way? Or... Or coming maybe?

"But you're so..." she said before completely losing her nerve. She'd been going to say experienced, but that felt like an insult if taken the wrong way.

"So what? Go on."

"Well... Sexual. A lot of your music is about... that."

The steam from the kettle swirled in waves, dewy on Lucille's bare skin as she poured.

"I'm sensual," she said. "There's a difference. It's all about the illusion. I have a... complex relationship with actual sex. By which I mean even more complex than most people do, if you follow what I'm saying."

Not really. It seemed to Edith that the Sharpes were all free love and no strings. They'd got into bed with her quickly enough. Maybe it was a bit different though, being so far from home, so isolated. It was different for her.

Like she was feeling vulnerable or cold, Lucille started covering up. She didn't bother with underwear, her shirt hanging just a little strangely without it. It was oddly thrilling to know she was bare underneath. Which didn't even make sense; everyone was bare under their clothes.

"You don't follow," she said softly, deftly picking out the teabags and dropping them in the trash. "It's alright. Don't worry about it."

But Edith wanted to follow. She wanted to know.

The cup was too hot, almost burning her fingers as she put it on the nightstand, Lucille slipping back into bed alongside her. At least that was a relief, that she wasn't going to be left alone right away.

"I'm here if you ever want to... talk about it," she said. "No pressure, no judgement. Off the record if you want."

An arm around her waist, a squeeze, Lucille inhaling against her hair, lips tickling her when she spoke.

"Thomas did say you were like a therapist."

"It might... I don't know. Help."

She felt the shrug, Lucille reaching for her own cup, seemingly immune to the heat.

"What do you want me to say? Should I talk about how we were isolated children who never learned to make friends with others? Or how we were never given unconditional love by our parents and that makes you mistrust love in all forms? Or do you want to get into the really dark stuff, the proper evil that fucked us up?"

That had been quite the change in mood. Whiplash inducing really. Edith knew her eyes had gone a bit wide, a bit shocked.

"I don't know," she managed. "Whatever you feel comfortable with. Even if that's nothing."

A sigh, a shake of her head.

"Not tonight. Tonight I just want to drink tea and cuddle up. Bagsy being big spoon."

It sounded nice, Edith had to admit. This was more what she'd been craving, the simple, warming stuff. She picked up her own cup, sipping gently.

"Are you... staying the night, then?" she asked, trying to seem like she didn't mind either way, desperate not to pressurize the situation.

"No, I'd best not. I'm a very restless sleeper. I'd hate to keep you up with my tossing and turning. But I'll stay until you drift off, sneak out as quietly as I can."

It was still something, Edith reminded herself. The tea was soothing, if a little bitter, warming too. She leant into Lucille while she had time, glad of it.

"So, you thought I treated everyone I meet like this, did you?" Lucille asked, a kind of amusement in her tone.

"No! Or... Well, I don't know. You'd have no shortage of offers, I'd have thought."

"You don't have to take up offers just because you get them. Besides, I don't really meet a lot of people. We don't even have assistants anymore."

Edith thought about Enola and tried not to seem like she was rattled by the mere mention of such a person.

"Any particular reason?"

"They're expensive. And they have a terrible habit of falling in love with Thomas, which is very inconvenient."

Enola had denied having any kind of relationship or even fondness for him. But could she have been lying? Embarrassed maybe? After all, Edith could quite understand it. He was dashing and charming, he had that look about him that a lot of women - a lot of people - liked. She'd had sex with him; it wasn't like she could pretend she wasn't affected by it all.

"Do you think he ever... With them?"

"Jealous?"

Edith shrugged. They were encouraging honesty after all.

"Just want to know how special I am, I suppose."

Lucille turned her with one finger on her chin, kissing her gently, soft lips and the slightest hint of tongue.

"Very special indeed."

And suddenly she was tired. Maybe it was just the post-coital atmosphere catching up with her, the comfort of a warm body nearby. She finished her tea, shuffling down beneath the covers, sighing happily as Lucille wrapped an arm around her. Warm. Safe. Kisses on her cheek.

She woke alone, rested but uneasy somehow, her mouth tasting faintly metallic. She felt like she'd had a nightmare, but that she couldn't remember it. Something just on the edge of her memory.

It was like trying to see an optical illusion. The more she tried to look at it, the more it eluded her.

The kettle was gone. There was no sign that Lucille had been there at all really, save for the used cup neatly left on the desk. Not even a note.

Ugh, why would there be a note? They'd see each other at breakfast. It wasn't a surprise to wake alone.

She still felt a little strange though, closing her eyes, trying to empty her mind and let it drift back to her.

There had been... moaning. Had she been dreaming of Lucille? Was that it? But then why did it feel so weird? Why did she feel so uncomfortable about it?

And why couldn't she remember seeing anything? Usually her dreams were very visual, very vivid. This wasn't.

But, yes, there had been Lucille moaning quietly, that held back keening noise and some heavy breathing and then...

"Thomas..."

What?

She bolted out of bed, heading for the bathroom. What the hell, subconscious? Where had that come from?

Her cheeks were bright pink in the mirror, utterly mortified, trying to remind herself that dreams didn't mean anything. After all, she'd had that sex dream about Alan's dad once and it didn't mean anything. It didn't mean she actually wanted to sleep with him. The brain just put pictures together. Or sounds in this case.

All the same, it was distressing. She'd basically imagined Thomas and Lucille having sex. It was unseemly at best.

She could explain this away. Having seen both of them in that situation, her brain was just combining memories. Her feelings for them were all tangled up and her unconscious mind had just thrown things together.

Showering helped, always did. Brushing her teeth helped. Clean and ready for the day and absolutely no inappropriate thoughts.

So she was telling herself, anyway.

It was harder at breakfast, seeing Lucille casually tasting part of Thomas's food from his fork without even trying to avoid touching it with her lips and tongue.

They were just close. That was all. And her brain was just over-active during a rare good night's sleep.

"Are you alright, Edith?" Thomas asked, sensing her distraction. "Slept well?"

"Oh. Yes. Bad dreams, I think. Or... strange anyway. I don't know."

She was blushing. Another time, they would make comments about that, say she'd been having... fantasies. Instead they just shared a look, a tiny moment that Edith wasn't even sure she'd really seen.

"Dreams can't harm you," Lucille said. "Trust me."

No. No, they couldn't.

She'd forget about it soon enough, no doubt.

Chapter 35: Counsel

It was a long way from Portland to San Francisco. Ten hours in the bus if you took no breaks. Edith was glad that a night stop seemed to be already written into their plans, even if an exact location still seemed uncertain.

She'd been feeling almost itchy ever since that strange dream. It was just so different to her usual ones, both in content and style. And when she'd gone back up to her room to get her bag for the day, she'd almost been convinced that she could smell Thomas there.

It was her imagination. That was all. But despite knowing that, it still felt like the more she tried to push it out of her head, the more it dug and burrowed into her brain. All through wandering around Portland, seeing Washington Park with its beautiful sculptures and through the evening show, just that sound of Lucille moaning his name that her mind had invented whirling round and round.

She needed a distraction. The article was nearly finished, but sitting down to work on it wasn't going well.

It was the guilt. She felt horribly guilty, a rolling sickness in her stomach. Yes, a lot of people had implied a lot of things about the Sharpes over the years about whether or not they were really brother and sister at all, but it was another thing to dream about... that.

She called Alan the next morning before they had to leave, knowing that she clearly had an agenda as he talked about his sisters, news from home, a friend of his announcing that she was pregnant, all the usual subjects. It was good to hear about normality. Ordinary people going about their ordinary lives with bills and food shopping and dishes and all those other little things that she felt she'd almost forgotten about.

Still, she wanted reassurance more than anything.

"Alan, you're a doctor," she said out of nowhere, getting a laugh in response.

"What tipped you off?" he teased. "I knew I should have hidden the stethoscope."

At least she could crack half a smile.

"What are dreams for?" she asked. "I know it's not really your area, but... Look, I know it's stupid, but I had a nightmare and it's really freaked me out and I think if I hear some science then maybe I can calm down and forget about it."

"What kind of nightmare?" he asked.

"The kind I'd really rather not voice."

He let it go, much to her relief. They knew each other well enough to know when pressure would and wouldn't be helpful, she felt.

He sighed lightly and she could picture him so clearly, leaning against the couch cushions, one arm curled behind his head.

"Well, I'm no expert, but I think there's a lot of theories. Some people think nightmares are to do with rehearsing trauma in a safe way, for example. So, you know, from an evolutionary perspective, being able to cope in dangerous situations is advantageous so if you experience something that feels like a dangerous situation in your sleep, when you're safe, then it might help if it ever actually happens. And then there's a lot about memories - your brain is filing stuff away and so you see random images as it's trying to sort through it all. You know how you can walk through a familiar door into somewhere completely different, but in the dream you don't notice how strange that is? I think there might be something in that."

Just trying to process memories. Combining random things. That made sense.

"Has that helped?" Alan asked.

"Maybe. It was just... It was a really dark thing and it kind of frightened me that my brain could come up with it, that's all."

He made comforting noises, which admittedly did make her feel a little better.

"I'm always here for you. Even if I'm not in, I'll call back if you give me the hotel number. It must be difficult being out there with strangers."

"They're not really strangers anymore."

"Still. You're far from home."

God, where even was home? Buffalo? Yeah, she supposed it was. But she didn't exactly get out much to explore the city. And always renting made it difficult to put down real roots somehow.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, home was still the house she'd grown up in. It was still the patterned wallpaper that had probably long ago been stripped or painted over by the new owners. It was still creaking floorboards, a small, bright room at the end of a corridor.

A house full of a strange blend of good memories and intense sadness. It was odd.

She remembered how people had asked quietly if her dad planned to move after Mom died, if he truly felt comfortable staying in the house they'd shared. And she hadn't understood how he could be as sure as he was when she felt so haunted by the simplest things.

Books her mother had bought and would never read. Clothes in the dry-cleaner's bags that would never be worn. Half-used bottles of perfume.

The money from the house sale was all in the bank. She pretended it didn't exist. It was going to be a deposit one day, hopefully. If she ever reached that point.

And she was thinking of the Sharpes too, as usual. How they lived in the house that their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents had lived and, in some cases, died. Maybe you got used to it.

Living in the house where you'd been abused though... That wasn't something she could imagine. Maybe it was like the red ring. Maybe controlling the house made them feel safe. They seemed to delight in having opened the place up to the public, after all, against their parents' wishes.

"Thanks," she heard herself say rather than consciously voicing it. "I'm lucky to have you. As a friend. I'll call you from California."

"OK. Glad to help."

And that was why he was a doctor. He wanted to help people.

The idea of home and what home meant was still within her as she carried her bags out, ready to move on. Was it strange to be in America? Did they miss England terribly? Was Allerdale Hall home or was it just somewhere they slept? There was a subtle but definite difference, she felt.

Thomas ran up the last flight of steps two at a time to help her. She'd given up on telling him she could manage just fine.

"We think we've decided where to stop on the way," he said, taking the typewriter bag from her. "Medford, Oregon."

"Any particular reason?"

"None at all. Never heard of it. I like the sound though. Medford, where the doctors cross rivers."

He'd completely lost her, smiling at her confusion.

"You know," he said. "Med like in medic and ford like crossing a river. You say that over here, right? This isn't one of those things where I've accidentally said something offensive in American, is it?"

"Oh. No, no. No, we say that."

He helped her into the back of the bus. Maybe it was meant to be charming, but it grated on her a little bit. She was perfectly capable.

"So, what's the weirdest thing Americans say that the Brits don't?" she asked, aiming for playful, hiding behind it.

"Fanny," Lucille said from the front seat. "First time I heard someone say fanny pack, you don't even want to know what I thought of. It does not mean the same thing where we're from."

"What does it mean?" Finlay asked, starting the engine and setting off.

"Well, if I'm being polite, it means vagina. Still, I suppose we have the same problem with rubber. To you it means a condom, to us it's an eraser. There's probably been a lot of confusion over the years with schools making sure they have a rubber for every child..."

Edith had been hoping for more chips versus crisps if she was being honest.

"It's the Vs that always get me," Thomas said. "To be fair, that's not just you. Everyone outside the Commonwealth does that."

"The Vs?" Edith asked.

He held up two fingers, palm towards her.

"This way round, it's fine," he said. "It's peace or it's two. But showing the back of the hand is like giving someone the finger."

"Why?"

"No one really knows. There's a theory that it was about archers having their fingers cut off by the French at Agincourt, but I think that's widely considered a myth. For one thing, as far as I can tell, the French have never heard of it. It's a handy thing to remember if you're ever over there and trying to order two of something though. Not that anyone will say anything if it's clearly a mistake."

"We're very good at not saying anything, as cultures go," Lucille said. "Anything to avoid a fuss, that's us."

That felt like she was alluding to something uncomfortable and Edith was glad when Finlay asked her next question for her.

"Anything you've missed since being over here?"

They seemed to be a little taken aback by that. Like they hadn't really been thinking about it.

"Probably the same kinds of things you're missing," Thomas said. "Your own bed. Familiarity. Waking up hearing somebody playing the grand piano."

"Grand piano?" Finlay laughed. "Chance would be a fine thing. I wake up to beeping alarms usually. Not missing that. Some of the motel phones have really quite pleasant tones."

"I can get out the keyboard if it means that much to you," Lucille said. "Didn't realise it did."

"It's alright. Reminds me of home, that's all. Don't you miss the house?"

She shrugged, humming lightly.

"A little," she said. "I miss the age of it, I suppose. Even the old stuff here feels strangely new. But I wouldn't say I'm homesick."

Edith saw her chance and tried to grab it.

"Do you think of Allerdale as home then?" she asked.

There was a generally confused pause.

"Of course. It's where we live."

"Yes, but..." and it was difficult to put what she was trying to say into words. "But, you know... The place I live is just a building. It's not my home, or I don't really think of it that way. I suppose it's different since you live in the place you grew up, but I was thinking of how now it's open to the public and it's changing..."

This was bad journalism. This was leading your subject. Not that it seemed to be having that effect.

"Thomas feels like home," Lucille said. "I can't be homesick when we're traveling together. And the house is the house. I don't know what more to say. It's ours. We've never tried to move anywhere else."

"What about boarding school?"

"Half a term hardly counts, if that. I didn't exactly take to it."

That felt like progress, Edith felt. They'd just mentioned childhood and and Lucille hadn't so much as blinked. So either she was hiding her emotions or she was becoming more comfortable being open.

It was maybe a little self-aggrandizing to hope it was the latter and due to their relationship.

Oh, she really was falling into this unofficial therapist thing, wasn't she?

Still, there were worse things to be, worse places to be, worse company. She let the scenery wash over her with Finlay chatting about how her home only started like her own once she'd completely overhauled the kitchen to put her own stamp on it.

At one point, Thomas took her hand, and she didn't bother pulling away. It was quite nice just to be connected with someone. And she liked that his little half smile and wink in her direction suggested something and nothing all at once. A playfulness. A casual understanding between them.

She tried to let herself relax, to resign nightmares to nothing more than that, and amused herself by deliberately taking her time before responding to Thomas's questioning eyes with a firm maybe.

After all, maybe there was a lot to do in Medford, Oregon, even on a fleeting visit.

Chapter 36: Ideas

"It's bigger than I expected," Lucille said as they made their way into the Medford. "And that motto. 'Great Performances Daily', huh?"

"Must have known you were coming," Finlay offered.

"We could, you know," Thomas said. "There's bound to be an open-mic night nearby if that's their selling point. Little spontaneous acoustic gig since we're here? What do you think?"

There was a brief pause as Lucille considered it.

"Yeah," she said eventually. "Yeah, that sounds fun. It's been years since we did one of those."

She'd heard them play their instruments and sing often enough that Edith had absolutely no doubt they could, but so much of what she thought of as their core sound was based on loops and electronic additions that she found imagining something completely devoid of that impossible.

"Which songs would you do?" she asked.

"Berceuse if they have a keyboard," Lucille said. "It's already quite sparse. Suits that pared back sound. Thomas, your pick."

Edith knew that song well. It was the lullaby. The first song they wrote, according to some publications. It was certainly more... naive than most of their other compositions. Simpler. But sometimes when they performed it, Lucille playing and singing, Thomas providing wordless harmonies, it could still give her goosebumps.

She didn't quite know why. It was terribly melancholy, but there was something else about it too.

"I could... I could do Lost Things if you didn't mind," he said. "I know it's yours, but..."

"No, no. No, that's fine. And if they let us go to three, I think we should do a really inappropriate cover. I'm thinking jazz Wannabe. Ooh, or Saturday Night done as a dirge maybe."

"Would people recognize that here? Did it chart? Edith?"

She'd been making a mental note to ask about Lost Things later. She didn't know it, which was odd enough, and she thought she knew Lucille well enough to know that she was hiding something. She'd answered much too quickly for it to seem natural.

"Er..." she said, blinking. "The Elton John song?"

"No," Finlay said. "That's Saturday Night's Alright. That's my era. I'm just following the road, by the way. Shout if you see a motel you like the look of."

"Maybe it didn't cross over," Thomas said thoughtfully, scanning road signs. "It was pure Europop dance, to be fair. The beat sounded extraordinarily like a duck as I recall."

"She's too young," Lucille said. "It's early nineties. She wouldn't remember."

Edith breathed steadily, trying not to let her cheeks turn pink. Yes, alright, so she was a little bit younger than them, but she wasn't a child. She didn't appreciate that implication or the tone it was given in.

"Spice Girls will probably go down well," she said.

Thomas maybe noted her slight discomfort, reaching over again to squeeze her hand. She gave him a smile and a shrug. It wasn't worth being offended over really.

Eventually, they found a place to sleep. Nothing particularly remarkable but at least the bed was soft as Edith tested it a little. The idea of a song she didn't know had excited her, some potential material revealing itself. Why didn't they perform this one often? Why was it Lucille's in particular? Had she written it alone? What was it about?

It was all very intriguing.

The shower was not. It worked, but barely, a sad little spray, enough to wash off the day but Edith felt her towel was doing the most of the exfoliation.

She was brushing her hair when the knock came, Lucille bouncing into the room. She seemed more relaxed and happy than she'd been earlier, maybe just keen for adventure, kissing Edith easily on the lips in greeting.

"I've had the most wonderful idea," she said. "I can't believe I almost missed it. But you have to come too, it'll be fun."

She was glowing and relaxed. Maybe their shower worked better.

"What idea?" Edith asked.

"Instead of going to San Francisco and just staying there, you and I and Thomas should take the bus down to San Jose and visit the Winchester Mystery House. I've always wanted to go, and Finlay isn't interested so she can take our stuff and we'll meet her at the next motel."

It rang a vague bell in Edith's head.

"Isn't that, like, a haunted house?"

"Yes," Lucille said, apparently thrilled by the very idea, sitting cross-legged on Edith's bed, looking elfin, fae, other worldly. "Do you know it? It sounds amazing."

"I think so. The widow of the gun company guy? And she was trying to confuse ghosts by constantly building and so the house is all stairs to nowhere and doors without rooms and that kind of thing?"

"All the ghosts of everyone ever killed by a Winchester weapon. You have to come. It'll be fun."

It did sound intriguing.

"Yeah, alright. I had no idea you were so into the supernatural," Edith said, tying her hair back, still wet.

"Rather comes with the aesthetic, I suppose. Though that's a chicken and egg problem."

"Living in such an old house must help. All the noises they make."

"Yes. And, of course, Allerdale's haunted."

Edith looked at her in the mirror, looking for a tell, a sign that she was joking. There wasn't one. She seemed completely sincere.

"Seriously?"

"Of course. We've got the lady in blue, the workman in the basement mine... Mother used to hear unexplained moaning all through the night."

She wasn't able to keep a straight enough face after all.

"You're teasing me," Edith said.

"Just a little bit. It's an old house full of draughts and creaks and tourists love that stuff. But, well... I've always found that alive people cause me more trouble than dead ones. So, you're coming?"

"Sure."

A smile, another kiss.

"Great. And I suppose I should warm up my voice if I'm going to be singing tonight."

They elected to have dinner first, a guitar case taking up half of their booth, Thomas idly practising chord progressions against his palm as they waited for Lucille to finish ordering at the bar.

Edith found it oddly fascinating, watching his fingers move fluidly from one position to another. His hands were delicate as well as large, lightly roughened by moving over strings and frets but mostly soft and smooth, his nails pale pink, a hint of colour contrasting the blue of his veins.

He caught her looking, raising his eyebrows in a brief flick, and she looked away, blushing.

"Right," Lucille said, flopping down next to her. "Apparently they have informal performances here sometimes, so I said we'd play a few tunes. Barmaid didn't make much of me, but she clearly liked the look of you, Thomas. Same old, same old."

Edith swallowed back the urge to say plenty of people found her just as attractive. Not with Finlay so nearby.

"I'm quite looking forward to hearing you play," she was saying. "The concerts are much too loud for me."

"I hope we impress you," Thomas said.

A large jug of cocktail was delivered to the table - Long Island iced tea maybe - and Edith hesitated. Last time she'd drunk anything around the Sharpes, she'd made a fool of herself.

But one glass probably wouldn't hurt. Sweet, but not particularly strong, she didn't think. She could switch to water afterwards.

Her notebook felt like it was burning a hole in her pocket as they ate, the camera digging into her side. This was so stripped back. So raw. Something she could write about that was different at last. She was running out of ways to describe full concerts.

In time, a couple of chairs were brought out and placed on a slightly raised bit of floor that seemed to serve as a stage. No microphone. No keyboard either.

"How will you do Berceuse without a piano?" Edith asked.

"A capella, I suppose," Lucille said, standing up and unpinning her braid, letting it fall in a great rope down her back.

It swung from side to side as she walked through the room. A hush fell, like people could sense something was happening as she took the stage, Thomas at her heels.

"Good evening," she said, sitting down. "We're going to sing a few songs for you, if you don't mind."

It wasn't exactly welcome, Edith didn't think. People were out to eat, drink, have a good time. They didn't appreciate being interrupted.

Not that the Sharpes seemed to care. Lucille began singing, her voice rising and falling, eyes closed.

Edith wished she had a video recorder. Or a dictaphone. Something to record this.

Was it some kind of obsession that she couldn't keep her eyes off them? How could people just carry on conversations? Couldn't they see this? Couldn't they hear it?

She took a couple of pictures, focussing on Lucille in one and in Thomas watching her in the other. Their gazes met, each regarding Lucille's face, and Thomas shrugged, smiling. He understood, she felt. He knew how talented his sister was, how she'd taken so much pain and made it beautiful.

Maybe you had to know that to really appreciate it.

And maybe that meant very few people really could.

There was polite applause when Lucille finished, Thomas testing his strings' tuning one last time before beginning to play.

Edith tried to come back to herself. She had to pay attention. Try to deduce some meaning.

"They're very good, aren't they?" Finlay said.

"Yeah," Edith said, scribbling on the page to make the ink flow. "Yeah, they are."

"I can see why you like them. Skill is very attractive."

It really did feel like her dad trying to ask her about boys in a strange way. Uncomfortable.

She managed to get her pen to work and tried to note down the words Thomas was singing.

It was difficult. The meter, the pace was very strange. She was only catching snippets for most of the first verse. He kept repeating something though. I see you.

I see you? What did that mean? Who? Who were they seeing?

Or was it from another perspective? Was someone seeing them? Seeing Lucille? Watching over her maybe - and was that a caring or a more voyeuristic, threatening seeing?

"Is she alright?" Finlay asked.

Edith looked up from her notebook, surprised out of her concentration, trying to see what Finlay was seeing.

She was right. Lucille was wearing a distinctly pained expression, blinking a lot. Like she was trying to hold back tears.

There had to be a reason why they didn't sing this one often. It had even deeper meaning than their other songs. More than reflecting on their father's death. More personal, more painful.

She wished she could hear it again, really tease apart the lyrics and unravel their meaning.

I see you in the night
The light, the cage, the tank, the wires
I see you in his eyes
Reflecting all my mind conspires
I see you in our faces
His devotion, her desires
I see you when we tried and failed
And lost and lost again
Irreplace, unmistake
Innocence and hope and faith
Inescape, undeny
Chances, dreams and you and I...

Edith wasn't sure she was getting this right. Some of the lines had too many syllables. Some of them had to few.

Lucille visibly composed herself afterwards as Thomas leant over and whispered something to her, nodding, rolling her shoulders.

"Are you sure?" he said, or Edith thought so, watching his lips.

"It was my idea."

He slid his hand back up the guitar neck, his fingers pressing against the strings, picking out a chord, picking out notes one by one as Lucille set the rhythm with steady taps of her heel.

It was almost like bluegrass, a lilting, barn dance style, if you ignored the lyrics.

It took the other patrons a few lines before the recognised it, that back and forth before they sang in harmony.

If you wannabe my lover
You gotta get with my friends...

There was laughter. Enjoyment. Someone got out their phone to record it.

"Sing along if you know the words," Thomas said.

It was amazing how lyrics stuck in the brain really. It had to be years since she'd last heard that song but still most of it was in her head.

It was a bit more suggestive than she remembered, if she was really honest... She didn't really feel comfortable singing it with Finlay next to her, tapping along. They were both feeling the awkwardness, she thought, especially with the hint of moaning Lucille was putting into her performance.

Oh, she even knew that those moans were fake. Knew what the real ones sounded like. Not that they weren't effective. She busied herself in taking a couple more pictures, trying to appear professional, taking measured sips of her drink. Steady breaths. Nice and calm.

She was quite glad when it was over, more enthusiastic applause, Lucille heading back to the table while Thomas put his guitar away.

"How was it?" she asked. "Could you hear us alright?"

"Loud and clear," Finlay said. "That middle song was so sad though. What's it about, if you don't mind me asking?"

Ah. Useful. Doing Edith's job for her. She tried not to be too visibly listening in.

Not that it did her much good really.

"Oh, nothing in particular. People like sad songs. It sells."

That was a lie and Edith knew it. She'd never heard that song before and that meant it had never been a single or on their studio albums. Her fingers practically itched to start writing, to start looking for theories. She caught Lucille's eye, hoping to glean something else from her face.

Nothing but a perfect mask.

She was trying to think of just how to word her questions to make them seem harmless when Thomas asked her to help him fetch four water glasses and a jug from the bar.

It was a ruse. He didn't need help.

"Can I come to your room tonight?" he asked quietly, right on cue.

"What for?"

"To spend time with you."

Hm. Was that what they called it these days?

"We're spending time together right now," she pointed out.

He let out something of a chuckle, like he was glad to be challenged.

"Well, how do you want me to word it?" he asked. "Do you want poetry or filth?"

Even the idea of him saying anything dirty had her blushing as he asked for ice water, the barmaid openly flirting with him. Maybe it was how she earned her tips.

"You have such a nice voice," she said. "That accent..."

"Thank you. My girlfriend thinks so too."

Edith stammered, undignified.

"I'm not your girlfriend!" she managed. "Stop. Don't listen, he's being... ridiculous."

They weren't dating, for God's sake! They were employer and employee. And anyway you couldn't date one out of two... friends with benefits. That wasn't how their arrangement worked.

He picked up the glasses, two in each hand, turning back towards their table.

"I'll come up and see you later. We can discuss."

Well, there was nothing to discuss.

She was going to make that quite clear.

Chapter 37: Negotiations

Edith's anger had had the opportunity to stew by the time Thomas knocked on her door, sighing immediately when he saw her expression and running a hand through his hair.

"You're cross," he said.

Even the word seemed belittling somehow.

"You don't get to upgrade our relationship just like that," she said. "You'd been performing, people might look you up... It could get out. And then I'd look... bad. Unprofessional."

He shrugged, seemingly bemused that she cared.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I meant it. I think we have a connection beyond the physical."

What the hell was he trying to say?

"You're not seriously suggesting we... We are not dating. We can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because, for one thing, that kind of relationship usually implies exclusivity and, in case you've forgotten, I'm sleeping with your sister!"

She hadn't meant to yell that. God, she hoped the walls here weren't too thin.

He was pacing just a little, shaking his head, sighing softly. Exasperated. Like he had any right to be annoyed.

"I get it," he said. "Alright? I do. Lucille and I, we don't form relationships like other people do and we know it. We're fucked up. So meeting someone who seems to understand us..."

"But that's just the thing. I don't understand you. I don't think it's actually possible for anyone to understand you. You both hide so much."

"It's not deliberate. It's habit."

"Then break that habit. Tell me what Lost Things is about. All that stuff about seeing people - seeing who? What?"

He laughed. He actually laughed, moving to sit on her bed.

"Oh, come on, Edith. You're smarter than that. It's not about seeing anyone. You'll work it out if you think about it."

Riddles. Lies. Deliberately confusing her.

"It clearly means a lot," she said. "So how come I've never heard it? How come it's never been recorded?"

"Lucille's never been happy with any studio version we've produced. She was talking to you about the Winchester House, right? Well, that song is similar for her. I don't think she ever stops rewriting it in her head. Not really. There's always a couple of new lines, changed lines. I don't normally sing it, but this was... an anniversary, of sorts."

Edith got the distinct feeling that he hadn't meant to let that part slip. An anniversary? Of what? What could it be?

"Think about it, Edith," he said. "Given what you know about Lucille and how she likes to write, how she likes to hide things in her lyrics, what is she really saying?"

Not taking her eyes off him, Edith reached for her notebook and flipped back to her scrawled attempts at getting the words down.

OK...

"Well, the title is Lost Things," she said, feeling like she was answering a question in high school English and wasn't prepared for it at all. "So... So things like 'hope' and 'faith' and 'chances' are things she thinks she's lost. 'Innocence' too. And then there are these cut off words, like someone's being interrupted. 'Irreplace', 'undeny'... Or maybe it's that she wants to go back and undo mistakes? Undeny something, so tell the truth about it? But I still don't understand 'I see you'. Is it an acrostic or something like that?"

"Nearly. It's to do with the words themselves."

Why couldn't they just say what they meant?

Well, she knew why... Because they were more secrets in clothes than actual people.

About the words. Right. Present tense. First person. Irregular verb. This was not helpful.

'I see'... Icy? Icy you? Icy ewe? That was just nonsense.

She thought about COdependent, how the clue was written, not heard. How else could it be written?

I see you...

ICU?

"Intensive care unit," she whispered.

Thomas stood up and took the notebook from her, setting it back on the desk with an easy toss, tilting her face up with one finger.

"You see?" he asked. "You do understand."

The kiss was strange. Different but also not different at all. She felt he was trying to put something into it, something deeper than their underlying frisson of attraction.

And it was somehow tempting, so tempting, to fall into that. Like a reward for solving a puzzle. She found herself letting him walk her backwards, lift her onto desk and step between her legs, running his hands up her thighs, squeezing hard.

She forced his face away with both hands, her head bumping into the mirror as she moved back.

"How many times have you been to the hospital?" she asked, slightly breathless. "And why?"

He sighed, already slightly flushed, slipping his thumb beneath the hem of her shirt to get at bare skin.

"Can't I tell you about it afterwards?" he asked.

She didn't want him to try to wriggle out of it.

"Why?" she asked. "Why not now?"

"To get rid of tension?" he tried, kissing her neck. "And, of course, because you're still a little bit angry and that's only a hair's breadth from passion..."

She felt herself bristle, which was probably exactly what he wanted, frowning at him.

Then again, he looked very, very enticing right now. Her libido was punching her intellect and looked to be winning the battle.

"Swear to me that you'll tell me," she said. "No bullshit, no evading. No saying it's not your story to tell - if you want to do this, if you want to convince me you're serious..."

"I swear on my mother's grave."

No, no, no, no...

"You're more likely to spit on it. Do better."

He liked being sparred with, she thought. He liked it when she was spiky and harsh.

"Quite right. I swear on... Hmm..."

"On Lucille's life?"

He looked at her very seriously, playfulness vanishing from his face instantly.

"No," he said. "No, not that. She's fought too hard to control it herself."

Well... Well, alright.

"Will a promise be sufficient?" he asked, idly stroking her back. "My word as a gentleman?"

"Is that worth anything?" she asked, feeling her breathing speeding up. "You don't care about the title... Mm..."

It was difficult to concentrate when he was running his hands up under her shirt.

"I promise," he whispered, breath hot against her lips. "As myself."

It would have to do. Her t-shirt hit the floor, his hands easily fitting into the dip of her waist as he plundered her mouth, almost like an invasion, taking what he wanted.

Waiting for her to start taking back.

She yanked his shirt out of its neat tuck, letting her nails graze up his back, or what she could reach of it before trying to undo the buttons.

They were annoyingly fiddly, especially since she couldn't see and was distracted by his grip on her and the challenge in the press of his lips.

A moan rolled out of his chest as she arched against him, breathing hard, a little pride in her chest. Just making rock stars make audible sounds of pleasure while about to fuck on a desk, no big deal.

Actually...

She gripped his hair, pulling him away, his eyes flashing open with perhaps a hint of frustration in them.

"Are we really doing this here?" she asked. "There's more comfortable spots."

"However you prefer," he said. "Except against the wall. It's more difficult to hold someone up than you might think."

That was the voice of experience, but she didn't have time for that now.

"Bed then," she panted.

She wasn't expecting him to pick her up, forcing her to cling to him in a thoroughly undignified way as he deposited her on the mattress.

And then there was all the awkwardness of finishing getting undressed, retrieving a condom, and Edith working out exactly how to be demanding.

"I want you on your back," she said.

He looked at her, so casual in his nudity, utterly unconcerned.

"Alright," he said. "Works for me."

She wanted to be in control, fully in control, watching as he got comfortable and then straddling his waist, beginning to shuffle back.

"Oh," he said. "I thought you wanted... Never mind."

"What?"

"Just thought you'd like a preamble. An aperitif, as it were."

She frowned at him, unsure, but followed when he beckoned her up the bed until he could move her. And then she realised what he was getting at as he encouraged her to kneel directly over his face.

"That's it," he said softly. "Not the best angle, but I'm sure we can make it work."

This was new territory. She found herself gripping the headboard, gasping as he leant up and ran his tongue up her slit, such an unfamiliar sensation.

He let out a slight hum, leaning up, finding her clit like it was easy, licking and sucking at it until she was practically trembling, unconsciously rolling her hips into it.

She'd never done anything like this before. It was too involved, too... Oh, she didn't know. Too forceful, too demanding.

And yet as Thomas's fingers dug into her flesh, she couldn't help but wonder which of them was really in control.

He stopped as she was really getting close, a whine torn from her throat, laughing at her.

"Mm... Sorry. Getting a crick in my neck."

She gasped for air, her whole body tense as she tried to crawl back down the bed, being captured in a kiss that tasted salty and strange.

It was almost embarrassingly easy to sink down onto his cock. She was so ready, so wet, sighing and taking a moment just to breathe.

But she was also desperate, close and needy, her hips already rolling as she planted her hands on his chest for better leverage, almost like she was holding him down.

As if she could. He was a lot stronger than her and she knew it, strangely excited to have him apparently at her mercy.

He wasn't even daring to touch her, just watching through hooded eyes and occasionally letting out a faint moan, allowing her to use his body for her pleasure.

She could almost hear her own heartbeat, trying to rock her hips faster and harder, having to use only one hand to support her weight and the other to touch herself.

Only then did he reach for her, adding his force and thrusting upwards, jolting her whole body as she chased an orgasm that seemed so, so close...

It came in waves, the initial gasp when she suddenly had to inhale, unaware that she'd been holding her breath, feeling her whole body seem to tense and release, that heat rushing through her, the feeling of clenching around Thomas's cock and being ready to collapse almost.

He caught her, rolling her onto her back and looming over her, hair tangled and breathing hard, reaching down to find her clit and almost making her wince with sensitivity.

"Can you handle a bit more?" he asked, pressing his thumb firmly against it, circling before shoving his hips forward in a hard thrust.

She wasn't sure, and yet it felt good overall, pleasure the highest among the overwhelming sensations, gasping and whimpering as he kept up a fluid, steady motion.

"Let's try," he said, biting his lip in concentration, like he was trying not to come.

He wanted her to get off again first.

It was the sheer relentlessness that took her, that constant rub against flesh that had already felt so much, just shy of painful at times and yet also that familiar warmth beginning to build, finding herself arching upwards, silently begging for more, feeling it as he swept some of her own slick up to better lubricate such never ending touch.

She hardly ever came twice so close together, certainly not thanks to anyone else, feeling tears at the corners of her eyes, a sting in her throat, sure that if he stopped she would die of frustration and tension and need and...

"Ah! Oh, fuck..."

He'd been moving his hips so slowly but now his thrusts shook her, drawing everything out, making her gasp and moan, unable to do anything but take and take until he finally stilled.

She felt drenched. Sweaty and hot and wet, her body already beginning to chill, in need of a shower before bed probably.

And before that...

"Right," she sighed, flapping her hand weakly against the mattress, swallowing hard. "Now... Tell me."

He let out a long exhale, sweeping his hair back and gesturing down his body.

"Let me at least deal with this first," he said.

Perhaps condoms were uncomfortable afterwards. She let him dispose of it, slipping under the covers but sitting up, trying her best to look like she meant business.

"Why were you in the hospital?" she asked. "And when?"

Thomas sat on the end of the bed, still nude, like some Roman statue, unable to look at her.

"We were in and out quite a lot during childhood, especially Lucille," he said. "Because our father was a violent alcoholic and our mother..."

He took another deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Our mother was a sexual sadist who tortured her own child."

Edith felt like her whole body had been plunged into ice.

Chapter 38: Crimes

Notes:

This chapter deals with some of the abuse Thomas and especially Lucille suffered as children. It's not particularly graphic, but all the same, I entirely understand if anyone prefers to skip this one. You shouldn't miss any vital plot.

No wonder he'd wanted to put it off until after they'd has sex. Edith felt like she needed to scrub off all her skin, like she never wanted anyone to touch her ever again. She felt sick. Really sick. Like she might throw up.

Thomas had finally looked at her, his face somehow gaunt suddenly, like hollows had opened in his cheeks in no more than seconds.

"You're white as a sheet, sweetheart," he said, looking away again, running a hand down his face. "Go clean yourself up. I'll wait."

The shower couldn't be hot enough for her, turning the dial as far as she could. Her skin turned pink as she scraped at it, wishing she had a brush or a sponge or something.

The mother... All this time, she'd been assuming that any abuse of that kind would have been their father's doing.

Why had they killed him first if she'd been the one who...?

She could hardly bring herself to think the words, tears threatening as she tried to get a grip on herself, knowing she needed to be calm for this.

Deep breaths. Focus on that.

Easier said than done.

The towel was pleasingly rough at least. And she could hear Thomas talking softly. To himself? Surely not.

She opened the bathroom door quietly, finding him half-dressed, using the phone on the desk. He didn't seem disturbed by her being there though, giving her a nod.

"Yeah," he was saying. "Yeah, I know. I'll try not to wake you. Uh-huh. No, I'm sure she won't. Alright. Love you."

Lucille, Edith surmised as he hung up.

"You're sure I won't what?" she asked.

Thomas sighed, shrugging on his shirt and starting to button it. They both felt the need to be covered, it seemed.

"I'm sure you won't treat her any differently when you know more about what happened to her. We talked about it and we think it's best that I tell you. Save her re-living it. I can't be sure I know everything, but... Well, I know enough."

That made sense. Edith didn't feel like anything was ever going to be the same ever again though. She slipped under the covers, holding on to them like a child with a security blanket.

"I... I thought maybe your father..." she tried.

Thomas sighed again, sitting next to her on top of the blanket, kicking his legs up onto the bed and staring at the ceiling.

"It's a common misconception that women are never child sexual abusers," he said, like he was reading from an internal script. "And it is rarer, certainly. Statistically. But statistics don't mean much when it happens to you."

Edith wasn't sure what she wanted. The details would be awful. She couldn't bear them, she didn't think. But saying that, maybe the best option would be to let him talk. See what he said.

That therapist role was calling to her once again.

"Father was brutal," he said. "I can't deny that. He would snap at the least thing. Nearly killed me once. He hit all of us, Mother included. Started when she was pregnant, as these things often do. And maybe that's why she was so cruel to Lucille. Maybe she blamed her for the shift from a boring, loveless marriage to an actively abusive one. I don't know. And I don't care what her motivations were either."

"Nearly killed you?" Edith heard herself whisper.

"I was... Twelve or thirteen, I think. Around that age. I don't even remember what I'd done or was meant to have done or not done. He choked me. Not with his hands but with a belt, till I almost passed out. Or maybe I did. I remember waking up in hospital in a lot of pain, but perhaps they sedated me."

"But why didn't someone do something? The doctors, someone?"

He rubbed his eyes, deep in painful memories.

"Because people like us don't get their children taken away," he said. "Our parents were respectable people. The type that don't have that kind of problem. Only poor people are troubled."

"But a child being strangled..."

"Do you know how common self-strangulation is in pubescent boys? You'd be amazed. They call it the choking game. Something about testing limits, believing a lack of oxygen will get you high. It was easy to lie about. The doctors had all heard of it."

"Why didn't you tell?"

"And make things worse?"

Oh, her heart ached. They must have been so scared. Trapped and unable to get out.

And if he was around twelve... Wasn't that only a little while before their father died?

That would be a good reason to kill him, if he was that dangerous. If it was potentially him or them.

"We're supposed to be talking about Lucille, not me," Thomas said. "What do you want to know?"

Put on the spot, Edith shifted uncomfortably.

"I don't know," she said. "It's so awful, I..."

She flinched as he reached out to her, trying to be comforting, drawing his hand back immediately.

"Then I'll start and you can tell me to stop," he said.

It was like some kind of nightmare bedtime story, her heart rabbit fast in her chest, clutching her own knees and trying to keep calm.

"I don't know when exactly it started," he said. "Might even have been before I was born. And you have to understand, it wasn't because Mother was attracted to children in any way. It was born out of hatred, out of a need to control and humiliate. She owned Lucille, like a dog."

"You wouldn't treat a dog like that," Edith said, thinking of the scars on her back, her legs, a horrible sickness still in her stomach.

"No," Thomas sighed. "No, you wouldn't. But you understand what I mean. Lucille couldn't escape. She had nowhere else to go. And when she talked about it, she was treated as a liar. An ungrateful brat. After all, our parents were very, very respectable. Father was tipped to become a Lord if he could only get his drinking under control."

"But how did they get away with it?"

He shrugged.

"The same way anyone gets away with abuse. Isolated victims. A sort of normalization of it. A sense of shame."

"Did your father... know?"

"He might have known that she hurt her, maybe not the other aspects of it. But he didn't care if he did."

"What... What kinds of things would she do?"

He paused for a moment, getting his thoughts in order.

"It was all about control. That was what she got off on. She would make Lucille stand naked in a corner or kneel in front of a bed with her hands clasped for hours, not even allowed to visit the bathroom. She'd hurt her, again and again until she stopped crying out. Take pictures. Make her touch her, make her... do adult things. And if you don't have another frame of reference, if you don't know that it isn't normal, then how are you meant to guess?"

"But your nannies... Your tutors, your music teachers, someone should have done something."

"We had new ones every few months. No one really stuck around long with Father drunkenly shouting or leering at them. I think a few may have tried, may have noticed something amiss and asked difficult questions, but they were always persuaded that they were wrong. Just mistaking the unpleasant domestic atmosphere caused by a drinking problem for something more sinister. And, of course, there was always the threat of libel. If we so much as implied we were unhappy, it would get worse for us, especially Lucille, so we learned to keep it secret. We became compliant in our own suffering."

"It wasn't your fault."

He looked at her sharply, nostrils flared.

"I know it wasn't," he said coldly, suddenly so harsh, so frightening.

Edith could feel herself blinking, unsure what to try to say to that. She was trying to help, that was all.

"She... Your mother took pictures?" she whispered. "Surely that would be evidence. You could prove what happened."

He softened again. Maybe aware that his rage had bubbled up, trying to restrain it.

"Lucille showed them to me after Mother died. Just after the accident, when she was still in the neck brace. Dozens over the years, processed in a dark room in the basement. You couldn't see Lucille's face in them, but it was obvious it was her if you knew her. The hair, the build. That was her back covered in scars, all red and bruised and bleeding. It was her hands tied, so tight that the circulation was cut off. It was her bound face-down to a bed with an adult's hand on her..."

"Stop!" Edith stammered, trembling. "Please, stop, I... I can't."

He'd closed his eyes, unable to look at the world, his voice barely above a murmur.

"She used to threaten Lucille with them, even when she was older. Say that if she was disobedient or insolent, she'd give the pictures to bad men who would come and do worse things to her. We burned them all in the fireplace, sitting on the rug, drinking antique wine because no one could stop us. And that was the night we decided to become rock stars. Because we were finally free."

Edith could see them so clearly, younger, only just into adulthood, taking alternate swigs from the same bottle and destroying the evidence of so much pain.

"I'm glad they're dead," she heard herself say, even as her own mother's voice seemed to echo back to her from long ago, warning about speaking ill of the departed.

"Me too," Thomas said. "They can't hurt us anymore."

She still had questions though. And even though she felt bad, she had to ask.

"Why didn't you tell anyone when you were older? When you were teenagers, maybe?"

She'd hit on something, something painful. Almost like guilt. Thomas was clenching and unclenching his hands.

"I think... I think Lucille thought that if she tried, if she accused Mother, we'd be written out of the will," he said. "She... She was afraid of ruining my life. Robbing me of my inheritance. She thought we'd lose the house, end up in care... She wanted to wait. And then... Then the accident made telling rather redundant."

His voice had changed, becoming strained. He was trying not to cry, blinking rapidly, sighing out his breath.

"She was always trying to protect me," he whispered. "She could have gone to boarding school, she could have escaped from Mother, but she thought that if she wasn't there then the same thing would happen to me. Seven years old, willingly walking back into hell..."

It was horribly awkward to see him distressed. Edith wasn't sure what to do. Did he want to be comforted? Should she say something?

He took a few deep breaths, visibly taking a grip on himself.

"Anyway... I try to make it up to her now, even though that's impossible. I try to look after her like she looked after me. I try to keep the nightmares away. She's my closest friend and confidant and... Everything, really. We need each other. And I think you're the first person to understand that. The first person we've felt... safe around."

When had the tears started falling? Edith wasn't sure, but she was weeping now, silently feeling as drops rolled down her face, soaking into her T-shirt.

She knew now that she was not going to write any of the details of this in her articles. This was not for public consumption, at least not through her.

Trying to wipe her eyes, she cleared her throat a little.

"Do you think I could... go down and see her?"

"Oh. Er. Well, she might already be asleep."

"I'd like to."

He seemed resistant, but at the same time, maybe he understood. She had a strange need to have contact, to see Lucille peaceful and resting or as her usual spiky self, plotting their route.

The motel stairs were cold against her bare feet, skin sticking slightly against the plastic surface.

Thomas rattled the keys in the lock, struggling with it, easing the door open.

Lucille had left a light on on the opposite side of the bed, but was clearly asleep, curled tightly around half the covers.

For some reason, Edith found herself relieved. Why, she wasn't quite sure. It wasn't like anything new had happened to her tonight.

"Don't treat her any differently," Thomas murmured. "She'd hate that."

"I'll try."

It was going to be difficult.

The open mic night seemed a long, long time ago.

Chapter 39: Mystery

"It's yellow."

The disgust Lucille put into her voice for such a simple observation even managed to get through the fog of Edith's mind.

She hadn't slept terribly well over the last week and a bumpy ride to San Jose had not exactly helped. The public bus was not nearly as comfortable as what they were used to.

She wasn't coping. She knew she wasn't coping. She'd pushed and pushed and pushed and now she knew too much and it felt like it was haunting her.

She didn't even know that many details really and she was still distressed by it.

And she knew she wasn't managing to act as though nothing had changed. She just didn't understand how Lucille could want any kind of intimacy, any kind of touch like that after what she'd been through, especially from a woman.

The red ring had been glinting in the California sun on their journey from San Francisco and Edith had slowly come to the conclusion that it was much the same thing. She controlled the ring that had hurt her and in a similar way, she had taken complete control of her sexuality. She wasn't going to let her childhood trauma affect her adult relationships.

Was it really that easy? Edith wasn't so sure.

And the very idea of anything she did reminding her of that made her feel sick.

When Lucille took her hand, she was careful not to hold too tightly, careful not to let her voice grow too loud, careful, careful, careful, even though she knew that wasn't what Lucille wanted. Lucille wanted everything to stay the same.

Help would be very... Well, helpful. But there was no one Edith felt she could ask for that. Alan couldn't know the extent of their relationship and without that, he wouldn't understand. He'd just tell her that she was too involved with her subject. He'd just worry.

And Finlay... She'd be well placed to advise probably, but again, she couldn't admit the full truth.

And that left Thomas, the man who had trusted her to handle it all, which she was completely and totally failing to do...

"Didn't you know?" Thomas asked, looking up at the Winchester House.

"I've only ever seen black and white images before," Lucille said. "Somehow I wasn't expecting... This."

Edith squinted up at it, shielding her eyes from the sun. It was, indeed, yellow or at least yellow-ish, a strange scaly effect to the walls from almost tile-like bricks. The roof was a reddish-purple, maroon maybe. And while the architecture was gothic, she could see Lucille's point. It wasn't exactly the Addams Family's mansion.

"Maybe it's spooky inside?" she tried.

"It better be," Lucille sighed.

It was guided tour only, they discovered, for safety reasons, giving them some time to wander the grounds first.

It was... very charming. Yes, the house was an odd shape, but it was very pretty and the gardens were lovely, if a little sad. There were statues, some of them memorials. Edith felt the First Nations one was particularly poignant.

"I wish we had gardens," Lucille said a little wistfully.

"I thought Allerdale had plenty of grounds?" Edith asked.

"We do, but the soil is completely clay. I wouldn't want to torment a horticulturalist with it. Nothing grows except scrubby grass and a few extremely determined trees. Not like this. Palms and greenery."

"They must have quite the irrigation system," Thomas said. "I thought it was all drought and wildfire down here."

Edith was only half listening, half in the conversation. She was trying to work out how to word her next article. It was due very soon, but she had to address the dark cloud that was following her and that was difficult.

Lucille Sharpe was seriously abused throughout her childhood...

The details of Lucille Sharpe's abuse are not for public consumption...

I am not comfortable revealing details of child abuse and therefore will not relay the terrible deeds that have been relayed to me...

"Thomas, can you give us a moment, please?"

Again, the sound of Lucille's voice cut through her thoughts as easily as a fire alarm.

A nod from her brother, calmly stepping away from them, wandering off towards a fountain of what looked like twisted fish. Lucille moved close to her, side by side.

"He said nothing would change," she murmured. "He said you'd treat me just the same."

"I'm trying," Edith said, shaking her head. "It's difficult. I can't stop thinking about it. I'm afraid... I'm afraid of upsetting you, of... triggering a flashback or something."

Lucille sighed gently, rubbing her nose where her sunglasses were pinching it.

"Edith... I live in the house where it happened. I live with Mother's portrait hanging in the drawing room. I don't get flashbacks. Nightmares, sometimes, but never waking flashbacks. I'm lucky that way. I've... I've numbed myself to it, I guess. There was my life before, when that happened to me, and there's my life now - my life with Thomas and music and... And making our own decisions, our own choices."

"You sing about her all the time."

"And that's how I deal with it. I won't pretend I've forgotten; I can't forget. But I won't let it control me either. I need to live my life. And I want you to be part of it. I like you, Edith. And I like having sex with you."

The blush came to her cheeks immediately.

"Stop..."

"What? It's true. You don't remind me of anything bad. You're giving and loving and sweet. It's good and I enjoy it. And you enjoy it too, so why let some shit from the past spoil that?"

She was right and Edith knew it, but it was still difficult.

"I'm trying. I promise."

"I'll take that. Kiss me?"

It was embarrassing to do it where they might be seen, but this was important.

She stood on tiptoe to press a quick peck on her lips.

Lucille laced fingers into her hair and kissed her properly. Lingering and sweet. Still enough to make her heart throb, her hands resting easily on the swell of her hips.

"Ladies," Thomas said softly. "I think it's time for our tour."

He wasn't batting an eye. In fact, he seemed a little pleased, maybe because Edith was evidently trying to work through her discomfort. She was trying to make things better.

Their guide was very knowledgeable, very quick. She talked in a steady rattle about the two ballrooms, forty bedrooms, ten-thousand panes of glass, thirteen bathrooms, three elevators, the special shallow stairs that were easier for Sarah Winchester to climb in her advancing years, pointing out the visible remains of the farmhouse that had been the basis for the mansion.

"When she came here in 1884 and began her life's work, Sarah had lost her husband to tuberculosis and her baby daughter to marasmus. After her death, locks of their hair were discovered in a hidden safe inside the main ballroom..."

They were in a fairly large group, maybe twelve or so people. A mixture of tourists, one or two families from overseas with one parent whispering translations.

"What is... marasmus?" one asked, saving Edith the trouble of asking Alan later.

"It's a severe calorific deficiency. Most cases are caused by malnutrition and poverty, but given the Winchester's wealth, it is more likely that she suffered from some kind of infection or congenital disorder that caused her to be unable to absorb nutrients properly."

They were shown the more unusual architectural features - stairs going to nowhere, doors that opened into empty air, a recurring spiderweb motif upon the windows.

Many of them were stained glass, designed by Tiffany. There was one that made rainbows appear when hit by sunlight, a clever trick with prisms. Sarah Winchester had had it installed in an interior room, far from the light, so the effect could never be seen.

Edith could understand why people believed the house was haunted. Everything was so strange and unnerving; irregular stairs, narrowing corridors, textured wallpaper that almost seemed to move beneath your gaze.

But somehow she didn't see horror. She saw sadness. A deep, deep pain. Yes, Mrs Winchester had all the money in the world, absolutely staggering, unimaginable wealth, but she had lost what was really important to her.

That was a very privileged thought to have. Family was important, certainly, but far easier to appreciate from a position of financial stability, where home and food were never precarious. And she could have used her money for other things. More useful things maybe.

All the same, watching your child waste away, grow thinner and thinner...

And now Edith was thinking of her dad again.

She noticed Lucille wiping her eyes a little, sniffing, Thomas murmuring something in her ear.

Was that her fault? The guilt was setting in, like dry rot. Maybe she could... make more of an effort, as she'd promised.

In the next room, as their guide explained about the redwood used throughout the house and how it had all been stained to a different shade at great effort and expense, Edith sidled close, trying to be subtle as she wrapped an arm around Lucille's waist, squeezing gently.

She got a smile for it. The very beginnings of rebuilding something despite her fears.

She was quite glad they'd come here, despite the discomfort of the journey. Yes, most of the moveable furniture was unoriginal, but that was just to give an idea of how the house might have been. It was the building itself that was really interesting. How many beautiful things had been shut away to remain unseen. The skylights that would never see daylight. Wallpaper embedded with mica to sparkle, kept in the dark.

There was a poetry to it that she loved. And in a strange way, it suited the Sharpes too. There were musical instruments scattered throughout the house that they almost visibly itched to play.

"Is it like Allerdale?" Edith asked as they climbed the stairs up to the attic.

"It shares some traits," Lucille said. "The lifts are somewhat like our one. And the wooden floors. Some of the brass fittings. Our building has an older shell though. It's got more hangovers from the past. And it's physically darker inside, but that might just be the difference between California and England."

Edith quite wanted to see it in person. She wondered if she'd get a chance, maybe once all this was over.

Assuming they were still talking to her and didn't just unceremoniously dump her once the tour was over.

She chastised herself. You couldn't be dumped if you weren't dating, after all. This... whatever they had would come to an inevitable end and then they'd go about their separate lives. And everything would be fine.

"It feels like the house I see in my dreams," Thomas said. "All this would make sense in a dream, you know? Doors going places you don't expect."

And speaking of unexpected, somehow Edith wasn't at all prepared for the shooting gallery at the top of the house.

If the purpose of the bizarre building design was to confuse and placate the restless spirits of all those killed by Winchester rifles, this seemed an unlikely way to go about it.

Half of the room was set up like an antique parlour, and scattered around it were targets.

"There are 38 in total," their guide announced. "One for every year that the house was under construction. Please feel free to try it out."

Thomas declined, but Lucille took up one of the guns. Not a real one, of course. It was some kind of laser tag style game.

And every time a target was hit, something moved. A chandelier rose and fell, shutters banged with the sound of howling wind, a stuffed cat yowled, a rocking chair moved of its own accord and a table lifted and turned. Like it was haunted.

Well... Edith always imagined that supernatural events would be a little more subtle than this.

It was a little ridiculous, but at least Lucille was enjoying herself. It was difficult to say how successful she was being at hitting the little red lights, being one of a few players, but she seemed to be taking it very seriously.

The stillness afterwards was deafening. If unquiet spirits were angry with them, apparently it was a silent rage.

"Worth coming?" Thomas asked as they sat down for lunch, very late in the day.

"Definitely," Lucille said. "I knew I'd like it. I think I might be Sarah Winchester reincarnated."

Edith frowned, uneasy.

"But you've never lost a child," she said. "Or a husband."

"Not as far as you know."

It was somehow reassuring to be teased. Things had not changed. Not really. She just knew something that she hadn't known, but which had always been there in the background.

She could get through this. She could get back to a sense of normality. It would just take a little while, that was all. It would be difficult but worth it. And in the meantime, she could just... pretend everything was fine.

Not the healthiest approach, perhaps, but she primarily wanted the impression of being back to normal until she could achieve it for real. The route didn't matter as long as she got there.

On a second, somewhat more comfortable bus, Lucille taking a nap and Thomas reading, Edith finally got started on her article, deadline looming just a little.

Any readers hoping for a complete run-down of the origins of each and every scar on Lucille Sharpe's skin will be disappointed. I have made the decision not to write about that. This is my choice, but it was not a difficult conclusion to reach.

Perhaps at another date, they may choose to reveal it all, but I will be treating the details as being told to me in confidence. I am simply not comfortable with revealing them.

Suffice to say, their childhood was not only unhappy, but I would venture to say unbearable. They are the only two people who know just how bad it was, a shadow they carry with them always.

With such a heavy burden, perhaps it is of no surprise that sometimes unpleasant themes bubble up in their music.

A vibrant concert in San Francisco in an underground venue far from the bright sunshine culminated in crowd favorite Cursed in a slightly new arrangement...

Chapter 40: Advice

"So, how bad was it?"

"Alan..."

"No, no, I'm not looking for details. I'm a doctor, I get it. It's confidential. Off-limits. I really just want to make sure you're alright. Did it... I don't know, upset you?"

Edith was sitting on the floor in yet another motel after a few days of meandering their way through California. She couldn't even remember the name of the town they were in. It began with a B maybe?

They'd seen a lot of forests. Driven down to Los Angeles just to see the Hollywood sign and the other tourist traps.

The Sharpes seemed to have a number fans in the area. They'd been stopped more than once to sign things, take pictures, getting through a few Polaroids.

Some of them had asked Edith to sign things too. She didn't want to, but she did it anyway. She didn't want to be famous, but she supposed she couldn't help it. A certain crowd of Crimson Peak followers were perhaps always going to recognize her.

She wondered if it would all change with the publication of her new article, the atmosphere of those little meetings. It didn't say much, but it said enough, it confirmed something awful. Would the fans feel more awkward about approaching them? Or would they ask personal questions, try to get more answers?

Had she made the right decision, holding back? Or would that just drive curiosity?

There wasn't much time left to worry. It was soon going to be out in the world. Edith had been using it as a convenient shield to hide behind, avoiding being social when she could, saying that she needed to write, and now she felt exposed and vulnerable.

She still wasn't used to knowing and it was easier to just avoid interaction than to deal with it.

Apparently the article was already online having been sent a couple of days ago. She hoped whichever junior office worker was typing up her words and scanning her pictures was being paid enough.

Alan had read it as soon as he could, of course. And it had clearly worried him, despite his casual attitude. He was trying to hide it, trying to sound cool. All the same, she was grateful for the support.

"Of course it upset me," she said. "It's child abuse. And they want everything to carry on as normal and I'm just... terrified of saying the wrong thing. I think Lucille might have post-traumatic stress."

"Does she have the right symptoms?"

Always a hair's breadth from clinician mode. He wasn't even that kind of doctor, but maybe you were meant to at least be aware of potential mental health problems.

"I think so. She says she doesn't have flashbacks, but she has mood swings and nightmares. She gets anxious."

"You get anxious."

"I know, but, like... Really anxious. More than I do. And she uses performance to hide it. There's Lucille and there's Lucille if that makes sense."

"Disassociating?"

Edith considered it, but she didn't think so.

"Most people with a public persona probably do it to a certain extent," she said. "It's a coping mechanism, not anything more than that."

"Well, it might be more like complex PTSD of course. That's when it doesn't stem from one event but several, especially in childhood. It can also manifest with physical symptoms. Headaches, stomach pains, that kind of thing."

Edith thought of her occasional migraines and wondered.

"And Thomas?" Alan asked. "Want him diagnosed?"

"Um... I get the feeling that it wasn't... quite as bad for him. Still awful, but not quite so bad. Not the same kind. He's... He's hurt, but I'm not sure he's traumatised to the same extent. But maybe he's just good at hiding it. They both are, to be honest."

There was a vague sigh, almost imperceptible. More of an exhale, really.

"Don't try to fix him, Edith. I know you. You love a sad baby bird to try and mend. You can't solve everyone's problems, no matter how much you'd like to."

Hmm. How about two sad baby birds?

Although maybe Alan had a bit of a point.

"Any advice?" she asked. "I'm walking on eggshells and it's just putting us all on edge."

And that sigh was definitely audible.

"You won't like it."

Well, that boded well.

"Thanks for the warning," she said cautiously. "But go on. Tell me."

"OK. Well... Remember in the bad times?"

He was right. She didn't like this at all, trying to brace herself for it, taking deep breaths. Staying nice and calm. She'd worked very hard to be good at it, most of the time.

Of course, it was easiest like this. When he couldn't see her face.

"How did it feel when your dad was being weird around you?" Alan asked. "Being so super careful all the time?"

She closed her eyes, resting her head against the wall.

"He was doing what he thought was the right thing."

"I know that," he said, voice gentle. "But how did it make you feel?"

She sighed. He already knew the answer, but he would still make her admit it out loud. She was supposed to talk about this kind of thing.

"It sucked," she said. "And it made me feel worse. But his heart was in the right place. He thought it was his fault and it wasn't, it wasn't anyone's fault..."

"But the effect was the same, even though it wasn't deliberate."

"He didn't know how to deal with it. Neither of us did."

She wasn't hiding her feelings well enough, evidently.

"I'm sorry," Alan said. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No. No, no, it's fine."

Despite her careful breathing, a sob had almost slipped from her chest at the memory. That bright, cheerful kitchen of her childhood had suddenly become a place of conflict and unhappiness, the space where her mother used to be like a chasm between her and her dad.

But they had repaired it, bit by bit between them. Her early adolescence, stepping into a new role as primary housekeeper while her father grieved, him stepping up when it became clear she wasn't well, the two of them helping each other get better and forming a stronger relationship than she could have imagined in those early, awkward, dark, dark days.

And then she'd lost him too.

"You're right, though," she said, sniffing. "You're right, I hated it. I wanted things to go back to before he knew."

"But you couldn't. And this is just the same - you have to give yourself time to get used to it. Just... do what you would have wanted your dad to do. Reassure them. Let them know you're there for them. As long as you can handle it, of course."

That was good advice. Upsetting but good.

"I can handle it," she said.

"Sounds like it's good for your work though. They must trust you a lot to talk about that kind of stuff."

"I hope they do. I know they're not supposed to be my friends, but they are a bit. I like them. Really like them."

"And that's why you want to help them. Fix them. Don't worry, it's just because you're a good person."

"Oh, come on, Alan. You're a doctor. You fix people for a living."

"I fix bodies. It's different. And speaking of which, I should really get going. Night shift all week - lucky me."

She did feel better for having spoken to him. He was right. Things wouldn't get any better if she didn't work at it.

And no time like the present.

She washed her face, just freshening up, re-tying her hair. She looked tired, but she felt like she'd been looking tired for ages.

What day was it? What month was it for that matter? She only counted in the gaps between articles. Time was becoming more and more of an abstract concept.

She carefully locked her door and made her way up a few floors until she was outside the Sharpes' room, the peeling paint almost glaring at her.

Last chance to run away and she forced herself not to take it, knocking and waiting.

The creak of floorboards inside, footsteps approaching, maybe checking the peep hole.

"It's Edith," she heard Thomas call.

A beat before he opened the door, looking very soft, tired, his hair slightly tousled.

"Hi," he said, seeming a little surprised to see her.

"I... I thought maybe I could join you both for tea before bed," Edith said.

He smiled, her heart giving a glad thump of relief. This was a good decision.

"Of course," he said. "Come in. Lucille's just in the bathroom. Sit down, get comfy."

He fetched the kettle to the distinct sound of the shower running. They had a couple of minutes alone.

"I'm going to start making a conscious effort to get everything back to normal," Edith said, like saying it out loud could make it more real. "But it might take me a while."

"Alright. I appreciate it. Really."

The bathroom door opened in a cloud of steam, Lucille wandering out with her hair wrapped in a towel. Despite everything, it was awkward to see her.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey. I thought I could come up for tea. Hang out for a bit."

"Yeah. Yeah, sounds good."

She unwound her hair, setting about brushing it, Thomas going to fill the kettle.

Edith watched for a moment before growing brave.

"I could do that for you," she said.

Lucille looked up at her in the mirror, such a familiar sight. Edith felt like they were always looking at each other in reflections.

"Alright," she said, holding out the brush.

It was an old-fashioned type, made of bone maybe, or at least good imitation of it, with very hard bristles. Edith was very careful, working in stages, holding the hair tightly at the root to prevent it pulling, being extra gentle around her scalp.

The faint clink of cups being set out, the rustle of teabags, the whooshing sound of the kettle were companionable accompaniment to her work, finally separating Lucille's hair into three thick bands and plaiting it up.

"Do you have a tie?" Edith asked.

Thomas put one into Lucille's hand without even looking up.

The three of them settled on the edge of the bed, a little awkwardness still rolling through the room. Edith felt a lot calmer though. They had touched and been quietly intimate and nothing bad had happened. Baby steps.

"Are you looking forward to Las Vegas?" she asked.

"I'm looking forward to seeing it, but I don't think I'll like it," Lucille said. "Does that make sense?"

"Not really."

"Well, I want to have seen it, but also the sheer amount of sound and light and... excess is going to be a little overwhelming. Too much stimulation, you know?"

"It might be fun," Edith said.

Lucille laughed.

"You don't mean that."

Maybe she didn't. Casinos certainly made her nervous. The fear of losing big was stronger for her than the chance of winning.

"It will be fun to visit, briefly. But I know what you mean. Vegas seems like... a lot."

"What's your game?" Thomas asked. "Blackjack? Roulette? Or I bet you have a good poker face."

"You're one to talk. You both are."

"That's us," Lucille said, smiling, swirling her cup. "Inscrutable. I think you'd be good at it, though. You're good at reading people."

This had been a good idea. Edith could feel warmth and relaxation flowing through her, feeling very peaceful.

"Are you tired, sweetheart?" Thomas said softly.

Now he mentioned it, her eyelids were very heavy. Maybe she'd finally had a weight lifted from her. Maybe talking to Alan had really helped, maybe getting over this first hurdle...

God, she was exhausted...

"I should get to bed," she said, finishing her tea. "Otherwise I'll... I'll end up falling asleep here."

"I'll walk you down," Thomas said.

This was tiredness like she'd never known. It was almost difficult to walk straight. She was practically swaying, like she was drunk...

Thomas caught her, letting her lean against him.

"I don't understand what's wrong with me," she mumbled.

"Burn-out, I expect," he said quietly. "You've been working so hard and you've been emotionally drained day after day after day. Sometimes it hits suddenly like this and the body just rebels. Where's your key?"

He reached into her pocket to get it, opening her door and guiding her to the bed. She was distantly conscious of being tucked in before sleep took her completely.

Or maybe not completely. She gradually became aware that she could hear voices. Thomas and Lucille.

"I didn't want her to fall asleep in our room," Thomas was saying. "She'd be embarrassed if she woke up there in the morning."

"You could have carried her back. Over the threshold, live out your romantic dreams."

"Yes, because carrying sleeping women around cheap motels isn't at all suspicious. Besides, that's easier if they can hold on."

"Over the shoulder then. Like a caveman."

What were they doing? To Edith's sleepy confusion, she didn't seem to be able to move, or open her eyes even. But she could hear rustling.

Were they going through her stuff? Why?

And why couldn't she wake up?

She heard them leave, the door clicking locked behind them, drifting in and out of consciousness for most of the night.

At least in one of the later periods of wakefulness, she was able to get up, get some water, change into her pyjamas.

And check her bag.

Nothing seemed to be missing. Nothing obvious. All her clothes were still haphazardly folded, her shoes jammed into the corners.

Had they been checking up on what she'd been writing?

A horrible wave of betrayal rolled through her stomach, like sickness, finding her folder. There wasn't even anything new in it. Just pictures from LA.

It probably wasn't that, then.

So... So what?

She found it difficult to drift off again, too wound up, too worried, and at breakfast she was tense.

Should she confront them? Or let it lie with the risk that it would poison the relationship they were only just rebuilding?

Things wouldn't get better if she did nothing, she figured. And maybe there was a perfectly rational explanation.

She still waited until Finlay was up at the buffet for a little privacy though.

"Were you in my room last night?" she asked, trying to sound nonchalant. "When I was sleeping? I thought I heard something."

Thomas looked guilty. Lucille didn't.

"I just needed to borrow your nail scissors," she said, shrugging one shoulder. "I think I must have left mine in San Francisco. I didn't think you'd mind."

"We didn't realize you were still awake," Thomas said. "I'm sorry."

Finlay put down a pile of pancakes in front of her, butter gently melting on the top, saying something about getting a good start to the day.

Edith made herself eat, even though she didn't want to.

She was busy looking at Lucille's hands. Her fingers. Her perfect nails.

And wondering.

Chapter 41: Waking Up in Vegas

A strange paranoia seemed to have gripped Edith's very core. Everything was a potential threat, a probable betrayal. She knew the Sharpes were talking about her, all the time, she knew it.

And she wasn't going to be having any more of that tea. There was something about it, some soporific effect. It made her fall asleep.

She wasn't sure if she'd go so far as to think they were drugging her. That was mad, that was ridiculous. Why would they be? She was just their pet journalist. They had nothing to gain from that, surely. It didn't make any sense, unless there was something she wasn't seeing.

On the other hand, something in that tea clearly had an adverse effect on her, regardless of the cause. And she'd certainly never had reactions like that before, which was enough to make her cautious.

If they were up to something, she didn't want them suspecting that she suspected though. She was going to have to tread carefully, give an air of complete faith and trust and lack of care. Innocent and easily beguiled.

Was it strange she found such an underhand persona much easier to assume than pretending everything was normal for the sake of a friend... lover... whatever?

It felt more like journalism maybe. She was practically undercover.

Seeing Las Vegas in the daytime was... strange. Very pretty. Unbelievably hot. Very green, considering they'd just driven through miles of desert.

"Irrigation again," Edith said. "Must be expensive and difficult."

"I was reading about this kind of thing actually," Thomas said. "Apparently they're pushing towards something called xeriscaping. Dry gardens. Using plants that thrive in arid environments. But it's difficult to wean people off lawns apparently."

There was a lot to see. The famous sign, a mind-bending building that was apparently some kind of brain health research facility, all manner of weird and wonderful and bizarre structures.

It felt like a pretend city, impossible buildings built in an impossible place.

They decided that none of them were overly keen on the Neon Museum of old casino lights, but the Mob Museum... Well, they thought it sounded fun. A museum all about organized crime when they had a former detective in their little group? And apparently there was a working speakeasy in the basement with moonshine on sale.

The tour started on the third floor and Edith immediately got the feeling that this had been a bad idea.

They had the wall from the St Valentine's Day massacre. Or most of it, at least. Apparently parts had been sold off when the building was demolished, brick by brick, but they had the remains. You could see the pock marks from the bullets.

Finlay seemed uneasy, uncomfortable, and at one point on the second floor entered a room and turned back immediately.

"You know what?" she said. "I'm not feeling too good. I'm going to find a nice little coffee shop and sit this one out. Meet you by the bus in a couple of hours."

It didn't take long for Edith to see what had upset her. They had pictures of murder victims in here. Actual crime scene photos, image after image of violent death under a large sign proclaiming them the Mob's Greatest Hits.

Well, it was certainly arresting. Pun not intended.

She stood staring at it, unable to look away even as it horrified her, aware that Thomas and Lucille were with her, waiting for her to say something, to nervously break the silence like she usually did.

"I suppose... I suppose if you've seen this kind of thing in real life then this might bring it all flooding back," she said.

"She never worked homicide," Lucille said.

"But you still see things, don't you, in that kind of work? Whether you expect to or not. Same with journalism, really."

Thomas gave her an odd glance, like he was trying to figure out exactly what she meant by that.

It was a very good museum, even if the content wouldn't be for everyone. Edith particularly liked the forensics lab. Maybe in another life, she'd have pursued science rather than writing.

There was nothing about how to identify deliberate car crashes or carbon monoxide poisoning, unfortunately. It was mainly about blunt force trauma and wounds, guns and knives. The little places on the body where life could be snuffed out.

"Shall we check out the speakeasy, then?" Edith asked.

"I'm a little concerned about Finlay," Thomas said. "It's very hot today after all. I'd hate for her to get heatstroke."

She was a grown woman in her sixties who knew how to look after herself, but Edith was being yielding and soft so she didn't say anything.

They found her nearby, exploring the local stores, sensibly seeking out air conditioning until it was time to head to their hotel.

The bus was absolutely sweltering despite the sunshades they'd put in the windows. Thank God it was only a short journey to an underground parking lot.

"So, what's the plan for tonight, kids?" Finlay asked. "Hitting the strip? Taking in a show like me? You know what they say about what happens in Vegas..."

"Well, I definitely want to go out," Lucille said. "Edith, care to join me?"

"Sure. Sounds fun."

Alright, maybe her turnaround from walking a tightrope to back to normal was a little bit sudden. She noticed Thomas looking at her again in the rearview mirror, a little concerned maybe.

She smiled at him, trying to act like nothing was wrong, like she had totally accepted that they were just in her room in the middle of the night to borrow her nail scissors. Both of them. Sure, that made sense.

"Am I invited?" he asked. "Or are you planning a ladies' night? I'm sure I can find a way to have fun by myself."

Edith didn't want to let him out of her sight, though she wasn't sure why. What was he going to do, break into her room while she was out? What for? That was still the big hole in her theory, the real reason.

"No, you should come," Lucille said. "I don't want you getting in trouble. You'll be off counting cards, I know you will."

"Well, of course. It's not illegal. It's just maths. How else are you meant to win?"

"By taking chances."

"But why not shorten the odds where you can?"

Edith had the strangest sensation that they weren't really talking about cards at all.

How long had this intrigue been sitting at the back of her mind, ignored? How long had she been deliberately not listening to her instincts?

She'd been so suspicious of them when they first met, and she knew they were liars and probably killers and still she'd let herself be charmed into submission.

And suddenly, the veil had been lifted a little.

"Oh, you won't catch me doing that," Finlay said. "House always wins. But sequins and singing - count me in."

It was difficult to imagine the Sharpes ever going near a sequin willingly. Only if it was ironic perhaps.

"There's a reason we didn't even try to book a show here," Thomas said. "Not the right style, I fear. No, tonight is just for fun and games."

They really were pushing the boat out. This was not one of the motels they'd become used to, or the cheap hotels. It wasn't the biggest or fanciest, not Caesar's Palace or anything, but it was certainly imposing and impressive.

There was even an elevator. It felt like so long since Edith had stayed in a building with more than two floors.

Thomas took the typewriter without asking, even while Edith protested that she didn't need help, telling Lucille he'd be up shortly. It was an obvious excuse to get her alone and he evidently wasn't going to be told no.

She flashed her key card over the door panel, getting a little ding as it clicked open. It was a very nice hotel room. Very plush. Purple and gold furnishings. About six more scatter cushions than were necessary.

"What's the matter with you today?" Thomas asked, putting the case on the desk while Edith dumped her suitcase.

"Nothing. I'm just trying to get back to normal, like I said."

"Whatever this is, it's not normal. Don't lie, Edith. You're not very good at it."

"But you are," she said, reckless, stepping close to him, trying her best to be intimidating.

"What do you mean?"

"Why were you really in my room last night? Why does that tea make me fall asleep?"

He'd set his jaw, but smiled at her, forced maybe, teeth glinting.

"Lucille had to borrow your scissors," he said. "And many people find chamomile gives a soothing effect. Look, I know exactly what's going on, Edith. And it's OK."

"What?"

He ran a hand gently through her hair, like he was trying to soothe a spooked animal.

"Remember you told me that you went to therapy? So you have some... difficulties. Learning the truth, learning what happened to us, I think it's made you frightened and that's manifesting in anxiety. You need to remember your techniques for dealing with that. You're... You're not imagining things as such, you're just jumping to incorrect conclusions."

"Then why were you there with her? Why did it need both of you?"

His hand kept moving, gentle but firm, grounding and lovely and infuriating all at once.

"I hadn't left. You must have been drifting in and out of sleep. Lucille realized she'd lost her scissors and rushed down to quickly borrow yours before I locked the key inside. That's all. What else would we have been doing?"

What exactly did she suspect them of? Going through her stuff for... some unknown reason.

Was he right? Was she just stressed and worried and getting paranoid off the back of that?

She wasn't totally convinced, but she wanted him to think she was.

They weren't the only ones who could weaponize feelings after all.

It wasn't difficult to cry. She felt hurt and scared and soon she could feel tears welling up, rolling down her cheeks, Thomas hugging her close.

"I just..." she sobbed. "I'm just so tired and I can't stop thinking about how awful it must have been and I had to include it in my article and I decided not to put any details but people will still know and then when you read it you'll hate me and Lucille will hate me and..."

It was like once she'd opened the box of fears, even in self-defense, she couldn't stop them escaping.

"Hey, hey... Shh... Of course we won't hate you. We love you, Edith."

"No," she said, shaking her head against his chest. "No, you don't. I'm just... I'm just for fun. I'm just a game."

"That's not true. Maybe it was just fun at the beginning, but it's more than that now. I meant it when I said we had a connection. I love you. And Lucille loves you too."

It was hard to believe that when they were so clearly lying to her. It was hard to believe they even knew what love was.

Maybe there were grains of truth buried in amongst it all, but she still didn't believe that nail scissors story. Not for one second. It was just an excuse for something.

"Are you waiting for me to say I love you back?" she mumbled.

"Do you?"

"No. I... I feel something, but I don't think it's love. Not real love."

Love shouldn't be so scary for one thing. Shouldn't be suspicious, shouldn't be anxious.

"That's alright," Thomas said, laughing softly. "It's a fact, not an expectation."

He held her for a few more moments, waiting for her to get herself back under control before kissing her with enough tenderness that it sent shivers up and down her spine. Good shivers despite it all, her body betraying her yet again.

No wonder she couldn't think straight.

"Dress up tonight," he said. "We're going to have fun. Clean slate. Alright?"

If only that were possible.

"Yeah," she said instead. "Yeah, OK."

He kissed her again and left, leaving her to flop down on the bed. Nice. Springy. Soft and firm.

Dress up, huh? Did she have anything glamorous with her? She had heels certainly, but nothing like a ballgown or anything. She'd mainly taken clothes suitable for press conferences and so on, who knew why.

But she could improvise, probably.

There were other things she could weaponize after all.

First of all, a long shower, using the shampoo and conditioner provided, an actually functional hairdryer letting her achieve something close to sleek, tying it up.

And then she set about making her clothes look less professional than they were.

Black bra under a white shirt, fewer buttons done up than she normally did, skirt worn high around her ribs to make it short... She looked a bit like the secretary in a porn film, but that was pretty close to what she was going for.

She drew a line at wearing her glasses though.

Make-up. Bold. Daring. Attempting something of a smoky eye, the darker shadows helping to hide the marks of lack of sleep.

Lucille would wear red lipstick. To match or not match?

Not match. Differently striking and strikingly different, that's what she was going for.

After testing a few different shades, she decided to use concealer to pale her lips out. It made her look ill, but, like... fashionably so.

It was a victory to open the door to the Sharpes and hear them both gasp slightly.

"Wow," Thomas said, stepping through the door, looking strangely normal in a black suit. A little like he was going to a funeral.

Lucille on the other hand... Never mind the red on her lips; she was wearing a scarlet jumpsuit that covered everything and yet suggested so much. There was something about the cut of it, the way the neckline revealed the curve of her breasts, the way her legs were so clear when in motion but concealed when still, it all conspired to make the nudity beneath so clear.

Thomas took up the camera from Edith's desk, adjusting them with gentle touches and snapping a picture, tucking it into an inside pocket of his jacket before they'd even looked at it. Keeping it for himself.

"Shall we?" he asked.

Edith took his hand when he offered it, Lucille on his other arm, looking like a gangster and his molls in the reflective elevator walls.

They did look good, Edith had to admit. All three of them. She felt short, as usual, despite the shoes, but for the first time in a while she maybe could see some allure in herself.

It was her eyes, she decided. Something intriguing in them.

"So, to dinner first or straight out on the town?" Thomas asked. "Apparently the covered walkways on Fremont Street are stunning."

They didn't make a decision. The receptionist had spotted them, hurrying over.

"Mr Sharpe? Miss Sharpe?"

"Yes?"

"Are you travelling with Mrs Deborah Finlay, room 113?"

"We are, yes. Is something wrong?"

The permanent smile had fallen from her perfect face. This was clearly very serious.

"I'm sorry, we've just had a call from the hospital."

Edith's whole body went cold.

Chapter 42: Changes of Plans

At least they weren't the only ones in the hospital dressed for a night on the town, though most of the others seemed to be worse for wear via various substances.

Apparently Finlay had gone for a pre-theater meal but began to feel concerning chest pains somewhere between the soup and the main, so concerning that she'd mentioned them to her server and had found herself whisked off to the Las Vegas medical district, probably protesting all the way.

A whole district of hospitals and nursing homes... Well, at least it concentrated expertise, Edith figured.

They did their best to stay out of the way as they waited what seemed like an interminable length of time for a doctor to give them an update. Would they even be allowed to see her? They weren't family after all.

"How are we going to tell June?" Edith found herself asking out loud.

"She might not want the family to know," Thomas said. "We'll find out what it was first, how serious, and what she wants to happen."

That made sense. Edith took off her shoes and tried to subtly tug her skirt down to a more modest length. The lighting in here was clinical and unflattering, making her feel exposed.

"I hate hospitals," Lucille said softly.

Despite it all, despite all her suspicions, a little guilt rolled through Edith then, instinctively putting an arm around her waist. Yes, the Sharpes were up to something, but they were still those frightened children that she'd felt so sorry for. They'd still endured so much. Too much.

It was almost nice to be leant upon, emotionally and physically. Thomas might have his concerns, but it seemed Lucille still trusted her. Or she was good at hiding things, of course.

"I doubt anyone likes them really," Edith said, just for something to say. "Especially if they've been in them for... unpleasant reasons. Not that there are too many pleasant reasons, I suppose."

"Childbirth," Lucille suggested. "Depending on your view on children, of course."

Mm. That was true, Edith supposed. Or if you got good test results or something.

Eventually, a doctor came round the corner looking for them, ponytail swishing with every step, blunt and direct in her report.

"The good news is that it wasn't a heart attack," she said. "It was angina, related to her high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. However, given that it occurred at rest and to a severe level does require further investigation to determine her risk of imminent heart failure and what kind of preventative treatment would be best."

"But she's alright?" Thomas asked. "We can see her?"

"Certainly. But my initial prognosis is that she will require a procedure to widen her arteries and stents to keep them open. She won't be able to fly for a while and she's not to drive anywhere until we know it's safe. If she had a heart attack on the freeway... Well, you can imagine."

Edith could, in horrible detail. And evidently so could Lucille, trembling slightly beside her.

Of course. Car accidents. However it had happened, she'd been through one of those before.

"And how long...?"

"We'll do some more tests to confirm and try to have it done in the next few days. Then I'd suggest a matter of weeks for recovery at the very least."

Weeks. They didn't have weeks to hang around in Las Vegas.

What were they going to do?

They were let through to a ward, behind some curtains, and there was Finlay, hooked up to monitors and looking very tired and miserable. She managed to smile for them, though.

"Oh, look at you three," she said. "All dressed up. Sorry for giving you such a scare."

"Not at all," Thomas said, gentle and warm, all the charm he was capable of in his voice. "These things can't be helped. We just want to make sure you get the treatment you need."

She sighed, chest heaving, frowning and shaking her head.

"They're saying some nonsense about not driving for a while," she said. "And I tried telling them that that wasn't an option, but they weren't having it."

"I'm afraid we might have to listen to them. Health comes first. Now, what shall we tell June when we call her?"

It was not up for debate, no matter how much Finlay sighed and tutted and complained that her daughter would tell her off for this.

"And what about you?" she asked. "You can't cancel your tour. You'll have to go on without me."

"We'll struggle through. And we'll pay for your trip home when you're well enough. And for June to come down to see you if she wants to."

More protests, but Thomas was having none of it. Kind but firm. Insistent. Persuasive. And eventually Finlay sighed and nodded, agreeing that she didn't have a choice.

"These wretched arteries," she said. "You think it'll never happen, that they're always going to behave themselves and then they pick the worst possible moment. Guess I'll just have to rely on Miss Edith's articles to keep me up to date. Get one of the nurses to buy me the magazine."

"We'll call to check on you. And you better give us your room key so we can collect your things."

She smiled, nodding, reaching out for Edith, squeezing her hand.

"Now, you look after yourself, you hear?" she said, her eyes hard, meaningful, saying all the unsaid things. "And look after these two as well. I don't want to hear of anyone tiring themselves out. Promise?"

"Yeah," Edith said, her throat dry. "Yeah, I promise."

She had to lean against the wall to put her shoes back on, tottering out into the warm night air, Lucille gazing up at the moon with large, watery eyes.

"We almost lost her," she whispered. "To a stupid heart attack."

"She didn't have a heart attack," Thomas said. "And they're going to prevent that from happening. She's going to be fine."

It was almost surprising to see Lucille so affected, so openly emotional, letting Thomas embrace her, resting her face against his shoulder. But in another way, it was an impulse Edith recognized - a desire to control the world, to know exactly what was happening, and the shock at being blindsided was upsetting.

"I think," Thomas said quietly. "That we should go back to the hotel, put on our pyjamas, call June and then get room service. We can't go out now. We wouldn't enjoy it."

He was right, but Edith wasn't sure if she was invited, standing awkwardly to the side.

Lucille sighed and nodded, moving away, wiping her eyes where her make-up had started to run.

"Do you want me to call her?" she asked.

"No, it's alright. You and Edith can change while I'm on the phone."

Ah. So she was being included. That was nice. Maybe.

It wasn't like she could lean on anyone else for support right now. The shock was going to hit her soon, she could feel it in the sombre cab ride back to their hotel.

"Just head up when you're ready," Thomas said as she stepped out of the elevator.

Her underwear had left marks on her skin, quickly covered by an oversized t-shirt and leggings as she took down her hair and took off her make-up, reverting back to her usual self. She felt a degree of trepidation, but she didn't exactly want to be alone either, keen to find comfort where she could.

Lucille opened the door and pulled her into a hug immediately, kissing the side of her head. Edith was a bit stunned, unable to do much more than pat her back. She could hear Thomas on the phone, clearly trying to keep June calm.

"Are you OK?" Edith found herself asking.

"It's scary," Lucille mumbled. "And I don't like being scared."

Maybe Edith knew what she meant, squeezing her, kissing back, even letting Lucille make it something more direct, more intimate, while Thomas said goodbye and put the phone down.

She was getting almost used to kissing in front of him now, which worried her just a little. It wasn't like they weren't all aware of what was going on, but still.

"Tough evening," Thomas said, proffering a menu at them. "Comfort food needed, I think."

"They won't have chips," Lucille said. "Not proper ones. French fries aren't the same. They're too thin."

They had a lot of other things though. Pizza and sliders, chicken wings, filled potato skins. Precious little by way of vegetable matter, but that wasn't the point. The point was to recover from shock, and ice tea was a good start. Edith was more comfortable on a chair though, wary of spilling food on the faux-velvet throw.

"This wasn't part of the plan," Lucille said, anxiously rubbing her hands over her knees, satin shorty pyjamas at risk of ketchup stains. "I like having a plan."

"Then we'll make a new plan," Thomas said. "We'll share the driving, stop for breaks a little more often along the way. It's not ideal, but we'll manage."

Lucille didn't seem totally convinced, flopping back amongst the cushions, sighing.

"We've put everything into this tour," she said softly. "We need it to work out."

Thomas casually stroked a hand over the flash of skin revealed at the base of her camisole.

"It will," he said.

"And if it doesn't?"

He paused for a moment, closing his eyes. Like this was a discussion they'd had a hundred times before.

"Then we'll go home and try again."

She sat up, idly pushing his hand away.

"I suppose at least we'll have written some new songs."

"And Edith's book, of course."

Ah. Yes. The collected writings, all the unseen pictures from behind the scenes.

Speaking of which...

"You two look good," Edith said. "Relaxed, kind of. I'll just get the camera, if that's OK."

It wasn't every day you saw performers eating junk food in their PJs after all.

At first she was a little nervous to be walking around in her bare feet, the thick carpet squishing beneath her toes as she walked down the corridor. There was a strangely sterile smell to everything that spoke of redecoration, of constant cleaning.

It was quiet though. She only saw three other people, an older couple swaying their way along, leaning on each other and giggling, and a young man sitting outside his room, tie askew, almost asleep.

Edith was wary to check on him, but she knew she'd just worry if she didn't.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly, half hoping that he wouldn't respond and she could make him reception's problem.

He startled, taking a deep, deep breath, wide eyes, and very wide pupils. He looked like he'd been celebrating for a while.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, yeah. 'M getting married. Not now. Next month. Best man's got the door key. Jus' waiting on him."

"Oh. Well, congratulations."

"Thanks. You got anyone special?"

Edith paused, thinking about the Sharpes, how she'd truthfully denied loving them but knew deep down that a part of her would always be with them. She'd be changed by her relationship with them, forever, irreversibly.

"Kind of," she said. "It's complicated."

He smiled slowly, sleepily.

"Complicated can be good," he said. "I've had a lot of fun wi' complicated. But there's a thin line between complicated and messy."

That was certainly true.

She made herself smile back and wished him goodnight, taking the stairs instead of the elevator on her way back to avoid their paths crossing again. She wasn't sure why. Part of her just didn't want to be seen. It felt good to pad silently around a huge building, anonymous and unnoticed.

Maybe the Sharpes wouldn't hear her approaching even.

She crept along their floor, wondering if she'd be able to catch anything through the door. Surely Sin City would invest in a little soundproofing.

Well, she could hear that they were talking, but not any words. Just two different voice pitches. Nothing beyond that.

She knocked, Thomas coming to the door.

"We thought you'd got lost," he said.

"Oh, I made a friend in the corridor."

His eyebrows shot up as she settled back in her chair.

"Trouble?"

"No. Just drunk and locked out of his room. I was checking he was OK."

Lucille smiled at her, the first smile since they'd heard Finlay was ill.

"That's our Edith," she said. "Always looking out for people."

It couldn't shake the melancholy atmosphere though, the sense that tomorrow was going to be different. The pictures she took were suitably moody despite the garish color scheme.

They looked like an ironic album cover, two perfect, porcelain dolls with such dark, dark hair sitting behind a smorgasbord of processed food, an artful smudge of tomato sauce on Lucille's cheek.

"We'll take her bags across in the morning," Thomas said, addressing the elephant in the room.

"I just hate the idea of her lying in a horrible hospital bed," Lucille said. "They can be so uncomfortable."

"She'll be well looked after."

Edith hoped so.

And maybe she felt the tiniest bit of guilt that for just a moment she'd wondered, deep down, if the Sharpes had had something to do with Finlay's sudden illness.

Whatever scheme they were hatching, she was now fairly certain that this wasn't part of it.

Notes:

They didn't do anything to Finlay! I just needed to pull away one of Edith's safety nets...

Chapter 43: Standing on Corners

"You mean you're now alone? With them?" Alan asked.

Edith sighed. She'd had to tell him. It would have come out eventually. Best to just get it over with.

It had been horrible trespassing in Finlay's space, her history book on the night stand peppered with markers, her toothbrush in a glass in the bathroom, her pyjamas neatly folded on the pillow waiting for her. And then they'd had to leave the bus several streets over to avoid the hospital parking fees. Edith felt like she could feel her skin burning as soon as she stepped into the sun.

Finlay seemed a little better for having the time to get used to the idea of a hospital stay, but all the same, there was distinct sadness in her eyes as she embraced them all in turn.

"Be careful," she'd whispered in Edith's ear, squeezing her tight.

And maybe she wasn't telling Alan that particular detail...

"I just feel so bad for her," she said, carefully ignoring his implications. "Being ill is bad enough, but being so far from home as well..."

"So who's driving now?"

"Thomas and Lucille are sharing it."

"Is that allowed? They're... You know, foreign."

"Well, they have drivers' licences. I haven't really looked into it. I'll be fine. It just feels bad to have a nice time when we've had to leave Finlay behind."

And they were having a good time. Edith felt a slight weight had been lifted from her, a need to be careful and not say too much. Now they could speak openly. Flirt a bit. Talk about more sensitive subjects.

Not that she had been doing any of that just yet. She was still building up the courage.

"As long as you're comfortable, even with Lucille's track record," Alan said.

"She's very careful. That was an old car with faulty brake lines. The bus is... fine. It's not brand new or anything, but it's not falling apart."

And, more to the point, Lucille didn't want to murder either of the other people she was driving and certainly didn't want to damage her instruments.

Which wasn't to say Edith was always comfortable, per se. She felt like a mouse facing two cats sometimes.

Actually, that wasn't the best of metaphors. She was more equal to them now that she was keeping more of an eye on them, trying to work out what else they were hiding with their tea and snooping.

It was more like they were spies, trying to get information out of each other while not revealing their own.

"So, where are you now?" Alan asked.

"Phoenix, Arizona. Ever been?"

"Nope."

"Yeah, me neither. I'm quite looking forward to Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, all that. It's hot, though. I couldn't live like this, I don't think. We're going to the Musical Instrument Museum tomorrow, after the show tonight. Should be fun."

She really hoped they wouldn't try to touch any of the exhibits though, unless that was allowed.

It had been a strange day, she felt, saying goodbye to Alan and having a quick shower. Being in the back of the bus by herself while Lucille drove and Thomas navigated was freeing and constrictive all at once. She wasn't so constantly observed, but sometimes she'd realize she was being watched in one of the mirrors after all. Secretly monitored.

They'd insisted on taking a detour to a little town off the main road solely because it was called Chloride and they found that amusing. It had been an interesting little place though. A sign told them it was named for the silver chloride found nearby that had led to the mining town's very existence, an inhabited place still while most of its contemporaries had long ago become empty ghosts towns.

It had so much character. Even the old gas station was pretty with its green and red tiles, its ancient pumps.

Edith was less sure about the name of Cyanide Springs, the local historical society's set-up made from timber cabins, complete with saloon, playhouse, sheriff's office, jail... Apparently the museum only opened on Saturdays and if they'd come at the right time, they could have seen gunfight reenactments. They left some change in the collection box since they took a few photos.

Not for the first time, Edith considered how much she missed editing options for her pictures. A little sepia tone would have set everything off nicely. Made it all even more timeless.

A few miles out of town, they followed signs for murals painted onto the desert rocks themselves, vibrant, dream-like vistas, snakes and suns and huge pink talons.

They were definitely not to the Sharpes' tastes if Edith was reading their faces correctly, but they were still fascinating.

"It's just typical really," Thomas said, taking his turn at the driving. "You expect a mildly amusing road sign and then suddenly it's an hour and a half later..."

"These past few months have been rather full of unexpected developments," Lucille said.

Heat had bloomed in Edith's cheeks despite her best efforts to prevent it.

It was all fine, she told herself as she got ready for the show, making sure she had enough film to take pictures, that she had a pen and a back up pen that were both working and an emergency pencil, notebook, water bottle.

One of these days, she might even start feeling like a real journalist.

Maybe it was a foregone conclusion that half the Sharpes' set list would have been reworked with a cowboy, country kind of feel. There was some kind of banjo setting on the keyboard that they were making liberal use of and a slightly lilting feel to a lot of the rhythms.

Was this a little offensive to locals? It was difficult to tell how it was going down.

They played an Eagles cover because of course they did. Not Take It Easy with its name-drop of Arizona. No, no. Desperado.

There was something about Thomas imploring some unseen subject to allow themselves to be loved while Lucille agreed in backing harmonies that felt a little on the nose as far as Edith was concerned.

Being seduced and entering a friends with benefits type arrangement was one thing, but she was damned if she was going to let them make her fall in love so easily.

Why would they want to anyway? Did they just want to break her heart at the end of this? Why?

They were strange and they had done bad things, very bad things, but she wasn't convinced that they were cruel as such. Not to her.

It was difficult not to question that a little in the night, though. They might be that cruel. There was a coldness to them, a harshness. They liked to play games with people and maybe she was no exception to that. Maybe thinking that she might be was a sign of how much trouble she was in, how close she was to feelings she didn't want.

Despite having the air con on, she was very warm, sprawled on top of the blankets. Despite being exhausted, she was finding it difficult to sleep. Despite the soft mattress, she couldn't get comfortable. It was like her body was in a mood with her.

Maybe it was those thoughts of poor Finlay back in Las Vegas. Her surgery had been scheduled for the coming week.

Never having had an operation in her life, just the idea of it made Edith uneasy, even though she knew that was illogical. You didn't feel anything until afterwards and it fixed serious problems. Sometimes it had to happen.

Still, it was an unnerving thought that a stranger was going to be poking around at Finlay's arteries.

She was yawning all through breakfast, making herself eat through vague nausea, probably from the heat, but it was difficult not to be woken up by the Musical Instruments Museum.

Somehow, Edith hadn't expected it to be so big. There were multiple floors, historic mechanical orchestras, a STEM lab about the science of music, galleries from different continents, famous musicians' instruments and, of course, the experience room. A place where you could get hands-on.

From Lucille's face, this was close to paradise for her, sitting down at a harp and running her fingers along the strings.

"I've always wanted to learn to play one of these," she said, plucking notes at random.

"Surely it wouldn't be difficult for you. Isn't it kind of like a sideways piano?" Edith asked, snapping a picture, letting it whir out into her hand.

"Effectively, but it's hard to translate one position to another. It's tough to get my brain around. Trying things at different angles can be challenging at times, as you know."

Edith ignored that, running her fingers gently over a skin drum, trying to feel the texture rather than make a sound.

"Oh, come on, Edith! First of all, that was barely a double entendre and secondly, Finlay isn't here to judge you."

"There are a lot of strangers though."

"Have it your way. I'll save it up for private moments."

For a novice, Lucille was alright at the harp, managing a slow rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Thomas had, of course, gravitated to the electric instruments and was entertaining some children with his attempts to play a theremin, the strange, eerie notes ringing out beneath his hands as if by magic.

"You should play something," Lucille said.

"I don't know how."

"That's rather the point of this room."

It wasn't like anyone would hear her over the children hitting drums or the chatter.

She let Lucille push her gently onto the stool by the harp, standing directly behind her and leaning over, steering her hands and fingers to the strings.

"OK, start here, pluck that one. Oh, harder than that. Good. And now this one. This one. This one..."

Edith could feel the heat of her body, her steady presence, even the soft press of her breasts against her back.

And that made it all the more obvious when she jolted and sighed behind her, like she'd been surprised by something. Like someone had... done something to her, pricked her maybe.

"I'm going to the gift shop," Thomas said, successfully sneaking up on them. "I think I spotted something on the way in that will appeal to us."

He was clearly very proud, revealing his purchases to them with quite a flourish.

"Teacarinas," he said. "Fully functional teacups that are also ocarinas. One each."

Edith looked down at the box in her hands, the beautiful ceramic held within it, and wondered if he was making fun of her.

After all, surely he knew her feelings about tea by now.

Chapter 44: Viewpoints

She was going to smash that wretched thing... Thomas seemed determined to learn to play the ocarina as they drove along, and sometimes it was pretty enough, but sometimes it was so shrill...

"It doesn't have the full twelve notes on a chromatic scale, that's the problem," he said. "Everything I know seems to have sharps or flats in it."

Lucille tutted playfully.

"Sir Thomas Sharpe, unable to play sharps? How dreadful," she said. "You can do that one from The Sound of Music. Doe, a deer, and so on."

Oh, no...

He could, indeed, play it. And reasonably well. But that didn't make it any less harsh on Edith's ears.

She was trying to write, trying to cover Las Vegas and its unpleasant ending, paying a little tribute to their fallen friend Finlay, and covering their adventures through Arizona.

They'd see Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon later.

Maybe the teacarinas could suffer a little accident...

She wouldn't really do it. She didn't have the bravery, or the cruelty. It was just a pleasant daydream.

Putting her pen and papers away in their folders, she rubbed her shoulders, trying to ease a little tension from them.

"I might take a little nap," she said. "Early start and all that."

Thomas smiled at her, finally putting that infernal instrument away.

"Understood," he said. "We'll be quiet."

"We're surprisingly good at that," Lucille added.

It was difficult to drift off though. Lucille wasn't as smooth a driver as Finlay had been. And it was hot too, despite the air con.

Still, she was dozing when she became aware that Thomas was talking, his words entering at the edges of her consciousness.

"It's very cute how much she tries to hide it. Reminds me of you almost."

"It's rather a different situation, though, isn't it?"

What were they talking about? What was a different situation?

"Oh, I don't know. You're doing your fair share at the moment, I think. Which worries me a little bit. Are you absolutely sure you're happy to go through with this?"

Lucille sighed.

"We've been over this, Thomas. It's fine. If I wasn't happy, I'd have called it off long ago."

"I don't mean that. I mean afterwards."

"Well, I don't see what other option there is. She won't stay."

"She might. She's surprised us before. And what about...?"

Whatever it was, he didn't say it out loud, but Lucille laughed.

"Oh, you're mad," she said. "You're mad."

"Think about it and tell me you're not just the tiniest bit tempted."

"I realize we have more than a little folie à deux about us, but that's too far. It would never work. She'd never..."

"Think about it, that's all I ask."

Folie à deux... Well, deux was two and folie... Didn't that mean madness? Two times madness? Madness for two?

Maybe she could find a way to subtly ask Alan about it later. Get him to look it up for her.

They'd been talking about her, evidently. Their plans. Their seduction plot. How they intended to make her fall in love and then leave her, just because they could. A fun working vacation activity.

Well, two could... No, actually three could play that game.

She managed a little sleep, being woken up into bright sunshine and an overwhelming sense of orange.

Not just orange though. It was much more complex than that. Orange and red, yellow, green, a dozen shades of fawn and brown... And the sky was so, so blue.

"Sunscreen," Lucille sang, handing the bottle to her. "I'll do your face for you."

And very generous she was with it, paying extra attention to Edith's cheekbones and nose, finishing with a soft kiss. The smell of it was almost dizzying, that cloying, oily scent.

She did Thomas's too, brows slightly furrowed beneath her sunglasses.

"You're at risk of getting freckles," she said.

"Perish the thought."

"As long as you don't try to borrow too much of my foundation when you see yourself."

It was all playful enough, it seemed. And, really, who wouldn't be put in a peaceful mood by this setting, the way the sky stretched above them, the expanse of the landscape, still overwhelming despite how busy with other visitors it was?

The three of them fell automatically into step, Edith in the middle, down towards the main complex for this part of the National Park, almost a whole town in itself, a flat path worn smooth by thousands and thousands of feet.

Thomas's hand trailed down her back. She let him touch. Whatever else was going on, she was a bit tense at the moment and maybe a little physical distraction would put paid to that temporarily and convince him that her suspicions had been laid to rest.

It was harmless. And useful.

Or maybe she just wanted it and was trying to convince herself that continuing to sleep with them wasn't completely stupid.

"You look unfairly good in the heat, Edith," he said softly, as casually as mentioning the weather.

"How do you mean?"

"The sheen it puts on your skin. You're practically glowing."

"Oh, she always looks like that after time with me," Lucille said. "I don't know what you're doing wrong."

He laughed, loud and unexpected.

"I've never had any complaints," he said.

Edith rolled her eyes where neither of them could see. Did they really think they could go back to that fun, exciting, terrifying, flirtatious start to all of this so easily? Even now, with all that she knew?

Everything was different now, deeper. She knew some of their greatest secrets. She knew more than they knew she did.

But then again, part of her liked the attention, liked the danger even, so what did that say about her?

If they'd started a few towns over, apparently they could have ridden out here in style in an antique train, but the walk was good all the same. They were only going out to one of the viewpoints and back, not the full multi-mile trail, but it would still take them over an hour to get there and back.

Despite the heat, the air was not too humid. It felt good to be outside, even on one of the more maintained, genteel paths. Not that that had put off the serious hikers marching past them, like turtles under huge rucksack shells, dozens of those pairs of sticks walkers used.

The path grew narrower, obliging them to walk single file, Lucille leading. How she could bear to be wearing so much black given the weather, Edith had no idea.

Still, it was kind of hypnotic, step after step, the metal studs on her belt glinting in the sun.

It was companionably quiet, a brief respite from conversational quicksand.

And when they finally reached the viewpoint...

"Wow," Thomas said, very much summing it up.

The depth of the canyon... Obviously it was deep, she'd known it was deep, but Edith felt like she hadn't been prepared for the feelings it would evoke in her. A strange mixture of excitement and utter terror. She couldn't even lean on the barrier for fear that it would give way, watching a young girl skipping along the path with her heart in her mouth, terrified of what a trip or slip would do.

It was much better to look up at the layers of rock opposite, a geological marvel. Lines of different colors, different types.

"It's like a great big entremet," Lucille said.

"What's an entremet?"

"It's a fancy cake made of layers. Sponge and jelly, mousse, mirror glaze. Have you never watched Bake Off? They made one a couple of years ago."

Edith shook her head. She wasn't really one for cooking shows.

"Oh, well, when you come to England, we'll have to change that."

It took a minute for that to sink in, blinking, almost convinced she'd misheard.

"Go to England?"

There was perhaps the tiniest flicker of concern on Lucille's face, but only for a second and it was hard to tell with the sunglasses and the hat.

"Yeah. You know, after the tour. To finish the book and liaise with our publisher."

"Don't you need a visa to do that?"

"Well, we'll get you one."

At one time, she would have jumped at the chance. Getting to go abroad, getting to see Allerdale for real? Incredible. But now...

Well, now it became being taken to a foreign country to be toyed with some more and a plan that had clearly been formulated without consulting her. At least here, as far from home as she might be, it was still her country. She was the one explaining occasional confusions, she was the one picking the correct change out of handfuls of coins because the Sharpes still couldn't reliably spot a quarter.

Still, it was tempting, she couldn't deny that.

"I'll have to think about it," she said carefully. "But I'd love to see your house. Seeing where someone lives, how they live, it really helps to get to know them, you know?"

"But you already know me."

Mm. But not everything.

Edith took her hand in a moment of bravery, rubbing her thumb over her knuckles.

"Maybe more than most," she admitted. "But, well... People are multitudes, aren't they? I don't think it's actually possible to know a person completely. Everyone has a little they hold back, just for themselves."

Thomas leant against the barrier at Lucille's other side, maybe whispering something, maybe just exhaling. It was hard to tell.

"We should head back if we're going to reach our next stop in time," he said. "I'll drive."

"I might follow Edith's lead and have a sleep then, as long as she's willing to navigate."

It couldn't be that hard.

And now she was the one looking in the rearview mirror, looking at Lucille's face rather than the road behind, trying to tell if she really was asleep behind her eye mask or not.

Thomas's fingers trailing up her thigh made her jump, only just managing not to cry out in surprise.

"I don't think that's safe when you're driving," she said.

"Automatic gearbox. It's not like I need this hand for anything else."

"Mm-hm. With your sister right there?"

He glanced back at her, brief but unashamed. Like he couldn't see what the problem was.

"She's a heavy sleeper. I could finger you into coming and she wouldn't wake up."

God, he shouldn't say things like that... Despite herself, she felt her excitement rising, just the suggestion giving her a sick thrill.

"You ever had sex in a car, Edith?" he asked.

"I... No."

"It's overrated, in my experience. Too cramped. And that was in a pretty big vehicle, as cars go. This bus, on the other hand... It's rather roomy in the back, don't you think?"

Was he on the back foot, scrambling for ground? What was this? It was a little blunt, a little uncouth.

She felt like he was trying out various tactics, trying to find one that would work, trying to find out whether she'd respond more to declarations of love or sexual confidence.

And when they'd first begun this, he'd very evidently enjoyed the chase, he liked being countered and wrong-footed. That's what he was expecting.

"I really don't understand how you think we'd ever get a chance," she said calmly. "Unless you have a desperate fetish you haven't mentioned that you'd like me to indulge for you. Women draped across car bonnets perhaps?"

She markedly kicked off her sneakers and put her feet up on the dashboard, even though it made her convinced they were going to have an accident and she'd break both her legs, rolling up her jeans to reveal her calves.

And she was pretty sure she wasn't imagining the way he licked his lips just a little.

"Can I see you tonight?" he asked softly.

She smiled sweetly at him, even though he was watching the road.

"I was going to ask Lucille actually," she said.

He shook his head, smiling wryly.

"Well played."

"I think I'm finally learning the rules of the game."

She thought she might finally be winning.

"Of course, it might be that none of us get a chance tonight," he said. "You don't know where we're staying."

That sounded ominous.

"Why? Where are we going?"

He threw her a look, a little triumph in it perhaps.

"It's a surprise."

Ugh...

"Changing the rules isn't fair," she said.

He casually reached out and stroked her hair at the back of her head, lacing his fingers into it.

"No one said anything about fair."

Chapter 45: Monumental Bluffing

Monument Valley was so... broad. Huge expanses of flat plains and then the rocks standing proud against the blue sky. They were going to head north through it, up Highway 163, dip into Utah again to stay in a place called Bluff before turning back towards New Mexico.

The rocks almost didn't look natural. The skinny spires particularly looked so odd, thin columns managing to support such big pieces higher up. Edith felt sure that they were going to fall, feeling a little dizzy just looking at them.

"This is what America is meant to look like," Lucille said from the back seat, refreshed after her nap apparently. "Or this bit of it, anyway. The power cables rather detract from the sense of isolation, but I suppose that can't be helped. I still haven't seen any tumbleweed though. I expected it to be more ubiquitous."

"I think it's growing all around us," Thomas said. "But it dies and blows away as a seed-spreading technique. Tumbles off around the desert in search of water. Of course, it's an invasive species really. They think it came across in shipments of flax seeds."

How did he just know all this off the top of his head? Did he have a secret stash of reference books in the trailer with all the instruments or something?

"I didn't realize you were so interested in botany," Edith said.

"I'm interested in most things, I suppose. We both are."

"Probably stems from childhood," Lucille added. "After all, we were safe with our tutors. Study and reading were safe."

It was unlike her to speak so openly about that. Maybe she was trying to minimize how big it was, how much of a wedge it could be in their relationship.

Or maybe it was liberating to be with people who knew. Freeing. Not having to hide.

"I think it's up here on the left," Thomas said.

"What's it called? What kind of a sign are we looking for?"

"I told you, it's a surprise."

Edith looked over her shoulder, finding Lucille's eyes narrowed. Whatever this was, it seemed that she wasn't party to it.

And she wasn't exactly happy when Thomas pulled into an RV park.

"This is not a motel," she said flatly.

"You're right. It's not. But you said you wanted to have the American experience and so I thought what better than a night under the desert stars?"

"If you think for one second that I am sleeping outside..."

"No, we'll take out the seats in the back, borrow some blankets and push back the sunroof shade. It'll be fun. Like camping."

"Thomas James Sharpe, you have never been camping in all your born days."

"I have. When I was about seven, Father made me go to Scotland to hunt deer and we camped one night, out on the heath. Don't you remember?"

"I remember you being taken away for a few days and being very upset about it, but I don't recall you saying you went camping. Was it fun?"

"Of course not. I was a child shivering among the heather while Father got through a hip flask of brandy by 11am and fell asleep cuddling his gun."

"Should have shot him. Terrible accident."

"I was rather too busy suffering from hypothermia, I'm afraid. But this will be fun. Beautiful surroundings, good company. And I was very careful to choose one with proper, private shower blocks. All creature comforts."

Maybe Lucille was warming to the idea a little. Or maybe she had just decided the dispute wasn't worth it.

"Ever been camping, Edith?" she asked.

"Once or twice when I was a kid."

"Don't tell me you were a Girl Scout. You'd have been too cute. I bet you had pigtails."

"It was just family stuff. My mom was quite keen on... nature and fresh air. It will be an experience. Isn't that the point of this trip?"

"I suppose so," Lucille said, undoing her seatbelt. "I'm going to the bathroom, if I can find them."

Edith followed Thomas to the office where they were greeted by a lovely woman, all rolling accent and round cheeks, asking them if they needed electricity connections or WiFi, giving them a xeroxed map of the site with their designated pitch marked in lime green highlighter, merrily collecting blankets and solar lanterns for them.

"So, you're Mrs Sharpe, then?" she asked.

"Oh, no," Edith said, looking at the names written at the top of the paper. "I'm... guest number three. I'm afraid guest number four has been taken ill and won't be with us."

"Oh, dear..."

It did say Mr and Mrs Sharpe though. That was odd. Was that odd?

She asked about it as they made they way back to the bus, laden with thick woven blankets that would be far too hot to sleep under.

"Why do you say you're married?"

"Well, these websites very rarely have Sir or Lady in the drop-down menus."

"Thomas..."

"We just thought it was best, really. You hear about these southern places being a bit odd about unmarried people staying together."

"Not siblings though."

He laughed, an odd burst of it.

"No, but, well, we knew we'd have another person with us. We figured it would be better to pretend some of the party were faithfully wed. Nothing sinful going on."

"Right, so it wasn't just to make fun of the dumb locals then? Tricking them into believing lies? Spreading the myth of Crimson Peak?"

She'd found a break in his armor. He blinked at her, almost stunned, before looking away.

"And what if it was?" he asked. "Would you think very badly of us?"

"I'd just wonder how you expect anyone to properly love you when they know you're mocking them. Like you mock everyone."

He was quiet as they loaded the blankets onto the spare seat in the back, Lucille looking at them like she knew something was wrong, and still quiet as they parked up and started unloading everything.

"I was gone for all of about five minutes," Lucille said eventually. "What's happened? What did you say?"

"It's nothing," Thomas said.

"Which way to the bathrooms?" Edith asked.

She had no intention of going right away. She went around the corner but found a vantage point between two RVs where hopefully she could see them but not be noticed in turn.

If only she'd learned to lip-read...

Lucille was standing with her hands on her hips, clearly demanding answers and Thomas was shrugging, trying to pass it off as nothing, turning away onto to be pulled back. He slumped a little, saying something, shaking his head in resignation. He closed his eyes as Lucille took his face in both hands, stroking his cheeks lightly with her thumbs.

She kissed him very gently on the forehead and turned to follow in Edith's path.

Coming to talk to her.

Shit.

She sprinted to the bathroom block, banging the door locked, hiding. And then remembering that she did actually need to pee.

It was obvious when Lucille came in, the distinct sound of her heeled boots on the tiled floor.

"Edith?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll wait for you outside."

"Uh... OK."

It reminded her a little bit of getting into trouble at school. Not that she'd done that often. More in her teenage years when exhaustion and... other things had affected her work. All her teachers had been very kind and understanding and somehow that was worse in her mind than if they'd just shouted at her.

She washed her hands, pressing them against the back of her neck while still damp, trying to cool down.

Lucille was hiding in the shade of the building when she emerged, drawing patterns in the dust with her feet.

"Is Thomas terribly upset?" Edith asked.

"Only because you're right. We are complete arseholes. It's a coping mechanism, but that's no excuse."

Edith felt her cheeks heat a little.

"I didn't say that."

"Not in those words, but it's what you meant."

Was it? Maybe. Effectively.

"He's a sensitive soul," Lucille said. "He's more upset that he's hurt you somehow. But he hasn't, has he? You'd tell me if he did?"

Probably not, but all the same...

"It's fun to tease him," Edith admitted. "And he teases me back. It's... A battle of wits. But, you know, when you guys make fun of everyone and everything, I get suspicious that you're making fun of me too."

She wasn't mentioning her other suspicions and beliefs to Lucille just yet. They were definitely pursuing some kind of ulterior purpose. She just had to work out what it was.

Oh, and the murders. But they were a strangely unremarkable footnote these days.

Lucille looped her arms around Edith's shoulders, pouting down at her.

"We're never making fun of you, sweetheart. Teasing you, certainly, but you always know when we are. You're smart enough to know and to tease us in return."

"But you talk about me behind my back."

"Well, we mention you when you're not there. Is that the same thing? Usually just disagreeing about which of us you like best. Sibling rivalry is a terrible thing."

This was exactly the kind of thing Edith had meant, making light of her concerns. Yes, it was good-natured and, yes, she knew it was just a joke, but at the same time, it was difficult to be serious with them.

"It's me, isn't it?" Lucille asked, steering her back towards the path to their pitch. "Don't worry, I shan't tell."

"I don't have a favorite," Edith said. "You're... different to each other, it's different."

"In what way?"

This probably wasn't appropriate to talk about, but she didn't have to go into details.

"Well, you're more... instructive. It's not the same as other relationships I've been in, everything is new. Untried. And Thomas is more..."

"Submissive?"

Oh, that had connotations she wasn't sure about.

"No, not exactly. But, you know, sometimes he likes me to make decisions. The rest of it is all games."

He wasn't there when they got back to the bus, the seats neatly placed outside it, a little note tucked under the wipers.

"'Gone to get food, back soon'," Lucille read. "Well, I suppose we're making the beds, then."

Emptying the bus had revealed the slightly crumb-strewn floor, but nothing a borrowed dustpan couldn't fix and with blankets laid across it to soften everything and a couple of lanterns hung from the coat hooks, it was quite homely. A little makeshift nest.

They saw Thomas coming, tall and stark in his white shirt, holding a pair of brown paper bags.

"You'd best go and kiss him," Lucille said. "Let him know everything's alright."

And scandalize the whole campsite by kissing a supposedly married man...

She went out to meet him all the same, unsure what to say.

"Lucille's been mediating, has she?" he said, breaking the silence for her.

"A little."

He sighed.

"Well, it only hurts because you're right. We're not very nice people. You are. And that..."

Another sigh, heavier.

"Anyway, I got enchiladas. And salad, of course, because I know you like it. And in the other bag, ice in plastic, water and peach-flavored tea."

It was a strange little picnic, sitting outside on the bus seats in a circle, Lucille getting out a guitar and playing a few chords as the sun went down.

And the stars... Despite the town's lights, you could see them so clearly, even when they'd changed into their pyjamas and crammed into the back of the bus.

Edith took the left, where her usual seat was in the back, Lucille in the middle, gazing upwards out of the tiny sunroof at the strange blue haze of the Milky Way, her eyes growing heavy as the Sharpes picked out constellations and talked about how strange it was to see different ones from at home.

She wasn't sure what woke her up in the middle of the night. Just the strangeness of being in the van perhaps, or a maybe a noise.

Beside her, she could see Lucille's face in the orange light from outside, soft in sleep.

And Thomas was curled tightly behind her, an arm wrapped around her, his hand...

His hand up under her shirt.

Edith paused for a moment, unsure what to do. And then she tried to gently move his arm to a less intimate place, hearing as he woke up, inhaling sharply.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"You've... In your sleep..."

He moved immediately, rolling onto his back, folding his arms across his chest.

"Must have thought it was you. Sorry."

Lucille stirred slightly, but stayed asleep, frowning. Like she was confused.

Edith reached out a hand to her and soon found her whole arm cuddled, drawing her close.

It wasn't the most comfortable of positions, but somehow she didn't dare move, letting the faint rush of breath, steady against her skin, soothe her back to sleep.

Chapter 46: Audacity

Edith couldn't get that image of Thomas holding Lucille in such an intimate way out of her head. Even once she'd woken up in the morning and nothing was amiss, Lucille already away to check out the showers, she couldn't shake it.

It was weird, wasn't it? Wasn't it? To be cuddled up to a sibling like that? It spoke of something... taboo, something not right.

And added in to how they played with what people thought their relationship was, labelling themselves Mr and Mrs Sharpe...

She couldn't even bring herself to think it.

It must have been like he said, just a mistake in the night, just unconscious. Just wrapping your arm around whatever - whoever - was nearby.

After all, the three of them had been together. Perhaps there were... pheromones in the air or something to make him mistake who he was cuddling.

It was still making her think of that dream she'd had, or nightmare rather, of Lucille moaning her brother's name. Just a dream, nothing more, but she still felt incredibly guilty about it. Sick with guilt, really nauseous, like she might actually throw up.

Thomas rolled towards her as she fretted, stretching, all tousled hair and that strange sour sleep smell.

"I suppose we should get up," he said. "Get showered."

"Mm."

He reached out and stroked her cheek gently with one finger.

"We could save time if we went together," he said. "If you catch my drift."

Edith raised an eyebrow at him, laughing instinctively.

"You're... You're not serious."

"Why not? If we're quiet."

This was ridiculous and what was worse was that she was genuinely tempted, partially for the distraction, partially the risk and the danger exciting her, the way Thomas was looking at her only adding to that. He was running his eyes over her like she was the most enticing thing he'd ever seen, even all sweaty and gross and wearing a threadbare old T-shirt.

"You want to," he murmured. "I can tell."

She closed her eyes, trying to get a grip on herself, even as her heartbeat was speeding up.

He moved even closer, properly touching her now, a hand slipping down her thigh to the bare skin below her shorts.

"You go first," he whispered. "And hang your towel over the cubicle door so I know which one to go to when I follow you."

She shouldn't do this. She should be sensible, she should be cautious, she should be respectful to these nice people and their RV park and not have sex in their showers.

And yet...

She could hear Lucille singing when she arrived at the shower block. Not loudly, but definitely her, unmistakably the lilting notes of her voice. Not a tune she recognized. And suddenly Edith was unsure, tempted to go call it off immediately. Doing such things around strangers was one thing, but Lucille...

The water stopped running along with the song.

Well, if she was leaving anyway...

Edith took the cubicle furthest from the entrance, flopping her towel over the door and laying her clean clothes and deodorant on the floor, almost shaking as she peeled off her pyjamas.

Might as well actually wash her hair while she was at it. Might calm her nerves.

She heard Lucille leaving, a little sound of surprise as she bumped into someone on the way out.

"The gents showers are round the corner, I think."

"Oh, I know."

Thomas's voice.

"Ah, I see. Er... She knows you're coming, right?"

"Of course! I'm not that dreadful."

"OK. Well. Have fun."

Edith flushed scarlet, finishing rinsing the shampoo out of her hair as she heard a gentle knocking.

She opened the door and pulled him inside, aware that she was drenched, getting a muted laugh for her perceived eagerness.

"Hang on a sec," Thomas murmured low. "One moment."

He left their clothes in one pile, Edith retreating back under the spray of water, heart hammering in her chest, watching as he got undressed and took a foil packet out of his pocket, laying it on top for easier access.

Right. Yes, good.

The water plastered his hair down as he joined her, his hands warm at her waist immediately, stroking up her sides and kissing her gently.

Edith could already feel some of the tension between them lessening, not a lot but a little.

"I know you're up to something, you know," she whispered in a moment of bravery.

"Right now? I should hope so."

"No... No, you and Lucille."

"What could we possibly be up to?"

"That's the problem. I don't know. Ah!"

He'd slipped a finger down between her legs, not into her but straight to her clit, rubbing it firmly, his eyes dark and warm.

"You'll have to stay quieter than that," he said, kissing her again. "Otherwise we'll never get away with this."

She nodded, trying to keep breathing, wanting more, clinging to him, growing brave enough to touch him in return, stroking his cock to full hardness, feeling powerful as he thrust into her grasp.

He didn't say anything as he turned her to face the wall, gently nudging her legs apart with one foot. She glanced back over her shoulder, seeing him open the condom packet, placing her hands against the tiles to brace herself as the water rushed down her back.

She could feel the heat of him as he moved her hair to whisper in her ear.

"You ready?"

She nodded, taking a long slow breath as he pushed in, an angle she'd never tried before, certainly not standing. He wrapped his arms around her, his lips against her neck as he began with firm, deliberate thrusts, barely pulling out he was so tight behind her.

It was wrong, very wrong, and she loved it all the same, hearing someone else enter the shower block, the two of them freezing instinctively.

And Edith was the bold one then, rocking back against him, hearing that sigh of pleasure, barely perceptible except that his lips were right by her ear, going directly to her arousal.

She tried to reach down to handle herself but Thomas caught her wrist, placing her hand firmly back on the wall and giving her what she needed with firm touches.

And now it was harder to keep herself quiet. She didn't think she normally made a sound, but suddenly even a gasp was potentially going to give them away, finding herself holding her breath as Thomas sped up both his thrusts and his fingers and then needing to inhale painfully slowly, almost going light-headed as she got closer and closer and closer...

Her lips parted in a silent cry, her body trembling in Thomas's arms, relying on him to keep her upright.

Thomas let out the faintest of grunts behind her, stroking her heated skin gently, kissing her neck.

She felt like a tottering fawn when he moved back, pulling the condom off and knotting it, like her legs wouldn't hold her, leaning back against the wall and trying to recover.

A smile from Thomas, tracing the flush on her cheeks with his fingers before he washed his hair. Despite all they had done together, this felt almost too intimate. He was completely himself, engaged in a private moment, preparing for the day. It felt too close. Too domestic almost.

She stepped out of the water and started getting dry, still feeling a little dazed. Only a matter of months ago, she'd have never dreamed of doing anything like that. And yet here she was.

Thomas tapped on the wall to get her attention, giving a thumbs up with a questioning eyebrow. Are you OK?

Nodding. She was OK. But she fanned herself theatrically. Too hot.

She still liked it when he smiled at her. There was no pretence there at least.

He was much quicker in getting ready, Edith checking that the coast was clear before they snuck out, tossing the condom into a trash can by the door.

"So, have you told Lucille about your suspicions?" Thomas asked.

That hadn't been what Edith had expected to hear.

"No. No, I haven't."

"Good. Don't. She'd be very upset."

No amount of bodily satisfaction could defeat Edith's mental frustrations.

"You could always just tell me what it is," she said.

He gently touched her nose, not even breaking stride.

"But there's nothing to tell."

If it was a longer walk, she might have tried to challenge him, but as it was, they could already see Lucille wrestling with one of the seats, trying to force it back in, her braid moving against her back like a snake.

It clearly wasn't going well as she slapped the side of the bus, audibly growling.

"Hang on," Thomas said, imperceptibly increasing his stride. "It might be a two-person job."

It wasn't, but there was a trick to it, a catch you had to pull up. Lucille scowled at it like it had personally insulted her.

"Yes, well..." she said. "That's why I don't take seats out of cars. It's unnatural."

Thomas chuckled, wrapping an arm around her and kissing her temple.

"Do you want to drive?" he asked.

"Can do. And then you can take over closer to Albuquerque."

Thomas turned to Edith, gesturing to the car doors.

"Front or back?"

Lucille had put on her sunglasses, but she was definitely watching. Was she feeling neglected? Or fragile? It hadn't been that long since Finlay's sudden illness which had clearly hit her hard.

"Front, I think," Edith said, noting a distinct smirk on Lucille's face as she hauled herself up.

Come to think of it, they hadn't done more than kiss since before Edith learned about her childhood trauma. So as far as Lucille was concerned, any withdrawal would be because of that, because she knew.

No wonder she'd sounded a little upset when she'd realized Thomas was meeting her for a morning tryst, proving it wasn't a lack of libido affecting things.

Trying for casual, Edith softly reached out, resting her arm behind Lucille's head and gently stroking the nape of her neck with the tips of her fingers. Just lightly. Just to make her physical presence obvious. Sharing personal space. That hint of intimacy.

"I need to call Alan tonight," she said. "But afterward, maybe we could... hang out."

Lucille leant back into her touch, a smile ghosting around her lips.

"I'm sure I can find a couple of hours after the show."

Chapter 47: Admissions

Notes:

This chapter contains discussions of severe mental health issues.

Nearly five hours of driving through New Mexico passed in strangely unequal ways, some flying past, some crawling by.

Even though the gentle caresses of Lucille's fingers down her arms were very pleasant, Edith didn't feel much like eating when they stopped for lunch, eventually conceding to have chicken salad just for the vitamins and calories and to avoid any fuss.

Couldn't write on an empty stomach, after all. Nourished body, nourished mind.

Maybe she felt a little better afterwards. Less nauseous. Less exhausted.

They'd arrived in Albuquerque with plenty of time to spare, giving Edith a good opportunity to call Alan while the Sharpes had a pre-show nap. How long had it been since she'd last spoken to him? She was losing her sense of time even more of late.

He'd very clearly just woken up, preparing for night shift, mumbling along pleasantly as she described their evening of almost-camping, seeing the desert landscape so differently. In a lot of ways, it had been magical.

"I can't imagine going camping with Eunice," he said. "Couldn't cope with being in such close quarters."

"I can't imagine Eunice going camping at all," Edith said. "There were public showers and dirt and everything. It was nice, though. Relaxing. I don't think all this travelling in the heat is good for me. My stomach is all strange and I'm tired all the time no matter how much I sleep."

There was a rustling sound, Alan sitting up in bed.

"That sucks. If I had on my doctor hat, I'd say it almost sounds like you're pregnant or something. Nausea and exhaustion; very common early symptoms."

The rush of fear hit Edith like an ice cube running down her back.

"No, I can't be," she said, trying to keep her heartbeat under control. "I fucked up my fertility a long time ago, you know that."

"You were sick," he said, sounding a little discomforted by her cursing.

"Same result, though."

There was an awkward pause before Alan cleared his throat.

"And you haven't slept with anyone," he said uncertainly. "Which would be the more obvious reason to be... not pregnant."

"Oh. Yeah, that too."

She'd given herself away and she knew it, cringing as he gasped.

"Oh, my God, Edith..."

"It's not what you think."

"Oh, so it's not that you're sleeping with your boss? You know, as soon as I saw that guy, I knew he was trouble."

It seemed so much worse from the outside, she knew that. But he just couldn't understand, no one could. Having that attention turned on you, that open desire... How could anyone resist?

"It's just a fling," Edith protested. "It's nothing."

"Have you been using birth control? Even then, it's no guarantee. Condoms under normal use have around an 18% failure rate."

He was insufferable! And maybe that was why she did what she did next, maybe that was what drew out her impulsive streak.

"It's not Thomas," she lied - or partially lied anyway. "It's Lucille. So I mean it when I say I can't be pregnant."

She could practically feel his confusion and shock down the line.

"I didn't... I didn't know you liked girls," he said awkwardly. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, obviously."

Nor had she, really, until it was Lucille flirting with her. Only in retrospect had she noticed a few times intense friendship had arguably tipped over into unrequited crushes.

"Well, maybe there are a lot of things you don't know about me," she said.

"It explains a few things anyway."

Suspicion laced through her.

"What exactly does it explain?" she asked icily.

"Well... Well, I thought you knew that I... like you. So if you're actually a lesbian then that's why you never..."

Edith stared at the wall, her brain refusing to process what she'd just heard.

"Hang on, you think the only possible reason that I haven't ever slept with you is because I don't like men? Did you miss the boyfriends I had over the years?"

"That's... No, that's not what I meant. I'm sorry."

"I should fucking hope so."

That was deliberate swearing. She wasn't going to be the only one off-balance.

"So... So Lucille is an experiment?"

She'd known he wouldn't understand. And he wondered why she didn't tell him anything...

"I don't know what she is. Maybe this is my first step towards realising I'm actually bisexual. Or maybe I'll never date another man again. I honestly don't know."

"And does Thomas... know? How does he feel about it?"

What a question.

"How do you feel about Eunice's sex life?"

"I really wish I didn't know about it, to be honest. But she can do what she wants. It's none of my business."

"Then I imagine he feels much the same."

There was a bit of quiet and Edith braced herself for another awkward question.

"So if... If you do like men as well, then... Then why haven't we...?"

Ugh...

"Alan, you're my best friend. I just don't feel that way about you. I'm sorry."

She'd really thought he already knew.

"It's OK. I just always... Never mind. I wouldn't want to spoil our friendship."

This was completely horrible. Everything about it. Having to reject him so bluntly... She'd always hoped that he'd eventually find someone else, move on and that would be that.

"I'm glad you understand," she said.

"I still think sleeping with either of them is a bad idea," he said. "I mean... they're dangerous people. Just be careful, that's all I ask."

"I will be."

"Alright. Bye."

From such an abrupt farewell, she concluded that he was quite upset and trying to hide it. All the same, Edith felt almost relieved. She'd told him a part of it. That in itself was a big weight off her, even if it made the rest of it sit uncomfortably in her chest. She was sleeping with Thomas too and that meant that possibly...

No. She couldn't be pregnant. She wasn't even sure if she could get pregnant. Alright, so maybe she hadn't had a period yet this month, but that was fairly normal. She wasn't the most regular of people, sometimes skipping...

She kept repeating that to herself over and over again, to no avail. Maybe being sure wouldn't hurt?

Reception was able to point her in the direction of a pharmacy a few blocks over, past chainlink fences and fly-tipped refrigerators. Not the nicest of places, but necessary.

She couldn't find the tests. Plenty of generic painkillers, multivitamin supplements, band-aids and so on. But that meant she was going to have to ask out loud and that made it all seem more real...

No. This was a responsible and adult thing to do. There was no shame in it.

"Do you have any pregnancy tests?" she asked the young woman at the counter.

"Oh, sure. Folk kept stealing them so we keep them behind the counter. You want the morning after pill as well?"

"I... Er... I mean, I think it's probably a false alarm. Just the test, please."

Walking back was much, much easier, with no unwanted attention.

It was a little surprising to see Lucille in reception in a state of some distress when she returned clutching her little paper bag.

"What's going on?" Edith asked. "What's wrong?"

Lucille spun round, her shoulders dropping in relief, rushing forward to pull Edith into her arms.

"Oh, thank God!" she said. "I went to your room and you weren't there and then they wouldn't tell me where you went."

"Confidentiality," the receptionist said, a little curtly. Like she'd had quite enough of privileged guests' nonsense.

Without acknowledging her, Lucille steered Edith over towards the elevator, like she couldn't bear to let her go in case she suddenly disappeared again.

"Where were you?" she asked, taking the pharmacy bag from her without asking. "Are you feeling sick?"

"Not exactly..."

Edith couldn't work out what the look in her eyes meant when she drew out the pregnancy test. Was that excitement? Worry? Shock?

"Do you think you're...?"

"No. No, no, it's probably nothing. Just made myself worry. But, well, I probably can't have kids anyway, so..."

A shadow passed over Lucille's face, the ding of the elevator doors opening sounding somehow like a death knell.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "You're young, you're healthy."

Was this the time? Was she going to talk about something so private, something she tried so hard to keep from people? Was it only fair? After all, she knew some of Lucille's deep secrets. Maybe she ought to be honest in return.

She took Lucille's hand and led her into her room. She wanted to be away from prying eyes.

"After my mom died, I... I wasn't very well. For a long time."

Confusion hadn't left Lucille's face, sitting on the lumpy motel bed cross-legged, like a child listening to a story. Edith took a breath and tried to get her head in order.

"Mom was ill. Cancer. That's what killed her. And it was weirdly sudden. Within months of diagnosis. Dad was crushed. I was crushed. And I felt that I had to put on a brave face for him, I had to pretend like I was coping even though I really wasn't and so... I took it out on myself."

Lucille shook her head, not following.

"But I've seen every inch of your body and there's barely a mark on you."

"Not all self harm leaves scars."

It was horrible to have to dredge this stuff up. Of course, it never really left her. It was part of the background noise of her life. A fact, nothing more but also nothing less.

She folded her arms protectively, shielding herself, folding herself into the desk chair.

"I was... terrified of cancer," she said softly. "It started in little ways. I started cutting down on sugar, salt, processed foods in general. And then it was red meat, lactose, gluten... Anything non-organic so I restricted fruit and vegetables even. So on and so forth. I was obsessed with reading about carcinogenic foods. The barest whisper of a study, no matter how tenuous, would make me cut things out. It wasn't anorexia - I knew I was losing weight, I could see it and I didn't want to, but it was compulsive, I just... couldn't stop, I had to control everything that passed my lips. I'd lie and say I'd eaten at school or with friends and I'd wear bulky clothes to hide it. Until I just couldn't anymore."

Lucille was watching her like one of her old doctors used to, with almost clinical seriousness.

"Why didn't your father do anything?" she asked.

Edith sighed.

"Because I was very, very good at hiding it. I'm a bad liar, but I'm an expert concealer."

That apparently was intriguing.

"Anyway, he felt awful about it," Edith said. "Blamed himself. Which made me worse, made me hate myself, made me wish I could just... vanish."

Very carefully saying "vanish", rather than "die". She wasn't sure which was more accurate.

"So, what happened?" Lucille asked. "You didn't just wake up cured one day."

"No. Once it all became too much to disguise, I ended up hospitalized in seventh grade. I was severely underweight, malnourished. A bunch of deficiencies because I'd read somewhere that vitamin supplements were potentially bad for you. My hair was falling out, my bones were growing brittle. And then a lot of doctors spent a lot of time helping me develop ways to overcome my fears and anxieties. Dealing with the root issues. Dealing with my... survivor guilt, I suppose. Helping me and my dad learn to manage it. I've been lucky enough never to relapse, even when my dad died, and I can eat pretty much anything now without feeling that instant horror, but... Well, it was during puberty. I didn't have my first period until I was sixteen and they said I might never be able to have kids and I don't even know if I want them or... But then again, an accident could be my only chance, so... God, I don't know how I feel..."

She could feel her own panic rising even as she tried to breathe through it, tears threatening to fall. Lucille stood up and went to her bag, unzipping the pocket where she kept her toiletries without hesitating, like she knew exactly where to find tissues.

"It's OK," she said, moving Edith's box of tampons out of the way and grabbing the plastic packet. "It's probably nothing."

Edith dabbed at her eyes, part of her wondering at just how quickly she'd found them. Was that something to do with whatever they were doing when they were rummaging through her bag, supposedly to find nail scissors? Maybe.

"You should do the test anyway," Lucille said. "For peace of mind. Trust me."

Edith nodded, distracted, feeling like she was in some kind of dream as she stood up, the pharmacy bag rustling in her hand.

Lucille watched her, a strange pause in her motions, like she was unsure whether to go to her or not.

"What will you do?" she asked. "If it's positive?"

Edith blinked at the bathroom door, fake pine veneer over board, chipping off around the edges.

"I don't know," she said.

Notes:

Well, it only took nearly 95,000 words to reveal one of Edith's secrets...

Chapter 48: Results

Edith sat on cold porcelain and tried to make the instruction leaflet make sense. There were a lot of numbers and caveats. 54% accurate when used four days before due period, rising to 99%...

Well, she didn't know what day it was, let alone if she was due.

Better just to get it over with really.

She was acutely aware of Lucille's presence just on the other side of the door as she waiting for the display to change either way. Either to confirm that she was right, that she couldn't be pregnant, both for biological and contraceptive reasons, or to throw a big choice in her way.

It might be her only chance to have kids. It might be a one in a million thing never to be repeated. But it was the worst possible timing and also probably the worst person.

You were supposed to have children with a long-term partner, not with a foreign rock star who was also your boss and then add in the complex sexual mix they were in and the mistrust and then what she'd say to Alan... She'd have to admit that she lied.

"What does it say?" Lucille asked through the door as Edith pulled her jeans back up.

"Nothing yet."

"I'm going to get Thomas."

"No," Edith said immediately. "No, don't. It's probably nothing."

She heard the door close, leaving her alone in four walls of fear. Maybe she could just never come out. Just hide forever.

Was that a line on the indicator? What did that mean? Was that positive or negative?

Keep breathing. They'd always used condoms, she knew they had. She hadn't really handled them herself, but Thomas knew what he was doing. None of them had broken or anything, she didn't think.

Besides, they'd only had sex a few times. Once was enough, of course, but given the other points that told her this was impossible, she couldn't be...

She heard the room door burst open and reflexively threw the lock across just before Thomas tried to get to her, the bathroom handle rattling.

"Edith?" he said. "Can I come in?"

"I'm not ready."

"Listen, everything's going to be alright. You won't have to worry at all. We'll sort everything out. For one thing, you can come to England without a visa for private medical treatment, so there won't be any trouble there."

Edith frowned at the door. Something about this was too easy. She didn't trust it.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

He was nonplussed, laughing a little, but she knew that laugh... She was suspicious of that laugh. It was what he hid behind.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "It's just something I read when we were applying to come over here."

The fear was in her now. The sleeping tea, the snooping, the control... They controlled everything, right down to what she ate and drank, and now she was saying she might be pregnant and...

"You're not surprised," she said, almost stammering.

"What?"

"You're not surprised that I'm maybe... You should be surprised. Why aren't you surprised?"

That laugh again. No, no, no...

"What, you think I deliberately got you pregnant? How? We always used condoms."

"Maybe you tampered with them somehow."

"Edith, come on. This is irrational."

She slammed her hands into the door, furious. She'd had enough of being lied to and being told she was imagining it.

"You drugged me," she said. "You went through my stuff. I can't trust you."

"Calm down. We will get through this. Just open the door and we can talk this over sensibly."

She was breathing hard, more frightened than she wanted to admit.

"Is Lucille there?" she asked. She felt more safe with her somehow, like maybe there was some kind of feminine connection.

"Yes," came the voice as proof. "I know it's scary, but I think you're overreacting a little."

Was she? Or were they both lying to her?

Her heart pounded in her chest, a strange sensation that waters were rising all around her and she was either going to have to swim or perish.

"Did you kill your parents?" she asked.

It was maybe an unexpected question, but their answer was going to affect everything. Were they going to lie or not? Were they going to threaten her?

She held her breath, waiting. Perhaps there was a silent discussion occurring.

"Yes," Lucille said eventually. "Now, will you come out?"

It was just confirming what she'd already suspected for so long and yet it was still monumental. A sob slipped out of her. Part of her had perhaps wanted to believe that... that they hadn't.

But she'd known really. She'd known and yet she'd carried on. She'd let them keep leading her astray even though she knew.

But then again, she did know. No one else did, not really. She'd worked it out, almost by herself. She'd managed to go behind their backs, managed to see through their lies. Some of them anyway.

And she still knew one thing that they didn't. She still had leverage.

She wrapped the pregnancy test in several layers of tissue, sliding the lock across with a sharp snap.

Thomas smiled at her, trying to charm his way out of everything as usual, holding out his hand. Edith carefully kept the test out of his reach.

"You'll answer my questions first," she said. "Then I'll decide what I'm doing."

He looked to Lucille where she was lounged in the desk chair. She'd dragged it in front of the door. It wasn't a very subtle bit of barricading and any hope Edith might have felt that she would be an ally began to slip away.

"How about you tell us what you know about our parents' untimely deaths?" she said. "Or what you think you know, anyway."

Thomas moved to sit on the floor in front of her, Lucille resting a hand on his shoulder. Comforting.

Edith took a deep breath, unconsciously stepping behind the bed, putting a barrier between them.

"I... I think you made them look like accidents. You... messed with the pipes, caused a gas leak, and you knew your father would be passed out drunk and likely to die. And I think you crashed the car deliberately."

She definitely was not mentioning that Enola had told her about the switched brake lines. A good journalist protected their sources.

"Why would we do that?" Lucille asked, Thomas leaning back against her legs and watching carefully.

"Because they hurt you. It was for survival - you or them. I think you killed your father because he was dangerous and then your mother because of what she did. But you had to wait until Thomas was eighteen so you'd get the house without any fuss."

They looked... impressed more than anything. But there was the tiniest smile haunting Lucille's lips, a hint that there was something else too.

"So why didn't you leave if you thought we'd done such dreadful things? Did you feel bad for us? Poor hurt little things... Was it pity? Or was it just the sexual draw keeping you around?"

It might as well have been a slap. And Lucille wasn't even waiting for an answer, leaning forward like a cat prepared to pounce.

"Let me explain what's going to happen," she said. "We will finish the tour and take you to England, ostensibly to complete the book. While there, we will pay for all medical care. We'll even get you a Caesarean if you want and you don't mind the scar. Sign all the necessary paperwork to grant Thomas full custody and then you can get back on a plane and carry on with your life with all the glowing references you can imagine. No one will ever know."

"And what if it's negative?" Edith asked.

"Then we've put all our eggs in an eggless basket."

That burned and Edith couldn't help the way tears rushed to her eyes, doing her best to force them back and rub them away.

"Why?" she asked. "Why are you doing this?"

They blinked at her.

"She doesn't know," Thomas said softly.

"She does," Lucille replied. "She just doesn't want to think about it."

It was right there, screaming at the back of her mind. Shared beds, bookings under married titles, that closeness out in the desert, that dream... That dream that might not have been a dream. Maybe something had happened, maybe those moans were real.

Had they somehow managed to trick her? Were they not brother and sister at all? There were rumors, weren't there, that it was all fake?

Or was that just it? That was what she didn't want to think about, the possibility she didn't want to consider... That they really were and they were also...

And she'd tried not to notice, she'd refused the evidence of her own eyes and ears because she couldn't bear it.

"Do you remember a while ago, I said that some things were better done by a surrogate?" Lucille asked. "I wasn't just talking about how helpful assistants are."

A lot of things Lucille had said were coming back to her. Of being pregnant by her first and dearest love at seventeen. Of miscarriages. And that would be more likely, perhaps, if you had too many shared genes. And then there were hereditary diseases too. There was much too much risk involved in having a child.

All this time, they'd been using her. They must have planned it from the very beginning, planed to seduce her. Chosen her out of all the writers because she seemed naive and isolated. No family. No partner. Taking her away from everything she knew, keeping her off-balance, tricking her into letting them.

And yet...

"Why did you get involved, Lucille?" she asked.

"What are you talking about? It was my idea. I was the one sticking pins through all the condoms."

"But if the plan was to get someone pregnant, why did you bother seducing me too? You weren't going to get it done. If anything, that was just taking away time that Thomas could have been knocking me up."

From Lucille's face, twin spots of pink upon her cheeks. Edith knew she'd found a weakness, seizing upon it.

"Unless, of course, things didn't go quite to plan."

"You think I didn't want to get to know the future mother of my child?"

"I don't think it was exactly top of your agenda, no. Is that what you were arguing about the night we went dancing? Was it because Thomas had realized that you liked me? That you were developing feelings for the incubator?"

The narrowed eyes told her she was exactly right.

"Don't you have a show to play?" Edith asked. "You don't want to be late."

It was fun to be the one setting people off-balance for once.

"What are you going to do?" Thomas asked.

"I haven't decided yet. I'm going to sleep on it."

"Is it positive?"

Edith fixed him with the best cold stare she could manage, despite the tears and the hurt.

"I haven't decided whether to tell you."

Lucille stood up with a scrape of chair, barely restrained rage.

"If you run, we'll hunt you down and sue you for everything you've got. Breach of contract," she said.

Edith didn't doubt her. But she did doubt that her concern was purely for the little ball of cells growing within her.

Not that she was going to tell them about that yet.

Or maybe ever.

Notes:

Uh... Surprise? Maybe? You tell me.

Chapter 49: Choices

They debated taking her room key, but Thomas argued it would be unsafe. What if there was a fire and she had to get out?

They did eventually leave her alone. And that was when Edith broke down for a while, locking herself back in the bathroom to weep. A proper cry. Properly letting herself feel lost and small and afraid.

And then she took a deep breath, turned to a new page in her notebook, and started writing out her options.

1. Abortion.

It would probably be the neatest escape. Lie to the Sharpes, say she wasn't pregnant, run back home and deal with it. It would depend how quickly she could get away though. She didn't know how far along she was after all. What if it was too late?

And would she regret it? She genuinely wasn't sure. Maybe she would, but maybe she'd feel a wave of relief. It was probably much the same with having a child. Although it wasn't acceptable to talk about, some people must regret having children.

It was a possibility, but she didn't feel anything like certain.

2. Go along with it

Purely self-preservation. Giving up a child to incestuous murderers to save her own skin. Walking away. Abandoning them.

She drew a line through that. Not an option. She'd never forgive herself.

3. Run away

She could lie, pretend not to be pregnant, finish the tour and run back to Buffalo. It would be hard, yes. It would be very hard. But maybe she felt more comfortable about it.

Why did she feel that way? She tried to interrogate it. She'd accepted a long time ago that she likely wouldn't have children and now that she had a chance, maybe she felt a termination would be losing something. She wasn't like most other women; she had no guarantee that her fertility was reliable.

What if the Sharpes caught wind somehow? Could they sue for parental rights for Thomas? She wasn't sure.

But she had a horrible feeling that they would somehow twist everything, make her seem like an unsafe parent. Bring up her mental health, portray her as unfit in a dozen ways.

After all, she was hardly in an ideal position - she had a precarious job, she lived in shared housing with a man who certainly was not her partner and while being a single parent wasn't impossible, she genuinely wasn't sure if she'd cope.

It was a difficult one.

And then, of course...

4. Refuse to give up rights. Insist on co-parenting

This was probably some kind of madness talking. Go to England permanently? Or develop some kind of long-distance relationship between the baby and the Sharpes?

They wouldn't agree. They wanted to be parents. They wanted to be the mother and father. They wouldn't want her hanging around.

They did love her though, in their own twisted way. She believed they did. And she'd heard them that day, in the back of the bus, half asleep.

"She'll never stay," Lucille had said.

And then Thomas had said, "She might."

Was that secretly what they wanted?

She tried to get a grip on herself, writing INCEST in all capitals and underlining it for good measure. Not only had they both been cheating on her, but it had been with each other. And they had no intention of stopping, probably.

Despite herself, she was curious. Lucille had said she was pregnant at seventeen; that meant Thomas was fifteen. How long ago had this started? And which of them started it?

People said, didn't they, that children who had been abused might abuse other children? She wasn't sure of any statistics on that, but it made sense, didn't it? If that was what you knew.

She wanted to understand. What made people do things like that? Was it the cruelty of their childhood? The isolation?

And how did she feel about it?

Well, it would depend on the circumstances, she supposed. If one had abused the other, for one thing, that would be different to if they had both willingly...

Not that it was OK, obviously. Killing their parents wasn't OK, but she could still understand. Maybe she'd understand this too.

Oh, what was wrong with her? They had violated her body in the most awful way. They'd tricked her, used her, treated her like a walking womb and nothing more. No amount of twisted affection could change that.

The realisation stole over her slowly that technically she'd been... assaulted. Raped, even. She had not consented to this. She had consented to using protection.

It wouldn't stand up in court, she knew that. People had enough trouble proving much more cut-and-dry cases. This would be her word against theirs; she had no proof. Which was more likely - that she'd been the victim of a conspiracy to impregnate or that there had been an accident, a split condom or something?

Maybe in another life, she'd have thought that was what it was. Maybe if they'd chosen a different person, they'd have believed.

If she ran away, would they try again with someone else? Someone more vulnerable?

She felt a wave of protective instinct towards this hypothetical woman. What was to stop them trying again? Nothing at all.

Unless she stopped them.

Maybe this was more unhinged thinking. Giving herself an excuse when she knew it was a bad idea.

She needed more time to think. She needed to get through the shock and think clearly and that might take a few days.

Really, she should seek help. A second opinion. She should call Alan and lay it all out there, or some of it anyway.

She wasn't ready.

She lay on her bed staring at the ceiling, her hand unconsciously resting on her lower stomach. Thinking. Wondering.

The quiet tap against her door startled her more than a loud knock would have, sending her creeping to the peep hole.

Thomas, leaning against the door jamb, looking positively haggard.

Edith hesitated before opening it to let him enter. She wanted a weapon, if she was honest. A blunt object perhaps. Something.

But he didn't look angry. More like... upset.

He looked at her like a kicked puppy, reproachful as he strode in.

"Well, I hope you're proud of yourself," he said.

Edith's jaw dropped.

"Me?" she cried.

Thomas turned to her, gesturing wildly.

"Any reasonable person would have just given a straight answer but, oh, no, not you. You had to be difficult."

"You deliberately tried to get me pregnant against my will and now you're trying to bully me into giving you a child. I'm not the one being unreasonable. If anything I should already have called the police and made a run for it."

"And why haven't you?"

"Because I'm scared! You're murderers. You're liars, you're... I don't even know what else you're capable of. And you know where I live."

He scoffed, looking away.

"Lucille is crying her eyes out upstairs, you know. The set list went completely out the window. She played whichever songs reflected how she felt and I just ran to keep up. It's a miracle it held together."

Edith made herself shrug, like she didn't care at all.

"Maybe she should have thought about that before doing this," she said.

"It wasn't meant to happen! We weren't meant to develop feelings for you. God, I knew we should have chosen a man. It would have been so much easier. But Lucille was scared, and no wonder. She's lost enough pregnancies. Far too many."

"Perhaps if they weren't inbred, they'd have gone to term."

If looks could hurt, she'd have been wincing. It was a look of pure venom, but softening into sadness almost immediately.

"You don't know what it's like," he said quietly. "To have only one person in the whole world. To be trapped. When you need and crave love like oxygen, any kind, and you can only find it in one place. You can't tell me it's wrong. And even if it is, I don't care."

He wanted to talk. She could feel it. And so she decided to let him.

"When did it start?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"I don't know. I know she's the only person who loved me as a child. To Father I was a perpetual disappointment and to Mother just the right combination of chromosomes. Lucille was practically the parent to me. She's the one who took care of me. Protected me. And when we reached adolescence, it became... something different."

"She abused you," Edith said. "She was older, she knew..."

"We both wanted it."

Edith wasn't sure if she trusted that. After all, he'd been very young. Maybe he misremembered. Maybe Lucille had been pulling his strings for a very long time.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"You won't understand," he said. "You can't understand a love like this. It's like a monstrous parasite that feeds on us both but I think if it were removed, we would die. That's not an exaggeration. If I ever thought she didn't love me with every atom of body and soul, I'd... I'd rather be dead."

He was right. Edith didn't understand. Even in the most dedicated partners, she'd always expected autonomy. You were a team, not one being; there was a difference.

But she had other questions.

"Did you even like my writing?" she asked. "Or was it just my uterus you wanted?"

He laughed, a little huff of amusement.

"Of course we liked it," he said. "We weren't going to bring some dullard along. It was practically divine intervention that you were in exactly the right circumstances as well as being smart. Witty. Intriguing."

A faint blush had slipped past her defenses.

"I still don't know what I'm going to do," she said. "This is probably the worst thing anyone has ever done to me. You lied to me, you tricked me, you told me you loved me..."

"We do."

Edith shook her head, lips pressed tightly together.

"You don't do this to people you love," she said. "You don't force them into corners, you don't make them this scared... You don't do that to anyone."

"You're the only person who's ever tried to teach us that.

"But that's not my responsibility! It's not my job to teach you how to behave. You know it's wrong and you did it anyway... Please, just leave me alone."

He didn't argue, running a hand through his hair and heading for the door.

"We could make you very happy, you know," he said. "If you let us."

She sighed. She was so tired...

"Get out, Thomas," she said, unable to put any bite in it. "Go and look after your sister."

It took a long, long time for her to fall asleep.

Chapter 50: Q and A Session

The first moments after waking were strange. Edith stared at the wall in a peculiar haze, numb. Like her brain was trying to protect her by resisting the inevitable tug of memory for as long as possible.

Her first proper thought was that she wanted to be out of this room. The bathroom was practically haunted by the ghost of a previous life that had died within its walls.

A quick, hot shower. Was it too hot? Were hot showers bad for unborn children? There were plenty of things that were. Alcohol, obviously. Smoking. Coffee, she thought. Soft cheese, undercooked eggs. The world was suddenly full of potential hazards.

She went to breakfast in a sort of calm fog, avoiding the cooked buffet in favour of toast and orange juice.

When the Sharpes arrived, she noticed, of course. She tried not to show it, even as she felt their eyes on her, the way that Lucille's whole body went tense despite Thomas's comforting arm around her waist.

They approached like foxes, unsure but direct, cautious but focussed.

"Can we join you?" Thomas asked.

Edith shrugged.

"I don't really have a choice," she said.

Gently, Thomas pushed Lucille into a chair, making eye contact with Edith as he kissed the top of her head and made his way to collect food.

Despite her usual ethereal beauty, Lucille looked awful. Her face was slightly puffy, big shadows under her eyes, her hair pulled back too tightly.

They sat in silence for far too long. Edith didn't feel she had anything to say in this situation, not here. In the bus maybe, in private, but not in the over-lit yellow room they were sitting in, all cracked faux-leather and scratched tables.

The smell of bacon made her feel a little ill, though maybe it was just the look Thomas had fixed her with. Carefully neutral. Waiting for her to blink first.

Pushing her plate away, Edith took a deep breath, willing her eyes not to water, willing her voice not to crack.

"I'm going to pack my bags," she said. "And I'll talk to you once we're alone."

Maybe it felt good to be in control. She knew that, didn't she? She'd spent a lot of her teenage years trying to control one thing to the point that she almost died. And now, even though she knew her whole life was spiralling, she was clinging fiercely to what she could.

Her body was her own. This future child was hers. And she would defend them both.

As for the Sharpes...

She brushed her hair and resolutely did not braid it. She tousled it slightly, trying to encourage its natural waves, feeling the urge to cut it all off.

Maybe later.

The hotel phone seemed to be staring at her from the nightstand. Telling her that she ought to call Alan, she ought to ask for advice, she ought to summon some kind of help.

She didn't.

A plan was forming in her mind. An ultimatum she could put to Thomas and Lucille.

And, as usual, she found it easier to write things down.

The typewriter was comforting beneath her fingers. So often she'd thought of it as a monster, a lumbering, heavy, unwieldy blunt object, a beast she couldn't quite wrangle.

Now it was a friend. Like a big, old dog, loyal to her alone.

When she first met the Sharpes, they'd made her sign contracts. Maybe she wouldn't go quite that far...

She didn't care about typos. She just let it flow out.

This is not a promise. This is subject to withdrawal at any time.

I am pregnant. I am going to keep not going to terminate, even though part of me thinks I should. But, as you now know, this has been a surprise. I may never get another chance.

I do not need your help. I want to make that as clear as possible. If you ever give me any reason, I will leave.

You are killers. You are liars. You have used me. And I am not going to give you my child. Regardless of what arrangement we come to, I will never give them up and I will fight for them every step of the way.

I would prefer it if that did not become necessary.

You claim to love me. I'm not sure you actually know what that means. But if you do believe you do, if you want to try to form some kind of amicable relationship, I have some rules I want to lay down.

1. No more lying.
This is the most important. Stop lying to me. I know the truth doesn't come naturally to you, but I require complete honesty. No more knowjng looks, no more talking only when you think I'm asleep. I like to thimk I've proven that I can cope with the worst you can tell me. This is non-negotiable.

2. No manipulation.
I am a naturally emotional person. I do not appreciate this being used against me. Stop trying to turn my empathy into a weapon.

3. I decide what I eat.
I presume those "cocktails" we drank a few weeks ago at the open mic night were non-alcoholic. I haven't bought my own drinks in months. It was a smart way to help prevent me becoming suspicious while keeping me off the booze, I'll give you that. And while I don't intend to drink or anything, I want to be in charge of my food. It's very important to me.

4. I decide how this is revealed.
I am not letting you take my child and write me out of their life. Therefore, people will learn that there was something between us. I want to be the person who writes about it, in my own words. I have not yet decided how I want to approach this. A lot of it depends on you and where we go from here.

5. I wish I didn't have to write this but apparently I should specify that you shouldn't drug me, thanks.

There may be more. These are just what came to mind right away.

If you can prove that you can be trusted, I will consider allowing you to be involved in my child's life.

Was it harsh to refer to "her" child alone? The soft side of her said it was, but the steel core she was developing said it was only accurate. She was the one carrying another person within her body, growing them from her own flesh, risking them leeching the calcium from her bones. She'd be the one in pain when the time came.

Of course, childbirth wasn't all there was to parenthood. Wasn't even necessary. It was about love and care, nurture, all of that. And she intended to do all of that, by herself if necessary.

Besides, she didn't want to give them so much as a quarter inch before she felt sure.

Heavy lifting was possibly bad for pregnancy, but she felt she could handle her bags. Was that why Thomas was always trying to carry things for her? Trying to get her used to it? Or just trying to charm her, of course.

They were waiting for her, Lucille hugging herself, Thomas leaning against the side of the trailer with crossed arms. She fished her folded piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it over before loading her bags in silence.

They read it as Edith got in the back seat. She wanted to be as alone as it was possible to be when in a vehicle with two other people.

She saw the moment they read the confirmation, the way their hands flew to grasp each other tight. Excited. Scared. Like newly expecting parents. But the fear was winning out. Maybe her words were getting through.

Eventually, they joined her, Thomas driving, passing her the paper, carefully re-folded.

"We agree," he said. "We'll try."

Prove it.

"So, why did you really go through my bags?" Edith asked casually. A first test.

"It's very difficult to find out if someone is pregnant without them knowing," Lucille said quietly, the first time she'd spoken all day, croaky and hoarse. "We tried taking your temperature while you slept, but it's not reliable and you'd always just been drinking hot tea, so... So we were counting your tampons. Seeing how long it had been since you used any, trying work out if your periods had stopped."

Edith wasn't used to having her body discussed so openly by anyone who wasn't a medical professional, but it did make sense.

"They're pretty on and off at the best of times," she said. "But you weren't to know."

Thomas steered them out of Albuquerque - probably a very nice city. Shame it would probably always be tainted for her.

"I do still have some questions," she said. "Would you mind if I just ask them?"

A pause.

"It might help clear the air," Thomas sighed. "Go ahead."

Lucille crossed her arms and Edith could practically see the shield she was trying to hide behind. But she needed to know, she needed it.

"Why did you do it this way?" she began. "Why not employ an actual surrogate?"

"Commercial surrogacy is illegal in England," Thomas said, leaning back in his seat, maybe relieved that it wasn't personal questions about their relationship. "You can only do it for altruistic reasons. And we don't exactly have many friends."

"You could have gone abroad."

"And deal with the legal headache? No, thanks."

"And we wanted the challenge," Lucille said.

This was honesty, real honesty, just what she'd wanted and Edith found herself leaning forward.

"Of seducing someone?" she asked. "Surely that's not so hard for you."

"Mm. But they had to be the right person. No meddling family members. No boyfriend or girlfriend to mess things up - though we would have made an exception for the right candidate."

Vulnerable, Edith translated. Lonely. And she didn't like having those words applied to her.

"So you'd get them pregnant, distract them long enough and then whisk them off to England to give birth in secret," she said. "You do realize how mad that sounds?"

"That's how we'd get away with it. No one would suspect. Nice and neat. We get our heir, a vague story about the mother that we'd come up with later and that would be that."

It all sounded mad, and yet they'd almost done it. They'd almost pulled it off.

"Any particular reason you didn't just choose a man? It would have been easier, surely. Just... don't tell him you're pregnant."

There was a slightly awkward silence.

"I'd have had to go off the pill," Lucille said. "And then there would have been no guarantee that I'd get knocked up by the right man."

Ah. Of course. But still...

"You two could have used condoms," Edith said.

"No."

There didn't seem to be a particular reason for that. Just a simple no. And, if she was honest, Edith wasn't ready to talk about the realities of their relationship just yet.

Despite herself, she kept having flashes in her mind of them together. Lucille sitting astride Thomas's hips, her nails digging into his chest, gasping and tossing her hair back. His head between her legs, where he learned to be so good at that particular activity, her fingers tangled in his hair. Arching into one another.

It disquieted her. And she was trying to remind herself that it was just because she found them both attractive. It didn't mean anything.

Lucille looked at her properly for the first time all morning, a delicate frown in the rear-view mirror.

"If you thought you couldn't get pregnant, why did you bother with condoms, Edith?" she asked. "I can understand trying the pill for the regulatory effects, but why go to the trouble?"

Edith fixed her with a steady stare.

"Because I didn't know who else Thomas had been sleeping with," she said.

There was a short silence and then Lucille laughed. Loud and sudden, uncontrollable mirth, laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks.

After a few moments, Edith laughed with her.

There didn't seem much else she could do.

Chapter 51: Mile High

It was a long, long way to Denver and the route around the country was starting to seem more than a little circuitous. Up and down and all around. How far were they from the end? How long did she have before she'd have to make a decision?

When had she even got pregnant? The first time with Thomas had been... in Seattle, right? When was that? It might at least give her a ballpark figure.

She couldn't even work it out trying to count back the days. A month? Less, more? Not long, certainly. These were very, very early days. A lot of things might go wrong.

For once, Edith let Thomas carry the typewriter without complaint, trailing into the new motel, pretending that everything was normal even though it would never be normal again.

Maybe part of her thought she might wake up. That this was all a strange, strange dream. Like maybe she didn't have to tell anyone until after a certain point.

Or like telling anyone would bring her bad luck. She could hardly imagine anything worse than being sent gifts for a child who never came.

They'd eaten on the road, gas station sandwiches, but dinner was looming quite large in the near future.

"Are you going to eat with us?" Lucille asked as they paused on her floor, strangely shy.

Well, being alone in her room didn't exactly appeal...

"Sure," she said. "We're pretty much stuck together. We should try to find a sense of normality. I'll just freshen up first."

She washed her face and tied back her hair, trying to maintain her facade of calm. If it slipped, she might panic.

At least this room, however dull, was very different to the last one. Someone in the motel liked blue, a sort of aquamarine border dividing a deep navy lower half of the wall from a turquoise upper. It made her think of the sea. Beach trips with Mom and Dad.

She struggled to imagine Thomas and Lucille building sandcastles.

The little knock had her taking a deep breath, tapping her pocket to make sure she had her room key.

"Shall we eat here or try to find somewhere out in Denver proper?" Thomas asked.

Edith shrugged.

"Here, I think. More convenient."

Something had... changed. It took her a little while to work out what it was, but watching Lucille tenderly brush a stray hair from Thomas's face as he pored over the menu, she understood.

They weren't hiding from her anymore. She knew their big secret and so a tension had left them. The hesitation to be too intimate, to touch one another.

It wasn't even romantic really. Just close. Comfortable.

Honestly, she probably wouldn't have found it that odd. Closer than most, but she'd never have suspected the extent of it in a thousand years.

And a weird part of her found it sweet. Two hurt, lost children trying to take care of each other.

Well... It was sweet up to a point.

Lucille caught her looking, blinking and looking away, embarrassed to be noticed being soft.

"We're off the map now," she said, resting her chin in her hand. "I don't know what's supposed to happen."

At least she was being honest.

"I suppose... I suppose I should see a doctor," Edith said. "Just to confirm. And get some advice."

"We have read a lot about it," Thomas said. "You need folic acid and plenty of iron as part of a balanced diet, gentle exercise. And you can keep having sex as much as you want."

That last part hadn't been expected and Edith stammered lightly, startled by their server asking for drink choices. She managed to ask for water, just about.

"I can't believe you just said that," she hissed afterwards.

"Just letting you know the option is there," he said.

Edith looked to Lucille, getting a half-smile and a shrug in return.

"You don't trust us," she said. "And that's understandable and entirely our fault and so we're going to have to work hard to change that. But we do still find you highly attractive. And we're still... available. For fun."

Edith let out a long exhale.

"You... use sex as a weapon," she said, trying to keep her voice down. "You used it to keep me vulnerable and exposed."

"And you think that doesn't work both ways?" Lucille asked.

She fiddled with the red ring, sending little reflected sparkles bouncing off the salt shaker.

"I've... never let anyone touch me like that before," she said softly. "I never wanted to."

This felt like a trick. Edith wasn't sure. Then again, it certainly tied in with her theory that their feelings were genuine, however strange and unhealthy they might be. And that had surprised them.

"I can't," Edith said. "I just... I can't."

"Alright," Thomas said, taking Lucille's hand briefly to calm her fidgeting. "Let us know if you change your mind."

She wasn't sure she would. After all, she felt sure she would be thinking of them together the whole time. Wondering if they'd learned different things from each other, wondering how she compared...

"What are we going to do in Denver before the show tomorrow?" she asked once they'd ordered, trying to move the conversation to safer topics.

"Botanic Gardens," Thomas said. "There's a glass-topped performing arts space which looks very striking if we have time."

"And I want to drive out towards the airport to see the blue murder horse," Lucille added. "But we should maybe go tonight to get the full effect."

Edith felt like her brain had stopped understanding English somehow.

"What in the world is the blue murder horse?" she asked.

"Oh, it's spectacular. Wait and see."

Somehow of all the things Edith had considered through dinner and as they uncoupled the trailer to make a pointless drive to an airport, she didn't expect a huge, terrifying statue of a rearing, blue stallion with glowing red eyes.

And it was... definitely a stallion. No mistaking that... shape.

"Oh!" Lucille said, full of wonder. "Oh, look at him!"

"Why is it... here?" Edith asked.

"I think it's supposed to represent the wild spirit of the American West or something. It killed the man who made it though. Fell on him, severed an artery."

"That's awful."

"But fast. Plenty worse ways to go."

That was true, she supposed.

Edith wasn't sure if she liked it, as such, but it was certainly impressively different. And Lucille loved it.

She was tired by the time they got back to the motel, just wanting to go to bed and rest. Her brain, as usual, had other ideas. It wanted to go over how she was going to reveal all of this to the world. How embarrassing it was going to be. How all those fans, those faceless Twitter people were going to tear her to shreds.

Would she ever get another job again? Or would she always be marked by this extreme lack of professionalism?

Maybe she should give up writing. Get a more steady job. After all, soon it wouldn't be just herself she had to feed.

Weirdly, she was almost glad her dad wasn't here to disapprove. And that made her feel awful.

Alan was going to be bad enough...

Better to do it sooner rather than later. She promised herself she'd do it in the morning. It would be a weight removed.

It didn't make dialling his number any easier, her fingers trembling.

He was at work, the answerphone message equal parts a relief and irritating.

"Hi, Alan, it's Edith. I'll try you again later on. Hope you're having a good day. Uh... Yeah. Bye."

Really she wanted everything to be normal. It wasn't, but she wanted to pretend it was, just until she really got used to the idea.

Gardens were a good idea. Nature helped, even carefully maintained and managed.

They'd gone to the York Street garden, one of three in Denver, and it was enormous. Acres and acres. They had to pick and choose which particular themed plantings to go to, mainly by the names. The Orangery. The Romantic Garden. The Ellipse. The Fragrance Garden. The Victorian Secret Garden.

Everything was beautiful and peaceful, even with the occasional rambunctious child running up and down the paths.

"Somehow this wasn't what I expected," Lucille said.

"What do you mean?" Edith asked. "It's a garden."

"Well, yes, but the one thing I know about Denver is its altitude. Don't people come here to train for marathons because the air is thin? I assumed it would all be Himalayan hardiness."

"Just because things are hardy doesn't mean they can't be pretty."

And just because things were pretty didn't mean they weren't tough as nails, she added internally.

She wasn't going to write about the pregnancy yet. She was working out a timeline; tell Alan, see a doctor, make sure nothing was amiss and then start planning to reveal all.

Maybe by that stage, she'd have got used to it. Maybe she'd have figured out how to word it.

In the meantime, she'd have to get another article out in the world.

She started planning it in the rose garden, sitting on a bench with her notebook against her thigh and watching how carefully Lucille handled the blooms, being so gentle with them, her nails like the thorns almost. Not so much as dislodging a single petal. She tried taking a picture, but it didn't come out particularly well. Too far away.

Apparently nothing grows in the grounds of Allerdale Hall save for a little grass and some bold trees. The soil is red clay, hostile to most roots.

Maybe that's why the Sharpes treat plants as exhibits, as fascinations. They appreciate them, certainly, but from an almost academic standpoint.

Then again, that's their approach to humans too. They find connections difficult and while charming and enticing enchanting, there is still also a faint sense of alienation, of isolation.

They've spent so long alone, just the two of them.

Thomas came and sat next to her, leaving a careful gap between them. Giving her space.

"Is it true that you don't have waiting times for doctors here?" he asked.

Edith frowned at her notes, confused, throwing him a look for clarification.

"Well... I mean, back home it can be very difficult to get a quick appointment, so I'm wondering which stop I should ask Pam to try to get you booked in for a check over."

"Who's Pam?" Edith said, feeling a little blush at the fact that that was her first question.

The little smile only confirmed that she'd seemed a little, tiny bit jealous that there was someone else in their lives.

"She's our long-suffering sort of manager. She's the one who gets all your articles and types them up, scans your pictures. She's nice enough, smart enough, discreet enough..."

"Oh," Edith said, glancing in Lucille's direction. "Oh, so she... She knows?"

"God, no! No, no one knows that except you. But, well, she knows that we value a bit of distance sometimes. I figure she's best placed to look up GPs. Or... What do you call them? Family doctors? Primary Care Physician?"

"Be better just to send me straight to a gynecologist probably."

She'd been trying to shock him just a little by being so candid, but he just nodded.

"I'm sure when she calls they'll point her in the right direction."

Edith wasn't sure she was comfortable with a stranger knowing, but then again she did need an appointment and someone with internet access might be better placed to choose a good place.

"What are you going to tell her?" she asked.

He shrugged, looking away, his hair moving just slightly in the breeze.

"That we've had an affair. That you might be pregnant. That we're considering what the next step could be."

"Had? Past tense?"

Ah, now he was surprised, looking back at her.

"I thought that was what you'd decided," he said.

"I think I've learned to keep my options open."

She decided to move before her nerves got the better of her, standing up, but maybe she had one more thing she wanted to get out.

"Don't call her till tomorrow," she said, half turned away. "I want to tell Alan first, before anyone else."

He took her hand briefly, squeezing it tightly just for a moment.

"I won't. I promise."

Despite it all, she couldn't find it in herself to doubt, squeezing back and heading down to smell her share of the roses.

Chapter 52: An Important Conversation

Notes:

So, fun fact, when I was first vaguely planning this fic over two years ago, I envisaged 52 chapters, one a week, one each for each US state (give or take - not Hawaii or Alaska, and some wiggle room) but... Well, here we are and we're nowhere near done! The best laid plans, etc etc.

"Oh, Miss Cushing? Miss Cushing?"

Edith followed the receptionist's fast beckoning and found herself fixed by a conspiratorial look.

"A man called for you, Miss Cushing. A certain Mr McMichael."

"Doctor," Edith corrected her automatically. "Thank you. I'll call him back right away unless he left a message?"

"Just that he'll be home all night."

Great. Though quite what she thought that was meant to mean, Edith couldn't fathom. Phone sex appointment?

"Do you want... company?" Lucille asked as they climbed the stairs.

"What for?"

"Well, it's a potentially awkward phone call. I thought you might appreciate some moral support."

It was a sweet offer and Edith was highly tempted. Someone to hold her hand, someone to help her get through it. But at the same time, this was... private somehow.

And she wasn't ready to be that vulnerable again just yet.

"I'd rather handle it alone," she said. "But thank you."

She wiped down the receiver as usual, out of habit. Lucille bought her these wipes. Picked them up for her in supermarkets and gas stations, made sure she didn't run out.

Then again, she'd instilled the fear of hotel germs in her in the first place so she probably shouldn't be too touched by it.

She knew Alan's number by heart now. Quick motions over the buttons before she could chicken out.

He picked up almost immediately. He'd been waiting for her.

"Hey," he said. "How's Denver?"

Of course he'd looked it up for the return call.

"Really nice. Spent the afternoon looking at plants. Peaceful."

She found herself closing her eyes, taking a deep, grounding breath. Oh, this was going to hurt.

"I have to tell you something," she said, strangely robotic, unable to modulate her voice at all.

"Alright," he said, and she was so grateful for the softness in his tone, the understanding, the kind of thing that made him so good with patients.

Not that it made this easy.

"You were right," she whispered. "I... I was sleeping with Thomas. And I'm... I'm almost sure that I'm..."

She couldn't spit it out. She couldn't say it, couldn't admit it. But he knew.

"OK," he said. "Alright. Do you know what you plan to do?"

Straight into doctor mode. Probably panicking underneath just as she was, but better at keeping his cool. He'd trained for it, after all.

"I'm going to keep it," Edith said. "And the Sharpes are going to take me to England, pay for all the hospital fees."

"Don't they trust the NHS?"

"Well, because I'm foreign I think it has to be private medical care for visa reasons."

There was a brief pause.

"I'm... I'm glad you've thought it all through," Alan said gently. "But are you sure that's a good idea? Being that far from home?"

She wasn't, but then again...

"Well, none of it's a good idea. It's bad timing, it's not the kind of relationship I would have chosen... But it's happened now. I want to make the best of it."

"And do you love him?"

She hadn't been expecting that at all.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I'm just asking."

At least prickly was a better feeling than being judged.

"No," she said. "No, I don't. I find him attractive and interesting and I like being around him but I don't love him."

She didn't add that she didn't trust him very much either.

"Does he love you?"

Ah, now that was harder. Alan was the only person she could confide in though, now that Finlay was out of the picture. Not that she could imagine the shame of having to admit all this to her.

She should probably take advantage of a more or less sympathetic ear.

"He says he does, but he respects that I don't feel the same."

Laughter wasn't what she expected.

"Well, who'd have thought I would ever have something in common with Sir Thomas Sharpe?"

Her heart didn't know what it was doing, whether aching or glad or some weird combination of the two. He didn't sound upset, but she wasn't sure how much of that was just acting.

"I wanted you to be the first to know," she said. "Except Thomas and Lucille obviously. But it's very early. Things could go wrong or it might be a false alarm even. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much. And I don't have a clue what I'll do afterwards."

"I mean... You'll come home, right?"

And there was the pain, the bad, the negative, a churning deep in her stomach.

"I don't know. Maybe. But it's Thomas's baby too. Maybe I'll... move to England. I don't know."

She knew exact what Alan was imagining. That she'd come back, raven-haired infant in her arms, back to the apartment and the pair of them would set up a little platonic household. And maybe they would. Maybe that was actually the best option.

All the same, maybe it wasn't just her own hopes she was trying to keep suitably low.

"So, when are you seeing one of my esteemed colleagues from the field of medical excellence?"

Safer ground. Thanks, Alan.

"Soon. We'll have it arranged over the next few days. It's all the travelling that's stressing me out though - the sooner I can just be in one place and see one doctor, the better I'll feel, I think."

"How many more tour stops?"

"Er... Ninteen, maybe? Twenty?"

"And how many weeks is that?"

They'd taken a long time to do just the six stops from Seattle to here, winding their way through California and the dramatic desert landscapes beyond. She genuinely didn't know exactly how long.

"It varies how long there is between shows," she said vaguely. "I mean, I'm probably only a month gone, if that. I'll still be able to fly and everything."

"Well, I was just thinking that maybe you could leave the tour early and go to England, settle in. Have some time to yourself."

That was a good idea really, but she still rankled at it slightly.

"I'm not ill. I don't need to be confined or anything. I started this tour and I want to finish it."

He was quiet for a moment.

"OK," he said eventually. "I'm glad you told me."

Who else, Edith asked internally.

"And all that stuff about Lucille, that was just... I don't know, a smokescreen?"

Ah. That.

For a moment, Edith considered lying. But then again, Alan was her oldest and best friend. If she couldn't talk to him about this kind of thing maybe she really was in trouble.

"No," she said quietly. "It wasn't."

That took some time to sink in.

"You... You mean...? You mean both of them...?"

"Mm-hm."

"And do they... Do they know?"

The laugh was out before she could stop it.

"I know it sounds conceited but... Well, they both like me. They made an offer and... I accepted. I didn't expect it to end up being this serious. I thought it would be our little secret. Though I'd be grateful if it could stay that way, the stuff with Lucille. Not everyone is as open-minded as you."

That was manipulative and she knew it, but she was already focussing on self-preservation.

"Well..." he said. "I mean, I'm not going to pretend that sleeping with two siblings isn't weird - because it is - but I suppose you're all consenting adults. As long as you're all happy and everyone knows what's going on then..."

Oh, he didn't know the half of it...

"But you get why I won't be mentioning it probably?"

"Definitely. Full confidentiality, I promise."

"Thank you."

That had gone better than she could ever hope, so it was a little typical that he managed to sabotage it at the last second.

"I would do it, you know," he said. "I'd help you raise someone else's child if you asked me to."

Ouch... Ouch, ouch, ouch...

The tears sprang to her eyes and she tried her best to blink them back.

"I know you would," she said. "But could you guarantee that you wouldn't ever resent that? Or keep waiting for something to happen between us? There are so many great women out there who you would be so wonderful with and all that would pass you by. I can't be the reason that you miss out on love, Alan. I couldn't bear that. And one day you'd wake up and you'd hate me."

"No, I wouldn't," he scoffed. "I could never hate you."

"You can't know that. And I don't want to sound ungrateful because I am and I understand what you're trying to say but it's just..."

Her voice was cracking, her breath coming in little hiccoughs.

"I just don't want to hurt you," she managed, gasping it out.

He was better at this than her, better at staying calm.

"And I just want you to be happy," he said. "I'm just letting you know that the option is there. If you need it."

She did her best to get herself back under control, thanking him again and saying she had to leave. It would be time for soundcheck soon and then dinner and the show and she had to write...

She lay on the bed for a while all the same, sobbing, letting it out.

When the knock came, she almost didn't answer. But she needed to get back to normal. She needed to write, needed to report, needed that side of her life to be as it was before.

Lucille, alone, her eyes raking over Edith's face. The evidence of puffiness and tear-streaks and probably blotches.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said. "This is exactly what I feared would happen."

Edith hesitated, the horrible blend of wanting comfort and resisting touch swirling in her until one came out on top.

She let Lucille envelop her in her arms, gently walking her backwards into the room and kicking the door shut, stroking her back and making soft soothing noises.

"Did he make you feel bad?" she asked.

"No," Edith said, trying her best not to stain Lucille's shirt with her tears. "No, he was sweet. Very understanding. But he... He thinks I should go home."

"And play house with him?"

"Mm..."

"And you don't want to?"

"I don't... I don't feel the same way about him that he feels about me."

"Ah."

Did she have any idea of what that meant? To be at risk of breaking hearts?

Well, yes, probably. She broke hearts all the time. No one would ever stand a chance with her and they'd probably never know why, they'd never suspect.

But she didn't know how it was when you actually cared about the person the heart belonged to.

"It'll be OK," Lucille was murmuring, lips brushing Edith's scalp, a soft kiss that wasn't trying to be anything other than comforting. "It will."

Edith was definitely not convinced.

But being held was still nice.

Chapter 53: Calm

The show in Denver was...

Hmm. What was the right word? Intense, certainly. Vibrant, yes. And to Edith, utterly, utterly mortifying.

They'd played their usual meandering setlist, maybe giving it a slightly gentler edge than usual. And for a local cover, they did How to Save a Life. Edith hadn't even known The Fray were from around here.

There was something ironic about them singing about wanting to save lives given what she knew about them. And she was half convinced they knew exactly what she was thinking, Lucille more than once glancing from her seat at the keyboard into the wings.

But somewhere around the end, not quite there, they'd exchanged a series of looks, Thomas questioning and Lucille nodding in response, switching to bass while Thomas picked up his guitar.

"We're going to do a new song tonight," he said, adjusting the strap. "This is the world premiere. It might change before we record it, I don't know. And this is for a friend of ours. Or at least we hope she's still our friend. At the moment, it's called This Wasn't Meant to Happen."

Edith had started to blush somewhere in her chest and it had rapidly flooded up to her face. She moved back into the shadows, trying her best to hide.

Lucille stomped out a beat on the free-standing drum, a steady four by four, playing a driving bass line, two fingers flicking over the strings, Thomas taking on the rhythm and joining in, striking out oddly rough chords for their style.

And then he started to sing.

I didn't mean to hurt you
I know that I did
But this wasn't meant to happen

I didn't mean to scare you
I know that I did
But this wasn't meant to happen...

And then Lucille joined in, her higher voice, harmonising on her own verse.

I didn't mean to love you
I know that I do
But this wasn't meant to happen

I didn't mean to let you know
That it's true
This wasn't meant to happen...

And now here Edith was in the back of the bus, trying to figure out how to deal with this and with the added insult that the chorus just refused to leave her head, swirling round and round inside her brain.

Whoa-oh, this wasn't meant to happen
I swear
Whoa-oh, I'm sorry...

Right. The Sharpes had made the first move in getting this public and whilst they hadn't said anything about pregnancy or about the whole relationship really, she still felt it was pretty obvious who they were talking to and about. There could be talk.

She had to nip speculation in the bud as soon as possible whilst also maintaining her own privacy.

It could wait for the end of the article, until after she'd reported on the concert itself and on Denver. She wished she'd taken a picture of Blue Mustang, but it probably wouldn't have come out well. She'd just have to describe it and anyone actually reading all this could look it up.

Right. Last paragraph.

I would like to quell any rumors that might be going around. Yes, the new song Crimson Peak played near the end of their performance was about me. As for any details, I'm not quite ready to reveal them just yet.

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion...

She put her notes away to tidy and type up later. Lucille was driving, Thomas asleep next to her, the warm afternoon sun making him almost luminous.

"It was too much, wasn't it?" Lucille asked. "The song last night."

Edith sighed.

"It was embarrassing, certainly, but, well, I know what you're like. Music is how you express yourselves. What you're feeling, what you're thinking. Who wrote it?"

"Thomas mostly. It's why the tune and the hook are a bit more... You know, commercial. He's better at that than I am. I never want to take the obvious chord, even if it would sound better. And he wrote the words. But then I changed most of them, especially the ones I wanted to sing. Did you like it?"

Hmm...

"As a song, yes. As a method of apologizing, it left a little to be desired."

"In what way?"

She was so earnest. Leaning forward a little, her grip tight on the steering wheel. She genuinely wanted to know what to do.

"Oh, it's not the song's fault," Edith said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "It's not as simple as just saying sorry. It's going to take me a long time to even start thinking about trusting you again. I mean, you had sex next to me while I slept. Oddly enough, I need a bit of time."

They drove in silence for a little longer and then Lucille cleared her throat.

"I didn't know you knew about that," she said.

Edith shrugged, even though she couldn't see her.

"I thought it was a dream," she said. "And I felt so, so guilty for even subconsciously imagining..."

"We didn't touch you, you know," Lucille said, like that made it any better. "We wouldn't do that. We were just... excited. The first part of the plan had come to fruition, more or less without a hitch. There'd been one or two unexpected developments on our part, but that was all."

Edith picked at the edge of her sleeve, pulling off some fluff. She didn't have much to say. Nothing that they didn't all already know.

Lucille sighed, drumming her fingers lightly against the wheel.

"I think, ironically, that we may not be in Kansas anymore," she said.

Ah, yes. Kansas. That was where they were going. And typical that the Sharpes' main reference point would be The Wizard of Oz.

"Did you ever read the books?" Edith asked.

"No. I meant to, but never got round to them. And then I read a quote from L Frank Baum somewhere about wanting to update fairytales so as to remove the horror and I just wondered what the point was."

"It's for children."

"Yes, and children need to be taught about the dangers of accepting apples from strangers, however kindly they might seem."

Or tea, Edith thought.

They'd elected not to stopover anywhere en route despite the multiple towns they were driving through, an appointment with a doctor awaiting her in Wichita. She had mixed feelings about it. She was anticipating at lot of difficult questions.

Would Thomas go with her, as the father?

Did she want him to? Support might be nice, but it was also private, so...

Of course, because they had arrived a day early, he had to turn on the charm with the receptionist rather strongly.

"I'm so sorry," he said, a light smile, not flirting but being open and confident, attractive but not imposing. "It must be such an inconvenience, but we would be very, very grateful if you could accommodate us."

She clicked around on her computer, bright pink nails shining, mouth twisted slightly.

"We could give you a family room," she said uncertainly. "A double and a couch bed."

Edith felt eyes fall on her, asking if that was alright. She rather wanted her own space, but at the same time, she was so tired and the idea of having to drive around looking for vacancies was so, so unappealing... As long as it was horizontal, she'd be fine.

She nodded, just wanting to rest. She didn't know why she was so exhausted. All she'd done was write up some notes and get driven across a timezone.

Maybe that was part of it. The clock behind the reception desk felt like it was showing the wrong time.

"Right," Thomas said, unlocking the door, a room over-stuffed with furniture. "Dinner?"

Oh, just the thought made her feel queasy...

"Can you bring me something back?" Edith asked. "I really want to take a nap. And I should really type up my article."

They didn't seem to like leaving her, but agreed she needed privacy to write. At least that part of their bargain still seemed to stand.

"Anything in particular you want to eat?" Lucille asked.

"No. It'll mainly be for the energy."

"OK."

She hovered just outside of Edith's personal space for a second or two before turning away, like she'd wanted to give her a hug or kiss her goodbye. Thomas slipped an arm around her, so casual, squeezing her hip lightly. Maybe he'd noticed too.

And then Edith was finally alone and sighing, rubbing at her eyes. It was just a little typing and then she could sleep.

Of course, it ended up being a bit of an ordeal, last minute re-organizing of her paragraphs, writing on the backs of the photos, but eventually it was done and she could turn out the light, draw the blackout curtains and slip beneath deliciously cool, stiff sheets.

It felt like only minutes before she heard the door open, wincing away from the hallway light.

She couldn't catch what Lucille said, a gentle murmur, but she could hear them moving around. The run of the shower and tap, rustling of clothes, the strange, high burr of bag zips being opened and closed.

They didn't turn the light on. They were trying not to disturb her.

For them, it was very conscientious.

Edith let sleep take her again, waking up in the early hours, disturbed by the air conditioning unit whirring gently into life.

She was absolutely starving and tweaked the curtain just enough to let in a glimmer of light, spotting the paper bag on the desk next to the typewriter.

No matter how hard she tried, the rustling was obvious and she became aware that Lucille had stirred behind her.

"We got you a kind of wrap thing," she said very softly. "Figured you could eat it cold."

"Thanks," Edith whispered. "Sorry, I..."

"It's fine. I'm very good at falling asleep."

Edith retreated to the warmth of her blankets, unsure exactly what combination of vegetables she was tasting but knowing they were good.

In the dim light, she could see Thomas's eyes shining, pretending he hadn't woken up as Lucille folded herself around him like a protective cocoon. Just watching her, nothing more.

One of them was briefly eclipsed in a wink. An attempt to put her at ease, to show that he meant no harm.

She gave him a tiny nod in response. Recognition. Mutual recognition.

There was a sense of truce between them.

An improvement, Edith decided, shuffling back under her covers and trying not to worry about impending medical attention.

Chapter 54: Apprehension in Wichita

Edith dreamt of kisses. She was floating somewhere soft, and someone was gently kissing her face, her neck, her lips. Nothing else touched her. Just the ghosts of kisses fluttering over her skin.

She was not afraid. And she felt the absence of fear acutely, almost wondering at it.

And there was a whooshing sound, waves against the shore, gentle and soothing, continuing even as she began to wake.

The tea kettle. The sound of water boiling, being poured into two cups. Lucille was sitting up in bed, her hair tousled and unravelling from its braid while Thomas stirred and discarded the teabags.

Edith stretched beneath her sheets, feeling their eyes move to her in unison.

"Tea?" Thomas asked, his voice still a little rough from resting overnight, casually shirtless. "English breakfast? Or we have jasmine somewhere."

It was just how he slept, but Edith couldn't shake the feeling that his bare skin was calculated in some way. Either it was supposed to make him appear vulnerable or it was supposed to disarm her. Maybe a bit of both.

"I'll just have water, thanks," she said.

She shuffled out of bed and took her clothes to the bathroom, showering quickly, brushing her teeth. She could hear the soft tones of their voices through the door as she brushed her hair, leaving it loose. Like a curtain she could hide behind.

They were sitting in bed together, cups in hands, maps laid out across the sheets.

"We think we've found the best way to walk to the clinic," Lucille said. "Do you want us to come with you?"

Edith sipped her mug of water.

"Both of you?"

"Or just the one if you prefer."

She didn't know. On the one hand, support would be welcome but...

Well, she wanted to attract as little attention as possible. The Sharpes hid in plain sight but that meant being seen...

"Thomas should probably come," she said.

Lucille's perfectly porcelain face didn't so much as twitch, but her eyes told a different story. A slight dulling. She wanted to go. She didn't want to hear everything second-hand.

To let her or not? She was letting Edith decide. That was a plus, wasn't it? A start. And she wanted to encourage such behavior...

"I mean, you can come if you want," she said. "I just don't know if they'll make you wait outside. I didn't want you to be bored."

It was embarrassing how pleased seeing Lucille smile made her. A part of her was still so desperate to be liked even now.

"Just say I'm your doula. You know, a birth partner."

That was a long, long way away still. Edith just nodded, unwilling to let her thoughts spill out just yet.

"Well, it's not until the afternoon," Thomas said. "We should see the sights of Wichita first. I admit, I know absolutely nothing about it. It will be fun to explore."

It wasn't. Not for Edith, anyway. Her mind was firmly elsewhere. Too worried, too apprehensive.

She sleepwalked through wandering the river, waiting for the Historical Museum to open. It was an imposing building, a former City Hall, all sandstone and topped with a tall clocktower.

Four floors. And a lot of it was interesting, pretty. Cut glass and silverplate, examining the growth of the town from the first settlers and buffalo hunters through to the late 1930s. There had been a lot of early aviation around apparently.

The early 20th-century drugstore exhibit was equal parts interesting and terrifying. The things people used to take... Edith much preferred the recreation of a cottage from the 1890s, with its sweet homely decorations.

"Wait till you see Allerdale," Lucille said, watching her eyes following the wallpaper pattern. "We have a lot like this, originals. Fittings and furnishings."

"Different economic class though, surely," Edith said. "This is meant to be an ordinary family and you were rich. Still are."

"Very true, but fashion is fashion. If our family could pay for beautiful imported carpets, you can guarantee the middle classes would aspire to similar. And those a little lower down would make their own patterns in their rag rugs."

There was even a demonstration of how such things were made, a rough canvas, a pile of scraps and a cruel-looking hook. It was almost hypnotic to watch.

"Ours were all long ago eaten by moths and carpet beetles," Thomas said. "Though we have a wonderful early photograph of the hallway covered in a Persian rug that must have cost the same as a house. Pity the damp and the subsidence got it really."

"I just hope it was red," Lucille said. "Cover up the mud stains longer."

Edith could only imagine the sucking squelch of walking on damp fabric and tried not to be too nauseated.

It was a strange walk to the clinic, Thomas keeping a close eye on the street map. Mixed emotions. Edith wanted to go, wanted to have a real medical opinion, but so many fears were rolling through her head. What if she was wrong? What if something else wasn't right?

At least the pristine outside of the building put her a little at ease. There was something reassuring about medical facilities looking exactly as she expected. Painted white, tiled floor. Ugly chairs. Plastic plant.

Neither Thomas nor Lucille were allowed into the examination room as it turned out. And they were not best pleased, Lucille folding her arms and legs, frowning at the room in general.

Thomas was better at hiding his emotions, a pleasant neutrality on his face, his arm resting along the back of the chairs behind Lucille's shoulders. Maybe she could feel him there, a calming presence.

And Edith had to be alone with a stranger.

There were many tests. Height and weight - happily in the "normal" BMI range now - blood pressure, bloods for various disease checks, urine sample.

"Well..." the doctor said after what felt like hours. "Congratulations. You are definitely pregnant."

Edith didn't know whether the sigh she let out was relief or worry. They talked about her medical history, her concerns about her past issues, discussed good nutrition and exercise tips for the months going forward, how her body would change. Not a great deal for quite a while, but soon she'd start noticing it. Tenderness. Possible nausea. Potentially cravings. Darkening of the areolae, a part of her anatomy she was sure she'd never given much thought to but would suddenly be monitoring intensely.

But she was about to find out why the session was private as the doctor fixed her with kind, dark eyes. She reminded her of Finlay a little, just twenty years younger. That was comforting, at least.

"Do you have a partner, Ms Cushing?" she asked.

"Uh..." she hesitated. "Uh, no. No, I suppose not."

"And who is the father of the child? This information is confidential and you do not have to answer if you don't wish to, though I will have to make a note."

"It's Thomas Sharpe. The man I came with."

"But you're not in a relationship with him?"

"Um... It's complicated. We're trying to sort it out, really."

"How did you meet?"

"Oh, he's, er... My employer, I suppose."

No judgement. That was a relief, at least. She just nodded, writing something down.

"I understand you won't be coming back here. You're... travelling. How long for?"

"A few months. And then I'll go to England. That's where I'll... You know. Give birth."

It all sounded very distant and strange. Maybe she still hadn't quite got her head around the reality of it.

"Alright. I can have your results sent by email. And I'm sorry, but I have to ask this - are you at risk in your current situation? Ill-health, poverty... domestic violence or coercion?"

Edith thought about being lied to, about being tricked, about murder and fear and mistrust and how she didn't know what she was going to do, she didn't know...

"No," she heard herself say. "No, I'm not at risk."

She prayed that that was true.

Chapter 55: Rainbows and Bones

The Kansas show saw Lucille singing a strange, mournful version of 'Over The Rainbow'. She'd changed the key or the tone or something, playing elaborate piano ornaments under her own soaring vocals. It turned a hopeful ballad into something deeply, deeply sad.

People wept. Even Edith found herself wiping her eyes. Wishing on stars and finding herself far away must have been a frequent dream of Lucille's childhood, but even beyond that, there was truth here.

There was always truth in the music, but buried under layers of metaphor and word play. This was something else.

Edith didn't notice Thomas in the wings at first. He'd come off stage to put one of his guitars away in its case, crouched in the darkness to watch like some kind of wood nymph. Or a goblin.

What was that poem? We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits...

Bit late, really...

She watched him watch Lucille, her voice climbing towards the last chorus, holding each note just a little longer than you'd expect, punctuating them with huge chords, seeing his ribs moving with steady breaths. Controlling his emotions, or trying to.

In a moment of bravery, Edith walked up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder, making him flinch a little. Rare to be the one getting that reaction, even as he recovered immediately, gently squeezing her hand.

Yeah. They were thinking the same thing.

And when she finished, in the applause, Lucille looked for them, smiling to see them together.

Thomas stood up, pulling Edith's hand to his lips to brush her knuckles with a kiss before she had time to draw back, a soft little thing, over in a flash.

She hated how her heart had leapt. She couldn't help herself. She was still deeply attracted to them and something intimate like that still had the power to thrill her.

On the road to Oklahoma City, she was wrestling with how to describe the show as a whole. To let anyone reading her articles who was there know that they saw something special. A moment of real vulnerability.

Of course, it would be easier if the Sharpes would stop singing songs from the musical Oklahoma. For all their carefully curated cool, they really were nerds sometimes.

Right...

Covers are tricky, I feel. There's a lot of risk involved. There's always the fear that your version will pale in comparison to the original and the more iconic the song, the worse that risk.

Taking on Over The Rainbow seems like foolhardiness, but one of the wonders of covers is being able to give an old song your own meaning.

You can turn a sweet song about longing for a perfect world into a plea for freedom from the horrors of a dark childhood. I witnessed tears in the audience as Lucille sang - an outpouring of emotions that live performances can bring forth spontaneously.

There was something unusual about it. Something real among the artifice of performance that required no background knowledge, no explicit revelations. Tangible and deeply, deeply affecting.

She was sure it had been real. That had been Lucille, the real Lucille, raw and vulnerable, tapping into a part of herself that she normally kept shrouded in lies and half truths and metaphors.

It was not far from Wichita to Oklahoma City. Two, three hours maybe. They'd only stay one night, just the afternoon to check out the city.

Edith did not expect to pull up in front of a rectangular building, sand-colored, with a very clear sign in front of it.

"Museum of Osteology?"

"Well, when else will you get to visit a skeleton museum?" Lucille asked, unbuckling her seatbelt. "It sounded so unusual that we had to come."

That was certainly one word for it. Edith found herself with goosebumps for reasons she couldn't quite work out. Was it the naturalistic poses? Was it the sheer number of bones? She really wasn't sure.

And the whale hanging from the ceiling... She was afraid to walk too close, convinced it was going to fall. No amount of thick wires and nuts and bolts would convince her otherwise.

There was just something about the whole room. It wasn't creepy, not particularly. It was well lit. There were informative little boards explaining various anatomical facts. Well laid out, logical.

Just full of bones.

She shouldn't be so squeamish really. Alan had lots of anatomy books full of pictures of varying degrees of gore, everything from simple line drawings to graphic surgery photographs.

Maybe she was just a little on edge still. She'd get her results in a few days. And she wasn't expecting any revelations - she couldn't imagine she'd contracted hepatitis or anything without noticing - but she'd have to talk to the mysterious Pam.

Pam. Manager of Crimson Peak. Her role must have been noted somewhere in the contracts she'd signed, but she hadn't put a name to it. She was the one collating the book. She was the one typing things up.

As far as Edith understood, her articles and pictures were sent to a small copy office where they were scanned and sent by email to Pam who then typed them up in London and distributed them to the relevant magazines. The originals arrived far slower, by normal post, far too slowly for the urgency of publication. It was a bizarre way of working. And it must put a great deal of strain on her, having to adhere to very, very tight deadlines.

Really, Edith was starting to wonder if she was the first person the Sharpes had taken advantage of.

After all, they couldn't be the easiest people to manage. They were often unpredictable, emotionally manipulative... "Manager" might as well be a ceremonial title. Like "baronet". No real power.

And soon Pam would know some very, very personal things about her.

"I think I want to buy a skull," Lucille said.

"A real one?" Edith asked, shaken out of her musing.

"Maybe."

There was a shop. Of course there was. And they were told all about the bugs that cleaned all the... meat off the bones and how they were then whitened with peroxide.

It all made Edith feel really rather ill no matter how much they reassured her that nothing was ever killed for its skull; they came from nature or from zoos. Natural causes.

She was genuinely relieved that export laws scuppered Lucille's plans. Only certain creatures could be sent overseas without licences and they just happened to be the ones she'd prefer. That and the price of such unique pieces somewhat put a dampener on her enthusiasm.

"I'd feel sorry for Pam if you sent her a skull," Edith said as they left, fishing for more information about this woman who would soon know so much about her.

"Oh, I wouldn't send it to the office. I'd send it home."

"But you're not there. Who's looking after your mail?"

"Mags probably."

"But I thought you didn't have assistants anymore."

"We don't. She works for the National Trust. She's head of all the volunteers and conservationists, the tea shop. All of that. Come to think of it, she might quite like a present."

"Leave her alone," Thomas said, unlocking the bus, without much heat. "She does her best."

"Mm. But she really needs to learn not to touch what's not hers."

She made her point by gently poking his nose with one finger, giggling and biting her lip when he grabbed her hand and kissed her inner wrist.

"She leaves us be," he said, looking at her from beneath his lashes. "We leave her be too. It works."

A pout and Lucille drew back, slipping into the bus in a few fluid motions.

And Edith recognised in slight horror that the emotion settling in her stomach was something akin to jealousy. Not quite that far, perhaps, but a little similar. Similar enough to worry her.

Jealous of their easy touching. Their simple intimacy.

Even while intellectually she knew she shouldn't touch them, shouldn't risk it clouding her judgement, she found herself missing it. The smell of Lucille's skin, the grip of Thomas's hands, the way they sighed...

No. For one thing, if she indulged, they'd think they were somewhat forgiven and they weren't. Not by a long shot.

She still found herself gazing at the junction of Lucille's neck and shoulders, the perfect curve, the tiny hairs there made gold in the afternoon sun, wanting nothing more than to touch so softly and feel the warmth of her.

No. We must not look at goblin men...

Or goblin women either.

Chapter 56: Fantasies and Facts

"You're sure you're OK?"

Edith tried her best to stop gnawing on her pencil, just in case Alan could hear it.

"Yeah, I'm just... You know. Nervous. You must give people test results all the time, you know how it is. Even though I know there'll be nothing, it's still... You know."

She definitely wasn't going to tell him that she was also feeling rather frustrated.

And she knew why. She'd allowed herself to grow used to frequent physical affection and now she had gone cold turkey and that was beginning to bite.

Which was ridiculous. She'd been single for a long time before this. She didn't need it, didn't need anyone or anything. Not really.

It had been... fun though.

That was a dangerous thought. That was a potential first step to succumbing and she was beginning to worry that that was the Sharpes' new plan - to seduce her once more, lead her astray, lessen her defences. Civility was one thing, trust was another.

"I tend to be quite nervous that they're going to be angry or upset about what the tests say," Alan said. "Wouldn't be the first time someone's screamed at me that the results are wrong. Rarely are, though."

"Well, I won't do that. It's nothing to do with her. She's just the messenger."

"I still don't think a stranger should be handling something so private. You could have sent them to me."

The thought genuinely hadn't entered her head. It had seemed like a good enough plan. She'd never even questioned it.

Maybe she could keep an eye on that, how easily she'd gone along with them.

"You're probably right. Pam's going to be around when I'n in England, though. She can keep hold of everything, pass it on to the doctors. More convenient. Besides, I want to ask her what it's like trying to manage the band."

"Complete nightmare, I expect."

"Mm. Which makes good copy."

He laughed at that and she could practically see him playfully wagging his finger.

"Be careful. You want her on your side."

She could use another ally. Whether Pam would be one remained to be seen.

"Don't worry, I will. Speak soon?"

"Yeah. Bye."

She put the phone down, rubbing her fingers hard against her scalp, a rough massage. They'd been through Oklahoma to Missouri and the new hotel was... fine, but nondescript. Almost sterile in a way that was bothering her. Making her think of hospitals.

It needed a bit of messing up, even the typewriter and papers on the desk not enough.

Maybe the bed was too neat...

Temptation rippled within her almost immediately. If she was frustrated, she could fix that, easily. She had time before they were due at the venue.

Plenty of time before dinner.

She drew the curtains on her little room, turned out the lights and slipped between the over-starched sheets, wriggling halfway out of her jeans.

Right...

She lay back, gently running her fingers over her skin, and tried to come up with a fantasy that didn't involve anyone in particular.

Kisses against her neck, someone gently carressing her... Shivers rippled over her body, feeling her breathing settling into something steady and anticipatory.

Her body hummed lightly, wanting, but she couldn't go further. There was fear in the back of her mind. She couldn't trust herself not to imagine Lucille or Thomas.

Then again... surely there was nothing harmful about just fantasizing? It was practically weaning herself off them. A nicotine patch to counteract the cigarette.

It was almost frightening how quickly she could imagine Lucille's amused little hum if she found her like this. She'd slide in next to her immediately, running her nails through her hair, leaning close to murmur in her ear.

"Oh, Edith," she'd say. "What have I told you about asking for what you want?"

Being teased was so easy to imagine. And she liked it, more than she'd ever expected to, feeling her body heating up, pressing her lips together like she was refusing to give in, driving Lucille to go further, to push her further.

She snaked a bold hand down between her legs, brushing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, wanting so much, finding herself nodding slightly.

Of course, Lucille would make her ask out loud first and her fingers were would be more confident. Not as sure as Thomas's. He'd already be touching her, driven by his own desire to please. A drive she knew very well.

"I know what you want," he'd whisper in her ear. "I've got you."

Would be obey her or Lucille in this situation? After all, he liked giving up control, but who would he surrender to? Would he join in with denying her or succumb to her pleas?

The fact the thought had even momentarily crossed her mind shook Edith to her core.

And yet she wasn't stopping...

She could practically feel Lucille holding her, pinning her arms to her sides, watching Thomas touch her, dispassionately discussing how to take her apart...

Her breath was shaking, fingers slipping over her own flesh, quick motions just as she liked it, trying to make her mind stay empty, trying to prevent any more ideas daring to sneak into her mind.

Just a little more...

The knock on her door was simultaneously unwelcome and a relief, giving her shock and embarrassment to focus on.

"Edith?" Lucille called through the door as she hurriedly yanked her jeans back up, hoping her face wasn't too pink, hoping her breathing wasn't too heavy, hoping the smell of arousal wasn't obvious.

"Yes?" she said, opening the door, maybe slightly too quickly.

Lucille looked her up and down, slowly, clearly knowing what she'd been up to immediately, leaning against the door frame and smiling.

"Thinking of me?" she asked.

"No!" Edith stammered.

Her expression changed, less excited.

"Thinking of Thomas?"

The blush was surely obvious now.

"None of your business."

A quirk of eyebrows, a slight amusement.

"So, both of us, or...?"

"What do you want?" Edith asked, desperate to move on.

"Pam's ready for you to call her. It's about 9pm in England right now so she's still up. We thought you might like to do it privately."

She held a piece of paper between two fingers, playfully pulling it out of reach when Edith tried to take it.

"You know where we are if you ever get bored of... your own company."

"I was taking a nap actually."

She still wasn't a very good liar. Her fingers brushed Lucille's as she snatched the number from her, making her unpleasantly aware of how long it had been since she'd touched anyone.

"The offer's always open."

Closing the door in Lucille's face at least gave her a modicum of control. Deep breaths. Nice and calm. Call Pam.

International calls were strange. The little code at the start of the number, the delay as the line connected, an unfamiliar ringing tone.

And then a voice. Not an unpleasant one either. Soft. Tired maybe. Rounded vowels that were rather different to the Sharpes' clipped tones.

"Pamela Upton."

"Er... Hi. Hi, I'm Edith, Edith Cushing. Lucille said you... had my results."

She could hear her own voice arriving on the other side of the ocean.

"Oh, yes. How are you?"

"Fine," Edith said automatically. "You?"

"Oh, you know. Busy, busy, as usual."

There were clattering sounds as she typed, humming a little.

"Here we are. Should I just go through them? Syphilis - negative. Hepatitis A - negative. Hepatitis B - negative. Hepatitis..."

"Um," Edith said. "Are any of them positive? Anything... you know, unusual?"

"No. No, I don't think so. I mean, I'm no expert, but it all seems fine. Though they say you're potentially at risk of iron-deficiency anaemia and recommend supplements."

Edith scrawled that down, not that she was likely to forget.

"So... how long have you and Thomas been dating?" Pam asked.

"What? No. We're... We're not."

"Oh. Oh, I thought you were his girlfriend."

"Nope. If he told you that, he lied. He does that, as you probably know."

"Not to me. Maybe you've just got your wires crossed somewhere."

Oh, dear. Edith was perhaps starting to notice a pattern and she suspected that long-suffering Pam wasn't doing all this out of professionalism and dedication to her career.

"Maybe," she said, sighing. "How long have you managed them?"

"Oh, years. They reached out to me when I first set up my agency, my very first clients. Other people come and go, but Thomas has always been loyal."

Mm. Only Thomas, she noted, not Lucille. And an inexperienced manager. One they could manage right back.

"Don't you mind all the... You know, extra bits this tour is causing? Typing everything and all that?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. Anything for them."

Was it terrible to feel pity for her? She was letting them take advantage of her. Did she even realise that she was? Or had they just charmed her into allowing them to walk all over her?

"Alright. Thank you for this. It's quite difficult, being on the road. Never seeing the same doctor twice. It'll be easier when I'm at Allerdale."

"No problem. I look forward to meeting you in person. And I hope you stay. Thomas will make a wonderful father."

Edith forced herself to smile, even though she couldn't be seen, trying to make it audible in her voice.

"Well, you know, I'm still trying to decide. It's a big choice. I don't want to rush into anything any more than I already have."

Pam giggled.

"Oh, you're funny," she said. "That must be why he likes you."

Edith's heart ached for her. Did she know how obvious it was? Or did she think she was subtle?

"How long have you been in love with him?" she asked, knowing she was overstepping but doing it anyway.

Stammering. Stuttering. Thought it was hidden, evidently.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Pam said shakily. "I mean, if you think I'm a threat to your relationship, I can only assure you that I'm not. I mean, I'm their manager, I couldn't possibly..."

"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. Thanks again."

"Um... Could you... tell Thomas I miss him? I only spoke to Lucille on the phone."

Oh, that hurt.

"Of course I will. Bye."

She rubbed her hands down her face afterwards and flopped back on the bed.

The realization was stealing over her that she was the latest in a long line of women the Sharpes had attempted to charm into submitting to their will. Pamela, Enola to a point, God only knew how many others. And they told her she was special but maybe they told everyone that. She had nothing to confirm that except their word.

And the fact that Lucille had joined in, she supposed. She treated the others as inconveniences. It was Thomas who did all the ensnaring.

Lucille treated her differently. Was that a good sign, or just more evidence that she should run?

Thomas came to invite her for dinner, folding his arms against her disapproving look as she locked her door.

"What?" he said. "What is it?"

"You do realize how Pam feels about you?" Edith asked.

He sighed, falling into step beside her.

"Of course. But I think I've made it clear that I don't feel the same way. I never will."

"It's cruel."

"Well, unfortunately, I can't change other people's feelings. If I could, I'd get you on the same page as Lucille and me."

"Maybe so, but you can choose not to take advantage of them."

He was silent for a while as they descended the stairs.

"You're right," he said eventually. "As usual."

Well, that was something at least. Maybe.

Lucille was waiting for them in the hotel restaurant, eyes flicking over the menu, tilting her head to receive a kiss on the cheek from Thomas without even looking up.

"I believe I'm starting to work out what our problem is," he said casually.

"Oh?" Lucille asked. "I mean, I'm sure I know the solution, but Edith is absolutely adamant that she doesn't want..."

"Not that problem. Our problem. Yours and mine."

He leant over to whisper, and for a moment Edith thought he might be about to break her rule on not having secrets. But no. A staged hush, pitched loud enough that she could easily hear it.

"We have to learn to be better."

Chapter 57: Breather

They got up, they travelled, they played, they went to bed. Even for just a couple of days, the pace was relentless, exhausting, debilitating. Which much have been part of their plan all along. If their target was already unwittingly pregnant, it would keep them disoriented; and if they weren't yet, it would allay suspicion.

Edith was waiting for her body to change, even though it was far too early. Looked every morning for a tell-tale swelling that was probably months away.

She was eating more, generally hungrier. And she was certainly sleeping a lot, but that was more the travelling... She didn't know how the Sharpes were managing, even taking the driving in shifts. Poor Finlay would have been completely drained, probably.

They were making a concerted effort to be nicer, she thought. It was a very strange line; they were always scrupulously polite to waiting staff or receptionists, but there was always a hint of mockery in it. The words were perfect, but it was... something else.

It was difficult to put her finger on what exactly. The tone maybe? That slightly brittle tone of voice from Lucille, the overly charming one from Thomas but artificially so. They said all the right things, please and thank you and excuse me, but it was very much a velvet glove covering a brick once you noticed.

Maybe it was a privilege thing. You proved how refined you were, but never dreamed that anyone might say no to you.

They'd probably say that was yet another way that she'd surprised them. They knew how to seduce people, even if they'd never intended to follow through on it before. Very few people resisted.

She startled awake in the back of the bus, always surprised that she'd fallen asleep. She seldom felt it coming, just drifted off.

"Sleeping Beauty awakes," Thomas said from the driver's seat, glancing at her in the mirror.

"Where are we?"

"No idea."

She threw him a withering look that he couldn't see.

"You always know," she said. "It's all part of the plan."

"Yes, well... The best laid schemes of mice and men, et cetera. We're well on our way to Houston, but if you want specifics, I really not sure."

From the angle of her neck, Lucille was also catching up on a little lost sleep. It didn't look the most comfortable of positions.

Without much thought, Edith rolled up her cardigan and tucked it gently in beside her as a pillow. Maybe helped a bit. The pale cream contrasted with her hair but almost blended into her skin.

She'd never be seen dead in it.

"I don't know how you do it," Thomas said softly.

"What?"

"Being considerate to people you must hate."

This felt like an old argument, Edith sighing and shuffling in her seat.

"I don't hate you," she said. "I like you. I don't trust you, and I don't like some of the things you do, but that's not the same."

After a few moments of silence, Thomas shrugged.

"I think I'd prefer to know the positives," he said. "What you still like about us, despite it all."

Edith gazed out of the window, sunshine again. She was missing Buffalo. It didn't often roll over her, didn't always have the time to realize that she was homesick. And it would be a long, long time before she went back there.

Would Allerdale feel like home? Ever?

"Can't think of anything?" Thomas teased.

"Of course I can. You're very intelligent. And witty. You're funny, sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

This felt... dangerously close to flirting. He wasn't so much fishing for compliments as just asking and she couldn't deny him them. Him or Lucille, since he asked on behalf of them both. Like they were one being.

"Yes. Sometimes," she said. "And you're very good at what you do. Skilful. And that's attractive."

"That's very true, but I'm sure a lot of people feel like that. What attracts you specifically? Given that, you know, you've seen right through the facade to the beastly creatures beneath."

If only she thought that was true...

"I suppose... you're like a puzzle," she said. "Like an optical illusion, one of those ones where when you look through it, you see a different picture, but the moment you glance away, you lose it. Sometimes I feel like I can see you and sometimes I can't. And I want to learn to see you all the time."

She watched as Thomas glanced sideways, checking Lucille was still asleep perhaps.

"Sometimes it's not nice to feel seen," he murmured. "You know so much about us. So much we thought we'd hidden."

"I mean... you're not exactly subtle."

"We've gotten away with it for years. We covered our tracks."

Edith bit back the retort that Enola had figured out that they killed their mother. She didn't want to bring any trouble down on her.

"I don't know," she said. "Lots of people assume you're a couple until they know you're siblings. And then they feel really bad for even thinking it."

"And then they never think it again. It's a useful trick. But we still hide. It's nice, being with you. There's less... tension around. We don't have to be nearly so careful."

"Well, I'm very happy for you."

He laughed. Not loudly. Very quiet. Someone with a lifetime of staying quiet behind them. Hiding, always. And then putting a projection up on stage, a version of himself to pretend was the real one.

"Do you remember where you end and the performance begins?" Edith asked.

The pause told her everything.

"I suppose when you've been acting for so long," she said carefully. "From when you were kids, it must be hard."

"We haven't been performing that long."

"Not on stage. But pretending your parents weren't... You know."

He turned off the main road, a little frown on his face.

"See when I said sometimes it's not nice to be seen? This is what I meant."

"Sorry."

"No, no. No, you're quite right. I just hadn't thought of it like that. Pretending not to exist so as to not draw any attention is the other side of the same coin as pretending not to exist to get lots of attention, I suppose. It's all about self-preservation."

"You've been afraid a long time. It must be difficult to relax. To be vulnerable."

"And that's why you've been such a revelation."

Edith could feel herself blushing slightly. Definitely flirting, but strangely... staid. Cautious around each other.

"I wish you'd let us kiss you at least," he said softly. "We miss it. Really miss it."

"I miss it too, but I just... I can't. Not yet. I need you to give me a little room."

"We can't just change overnight."

"No, I know. But if I give in here then I'll be tempted to give in to other things and then... Then I'll be in trouble."

They'd entered a small town, driving through the streets, the usual blend of chains, tiny local stores, derelict empty buildings.

"That makes sense," he said, pulling into a parking lot. "And I think it's about time for lunch."

He pulled the handbrake on and reached for Lucille, rubbing her thigh to wake her.

"Hey," he murmured as she stirred. "Food."

"Mmph..."

She wore Edith's cardigan looped around her shoulders, occasionally rubbing a sleeve between her fingers. Like a comfort blanket.

They were scrupulously polite to the server. And Edith tried again to overanalyse it all.

Chapter 58: Problems in Houston

Interest in science aside, Edith hadn't expected just how excited Thomas would be by the Space Center.

It was endearing, a child-like glee at all the engineering and skill that had gone into all these modules and vessels and look at these rocks, they're from space!

Lucille had a little smile playing about her lips, indulgent and affectionate. It was nice to see someone so excited, truly in their element. Edith found herself hanging back with her as Thomas spoke to museum staff, intensely interested in everything.

"How long was this on the itinerary, then?" she asked.

"Right from the start," Lucille said. "He's always loved the stars. We used to count them out of the window in the nursery when he was small. I don't know if he remembers that. It used to help him sleep."

Edith could see it so clearly. Parted curtains, Lucille softly counting, watching as little Thomas's eyelids drooped and finally closed. Always looking after him. Willing to do anything for him, including kill.

How did you go from such sweetness to being so cold?

Somewhere around the lectern that Kennedy stood behind to announce the moon landing project, Lucille tried to take her hand. Edith recoiled reflexively, before her brain had even really registered what was happening.

She'd learned to expect the unexpected from the Sharpes.

She still wasn't expecting tears. They fell gently down Lucille's face, not contorting it at all but as though her head was full of water that was spilling out through her eyes.

And Edith hesitated. Her first instinct would be to comfort, to give in, but what if this was a trick? A calculated attempt to weaponize her emotions?

A mere second, a swift wipe of her eyes, and the mask was back on. Like it had never happened.

"I'm sorry," Edith said softly. "I'm not ready."

"It's fine. I just let myself get too used to easy comfort. We all did."

Edith's heart ached, like it was tearing, feeling it in every inch of her being. She wanted to hug her, wanted to make it all better, but it wouldn't, it would just make it worse.

"It has to be on your terms," Lucille said. "I understand."

She moved away, using her longer legs to her advantage, catching up with Thomas and slipping her arm into his immediately.

Maybe Edith understood somewhat. When you'd always been the caregiver, always the one opening your heart to keep another warm, no matter how much they tried to reciprocate, the dynamic didn't always lend itself to that. Part of Lucille would probably always consider it her purpose to look after Thomas; letting him look after her would be backwards and upside down.

Edith knew the feeling. She'd stepped into the role of taking care of her dad and having to submit to being looked after herself had almost killed her.

It was hard to let people in. You did your best to look after yourself. But over time she'd grown used to letting other people help her. Alan. Finlay. Lucille didn't have that. Wouldn't let herself have that.

The juxtaposition of their crimes with their vulnerability kept catching her out.

They looked very striking amongst the lunar modules though. Their goth aesthetic made them look faintly out of place. Like time travellers. Which was bizarre, given how much of the equipment here had been built long before they were born.

She got a few good shots.

And then she noticed someone else taking pictures. Not of the exhibitions, but of Thomas and Lucille.

It was subtle, almost. Furtive. But, well, no one looked that shifty photographing museum displays unless they were trying to avoid security.

And they were so caught up that Edith was able to sneak around and surprise them.

"You know, if you just ask, I'm sure they'll let you have a picture."

The woman jumped, spinning round to face her, blinking rapidly. She didn't exactly look like she'd be into the music, t-shirt and jeans, ponytail, but you never really knew. Probably a lot of their fans didn't.

"Oh, my God, it's you," she said very quickly.

"Yes, it is. Are you a fan?"

"Of course."

"Then surely you must know that they don't much like having their picture taken without permission."

More blinking, a sheepish little smile.

"I would ask, but I'm just too nervous."

Ah. Well, they were quite intimidating, to be fair. Edith had some sympathy for that position. She practically lived with them and knew more about them than anyone else and she was still affected.

"I could ask them for you," she said. "But only if you delete those pictures."

She watched as they were one by one sent to the bin, aware by some additional sense of Thomas's approach. Maybe his footsteps, maybe some kind of subconscious recognition of pheromones or something. Whatever it was, she didn't jump out of her skin when he spoke behind her, for once.

"Making a new friend?"

"Just looking out for you. Preventing unauthorised photographs."

Thomas tutted playfully and Edith saw the girl melt. It was really quite impressive.

"Oh, dear," he said. "Whatever are we going to do about that?"

Had she ever seen someone swoon before? To be fair, Thomas was turning the sinister charm on her completely, looming just slightly but smiling just enough that it was clearly a joke.

And then he leant past her, beckoning with one finger, Lucille appearing out of the crowd like a ship from fog.

"I have terrible news," he said, faux serious. "Edith caught someone breaking one of our rules."

"Oh, dear. Which one?"

A lowered voice, eyes still on the stranger.

"Asking for what you want."

Stammering and yet more blinking.

"Can I have my picture taken with you?"

"Of course," Lucille said. "Edith, do the honors?"

Another Polaroid, more signatures sqashed into the white space at the bottom. More gushing of how excited she was for the show.

Eventually, she left, and the pretence fell. Back to more or less normal. Or as normal as the Sharpes could be anyway. They both deflated just slightly, shrinking just a little, putting their personas back in their boxes.

"I think it's lunch time," Thomas said. "Any requests?"

"As long as it's food, I don't really care," Edith said.

She was troubled. They'd used that charm on her and it had worked. And she just couldn't shake the idea that all their talk of real emotions was fake, was pretend. They didn't even know where reality began half the time, so how could she trust them?

"I want to find out if everything really is bigger in Texas," Lucille said, with a tiny hint of suggestion in her voice that had even Thomas raising his eyebrows a little.

"Later," he said, briefly squeezing her hand.

"Promise?"

She was restless over lunch. Her eyes kept moving around rapidly, like a rabbit. Something was wrong, something was bothering her.

"What's up?" Edith asked quietly as Thomas carried their tray away.

"Nothing."

"Clearly not nothing."

She sighed and started undoing her hair from its plaits, avoiding eye contact, then retying it compulsively.

"I'm second guessing myself," she said. "Everything I do, I wonder if it's me or if I'm pretending to try to please you or if it's all completely false. And then I wonder if anyone is really themselves or if we're all just fucking pretending... And so I require my mind cleared, just for a bit. I'd invite you, but I know there's no point."

Edith did her best not to blush. It was a losing battle. She wasn't sure when her brain had stopped being horrified at the reality of their relationship, but it had, somewhere along the line.

Much like the murders, really.

"Maybe you're not the only one wondering who they really are out here" she said.

Chapter 59: Down in New Orleans

Notes:

Well, it's nearly Halloween as I post this...

It was normal to change, Edith kept telling herself. It was. She'd changed a lot over her life. She'd had to change, had to learn to be different to survive.

But that didn't mean she couldn't interrogate exactly what she was turning into.

Righy... Well, she had a lot of sympathy for Thomas and Lucille, for all that they'd been through and suffered and she understood why they had done what they did. She understood why they'd turned to each other for love and comfort in a world without it.

She understood all that and she couldn't quite bring herself to condemn the murders. But did that mean she had more problems with the sex than the killing? They'd been very young when it began. And Lucille had started it, the older of the two. It was abusive.

It was like when she thought about it, Edith remembered to be shocked and horrified, but if she wasn't actively bringing it to mind then she almost forgot. It was like how she knew terrible things were happening all the time all over the world - wars, famine, unrest - but unless she was deliberately thinking about them, they didn't impact on her day.

And that made her feel awful, and then feeling awful made her feel selfish somehow, or egotistical.

Right. Focus on things you can change. Regardless of what she did, what choices she made, the Sharpes wouldn't give each other up. There was love there, for all it was twisted and wrong.

She wished she could say that they weren't hurting anyone, but that really, really wasn't true. She was proof of that, of their ruthlessness. They had forced a pregnancy on her, tried to take her child.

But now they were trying to change, for her. They had developed feelings and they seemed willing to put in the effort.

Nothing she could do would bring their parents back or stop their relationship, but she could prevent them harming others. And harming themselves. It clearly wasn't always fun, being them. A lot of trauma, a lot of unspoken needs and half-revealed truths. When you were someone else's world, there was a lot of responsibility.

Edith couldn't imagine caring for someone like that. She could imagine love, of wanting to spend your life with someone, to share your future and hopes and dreams, to lift each other up as a team, but she couldn't imagine the kind of devotion the Sharpes had. All consuming. Like air, they needed it to live.

Wasn't there a song like that? Love is like oxygen?

Crimson Peak's back catalogue had a few love songs in it. But there was always some bite to them, some... Not bitterness, but far from the euphoria of most artists.

They made love sound like hard work. And that had appealed to Edith when she first heard them, because in her experience it was. The rush of falling in love gave way quickly to the more day-to-day, humdrum reality. Things didn't just magically fall into place, you had to maintain it with communication and compromise.

And when your partner was also your work partner... It had to be tricky at times. Artistic differences and all that.

Maybe that was part of why they liked her. She was an outsider and an insider at the same time. They trusted her.

"We should go out tonight," Lucille said from the driving seat, forcing her out of her thoughts. "New Orleans. Hear some jazz, get involved in some voodoo."

"I know there's at least one historical cemetery tour," Thomas said. "I thought that might be more our scene than ancestor worship."

"Oh, I don't know. Get out the Ouija board, ask Mother if she's proud of us yet."

He scoffed, laughing softly.

"You know as well as I do that those are just toys. Subconscious motion. It's proven."

Eyes in the mirror, as usual.

"Edith, sceptic or believer?" Lucille asked.

What a question.

"I don't know," she said. "There are things out there I can't explain, even if I don't believe properly. And I wouldn't want to... mess with that kind of thing."

"We're not going to mess with it. We're just going to poke it a little."

Which was how Edith found herself walking down a street in the French Quarter, warm in the evening, full of other tourists coming and going, shops of candles and charms still lit up. So far, so inauthentic, she thought. This was commerical stuff for tourists rather than real faith. It was like visiting a haunted house at a funfair. A few spooks, but no real frights.

And maybe that was why, when a veiled figure approached them and promised to answer their great questions, she shrugged when Lucille raised her eyebrows at her. Why not? It was just for fun.

They followed down an alleyway until the figure turned and placed a stern finger on Thomas's chest.

"Ladies only."

He held up his hands in surrender and then blew them a kiss.

"Have fun," he said. "I'll be right here."

Lucille led the way through beaded curtains and plumes of incense smoke, their guide ushering them up a flight of stairs and into a room full of cushions.

"Sit, sit."

Edith awkwardly shuffled onto the floor while Lucille curled her legs elegantly to the side, like a proud cat among the trinkets and icons and wall hangings. The woman pushed back her veils, revealing a face marked with lines that could be from laughter or frowns, possibly both.

She lit two candles on her low table and laid her hands flat between the two of them, muttering softly under her breath.

And then she rolled her head back and began to speak in a strange, gutteral voice.

"We call upon our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters, come, speak to us."

Despite herself, Edith was quite impressed. It was quite a show. And she jumped when her hand was suddenly snatched, a nervous giggle out before she could stop it.

"You... There is one here for you."

"I, er..." Edith said, glancing at Lucille, finding her smiling almost sardonically. "OK. Who is it?"

The woman clutched her head with her other hand.

"The voice is... unclear... Hard to hear. I believe it may be... It may be a woman. Have you ever lost a female relative?"

Mm. Well, who hadn't, really?

"Yes," she said.

A strange moaning, eyelids fluttering.

"I... I believe her name... It begins with B. Or possibly E..."

A horrible chill went down Edith's spine, her heart suddenly pounding with fear.

"My..." and she had to clear her throat for some reason. "My mother's name was Eleanor."

Even Lucille leaned forward a little, a faint frown on her face. But it... This wasn't real. Edith forced herself to breathe, to stay rational. It wasn't real.

"Ah, yes... Yes, I sense that maternal care from her. Yes. There is great love with her. She wants you to know she... Hmm... It's difficult. Her voice is faint."

Not real, not real. And yet it seemed so convincing, enough so that Edith felt doubt in her mind, wonder...

"Have you something you would wish to know?"

Did she? What were you meant to ask the dead?

"Is she..." she asked, feeling ridiculous. "I don't know. At peace?"

"She is concerned about you."

"Why?"

She was breathless somehow, scared. Had her mom come to warn her about her current path? To chastise her for being so reckless? To tell her to stop being so stupid, to run away, to get somewhere safe?

How badly she wanted some guidance. Some clue, some sense that someone was watching over her.

"She wants you to speak more often with your father."

The rush of disappointment was somehow surprising. She'd wanted... She'd wanted so much for it to be real. For it to be her mom talking to her from the other side.

And to her surprise, she found herself close to tears, Lucille reaching over to take her hand back from the medium's grasp.

"That's quite enough, thank you. We're leaving."

She helped Edith up and pointed her towards the exit, pulling a money clip from her back pocket.

Edith took a couple of tottering steps before feeling an overwhelming urge to get out, running down the stairs, running right into Thomas where he was waiting for them, barrelling into his chest, almost sobbing.

"Hey," he said, shocked. "Hey, what happened?"

All her forced stoicism fell away for a moment, letting him pull her into a comforting embrace, stroking her hair.

"What happened?"

"A fraud happened," Lucille said behind her. "A very convincing trick, right up till it wasn't. A bad guess, a bad thread to tug on."

Edith wished it didn't feel good to be held. She wished she didn't like it when Lucille joined them, hugging her from behind.

"Do you want to go back to the hotel, sweetheart?"

She could only nod.

Chapter 60: Succumbing. Somewhat.

"I'm sorry," Edith kept saying, her feet moving without any imput from her brain. "I'm sorry, I don't know why..."

"You had hope," Lucille said. "You hoped it might be real and then that hope was dashed. It's alright."

"But I knew it wasn't real."

"And I know nightmares aren't real but that doesn't mean I feel my fear any less."

Maybe that was fair. About halfway back to the hotel, Edith had become aware that they were both still holding her, Lucille's arm around her waist and Thomas's hand in hers. And part of her wanted to pull away, but another part couldn't bear to, needed to feel connected to life, to the world.

It was so stupid... It had just been cold reading, just a carnival trick. She knew it wasn't real. She shouldn't be so easily affected.

Or maybe her old doctor had been right and she'd never grieved properly. Maybe she'd fed her sadness into her fear until they controlled her and then she'd dealt with the fear and the contradictory self-destructive nature of that horrible sensation of mortality but never... Never really worked through the rest of it.

Maybe she didn't want to.

Lobby, elevator, the Sharpes' room, and Edith realized she didn't really know what was about to happen.

Or even what she wanted to happen.

She ended up sitting beside Lucille on the bed, having her hair stroked, too tired to make herself resist. It felt too good to be comforted, touched. She liked it too much.

They watched as Thomas made tea, using a pot, the three of them sharing. Ordinary, basic tea, from bags. Safe. Made openly in front of her.

Warmth from the cup felt nice in her hands, even as the bed dipped, Thomas joining them.

"Better?" he asked, breaking the quiet with the gentlest of voices.

"A little."

She had to clear her throat to speak, feeling so strange and choked.

"And is there anything else we can do to... help?"

There was a lot in that question. A lot of things left unsaid, a lot of dangerous things, tempting things.

And through it, Edith remembered Lucille's words from only a few days ago. Needing her mind cleared. Knowing how to do it. And she felt that yearning, that desire, but also fear.

And it must have been clear on her face, because Lucille took her hand, bringing it to her face, caressing her knuckles with her lips. Not quite a kiss. Like a cat expressing affection.

"It won't mean anything," she said, her breath warm over Edith's skin. "Just physical."

"You said that last time," Edith said, smiling nervously. "And it won't be. It can't, not if you feel about me the way you say you do."

"How we feel isn't likely to change too soon. But we won't expect you to change. We love you. We'd like to make you feel good. Especially when you've had such an... unpleasantness."

And now it was Thomas, turning her face gently towards him, glancing down at her lips before leaning forward, just pressing her mouth with his once and then twice and then parting his lips just a little and...

Mmm... Mm. Oh, no, this felt too good.

Lucille took the cup from her, placing it safely out of reach, sweeping her hair back to kiss her neck, shivers rushing over her skin.

Edith could feel her breathing speeding up, not sure if it was more from excitement or apprehension. She'd never done anything like this before, feeling two sets of hands on her, losing track of which of them was running fingers through her hair, who was reaching under her shirt...

It was Lucille who was most active, bare skin meeting hers from behind as her t-shirt was discarded, Thomas looking at them both with eyes gone so, so dark, and Edith felt that pulse of panic again because that's his sister, they shouldn't, they mustn't...

"Look at you," he murmured. "I fear I might have died somewhere and ended up in heaven."

"Shh," Lucille said, deftly undoing Edith's bra. "No more talk of death. In fact, I think you might find something rather better to do with your tongue."

Edith felt like a rabbit, her heart beating so fast, Thomas kneeling off the edge of the bed, still fully clothed, and pulling her across the mattress.

Lucille loomed above her, upside down, her braid snaking round her neck.

"You OK?"

"Mm. It's intense."

"Too much?"

Was it? Yes. But also, somehow, she didn't want to stop.

"I'm OK."

A smile and she crawled round to join her, stroking her face gently, bringing their lips together. Soft. Careful. So unlike how spiky she could be.

The air was warm when Edith's legs were bared to it, hiding with her eyes closed in Lucille's kisses even as she burned with want. Her body remembered this. Her body wanted it, even while her mind was still a little unsure.

She could feel Thomas's breath against her skin, clutching at Lucille's arm, waiting, tense.

With a sigh, Lucille broke their kiss, looking down her body, absentmindedly stroking her skin, just a hint of nails.

"Don't tease," she said, chastising a little.

Thomas laughed, a low chuckle, and then began laying kisses up her thighs.

"I thought," he said inbetween, a couple of words at a time. "That we were... instilling a culture of asking for what we want."

"And I want you to make Edith feel good."

Edith made the mistake of looking down, his hair pushed back behind his ears, looking up at them.

"Touché," he murmured.

She gasped as he ran his tongue over her flesh, her back arching, eyes flying shut. Oh, she'd missed this. She'd wanted it, wanted him, wanted them...

It was such a different experience, being kissed at the same time, being touched languorously, Lucille's hand gently exploring her body, a thumb against her nipple, feeling her smile against her lips when she moaned.

And Thomas... Thomas was devouring her, gripping her thighs, a steady rhythm that seemed designed to make her try to writhe among the sheets, held in place, knowing that she was accidentally digging her nails into Lucille's skin but unable to control her grip.

The thought slowly entered her head that neither of the Sharpes was making any effort to find their own pleasure, trying to reach for the button of Lucille's jeans only to be pulled away.

"This is for you," Lucille said softly. "Don't worry about us."

Edith opened her mouth to protest but could only yelp as Thomas fixed his lips around her clit and sucked gently, Lucille laughing just a little. Not unkindly.

"Oh, I know," she murmured. "He's dreadfully cruel. She needs more, Thomas."

No, she didn't. She was already overwhelmed, feeling as Thomas slipped a finger into her but so wet that it was almost astonishingly easy. He was literally beckoning her orgasm from her, so much, so fast...

Feeling the tension leave her body was exquisite, intense and all-consuming in just the way she needed. And, yes, she could have done it herself, but somehow giving herself over to other people helped her mind relax, helped her focus entirely on them, on what they were doing.

She lay panting at the ceiling, Lucille kissing her, murmuring things she couldn't make out, Thomas joining them and insisting on his share of her lips, tasting faintly of salt. She could feel a distinct bulge against her thigh, reality starting to bleed back into her life.

"You can use our shower if you want," Lucille said. "We'll handle ourselves.

How she could tell so easily her fears and concerns, Edith wasn't quite sure, Thomas helping her to unsteady feet and helping her gather her clothes

She knew exactly what they were doing as she stood under the hot shower spray, borrowing Lucille's shampoo, knowing that she'd smell like her just a little.

Did they want privacy? Or were they trying to go slowly, trying not to introduce too much too soon? They hadn't so much as kissed in front of her, not properly. Maybe they thought it would be too much. Maybe it was.

Did she appreciate it or not? That was a more difficult question. Yes, she was grateful that they were attempting to be considerate to her boundaries, but maybe...

Maybe there was a little curiosity in her too that wanted to see them together.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Uneasy. Slightly sick. Her morals and her desires were clashing in a horrible way.

She took her time getting dressed and brushing her hair, finding the Sharpes a little glowing, a little tousled. Nothing more than that. Sitting beneath the blankets together, the sheet carefully covering Lucille's breasts.

How often had she seen them like that and thought they'd just been sleeping?

"So, er..." Edith said. "I'll see you at breakfast."

"Can we have a goodnight kiss?" Lucille asked.

It felt strange, going to one side of the bed and then the other, gentle, tender kisses. Still trying to make her feel safe.

Closing their door, Edith leant against the wall outside their room for just a moment, taking deep breaths of the night air.

And then she headed for the safety of solitude.

Chapter 61: Mythology

"You've been papped."

Edith blinked at the wall for a moment or two, trying to make her brain work.

Everything had been so strange since that night in New Orleans. In some ways, it was better; they'd all become a little more tactile which meant she wasn't feeling so nervously touch-starved. And there were occasional kisses, usually just before bed.

But as for all the rest of it...

Well, she still didn't know and, as she'd feared, she wanted the physical side of things so much that she had to force herself to think about it if she was going to hold anyone to the standards they'd promised to try to attain.

And now Alan was telling her...

"What?" she asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I check all the hashtags from time to time, just to see what's going on, what people are saying, and, well, there's a picture of you and Thomas. You're outside a store. He has his hand on your back."

There was something strange about the way he said that.

"I didn't know that wasn't allowed," Edith said.

"Your lower back. And it says 'Reclusive rocker Thomas Sharpe of Crimson Peak steps out in Birmingham, Alabama, with his assistant, natural beauty Edith Cushing. Rumors of a secret relationship abound'. So, you know. It's quite... Intimate looking."

Alabama... That had been a day or so ago, after she'd mostly slept through Mississippi. Her main memory was that the Sharpes were very amused by a city called Birmingham for some reason.

Which debate was she about to have? That it was none of his business or that gossip magazines made stuff up?

Why not both?

"So what you're saying is that there's a picture of us picking up some supplies with a blurb that gets my job wrong. So what? It's probably just the angle making us look closer than we were."

He didn't believe her. She could tell.

"I don't care what some clickbait vulture thinks, Alan. I've got more important things on my mind."

"Are you feeling it yet? Pregnancy?"

"Well, I'm tired all the time, but I don't know if that's what's causing it or not."

"I mean, you're growing another person. It uses a lot of energy."

That was true. Add into that the travelling and the writing and the thinking about England... The more she thought about it, the more questions she had about the Sharpes' plan.

On the way into Nashville, she decided to be brave and ask.

"I've been thinking about... afterwards," she said.

"After what?" Lucille asked, frowning at her map.

"Well, I mean... And this is completely hypothetical, but let's say I decided to come and live in Allerdale Hall. How are we going to live?"

"What do you mean? We live in a stately home and we're independently wealthy."

"I don't... I don't mean economically. I mean, once the baby is a little older, how are we going to explain why Dad and Aunt Lucille share a room? Kids aren't stupid. They'd know something was strange about that."

This was horrible to ask. They wouldn't like this suggestion at all.

"How were you planning to do it before?" Edith asked. "I mean... No mother, but surely... Surely you wouldn't tell them about your relationship. You can't trust children not to let something slip."

Once again, she got the feeling that they really hadn't thought that far ahead.

"We kept lots of secrets in our childhood," Thomas said.

"But you were being horribly abused. It's not going to be like that. And I'm not trying to cause you trouble, I'm just trying to be clear on all my options. I mean, there are staff, the National Trust people - do they not notice that you have only one bedroom?"

"We have separate bedrooms," Lucille said. "We just don't sleep in them. We're likely to stay up longer than a child. They won't notice."

"And when they're older? When they come through after a nightmare? When they wake up early, excited on Christmas morning?"

Thomas sighed a little, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You had a very different childhood to us, Edith."

That was certainly true, but surely they must have imagined a happier youth? Especially for their child.

"Isn't it what you would want, though? Cuddles in the morning? Feeling safe and comfortable and loved? I'm just saying, you're not like other people. It would be very easy for a child to accidentally say the wrong thing."

"I can't sleep alone," Lucille said quietly. "I can't... You know that I can't."

And this was exactly the kind of thing they needed to sort out.

"We get a bigger bed and we all sleep there together," Thomas said.

Like that solved anything.

She could picture it rather too easily though. Waking up in warm embraces, sitting in bed together reading and talking, a small person climbing in beside them.

But that wasn't what normal people did. She wasn't sure it was going to work. She wasn't sure they realized that.

And it was all hypothetical anyway. Maybe it would be just her being woken up by a small voice in the night. Maybe they'd go and visit Allerdale rather than live there.

Maybe.

Anyway. Tennessee. Another state she'd probably only half remember paying a flying visit to.

Nashville brought certain images to her mind. Country music. Universities. Churches.

She somehow wasn't expecting the full-scale replica of the Parthenon complete with statues and freizes.

It was very impressive, even if she didn't really know why it was here. The information signs said it was built for the Centennial Tennessee Exhibition but that still didn't really explain why they'd built the Parthenon of all things.

She had to admit she liked Athena, though. 42 feet of gold and strangeness. Her chest had a face on it and she seemed to be holding a tiny angel. None of this sounded familiar from her childhood mythology books.

Then again, they had missed out a lot of things. Like a lot of cannibalism and rape and incest. Didn't Athena spring fully formed out of her father's forehead? Something like that.

Cleaner than the usual way, she supposed.

"I think my favorite thing about gods and goddesses is how multi-talented they are," Lucille said. "Goddess of war and also handicraft. It's good to have a fall-back."

"What do you think yours would be?" Edith asked. "Your patronages?"

"Oh, rebellious children, I think. And Thomas would be... fraternal love."

Edith found herself laughing. It really wasn't funny, neither of them, but she laughed anyway.

"But you," Lucille said, twisting her mouth in thought. "Hmm... Edith, goddess of what? Thomas, any ideas?"

"Comfort?" he offered. "Sympathy? Mercy?"

"No. Goddess of second chances."

Edith gazed up at the statue's perfect face, red lips and blue eyes, so smooth and impassive.

"I'll take that," she said.

The idea was in her head as she began writing up her notes for her next article.

I firmly believe that it is impossible to completely know a person. Everyone has a little part of themselves that they keep inside. And I think that's important. It's not healthy to give yourself over to someone else completely.

For people in the public eye, it goes further than that. They show limited parts of themselves. They create an image that both is and isn't them. A mythology. And images and stories are created about them, merging into that legend, which may or may not be true.

Crimson Peak are often described as a niche group.

Cult, if you will.

Tonight, Thomas and Lucille play in a city of legends, albeit in a style far from their usual.

No doubt they'd be changing the set list to match the stereotypical Tennessee sound.

They were very good at changing.

Chapter 62: A Suggestion

"Does it suit me?"

Edith really wasn't sure if it did. Stetsons were tricky things and while Thomas looked good in most accessories, maybe there was something odd about it. The size or the shape or perhaps both.

"Unless you're planning to take up line dancing when we go home, it might be one to leave," Lucille said.

"That bad?"

"Well, you look handsome, but you always do. That's hardly a suitable test."

"Ah, flattery..."

He carefully put it back, checking his watch.

"I think it's about time we devils went down to Georgia," he said.

They'd not managed to catch anything at the Grand Ole Opry, though Edith wasn't completely convinced that that wasn't by design. It wasn't really their scene, for one thing. It might have made them uncomfortable to be quite so evidently other.

Sticking out was one thing; being out of place was another.

"I know exactly where we'll stop on the road," Thomas said, adjusting the driver's seat.

"Oh, that sounds ominous," Lucille said. "Somewhere jumped out at you on the map?"

"Have a look yourself."

It took a moment or two, but then Lucille sighed.

"You're kidding..."

"Pardon me, boy," Thomas sang. "Is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo? Track twenty-nine..."

"What kind of self-respecting adult calls a train a choo-choo?"

"One asking a shoe-shine boy for directions while boasting about affording rail travel. Anyway, I've picked out a wonderful niche museum for us to visit."

Edith loved the way they said niche. "Neesh" rather than "nitch." She wasn't sure why it sounded so sophisticated in her head, but it really did. Like how they said "root" when they talked about choosing the best route. There was just something about it. Really pleasing to her ears.

And niche was definitely the right word as they unexpectedly drove through almost the entire city before finally pulling into the museum parking lot.

"Wow," Lucille said. "Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that."

Squinting against the sun, Edith managed to read the sign. The International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum.

Original, she'd give it that. But definitely more Thomas's scene than hers or Lucille's, all antique tow trucks - apparently they'd been invented nearby - and assorted memorabilia.

But then there was the list of tow-truck operators killed at work. And there were a lot of them. Ordinary people setting off to work and never coming home.

On the one hand, it was shocking to see so many names, but on the other it was heartening to see they were being remembered and to read about the charity fund for bereaved families. People were helping.

"I feel bad for making fun now," Thomas said softly.

A rare bit of admission. A good sign, Edith would perhaps dare to think.

He offered to keep driving, waiting until Lucille had fallen asleep before clearing his throat, shaking Edith out of her half doze.

"I've been thinking about what you said," he murmured softly. "About how we haven't thought everything through properly. And I fear you might be right."

"About anything in particular, or...?"

"We've thought a lot about practical aspects. How to trick someone into carrying our child, how to get them to England to give birth, what adoption forms we'd need, which schools we might consider, all of those things, but nothing about actually raising them at Allerdale. Even if... Even if our original plan had succeeded, it's... It would be difficult. But it's so normal to us that we hadn't even considered it. I've had an idea, though."

"You or Lucille?" Edith asked, a little suspiciously. "Or both of you?"

"Me, for now. I wanted to ask what you thought first. Before I got her hopes up."

Well, that was... thoughtful of him, potentially. Depending on what it was.

"Go on," she said.

"Well, I was thinking about what you wrote about knowing you'd reveal something about a relationship one day. What if it wasn't with me? What if you revealed your relationship with Lucille instead?"

"How exactly would that help?"

"You're mum. Lucille is your partner. And I just... donated my sperm for you to create a Sharpe heir with the right genes. No incest, just a strange arrangement. And we're practically made of strange arrangements."

"And the beds?"

"Lucille can't sleep alone. But I can."

Edith could understand what he was implying. That she and Lucille could share, could sleep together, that he would be the separate one. She'd protect Lucille from her nightmares instead.

It made a lot of sense, really, but somehow, it didn't sit well with her.

"I can't ask you to do that. I can't get in the way of your... relationship."

"You're not asking me. I'm making a suggestion. It's a possibility to think about."

Hmm. And, really, it was a good one. But did it ring true?

"I'm not entirely sure we've known each other long enough to plan a child together," she said uncertainly. "I mean... It's a big decision. And you can't exactly accidentally be artificially inseminated. It's not like it could have just happened by chance."

"But you can fall in love quickly and decide to play the immigration game."

Edith blinked at the back of his head.

"Maybe. I'll think about it."

She meant that. The sleeping arrangements definitely warranted reflection. Maybe he was right, maybe it was the best option.

It was the cynicism she couldn't quite embrace. She would never have a child for anything other than the wish to love and raise that child. The idea of anyone using children for... Well, for anything ulterior made her deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

They continued their way towards Atlanta. Edith was looking forward to the trees. It was all she knew about Atlanta, that it had a lot of trees.

She'd always considered herself a city girl, seldom out of Buffalo, but there was something about being in the van all the time that made her crave nature. She was glad they often stopped at gardens and parks. Places you could breathe.

Lucille woke her with a kiss on the cheek, the van door opened so quietly that it hadn't made her stir. She hadn't even noticed falling asleep.

"Dinner, sweetheart."

Edith tried to imagine the future. She tried to imagine being woken like that on Sunday mornings, a gentle kiss. Cups of tea, coffee, toast.

And it wasn't completely unromantic. It wasn't bad, it wasn't frightening.

But it was very complicated.

Too complicated?

She couldn't shake the feeling that she was running out of time to decide.

Chapter 63: Teeth

Orlando, Florida. Edith couldn't deny, she'd always wanted to go as a kid.

Not that that had made the six hour journey from Atlanta and better. It was very warm, humid, she wasn't feeling her best. Slightly nauseous. And was that morning sickness or unrelated?

She thought it came later. Maybe.

God, she should really try to look into this.

"I just hope we see alligators while we're here," Lucille said as they tried to plan how to spend their afternoon over lunch. "Do you know their eyelids are translucent so they can see under water?"

"Well, that's not really their eyelids," Thomas said. "It's called a nictitating membrane."

"Gesundheit."

He snorted, kissing her temple where she was poring over leaflets.

"Much better than great white sharks," he added. "They just have to roll their eyes back into their heads."

Part of Edith wanted to suggest Disney World, but she somehow couldn't imagine the Sharpes there. Wearing the mouse ears... No. Never. Not even in the most ironic way.

"I suppose it depends on whether you want something more touristy or more real," she said. "We could always go down into the city."

"Or... Gatorland," Thomas said, leaflet in hand. "Guaranteed crocodilians."

Well, when would she ever get this chance again? Certainly with someone so keen?

The gateway was charming in a toothy way, a large painted alligator head you could choose to step through. Apparently it had been the door once but had to be moved due to a fire. There was a small child resolutely refusing to step foot in it, insisting on walking around it for safety.

Edith couldn't help thinking he had a point. Despite all her logic, knowing it was just a model - painted turquoise at that - she had the horrible sensation that it would clamp shut around her.

Lucille looked like all her Christmases had come at once, especially with the babies. They were called grunts, apparently, and it was easy to tell why. They made the most extraordinary noises.

They were hard to describe really. A low squeak perhaps? A muted yelp?

"They are... adorable," Lucille said.

"They are cute," Edith admitted. "In a pointy way."

Much cuter than their adult counterparts.

Edith eyed them uncertainly. They were far away, they were safely contained, they did not seem to care about the people on the walkways above them, and yet no amount of learning that they were generally sluggish and avoided humans seemed to help with her fear.

And the revelation that you could take a zipline over them was probably one of her worst nightmares.

"No," she said reflexively when they were asked. "No way."

"I'll do it," Lucille said. "It'll be fun."

There was a harness and there was safety equipment - a helmet and so on - but her fear was clearly written all over her face as Lucille joined the queue.

"Relax, Edith," Thomas said. "You have a famously litigious culture. They wouldn't do anything that might get them sued."

Maybe he was right, but she still had her heart in her mouth watching Lucille jump from the platform and fly over the tops of several apex predators.

She was glad to be able to squeeze Thomas's hand. How strange than she'd ended up seeking comfort from people she'd been so frightened of, so violated by.

Nothing bad happened, of course. Lucille landed with an unfair amount of grace, getting unhooked, grinning with bright eyes full of adrenaline.

"Did you take my picture?" she asked.

"Too scared," Edith said. "Couldn't take my eyes off you up there."

"Aw, sweetheart. What would you have done if I'd fallen?"

"Oh, don't!"

Thomas laughed, wrapping his arm around Edith's waist, soothing.

"I think she could have fought her way out," he said.

Maybe that was true. She wouldn't put money against Lucille winning any fight really.

All the same, Edith was much more comfortable with the aviary, even though the birds were free to fly around you, hunting for seeds.

She was maybe a little glad that they needed to leave fairly early for soundcheck and so she could avoid being encouraged to touch a caiman or a snake. She'd held a corn snake once as a child. It had belonged to a friend's older brother, neither of whose names she could recall.

The sensation of muscles moving under her hands had been so alien, so strange. And she wasn't convinced it liked being touched. It wasn't like a dog or a cat coming over to be stroked. You couldn't tell what it thought.

She took a picture of Thomas and Lucille in the gator head gate and tried to start writing notes for her next article, avoiding all clichés about cold blood and crocodile tears.

In the venue, blessedly cool, she tried to get her head together, testing happening all around her. Lucille's bass, the piano, the synths...

Florida. The Sunshine State. And it certainly lived up to that today as Crimson Peak went in search of unfamiliar wildlife at Gatorland.

If they could blink without closing their eyes, I have absolutely no doubt they would. Maybe there's a reason Lucille feels a kinship with a creature that is so still, waiting and watching, until suddenly it isn't.

Of course, once you consider the death rolling, the metaphor rather falls down.

Or did it? She took hold of what she wanted and didn't let go. Thomas, music, a child, her...

It's well known that you can prevent an alligator opening its jaws without much effort but that its bite is incredibly powerful. I think music can be a bit like that too; you can enjoy it perfectly well but if it gets its teeth into you, there's no escape.

She'd write up the gig here. Whatever surprises got thrown into it.

It was strange to become aware of someone standing close to her, silent, when she could see both Thomas and Lucille on stage. She startled, turning in her seat, looking up at one of the theatre staff.

"So is it true?" he asked.

"Is what true?"

"You and Thomas Sharpe?"

"Pardon?"

"Just asking. Rumor is that he's gay. Never so much as gone near a woman. Until you. So are you his beard or something?"

She blinked at him a few times.

"I'm sorry, have we met?" she asked. "Or do you pry into the personal lives of everyone who comes to perform here?"

"Hey, no judgement. Just trying to work out what my chances might be."

"I'm not going to discuss that kind of matter. Excuse me."

She got up and made her way backstage, somehow shaken. She didn't like talking to strangers at the best of times. Such a personal question right out of the gate had surprised her.

And now she wanted to hide behind the shield that Thomas and Lucille provided. She was part of their gang. Their tribe. Their family.

"This Key lime pie I've heard so much about," Lucille said, coiling some wires. "What is that? Is it like a cheesecake?"

"Uh... I mean, a bit, I suppose."

"I think I'd like to try it, if you'll join me."

Edith nodded, slightly distracted.

She knew exactly what Lucille would have done to anyone who dared to be so presumptive as to talk to her like that, however harmless their intent. She'd have him fired immediately.

And maybe it was a little worrying for her campaign to help them become better people that Edith was beginning to see the appeal of abusing power like that.

Chapter 64: An Experiment

"What do you mean, it doesn't exist?"

Edith woke up in the back of the bus, sticky and gross. It was so hot down here and the air con didn't seem nearly as effective these days.

"I really don't know how else to explain it," Thomas said. "It doesn't exist. It was torn down. We can go to the physical location if you want, but the building is no more."

"What are we talking about?" Edith asked.

"The Six Mile Inn," Lucille said. "Home of Lavinia Fisher, America's first female serial killer."

"Alleged serial killer," Thomas said, eyes on the map. "Many historians don't think she actually killed anyone, or at least not how they say. It's mostly folklore. She was executed for highway robbery, not murder."

"Sanitization of the facts."

"Or the legends are exaggerated."

Was Lucille a serial killer? Edith found herself wondering. She was sure there were rules about the definition but she couldn't remember them.

"So how many people did she allegedly kill?" she asked.

"Oh, hundreds," Lucille said. "They had a system where she'd talk to lone travelers when they came to the inn - men of course - find out how much money they had and who'd miss them and if if was worth it, they'd lace their tea with sedatives and, in the dead of night, it took only the pull of a lever to make the bed fall through, dropping them onto the killing floor below."

"As if they'd have the engineering skill to make that kind of thing," Thomas scoffed. "Especially without it giving way."

"Oh, ye of little faith..."

Edith felt a little knot form in her stomach. Tight and unpleasant.

"Is that where you got the idea?" she asked. "For the tea?"

A bit of air seemed to leave the bus for a few moments.

"No," Lucille said. "No, it wasn't. Except unconsciously, perhaps."

"As I recall, I was the one unconscious."

She'd soured the atmosphere, of course, but she felt it was justifiable. They couldn't just brush it under the carpet forever.

"I just think we should be able to talk about it," she said. "That's all. I mean, we're not going to just forget about it. I'm not. I can't."

"I'd say we're sorry, but that hardly seems like enough," Thomas said.

No. No, it wouldn't be.

"I'm not trying to needle you or anything," Edith said. "I just want to be able to mention it sometimes. Our relationship started badly; it's a fact. And sometimes I might have to bring it up."

"So you can win every argument until the end of time?" Lucille asked.

Mm. A nerve had evidently been touched.

"No. Just so I don't lose sight of progress."

"Progress?"

"Well, you're making a strong effort to improve things. You really are, I recognise that. But, you know... I want to remember just where we've come from."

"In case we start slipping?"

"Yes."

Thomas turned round in his seat, pushing up his sunglasses to look at her. Like he'd thought that was a bit harsh.

"What?" she asked. "Honesty goes both ways. I'm just saying what I think."

He kept looking at her face, appraising for a moment before turning back.

"Anything else you want to be honest about?" he asked.

Edith's fear rose a little bit. What did he know? About Enola? Or... Or something else?

"Such as?" she asked.

He looked to Lucille first, like he was looking for permission. She didn't seem to object. Or at least she didn't react at all.

"In New Orleans, the three of us together... Well, we tried to respect your boundaries, but I think you were curious all the same. I think you wanted your boundaries pushed. I think you were almost disappointed."

Feeling herself blush, Edith tried to consider her options. She could lie, claim he wasn't making any sense, or she could admit that...

That he was right. But she hated that she wanted to see them being intimate, she hated that it was true.

Then again, if she was seriously considering living with them, surely it would happen sooner or later. Even by accident, stumbling across them at the wrong moment. Maybe finding out just how she felt about it, about really seeing it, would be useful.

"Yes," she said. "Alright. I'm a bit curious. I'd like to see you kiss. Just to see."

"See what?" Lucille asked. "If you find it arousing?"

How did she even have more blood to rush into her cheeks? It really wasn't fair.

"We're nearly in Charleston," Thomas said, sparing her having to reply. "We can go and check in to the motel and... give it a try."

On the one hand, Edith wasn't sure that a forced example would work, but on the other hand, maybe this was the best way. Sterile. Separate from anything else. Easily compartmentalized.

Even so, when she made her way along the corridor towards the Sharpes' room, the fear began to grip her. What if she was horrified? What if she couldn't handle it? What if this was too far and she had to leave?

As much as she wanted to pretend to be emotionally detached, the fact was that it would hurt. She would... miss them. And besides, her child would be linked to them forever. She'd have to see them at least occasionally.

Would it be worse if she liked it? Would that disgust her even more? That no matter her own morality of beliefs, her libido and sexuality could so easily conspire against her?

She knocked at the door, gray paint, blotchy brass number.

Thomas opened it, looking very soft. Lucille was sitting with her ankles crossed on the bed, leaning against the headboard, seeming a lot more wary about this. Maybe similar fears were flitting through her mind too.

"How would you like to do this?" Thomas asked.

"I... I don't know," Edith said.

He smiled at her, the kind of thing that had enchanted her in the first place, his voice low and gentle.

"Alright. Then we'll just... give it a shot."

Edith stood awkwardly by the desk, folding her arms, slightly hunched, watching as he joined Lucille on the bed.

She sighed, getting up onto her knees facing him, one of his hands on her face, drawing her closer.

It started very chastely. A simple brush of lips, and yet so much more than siblings ought to do. And then gradually it became even more than that, lips parting, a flash of tongue visible even, barely perceptible sighs.

Had Edith breathed for the last few moments? She was transfixed, staring, unable to identify her own feelings.

Excitement, she thought. But it could have been panic. They were very close together, weren't they, those two emotions?

Lucille's fingers laced into Thomas's hair, holding him in place, his hands resting easily at her waist, gripping when she moved, pushing forward, settling herself into his lap.

And then she opened her eyes, looking at Edith, daring her to say anything.

A strange pulse of desire ran through Edith's body, definite and distinctive, watching and being known to watch, and apparently this worked for her, really worked...

Thomas let out a little sound of annoyance as Lucille pulled back, her thighs firmly bracketing his. In exactly the right position that had they not been wearing so many clothes...

"Care to join us?" she asked.

Edith swallowed hard.

"Maybe... Maybe next time," she murmured.

Lucille smiled, half relief and half amusement.

"I look forward to it," she said.

Edith turned like a robot, opened the door and left them to it.

She wasn't quite ready for that yet.

Chapter 65: Thoughts

"So where are you now?"

"Washington DC."

Quite how they'd actually managed to get here without all having breakdowns, she didn't know. Travelling up half the East Coast had passed in a strange blur of nerves and overthinking.

Shows followed by travel and whistle-stop tours, writing almost perfunctory articles while trying to keep a hold of herself. The trouble was that she was struggling to remember who exactly that was.

It was a strange thing to try to interrogate, in many ways. It wasn't something you did every day. In fact, Edith was willing to bet that most people made their way through life without ever thinking about what kind of person they were.

She couldn't find words for herself. Not really. Which was irritating given her career. Words were, in many ways, all she felt she had power over. To be without them... Well, she couldn't bear it.

Journalist, she could say that. She was paid for her words, read by strangers. She was a journalist.

After that it got a bit vague. Woman, sure, but that didn't really mean anything. You might as well count human as a quality.

Anything she could think of for her personality was even worse. Kind? Surely everyone thought they were kind. Even really mean people probably. Or how about sensitive? Empathetic? She felt they were all rather subjective, imprecise, open to interpretation or argument.

"What kind of person do you think I am, Alan?" she found herself asking.

A slightly worried pause.

"What's brought this on?" he asked.

"I don't know. Just... You know how people go away to try to find themselves and learn all the big truths about life and find enlightenment? I just feel like I've done the opposite. I've gone away and completely lost myself. And then I wonder if really I've just realized that I never knew myself in the first place."

"You're going through something difficult," he said gently. "Unplanned pregnancy, especially when you didn't think it was a possibility... It's no wonder you're feeling a little adrift. And that's OK. Hell, that's normal."

Normal. That was a pretty loaded word. Nothing about her life felt normal.

"I guess," she said.

"Hey. You're still you. You're still smart and thoughtful and brave. And stronger than I think you realize. Not a lot of people would be dealing with this so pragmatically. You're making your own decisions."

Was she, though? Or was she letting herself be manipulated because it was easier?

"Thanks," she said. "I think it's just a bit overwhelming to think about. You know, I'm going to go from being nothing to anyone to suddenly being someone's mother. It's a bit stressful."

"You're not nothing. You're a great friend, a great writer. You don't need to define yourself by other people. You're yourself and that's enough."

If only she knew who exactly "herself" was. Was it the shy girl from Buffalo, marked by her past traumas, or was it this new mistrustful person whose morals and boundaries kept on changing?

Or had they always been one and the same?

"Do you need me to come see you?"

His voice cut through her thoughts like a truck.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're flying out to England sooner rather than later. I could... come see you off. Not in a weird way, just that you'll be away for a bit longer than I was expecting. I feel you should get a proper send-off."

"You don't have to do that."

"I'd like to. And I can bring you anything you might need. Clothes, books..."

The idea seemed like it had been waiting for the question. Waiting for him to ask.

"Could you bring me the picture of my dad? The graduation one?"

"Of course. Just tell me where you're going from and when and I'll be there."

It was important somehow. If she was going across the ocean, she wanted to have that with her. Like a talisman. Like some of her dad's love and protection was bound to his image.

A light knock at her door, one that could have been either Thomas or Lucille. She couldn't tell.

"I think it's time for dinner," she said. "They've come to fetch me."

"OK. Speak soon."

It was Lucille, rubbing the back of her neck. She'd been a little off these last few days. Just headaches, she said, rather than full-blown migraines.

"You look better," she said, looking Edith up and down.

"Hm?"

"I've been watching you. Biting your nails, fiddling with your hair. You're looking more relaxed right now."

Edith hadn't even noticed she was doing anything like that. Funny how they were both trying to read the other.

For a moment, she considered hiding the truth, but there was no point. They'd find out sooner or later. She picked up her coat, checking she had her room key and grabbing the camera just in case.

"Alan's planning to come and see us off at the airport. I know it's not for a little while, but..."

"What?"

"He's going to bring me the picture of my dad to take with me to Allerdale."

Would she understand what that meant? How important that was? He'd be the only loved parent under their roof, probably.

She wasn't expecting Lucille to let out a fast little sigh, full of relief.

"I thought you were going to say he was going to take you back to Buffalo. I feel like you've been looking for an excuse not to come with us. And I don't know what I'd do if you did that. Things might get unpleasant and I don't want them to. And that's frightening me."

"It frightens you to want to avoid conflict?" Edith asked, locking her door. "Most people are the opposite."

"No. It frightens me because there's only one other person I've ever cared about. I thought there would only ever be one."

That was quite the admission. Edith supposed she ought to feel safer for having heard it.

Maybe part of her fear about not being anyone's daughter or sister was tied up in the fact that Thomas and Lucille were determined to make her a part of their family. She'd be their...

Well, their wife. Their partner. The mother of their child.

And maybe that was scary when she felt like she'd only just gotten used to being more or less on her own. Independent.

"What do you want to see in Washington?" Lucille asked, changing the subject. A kindness.

"Oh, you know. The usual. Capitol Building. Lincoln Memorial. That kind of thing."

"Have you been before? Fancied yourself as a political journalist?"

"No. Didn't really appeal."

"Mm. Our parliament is falling down, by all accounts. The building's full of leaks and holes and all sorts. I imagine the American one is much more together somehow."

They were talking, but not really talking. Both had far too much on their mind. And yet Edith felt just a little lighter. Just the idea of having something from home made England seem a lot less daunting.

She reached for Lucille's hand before they reached the end of the corridor.

"It's because I'm scared that I'm looking for a way out," she said softly. "It's because... It's because going with you will change everything."

"I feel like a lot has changed already," Lucille said.

"Yes. That too."

They stood in silence for a moment and then Edith stood on tiptoe to kiss the corner of her mouth. And how strange that that had become normal.

"We're all scared," she said. "But I guess at least we're scared together."

Chapter 66: Connections

Visiting the Lincoln Memorial seems somewhat different for foreigners. There's a degree of separation, polite interest, but not the investment of a local. Though, as always, that may just be the Sharpes.

Edith felt that was a fair assessment of what had happened on their visit. She'd been stunned into quiet awe by the sheer scale of everything, the calm stone face gazing outwards, the temple all around him.

"Almost an ancient Greek design," Thomas had said. "How interesting. It's hardly what you might expect, is it?"

"What do you expect?" Edith asked.

"I don't know. What's American architecture look like?"

Something like that had rubbed her the wrong way. She didn't like what he was insinuating.

"What does English architecture look like?"

And Thomas had laughed and shaken his head and said something about wattle and daub.

It had been something of a flying visit before they had to be on the road again, off to Baltimore.

"Of course, it's part of your national myth," Lucille said from the driver's seat.

"Pardon?"

"Lincoln. He's an important part of your story as a nation. The president who won the civil war, saved the union and then was tragically murdered. It's no wonder he's a big deal."

"What's our equivalent, do you think?" Thomas asked. "The English Civil War hardly seems relevant. It's too complicated and it's ultimately about whether to have a monarchy or a parliament and now we have both."

"And we only have one assassinated prime minister, if you can believe it. Spencer Perceval, only remembered for being assassinated. At least Lincoln achieved things."

This was exactly what Edith meant when she talked about them being separate to everything. Their lives were all about trivia and little facts that they had no connection with. They knew a lot, but she wasn't fully convinced that they understood it all. Not emotionally, at least. They didn't feel many things, even though what they felt was terrifyingly intense.

She didn't consider herself particularly patriotic, but she did feel a link to her hometown. Then again, Thomas and Lucille didn't really have that. Allerdale was rather isolated from what she'd read. Maybe that was why they kept themselves apart. Their only connections were negative.

If she could only get those words down somehow...

"What's Allerdale like to live in?" she asked instead. "Where's the closest... town?"

"There's the village," Thomas said. "You can walk to it fairly easily."

"What's in the village?"

"Houses, mostly," Lucille said. "Holiday lets. Chip shop, pub. Church. Scrubby village green. And a post office that's always closed."

"So what do you do for fun? Where do you go grocery shopping?"

There was an odd pause.

"We have them delivered," Thomas said eventually. "And we don't generally go out much."

Isolated. Alone. Even in her darker times, the times when she wanted to cut herself off from the world, it wasn't the best thing for her.

She wasn't sure how well she'd deal with that, really. At least the option was there, she supposed, to get out and walk. To get fresh air.

"Have you thought any more about my proposal?" Thomas asked.

Edith got the feeling from the way Lucille glanced at him that she didn't know what he was talking about, but Edith did. The idea that she and Lucille would share a bed and be the official couple.

"I'm still not sure," she said. "Accidental pregnancy is easy to explain, but pretending we met, fell in love, decided to have a child and, what? Did our own artificial insemination?"

"Oh, I see," Lucille said. "God, I thought you meant you'd proposed. Like, actually proposed."

It was difficult to gauge her reaction to that idea. Come to think about it, Edith didn't know how she'd react to that either.

Well. She'd say no, she thought.

She thought.

"Maybe you're right," Thomas said. "But as it stands, we have some problems to solve. We have a big secret which we'd like to keep. We also have the facts that Lucille can't sleep by herself and that you're concerned a child might not be able to understand our arrangement. I'm very open to ideas."

"And we're not taking the chevron route, then?" Lucille asked.

Edith was a little lost.

"Chevron?"

She drew a triangle in the air with one elegant finger, red ring glinting.

"This is us, right? All of us mutually involved. A love triangle, if you will. But we want people to believe the connection between Thomas and I doesn't exist. You in the middle, connecting to both of us, but crucially no connection between the blood relatives."

Edith wished she wouldn't say things like that. It really impacted on her being able to pretend that wasn't how things were.

"So what's your suggestion?" she asked.

"That we tell a version of the truth, for once in our lives. You're involved with us both, separately. It's unconventional, but we're happy."

That sat ill with her for some reason. But she didn't know why. They were all consenting adults. It wasn't cheating. Maybe Lucille was right, maybe it was the best option.

"Can I think about it?"

"Of course, sweetheart."

Maybe she ought to be flattered. It was hardly every day that the Sharpes invited someone in.

Maybe she could even help open their world up a little bit.

Chapter 67: Amending

Notes:

(How is this fic three years old and not done, this was NOT the plan...)

"Do you know what Philadelphia means?" Lucille asked from the driver's seat as they approached it.

"Yes," Edith said.

She was distracted and in no mood to play games, least of all games where she was teased.

She thought she'd noticed a slight swelling this morning. Tiny, not big enough to make her jeans tight even, but she was almost certain of it. And it made things rather real, realer than they had felt.

Ugh, realer? Was that a word? More real, maybe...

She'd always considered "pregnancy brain" to be a sexist phrase, but she was so tired at times that she felt like she was looking through the world through cotton candy. And this was the early part. What was it going to be like in five months?

"Go on, then," Lucille said.

Edith managed to hold back a sigh.

"The city of brotherly love."

The cackle made her smile all the same. Lucille laughed fairly often but not like this. This was brash and even a little ugly. And in a world where image meant so much, being openly less than perfect was endearing.

And the fact that she was allowed to hear it made her feel special somehow.

"I mean, they probably didn't mean it the way you do," Edith said.

"Interpretation is for the interpretee, as it were."

Hm. That was a potential thread to tug at.

"What's the weirdest interpretation of your music you've ever heard?"

"Ooh," Thomas said, surprisingly. She'd thought he was asleep. "That's a good question. We get a few people saying it speaks to them, that it reflects their depression or anxiety, makes them feel less alone. Especially Cursed. A lot of people see themselves in that one."

Ah, yes. It was often one of the later songs in the set, sometimes the finale, always had at least a few fans singing along. It wasn't one of Edith's favorites.

She just felt there were more interesting songs, that was all. Which probably made her a bit hipster-y, but, well... It was a song about feeling low, about feeling that everything in the world was out to get you, that some kind of malignant force was acting on you.

In Edith's humble opinion, it was an unhelpful idea. There were things that couldn't be helped and then there were things that could, even if it was hard work. Writing everything off as being some kind of universal bad luck could be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Of course, having abusive parents probably did feel like a curse, like a force of nature that could not be stopped. And she had a lot of sympathy for that. Really.

And, after all, they had stopped it. Viciously.

But she'd had her own share of hardship too. Lost her parents, been ill, gotten involved with thoroughly unsuitable characters and it wasn't enough just to be miserable about it. You had to find what goodness you could in the world or the badness would drown you.

Or that was her experience anyway. But if people found comfort in it, if it helped them...

Well, that was undeniably a good thing.

"What do they say about it?" she asked.

"Mainly that they feel less alone. It's strange. We were only talking about ourselves but the vagueness made it somehow universal."

"People like to see themselves in art," Lucille said. "Especially the dark parts. Makes them feel better. If only they knew how dark we really are, it would be much less successful."

That was probably true. Hint at the darkness; don't show it unadulterated.

They were going to the Constitution Center and Edith was mildly dreading it. The more American places they went, the more acutely aware she was that soon she'd be leaving, away to England, possibly never to return permanently.

They'd be speaking the same language, of course, but she could almost feel the culture shock lying in wait. And living in Allerdale had an additional level of solitude despite the paying visitors.

A combination of isolation and limited privacy. She'd have to get used to it, she supposed.

Would it be worth it? Getting to live in a big house, no more rent, able to write what she wanted instead of desperately working from paycheck to paycheck, getting a family - even a strange one?

Maybe.

"So, Edith, who is your favorite Founding Father?" Thomas asked.

"What?"

He leant back, holding out a printed piece of paper, a line highlighted. Something about posing with your favorite of 42 life-size statues of the signatories and dissenters to the original constitution from 1787.

"Looks very impressive."

"Don't they just? I'm looking forward to seeing them. And then we can see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and then get dinner."

It was a good itinerary. A very improving day, seeing some vital historical artifacts.

"Does it feel weird for you, being British, knowing they were breaking away?"

"Should it?" Lucille asked.

"I don't know. It either does or doesn't."

"It was over 200 years ago. I doubt anyone thinks about it much. Same as we don't really think about the Crimea or the Napoleonic wars. Most stuff pre-20th century... It's history. It doesn't affect your day to day life."

But was that true for everyone or just them? Did anything affect them beyond their four walls, their little circle of two?

Then again, did most people pay attention to what didn't directly affect them? Maybe not.

The statues were indeed impressive, all stood in naturalistic poses, like walking through the scene as it would have been, if everyone was coated in bronze.

"Do you think we're allowed to kiss them?" Lucille asked.

"Probably not," Edith said.

"Not even on the cheek? Shame. Guess I'll have to kiss someone else..."

They seemed happy today, she and Thomas. Calmer. Maybe they were having the opposite reaction to her, feeling more and more relaxed as they got closer to going home. More secure in the thought that she really was going to go with them.

They'd taken a huge gamble coming here with their plan and it hadn't paid off as they might necessarily have wished. But maybe it had worked out better than they thought.

Surprises were like that, sometimes.

She took her pictures, the statues looking like strange apparitions, the Liberty Bell large and somehow ponderous, hanging safely out of reach of visitors. Apparently there had been an incident involving a hammer.

They caught a cab back to the motel before dinner rather than trying to work out which bus was best.

Along the way, Lucille put a hand subtly on her leg. Just resting there. Looking out of the window, her face lightly silhouetted.

It was an odd combination of forward and shy, of taking a big liberty but also looking away, like she was afraid of being rebuked.

Trying to find warmth and acceptance. Trying to find joy where she could.

Considering all her options, Edith placed her own hand on top. She was going to England. And Plan A was to make this work, the three of them together. She had some control over that. She could offer a little respite, try to let something grow between them that was free from the lies and the ulterior motives.

"I think people would appreciate kisses more than the statues would."

She'd said it in a soft, quiet voice, almost a murmur, finding Lucille turning to look at her in something close to surprise.

And despite it all, Edith still loved to see her smile.

Chapter 68: Clearing Some Air

It was like Lucille was afraid that if she let go, Edith would never hold her hand again. She held on as they got out of the cab, through reception, up the stairs.

Thomas stayed behind for a moment to ask about the nearest take-out place. Apparently that was the plan; eating in private, away from prying eyes. Edith wondered if they had discussed it earlier or whether he just knew somehow. He could see it in Lucille's eyes, her face, that tonight they ought to stay in.

Her heart was already beating a little bit faster than normal.

Lucille unlocked the door - her door, hers and Thomas's - with her left hand, slightly awkward, slightly inelegant - pulling Edith inside.

"The closer we get to leaving, the more nervous I get," she said. "Because we're still not there. We're not in the right place with each other."

Edith had to agree, sitting on the bed.

"I want to trust you," she said. "But it's very difficult."

"And we want to be trustworthy but it's hard to just undo a lifetime's habit of hiding everything."

It was a stand-off, really. Unstoppable force meeting immovable object. One of them was going to have to move.

Or maybe they were going to have to go sideways for a while rather than directly forwards.

"We don't lie to you now," Lucille said. "You know everything. You could destroy us if you wanted."

Edith rubbed at her eyes, wondering how someone so intelligent could be so dense on this particular point.

"A relationship shouldn't be about who can destroy who," she said. "It shouldn't be built on that."

"Alright. Teach me. What should it be based on? I haven't exactly had the best of examples."

"You have Thomas..."

"But we're not exactly healthy, are we? That's based on pain and fear, on desperation and abuse. Because I wanted something bright in the darkness and so I dragged him down with me."

She'd never say these things in front of him, Edith knew.

"He loves you," she said uncertainly.

"I know. And I love him. More than anything. But that doesn't take away the truth of it. We built a home together in the pit of despair and now we're trying to pull you into it too when really we should be trying to climb out of it. So teach me how other people do this. Better people."

Oh, and that made her heart ache, kneeling up and seizing Lucille's face in both hands.

"Lots of people base their relationships on sadness and pain. It doesn't make you bad people to try to find happiness."

"How about the incest and the murder?"

They'd always be there, no matter how well Edith tried to push them away out of her mind. Like ghosts. Like bad dreams.

"You don't have to let your past control you. You can be better. We can build something together, all three of us, based on good things."

"Such as?"

"Respect. Affection. Trust, when that comes, and it will. This isn't anything like how I thought my life might go, but it is going this way and so I'm going to fight for it to be good. For me and for you and Thomas and... And the other one."

She couldn't refer to it as a child, as a person just yet. Too early. It was... a being. A concept. A future human.

"And where does attraction fit in?"

How was she always able to summon blood to her cheeks? It really wasn't fair.

"It can be important," Edith conceded. "But I don't think you should base a whole relationship on it. Looks fade, after all."

"But that's proof that you've made it. Lived, despite it all."

Maybe that was something Edith could get behind. No matter what her brain had tried to do to her, no matter what sorrows had befallen her, she was still here. Still alive. Still yearning and striving.

Still surviving.

"That's a good thought," she said. "I'm going to hold on to that one when I start going gray and getting lines."

A smile, leaning closer, and Edith let her, surrendered to being kissed as she had promised, feeling a little reassurance. They were making progress, little by little.

Thomas opened the door very carefully, putting his head round it, trying not to disturb. Then again, the first hint of food smell piqued her interest very strongly. Lunch seemed a long time ago and her appetite had seldom been healthier.

"Is it alright if I come in?" he asked.

"Of course," Lucille said. "Just making sure we're all on the same page."

"Glad to hear it."

Part of Edith worried that he might consider himself pushed out in some way, but if he did, he certainly wasn't saying so or showing it.

Maybe it was because he had comparatively less baggage than his sister. Really, when you looked at it, she was the scary one. She had committed the crimes, she had risked her own life for it.

But she was also so much more fragile. In some ways, Thomas was more resilient, more confident, certain of having her protection. And meanwhile Lucille had never allowed herself to be vulnerable, had never let anyone in who wasn't totally dependent on her. It was scary, for both of them.

Food was good though, leaning back against the headboard. Philadelphia cheesesteaks had never exactly been one of her favorites, but it was salty and delicious.

"With a great deal of respect and affection," Lucille said carefully. "Would you like to stay with us tonight after the show?"

It was strangely easy to say yes.

Chapter 69: Precipice

The Philadelphia show had a degree of tension to it. Unless it was just Edith's imagination. But she could feel it, a kind of nervous energy. They all knew what was going to happen afterwards.

Edith's notebook was impassively blank, finding it difficult to put anything into words. How was she supposed to write just another gig summary when she was going to...

Well, she wasn't necessarily going to do anything. She was going to stay the night in the Sharpe's bed, but nothing else had been discussed.

She'd gone back to her own room after dinner to freshen up, taking her pyjamas down with her before leaving.

It felt awful to think it, but she was glad Finlay wasn't here. She'd be even more stressed about the whole thing if she was also trying to hide it from someone so close.

She stood in the shadows, watching them play, technically accomplished as usual, but somehow without some of the usual flair. Their minds were clearly elsewhere. Probably exactly where her mind was, back in the hotel.

The nerves were strong now.

Thomas came off stage briefly, changing his guitars round, scooping his hair back.

"You OK?" he murmured.

"I will be," Edith said. "Just... butterflies."

"Mm."

He kissed her in passing, so brief that no one would have noticed, but enough to make her lips tingle.

Every touch did, in fact, like they were overly warm, not enough to burn but noticable. Every brush of fingers as she helped them pack up, even standing close was enough to make her intensely aware of her body and theirs, of distance and closeness.

Thomas drove the van back to the hotel, Lucille getting into the back with Edith, her eyes intense in the streetlamps' glow.

"Nothing has to happen, by the way," she said. "We could just sleep. It's up to you."

"I don't think I could go through this again," Edith said, bluntly honest. "If we do it, then it's done and I don't have to worry about it anymore."

She found her hand seized, held tightly.

"I... I don't want you to feel like this is an ordeal," Lucille said. "We don't have to."

"But it will happen, eventually. We've already been together, the three of us, or near enough."

"But you haven't seen us together," Thomas said. "We're... concerned that it might be too much."

"But I already know."

"Knowing and seeing are two different things."

That was true, she supposed. But if she didn't go through with this, she couldn't live with them. It would always be between them. And if they were going to be open and honest...

"I want to. I'm facing my fears. And if I want to stop, I'll just tell you."

Oh, but also sex shouldn't be like this. It should be fun.

She'd make it fun, dammit.

"Of course," Lucille said. "You're in charge."

Yes. Maybe she could work with that.

She walked a little ahead through the hotel foyer, trying to stay confident, leading the way into the elevator. She observed them in the mirrors, the glances, the silent communication, the worry in their eyes.

Thomas opened the door, watching her, clearly wondering what she would do. And so was she, a little.

She sat down in a small armchair in the corner, trying to stay calm.

"OK," she said. "Go."

"What?"

"I want to be sure first so you two start and I'll join in when I'm ready."

They seemed a little taken aback, but Lucille moved first, taking Thomas's face in her hands, kissing him very tenderly. Very gently, taking a deep inhale through her nose when he pulled her closer by the hips.

This was alright. Edith was strangely calm as she watched them, Lucille starting to unbutton his shirt, running her hands over his skin.

They were very beautiful. And, in many ways, she'd come to terms with what they were to one another. It wasn't healthy, it wasn't something she would ever be completely at ease with she didn't think, but at the same time she did understand. This was who they were.

"Take off her top."

Thomas opened his eyes, looking at her with an intrigued air, but he obeyed, tossing Lucille's t-shirt aside and taking off her bra for good measure.

It was strange to see her breasts pressed against his chest, her softer flesh, her slightly more delicate build.

Edith knew her breathing had sped up, seeing Lucille arch into Thomas's touch, knowing exactly that sensation, lacing her hand into his hair, pulling him to kiss her neck. The care mixed with control.

She was hesitant to join them until Lucille's gaze met hers over Thomas's shoulder, the fear in it, the hope too, the open desire...

Blood rushing in her ears, Edith stood, putting one step in front of the other, crossing the floor and placing her hand on Thomas's back, feeling him sigh with relief.

It was strange to kiss someone with another body between you, Lucille only just able to wrap her arms around both of them, sliding her hands under Edith's clothes for a moment before turning her attention to Thomas's belt.

The sound of it rattling brought reality rushing back into Edith's mind. She was about to see what she'd only imagined. On the one hand, she was terrified she wouldn't be able to handle it.

On the other, she was terrified that she would.

Lucille sank to her knees and curiosity got the better of Edith, peering round, watching wide eyed as she drew out his cock, looking up, stroking it, making him sigh and gasp.

And then she looked to Edith, a question in her face, like she was checking it was alright...

"Go on," Edith said, her voice so weak, so quiet. But there.

Part of her - and she wasn't sure how large a part - couldn't help but be aroused. Half naked, kneeling, wrapping her lips around it, always looking up... Lucille seemed very calm. Like she drew comfort from this, clearly doing something interesting with her tongue if the way Thomas hissed was anything to judge by.

"Is she good at that?"

"Extremely. Though I expect it's purely... Ah! Purely functional. What do you want us to do next?"

Oh, she was blushing now. He had realized immediately, they both had, the she quite liked being in charge. But actually saying those things out loud...

"Edith," Lucille said from the floor. "Ask for what you want."

What did she want?

"I think I should test my limits," she said. "I should... see you do more together."

They could interpret that as they wished, she figured.

Thomas turned to her, all frown and pursed lips.

"We're not leaving you out, though," he said. "It's mainly a matter of arrangements. Positioning."

Lucille had stood up, undressing fully, pulling Edith close to whisper in her ear.

"Do you want to see him fuck me?"

Lips pressed together, Edith nodded. It was going to be a lot, but...

Ripping off a bandaid.

"OK," Lucille said. "Thomas, get on the bed. And get comfortable."

He grinned, kissing her and kissing Edith for good measure, his cock jutting upwards as he lay down, in the centre of the mattress, just waiting, eyes smoldering as Lucille joined him and swung her leg over his waist.

"Come on," she said. "Watch properly. We don't mind."

In a sort of trance, Edith moved round the bed, staring as Lucille knelt up and took a firm grip of his cock, sinking down upon it, letting out the softest sigh.

It was like her heart stopped for a moment. This was it, the wedge between them, horror pooling in the base of her stomach but also a strange kind of fascination as Lucille began rolling her hips, the scars on her legs shifting with every motion.

Thomas had closed his eyes and Edith wasn't sure if it was from the sensation or from fear. Fear of what she was going to do.

What was she going to do?

"Kiss him."

Leaning forward, her hands on his chest, the contrast between his skin and her nails, his arms wrapping around her instantly, Lucille practically devoured him. Clinging together, as close as it was possible to be.

Too close. Far too close for what they were to one another.

And yet, Edith was surprised to find that she felt only pity for them. This had always been the only love they ever knew. There was not even anything like affection from their parents, no friends, almost complete isolation except from one another. It was not surprising that when they had been each other's only love - parental and sibling and friend and confidant, protector and comfort, everything - that in that house of fear and pain and abuse, they had become this to one another too.

In many ways, it was now their prison. A cage they'd built for themselves, forcing them to keep everyone away in case they realized the truth.

And she knew she couldn't dismantle it, but maybe she could try to push it towards sunshine rather than the depths of pain.

She took off her shirt and jeans, feeling a little self-conscious for all they'd done together, and climbed onto the bed.

Chapter 70: Drop

Lucille took her hand immediately, just looking for connection, sitting up with a slight moan as Thomas's cock moved within her, pulling Edith closer.

She had to swing her leg over Thomas's torso, letting Lucille hold her, kissing her, aware of the gentle motion of her body, Thomas gently stroking her calves as though to remind her he was there. As if she hadn't noticed the warm flesh beneath her.

"You OK?" he asked softly.

"Mm."

She wasn't sure she could manage to say much more than that. Her hands were shaking.

Why were her hands shaking?

Lucille pulled her into more kisses, soft and almost frightened, like it was their first time together. And in many ways, it was.

Gently, incredibly gently, she was tipped backwards onto Thomas's chest, having to kick her legs round somewhat awkwardly, feeling a little like she was being laid on an altar, worried that he was uncomfortable beneath her.

"Can you manage me?" she said.

"Of course," he murmured, stroking his hands over her ribs, kissing the top of her head. "We've got you."

They really did. She was held between them, Lucille leaning over her but keeping her hands on the mattress, making her feel like she was floating. The solidity of Thomas's chest was reassuring, grounding, proof she was still on Earth.

Lucille's kisses on the other hand made her feel decidedly more light-headed. Like she could drown in them. She was only aware of where they touched, her lips and the brush of her chest, warmth all down her back, Thomas's hands running down her sides, over her breasts, trying to push further down...

"Lucille," he said softly. "Could you move back just a tiny bit?"

It was only for a moment and then his fingers were slipping into her slit, finding her more aroused than she'd known, gasping at even a light touch.

He was gentle. Very gentle, his other hand still softly caressing any part of her that he could reach, just rubbing her clit with the tip of one finger.

And then he moved slightly as Lucille rocked back, perfectly in sync with one other to slide that finger into her.

The angle was strange and yet not at the said time. Or maybe it was because that was Lucille above her and the juxtaposition and the...

A little cry seemed to fall from her lips, unaware that she'd been building to that, feeling like it had almost been wrenched from her. Not in an unpleasant way, perhaps. More like the sensation of taking off a heavy bag or an ill-fitting shoe, something you hadn't consciously realized was hurting until suddenly it wasn't anymore.

"Edith," Lucille said, her voice catching slightly.

"I'm OK."

"Just a lot?"

She nodded desperately, blinking, surprised to find tears in her eyes. Was she crying? Surely not. Her eyes were just... leaking.

Every curling motion of Thomas's finger made his palm rub against her, a push-pull of sensation, Edith instinctively trying to arch her way into it but unable to, trapped amongst all their limbs until Lucille sat up, wiping Edith's cheeks with soft passes of her thumb, pushing at Thomas's hand.

"Let me," she said, a hint of breath in her voice.

Thomas deftly moved his attentions back to her clit more deliberately, tight little circles, matching the rhythm Lucille was using on herself with the hand not slipping between Edith's legs.

Her fingers were slimmer, but she was more confident, using two, her eyes flicking between Edith's face and her motions, biting her lip, both hands moving faster and faster.

Edith was going to burst. She was going to explode. She had two many thoughts in her head, too much knowledge, too many fears and surely it was all about to overflow like an overfilled teacup, her climax building with a strange kind of panic that she couldn't even place and...

"Fuck," Thomas breathed behind her and then Lucille was gasping around silence and yet neither of them stopped for a moment and Edith felt herself fall, like a tense string had been cut, gasping and almost sobbing, clenching around Lucille's fingers.

She watched almost in a daze as Lucille dismounted - for want of a better word - noting how Thomas's softened cock was shining from her, reaching out desperately to be pulled into an embrace.

The mattress felt like marshmallow after the firmness of Thomas, two bodies folding around her, cocooning her in warmth.

It took a long, long time before she trusted her voice, and it was still quite scratchy.

"That was... intense for me."

"For us too," Lucille said, her chest vibrating under Edith's ear.

"Can we get you anything?" Thomas asked, his arms warm where they wrapped around her. "Water?"

"I think I'd just like to be held a while."

"Pyjamas?"

Well, on second thoughts...

Edith pulled on her cotton shorts and soft, bobbled t-shirt, feeling a little more like herself.

"I so wanted this to be fun," she said. "And it went all... strange."

"It is strange," Lucille said. "It has to be at first. None of us expected this."

"There will be time for fun later," Thomas said, pulling on his boxers for a modicum of modesty. "Once we're all... used to one another like this. I mean, I was thinking one of these days I could see just how much stamina I have if put to the test."

"Well, I was thinking that one day, Edith and I could see how far we can go before you snap and beg to join in."

They were trying to make her feel better by distracting her from the present, and she did appreciate it, really, but she couldn't think about stuff like that yet.

"I was thinking..." she said.

"Yes?"

Well, what?

"That I need to sleep."

Chuckles, a kiss on her forehead and her scalp.

All in all, she was strangely OK. She had seen it all and the world had not ended. No one outside of the room knew what had just happened between them.

It would take a while, perhaps, but maybe she'd even get used to it somehow.

Somehow.

Chapter 71: The Morning After

"I think we should cancel the rest of the tour."

Edith opened her eyes, warm and amongst what seemed to be a mountain of blankets. Lucille was sitting up next to her, all satin and softness but Thomas seemed to be up already. She could hear the faint sound of the kettle boiling.

"What for?" he was asking. "Pam already booked the flights. And besides, you really wanted to go to Fall River."

"Yes, but the sooner we go home, the sooner everything will become normal."

Edith shuffled over, nudging at her with her nose, too tired to move much more than that.

"What did we say about talking when I'm asleep?" she murmured.

Lucille sighed, lifting the sheets slightly to gaze down at her, tendrils of her braid slipping out.

"Sorry," she said softly. "It's not deliberate. How are you feeling?"

How was she feeling? What a question. And yet, she needed to be honest.

"I feel a little guilty," she said. "You know, I'm... I'm not fully comfortable with how you are together or the origins of all of this, but I... I enjoyed it. And that makes me feel... bad. Sick. Even though no one knows. Even though it's not hurting anyone."

Or anyone else, at least. It could hardly be called a healthy relationship by anyone's measurement. And maybe that was part of her fear, that if she couldn't help them she'd just make things worse.

Nodding, soft fingers running through her hair.

"No, that makes sense. Take your time. It's hardly the sort of thing you'll have thought about before."

That was true.

She sat up, feeling very strange to be here, Thomas pottering about making tea. He didn't offer her any and she was rather glad of that. That could wait until her thoughts of any kind of brewed beverage were a little less raw. Water was all she wanted.

"What do you think, Edith?" he asked. "Should we go home sooner than planned? Will it help?"

She considered it.

"There's only a few places left," she said. "We've come a long way to stop now. I think we should keep going."

Lucille shrugged.

"Two against one. You win. On to New Jersey, I suppose. We're going to Ocean City, the famou family friendly dry resort that we'd never heard of."

"It took me so long to understand that dry meant teetotal," Thomas said, slipping into bed on Edith's right. "Though I suppose if you describe yourself as non-alcoholic, that just sounds odd. Like there are alcoholic versions out there."

"It's the religious aspect that gets me. Jesus turned the water into wine, didn't he? And what about this wine is my blood and all that?"

"Ah, but the Bible never says it's alcoholic wine."

"It's implied."

This was... nice. Warm. Playful little discussions that at a less tense time Edith could imagine joining in with.

She used to feel like a mouse between two cats. Now it was like the cats had adopted her. They were vicious and fierce but maybe they could protect her too.

If she could prevent them from savaging people, of course...

Thomas carefully slipped an arm over her shoulders, his fingers tangling in Lucille's hair, daring little intimacies. Still testing the waters to an extent.

"Do you think we should rent a family room in a family resort?" he asked carefully. "The three of us together?"

Edith hesitated, even now, even after all they'd done. She wanted to be with them and Lucille was right that the sooner they started, the sooner the new normality might start to grow between them. But on the other hand, she wouldn't have any real privacy at all apart from in the bathroom.

Then again, she'd been brave last night. Maybe she could be brave again. And then maybe bravery would be normal.

"Let's give it a try," she said. "Get used to being a bit more domestic."

He turned her face gently with the tips of two fingers, pressing his lips to hers, the soft brush of eyelashes against her face.

"I suppose I should go and ask reception for another towel," Lucille said, getting up. "And breakfast."

She put on shoes but little else, her pyjamas covering every inch of skin and yet somehow the way they moved around her body left precious little to the imagination. Every curve and motion made the fabric shimmer.

It was unusual to look at someone with open desire while simultaneously being aware of another person doing the exact same thing.

A strange awkwardness filled the room as the door closed. And Edith knew why, on her part at least. It was because she felt like she knew Lucille now, really knew her, knew her pain and sorrows but her passion and her deep, deep love too whereas with Thomas...

Well, she was starting to realize that she didn't know him as well.

Everything about him almost seemed like a splinter from his sister. He defended her, loved her, protected her while welcoming her as his protector but what did he want? What were his desires?

Well, you couldn't just ask that kind of thing out loud, could you?

Edith snuggled back down amongst the blankets, enjoying the residual heat from Lucille's body.

"Did you go to church much when you were kids?" she asked.

He sighed gently, leaning back against the pillows, all ribs and sinew, dark hair under his arm as he cradled his head. Achingly handsome.

"Only Christmas and Easter. The ones you were expected to go to. Our parents put a lot of stock into appearances, but not so far as to risk anyone getting to know them. Besides, Father would probably have drunk all the communion wine before anyone else got a chance."

Avoiding eye contact, Edith stretched a little.

"There's sometimes hints of prayers and hymns in your music. I guess I just wondered how much of that was a deliberate influence."

She felt him shrug.

"Sometimes we wanted to pray. I don't think anyone was listening, though."

Questions practically burned her lips as she held them back, trying to find just the right words.

"Which songs are yours?" she asked eventually. "You know, yours alone?"

One of those quiet little chuckles, shaking his head.

"Hardly any. We write most of them together. A few of them have more of my input, I suppose. But they're all mine to some extent, except Lost Things. My lyrics tend to be... earthier than Lucille's. She's better at saying how she feels. I'm more... practical, I suppose. If it's talking about physical things, it's probably me. I wrote most of Progestin, for instance."

That was somewhat surprising.

"The morning after pill one? But it's so... detailed."

"I nursed Lucille through it. Got a pretty good idea of the experience. Researched the rest. I had a lot of... thoughts about the whole thing, I suppose."

Edith waited for him to elaborate, even daring to move to touch him, just a little. Just a little support.

He let out another gentle sigh.

"It was my fault. We were still living under Mother's thumb and Lucille was afraid of what would happen if she went on the pill, that Mother would find it and... do something, punish her. We'd been using condoms ever since the first scare since I could hang onto them. No one would care if I was sleeping around. But I... I did it wrong and it broke and that meant she had to go through that, all the risks and the pain. I hurt her."

"It was an accident," Edith said. "It happens."

"I know. But when your world is only two people, it's strangely easy to internalize all of that stuff, blame yourself. It's only now that we've met someone else and started to expand our horizons that I feel I'm able to look at it more subjectively. I think the relief that it had worked and we'd got away with it was the end of it for Lucille. She didn't know how much I beat myself up over it. And, of course, now we've hurt you, badly, and we all have to deal with that."

The door opened, Lucille scampering back in, a towel tucked under her arm and a little basket of pastries in her hand.

"It's freezing out there," she said, reclaiming her place and snuggling into the warmth. "I just got one of everything. Figured it would set us up for the day."

Breakfast in bed with her two lovers. This really was an unusual situation, even without all the rest of it. By the time Edith was washing her hair, she felt like she'd almost relaxed.

They were two lost souls, made of hurt and armor, and comparatively speaking she was a lot less messed up than they were. Which was kind of interesting. She was used to being the most screwed up person in most rooms.

And despite all their talk of having no secrets from one another, there were things that they didn't talk about. Lucille never talked about her fears around Thomas, not all of them. She was still in that protective role. And Thomas worked hard to help her maintain that view of herself, not mentioning his doubts.

Was it healthy? Well, on the one hand, she felt everyone needed some portion of themselves to be just their own. Having someone else know everything was quite a frightening idea. But then again, maybe they should talk about some of it. Might help exorcise some old ghosts.

They only talked about it in their music. And that was fine, but sticking to a rhythm and a rhyme structure probably prevented a degree of freedom.

But maybe they liked that. Maybe that was what made it safe. Restrictions to prevent too much getting out.

She brushed her hair back, thinking again about maybe cutting it, borrowing Lucille's deodorant. Smelling like her. No one would notice, except perhaps Thomas, but it was the little things keeping her calm. The sense of belonging without actually addressing what that meant.

It meant keeping secrets. It meant stepping into that world. It meant being confidant and supportive and all of that and allowing Thomas and Lucille to be that for her in return.

And maybe that latter part was more of a challenge than she would admit.

Notes:

Next time, I swear, we'll finally leave this one room!

Chapter 72: Haven

It was strange after so many weeks crossing deserts and plains and swamps to finally be back in more familiar surroundings. They cut through the bottom of New York State - home, or close to it. It was easier to breathe somehow, maybe less humid. Or maybe Edith had just settled down a little.

Ocean City had been... good. More than good. They'd booked into their hotel, all together, finding a sweet room with a double and single bed. They didn't use the single.

It was easier for Lucille to be in the middle, Edith felt. She seemed to leech heat where Edith felt stifled, and besides, it meant Thomas could hold her properly.

She'd woken before them, finding them in exactly the same position as the night they'd spent in the back of the bus. Thomas curled around Lucille, his hand over her chest. It had shaken her that first time, made the faint alarm bells at the back of her mind that their relationship was not normal ring a little more clearly.

And then the next morning, she'd had sex with Thomas in the camp site shower block, so that probably showed how much she'd listened...

It was more subjective to look at them now. Her horror had dulled. She no longer had that immediate, visceral reaction.

In truth, she knew she pitied them. Everything that bound them to one another was awful.

And pity was strangely close to affection.

She'd tried to get up only for Lucille to seize her wrist immediately, smiling, clearly not asleep as she pulled her back into bed.

"Stay," she murmured. "Be warm."

She felt very peaceful, lazy morning kisses. Part of something. And it had been nice getting ready and dressing together, a different kind of nudity, more comfortable all round.

Naturally, as they drove up to New Haven, she was worrying that she was too comfortable. That she was allowing herself to be lulled into something, that there were still a lot of issues that they ought to discuss and no amount of caresses or sweetness was going to make that go away.

"It's rare to have a silent C, isn't it?" Thomas said from the driver's seat.

"Hmm?"

"Connecticut. Con-eh-tee-cut. Surely it ought to be Connect-ee-cut. But I suppose it's not from the same root. Nothing to do with connecting at all."

"Science," Edith said, writing notes mainly for something to do. "There's a silent C after the S. Science and silence, same sound to me."

"She is a wordsmith, darling," Lucille said. "Quick off the mark on these things."

"It's interesting though," Edith said. "Different languages, different people. I guess all countries have a lot of history in their place names. All the different cultures that have lived there."

"True. Even if most of it is just different words for mountains or rivers. I particularly like things like River Avon - the river river."

"What does Allerdale mean?"

"Dale is valley. Not sure on Aller. What about Buffalo?"

Ancient school lessons on local history had mainly faded over time, but she could still remember a little.

"It's either French or named after the animal, they're unsure."

"French?"

"Yeah. Beautiful river. I don't remember the exact words."

"Beau fleuve," Thomas said, catching her eye in the mirror, winking. "It's possible, I suppose."

"It just strikes me as so different from Long Island, an island that is, indeed, long," Lucille said. "I hope we can see it from the hotel."

Not quite, and even a walk by the harbor couldn't fix geography. Still, the ocean air was cold, but in a strangely comforting way, biting into her cheeks and making her feel incredibly aware of her own vitality. There was something about the little waves and the clouds, the sense of sea and sky so much bigger than herself.

And it felt nice to have Lucille wrap an arm around her waist as Thomas was examining a particularly fine pier.

"You're thinking about things, aren't you?" she murmured.

"Can't help it," Edith replied. "It's how my brain works."

"Anything you want to share?"

"Not sure yet. I think there are a few things we ought to talk about and it's going to be unpleasant."

"We're very good at unpleasant."

Edith laughed. She couldn't help it.

"No, you're not," she said. "But that's alright. Most people aren't. I'm not, for one, I'd rather shrink in on myself rather than let someone else help me."

"What do you need help with?"

Hmm...

"I'm scared that me being with you is going to change your relationship. The two of you. And maybe that will be fine, but if it's not... And we have a child mixed up in all of that..."

They walked in silence for a few more steps, pensive.

"For what it's worth," Lucille said carefully. "I have no fears for our child."

"I wish I shared your confidence."

"No, I wasn't finished. I'm not worried because I know you're always going to be on their side, no matter what. And I'd much, much rather be with you than against you. You've got Thomas and I completely figured out for one thing. You realize things about us that even we don't."

Thomas whistled ahead of them to get attention, pointing to an odd little food shack, his intentions clear. Always trying to look out for them, make sure their every need was met.

"What is it that Thomas wants, do you think?" Edith asked. "In life, I mean."

Lucille gazed at his back, watching his unmistakable figure stalking away from them.

"Freedom," she said softly. "Love. The usual."

That wasn't very specific.

"I just worry about him, that's all. I sometimes feel I can't get a grip on him."

Lucille kicked a pebble off the path, a rattling sound as it fell away.

"I think I know what you mean," she said. "We've always been a two. Always together. Even being older, I don't remember a time when we weren't together. And now you come along and you see us as individuals and I can't even begin to express how unused to that we are. Being... separate people."

"But you are. You must have disagreements sometimes."

"Of course. You've heard us."

Edith's mind automatically flew back to broken glass, the outburst she'd assumed was Thomas for so long.

"The night we went dancing," she said carefully. "You said he'd heard something in your lyrics and you disagreed. What was it?"

A moment's pause. It wasn't exactly the nicest memory.

"I was writing about you. A lot of things I wasn't ready to say out loud. And he suggested that maybe I was developing feelings for you."

"And that made you angry?"

"It made me a hypocrite. I had two fears when we embarked on this trip - that it wouldn't happen or that Thomas would fall in love with whoever we chose. After all, she was going to be smart and probably pretty and unrelated. I wouldn't blame him. And I made him promise and promise and promise, over and over, and then there I was, slipping. And worse, he'd noticed before me."

And now another worry slithered into Edith's heart. If Thomas spent his whole life trying to make Lucille happy, trying to repay her for protecting him, for saving him from their parents, for putting her own life at risk for him, would he consider lying about his feelings if he thought it would please her? Was he accepting Edith into their life primarily because he knew Lucille loved her?

He waved up ahead of them, paper bag of food, striding back towards them.

"It's not quite the same as fish and chips on the beach, but perhaps a transatlantic equivalent," he said.

"We'll have to do that when we're in England," Lucille said. "Give you the experience of fighting off feral seagulls."

"We can probably skip the sticks of rock, though. They're really not all they're cracked up to be."

Culture was so strange to them. They'd been kept secluded for so long, only learning about people outside from the media they could consume. Everything was facts and little feeling. You ate fish and chips at the seaside because that was what people did. People went to diners and hotels and so on.

And in amongst all of that, they'd come across the concept of being rock stars. Because people were. So why not them? Turn all that forced music tutorage into something their mother would hate.

It had to be difficult to learn how to be a person.

She knew that herself when it came down to it. She'd had to learn how to be more than her illness, how to nurture herself, how to eat without paralysing fear. She'd had to learn to do something as simple as this, as eating with other people.

That gave her hope. It wasn't impossible. They could learn to exist both as a pair and as individuals.

It just might be difficult. And maybe painful, at first.

Thomas kissed her temple, his lips seeming very, very warm.

Chapter 73: Another Suggestion

Notes:

Sorry there was no chapter last week. February was a bit busy.

"You should write a song."

It was more of an announcement from Lucille than anything else, coming apparently out of nowhere.

"Inspired?" Thomas asked, not looking up from the map. "I'm always open to ideas. You know that."

"No. I think you should write something without me."

And now he was looking and Edith was too, her eyes flicking between the two of them.

"Why?" he asked, very cold. "Do you think I can't?"

Lucille didn't sigh or react particularly, her voice very carefully pitched. An even tone. Not letting emotions get out of control.

"Of course I know you can. But I think it will be good for you. Things are changing, for all of us. It would be helpful for me to hear your truth on the matter."

"But you know. You know how I feel."

"I know what you'll say out loud, but that's not the same thing."

There was a horrible pause, thick like oil, like the air was difficult to breathe somehow, as Thomas's stony gaze was watered down a little, his eyes shining.

"Pull over," he murmured.

"We're on the freeway."

"Then pull off!"

Edith's stomach churned, feeling awful, feeling like she used to feel when she found her father sitting in the dark at the kitchen table staring into space. There was pain here and it was her fault, she'd been the one to make Lucille doubt and that was just because of her own fears which were probably delusional...

Lucille carefully guided them out of the traffic onto what seemed like a truck stop, barely a road at all, or like the place where a road would be built one day.

She pulled the handbrake on with a sense of inevitability, turning the key, the silence after the engine stopped seeming very, very long and unpleasant.

"I don't lie to you," Thomas said quietly. "I can't lie to you and you know it."

"You don't mean to," Lucille said, gentle and soft. "But sometimes you don't tell me things that you think I don't want to hear."

He folded his arms, looking away, defensive.

"And I understand why," Lucille said. "You spend all your time trying to protect me from... everything, anything bad. But you can't do that forever."

"I can try."

She reached over, stroking his arm, trying to get through to him.

"But I don't want you to," she said. "Or I don't want you to feel you have to."

He seized her wrist, pulling her close, Lucille undoing her seatbelt and managing to swing herself into his lap in a single, smooth motion.

Edith hesitated for a moment before taking a breath.

"Do you need a moment alone?"

She couldn't see Thomas's face, but she could see Lucille's, gazing down at him, letting him make the decision.

"No," he said eventually. "No, stay."

"It's alright if you..."

"Edith. Stay."

She wasn't sure if she really wanted to, but then again, this affected her too probably.

"It's OK," Lucille said. "I get it. You've always protected me."

"No," he said, and his voice was shaking. "No, you've always protected me. You always took the blame and the beatings and you always looked after me before yourself, you killed them for me and you could have died... How can I ever repay you for that?"

"I did it so we could be free. You can repay me by living. By living well and happily and not worrying so much about me. I'll be fine. As long as you're with me, I'll be alright."

Wary of intruding, Edith reached forward until she could put her hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly.

"You don't have to have it all on your shoulders," she said. "Let us help."

He chuckled, squeezing her fingers.

"You're one to talk, Edith," he said.

"We all are," Lucille said. "And this is part of what we need to do, need to learn to do - looking after each other but letting ourselves be looked after too."

Was she some kind of mind-reader or were they just on the same page? Edith couldn't help thinking that the former would help explain a few things.

"Write something," Lucille said. "And don't let me hear it until it'd finished."

He sighed, his head thudding back against the rest, resigned.

"Fine," he breathed. "But I not sure what kind of great truth you think you're going to learn. I have two beautiful women in my life who I love more than anything, one of whom is also carrying our child. I honestly couldn't be happier."

"It's not about me hearing truths. It's about... addressing some of the natural negative feelings that are part of all of this."

"Such as?"

"Fear? Anxiety? The stuff I know is ticking away inside that head but that you won't ever tell me about."

She was right, Edith felt. It was frightening to be embarking on something so life changing. If they weren't at least a little scared, it was probably a bad sign.

The kiss was heard rather than seen, Edith's own hand pulled gently forward so he could press it to his lips.

"Alright," he said. "But you should do one too. We'll both do some introspection."

A smile spread over Lucille's face.

"Edith, want to have a go?"

"Oh! Oh, no, I'm not very... Not very musical."

"But you are good at words. You could write us a poem."

Oh, she kind of hated that idea. Then again... there'd be no judgement here, they were all being just as vulnerable as one another.

"I'll try."

Chapter 74: Water

Notes:

I know it's been a long time since I updated, but I promise that it's not dead, just sleeping.

Anyway, at long last, a chapter!

Poetry...

Edith wasn't exactly well disposed towards it. In the hospital, back when she was in treatment, there'd been a lot of talk about writing poems to help process things and, frankly, she'd never really managed it. People talked about it being a free medium, but rhythms and stanzas and the choice of whether to rhyme or not always daunted her.

Prose was just easier. You said what you wanted to say. There was structure in full, proper sentences that tailing lyrics didn't have.

Which was not to say that she didn't admire the ability in other people. She enjoyed reading poems well enough, but writing them...

It was a case of just writing down her feelings exactly as she felt them. It ought to be simple. She knew herself, didn't she? Alright, so she was having a little bit of an identity crisis, but she knew her own heart. Right? So she just had to write that down.

Poetry was meant to be truthful. It was supposed to say things even in the words it did not say.

"The motto of Providence, Rhode Island, is 'What Cheer?'" Lucille read from one of her print outs.

"Like a question?" Thomas asked. "Not... I don't know, an affirmation of cheer? How odd."

"Apparently when the settlers first arrived from Massachusetts, some of the local Narragansett people - and I've probably pronounced that incorrectly - approached with a friendly 'What cheer, netop?' which essentially means 'What news, friend?'"

"Oh, that's nice. No fighting, no smallpox."

"Well, there is some kind of a war about forty years later..."

A sort of truce seemed to have fallen between them all now that they had a project. There was no pressure yet. They were all just getting on with it, or trying to in Edith's case.

She could tell sometimes with Thomas especially that he was working. There was something about his eyes, the way his fingers would move like he was trying out invisible chords in his head. It was interesting that they thought about music slightly differently. Lucille tended to be playing an invisible piano against the dashboard when she was composing.

Maybe literally just writing down her feelings would help. Like one of those mind map things.

Right. What was her overriding emotion? What did she feel above all other things?

Trepidation. Anxiety. Worry. Guilt. None of which were things she exactly wanted to dwell on.

What were the positives then?

Excitement. Affection, despite everything. A strange kind of kinship. They'd set out to catch her but she'd done some catching of her own.

And some part of her thought that what they had - and, more importantly what they might have in the future - was worth fighting for.

Hm. That was good. Maybe that was what she should focus on. The hope. How much she was looking forward to finally seeing Allerdale and finding how she could fit in there.

She was looking forward to Lucille playing the piano, to working on her writing and having Thomas come and find her for lunch, to actually meeting Mags and Pam and working on improving their working conditions somewhat, to settling down and looking after their child. To lots of things.

She was looking forward to having a bed. Just a bed with a side that was hers. Familiar bedsheets. Somewhere safe and soft and hers. Somewhere to put down roots.

In hospital, she'd dreamed of her own bed. Her own room back at home. Beds were safety and comfort, or they were meant to be. Warm and soft, the ultimate part of home.

In England, a room will become ours,
Mine and yours.
A place to sleep and talk and love
Morning alarms, late nights, lie-ins
At Christmas, our child can bring in their stocking
Or come through after a nightmare and wake us
And know that they are safe

In England, the house will become ours,
Mine and yours.
A place for us, three together
Chasing out the ghosts

Well, it was a start at least. She would have to work on it. Maybe talk about Thomas and Lucille separately, how she felt about them both.

Another anonymous hotel, but Edith was quite keen for their chosen activity. When she'd heard Waterplace Park, her first thought was the kind of water park she'd been to on vacation as a kid. Somehow, she couldn't imagine the Sharpes in swimwear.

And then she thought about it a little harder and suddenly she could see Lucille in a perfect red bikini matching her lipstick and the frames of her sunglasses and Thomas in black trunks.

She was forgetting the scars, of course. Lucille would probably prefer one of those striped Victorian costumes. All covered up and yet she'd probably look more indecent than anyone else.

It wasn't that kind of park though. It was more like a beautiful river walk right in the city, below most of street level, away from the sounds of traffic.

"Reminds me of Venice," Thomas said.

"Have you been there?" Edith asked.

"On tour, yes. Out of the main tourist season. Beautiful place but desperately sad."

"Why sad? I thought it was meant to be romantic."

"The subsidence. It floods regularly and it's slowly sinking. Couple of millimeters a year, but it adds up. All that beauty slowly being destroyed. Of course, it used to be happening faster. They have a lot of mitigation nowadays, lots of prevention."

"It was very romantic though," Lucille said, taking Edith's hand. "Eating gelato on a gondola, drifting beneath the Bridge of Sighs... We should go back before it falls into the sea."

She often spoke about the future, Edith was noticing. Places they should go, things they should do...

She watched a toddler get closer to the edge of the water than she was comfortable with, glad to see them be swept up into their mother's arms.

"I'm not sure Venice would be a safe place for a child," she said.

Lucille squeezed her hand lightly.

"We'd keep them safe. And besides, we could dress them in a darling red jacket and really freak people out."

It took a moment for them to catch Edith's confusion.

"You know, like Don't Look Now?"

"Oh," Edith said. "Heard of it, never seen it."

"It's a classic," Lucille said, just as Thomas said, "It's about a dead child."

"It's about grief and how it haunts you," Lucille said. "Regardless of the source. It's beautiful. And there's a child in a red coat."

"We should think about eating," Thomas said. "And get ready."

"Do you think they'll understand if we ask 'what cheer' at the start of the show?"

"Maybe. City mottos are an odd idea to me. Like having a slogan for where you live."

"Have you forgotten that we have a family motto, darling?"

"That's different. That's a nobility thing."

"What is it?" Edith asked.

"Ad montes oculos levavi," Lucille said. "I shall lift up mine eyes to the hills. And it's also the motto of the county council so I don't know what he's talking about."

Thomas laughed, that strange quiet way.

"You're quite right," he said. "I stand corrected. But I think we had it first and also I think that our blood sugar levels might be a tiny bit low."

"Thomas Sharpe, are you suggesting I'm hangry? How dare you?"

"I think we should give it a try. And if that doesn't work, maybe some more intense stress relief will be in order."

It was a playful little debate, any tension rushing away as easily as the water they were walking beside. Edith tried not to blush too much.

"It is strange, though," Lucille said. "Mottos and coats of arms and so on. It's all a hangover from the old world, like a little bit of Latin somehow gives things more legitimacy. You'd think America would be against that kind of thing."

Edith felt that she should be writing this down. She had to remember to do her actual writing too, the stuff she was being paid for. She quite liked this kind of philosophical discussion. It revealed more about the Sharpes than perhaps they realized. They seemed to consider themselves part of the old world, taking things like their titles and crests and ancestral home and simultaneously relishing in them and subverting them.

And that was all well and good, but she wasn't sure how well rhetorical debates would work on young children.

Nice image though. She found herself smiling at the thought of Lucille facing down a pouting, dark-haired toddler sitting on the table, explaining that the request had clearly been for one cookie and the period for negotiation had now passed.

In her mind's eye, they were in her childhood kitchen.

Chapter 75: Hatchet

Edith was woken up by the sound of the shower turning on, grunting into her pillow.

The Boston show had been... long. Longer than most, she thought. The tour was almost at an end and the Sharpes were keen to finish well, squeeze every last drop of attention and publicity out of the last few dates. And then she'd stayed up a little late to write, despite being told she should go to bed, Thomas and Lucille falling asleep behind her.

She'd written it all by hand. The typewriter would have been too loud with its clacking keys. She'd needed to write though. The latest deadline was looming.

What had she even been writing? It has seemed genius at 1am but no doubt would need some heavy editing.

She'd taken a picture. It hadn't come out well, far too dark, but turning to find Thomas and Lucille sleeping soundly, so peaceful, smudges of eyeliner on their faces... She couldn't resist. Not for the article or the book, no one would ever see it, but somehow she'd wanted it.

"Are you awake?" Thomas whispered softly.

Edith rolled over, rubbing her cheek, all pillowmarks and sleep-soft.

"How'd she get out of the middle?" she mumbled.

"By waking me up and making me move out of her way. She's excited. We're going to Fall River today."

Oh, God... So they were.

Sitting up was an effort. What time was it? Wasn't Fall River only an hour or so away? Did they need to be up so early?

Edith really wanted some coffee, but she had a vague memory that you weren't meant to have any if you were pregnant. Or maybe that wasn't true. Better safe than sorry.

"Do you think they mind being associated with the Borden murders?" she asked. "The town, I mean."

"I expect they have a few more sights they'd like to be better known, but if it brings in money... Same anywhere something tragic happened really. Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper. Salem and the witch trials. I even think some people come to Allerdale just to gawp at the unlucky Sharpe family."

He shuffled towards her, stroking her hair, looking a little concerned.

"Is it bothering you?" he asked softly. "It must be... strange to reminded of the past. Of what we did."

He hadn't done it, Edith thought. Lucille had done it, to protect him, to protect them both.

"Well, it's the truth, isn't it?" she said instead. "That's important. I can't forget about it. But I know why Lucille did what she did. I understand it. And I don't think she's dangerous as long as someone looks out for her."

Thomas flopped down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

"I didn't do a terribly good job of that," he said.

"Well, you were caught up in it too. It's hard sometimes to realize these things until you get an outside perspective."

The shower stopped, Lucille emerging in a cloud of steam, wrapped in a towel, humming to herself. Edith recognized the melody, but she couldn't name it.

"So who do you prefer," she asked, aiming for playful. "Lavinia Fisher or Lizzie Borden?"

"Oh, Lizzie Borden, definitely," Lucille said, sitting on the end of the bed and starting to brush out her hair. "Lavinia Fisher - if she really killed anyone at all - killed strangers. Lizzie Borden... It was personal."

"Remember," Thomas said, getting up. "She was acquitted. An innocent woman in the eyes of the law."

"Yes, but she totally did it. Maybe not quite forty whacks, but still..."

Edith's stomach rolled. From the thought of it or was this what morning sickness felt like?

Was she going to throw up?

She got up and rushed through to the bathroom, having to push Thomas out of the way, shoving the toilet seat up.

Nothing. Just nausea. Ugh...

"Hey," Thomas said from the doorway. "You OK?"

"Yeah. Yeah, just... Felt a bit sick, that's all."

"Would you like some ginger tea? Apparently it can help."

She hesitated. And in some ways, she wished that she didn't, but all the same, there was a degree of trauma there. She knew there would be nothing wrong with it. There was no reason for there to be anything wrong. It wouldn't make sense to sedate her now. And yet knowing that intellectually didn't help her mind, didn't lessen her fear.

"Can I make it myself?"

"Of course, sweetheart."

She poured the water, knew the kettle had nothing in it, ripped open the little paper bag, immediately hit by the hot, spicy smell of the dried herbs, fiddling with the string and the piece of cardboard. Not tampered with. Factory fresh.

Little sips as Lucille plaited her damp hair and got dressed. And it did help. She was feeling a lot more human by the time Thomas emerged from the bathroom, hair slicked back and smelling vaguely of soap.

At least she was able to catch up on a little sleep in the journey over, waking up as they tried to find a parking lot that could handle their trailer.

"I cannot believe the Borden house is a bed and breakfast now as well as a museum," Lucille was saying. "And I can't believe we weren't able to get a reservation."

Edith was a little glad about that. Which was ridiculous seeing as she was going to live in a house where murders and abuse had taken place, but at least she wouldn't be sleeping in a room where a woman was axed to death. That seemed a little too far.

It was a beautiful building. Wooden and gray, with sweet shutters on all the windows, three floors. It had clearly been a fine family home at some time.

If only there hadn't been horrible murders inside...

The tour was only half an hour, but even Edith found herself fascinated in the short time. Such violent murders, such tangled testimonies, all the theories about who had done it and why. Talk of broken hatchets, corpses wearing shoes while Lizzie swore she'd helped her father into his slippers, a step-mother who might be resented, a father who withheld all money from his adult daughters, the theory of an affair between Lizzie and the maid and how their discovery could have led to murder.

And, of course, there was a gift shop. The magnets of the victims' skulls weren't to Edith's taste, but they were interesting all the same. She couldn't look away from the facial injury on the father, the clear rectangular hole that went straight through his eye socket. Killed as he took an afternoon nap in his own home. Probably never even knew what had happened.

Maybe it was because she loved her dad so much, but Edith couldn't imagine feeling that much hatred for your parents. Maybe the abuse theory was true then. Maybe that was why Lucille felt quite so much kinship with Lizzie Borden. If she did the murders at all.

"I mean, if she didn't do it, she really didn't help her case," Thomas said, buckling himself into the driver's seat afterwards. "I was trying to be open-minded, to think that she didn't do it, but then burning a dress because it was mysteriously covered in paint so soon after violent killings? No. No, I think she did it."

"Edith?" Lucille asked. "What do you think?"

What did she think?

"There's certainly a lot of circumstantial evidence against her," Edith said.

"Ha! Always so careful, darling."

Maybe she was. But maybe it was a good thing, on the whole, to be careful. Surely better than being careless.

"Was it all you dreamed of, then?" Thomas asked, heading out onto the freeway.

"Absolutely," Lucille said, her bag of souvenirs rattling in the footwell. "And more. I think I might even be ready to go home soon."

Ah. Yes. Home. England.

She'd had to call Alan, tell him when to meet her. Say goodbye and go across the ocean.

It was all so terrifyingly close suddenly.

Chapter 76: Start spreading the news

Edith started her article for about the 600th time as they pulled out of Portland, Maine. One more stop and then they'd fly. The tickets would be delivered to their hotel, ready to go.

It was all very real and soon.

The nerves were really building now. Edith felt sick more often than she didn't and she was pretty sure that it had nothing whatsoever to do with being pregnant.

She had to get this last article right. It was important. A send-off, a final hurrah. Their last show, their last night.

And she wanted to tell the world the truth. Or part of it. She wanted to explain that she was in a relationship, that she was going to have a child, that she was going to England...

The more she tried to write it down in actual words, the more mad it sounded. And she didn't like that word. She'd been mad. Self-destructive. Illogical. And in some ways, this was like that. She knew it was. It wasn't healthy to get involved with people who scared you, who'd hurt you deliberately, who'd tried to trick and abuse you.

But at the same time, she couldn't deny the draw she felt towards them. Not like how she'd been drawn to more and more restrictive eating; that had been like the draw to the abyss, knowing it would kill her and yet still pulled down and down.

This was more like being drawn to fire. It could hurt, could kill, but she was confident that she could be careful, keep everything under control, quickly smother any sparks that flew out.

But trying to explain to people that you were going to let a fire burn in your house and no wonder they'd probably tell you it was better not to. Settle down with some nice central heating, it's much safer.

She'd write about the final performance in New York. She'd keep it professional. But after that, she had to get it out there before it became obvious. She had no intention of hiding herself away and the risk of being seen while obviously pregnant was too much for her liking. Everything on her own terms. No rumors.

And so Crimson Peak's first US tour comes to an end. It's been a long road for them and for me. There have been stories written about me and my relationship with Thomas Sharpe, I know. Friends have kindly told me about it in phone calls.

Well, as I now travel across the Atlantic with them to England in order to turn these writings into a book, I suppose it's time for me to set the record straight.

I am in a relationship with Thomas. In fact, I am pregnant with his child.

I am also in a relationship with Lucille. They both know and are accepting of this. We never expected it to go further than a brief affair but, well, plans change.

That was a lie about the Sharpe's intentions, but she wasn't going to say that, ever.

Some of you may judge me for this. Fair enough. I know how it looks. You'll call me greedy and promiscuous. You'll think I planned this for wealth or fame or something. But I have genuine feelings for both Thomas and Lucille separately. They are witty, intelligent people, passionate and sensitive. Lucille has such depth, so many layers away from her public persona, and I feel privileged that I am allowed to see the real her. Thomas has boundless imagination, a playful side that is infectious and a rare and intense desire to learn.

I will be spending the next part of my life with them. Perhaps all of the rest of my life. I can't forsee the future.

Either way, my life and my child's life will always be joined to them and to this time we spent traveling the country together. I am forever changed.

It felt strangely powerful to write that down. It was true, for one thing. She was never going to be the same.

"You must have been to New York City lots of times," Thomas said, trying to find their hotel.

"A few. It's really expensive though. It was usually when my parents' old friends had come to visit and we'd come and meet them, see some sights and head back home at night."

She remembered those childhood trips. She was normally bored. There were sometimes other kids, but it was difficult to just make friends immediately. Still, she'd always loved gazing up at the tall buildings all made of glass and wondering what was going on in them.

Really boring financial stuff probably.

"Is it as weird as people say?" Lucille asked.

"It's a big city," Edith said. "I guess when you get more people and more anonymity, you get more freedom to be strange."

Their day felt like a movie montage. Times Square, Empire State, Chrysler, Ground Zero, Central Park. Edith was exhausted by the end of it, pausing on the Bow Bridge eating bagels because they were in New York and you had to have bagels...

"I suppose we should head back," Thomas said. "We should try to take a nap before the show."

"You go," Edith said. "I'm going to take a little walk. I'll try not to wake you when I arrive."

There was a slight glance between the Sharpes, barely perceptible, but then Lucille shrugged, getting her wallet out of her back pocket and pulling out a fifty.

"Get a cab back," she said, handing it to her.

"I will. See you later."

When had she last been by herself? Outside by herself, not sitting in a corner of a theatre writing during sound check. This felt important somehow. A bit of freedom.

She took a picture of their backs, Thomas's arm slung companionably around Lucille's shoulders, standing out in black just before they vanished into the crowd. It seemed suitable for their departure from America. She should color over the few other faces she'd caught though, protect the innocent.

Finding a bench, she rested her legs and just watched the world go by. There was a deep sadness in her heart at the thought of leaving, she couldn't deny it. This was home. But also it wasn't. Buffalo was home, the apartment with Alan. But would it still feel like home now that she had changed so much, seen so many things, learned so much about herself?

Nature was good though. A little pocket of calm among the bustle of the city. She'd managed to breathe a little. Clean out her lungs.

Her taxi driver's eyes bulged when she handed over the money.

"I can't split this, ma'am. Got anything smaller?"

"Keep it," she said.

"Are you sure? Thanks. You have a good day now."

What time even was it? They'd set off very early and arrived just before lunch and then there'd been hours of tourism so now it was... Five? Six, seven? Nearly time for sound check already probably.

She crept into the room, trying desperately not to wake the Sharpes, taking off her coat silently. All the same, Thomas stirred, sighing gently.

"C'mere," he murmured. "Rest."

"Is there time?" she whispered.

"Twenty minutes or so."

Mm. And she was quite tired.

Pushing off her shoes, she slipped fully clothed into bed and let him wrap an arm around her. Lucille was curled up, sound asleep, gripping onto the blanket.

She must have slept because she woke up, Lucille putting on her stage makeup like war paint, wearing that outfit they'd bought together all those weeks ago when everything was new and frightening.

"How are you feeling?" Edith asked.

"Oh, you know. I always get sad at the end of a tour. It's an ending and it feels like that. How are you holding up?"

"Much the same. I'm nervous. Everything's about to change."

As if to answer her, the phone rang from the nightstand, loud and harsh. Thomas groaned, reaching for it, looking somehow artfully disheveled."

"Hello? Mm. Yes, she's here."

He got up, handing it to Edith and heading to the bathroom.

"Ms Cushing, I have a Dr Alan McMicheal on the line for you."

"Oh, of course. Thank you."

There was a short pause before she heard the click of a connection, Alan at the other end of it.

"Hi," he said. "Just wanted to say that I hope the last night goes well and check that I've packed everything you'll need."

"I'm sure you have," she said, knowing he'd have probably gone above and beyond.

"I've put in warm clothes since you're going to England, phone, laptop, a few documents that you might need, some converters for your electronics. Anything else?"

"The picture of my dad?"

"I've put him right on the top so you can put him in your hand baggage if you want."

So thoughtful. Edith's heart swelled a little.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"It'll be good to see you. Anyway. Enjoy your last night."

She wasn't going to cry. Not now.

Lucille cried. As they came towards the end of the set list, the tears began to fall. One or two to begin with, her voice becoming more and more choked until Thomas sang alone, and then more and more, the marks of them on her blouse, splashing onto her keyboard. Beautiful. Stunning and so emotive.

Edith took a picture of them, Thomas in the bright glare of the spotlight and Lucille hiding in the shadows of her hair.

She kept playing, eyes closed but still shaking slightly, as Thomas cleared his throat.

"We've had a great time, America," he said, getting cheers and applause. "Maybe we'll come back and see you some time. But for now, we are Crimson Peak. Goodnight!"

He pushed his guitar onto his back, walking calmly to Lucille's side, laying a hand on her shoulder. Leaning down to kiss the top of her head. And then he took her hand, pulling her gently away from the piano, the notes stopping abruptly.

"Go back to the hotel," he said softly, kissing Edith in passing. "I'll sort everything out here and join you."

"We need to play an encore," Lucille said. "They expect it. And I'm a professional. I just... need a moment."

She wiped her eyes, spreading mascara all across her face, gulping for air.

"I can do it," she insisted. "I'm not missing our last chance to go out well."

Edith felt a little bloom of pride as she strode back out there, picking up the bass to whistles and cheers.

"This tour has been everything we dreamed and more," she said, voice still trembling. "Thank you so, so much. I was going to play Cursed, but, well, that's not how I feel right now."

She started playing, a simple rhythm, setting it looping with a tap of her foot to the effects pedal, putting down her bass and moving to the keyboard.

"I don't know this song," Edith whispered.

"Me neither," Thomas said. "But I'm going to have to learn it fast."

He waved to the crowd as he walked back on stage, like all this was planned, swinging his guitar back into his hands, watching Lucille's fingers and starting to match the chords.

She smiled up at him. And started to sing.

"Even when I met you
Didn't realize just how much
I needed someone like you
To take me
Home...

Ever since I met you
Darkness has slipped away
I'm not used to living in the light
That you call
Home...

Come home with me..."

Thomas matched her, adding an echoing harmony line, making it sound more complete. He was good at that. Supporting her, anticipating and knowing what she would need or want.

And afterwards, when the applause and cheering had stopped and they had packed up their instruments to be shipped back to England and Edith thought she was going to fall asleep on her feet, Thomas leant very close to her, murmuring in her ear.

"I suppose it would be very, very short-sighted of us to stay up much longer," he said. "But somehow I feel like we might."

"What did you have in mind?"

The kiss told her all she needed to know.

Chapter 77: One More

This was a bad idea and Edith knew it... She should sleep, she should get plenty of rest before the flight, she had to finish the article on the plane and get it to Pam as soon as possible and if she had to sleep all the way because she'd stayed up too late then...

Lucille led her into the hotel room, taking her hand and pulling her towards the bed, sitting on the edge of it and wrapping her legs around her as they kissed. Long and slow, her hands running over Edith's back.

"I'm so tired," Edith murmured. "We should sleep..."

"I'm not intending to take very long," Lucille said, already undoing buttons and zips. "But if you really can't then we don't have to."

That was the sensible thing to do. And yet, there was some part of her that was too excited now, and would she even manage to sleep if she was frustrated?

She let Lucille pull off her top, her hair cascading down her back, shivering at cold fingers brushing against her skin, undoing her bra easily, warm lips kissing her neck.

"Are you planning on joining us?" Lucille asked over Edith's shoulder, tightening her legs a little. A little possessive. A little protective.

"I'm finding watching very enjoyable," Thomas said.

Edith looked back at him, leaning against the wall with folded arms, the heat in his eyes the only sign of arousal, his lips twitching with a hint of a smile. And Edith felt a little bloom of excitement, a surprising heat building in her. Part of her quite liked being watched like this.

"Why don't you get comfortable, sweetheart?" Lucille said. "And let us do all the work."

The pillows smelled of hotel detergent and fancy conditioner, nestling among them and lifting her hips to let Lucille pull off her jeans and underwear, completely exposed to those matching pairs of blue eyes.

"This hardly seems fair," she said, trying to sound confident, but not really managing it.

"She's right, Lucille," Thomas said. "I'm afraid I must insist on some parity here."

Rolling her eyes slightly, Lucille took off her blouse but nothing else, the faint white marks from her tears forgotten now as she kissed her way down Edith's body, settling between her legs. Her lips traced over her thighs, Edith finding her breath coming faster and faster, waiting and waiting...

"You are dreadfully cruel," Thomas said.

"No more than you are," Lucille replied, her breath warm against Edith's skin.

He chuckled, pushing himself up off the wall and approaching, running a hand over Lucille's back and reaching around to start undressing her fully. The deftness, the obvious practice stood out to Edith. Someone else doing this might seem perfunctory or even cold, but there was a passion here that was almost palpable. They knew the most efficient way to get what they wanted.

They moved in tandem, not communicating in words but Lucille knew exactly which leg to lean on to let Thomas yank off her clothes, gasping as he touched between her legs.

Only then did she lean down properly and run her tongue up Edith's folds, finding her clit immediately and settling into a gentle rhythm. Steady and pleasant, as relentless as a metronome.

"Is she good at that?" Thomas asked.

"Mm-hm..."

Warmth and pleasure rolled through her body, wave after wave, almost like she was sinking or maybe floating...

Lucille paused for just a second, recentering herself, planting her knees firmly on the mattress. Thomas clearly had no intention of getting fully undressed, his belt rattling and the sound of a zip opening.

Edith knew when he'd pushed in. She felt it, felt the jolt in Lucille's body, the way her nails dug in for just a moment.

Before too long, she was leaning on one hand, sliding a finger into Edith's body, being very gentle but somehow... insistent. Slowly but surely drawing her higher and higher.

It was strange, being out of control. Edith had no grip, no bearings anymore. But maybe that was alright for a little while. Maybe she trusted them not to let her fall.

Or maybe she couldn't think straight when she was in this kind of situation...

Who could blame her? She could feel each of Thomas's thrusts, hear his heavy breathing and feel Lucille gasping against her flesh.

She came first. Maybe it wasn't surprising and yet it rather snuck up on her, seeing stars on the edge of her vision, crying out before she could stop herself, hoping the hotel walls were thick enough that she hadn't just woken anyone.

Cold rushed over her as Thomas pulled Lucille upright, one arm across her chest and the other between her legs, her whole body shuddering in his grasp, more and more, the two of them gasping sharply, chests heaving.

The heat of their gaze was almost palpable, Lucille lacing her fingers into his hair to pull him into a messy kiss, clinging on to each other as they got their breath back.

Edith was a little surprised by how calm she was, but maybe that was just exhaustion. Already she was drifting off into post-orgasm sleep, which made the rude ring of the hotel wake-up call all the more horrible.

Airports were strange at the best of times, let alone stumbling into one yawning and spotting Alan waving at her, an enormous bag at his feet.

It felt like years since she'd last seen him. Years and years, rushing forward to let him hug her. And seeing him, her conviction wavered a little, suddenly unsure now she had her childhood friend right in front of her.

"How are you?" he asked, very serious.

"Tired."

"You look well. I mean, you look tired too, but you look... healthy."

How had he expected her to look? Half starved probably. All vitamin deficient and ill.

With Lucille returning the hired bus, Thomas gently wheeled up their groaning luggage cart, reaching for the bag.

"Wait," Edith said, ripping open the zip and retrieving her picture of her dad. No chance of losing it.

"I'll get these checked in," Thomas said, leaving them to it.

Things were not meant to be awkward around Alan. She'd known him forever. He knew her better than anyone else alive probably.

Or at least, he used to.

"You're really going then," he said. Not a question.

"Yeah. I really am."

"And are you... nervous?"

She sighed, feeling like she was barely holding things together. She had a lot of emotions warring within her and not having some kind of breakdown was difficult.

"Of course," she said. "I'm terrified. But I also think this is the right thing for me to do."

"OK."

She blinked at him, waiting for him to say something else.

"Is that it?" she asked.

"It's what you want," he said, shrugging. "You know what you're doing. And... Well, you know that if you ever need me, I'm here for you. No questions asked."

"Thank you."

Edith laughed so she wouldn't cry, hugging him tightly. Like she had when they were kids almost. Like when her dad had died and she'd thought she'd never feel anything but pain ever again.

"Do you love them?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. I think so."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I know them, more than anyone else. And they know me too."

"Is that the same thing?"

"Maybe. It's... strange and unconventional and not at all like anything I'd ever imagined. But they make me happy. They really do."

And maybe they activated her protector instinct too. She knew how cruel life had been to them, how brutally they had been hurt, the terrible, awful things that they had done and she wanted to protect them from themselves and their past. She thought she could do it. She could help them.

A hand on her shoulder, Lucille gently squeezing her.

"I think we have to go through security," she said. "Are you ready?"

When had she started crying?

Edith knew a piece of her heart was breaking. How could it not, leaving her home and all she'd ever known? She could barely make her voice steady to confirm that she'd packed her own bag and it didn't contain anything it shouldn't.

Alan accompanied them as far as he could, giving her one last hug before she passed through the passport gates, shaking hands with Lucille and Thomas, definitely speaking to them before they parted.

"What did he say?" Edith asked as they all took off their shoes and belts, checking their pockets for any stray coins.

"He threatened us," Lucille said, eyes comically wide and pouting, like she was so, so scared...

"Really?"

"The usual," Thomas said. "That if we ever hurt you, we'd have him to deal with."

"He's very sweet," Lucille said. "He means well, I'm sure. But it is funny all the same."

Notes:

Me at the start of 2020: OK, well, I should at least finish Cherry this year and then I can start thinking about that other Crimson Peak fic idea I have.
Me at the end of 2020: OK, let's say 2021 then...

Chapter 78: Flight

Planes were so strange. Even though she was exhausted, Edith found that she couldn't sleep. The rumbling or the chair or something just wouldn't let her.

Thomas and Lucille had no such issues. They drifted off leaning against each other, their hair tangling together. Edith scrolled through the little in-flight movie choices, feeling like someone from the past as she tried to swipe from one to the next. It had been so long since she'd used a touchscreen.

She just wanted something mindless and fluffy. She did not want to cry on the plane.

It felt like every time one of the flight attendants passed, they gave her some water or fruit juice or cookies. Her bladder could only take so much, ending up in the claustrophobia of the bathroom, all moulded fibreglass fixtures and odd chemical smell.

When people talked about having sex in these things, she felt they always forgot about the smell.

She examined her face in the mirror. Tired, mainly. Her skin was a little dry, her hair's natural waves far more like frizz. But she was here. She was doing it. And the Sharpes would help her.

Oh, she felt sick...

She tried to write, tried to get something down, thwarted by food being served. She barely tasted it.

"What time is it going to be when we land?" she asked.

"Well, we took off at around ten and that would already be three in the afternoon," Thomas said. "So I'd charitably say it'll be late by the time we get home."

"Don't worry," Lucille said, stroking her hair gently. "Pam is coming to pick us up and Mags has already made the beds for us."

These women that had only been names and once a distant voice so far were soon going to be living, breathing humans in her life. Edith found herself worried about that. Would they... like her?

Given that she suspected Pam at least was in unrequited - and actually deliberately ignored - love with Thomas, probably not.

"Would you read something for me before we land?" she asked. "I've written about... About us. I'd like to know what you think."

She gave them the typed page, reminded somehow of her list of rules that she'd given them what felt like a lifetime ago. It had been Albuquerque. And she'd been so scared, so angry.

Was she actually feeling better or had she just got used to it?

"Do you have a pen?" Lucille asked once she'd read it.

She started writing at the bottom, her tight, elegant handwriting, leaning against the tiny fold-out tray. Thomas took it afterwards, neat little block capitals followed by a florid signature.

On behalf of my brother and myself, I'd like it to be known that Edith has changed our lives in ways we had not known was possible. We are moving forward together to make a family of four in Allerdale Hall. We love her and fully expect her to be part of our lives forever. It will be a blessing for us if she chooses to do so.

Lucille Sharpe

ANYONE WITH ANYTHING UNPLEASANT TO SAY IS NOT A TRUE FAN AND SHOULD BEWARE OUR WRATH.

Thomas

Well, that was... nice? He was clearly joking. Maybe. Probably.

Definitely nice to be protected by the wrath rather than the target of it.

"Thank you," she said, maybe blushing a little bit.

"We mean it," Lucille said. "You do know that? We're on your side if you want us to be."

"I think I'm going to need you for this next part."

Needing people was hard.

Immigration wasn't too bad at this stage. That would come later, Edith felt, when she had to do real interviews and talk to lawyers. Thomas gave her the papers, even though all she did was hand them over to the tired-looking woman on the desk.

"Private healthcare?" she asked, reading the forms.

"Yes. I'm... I'm pregnant."

"Congratulations."

Edith had heard more convincing tones, but never mind.

"Are you travelling with the father?"

"Yes."

"And are you aware of the spousal visa charges?"

"Oh, I'm... I'm not his spouse. But, yes, I'm aware."

"The Home Office will be in touch very soon and your application may be rejected leading to immediate deportation. Please seek legal advice as soon as possible. Enjoy your stay."

Lucille had waited for her, taking her hand, a little bit of comfort before they got to the business of collecting all their luggage from the carousels and the outsized baggage claim. Thomas wouldn't let her carry anything beyond her own bag though. It was still pleasingly solid as she looked around the typical airport surroundings, and wondered just how different everything was going to be here.

She spoke the language. And she wasn't here alone. It would be fine.

And now she was going to meet Pam.

Deep breaths, Edith.

So far, so familiar. They made their way out into a nondescript parking lot and headed for a sort of bus.

Except this one had a woman sitting behind the wheel of it, glancing in the mirror, a smile spreading across her face when she caught sight of them.

She wasn't not pretty. Or... Well, she was sort of ordinary looking but in a pleasant way. A girl next door who might actually live next door rather than the Hollywood version. Perfectly fine. She had a sweet, round face, a pile of brown hair on her head in a high bun, waving at them.

Edith was a little confused that she wasn't getting out to meet them, just waving from the driving seat - and the side it was on was another thing she'd have to get used to - until she got into the back and noticed that she was in a wheelchair. This bus was converted for her use.

"Edith, hello!" Pam said before she could even process it properly. "Gosh, I almost feel like I know you from your writing but it's so nice to meet you in person."

"Yes," Edith heard herself say. "Yes, you too."

Apparently the awkwardness of their phone conversation was forgotten, or at least disregarded.

"How was the flight?"

"Blessedly uneventful," Lucille said, buckling her seatbelt. "You're looking well."

She said that but it didn't feel like she meant it somehow. Not that Pam seemed to notice as Thomas got into the front, her face lighting up.

"It's so good to see you," she said. "I've missed you."

"It's good to be home," Thomas nodded. "Or nearly home anyway."

Oh, that was cold... And yet Pam didn't seem to mind, chatting happily as she drove, apparently controlling everything with her hands rather than pedals.

Edith fell asleep. She must have because she was woken by a horrible sharp rumble, reaching for Lucille instinctively in the dark.

"Just a cattle grid, sweetheart. Welcome to Allerdale Hall."

It was difficult to see it, a vague, looming shape, absolutely huge, a motion detector light flashing into life as they approached.

"Are you going to get home OK?" Edith asked. "It must be very late."

"Oh, don't worry about me," Pam said. "I live very nearby. And I'll see you bright and early for work on the book next Monday. Give you time to settle in a little."

Remembering, Edith handed over her final article, scrappy and unfinished though it was.

"Make sure they include our additions," Thomas said, getting out to start unloading the bags. "They're important."

Edith hurried to be out of her sight before she read that part, shivering slightly in the night air as Lucille unlocked simply enormous doors, opening them wide and switching on a light.

Her jaw dropped a little. She'd seen pictures, but actually being there...

Wooden floorboards marked by decades of wear were covered in cheap runs of carpet for tourists, paths picked out to "The Parlour" and "The Kitchen" and "The Library", a huge metal contraption at the back of the foyer that she knew was an elevator but which looked somehow almost Medieval, broad stairs running up one wall and so many paintings.

"We'll give you the grand tour in the morning," Lucille said. "For now, we really should go to bed. Try to get you on UK time."

That made sense. Edith let her lead up the stairs, up and up to the top floor, a vaulted ceiling and a horrible corridor that apparently had the bathroom at the end of it, but a comfortingly normal bedroom waiting for them.

And a little card from Mags on the pillow. "Welcome, Edith!"

It had a kitten on it.

"That's very sweet of her," Edith said.

"Mm," Lucille said, getting undressed. "You think that now, but you haven't met her yet."

It would be fine. She was probably very nice.

"Pam seems nice. You didn't tell me about her wheelchair though."

"Didn't we?"

"I don't think so. I don't remember it, if you did. But I suppose it didn't really come up either. I'm not sure when you would have. I was just surprised, I guess."

"You'll get used to her. She's reasonable at her job."

Faint praise, but how much of that was just territoriality? Jealousy?

The bed was huge and soft and wonderful, very different to all those hotel mattresses and heavenly after a day of travelling. All the same, the house creaked and shuffled, lots of unfamiliar noises, the strange sensation that there were steps right outside the room, the door even swinging open...

"Can I bunk in here tonight?" Thomas asked softly.

Edith let out a held breath and shuffled over to make more room, Lucille finding her hand to hold and Thomas curled in behind her.

As first nights in new places went, she'd definitely had worse.

Notes:

I have never been through UK immigration (or indeed anywhere immigration) so my apologies for inevitable inaccuracies.

Chapter 79: The Tour

There was a piano playing. Soft music seeping into Edith's mind, a very gentle way to wake up.

She grunted lightly, rolling over and into Thomas's side, hearing him chuckle before hauling her into his arms, gently running his hands over her back. Mm...

One eye against his chest, she glanced around a little bit, trying to get a sense of Lucille's bedroom. Red walls, slanted roof. They were right up in the attic. She'd had a sense of some of Lucille's belongings the night before - a wardrobe, a dressing table scattered with trinkets, an ornate full-length mirror - but she didn't want to pry. This wasn't her space. She was just sleeping here.

"Better than an alarm clock, isn't it?" Thomas murmured.

"What time is it?"

"She'll stop playing when Mags arrives at nine so it's probably around half past eight. The house opens at quarter past for visitors and the first guided tour is at quarter to ten."

Mm. More strangers. Nice and warm and comfortable as she was, she'd prefer to shower before anyone saw her. And it was daylight now. Maybe she could brave the bathroom.

"Can I borrow a towel?" she asked.

"Borrow?" Thomas scoffed. "This is your home. They're your towels too."

It was going to take a while to get used to that idea, walking down the long corridor clutching a dark, fluffy bath sheet and her wash bag. Despite the fairly large window at the end, it seemed so dark. The wooden panels and doors absorbed everything. And the spikes... A series of arches topped with circles filled with spikes that she could practically see falling, hurrying just a little into the bathroom.

There was a claw-footed bath occupying most of the room but thankfully a shower cubicle with sliding doors in the corner behind the door, white and modern, a haphazard collection of shampoos and gels and conditioners spilling out of a basket.

The water took a while to warm up, but at least it was clear. The house was spooky enough without blood red clay all over everything.

Edith tried her best to find charm. The little round window was cute. The tiles, though cracked in places, were pretty. It was just a bathroom. Just an old bathroom.

She liked old things. She'd get used to it, slightly shadowy eyes looking back at her in the spotted mirror, putting her toothbrush in the holder and trying to feel like she belonged.

All the same, she hurried back up to Lucille's bedroom to brush her hair and get dressed, hearing the faint hum of conversation downstairs.

Time to brave it.

She felt strange getting her first proper look at the house, that huge foyer, padding down in her socks, sinking slightly against the carpet. There were little landings and galleries all around the edges, beautiful carvings, a mural that had seen better days, art and maps all over the walls complete with little information panels.

A red-haired woman in an ugly green gilet had her back to her and Lucille was leaning against the door frame into biggest room, her arms folded, eyes flicking up to follow Edith's progress across the wooden floor. The panels had a kind of pattern in them if you squinted, interrupted by the paths of carpet.

"Here she is," she said. "Our darling Edith. Edith, this is Mags. She's our tourist wrangler."

The adjective that sprang to Edith's mind as Mags turned round was 'outdoorsy'. An easy smile, somewhat flyaway hair with a few greys in it, ruddy, windchafed cheeks. She could be aged anywhere between her mid-20s to mid-40s or maybe beyond. One of those oddly ageless people who probably looked much the same for decades.

"Lovely to meet you," Mags said. "Hope you're settling in."

"It's only been a night," Edith said. "I don't even know where anything is yet."

"Thomas is making you breakfast, just to prove he can," Lucille said. "And I thought maybe you and I could take the first tour. It's been a while since I heard the whole spiel."

Edith wasn't sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, it was certainly convenient, but then again, sharing it with tourists...

"I'd love to," she said. "Where's the kitchen? The real one, not the old one."

"Take the lift and it's right in front of you, though there's barely enough room to swing a dead cat up there."

Right. Right, the elavator. Old-fashioned yellow metal doors that rattled as she hauled it open and stepped inside, pressing the button for the top floor.

Oh, this was horrible. She didn't like this at all. It creaked and groaned like it was about to collapse, it shuddered and jolted and clanked into position. She wrestled with the catch to get out onto the safetly of the upper landing, certain that she was about to fall to her death.

She could smell something now. Bacon maybe? Something. And Thomas was humming quietly when she slipped in, his back to the door.

What a place. It had clearly never been meant to be a kitchen, even a narrow galley type like this. Everything was crammed in. A freestanding electric oven and stove-top, a small fridge-freezer, cupboards and worktops, toaster, microwave and kettle on a small table. The sink looked like an afterthought more than anything else, though they must be near to the bathroom.

As though he could sense her presence, Thomas glanced over his shoulder, smiling at her.

"Nearly done," he said. "I'd have made you a full English for your first day on these shores but I don't know your views on black pudding."

"Isn't that made of blood?"

"That's the one. Lucille loves it, but she can only eat a little. It's just too rich."

Edith didn't really feel like eating, and yet once she started she found her appetite. Bacon and eggs, toast, baked beans and mushrooms, tomatoes. Orange juice from a freshly opened carton. Thomas had tea.

"Isn't she having breakfast?" Edith asked.

"She'll have had something when she got up."

"OK."

The silence stretched a little and she wasn't sure if it was comfortable or not.

"It's a strange place, isn't it?" Thomas said after a while.

"Yeah," Edith said gratefully. "I mean, I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it's so..."

"Old?"

"Spooky."

He grinned at her over the top of his mug.

"I guess growing up here, I don't really think of it like that," he said. "All the scary things are long gone. Don't worry. It'll start to feel like home soon."

She certainly hoped so, putting on some sneakers before joining the tour group. She didn't want to be totally out of place. There were already some people exploring without a guide, looking at her curiously as she slipped out past the velvet ropes that cordoned off the top floor, one woman tutting quietly. Even though she hadn't done anything wrong, Edith still felt a little embarrassed.

It was an early crowd, mostly older people, some foreign tourists who whispered translations to each other softly as Mags welcomed everyone to Allerdale Hall, the ancestral seat of the Sharpe family, ennobled during the reign of...

"No one's spotted us yet," Lucille murmured.

"Are they likely to?"

"Fans sometimes do, but I think we're safe."

The tour definitely helped her nerves a little to begin with. Edith couldn't deny being enchanted by the library, set over two floors at one end of the great hall - or possibly it was called the parlour; already she was losing track. So many books, so beautiful, green leather inlays on the most gorgeous antique desk up on the mezzanine level. Would she be allowed to work there? A living exhibit, organising her writings? They could rope off the staircase for privacy. It would almost be an art installation.

It was nice to actually imagine herself living amongst it all.

The historical information more or less flowed over her head, talk of the old bones of the house, the later additions, the clay mines under the whole house, the baronetcy... This wasn't spooky. This was fine. And she dutifully followed back down to the lower floor.

The piano took up a fairly large part of the room, flanked by an impressive round window. It was wonderful, a proper grand instrument, a little card on the keys with Do Not Touch neatly inscribed in Lucille's handwriting. Who knew what would happen to anyone who dared to disobey that?

"This beautiful fireplace dates from the 18th century," Mags said. "A religious theme, as was very popular. And you can read the Sharpe family motto here - Ad montes oculos levavi - which any Biblical scholars among you will recognise from Psalm 121. Now, if you turn around, to the left of the door, you'll find Lady Beatrice Sharpe, the mother of the current baronet."

It was an enormous picture. A painting, almost life-size. Edith felt almost a shiver pass through her looking at it. A full body portrait of Lucille and Thomas's mother, standing by the hall staircase, glaring out at the viewer. Harsh blue eyes, a clenched expression, greying dark hair severely pulled back into a bun, her right hand like a claw against the banister, her left holding a fashionable silk stole in place around her shoulders.

The red ring shone on her finger like a drop of blood.

Those were the hands that had hurt Lucille. That had harmed her in such terrible, unforgivable ways. And even now she stared down over her daughter as she played the piano, always there, always watching...

"She looks like my old ballet teacher," one of the guests said. "But, like, a nightmare version."

Lucille laughed.

The kitchen was next, down some steps. Edith was having trouble keeping track of what was on which level, all half-floors and part stories. One side of it was full of beautiful old cooking equipment, everything from bronze jelly molds to butter paddles and the other half held a couple of tables, a sweet little cafe with cakes under glass cloches and a slightly bored-looking barrista manning a bulky coffee machine.

The second floor was mostly bedrooms. There was a small room called a nursery that Lucille whispered wasn't really, still creepy as all hell with china dolls and music boxes, a hideous old rocking horse which staring glass eyes. Another smaller room, more like a study, with a large beautiful chaise and some armchairs. And finally, the master bedroom.

As soon as they walked in, Edith felt ill. This room was... Was monstrous somehow. There was a wooden bed on a sort of raised platform, dark wood carved in that spiky, Gothic style, a beautiful embroidered bed spread. The windows were shuttered and draped with heavy curtains, protecting the delicate fabric from the light, only dim lamps illuminating anything. And the ceiling... It had the most extraordinary plasterwork, almost like stalactites, or like the whole thing was melting.

And Edith knew. She could feel it. Terrible things had happened here, the very worst things.

She was remembering what Thomas had told her so long ago. About a young girl tied down and hurt, about how she'd had to kneel on the hard floor for hours and hours and now she was looking at the places on the headboard where ropes could be looped and at the lack of rugs and thinking how painful it would be and she was realising that this room was over the kitchen, over the gas pipes and how an unconscious man in here would suffocate and die, the deadly fumes seeping up through the floorboards and out of the old fireplace while a teenage girl upstairs grew woozy and hoped that at least one of the monsters was killed, knowing she might die in the attempt and...

Edith stumbled slightly, Lucille catching her, some shocked murmurs around them.

"I'm alright," Edith said. "It's OK. I'm OK."

"There's only the basement to go," Mags said gently. "But don't feel obliged. The floor is uneven down there."

"I can do it."

At least the air was cold. She took deep lung fulls of it, despite the damp smell. It was like being in a cave almost, huge vats of red clay still there and a channel running the length of the barrel-vaulted room trickling with red water, like the Earth itself was bleeding.

"There is another interesting feature here along with the industrial heritage," Mags said, opening a door that Edith hadn't even seen. "This is one of the most mysterious parts of the house. It's not on any of the plans of the house or the mines and we're not sure when it was built. Probably just a cupboard to store spades for digging the clay, I'm afraid, rather than anything more glamorous. Lady Beatrice used it as a dark room to indulge her hobby of photography development and her equipment has been carefully preserved for this digital age."

Something lurched in Edith's stomach, shoving her way past a Dutch couple, racing up the stairs, just needing to get out, past the baffled ticket desk girl and more arrivals, out the front door, sprinting across the grass outside until she couldn't keep going, bent double to gasp for breath, sobs wracking her body.

How could they live here? How could they bare it? How could they leave those trays and strings and pegs, the place where their mother had watched images of the most awful torture of her daughter - her own daughter! - sharpen and develop and then hung them up and kept them and created more?

"Edith."

She couldn't help it, dropping to her knees on the red soil, weeping and weeping even as Lucille sat down beside her and pulled her close, trying to soothe her.

"They don't know," she said softly. "You have to remember that they just don't know."

"But it's so awful... It shouldn't be there. It should be destroyed."

"Mother would hate the idea of people poking around down there in her private space. That's why we keep it. I didn't realize it would upset you so much."

"Of course it upsets me."

"But it didn't happen to you."

At first, Edith's heart ached with the apparent lack of understanding. Did she really not know about empathy? Could she not follow why someone would feel like this?

But then maybe she realized what it really meant. These terrible things had happened to Lucille and so what happened to the tools of that abuse, what she chose to do with all of it was her business.

People were looking. Edith got up awkwardly, coughing.

"There was a wasp," she said. "I'm absolutely terrified of them. Just... Just a little panic."

If they believed it, she wasn't sure, letting Lucille steer her back inside.

Chapter 80: A Mistake

"Not the elevator," Edith said. "Please, can we take the stairs?"

"Of course, sweetheart."

Thomas was working on something when Lucille opened the door of the room in the opposite tower from where they'd slept, sitting at a computer in a kind of combined workshop, bedroom and living room, a large TV on one wall, a big couch and a small bed, components and instruments and tools everywhere.

"Here you are," she said, sitting Edith down. "Now you recover up here and I will tell Mags that it was just a little morning sickness, nothing to worry about."

"What happened?" Thomas asked.

"The basement."

"Ah."

Edith waited until Lucille had gone, scooting into the corner of the couch, pulling a brownish tartan blanket off the back of it to huddle under. This was the balancing room to Lucille's plush boudoir, very sleek, gray walls, some of the slanted windows open to let in a breeze. They shared a clutter habit though. And Edith got the feeling that actually sleeping in here was relatively rare.

"I am never going down there ever again," she said. "Or into that bedroom."

Thomas quietly typed for a few moments before joining her, letting her rest her head on his lap, gently stroking her hair. Just being there. And Edith felt so lost. Could she live here? Really? Could she bear to raise a child here?

She'd started writing her poem all about chasing the ghosts out of here, but what if they were just too strong? How could she stand against such awfulness?

"I don't know how you cope," she murmured. "I don't understand how you don't have... flashbacks or panic attacks all the time."

"We never go down there. Or I don't anyway."

"And that painting... Why do you still have that painting?"

"Lucille likes it. She likes feeling like Mother is forced to watch her doing whatever she wants to. She likes hearing people judge her as they go by."

It kind of made sense and yet Edith just felt such fear. Frightened of the objects that dead people had touched. Scared of the room where a man had died.

"What do you think about it?" she asked.

She felt the shrug, the sigh, rolling over so she could look up at him, pale against the shadows in the eaves.

"It's not about me," he said.

"Is anything?"

He chuckled, looking away.

"I don't know," he said. "Was anything in your life before about you or were you just trying to please other people?"

"I have dreams and ambitions. I want to be a good journalist who writes interesting things. What are your ambitions? And are they even yours?"

"I want to make music that people like. I want to look after you and Lucille and the baby. I want to raise a child who knows they are loved. And recently I've decided I want to try to be a better person, even if I'm still quite vague on how exactly to do that one."

Mm. Edith rolled back, comforted by the warmth of his thigh.

"I was rather hoping you'd help me with it," he said gently, one hand still stroking her hair, the other caressing her. Like he was soothing an anxious cat.

"Help you how?"

"Well, you're so naturally moral. You must have some tips."

"It's not nature. It's nurture. Or both a little bit. You are a good person deep down. I think almost everyone has the potential to be. You've just got to choose kindness. And for you particularly..."

She hesitated. There was still some awkwardness between them. She liked him, of course, she liked his intelligence and his wit, but she also knew there were troubled depths in him too. There was an anger in him, all the rage of a boy who had wanted to defend himself and his sister but couldn't.

"Go on," he said, seeing through her as usual. "I promise not to be offended."

She sighed, toying with the tassels on the edge of the blanket.

"With you particularly, it's not so much the bad things you do, it's more what you just let happen. I mean, look at Pam. You know how she feels about you and I think you exploit that. You let her do too much for you."

"I can't change how she feels," he said. "I've made it clear that I don't feel the same."

"But she still does so much that's outside what you pay her for. Like driving you home from the airport in the middle of the night."

"She wanted to do that for us. She's our friend."

"Is she? Do you hang out ever? Do you spend time together where you don't get something out of it?"

"Do you advise that? Surely it would make it all worse, spending more time with her?"

"No... I don't know. I just think you should be aware of it so you can avoid giving her false hope. Or taking advantage of how she feels about you. You might not even know you're doing it."

Thomas was quiet for a moment, his fingers gentle against her scalp, like he was absorbing it all.

"I suppose you know what it's like," he said. "What with Dr McMichael. Have you told him you've arrived safely? He'll be having kittens."

"I haven't yet. I'll message him, since I can now. Send him a picture. But that's not the same."

"Isn't it? He likes you, but you don't like him in that way. It's an identical situation."

Edith did not like this.

"I had no idea about his feelings. We've known each other since we were kids, grew up together. I didn't know."

"Maybe I didn't know about Pam."

"Oh, please! With you looking like you do? Half the people you meet must fall for you and you know it. Mags probably has a soft spot for you and then there's Enola and..."

"Who?"

His hand had suddenly stopped moving, fear stabbing into Edith's heart. Oh, no. Oh, no, she'd let it slip.

Think, think...

"Just a name I read somewhere when I was researching you for the interview," she said. "An assistant or something."

Was that convincing? She wasn't sure. Maybe?

"If that's true then Signora Sciotti would be in quite some trouble. She signed a lot of NDAs and other agreements not to disclose her time working for us. So, how is it that well over three years after she left our employ, I'm suddenly hearing her name?"

It had been a while since Edith had been scared. Really, really scared. Terrified. She lay completely still, trying to keep her breathing steady, trying to think of a way out of this.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, proud of how calm her voice was. She was getting better at lying.

There was a brief stalemate, neither of them speaking, even able to hear voices from downstairs. Edith knew her heart was rabbit-fast, wondered if Thomas could feel it under his hands.

He was a dangerous man. Sometimes she lulled herself into thinking he wasn't, into thinking that she could control him and Lucille, but she couldn't. Not really, not at all. She could try to tame them but the risk would never fully go away.

Maybe she should never have come here...

"I'm not angry, Edith," he said softly, like a dog growling a warning. "I'm just curious. You surely can't have heard of her during your research, not enough for her to stay in your mind. Which means that somehow, despite having no access to the internet and with Lucille and I monitoring almost your every move, you managed to talk to a woman halfway round the world. It's honestly very impressive."

Edith stood, wrapping the blanket round her shoulders, just needing some distance, feeling a little bit like she might throw up.

"You have to promise not to harm her," she said. "She was trying to warn me. She was terrified of you and I... I made her talk."

"How did you speak to her?"

"Promise first."

"I swear, nothing bad will happen to her."

Deep breaths. She could salvage this, somehow.

"Alan found her. She... I don't know. Made a comment somewhere saying anyone who works for you should be very careful and he was concerned and messaged her privately and got her number."

"You didn't call from any of the hotels. We'd have seen it on the bill."

"No. No, I took the laundry once by myself and while it was in the machines, I snuck off to an internet cafe and I used their international pay phone. I didn't break any of the rules."

"Just bent them. A lot."

He stood up too, pacing, Edith unconsciously moving away. A strange dance, full of nerves and terror.

"Relax, Edith, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just trying to figure out how I feel about this. Now, Lucille will probably be dreadfully, dreadfully angry, but I... I don't know. I honestly rather admire your ingenuity. So what did Enola tell you?"

"That she was scared of you and I should be careful."

"Was that all?"

"Yes."

She was lying and he watched her carefully, like he was trying to spot it. But that meant he was expecting there to be more. She could turn this.

"Why?" she asked. "What would you expect her to tell me?"

If anything, he seemed amused. Like this was all some great chess game and she'd just made an audacious bishop move.

"I suppose it didn't go far enough for her to notice," he said. "I didn't particularly take to her and Lucille really didn't like her at all..."

"Why employ her, then? Was she especially good at her job?"

"Hm. Passable. Nosy, which was her downfall. She read something she shouldn't have and jumped to the most dreadful conclusions. But I'm sure you can work out why we advertised for an assistant while on tour in Italy and brought her here, miles away from home, isolated and alone."

A horrible feeling settled in the pit of Edith's stomach. Oh, somehow this was worse than fear.

"She was your first attempt," she said. "You wanted her to have your child."

"I'm afraid so. It didn't work out that way. I'm glad though. If it had, we'd have never met you. And I think we're more suited than you might like to think, Little Miss Sneaky."

They weren't remotely the same. She didn't have the cruel streak that they had, for one thing.

"Are you going to tell Lucille?" she asked.

"I think we'll have to. No secrets, remember? But we should do it gently. She really loves you and this will hurt."

"In my defense, we were not... involved at the time," she said. "At least, I don't think we were. It's a bit of a blur. I honestly hadn't thought about it in ages. It was so long ago."

She was babbling slightly, still scared. And he was right. Lucille was probably going to be furious.

All the same, they had done much, much worse to her. She still had the moral high ground. And she had still managed to protect Enola to an extent. Nothing about how she'd told of her suspicions.

And Thomas was watching her now, a smile playing about his lips.

"Why are you so nervous around me in particular, Edith?" he asked. "I may have done bad things, but I've never killed anyone."

"No," Edith said. "But I think you could. You have it in you. And I think you hide a lot of your feelings. There's too many unknowns, too much unpredictability in you."

"Ah, well, now we're back to nature versus nurture, aren't we? Are we the way we are because of our parents or because of... Well, our parents, but in a different way?"

"Both. But one of them, you can do something about. And for all of it, you have choices."

"We are trying."

Yes, Edith thought, remembering something her dad used to say. Very trying indeed.

Chapter 81: Walls

Edith unpacked a little. She was unsure where to put everything, but she could do some of it. Clothes and so on. There was a nightstand and she put her dad's picture on it, just temporarily before she found somewhere perfect. Oddly enough, she didn't much like the idea of him watching the bedroom.

Digging out her adapters for the three-holed plugs, she charged her phone, updated her laptop and logged into her emails for the first time in so long...

Thousands and thousands to click through. She lay on the bed with the laptop on her chest, warm and whirring gently, deleting most of them. Some would have been good work opportunities if she hadn't already been so busy. A few she read and planned to respond to in time; notes from old friends and acquaintances saying they'd read her new articles. Asking if she was alright.

The final one wasn't online yet. The one that told the truth.

No doubt she'd get a lot of messages after that.

She took a picture on her phone from the top floor of a lot of tourists' heads to send to Alan. Settling into my new digs. Quite tired. Still jetlagged.

At that wasn't a lie. She was really quite tired. And anxious too. They'd agreed to tell Lucille about Enola over dinner and the time between seemed to stretch off dreadfully.

She shouldn't sleep, though. You had to force your body into the right timezone. She was supposed to be ready to see Pam on Monday, she couldn't fall asleep in the middle of the day.

She was almost scared to go downstairs. The attic was where Lucille and Thomas actually lived, where they'd always lived, the two of them in their loneliness, their isolation and pain that had germinated their unhealthy relationship. But that aside, it felt... safe somehow. The worst things had happened downstairs. That was where the ghosts were.

Outside, then. A little fresh air. Get a look at the house from the outside.

Mags was standing in the foyer, waiting for her next tour group presumably, giving her a warm smile.

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you. I think the travelling's affected me, that's all. I'll be fine."

"It can feel odd in here sometimes. I think it's the way the air moves - it comes down the chimneys and rushes along the corridors in the strangest ways. But I couldn't think of anywhere better to work. I'm sure all house managers think their house is the best one, but I'm the only one who's right."

She had a lyrical voice, a light burr to her Rs. Soothing somehow.

"How long have you worked here?"

"Oh, years. I'm the longest-serving manager by quite a way. Before me, when they first opened the house, they had a bit of difficulty keeping people."

"Oh, really? Any particular reason?"

"You'll know yourself that the Sharpes are quite... precise people. They like things to be just so. I think they fell out with the previous staff. I'm just easy-going enough to ride the waves."

Edith hesitated a little bit.

"What do you think of them?" she asked.

"Oh, well, you know... Lucille can be a bit prickly, but so would I be if my house was invaded by strangers every day. You just have to know how to handle her. When to back off in particular. Thomas is an incorrigible flirt when he wants something, but that kind of thing doesn't work on me."

Somehow, Edith doubted that. Mags probably shrugged off most of it, but the little smile suggested she liked the attention, even if it was fake. Having had Thomas's charm well and truly on her, Edith couldn't exactly blame her for laughing and jokingly telling him off and then giving him whatever he wanted anyway.

"It's going to be good to have some new blood around here," Mags said. "Especially the little one. Imagine how much fun hide and seek will be."

A shiver went down Edith's spine at just the thought of her child entering the master bedroom or the mine or trapping their little fingers in the elevator, forcing herself to smile.

"I'll have to keep them away from the delicate exhibits," she said. "And the dangerous areas. Anyway, I'll let you get on."

"See you later."

The landscape was as barren as they'd said. Even the grass was faintly brown above the reddish soil. There were a few trees, some vines or climbers growing up the walls, but not much else.

She walked slowly round the house, all dark brick. You could see the joins between the older parts and later extensions here and there, but they were quite subtle. The roof had an obvious repair on it, shining metal between some of the slate tiles.

The air was fresh out here. Not cold, not as such, but there was a distinct scent. Maybe the clay. A kind of cool earthiness.

After circling the house, she struck out towards the wall that surrounded it. To what end, she wasn't sure. There were large gates at the front, open to let in visitors, a metal arch over them. Allerdale Hall. It was... creepy. She didn't like to think of it, but it made it feel somehow like a prison. Shut in, shut away from the world beyond.

There was another gate though, to the side of the house, a second pathway leading off to it. Sharpe & Son.

She drifted towards it, reading the little information board about the mines and the clay, how it had sustained the Sharpe family through the centuries and made them rich until the clay was so depleted that mining more became impossible. That had been the start of the downturn, it seemed. They were still rich, but their main source of wealth more or less dried up. They even dug down beneath the house seeking more, destabilising everything.

Wandering the remains of the old mine entrance, she considered the name. Not just Sharpe, Sharpe and Son. It was all about accruing wealth to leave to the next generation. All about marrying well and providing heirs. Sustaining a centuries-old privilege, keeping the old crumbling house going.

Had any of them ever just been happy? Married for love, pursued a dream, celebrated their children for who they were and not just for their name and genetics?

And she thought about her own child too. They weren't even technically viable yet and already had so much expectation on their little unformed shoulders. The Sharpes longed for a baby to embody their efforts to undo the pain and suffering of their own childhood. Edith felt the call of motherhood herself, wanting desperately to protect and nurture this little person. And they would be the heir to Allerdale Hall. The heir to the Sharpe name and whatever fortune that entailed.

Would their name be Sharpe? Was that how it worked? Or did they have to choose?

And why did that have so much baggage? Was the continuation of the line important? Probably. It was probably very important. Giving the name to someone new, letting it continue. Lucille and Thomas probably liked the idea of it going to a bastard too, stomping on their ancestors' false respectability.

But they were her child too. Her child first, really. She was not going to be written out of their story now or ever.

Cushing-Sharpe? It was a bit of a mouthful maybe. It would depend on the first name maybe. Carter Cushing-Sharpe. Eleanor Cushing-Sharpe.

Would they be a writer like her? Or a gifted musician? Maybe a little engineer like Thomas? Or maybe not particularly good at anything, but sweet and kind. Who could ask for more than that?

She tried not to get too excited. She was still first trimester, right? Maybe just into the second. A lot of things could go wrong. You had to be careful.

How long did she wander around outside? Hours, apparently. She heard Thomas's voice on the wind almost, calling for her, looking up to the attic in case he was at the window.

"Edith? Where are you?"

He seemed worried when he caught up with her, taking her hands immediately.

"I thought you were in Lucille's room," he said. "Your and Lucille's room."

"I was, but I needed some fresh air. Is everything alright?"

A few of the visitors evidently knew who he was, a few obvious stares and pointing. Edith had the sense of being one of the antiques in the house, on display. She'd have to get used to it maybe.

"I was just worried. I like knowing where everyone and everything is."

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, squeezing lightly as they headed towards the house, leaning over to kiss her scalp. Gentle. Comforting. The side of him that she desperately hoped was the real one.

"Did you eat lunch?" he asked. "Because it's almost dinner time."

"We had such a big breakfast. And I'm... I'm scared. We're going to upset Lucille."

"Better to do it and have it over with than let it fester. What's that charming phrase you Americans have? Like ripping off a band-aid. A little pain but over quickly."

"God, I hope so."

The foyer floor creaked under their feet, a little sign on the desk with the last entry time on it. Soon. And then they'd be alone.

"Call off the dogs, Mags," Thomas said. "Found her, safe and sound. Brushing up on her industrial heritage."

"Ah," Mags said, a clipboard in her hands, doing some light admin by the looks of it. "The boring side of Allerdale."

"Margaret McDermott, you wound me. Don't make me lecture you on the unique interest of the Sharpe clay mines again. People do PhDs on them."

"My mistake," she said, laughing. "I meant the most fascinating and beautiful side of Allerdale."

"That's better."

Oh, his voice was doing some... things. Dropping low and almost dangerous in a way that spoke to Edith's body somehow, giving her shivers. It was all very, very attractive.

"She told me you were an incorrigible flirt, you know," she said, sitting at the kitchen table watching him chop onions.

"Mags? Well... She knows it's all in good fun. And she gives as good as she gets. Passionate woman. She'll make the right man very happy, as long as he doesn't mind sharing her with the house."

"You... practice on her," Edith said thoughtfully. "You try out your whole swaggering rock star act on her. But it is all an act. It's not really you."

"It's a game," Lucille said from the doorway, swaying in, kissing him in passing and taking the seat opposite Edith. "It's harmless. You're feeling better, then?"

No, not really. Edith looked to Thomas, finding him looking back at her, both of them tense in a way that Lucille sensed immediately.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Thomas put the knife down very carefully, rinsing his hands.

"Edith has something she needs to tell you," he said. "And we all need to stay nice and calm. Remember, there are guests downstairs."

"You're making me quite nervous, Thomas," Lucille said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"No, no. Don't be. Everything's going to be alright."

Those pale eyes turned to Edith, huge and scared, waiting, and Edith took a deep breath, trying to turn herself to steel and stone, to be firm and strong. Rip off the band-aid, rip off the band-aid...

"When we were travelling, I snuck away and I spoke to Enola Sciotti. She didn't want to talk, but I made her and she told me to be careful around you both and I know this was a huge betrayal of trust, but I didn't..."

Lucile let out a long exhale, tipping her head back. Was she... Was she smiling?

"Oh, my God, I thought you were going to say something was wrong with the baby."

"Um," Edith said. "No. I mean, I don't think so. Everything feels fine. But I... I lied, I hid this from you. Aren't you angry?"

She seemed to genuinely think about it.

"I might be. When it sinks in properly. I'm too relieved right now. Don't scare me like that."

"I'm going to make dinner," Thomas said, apparently satisfied that there wasn't about to be an almighty row.

Edith had the sense of having missed being hit by a bus by seconds, or missing the last of a set of stairs. Except it was like she lived with the bus and it might run her over later.

Still, she didn't want to let this simmer. Get some of it out in the open.

"Thomas told me that she was your first attempt to have a child," she said softly.

"Technically, we have had a child," Lucille said. "It died before it was born, that's all. But, yes. She was our first surrogate. Not that it went that far. We'd made a poor choice."

"In what way?"

"We didn't quite know what our criteria ought to be. We knew some of them, of course. She had to be someone we could isolate, someone we could keep away from outside influences. But we also had an idea that she ought to look superficially like us. Dark hair. Tall."

"So that the baby would look like you?"

"Partially that. And, well... Thomas thought he might find it easier."

Edith pulled a face before she could stop herself. Just the concept of it. She had images of him making Enola turn round so he couldn't see her, so he could pretend it wasn't her...

"It turned out to be rather detrimental to the whole effort," Thomas said.

"How?" Edith asked.

"Have you ever had sugar-free, fat-free ice cream? It might taste OK and you might even like it, but it's nothing compared to the real thing. You couldn't fool yourself into thinking it was creamy gelato with real vanilla. Enola had no spark. She was bright enough, smart enough, but she didn't have... I can't even describe it. Whatever it is, you have it."

Edith wasn't sure how she felt about that assessment. It was a compliment of sorts, she supposed, but she didn't know how to take it.

"And besides," he said. "She didn't fancy me anyway. It would never have worked."

Lucille gave her a look as if to say that Enola had fancied him fine.

And Edith knew for sure now that if their plan hadn't worked with her, they definitely would have tried again. Over and over until they got what they wanted. It was just luck that they'd found her and not someone potentially more vulnerable.

"I'm not sure I like being called full-fat ice cream," she said vaguely, trying to dispell any tension in the room.

"Actually, I think I'm the ice cream," Lucille said. "You're something else equally delicious."

"You're a divine cherry sorbet, my darling," Thomas said. "And I'm some kind of chocolate probably."

"The darkest kind," Edith said.

"The bitter type, you mean? Not sweet?"

"More like intense."

"Ooh. Alright, I'll take that."

She'd escaped unscathed, for now. And she'd protected Enola's suspicions.

And when all the strangers were gone and it was just the three of them in an almost normal kitchen eating bolognese, she almost felt normal too.

Either that or she was becoming accustomed to abnormality, of course.

Chapter 82: Working

On second thoughts, the mezzanine level of the library wasn't accessible enough to be suitable for Pam, who arrived on Monday morning with multiple folders and boxes in her car.

"I'd have done this in my office," she said. "But I have some other clients on the books at the moment, so in the interests of confidentiality, I think this is better. Keeping everything nice and separate."

Edith felt obliged to ride in the elevator with her, feeling extremely nervous with the weight of both of them in it along with the boxes. She'd spent the weekend helping Lucille more or less empty one of the storage rooms upstairs, setting it up as a makeshift office space.

They'd settled into a sort of peace. Thomas had kept sleeping in their bed but that felt almost natural after so long on the road. They'd dragged in an antique chest of drawers in for her since there was clearly no way her clothes were going to fit alongside Lucille's extensive wardrobe. Something just for her.

It was a pretty nice routine after a couple of days; waking up to Lucille playing the piano, gently emerging into the waking world. And Thomas lying next to her, all touseled from sleep.

That very morning, she'd woken up and lain quietly hearing the music drifting up from downstairs and then felt Thomas's fingers running down her arm. Nothing more than that. Just a touch.

And for a moment, she'd considered things and then shuffled backwards, settling against him, feeling the warmth of his body through her pyjamas.

He took it as an invitation, his arm snaking around her, running up her chest between her breasts and then over them, her breathing speeding up even at something so simple, feeling her nipples sharpening at his touch, especially as he shuffled slightly, moving her, his hand drifting ever downwards, under the waistband of her shorts.

"You know we haven't actually had sex since you told me the truth," she said softly.

He didn't pause. He ran his hand down her thigh, back up.

"Haven't we?" he murmured.

"I don't think so. You've... touched me, but we haven't... gone all the way."

"Is that what you want?" he asked, his lips grazing the shell of her ear.

"Mm..."

"Was that a yes?"

"I suppose I want to know if it's still allowed."

He was kissing her scalp, teasing her, his fingers just brushing above her slit but not into it.

"Why wouldn't it be allowed?"

"Well, maybe you and Lucille want to keep that for yourselves. Which is fine, but I just want to know that's where we stand."

"Edith, if there's something you want, you only have to say."

She rolled in his arms, wanting to see his face, finding him guarded somehow but also full of desire. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to make her feel good. But their emotions were still somehow complex.

Still...

She swung her leg over his body, making him tip onto his back, earning a sound of surprised arousal, feeling a slight hardness already and a distinct twitch when she took hold of his wrists, planting them firmly on the pillow. He liked it when she was in charge...

Maybe it was some kind of complicated guilt thing. In many ways, Thomas was desperate to please. He wanted to make music that people liked, he wanted to please her and Lucille. It was easier for him to address his desires if someone else was in charge.

"I think there is something I want," Edith said, unexpectedly breathless. "And I plan to take it. As long as that's alright?"

In answer, he leant over and sucked a kiss onto her arm where she was holding him, never taking his eyes from hers, his pupils so dark. Well... that felt like a yes.

Of course, she did have to move a little to get her shorts out of the way, marvelling at how obediently still he stayed as she yanked his underwear down just enough, his breath hitching as she took hold of his cock and carefully lowered herself onto it.

She felt strange, gasping. Maybe she'd rushed a little bit, feeling a little raw, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Quickly blinked back, though, rolling her hips, feeling her body eagerly adapting, Thomas's fingers twitching against the pillows.

Planting her hands on his flesh, she started to move in earnest, slow but long at first, really feeling that slide, that pressure, that fullness... And Thomas watched her with parted lips, letting her be fully in control. No teasing, no making her wait, allowing her to take her pleasure as she wished.

Based on how his chest was moving and the slight flush on his face, though, he was enjoying himself perfectly well.

Edith didn't try to hold back, sighing and grunting with effort as she sped up, smaller movements but faster and faster, bringing one hand to her clit to rub it. Something fast, something satisfying and quick. That was all she wanted, holding her breath and then gasping and just needing a little more, a little more...

"Fuck," Thomas breathed, bucking upwards almost involuntarily, but that was good, that felt good.

"Do that again," she panted.

"How close are you?"

"Close... God, so close, but I need..."

He moved then, jolting her as he got more purchase against the mattress, taking hold of her hips for quick, sharp thrusts, that added intensity finally enough to have her shaking, feeling herself clench down hard as he kept going through her orgasm and then the distinct feeling of him coming inside her.

That was... unusual.

He ran his fingers through her hair, kissing her gently, a smile playing around his lips.

"Any time you want something like that, you just let me know," he said. "And I'll do my best. Any time, anywhere."

In the aftermath, she somehow felt a little ashamed. Embarrassed. And even though she thought that feeling was ridiculous, she couldn't deny it.

And now, here she was with Pam, showered and smelling of floral deodorant and yet she still had the strangest feeling that every single one of the curious house visitors could tell exactly how she'd started her day.

She had what Pam wanted. Or thought that she wanted anyway. Thomas's attention, his passion, his love; the twisted strangeness that he called love anyway.

It was so weird to have the whole tour journey laid out in paper in front of her. Everything was carefully labelled and dated, her original typed articles and every magazine that had printed them. Some of them had been translated even. She hadn't known that.

And the pictures. They were all in a neat folder, like an album, little windows holding the square photos all in order. There they were at Niagara Falls, that first day. It felt like a lifetime ago. She wasn't the same person anymore.

Her heart ached a little for the Edith who had taken that first snap. All intimidated and worried. Chastising herself for being so suspicious. Somehow not suspicious enough to see what was happening to her until it was too late.

Oh, and there was Finlay... Had she been keeping up with the articles? Had she read the final one? Goodness, what must she be thinking now? Edith was ignoring most of the emails and messages pinging on her phone, not ready to face the dreadful pyre of public opinion yet.

"So the ones with green stickers were used in publications," Pam said. "And the ones with red stickers weren't. I hope I've organised everything for you well enough."

"More than well," Edith said. "This is amazing. They're not paying you enough for this."

Pam pinkened, just a little, looking away.

"Well, I don't do it for the money," she said.

No, she didn't, and that really didn't help with Edith's fears that she was being exploited.

Apparently Thomas and Lucille would write an introduction and other little reflective pieces for inclusion, but for the moment, the main task was just collating months and month's worth of content, making decisions on pictures, scanning the ones she definitely wanted, filing the others away.

It all felt very real, seeing it laid out like this. A lot of work and they hadn't even thought about layout or design.

Like many things in Edith's life these days, it felt quite overwhelming.

"Have you ever worked on a book before?"

"Nothing on this scale," Pam said. "I've helped with a few client biographies and autobiographies. I mostly know about trying to find reliable ghost writers rather than the actual work, but I've asked around, got some advice. I wanted your view before we start contacting potential graphic artists. And Thomas will have an opinion on that too."

"Will he?"

"Oh, yes. Everything has to be just so. He had final say on all their album designs. I think he'd like to do it all himself really. Making his own fonts and so on. He has a fascinating mind. Always thinking."

"Does Lucille not have any input?"

"I think she prefers the musical side of things."

That kind of made sense. Thomas was the engineer, supporting Lucille's dreams and vision. He did most of the production work, most of the instrument building, helping to create the sound that Lucille could hear in her head.

And they were trusting Edith to show them both to the world. It felt like a lot of responsibility. Almost more than she wanted.

"Maybe I'll talk to them about it," she said vaguely. "Artistic freedom is all well and good, but I want them to be happy with it too."

It proved to be easier said than done.

"I want to see us the way you see us," Lucille said when she brought it up over dinner.

"Yes, I know, but from a commercial standpoint, it ought to go with your image. Even just some vague ideas would help."

"You know how we dress, how we present ourselves. How far wide of the mark could you be? You know us."

Yes, she did, but she knew a version of them that was different to their public personas. She knew them better than anyone in the world but also she knew them differently.

"I'll just use dark colors and see how it goes," she said.

"How are you getting on with Pam?" Thomas asked.

"Fine. She's sweet. Dedicated. She's done a lot of preparation work."

"Sounds like her. By the way, your first appointment is on Wednesday."

That was quite the subject change.

"Appointment?"

"With the doctor. We'll probably be told off for being a little over twelve weeks but, well... It was the earliest time that made sense."

On one hand, it would be reassuring to be checked over.

On the other, Edith couldn't bring herself to be more excited than she was scared. Not when she could feel nerves growing in the pit of her stomach already.

Was it bad memories of medical settings or the fear of something going wrong? Probably both, she reasoned.

At least the Sharpes seemed to sense her unease, Thomas finding her hand in the dark as Lucille held her, warm and safe.

It was nice to feel precious.

Chapter 83: Scans

What kind of doctor had she been expecting? Edith wasn't sure, but she was somehow relieved to find her obstetrician was a slightly tired-looking woman - possibly in her forties, it was hard to tell - with grey-streaked black hair tied back in a messy ponytail. She had a comforting face, a kind of steadiness that Edith found reassuring. She felt safe with her.

Thomas had driven her and he seemed to have done a lot of smoothing of Lucille's ruffled feathers that morning. You were allowed a partner, not partners. Only one. But they'd call on the way home with all the news. If there was news. Maybe no news was good news.

Anyway, the hospital seemed nice. It was some kind of private clinic, a necessity of her immigration status. At least it meant it was quiet. Or relatively so.

All the same, Edith felt she was practically sleepwalking through it all. Hospitals of any kind had that effect on her, closing off, protecting herself. They'd be doing an ultrasound today. She'd see the baby for the first time. She just wanted to get to that part so she could stop feeling so nervous that she felt sick...

"So, before we get into all the tests, have you had any thoughts about your birth plan?"

"We'll be having a home birth," Thomas said.

Edith rounded on him, practically recoiling just at the thought.

"We will not be having a home birth," she said. "I want to be in a hospital with doctors."

It was like he hadn't expected her to want something different, giving her one of those surprised little smiles that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"But Sharpe children have been born in Allerdale Hall since it was built," he said. "Both Lucille and I were born there."

"Well, maybe I don't want that. Cushing children are born surrounded by medical professionals."

The doctor looked at them carefully and cleared her throat.

"Mr Sharpe, could I ask you to step outside for a moment?"

"No," Edith said. "No, it's fine. We'll discuss it later. I have time before I need to decide, right?"

"Of course. But just remember, your safety and comfort is paramount. If you want a hospital birth, I will make it my business to ensure you have one. Now, would you mind rolling up your sleeve? I'll just take a little blood."

It made sense that they had to test everything, but by the time she was getting onto the bench and pulling up her shirt, Edith felt well and truly pathologized in a way she wished didn't bring back bad memories. Even knowing that people peed in cups every single day didn't make it feel any more dignified.

Knowing the gel was going to be cold didn't help much either, the bizarre feeling of it being squeezed onto her abdomen and spread around, wet and slimy, and the strange gray buzz on the screen finally becoming a recognizable dome, the definite image of a head, a strange whooshing noise, that quick heartbeat.

"And that's your baby."

Somehow Edith hadn't expected to cry, but suddenly she was sobbing. It was just overwhelming to see it, to really see it, when she'd accepted for years that a child wasn't an option for her. And here they were, alive within her.

"Are those happy tears?"

"Yes," she managed. "Yes, they are. But is it... Are they healthy? Are they alright?"

"From this first look, they certainly seem to be. Do you have a family history of complications? I didn't find anything in your notes but they're a little sparse..."

"No. No, it's just... I can't believe it."

Thomas was trying to comfort her, stroking her hair, letting her squeeze his hand so tightly.

She'd never imagined this moment. This had never been her future, it wasn't something she could expect. But for a little while, she felt normal. Just someone with their partner, excited to see their child for the first time.

How many people had a third partner waiting anxiously at home? Some, probably. None of them would be blood related though, she couldn't help thinking.

"It's difficult to say right now, but based on the size, I'd say you were very accurate with your estimated due date. I'd say you're at about fourteen weeks. Just over half a year to go."

It was simultaneously such a long time, so much opportunity for things to go wrong, and yet it was no time at all. Right now, she was responsible for this unborn life. At least while they were within her, she could protect them from the outside world.

They were going to have to think about a nursery. About names. Kindergarten and school.

Oh, it was all too much to think about...

She left with a lot of paper, prescriptions for iron tablets to treat a slight risk of anaemia, information leaflets, advice and tips and, crucially, a picture of how their child looked right now. A strange little blur that she couldn't stop looking at.

Somehow, she ended up back in Thomas's car, a strangely ordinary black hatchback with all the back seats folded flat, a couple of instrument cases rattling around. She wasn't used to it yet, continually trying to open the driver's side door.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

Was she alright? Hm.

"I'm not sure."

"Take as long as you need. Or I can try to get you home as soon as possible."

Allerdale, home? No. Not yet, anyway. Too many ghosts, too many bad memories lasting back centuries. But better than out here in public.

"Start driving," she said. "But don't rush. It's fine."

He eased them out of the parking lot, back onto the mostly deserted main road.

"I recorded a couple of seconds of the heartbeat on my phone," he said. "Just so we can play it for Lucille. I probably should have asked first, but, well... Anyway, the baby has rhythm already."

"It's a heartbeat. That's what you want. I think syncopated heartbeats are bad for you."

She felt the glance more than saw it. He was trying to be whimsical, trying to draw her away from all the worries rushing through her head. And that was kind, just not exactly what she needed right now. She needed concrete, she needed solidity.

"Give me your phone and I'll call Lucille. We said we would. She's probably waiting."

He passed it over, eyes on the road. It felt strange to hold. She didn't have either of their numbers, come to think of it. She wasn't ever away from them long enough to need them.

She rang her own number first, feeling it vibrate in her pocket to give her Thomas's at least, and then scrolled through his contacts.

"What's she listed as?" she asked. "I don't see her."

"Home. She's under home. You know, just in case anything ever happened to me, that's the number the emergency services would call."

It sort of made sense, she figured. And now she had that worry too; if anything ever happened to her, who would she want them to call? Thomas, probably. He'd probably be the most practical in that situation.

There was barely a ring before Lucille answered.

"Thomas?"

"No, he's driving," Edith said.

A warm sigh, relief practically radiating down the line.

"How was it?"

"Erm... Good. Everything's fine and normal, they said. We'll give you the full recap when we get in. We have some things to discuss anyway."

"What things?"

Edith hesitated.

"Wait till we get there. I know you. If I give you advance warning then you'll have time to think of ways to argue with me."

"Ah, so whatever it is, you think I won't like it. Interesting."

She was laughing but Edith couldn't. This was too serious.

"Put the kettle on," she said instead. "We're nearly home."

A brief pause.

"Tea?" Lucille asked.

This was a tactical decision on Edith's part. She was showing a little trust so that the atmosphere would be warmer.

"Yeah," she said. "Yes, please."

It was ready when they arrived, passing Mags just as she began a tour - and Edith was going to have the whole spiel burned into her brain soon - heading upstairs to where Lucille was waiting, twisting the red ring anxiously back and forth. She leapt to her feet as they entered, getting the milk, pouring tea.

"Tell me everything," she said.

"Really, there's not much to say," Thomas said. "Everything's normal, everything's fine."

"Then what is it we need to talk about?"

Edith sat down, a cup placed in front of her, deliberately taking a sip before she spoke.

"I don't want to have a home birth. I want to go to hospital."

They really were so alike sometimes. Lucille made exactly the same face that Thomas had, that little frown and then the smile.

"But Sharpe children have always been born in Allerdale."

"Well, not this one. It's a Cushing baby too."

"But I've read about it, Edith. A home birth is more relaxed, less stressful. No having to rush anywhere, no scramble to have a bag ready."

"But what if something goes wrong? If I'm in a hospital, the doctors are already there. If I'm here, the ambulance has to arrive and then take me to them, and we're so remote... That frightens me."

She could see Lucille warring with herself a little, Thomas sitting between them, quietly drinking his tea. Not taking sides.

"If you give birth here, we can all be there," Lucille said. "In a hospital, you'll have to choose. Or they'll assume you want Thomas. And if you do then that's fine, but if I can then I want to be there. I want to hold your hand and help you breathe and hear that very first cry."

She was so excited for something that terrified Edith. Afterwards, yes, she was excited for the baby to be here and warm and safe, to watch them grow, to have that future, but the birth was so frightening.

"There will be blood and screaming," she said vaguely.

"I'm very comfortable around blood."

Edith still wasn't sure. There were so many risks.

"We have time to think about it," she said. "I'll think about it. But I need to know that if I decide to go to hospital that you're going to support me."

"We will," Thomas said. "Won't we?"

Lucille didn't say anything, looking away. But she wasn't saying no either. Maybe she just needed more time to come round.

"Would you like to see them?" Edith asked, opening her folder of papers. "They gave us a picture."

It was like the scan was a religious relic. Lucille took it so gently, those perfect red nails stark against the white photo paper. Like Allerdale in the snow, the little postcards for sale at Mags's desk.

"Are they a boy or a girl?" she asked after a while.

Edith glanced at Thomas. Had she missed that bit? The whole thing was something of a blur.

"We didn't ask," he said. "A surprise, you know?"

"A surprise? But what if we find the perfect name and then it's not suitable?"

Thomas chuckled.

"We could choose a name and then decide it didn't suit for any number of reasons," he said. "Besides, we'll end up giving them at least two names anyway. Plenty of options."

Speaking of which...

"I'd like them to be Cushing-Sharpe," Edith said, maybe a little too keen. "I know it's a bit of a mouthful, but... Well, that's what I want."

"Double-barrelled?" Thomas said. "Well, I don't see why that would be a problem."

Edith's eyes flicked between the two of them.

"Really?"

"Why would it be a problem?" Lucille asked.

"I'm adulterating the Sharpe name. I'm inserting myself, my family, into your legacy. I'm changing something that's existed for centuries."

"And?"

"Well... I don't know. I wasn't sure if you'd like that."

"Honestly, Edith, we kind of expected this," Thomas said. "You're right. They'll be a Cushing just as much as a Sharpe. Moreso, with any luck, given our family's record. Besides, we're posh. We're landed gentry. It's not like they'll be the only one at their school with a long surname."

School. School friends. Homework. High school. Maybe college or whatever.

Ohh, that was a scary thought. Not yet, not yet. No need to be anxious about the little one growing up before they were even born.

Lucille raised her mug.

"To Baby Cushing-Sharpe," she said.

"Baby Cushing-Sharpe."

Just over six months to go. And all she had to do between now and then was finish writing a book and get it launched and somehow write a poem about her complicated feelings on the side...

How hard could it be?

The short recording of that fast, whooshing heartbeat could easily have been hers.

Chapter 84: Embedded Worries

Pam made her a wall chart. Extremely well organised, color-coded. Red for when drafts needed to be submitted or proofs approved, yellow for when responses would be delivered, pale pink and blue striped for anything to do with medical appointments, candy canes around Christmas, hearts on Valentine's Day, glittery silver for the book launch and then, only a couple of weeks later, gold for her due date.

She'd have known the Sharpes for nearly a year then and they'd have a child together.

God, she was going to be so pregnant during all the publicity events...

"It's not ideal, I know," Pam said, maybe seeing the evident concern written all over her face. "The publishers really wanted it out in time for Christmas, but I insisted that that was a bad idea. It should come out around the same time as the next album and so we agreed next March or early April which gives Thomas and Lucille plenty of time for song writing and studio recording, gives us a chance to do some tie-in, connective work. They'll be announcing the release date soon, opening pre-orders... Anyway, after that, you can relax and go off on maternity leave and stop worrying about all this."

And start worrying about a newborn.

She didn't have to provide too much new material, but she wanted to. This was for the fans, most of whom had probably already read her articles as they came out. They deserved something new if they were going to buy a whole deluxe book of them. They deserved more insights, more information, more pictures.

She still hadn't dared to look at her emails or any comments on the final piece. It would be too much. Maybe she'd manage contact from people she actually knew, but the idea of strangers ripping her apart was just too much.

After all, surely anyone she actually knew who was disgusted with her could just quietly cut-off contact. Unfriend, unfollow, just no longer have any interaction her.

Every day, she thought maybe she ought to get in touch with Finlay. She ought to call her or email her and see how she was and every day, she chickened out. Finlay had told her to be careful, not to rush into things, and now she'd come halfway round the world with her two lovers who were also siblings. What if Finlay wanted nothing to do with her now? Edith wasn't sure she could bear that.

She could deal with Alan and that was about it. Which, to be fair, had often been the case regardless, even before all this. He liked video calls, checking in, not-so-subtly making sure she looked well enough. It was harder to match up with the five-hour time difference, but doable.

"See if I manage to get the time off and a visa and everything," he asked carefully one evening. "Could I... come and see you?"

"When?"

"Well, I thought maybe when the book was being published. You know, it's your first big publication. It's very exciting. And it's a long way off, so if I request it soon, maybe I can get a full three weeks and then I might get lucky and get to meet the baby."

He would be an ally in her corner. The more she'd been thinking about Lucille's arguments for a home birth, the less she was convinced by them. All this stuff about only one birthing partner being allowed? There hadn't been anything about limits in any of the leaflets they'd given her at the hospital. And she ought to know; she'd read them cover to cover numerous times.

It really felt like Lucille just wanted to feel more in control. And Edith had a lot of sympathy for that. It must be hard to so desperately want a child and then to watch as someone else grew and changed. It must be hard not to feel a little left out at times.

But all the same, where her health and especially that of the baby was concerned, Edith didn't want to accept any compromises.

"I'd love that," she told Alan. "I'd love you to be here."

"Then I'll start trying to put things in motion."

It would be good, she thought after they'd said goodbye. Even if he had to leave before the baby arrived, she'd be grateful for his presence in the run up.

But for now, she mainly wanted to get back to work.

It had become a little bit of an obsession for her over the past few days. When she was working, when she was reading back her own old words and maybe cringing a little bit and trying to think of what additional information she could add, she wasn't worrying about all the different potential things that could go wrong. It was a good distraction.

As was the little knock on the door of her makeshift and then Lucille's head poking round it.

"It's nearly midnight, sweetheart," she said gently.

"I know."

"Are you coming to bed?"

"Nearly."

"Well, you said that last night and then Thomas had to come and get you at one in the morning."

Mm. Yes, he had. She'd just wanted to finish one thing but then time had got away from her somewhat.

"You need to sleep," Lucille said. "The first deadline isn't for weeks. You need to pace yourself. You need proper rest."

Loathe though Edith was to admit it, deep down, she knew Lucille was right. She couldn't live like this, not for the next six months. She'd completely burn out. But she needed something to do, something to keep her occupied.

Maybe she should take up crochet or something... But she didn't want to make baby things. That would just make her worse.

"I just need... distractions," she said.

"I could distract you."

Edith chuckled, closing her laptop down and stretching.

"I know you could," she said. "But that's... fleeting. Lovely, but fleeting. And you're busy, you're writing too."

"Well, I didn't necessarily mean sex. Though that too. But, well... Have you ever learned an instrument, for instance?"

She hadn't really expected that.

"I did piano for a while when I was a kid."

"Would you like to take it up again?"

Edith hesitated. The idea of taking some stumbling steps around professional musicians or other ears didn't exactly appeal.

"I'd never be very good at it," she said uncertainly, shutting off the light and joining Lucille on the way to bed. "Not compared to you."

"It's not about being good. It's about being able to focus on something that's not work and that's also not a spiral of worry. It's about being able to just go away and practice for a while. Like meditation, but with scales and arpeggios and etudes. Having work time and not work time but having something else there to keep your brain away from the darkness."

Hm. Maybe it would be worth a try. But still...

"I'm not sure I could cope with anyone hearing me play so badly," she said, pulling on her pyjamas.

"Use one of the electric keyboards with headphones. Total privacy. I mean, you'd have to put up with Thomas sneaking up to steal kisses when you're not expecting him, but maybe that's not exactly a hardship."

She slipped under the covers, folding herself in around Edith's back.

"Just think about it," she murmured. "But rest now. You need sleep."

She did. But it was hard. She'd been looking at the audition pieces the other writers had produced right at the start of this whole process. They'd all signed the waivers allowing it to be reproduced, but she was considering reaching out to them, maybe double-checking that they were comfortable with it, asking if they'd like to include anything about themselves or if they'd prefer to be anonymous.

Honestly, when she looked at her own first piece, that half-page of shorthand, she sort of wanted to be anonymous. She'd been so harsh about the Sharpes. She'd called them liars.

Well, they were liars, they were worse than liars, but the fact she'd written that so bluntly when they'd only just met...

Maybe she'd always had something of a bold, reckless streak after all.

Anyway, it was tricky. This was an opportunity for those other writers to have something published, but then again, it would be demonstrating a piece that hadn't won them the role. And it wasn't paid either. It would courteous to ask.

Some of the candidates were men. Which made sense, really; Thomas and Lucille probably had to shortlist a couple of them for the look of the thing, but they'd never exactly had a fair chance, had they? Not when the writer was also meant to be a surrogate mother. That was what they'd wanted.

And instead, they'd got her. A third adult in their lives, in their relationship, in their house.

She wasn't the only one who'd got more than she bargained for.

She managed to drift off. She must have done because she woke up when she heard the door close, some light shuffling. Thomas coming to bed. And Lucille stirred behind her.

"It's only me," he murmured. "Go back to sleep."

"I already told Edith off for working too late," Lucille said softly. "Don't make me chase both of you off to bed every night."

"Sorry. But the rough soundscape I've got down is really quite good, even if I say so myself. I can't wait for you both to hear it. Once it's finished."

A slightly wet sound. A goodnight kiss.

"Maybe we're just night owls," Thomas said, the bed moving as he settled in on Lucille's other side.

"Or maybe you're both just workaholics. You should be taking advantage. This is your last six months when you'll have nights of unbroken sleep."

"Our last six months, I think you'll find. All of us. Don't think you're getting out of night feeds so easily."

They were so excited. But it was months away, months and months, and what if, what if...

She must have gone tense, or inhaled too sharply, because Lucille was stroking her arm soothingly.

"Don't even think about lying here awake," she said.

"I won't," Edith whispered. "I promise."

It was hard, though. She had breathing exercises she'd learned years ago. Deep inhales and long exhales. She focussed on every muscle of her body individually from her toes upwards and imagined them slowly relaxing one by one. She tried to be aware of the warmth of the blanket, of Thomas and Lucille's breathing, of the faint noises the house made.

And soon, the sound of a piano drifted into her ears. Lucille practising as usual.

At least her mornings were peaceful. She rolled over, finding Thomas similarly half awake.

"Alan says he'll try to come over for the book launch," she murmured. "Is that OK?"

"Of course. We'll have to organise a spare room for him, but it's not like we're short on space. And that will be nice, if he can."

Edith was suspicious. She couldn't help it.

"Are you two agreeing with all my ideas so I'll relent on having a home birth?" she asked.

Thomas frowned at her, genuinely confused it seemed.

"No," he said. "I think it would be nice for your friend to visit us. We don't get to do that kind of thing often. We don't exactly have many friends. Look, I know it must be hard to believe, but we're really not always trying to trick you. I've talked to Lucille and she's coming round, slowly. Give her time."

"I just don't understand why she thinks they won't let her in. I'm the one giving birth. It will be my decision who I want in the room."

He sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"It's not about that," he said.

"Well, what, then? Tradition? I'm sorry, but I don't want to take those risks for the sake of tradition."

"It's because she hates hospitals, alright? That's why."

Oh, and Edith suddenly felt bad. Of course Lucille hated hospitals. Going in with injuries and getting limited help, seeing her brother hurt and disbelieved, being in intensive care and all that pain, so much pain, physical and mental...

To be fair, Edith wasn't exactly a fan of them either, but maybe at least she had a few positive memories of her inpatient time, of slowly getting better and feeling stronger and more like herself.

"Why didn't she just say?" she asked.

A shrug. And if he didn't know what chance did anyone else have?

"I think she thought it would be manipulative to bring it up," he said. "And we're trying not to be like that anymore. You want a hospital birth and that's what will happen. She'll face her fear when the time comes. She always does. And maybe having such a wonderful thing come of it will even help her in the long term."

Everything in Edith's life seemed to make her feel guilty these days.

She got up, stretching, pulling on a dressing gown and heading out towards the bathroom.

"Good morning," Mags called up from the foyer, here a little earlier than usual.

She had a sort of trolley, pushing an entire crate of some kind of vegetable towards the kitchen. Rutabagas, maybe.

Right. Well, maybe after a shower, that would start to make sense.

Chapter 85: Lanterns

Hair fluffed out around her head, pleasantly warm from the dryer, Edith made her way down the stairs, into the parlour. Lucille had stopped playing, but she was sorting through some sheet music, very deliberately turning over a piece of manuscript as Edith entered. A secret song, not finished, not ready.

"Any idea why Mags just brought in a year's supply of rutabagas?"

A little frown.

"What in the world is a rutabaga?"

"It's a vegetable," Edith said, demonstrating with her hands. "It's like... this big and kind of yellow and purple..."

"Oh, swedes! It's because it's October."

She seemed oddly excited about produce, getting up and taking Edith's hand, hurrying through to the kitchen.

"You weren't going to start without us, were you?" she asked as Mags rattled around in one of the dozens of drawers.

"Of course not. I wouldn't dream of it. I'm just looking for the right knives. I'm not sure we have three."

"Oh, well, we can't have that."

Edith was still completely lost as Lucille called for Thomas, selecting a rutabaga with a critical eye and helping to fetch chopping boards and enough sharp objects to kit out a small torture chamber.

"What are we doing?" Edith asked.

"Well, we're not allowed to have pumpkins here," Lucille said. "We're a historical place and we need to promote history."

She was evidently teasing Mags, getting a slight sigh.

"The tradition of jack-o'-lanterns is thought to have been taken to America by Irish immigrants," Mags said, definitely in her tour guide voice. "And it was also common here in the North of England, in Cornwall and up in Scotland where I'm from. But, obviously, they didn't have pumpkins back then because they're native to North America and so they used different vegetables."

"Rutabagas," Edith said.

"Neeps where I grew up."

"Swedes," Lucille said.

"Turnips," Thomas said from the doorway. "You called?"

"We find ourselves in need of a third curved knife. Would you mind awfully bending one for us? Just one of the cheap ones."

"Certainly. You know how much I enjoy putting my vices to good use."

It was surprisingly hard work, but Edith couldn't deny that she was enjoying herself. It was pleasingly methodical and absorbing. Cutting off the top and flattening up the base a little to help them stay upright, starting to scoop out the insides - and that was what the strange knives were for. It was much easier to deal with the shape of it then.

When Thomas brought the knife back, Lucille didn't even look up, like she was sensing his presence and reaching for it immediately.

"Thank you."

"Not at all. Glad to be of service."

He didn't seem to want to carve himself, but he sat with them, making tea and coffee, holding things still when necessary. It took a fair amount of effort to cut through to actually make holes in the flesh.

It was interesting to watch practised hands work too. Edith waited with her gutted shell for inspiration to strike as she watched Lucille cut part of the way through her empty turnip, making a second layer behind the outer skin and cutting out jagged, pointed teeth. Meanwhile, Mags was doing something that was probably best described as cute, a jaunty little smile and anime-esque cut-out eyes.

Thomas produced a pencil from a pocket, passing it over to her.

"Draw before cutting," he said. "Always sound advice."

She tried to sketch something simple onto the skin.

"So how come you have so many?" she asked.

"All part of the Allerdale Halloween season," Mags said, looking at her own efforts with a critical eye and making some refinements. "It's one of our busiest times. Something about the house attracts people around this time of year. And so we have our lanterns and spares in case they go a bit rotten and I host carving workshops - adults only usually what with all the knives. And sometimes, people are lucky enough to see a mysterious ghostly lady in blue or red at the piano..."

"I like to dress up," Lucille said, smiling.

She looked so happy, relaxed and calm, and Edith wished Mags wasn't in the room so they could talk properly, so she could explain that she understood her reasons but that she wouldn't be changing her mind about having a hospital birth.

"And are there ever any male ghosts?" she asked instead.

"I've tried, but apparently I just look like myself when I wear period clothes," Thomas said. "But maybe this year, the fans will be lucky enough to catch a second lady. I'm sure we have something suitable in the ancestral wardrobe."

Despite herself, it sounded... fun. And oddly comforting. She was being included in their traditions without question, without any awkwardness.

And she could almost already imagine how much fun having a little child ghost around the house might be. Dressed in a nightdress or one of those creepy miniature suits, shouting boo at visitors and running off giggling.

Her rutabaga wasn't the most expertly carved in the world, but it wasn't bad for a first try. She'd managed to carve a recognisable face, triangular eyes and a spiky mouth. Mags carefully put some artificial tea lights into them, battery powered flickering candles.

And all the insides put into the soup boiler. It seemed she ought to get used to that smell if it was going to more or less permeate the house for the next four weeks.

"So, what are your plans for today?" Thomas asked. "Remembering not to work too hard, of course, or Lucille will be terribly cross with you."

A fond eye-roll from Lucille, even though they all knew he was right. There was to be relaxation or they'd answer to her.

"I'm going to email Finlay," Edith said, voicing it so she'd have no excuse. "Just to check in and to make sure she's comfortable with her image and name being used in the book."

"It was in her contract," Lucille said.

"I... I know, but I still want to give her the option to say no."

"Why? She knew what she signed up for."

"Well, she wasn't expecting us to fall in love, was she? None of us were."

Mags politely excused herself, sensing that this was a private matter perhaps, taking the lanterns with her.

"Do you think that will be an issue?" Thomas asked, gathering up the knives and boards, putting them into the small industrial dishwasher that was not-so-well concealed behind the kitchen sales counter.

"Well, it's hardly a... conventional relationship," Edith said. "And if she doesn't want to be associated with us then I think that should be her choice, that's all."

"Are you ashamed of us?" Lucille asked.

Oh, she'd known it would come across like that...

"Honestly, I don't know what I feel," Edith said. "I'm... bound to you, I'm drawn to you. Maybe I even love you. But I know that other people are judging us. Judging me. And I can't pretend that doesn't hurt."

"People judge other people's relationships for all sorts of things," Thomas said. "Age differences, class divides - doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with them."

"It's hardly the same thing," Edith said pointedly, wishing she could speak more openly but not daring to while other people were in the house. "I'm new to being public property. I'm not used to it. And so I want to give Finlay the opportunity to decide if she wants to be mentioned. I think it's polite."

A glance between the Sharpes, an unspoken discussion happening in just a look and then Lucille looked away, sighing.

"You're probably right," she said. "It would be a kind gesture. But later this evening, you need to let me give you a piano lesson. Hobbies are good for you."

Edith agreed, pretending she wasn't slightly dreading that. She wasn't sure how good a teacher Lucille might be.

Thomas kissed her gently, reassuringly, stroking her hair.

"We should head to the studio," he said, taking Lucille's hand to help her out of her chair. "We'll see you later."

And that meant the tourists would be arriving soon.

Edith opened the door to her little office, rolling her shoulders. Time for some mild unpleasantness.

Dear Finlay

Well, it was a start, wasn't it?

Hi. It's been a while. How are you? How's the family?

The email equivalent of small talk... Get to the point, Edith.

I don't know if you've been keeping up with the articles, but if you have, then you'll know that I'm pregnant and that I have come to England with Thomas and Lucille to see if we can live together and bring up the baby.

In short, I did exactly what you warned me not to do when you saw I was getting too close to them. I'm sorry.

It's strange being with two people romantically at the same time, but it's gone from being a fling to a potential future for me. And no matter what happens, Thomas is the biological father of my child so they are going to be in my life to one extent or another. I think we can be happy all together. I want to try for that as the best option.

However, as I'm starting to pull together the book for the #Titleless tour, I realize that maybe you don't want to be associated with someone who slept with her two bosses who also happen to be siblings. I would completely understand if that were the case and I would omit your name and image entirely.

This felt so... transactional. Not the way to speak to a friend. If they were still friends. Edith genuinely wasn't sure.

Allerdale is beautiful. If you ever wanted to visit, we'd be delighted to see you.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Edith

She gave it a cursory proofread and then hit send. Not allowing herself to back out now.

And then she opened the other document on her computer. The one that wasn't work. The one where she kept two lists, one of things that had brought her joy and one of things that had made her anxious.

It was an old technique from therapy. Joys to look back on, fears to reassess later, outside of the moment. The fact it did sometimes help still annoyed her.

She didn't write everything down, of course. What if Pam decided to help her out and accidentally opened this document? So she didn't include any words like "incest" or "threesome" or "sharing a bed" or "murder". She just wrote things like "relationship issues" to cover all of that. And of course, every day she seemed to type something new about pregnancy and childbirth.

In her fears column, she typed "Finlay".

And in the joys, she wrote "rutabaga carving" and "planning to dress up for Halloween". Joys outnumbering fears ought to be a good thing, but they weren't exactly of equal weight.

Where should "piano lessons" go? She liked the idea of spending that time with Lucille, but the actual teaching part... Well...

Maybe she ought to wait for the first one before deciding.

Chapter 86: Piano Lessons

"In my experience, it's always good to have a project to aim towards," Lucille said, fetching some of her early music books from a high shelf. "A performance to practice for."

That filled Edith's heart with dread immediately.

"What kind of performance?" she asked.

Lucille shook some dust from a long abandoned volume, one that looked very old if its peeling leather cover was anything to go by.

"Well... I thought maybe we could play together on Halloween. Really surprise some tour groups."

She handed over the book, letting Edith look at it properly. A Family Album of Piano Duets. The pages were yellowed and marked with the little red-brown stains of very old paper. Foxing, they called it. Maybe due to the color.

"Really?" Edith said, looking at some of the pieces, the dots and lines familiar and yet alien at the same time. "You think I could play one of these by the end of the month?"

"One of the simpler ones, yes. I'd play the more difficult part. And if you decide you're not ready then we won't. It's very intimate, though, sitting on the same stool to play. It would be fun."

If she said so. Edith figured she'd perhaps find out later since for this first lesson Lucille had brought through one of the commercial kitchen chairs. She was still extremely close, but a little detached.

"Are you sure it's OK for me to touch the old piano?" Edith asked. "I don't want to damage it. I mean, it is an antique, isn't it?"

"19th century," Lucille agreed. "But it's not too delicate. It needs to be played to keep it functional. And the strings are mainly modern anyway, replaced over the years. It's a bit of a ship of Theseus these days. Half its parts have been changed or updated or repaired since it was first made. So, what do you remember of reading music?"

A surprisingly high amount considering it had been more than ten years. Different note lengths, pitch, sharps and flats. They found an unexpected language division though. What Lucille called bars, Edith called measures. And she was sure some of the notes had different names too. Either that or she just didn't remember.

But knowing what the notes ought to be was one thing. Playing them in the right order and for the right length of time and not playing the wrong ones was another.

After about her nineteenth wrong note, she felt really too exposed, like the house itself was listening and judging her, her fingers slipping against a cluster of keys.

"I'm probably disturbing Thomas," she said.

"Don't worry. He'll have his headphones on. Totally oblivious to the world around him."

"Really?"

Lucille gave her a tiny smile, making a pencil note or two on the page to help her.

"When we were children, one of my piano tutors gave us an old Walkman. A proper old-school one, run on batteries, cassette tapes. We didn't have any, of course. I was meant to get some I think, recordings of great pianists, but mainly we used it to listen to the radio. When Father was shouting downstairs or when I thought something bad might be about to happen, I'd put those fuzzy little headphones over Thomas's head and turn up the volume. Help him block everything out. And trust me, a few wrong notes is nothing to what he used to be hearing."

Edith took a deep breath and tried again, slower this time. Not really concentrating though. Too busy thinking about Lucille carefully trying to shield Thomas from the horrors downstairs.

"Lovely," Lucille murmured. "You'll get there. It's all about being patient, letting the skills grow slowly."

"It's because I'm distracted. Not worrying about the notes so much."

"Mm. I can't tell if that's good or bad. This was meant to distract you from working too hard. Is that what you're thinking about? Is your brain still up in your office?"

A long pause as Edith stopped to line up her fingers on the last two chords. Couldn't do that in front of other people, not in a public environment.

"No," she sighed. "I'm just letting my heart ache for you and Thomas."

She started again from the beginning just so she wouldn't have to look at Lucille's face. She could practically feel her gaze on her.

"My heart aches for you sometimes too," Lucille said softly. "When I think about you being ill. Having to cope with your brain harming you. And honestly that's very strange for me. I didn't know I was capable of... empathizing with someone like that. Or is it sympathizing? I'm forever getting them confused."

"Depends on whether you understand my feelings or whether you feel sorry for me. I think I sympathize with you and Thomas because I can't imagine going through what you did. I grieve for you."

Lucille thought for a moment, reaching out and playing a low series of chords along with Edith's slow progress through the piece.

"Then I think I empathize with you," she said. "To an extent, anyway. The idea of needing to control something, anything, feeling powerless."

Edith thought about hospitals and wondered if now was her chance to bring it up.

"Trying to control things almost killed me," she said.

"And I controlled things by killing."

Yes. Yes, she had. She couldn't control their father's violent temper or what harm he might do and so she killed him. Being out of control, having to rely on other people, it scared her so much. But this was so important.

Edith stopped playing, turning to face her.

"Listen, I know you hate hospitals, but I really want to go in for the birth."

Lucille clearly hadn't expected that, her eyebrows rising.

"I do hate hospitals. I don't understand why you don't. You were so ill, you had to live in them for weeks and months."

"And they helped me get better. They helped me, even at my worst, at my least rational. I trust medical professionals to save me if something goes wrong because they saved me before."

"And they saved me and Thomas before sending us right back into the fire. They are still human and fallible. I know the house. I'm in control here."

"But it would be me at risk if something happened. Me and the baby. When the time comes, I want to have a bag ready and Thomas can drive or we call an ambulance and go in, all of us. That's what I want. That's what I'm asking for."

She knew how much store Lucille put into asking, after all.

A long sigh, her left hand walking up and down the keys.

"Well, I have a bit of time to get used to the idea," she said. "I don't promise to like it, but you're right and Thomas is right and it should be your decision."

Maybe it had just been a long time since she hadn't got her own way. Edith gently leant over to kiss her porcelain cheek, her skin cool as always. She wondered briefly if her touch felt unnaturally warm in turn but then Lucille moved to meet her lips with her own, just once, fixing her in her gaze afterwards like an owl.

"You have to promise me you'll practice," she said softly, taking Edith's hands. "Not every day perhaps, but most days. You need to spend time away from your work."

Did Lucille ever do that? Edith wasn't sure. Some part of her was probably always thinking of music, always writing. Wasn't there a quote about that?

"Promise me," Lucille insisted.

"I promise."

It wasn't broken either. They set her up with an electric keyboard and headphones so she could play privately. And maybe she felt a little ill when she realised part of the difference between the two pianos was because one was plastic and one was probably elephant ivory, but it was a 19th-century instrument. They hadn't known back then.

And heaven knew they'd done terrible things to humans too under the guise of ignorance.

It did help, having something else to go and be frustrated by. Every morning, she opened her emails with trepidation and then felt the strangest combination of relief and agitation that she hadn't received anything from Finlay. Every email alert chime set her a little on edge and every day ended with the same hope and fear blend and counting back the hours in the time zone difference to try to guess what time she'd be most likely to respond.

She especially liked it when Thomas was there, lit by the glow of his laptops, smiling or winking at her when she came in. He didn't talk much, but it was nice to just be together. Companionable. He made her jump sometimes by mistake of course, touching her shoulders unexpectedly, leaning down to kiss her cheek, sometimes bringing her juice.

Not alone. Increasingly, she didn't like being alone. She didn't like things being too quiet. It made her notice the sounds the house made, the creaking and the groaning that almost made it feel alive.

It was almost like Lucille and Thomas had a huge dog, a Great Dane maybe or a Malamute, and Edith didn't know if she could trust it not to bite her.

Which was stupid really. It was just a building. Terrible things had happened here and it was very old, but buildings didn't have memories. They didn't have emotions. The echoes of terrible crimes couldn't hurt her.

After a few days, she thought she was slowly getting better at piano again. Waking up an old skill, long forgotten.

"Both my parents were alive the last time I played," she said when she met with Lucille for an actual lesson.

"Does that make it difficult for you?"

"No. It's quite nice actually. I feel like I'm connecting with that part of my life again. That girl with no worries and no suspicion that anything bad would ever happen to her."

"Do you think you would warn her, if you could? Go back and tell her what was coming?"

Edith frowned as her fingers moved over the keys, over bones effectively. The music was alive, but there was death here too, never far away.

"I don't know," she said. "I mean, when you know something is going to happen, don't you just worry about it more? I think I would. I have regrets that I didn't appreciate the time I had with my parents more, but putting a countdown on things would just add to the stress."

She really had changed a lot since she was nine years old, trying to make her tiny fingers stretch over chords. She'd have wanted to know then. She'd have wanted to know everything. Not about her parents necessarily; at that age, she could never have imagined losing them, wouldn't have thought to ask. But she'd have wanted to know more about her adult self. Was she married? Was she a nurse now or maybe a teacher? How late was her bedtime?

Neither she or Lucille voiced the question of whether she would have warned herself about going on tour with Crimson Peak.

Chapter 87: Bumps in the Night

Something creaked. Edith felt herself wake but not properly, that horrible sensation of being almost conscious but unable to move. She could barely open her eyes, barely think properly.

She tried to struggle. Tried to force her body to respond, feeling the tug of sleep pulling her back even as she battled against it.

And she must have slept some more because suddenly her eyes were flashing open in the dark, gasping a breath, panting and blinking, feeling somehow terribly unsafe.

Unsafe and alone. The bed was empty, cold, neither Thomas nor Lucille lying beside her. But they couldn't already be up. It was dark still, very dark and though she was getting used to the long nights of approaching winter, it was still getting light around 8am. This felt like the early hours. And she was alone.

She was out of the blankets before her brain had caught up with her, bare feet on the floorboards, taking down her dressing gown from its hook and taking a deep breath before opening the door.

There was so little light here, just the moon giving a hint of silver to the harsh lines of the banisters and wood panels.

They'd just be in Thomas's room. That was all. They were just up late; after all, she didn't remember them coming to bed. She'd just creep along and hear their voices and then she'd feel safe and reassured and go back to bed.

Straining her ears, Edith sidled along the hall, trying to ignore the horrible feeling that something awful was right behind her or watching her from the shadows.

She just wanted to hear Lucille's voice, or Thomas's quieter, lower tones, just to know they were here with her. They hadn't vanished somehow.

No light from under Thomas's door, but, well, that didn't mean anything. He had a bed, after all. Maybe they'd... fallen asleep.

She gently eased the door open, peering inside.

Thomas's bed was neatly made. No sign of any human habitation.

The kitchen, maybe they were in the kitchen...

There was a noise from downstairs and dread well and truly settled into Edith's stomach, a fear that she couldn't even articulate, a terror that the house had consumed them maybe and that she was trapped here all alone...

Her feet pounded against the stairs and the hall floor as she rushed to the parlour, struggling to turn the door knob and when was this door ever closed?

It yielded like part of the wall was giving way with the sheer size of it, but it didn't creak or squeak or make any of the noises that a door in a spooky old house ought to make, just swayed open. The piano and the fireplace were shadowy in the moonlight streaming through the window, like the fossils of some great long-dead beasts.

But something was alive in here.

A white thigh almost glowing against the darkness, black hair pooling like ink upon the floor, two pairs of eyes looking at her in shock from a tangle of limbs.

Edith let out a sigh of relief. They were here. They hadn't abandoned her.

"Did we disturb you, sweetheart?" Thomas whispered.

"You weren't there," Edith said, feeling ridiculous. "I got scared. I'm sorry."

She turned to leave but Thomas caught up with her by the bottom of the stairs, wrapping his arms around her from behind.

"We can't let you go back up to an empty bed," he said, unfairly warm and reassuring.

"Aren't you... in the middle of something?"

"We were taking a break between courses, as it were. And apparently our clever scheme to go downstairs and avoid waking you backfired entirely. Clearly someone is a little too loud."

"Well, whose fault is that?"

Lucille had slipped on his shirt, their other pyjamas tucked under her arm, coming back upstairs and settling into bed beside Edith, gently brushing her hair back with her fingers.

"Do you want to go to sleep?" she murmured.

"What's the other option?"

Even with her make-up wiped off, Edith could see the darkness of her lips as she smiled, leaning forward to kiss her.

It would chase her shivers away, she supposed, kissing back, feeling Thomas move in behind her, running his hands over her body.

They were here. They wouldn't leave her. It was a fear she hadn't felt very strongly before but that suddenly burrowed into her heart. Sometimes realization snuck up on her, noticing anew that she was in a country that was not her own, in a home she had no real claim to, and that she could easily be discarded and deported if they chose to do that.

Not with a child, perhaps. She'd have some parental rights surely.

God, maybe she should talk to a lawyer. Just to find out where she stood. Just in case. They loved her now, but people fell out of love all the time. Alan's parents had divorced when he was too young to remember it.

And she should probably work on finding something independent to do outside of work. There was quite enough codependency around here as it was.

Oh, Thomas kissing her neck felt unfairly good...

Despite herself, Edith melted between them. Lucille in front of her, hands skimming down her sides, Thomas behind her as steady and irresistible as the sea.

A hand under her pyjama shorts, Thomas's from the size and warmth, making her gasp in a breath as he pressed his fingers against her, firm and gentle all at once.

The chill of Lucille's touch almost made her shiver, up under her top to find her nipples, seeking out where she was most sensitive as Thomas almost casually rubbed little circles around her clit.

"How's this?" he murmured.

"Surely not nearly enough," Lucille said.

"Well, that's fine, but I might need a little longer to recover."

"Hm."

Lucille slid away, down the bed, and Thomas rolled them so Edith was lying on top of him, kissing her head and letting his hands roam over her body. Just holding her, just being warm and there as Lucille pulled down her clothes and settled between her legs, looking up at them both before running her tongue firmly over Edith's flesh.

It was impossible not to feel a little exposed. She was almost shy even in the dark, letting out a squeak as Lucille tried sucking gently, feeling Thomas's chest move as he chuckled.

"I think she liked that," he said.

And so Lucille did it again and again, flicking her tongue back and forth, faster and faster, glancing upwards, eyes shining.

Edith felt Thomas's erection after a while, a distinct firmness beginning to make itself known. She tried to look up at him, tried to move slightly to make him more comfortable, but he tightened his grip slightly, holding her in place. Like he wanted her to feel it, to know how aroused he was.

But Lucille had noticed. Maybe she could tell, maybe she'd felt Edith moving, either way, she sat up slightly.

"Do you want his cock, Edith?"

Those clipped vowels always affected her in the strangest ways, feeling herself burn with embarrassment.

"I, er... I mean..."

A smile, a knowing smile and Lucille crawled back up the bed, lying down beside her.

"Go on, then," she said, reaching down between her own legs.

Another kiss and then Thomas was wriggling out from beneath her, moving on top, pausing for a moment just to stare at the two of them, groaning lightly when Lucille turned Edith's face towards her and pulled her into a messy, showy kiss.

"That's really not fair," he said, lining up and easing his way into Edith's body.

He was gentle at first, but before too long, he was giving her something faster, harder. She was certainly relaxed and eager enough for it; Lucille had seen to that. She was so, so close right away, feeling herself almost coming immediately, angling her hips upwards and nearly forgetting to breathe...

Her hips jumped as she hit her peak, Thomas using his thumb to help her over the edge, clenching hard around his length and then abruptly feeling empty as he withdrew and moved, shuffling over to Lucille.

He'd still be wet from her, Edith found herself thinking, surprised that she didn't find that disgusting but really binding somehow. Lucille sighed gently, her legs already tight around Thomas's hips, the two of them clearly just chasing pleasure now, not trying to make anything last.

Just heavy breathing and quick motions, gazing at each other like the rest of the world didn't exist. And Edith felt a little pulse of fear, needing reassurance, shuffling closer to Lucille, touching her almost shyly and then reaching down her body, trying to help, seeking out where they were joined and then just a little higher...

The gasp, the arch of her back... Edith kept her hand moving, not managing terribly well, she thought, feeling Thomas's skin knock against her knuckles every few thrusts. But she had to be doing something right because Lucille keened and almost whimpered, striving for more, gasping and jerking finally. Her chest heaved and she took Edith's face in her hands once more, kissing her desperately.

"Oh," Thomas said, a sigh almost like a prayer.

He had to be close, but they could tease him still. Edith very deliberately moaned slightly, sliding her hand over Lucille's chest to one nipple, gently rolling her thumb over it, feeling her laugh against her lips. They were playing together, experimenting with what might make Thomas lose control.

Not that he realized it, she thought. He seemed to be too overwhelmed to see anything in what they were doing, to know that these particularly long and deep kisses - enjoyable though they were for their own sake, of course - were partially for his benefit.

He spilled only a minute or two later, breathing hard and coming to settle in behind Edith, nearly able to embrace them both at once.

"I'm going to have to start training to keep up with you two," he breathed, his skin a little clammy at Edith's back but she found that she didn't mind really.

Lucille smiled at her, one last goodnight kiss before she rolled over to go back to sleep.

Such nocturnal activities meant that Edith woke rather later than usual, creeping along to shower while Mags was welcoming her first tour group and heading to her office with her damp hair plaited up.

Despite her pleasant mood, her heart still dropped like a stone when she logged into her computer and saw that she finally had a response from Finlay.

Chapter 88: Replies and Reactions

Miss Edith, how are you, sweetie? Hope you're looking after yourself now you're working for two. Don't worry - no matter how much it might trouble you now with the backache and the morning sickness, it's all worth it when they're born. And then you can start enjoying sleepness nights and chafed nipples.

Well, that seemed like a good start, right? Friendly. She definitely didn't hate them or anything like that.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply, but I really wanted to think things over properly first and talk about it with June. It's not just me I have to think about you see - it's them as well.

And because of that, I don't think I'd like to be in the book.

Part of Edith had expected that, but it still hurt. It still made her heart ache to see it there, starkly typed out in default email font.

I'm sure what you're doing is right for you, but as you say, your relationship is unusual. Juney's a little concerned about that. She doesn't want gossip following the little man around when his grandma picks him up from kindergarten. She's a bit of a social climber, you know, and Lord knows we're already facing an uphill struggle with getting into some of the schools she's keen on. I'm sure nobody would really care that I once drove a van for a rock band, but she worries about that kind of thing and she is my child. Her worries are often my worries too.

She just doesn't want anyone from the PTA googling me and, instead of my career in law enforcement, reading about you and the Sharpes and your family set up being as it is. I'm sorry that that sounds judgemental but, well, some of these people are like that and June doesn't want to be near that kind of thing.

Edith understood. Of course she did. She felt quite sick knowing that there were people out there reading about her, calling her all kinds of names, deciding that they hated her, that they wished her harm. She didn't want to bring anything like that down on anyone else, however tangentially they might be connected. That was why she'd asked in the first place.

It didn't mean it didn't hurt though. It was a rejection, really. Expected but somewhat stinging.

I told you once that I'd look out for you and that's still true, if you want it to be. If you ever need advice or just someone to let things out to, I'm only an email away. Since my doctor told me to slow down a little while my body recovers from my heart surgery, I've got rather more time on my hands and it's always nice to hear from you. I know you talked about your friend in Buffalo but maybe he's not always the best person to go to with some things.

Still astute. Still reading her so easily even from all the way across the ocean. She was right, though. Alan was great, of course he was, especially with physical medical worries, but she couldn't talk to him about her relationship or anything like that. He'd worry too much. Or be jealous no matter what he claimed.

Think about it. And thank you for letting me make my own choice about the book. I can't wait to read it and I hope we can meet again in person before too long.

It was a very kind offer. Maybe she'd even take Finlay up on it. She'd have to reply, but she'd do it later, once she'd calmed down.

The door opened behind her, struggling to wipe her eyes, clearly not quickly enough.

"Oh," Pam said. "Oh, I'm sorry. I brought the font examples for you. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Edith said. "It's just that our driver Finlay doesn't want to appear in the book. I don't think I have any references to her by name but I'll have to check and there are some pictures that can't be used. Or not without editing anyway."

"That's a shame. Why not?"

Edith sighed as Pam wheeled her way round the desk.

"She doesn't want to be associated with our relationship arrangement. Which is fine and I understand, but... Well, it just gets to me sometimes, that's all. Knowing that people are judging us, that they'd judge her for being associated with us too."

It was a little uncomfortable talking about this with Pam. They didn't have that kind of friendship, or any kind of friendship come to that. They were coworkers at best.

"I suppose maybe it's difficult for people to understand that you're pregnant with Thomas's baby but you're with Lucille. People do have set ideas about these things."

It was a moment of annoyance, that was all. A passing irritation. There was no need to be cruel. And yet...

"I had sex with Thomas last night," Edith said. "I'm with both of them. I sleep in the same bed as Lucille out of convenience, but I'm in a relationship with them both. He's not single."

Pam laughed, but it was clearly forced, clearly trying to lighten the mood with her being unusually snippy.

"So you're allowed to date two people at once but they're not? That doesn't seem fair."

They already did, but she couldn't exactly just say that, could she? And it was obvious what Pam was getting at too, it was obvious what she wanted.

"He doesn't reciprocate your feelings," Edith said. "He never will. And he strings you along and takes advantage of you, they both do. Can you not see that? Picking them up from the airport, booking them tables - that kind of thing is not your job. That's not management. You wouldn't do it for your other clients."

A distinct pinkness had bled into Pam's cheeks, blinking a lot, clearly trying to keep herself under control.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she stammered.

"Come on. I'm not stupid."

"No, you think that just because the condom broke that you're special. You're not the first assistant he's slept with, you know. Just the first one who managed to trap him."

Edith felt her cheeks heat instantly, her heart thudding in her chest. Who knew Pam had that bitterness in her? Was she talking about Enola? Probably. And Thomas was flirtatious with people, that swaggering, dangerous persona he put on. But Edith believed him that there had only ever been Lucille.

Which was all kinds of messed up, but it was what it was.

"And yet he's never tried it with you," she said, twisting the knife. "Even though you want him to."

"I don't want anything from him! I don't understand why you seem to think I'm some kind of threat."

"I'm not threatened by you."

"Well, good."

Edith sighed. This had gone south very quickly and that hadn't been her intention, not really.

"Look, I'm not trying to upset you," she said. "I just don't want you to waste your time waiting for someone who won't ever be on the same page as you. If you want to find someone then you deserve to. You're a very caring and thoughtful person."

A look. Almost a glare. Quite defensive, really.

"No offense, Edith, but I really don't need a reality check from a twenty-something."

She seemed very sure about that and Edith wasn't totally convinced, awkwardly sitting in silence as she looked through the rest of her emails.

And, of course, like he could somehow sense unease in the house, Thomas knocked on the door a few minutes later and popped his head round it, his smile falling immediately.

"Everything alright?" he asked.

"Perfectly fine," Edith said. "Finlay doesn't want to be in the book, so we'll have to double check that she's not mentioned."

"I'll do that," Pam said. "And I'll add a special note to the editors to make sure."

He didn't believe them that everything was normal, but he wasn't going to demand answers just now, it seemed.

"I just wanted to warn you that Lucille is in the attic raiding the old wardrobes so you should be prepared to be made to play dress up later. I'd advise making sure you get some food first. It can go on a while."

"I will. Thank you."

A long look until she forced a smile, winking at her and taking his leave.

Pam sighed gently.

"You want to know why I like him?" she asked quietly. "It's because he's never looked at me with pity. He's never doubted me, never thought twice about asking if I can do something for him. And, yes, maybe sometimes that means that he expects too much of me, but I would rather that than being talked down to."

Had she misread this? Edith wondered. Was there really no unrequited passion there? But it felt more intense than a managerial relationship, more than mere friendship really.

"I'm sorry if I've ever made you feel that way," she said.

"You haven't. Please, don't worry about it. But I promise you, if I was going to try to make a move on Thomas, I'd have done it a long time ago. And I'm sorry for being so crude. It wasn't even true. I know that Thomas does care about you. I see that he does. And really your relationship is none of my business so if it works for the three of you..."

"I hope it will. But it's my fault. I was being unnecessarily defensive."

"Let's just forget about it, shall we?"

Slightly easier said than done, but Edith was ready to try, making some progress around fonts. She wanted something distinct but also clear and readable. The gothic lettering didn't always lend itself to that, but she narrowed it down to two or three options at least.

Pam left a little earlier than usual and Edith would be lying if she pretended it wasn't a relief, even if Thomas returned pretty soon afterwards with a face that said he wasn't going to let things go so easily.

"What really happened?" he asked softly from the doorway. "You could have made ice cubes in here earlier."

"Honestly, it's not even worth going over."

"But maybe I can help."

And if she wanted truth and openness, she should probably give that in return.

"She said something about me really only being in a relationship with Lucille. I corrected her. And then I basically told her that I know she's in love with you and that there's no point and she denied it and told me to mind my own business and stop being paranoid. Things got a little heated. But it's over now and we have agreed to move on."

"Do you mind if she loves me?"

What a strange question. There was no point in minding someone else's feelings. You couldn't change them. They couldn't change them most of the time.

"It's more that I worry about her. I worry that she's waiting for something that will never happen and that's no way to live. But she says otherwise, so maybe I've got it all wrong. Anyway, I'm going to reply to Finlay, get a sandwich or whatever and then apparently I'm trying on vintage clothes."

She'd changed the subject, but he dropped it, reaching out to squeeze her hand.

"I'll make you something."

The cursor blinked at her as she tried to work out what to type.

Dear Finlay

It's so wonderful to hear from you and I hope you're doing well. I completely understand your decision. It is a strange set up and not everyone understands. I'm glad you do, though.

I will absolutely take up your offer of advice! Moving to a new place hasn't always been easy and while Thomas and Lucille are here for me, I think it's always helpful to have someone a little removed to talk to.

For now, though, I'm supposed to be choosing a Halloween outfit. I'm really looking forward to it actually. Allerdale goes all out for spooky season.

I'll write soon. Take care of yourself.

Edith

Chapter 89: Dressing Up

The smell of dust and old lavender took Edith back to an extremely distant memory. They were clearing the house of an elderly relative who had passed. It might even have been her grandfather; she'd been too young to remember it properly.

But she did have faint recollection of cupboards and wardrobes full of plastic bags. Dry cleaners' protective covers. She'd found them very frightening, convinced that something horrible was going to come out of them when they were unzipped. Even now, they made her a little uneasy.

Lucille seemed in her element, though, surrounded by chests and old wardrobes in one of the lesser used rooms at the top of the house.

"Should we even be touching this stuff?" Edith asked. "Isn't it delicate?"

"If the National Trust had the resources, they'd probably take it all away to be preserved, but they don't. And anyway, even all the vacuum sealing in the world can't reliably keep the moths out. Being worn once or twice a year won't damage them too much."

And they were beautiful things. Gowns and dresses of silk, embroidered and decorated so delicately. Some of them looked almost structural with the boning and panels that made up their shape.

"Now, obviously, in your condition I don't think corsetry is a good idea," Lucille said. "However, I think I've found just the thing."

At first glance, Edith couldn't say that she liked it exactly. Next to the satins and velvets, it was very... plain. A white dress with a million folds in the fabric and buttons right up to the neck. It didn't even seem particularly old, really. Just a frumpy, long dress in cotton, maybe, or linen.

"It's... What is it?"

"It's a nightgown. Turn of the century, probably. Maybe belonged to our great-great-grandmother or a great-great-aunt. But it should be comfortable."

Edith felt swamped and yet also strangely exposed as she slipped it on. It was strange. It both concealed and revealed every curve and line of her body.

And Lucille was looking at her with a lot of warmth for some reason.

"Do you remember when we first met?" she asked. "One of the first things we did together was clothes shopping. Trying on corsets together."

"I do. You told me I looked hot."

"You did."

It still embarrassed her a little. And that had been when the Sharpes' plan - the original plan, the one that involved so much manipulation and cruelty - had been just starting out.

"Did you say that to get me used to the idea of getting comments like that?" she asked. "Was it part of... the thing?"

Lucille frowned a little, rummaging amongst more wrapped fabrics.

"I mean, I suppose I was trying to get you off balance," she said. "But mainly I just genuinely felt it. That first little glimmer of attraction, even if I didn't realize that's what it was."

"Because I'm a woman?"

A little glance towards the door.

"More like because you're not Thomas," she said softly. "It'll be cold with the front door open so I thought this might help."

Oh, now this felt antique rather than just old-fashioned; almost a brocade dressing gown, green and cream with the most enormous puffed sleeves, wing-like, padded and quilted and beautiful. It felt comforting, like a blanket you could wear, floor-length like a cape.

"You've never been attracted to anyone else?" Edith asked, feeling much more fancy.

"Well... I notice attractive people, but it would never usually cross my mind to tell them about it or act on it. I have the femme fatale air, but I don't tend to flirt the way Thomas does. I act aloof and distant and people project whatever interest they wish onto that. But then you came along and shook us up."

Edith smiled at her even as she knew she was about to stir things a little.

"Do you think Thomas ever flirts for real?" she asked.

Lucille's laughter echoed slightly.

"Now, don't get me wrong," she said. "I know I'm monstrous and cruel. I know I abused him. I know that. I didn't, at the time. I couldn't recognize that something we did from love - even our strange, twisted version of it - could be wrong. And now we're in too deep, too entangled in each other to let go. But I know that I didn't completely screw him up because I know he is still attracted to other, normal people. He pretends he isn't, but he is. But I know he'd never act on it."

"You're not a monster..." Edith said uncertainly.

"I am. But I'm your monster. Yours and Thomas's. And maybe I always knew really that there was something missing between the two of us because I noticed that Thomas was drawn to women who had something I didn't."

"And what's that?"

"Vulnerability."

Edith couldn't help feeling skeptical. As far as she could tell, Lucille was plenty vulnerable. And Thomas comforted her then. He was the one who'd made her feel safe enough to sleep for so many years. He held her when she cried, calmed her when she raged.

"You think I'm vulnerable?" she said instead.

"It's not a bad thing. When I need support, I struggle to let him help me until I'm almost at breaking point because I feel that's my job. You let him play that nourishing role. He likes feeling that you need him. It's partially why he likes Pam too."

She knew nothing about the argument of earlier - though she'd probably hear about it before long - and Edith did her best to keep her face neutral.

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"I think one of his fears has always been that he needs me more than I need him. I make the hard choices, I do the bad things so he doesn't have to. Which is ridiculous, really. I need him more than I can say, more than I know probably, but maybe it's hard for him to feel that."

"But you think Pam needs him?"

A pause.

"No. She would be fine if she got over him, maybe if she met someone else. But I think on a subconscious level that he likes that she likes him when he doesn't feel the same. He kind of likes having that control over his own feelings, knowing someone else is in deeper than him, because all our lives he and I been in this together, completely together, and that can be frightening. I don't even know if I'm expressing myself clearly right now, but that's... That's what I think anyway."

Edith tried to make sense of that, of what she was implying.

"You think I love him more than he loves me?" she asked quietly.

"Of course not! No. If anything, the other way round. Thomas and I are completely baffled by how much we love you. Never happened before. But because it's relatively new, because it's happened as adults, because you're very good at laying out rules and boundaries, he feels safer. Most things are under control. It's different to being so very young, as we were, and everything being so confusing and strange, good and bad all at once. I kept him safe from our parents. You keep us safe from ourselves. And I like to think vice versa, to an extent."

Edith didn't like thinking about their early relationship. It made her feel ill. They'd been so young, too young, and she couldn't help wondering in the back of her mind if Lucille's abuse had driven her towards it somehow. Her lack of control had pushed her to find a situation where she had the upper hand. Or maybe it was something else within them both, some strange, unnatural urge that could be environmental or genetic or some combination of both... Either way, she was part of the continuation of that deeply unhealthy dynamic now and she hated being reminded of that.

Thomas knocked at the door, grinning when he saw her.

"It suits you," he said. "You look positively spectral. Or you will, with the right make-up."

"Thank you."

"Of course, by Victorian standards, you're dangerously deshabillé. Practically naked."

He laughed as she fluffed out all the fabric, fold upon fold of it, completely disguising her body.

"We'll need to get you some wool stockings," he said. "Or some slippers maybe. I'm not having any cold toes."

Looking out for her. Wanting to take care of her, just as Lucille said.

They carefully rehung the clothes, ready for Halloween. She was looking forward to it, even as she felt she still needed to practice her piano part a lot more to be ready.

The next morning in her list of joys, Edith typed Being needed and needing in return.

After thinking for a while, she copied it into her list of fears as well.

Chapter 90: Halloween at Allerdale

A woman came into the parlour and shrieked and Edith practically saw the piano stool shake as Lucille tried her best not to giggle.

They looked good, she had to admit. She'd been a bit nervous of putting make-up near the antiques so Lucille had done it for her, white powder and shadowy eyes, hints of pink on her cheeks but very much just a hint. She'd paled out her lips and that made her look very strange.

Actually, for a moment, she'd looked in the mirror and seen a ghost, the memory of how she'd looked when she was malnourished and ill. She didn't have the thinned hair or the gaunt face or the weakness, but that anemic look, that was familiar.

But here she was, alive, carrying new life within her. It still astonished her when she thought about it.

And Lucille looked incredible. She was playing piano solos in between renditions of their duet - which was getting better and better every time and might even be serviceable by the end of the day - and it was all Edith could do to keep her eyes off her as she gently paced the mezzanine.

The dress could have been made for her if it hadn't been stitched more than a hundred years before she was born. Late 19th-century, she said, older than Edith's nightgown by ten or twenty years at least.

Maybe it was part of being nobility, being able to wear your ancestors' clothes effortlessly.

It was a red dress, made in silk or satin that seemed to glow in the soft light. The skirt was enormous, a pool of scarlet that Thomas had artfully helped drape around the floor - stunning and preventing anyone getting too close to her. Every inch of her was covered except her head and hands, lacing in the back almost like a protruding spine, giving the strangest illusion from behind.

No wonder Mags was having trouble moving her tour groups along. They all wanted to stop and watch her. They all felt that magnetism.

A hand on her shoulder made Edith start, even though she ought to have known it was Thomas creeping about the place.

"How's it going?" he asked softly.

"Good, I think."

"It certainly sounds good. I've been enjoying hearing you together."

"You're not using your headphones?"

"Not today. I'm mainly doing exports and and conversions, compressions and other very boring technical things. Proof-reading some of the lyrics we already have locked in."

He moved just slightly, closer, his hand on her waist, gently easing her hair to the side so he could murmur in her ear.

"Play for me."

She recoiled, tickled by his breath at her neck, finally looking at him. He'd dressed up too since the morning, though she thought this was something from his own wardrobe; a dark waistcoat with his crisp shirt, a black cravat, the faintest hint of a pattern emboidered into both of them.

"You look nice," she said.

"Thank you. Menswear isn't nearly as interesting as what you get to try out, but I thought I'd make an effort. Please play. When Lucille's finished this piece, of course."

"No. I'm too embarrassed to play in front of people."

"But you've been playing in public all day."

"That's not the same! Lucille and I talked about this a lot - I'll never see these people again so it doesn't matter what they think."

"You'll see Mags again."

Ah. Yes, he rather had her there. But Mags was so nice, so unshakably kind and cheerful. It wasn't the same.

"She's not a professional musician."

"Please," he said, finding her hand and squeezing it lightly. "The acoustics down here are much better than what I catch upstairs."

What was she really afraid of? He wouldn't expect her to be perfect. And yet she felt so nervous as he led her down the half flight of stairs and over to the piano, almost like they were dancing some kind of formal ballroom routine for a moment or two, brushing his lips against her knuckles as he delivered her to Lucille's side.

"I do hope he's not been bullying you," Lucille said.

"Encouraging me rather firmly, that's all."

A smile from her perfect red lips - surely far too scandalous a shade for the original owner of this dress - and she turned the pages of her piles of music to the simple duet.

"Ready?"

"No. But I'll do it anyway."

"Right. One, two, three, two, two, three..."

She saw the picture later that evening. Alan sent it to her, a photo going around the Crimson Peak fans online that someone had taken from inside the house. In some ways, the knowledge that anyone who paid could just walk in worried her a little, but on the other hand...

You all look so good! Sorry I've been so busy at work - I'm free this week in the afternoons your time if you want to call.

They did look good. Someone had a high-quality camera. She was at the back, but leaning forward so much that she was clearly visible with her heavy make-up and her loose waves of hair. It was the hands that distracted her most. Hers and Lucille's on the keys, so close but not touching, looking so elegant. Lucille was like some kind of life-sized porcelain doll, her skin perfect, not a single hair our of place.

And behind the piano, Thomas was looking at them both with such warmth, such affection. He looked like he did in private, not when he was performing. Like they'd been alone, like there hadn't been polite applause from the visitors after they played the last chords.

Edith liked it. Really liked it. Wondered about printing it as she replied to Alan suggesting maybe Wednesday and took off the make-up, comfortable and warm in her shorts, t-shirt and a more modern robe that Thomas had found for her.

Lucille was similarly relaxed, cross-legged in one of the kitchen chairs, but still fully made up, a blanket draped around her shoulders over her red pyjamas, like she'd shed an outer shell.

"Thomas wants us to curl up on his couch and watch a scary movie," she said. "As long as you're not too tired."

"I can stay up. Are you... horror fans, then?"

Lucille smiled at her, undoing her braids.

"It's fun to be scared in a safe environment sometimes."

That made sense. And when you'd been through real horror, maybe it helped to process it somehow, being able to address your emotions and traumas from a removed, pretend place.

"I've been thinking," Thomas said as he set up his projector - because of course using one of his monitors wasn't cinematic enough. "About Christmas."

"What about it?" Lucille asked suspiciously.

"Well, I know you're not a Christmassy person, but I thought maybe it could be a good deadline for our songs and poems. A little gift from each of us to the other two."

Hm. A deadline was a good idea, but Edith knew she hadn't worked on it in far too long. She'd tried, but it was eluding her. Writer's block maybe.

"Is that just because you've finished yours?" Lucille asked.

"I'm mostly done," Thomas said, adjusting the focus. "It needs more work, but I think it's nearly there. But it's more or less two months away. Plenty of time, I thought."

Lucille fluffed the blanket out, making sure there was an even spread for them all.

"What do you think, Edith?"

"Well... I can certainly try, but it might not be ready."

"That's alright," Thomas said. "It was just a thought."

"I can't believe Christmas is so close," Lucille said. "The house will be unrecognisable soon."

She said that like she didn't like it.

"How do you mean?" Edith asked.

"The Trust provide a tree and we have a lot of antique decorations for it. That's fine, that's traditional. But Mags insists on her little snowmen and reindeer and fake holly all up the stairs. She means well, I know, but that cheap plastic next to 19th-century gilt glass baubles from Germany... I can hardly bear it."

"Did you have them up when you were kids?"

"Oh, God, no. We found them in a store room a few years ago and if we have to have a tree then it might as well be decorated tastefully and in keeping with the house. No, we didn't really decorate. Mother wrote cards. I remember that, the vitally important lists of cards sent and cards received. Not getting one from some acquaintance was a dreadful snubb. But she never displayed them. And Father used it as an excuse to drink more, so... We don't exactly have good memories of the season, really."

"Well, maybe we can start to change that."

After all, she had very good memories of Christmas. Going to bed early and lying awake as long as she could, hoping to catch Santa Claus. Going through to her parents' bed in the morning, all warm and safe to open her stocking. Twinkling lights and hot chocolate and Christmas songs and feeling so loved and protected and like there were no bad things in the world.

Those were the kinds of memories she wanted her child to have.

"Are we all ready?" Thomas asked, settling onto his side of the couch.

"I think so," Edith said.

She wasn't, as it turned out. She was very jumpy, easily surprised and scared. This was no teenage slasher like she'd watched at slumber parties - or at least would have done if she hadn't spent her prime slumber party years not being very well - and it wasn't really a gore-fest either, though there was rather a lot of blood. It was something much more psychological, hints and suggestions of horror and occasional shocking images that made her feel chills even with the warmth of Lucille's body beside her.

But at least afterwards, she didn't have to scurry off to bed alone, Lucille holding her hand as Thomas went ahead to turn on all the lights for them, not allowing her to walk through so much as a shadow until she was safely under the covers, far away from the edges and any imaginary grasping hands that might get her.

An old house like this was not a good place to lie in the dark after a scary movie. Creaks and groans, the sound of wind in the chimneys...

And the Sharpes fell asleep easily. Maybe because they knew that they were the scariest thing in this house. The scariest people still living here, anyway.

Oddly enough, that made her feel a little safer. Things that weren't real couldn't harm her, and people who were real didn't want to.

It was easier not to be scared when you knew the darkness loved you.

Notes:

In my head, they just watched Hereditary but feel free to substitute any spooky film of your choosing!

Chapter 91: Fluttering

"So how are you? You're not getting too cold?"

Edith looked at the little square with Alan's face in it and tried to answer honestly.

"Not cold. I'm making good use of blankets and sweaters and portable heaters but I'm definitely... I don't want to say I'm feeling pregnant because that sounds ridiculous, but, I mean, I'm nearly halfway now. And that's exciting and scary at the same time. I keep worrying. And then Thomas and Lucille tell me not to worry because stress is bad for you and that makes me worry more. But I'm nearly at the point where if something did happen then they might... survive anyway."

"What are your doctors saying?"

"I'm booked in for my 20-week scan so I guess I'll find out then. And I'm trying to reassure myself that I've done everything right and that if they find something then it's just one of those things."

"And it's unlikely."

"But unlikely things happen every day. Someone has to be unlucky."

She couldn't help it. This was just how her mind worked. Any possibility, especially a negative one, had to be thoroughly investigated. What if there was a fatal abnormality? How would she cope with that? How would Thomas and Lucille cope? What terrible lies would be spread around about her online? People would say she did something to cause it. People would say the whole thing was a publicity stunt and she was never really pregnant. People would say she lied to trap Thomas in a relationship.

And then she knew she'd be compelled to include it in the book. To an extent, she knew she already was. Her relationship was in the public domain.

But she didn't want that for her child. She wanted them to have a chance at a normal life.

A normal life with three parents and a manor house and strangers around all the time and so many secrets and lies and shadows...

But still. She didn't want pictures of them to be commodities. She wanted them to develop at their own pace, in their own time, into their own person who would be British and American and old-fashioned and modern and all the other things combined.

And if something did go wrong then she wanted to keep that private. She didn't want to have to display her grief for strangers to judge.

"Have they... moved yet?" Alan asked.

Ah. Yes, that was the other thing.

"No," Edith sighed. "Not yet. But I looked it up and apparently it's normal in your first pregnancy not to feel it until after twenty weeks, so..."

It had been a few days ago that she'd suddenly woken up with fear tight in her chest and needed to find out immediately when she should feel kicking. Around sixteen weeks at the earliest, but it was different for different people apparently.

"I'm not sure if I'll know it when I feel it though," she said. "They say it's like a fluttering? I'll probably mistake it for nervous butterflies."

"You'll know," Alan said with a certainty she didn't understand. "And I can't wait to hear all about it."

Every day, she wondered about every twinge, every sensation in her body. Was that them? Was that her baby? Or was she imagining it?

By the time the appointment finally rolled around and Thomas was driving her to the clinic on a chilly afternoon, she felt like either way, her heart might burst.

"Everything's fine, Edith," he said, sensitive to her worries. "You're OK. You're both OK."

"I want to see them. I want to know."

Frankly, she wanted to stride right in and try to operate the scanner herself, but she was obliged to wait for her consultant, Thomas's arm wrapped around her only offering a little reassurance.

And actually getting into the room was worse because the doctor sighed and looked at her very seriously, deep brown eyes boring into her soul.

"I've had some of your notes sent over from America," she said. "You're more complex than you were letting on. I really must insist on seeing you alone, Ms Cushing."

Thomas put up no fight, squeezing her shoulder as he returned to the waiting room.

"What do you mean?" Edith asked. "What's wrong?"

"I understand you were hospitalized as a teenager with an eating disorder. You should have told me that. We have specific support available."

This was such a waste of time.

"No. No, I... I'm recovered. I don't need counselling or anything anymore. I'm fine."

"Your body is changing. That's difficult even for people without your history."

"My problems were never about my body size or shape or anything like that. They were about fear of illness. And now my body is managing to grow another person - what better sign that I'm alright could there be? I never thought this could happen to me. I want nothing more, I hardly think about anything else than looking after them. I'm fine."

"Most eating disorders aren't really about the body. They're about a lack of control. They're about trying to control the body, not necessarily what it looks like. And right now, you're sharing yours with someone else and we need to be very careful with how that affects both your physical and mental health."

She didn't understand. But then again, why would she? Edith found it hard to explain, hard to rationalize out loud. That was the whole problem, that the illness had made her irrational, damaging her body in her pursuit of health even when she intellectually knew that that was what she was doing.

"I thought I had made this impossible," she said carefully. "I thought I had damaged my fertility permanently. That's what they told me was the most likely outcome. But now I'm here. And it wasn't planned, it wasn't thought about, but I'm so excited to have a child."

"Are you excited about being pregnant?"

Was she?

"It's a lot of responsibility," she said uncertainly. "I... I do worry a lot. But I think that's normal. I don't think I need counselling for it."

A turned page, a note scrawled on it. Edith couldn't read it upside down, though she did try.

"Well, I can only advise. If you don't feel you need therapy then I won't force you. But please be aware that it is available and let me know what would help you."

"Seeing the baby would help. I haven't felt them move yet, or I don't think I have, and I'm... I'm worried."

"OK."

She brought Thomas back as Edith got up onto the hard medical bed, pulling her shirt up over the little bump in her abdomen.

Finally hearing that whooshing noise, seeing the dome of a head, Edith felt like she exhaled properly for the first time in weeks.

"They're OK?" she asked, unconsciously finding Thomas's hand.

"Perfectly fine. They'll move soon. Some just take a while to get going."

The sound was so soothing. Why did you have to wait so long between times?

"Is there any way I can get extra scans?" she asked.

"Well, you can pay for commercial ones, but I don't recommend them."

"Why not? Are they dangerous?"

"Not at all, but they're often performed by staff without clinical training. I've seen some mistakes made. Seeing problems that aren't there or missing things that are."

Mm. The risk of false reassurance would consume her, she knew it. Maybe she'd have to learn to be patient in this. And in waiting for movement.

She was extra obedient through all the other tests, knowing she was causing a little trouble for her medical team by refusing to engage in their mental health routine. She wanted these tests. While the sterile environment made her uneasy, she wanted all the blood checks and urine sampling and everything else. She wanted all the information they could give her.

On the drive home, she kept waiting for Thomas to ask her what they'd discussed without him, but he didn't. Respecting her privacy, trying to let her set boundaries without testing them first. Maybe that was progress.

She didn't plan to bring it up. The last thing she needed was him worrying about her mental wellbeing more than he already did.

She didn't need counselling. Thomas and Lucille maybe could use some, but that was none of her business really.

On the second week of December, around 22 weeks, she first knew for certain that she'd felt the baby move. Not from the outside, not yet, but there was a strange, alien sensation within her. Fluttering, they said, but it was nothing like nerves or fear; it was wonderful.

And she kept it to herself. Just for a little while.

A first little secret between the two of them.

Chapter 92: Pastry

Notes:

*shows up with the first of maybe two Christmas chapters nearly two weeks late with lukewarm (non-poisoned) tea*

Lucille might not like the Christmas decorations, but Edith did. She loved the fake holly garlands winding their way up the banisters and the traditional Victorian dried oranges with cloves and the sprigs of realistic artificial mistletoe.

And most of all, she loved the tree. It was the biggest she'd ever seen, the height of the hall allowing for it to tower over them, three sets of plain white lights spiralled around its branches, beautiful red baubles in several different sizes and finishes - shiny and matte and glittery and patterned and flocked - and an ornate, almost filigree silver star at the top.

The smell... The smell was divine. Every time she passed it, she'd touch some of the needles, rubbing them lightly, letting that delicious pine scent spark beneath her fingers and follow her upstairs.

She even liked Mags's plastic snowmen and reindeer. They looked so well loved, slightly worse for wear but from affection where the other decorations had clearly been kept untouched like they were precious. They just looked so cheerful next to the till and the stunning winter postcard display of Allerdale in the snow, all dark and imposing and with one set of perfect crimson footprints.

But she didn't like trying to finish her poem. She hadn't worked on it in so, so long.

In England, a room will become ours,
Mine and yours.
A place to sleep and talk and love
Morning alarms, late nights, lie-ins
At Christmas, our child can bring in their stocking
Or come through after a nightmare and wake us
And know that they are safe

In England, the house will become ours,
Mine and yours.
A place for us, three together
Chasing out the ghosts

Mm. No, this needed changed. It needed parts removed. Or added to. She quite liked repeating England though. Reinforcing her attachment to her new home, with the Sharpes, her desire to build a new life here.

It was a difficult line; she wanted to emphasise her connection to the two of them, but at the same time, there weren't three of them really, but four now.

The baby was definitely kicking her now, definitely moving. She still hadn't told anyone about it, apart from Alan who she'd excitedly messaged as soon as she was sure. It was still only an internal feeling though, nothing someone touching her would be able to feel. It was still her little secret.

She loved the sensation though. She'd catch herself smiling as she felt that bizarre bubbling that proved they were there, they were alive.

Sometimes she spoke to them. Not out loud other than the occasional "Oof," but she thought really hard.

"Hey. Good morning. It's cold, huh? I'll just get the fan heater on."

It was dumb, really. They might share her blood and nutrients and calcium, but they couldn't read her thoughts. They wouldn't even understand English yet.

She'd even Googled it, trying to estimate when they'd start to hear her voice, hear Lucille and Thomas, hear music... Not just yet, it seemed, though they could already hear her heartbeat. She hoped it was comforting to them, a nice steady whooshing.

Well... Usually steady.

She hadn't heard Lucille come into the office - and thankfully she was doing some emailing with the publisher to agree some layouts at the time rather than anything sensitive - jumping almost out of her skin at the hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't mean to startle you," she said.

"That's OK. What's up?"

"Well, I'm struggling with my song a little bit so I decided I would take a break and do the supermarket order for Christmas and then I realized that we didn't have Thanksgiving for you."

No. No, they hadn't. But, of course, it wasn't a thing here. And she'd been so worried and keen for her twenty week scan that she'd really kind of forgotten about it until after the fact.

"I suppose we didn't," she said. "But that's alright. I've never been that into it."

"Still, I was wondering if there's any traditional foods that I could try to get for you? Cranberry sauce or... whatever a yam is? Most people here have turkey for Christmas dinner, but I'm afraid we're planning to go for goose. Tradition, you know."

Maybe it was thinking so much about the future, about wanting to give their baby a safe and loving childhood, that gave her a sudden rush of nostalgia for baking when she was very young.

"Could you get pumpkin pie filling? My... My mom used to bake one every year. The canned stuff is fine, it doesn't need to be fancy."

Lucille smiled at her.

"I will do my best."

And she'd clearly looked into the whole recipe because she laid everything out for Edith in the old kitchen on Christmas Eve - antique pie dishes and baking beans, both ready-made pastry and the flour, chilled butter and sugar to make it from scratch, cinnamon and vanilla and star anise...

Plus one tin of pumpkin puree.

That smell... Just taking the lid off for a quick sniff was incredible. Suddenly Edith was back in her childhood kitchen before her mom got sick, before she got sick, before her dad... Before all of it, a chill November night, watching her mother roll out pastry and blend up fresh pumpkin with spices, excited for the next day.

Right. Could she remember how to do this?

She had to wrestle with the oven a little to convince it to turn on and then set about flouring the table and making her dough.

It was meditative. Getting her hands into the butter, that cold slippery feeling against her fingertips.

This was an old house. Hundreds of people must have made pastry here before her. Servants probably for the most part. It was an oddly comforting thought that even though there had been so much pain and suffering here, there had also been homely, domestic things. She felt like she was communing with them, with people long dead whose names she might never know and with her mother and with her unborn child.

Or maybe she was being far too romantic about flour and sugar.

Blind bake the case for ten minutes, mix up the filling...

It smelled good. Not quite like the one in her memories but delicious all the same.

And it clearly sent out whatever the nasal equivalent of a siren song was, drawing Thomas and Lucille to her.

"You did it all yourself?" Lucille asked as she tried to wash up in the huge, deep sink. "I wasn't sure if you'd make the pastry."

"It was nice. Soothing."

"Well, the vegetables are all prepared upstairs and we just need to put everything in the ovens and then relax."

"I thought you didn't like Christmas," Edith said.

"Not overly," Thomas said. "But, well... This is our first one all together. Maybe we'll warm up to it now."

The edges of her pie were a little browner than she'd hoped, but overall not a bad attempt.

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" Lucille asked. "I mean, I know Thomas has finished his song, but I must admit, I'm not sure I'm totally happy with mine."

"Me neither," Edith said gratefully. "But I don't think it will ever be finished if I'm honest. Some things are just works in progress, you know?"

Those smiles. They still made her melt. Lucille's looking so real, Thomas's almost shy. They were all working on themselves, weren't they?

Still, she was as ready as she'd ever be, waking to Lucille playing somber Christmas carols - In The Bleak Midwinter, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, O Come O Come Emmanuel. Thomas was already up, and had been for some time if the chill on his part of the bed was anything to go by.

Edith got up and into her dressing gown and slippers, slightly disappointed to find only a grey, dull day outside and not the perfect postcard winter scene she'd been hoping for.

Thomas was already in the little upstairs kitchen, warm from the oven, a fairly large goose sitting on the table fresh from the butcher.

"Is that going to fit?" Edith asked.

"Never in a million years - I'm just giving it a small troupe of potato friends and then it will be down to the old cooker. Now - what kind of delicious festive beverage can I prepare for you this morning?"

It was too early for her to face hot chocolate, but she was chilly from sleep, grateful for tea. Thomas kissed her on the scalp before taking his baking tray out to the elevator. She could hear it clanking, and the faint sound of his voice, speaking to Lucille. And at the end of the verse, the music stopped.

"Merry Christmas," she murmured as she heard light footsteps in the hallway.

"Yes," Lucille said. "Or it will be. I was thinking we could eat in the dining room."

"With all the antiques? Is that allowed?"

"Well, obviously we'll use a tablecloth. But it's ours really. We ought to be able to use it, even if I won't necessarily tell Mags. I was actually going to ask for your help. It's much easier to set up with two and Thomas is going to be micromanaging lunch all morning - he's an artist, after all, even in food. To be honest, I think he's quite anxious about it, about everything being perfect. I say we set the table beautifully for him and then dress ourselves beautifully too."

It sounded wonderful, she couldn't deny it, finishing her tea and following Lucille along to a huge chest of drawers, full of beautiful linens, choosing a cream cover with damask embroidery.

"Are you sure we can use this?" she asked. "It's not... delicate or anything?"

"Of course we can. It's acrylic blend circa 1992, I believe. That's why the moths haven't eaten it."

They took it downstairs to the dining hall, carefully moving all the decorative items from the table and shaking it out over the top, carefully placing out real silverware. Two forks each, two knives, one dessert spoon, serving spoons in the middle of the three chairs they'd actually be using.

"Something's missing," Lucille said, a light frown on her face. "I'm not sure what but I'm sure it will come to me. Now, what do you have by way of outfits?"

Not many, certainly not nicer ones that fit her at the moment, but they were able to improvise. Nothing too tight, borrowing one of Thomas's shirts to wear over black leggings. It was huge on her and very, very short at the same time, a simple loose belt showing her rounded figure just a little.

She was doing her make-up in the bathroom mirror when Lucille called to her along the corridor.

"Is this too much?" she asked, beckoning her behind the door.

Edith stared at her. It was too much frankly, next to her, but it was also absolutely perfect.

In all their time together, she had never seen Lucille in an outfit like this. It was a ballgown of sorts, but that wasn't unusual.

The neckline was, though. It was off the shoulder, a beautiful line of red satin that skimmed the top of her breasts and flowed round her biceps. The scars on her back would be visible. And even with them, her and Thomas, the two people she loved best, that clearly frightened her.

And so Edith stood on tiptoe to kiss her, squeezing her hands, trying to be reassuring.

"You look wonderful," she said. "And Thomas will love this on you too."

Was that a blush? Maybe.

And then definitely a gong sounding downstairs. Christmas lunch. Or at least the appetizers perhaps. The goose was surely going to need a few more hours.

"You go ahead," Lucille said. "I've realised what I've forgotten."

It was surreal to take her place in a formal dining hall. She felt very small, very strange. And there was already food here. Vol-au-vents and blinis and odd little things she couldn't identify, the elevator rattling down, bringing Thomas with yet another plate.

"When did you have time to make all this?" Edith asked.

"The modern convenience of frozen, oven-ready party food. It was mainly a matter of getting it all ready at the same time. You look lovely, by the way."

"Thank you."

His eyes lit up when Lucille entered, stunned just as Edith had been. He even jumped up to pull her chair out for her, kissing her shoulder, probably right on one of her scars.

"I remembered what it was," she was saying. "Crackers. Remind me to pay Mags for them - can't have the gift shop till short."

Paper crowns, terrible jokes and strange little trinkets along with mini quiches and smoked salmon and fruit juice; it wasn't like any Christmas lunch Edith had ever had before, but as they clinked glasses with her, she was certain.

Despite everything, right at this moment, there was nowhere she'd rather be.

Chapter 93: Poetry

Goose was fattier and gamier than anything Edith was used to but she didn't dislike it and the flavour it gave to potatoes and parsnips was rich and delicious.

She also appreciated Brussels sprout and their bitterness, salty from being cooked with pancetta. There was something refreshingly earthy about them, like tiny cabbages.

She felt rather full by the time Thomas insisted on fetching dessert himself, bringing back her pumpkin pie with the ceremony of a grand gateau.

He couldn't stop smiling, it seemed, that strange shy smile that he so often seemed unconscious of, unaware. Edith thought Lucille was thinking the very same thing, looking at her through the candlesticks.

Toasts became a running joke between them, every turn in conversation prompting a new one for all that none of them were drinking anything stronger than pear and barley. To Christmas. To geese. To potatoes. To music. To love. To life.

With her slice of pie, delicately topped with whipped cream and a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, Edith raised her glass.

"To... To the unexpected," she said. "To things turning out well despite unbelievable odds."

"To forgiveness," Lucille offered back. "And those gracious enough to give it."

She felt her heart squeeze, almost overwhelmed, almost unable to bear the sense of responsibility laid upon her, the one who held their relationship in her hands. She could break their hearts at any time and yet she knew in doing so she'd break her own despite the terrible crimes they had committed against her and that was so, so deeply unhealthy and...

"To this delicious pumpkin pie," Thomas said, rescuing her. "Cheers."

It really wasn't bad, certainly not for a first attempt.

"Clearing up is a Boxing Day job," Thomas said, gathering the dishes into piles but no more than that, blowing out the candles nearest his place. "But right now, I have a song to play you."

He was clearly very excited about it, very keen for them to hear it. But Edith knew she was going to struggle to focus, being as nervous as she was.

Go first and get it out of the way or go last and put it off for as long as possible?

Go after two professional musicians slash lyricists? No, no, no...

"Can I do mine first?" she asked. "I have my notes upstairs, I can go get them."

"Of course," Thomas said. "We'll wait for you."

For the first time since arriving, she was glad that Allerdale had a ridiculous number of stairs. It slowed her down. It delayed everything, just for a few moments.

Like ripping off a band-aid, Edith. Rip off a band-aid.

They loved her. They would be nice about it. Admittedly, she thought she might be able to tell they were lying, but all the same.

She fetched her sheet of paper, descending the stairs already in the dark, only Christmas tree lights to guide her. They made the familiar creepy shadows almost festive.

The Sharpes had moved to the parlour, where Lucille's piano was waiting, the smaller lamps casting a warm glow over the room. They hadn't lit the fire - Edith wasn't sure that was allowed and, besides, they didn't have any wood or anything - but they had the fan heaters running, warming the room, the two of them curled up on the plush couch under the mezzanine.

"Um," Edith said. "OK. I started writing this before we came back, so it's a bit... Yeah. And it's quite short."

After years of writing courses, seminars and workshops, she was relatively used to reading out loud. But it wasn't the same. She'd always managed to detach herself, to stay hidden and separate. This was too close for comfort.

Deep breaths. It's just Thomas and Lucille.

"In England, a room has become ours,
Mine and yours.
We'll need another, but that's alright,
It's big enough
A place to sleep and talk and love
Morning alarms, late nights, lie-ins
One day, our child will sleep nearby
In their own space
But know they can always come through and wake us
And know that they are safe

"In England, the house is becoming ours,
Mine and yours.
Other people come here too, but that's alright,
It's big enough
A place for us, three together,
Very soon four
Chasing out the ghosts and holding them back
Doing our best
Learning to live together, growing and changing
Growing older side by side

"In England, my heart has become yours,
Yours and theirs.
More loves than I ever knew could fit,
But that's alright,
It's big enough."

It was simultaneously too florid and too simple, she thought, but she'd managed to express what she wanted, more or less. A bit of fear, a lot of love and tenderness, excitement and worries for the future.

She hadn't looked up at them while she was reading and she felt almost shy to see their faces.

What was she worried about? They both looked completely thrilled. Impressed even maybe. Or perhaps just touched.

She didn't often talk about her feelings openly. It felt too dangerous even now. But this was also a relief, having it done, getting to go and join them on the couch and be kissed and caressed.

She still had a lot of fears and worries - she wouldn't feel safe about being pregnant until the baby was safely in her arms and she knew that then she'd embark on a new routine of worrying about them being out in the outside world. Maybe that was just part of being a parent.

She worried about the book, about what the reaction would be from both the public and from Thomas and Lucille when they finally read it. Her old, probing words, trying to get under their skin and not managing at all until they got under hers.

She worried about Pam. And the house. And Alan.

But at least she didn't have to worry about poetry anymore.

"Ladies first?" Thomas asked.

"No," Lucille said. "You're clearly desperate to let us hear it. I can wait."

She draped an arm around Edith's shoulders as Thomas plugged in several speakers to his laptop, the pale glow of it sharpening the angles of his face, giving him a strange pallor.

"I'm cheating a little since I'm not playing it live," he said. "But I promise I recorded all the instruments myself."

It made Edith smile to imagine it, spending time in the studio laying down track after track, building up layers of sound.

It started with piano. Edith wasn't quite sure what was different between his playing and Lucille's, but she could definitely tell it was him. Maybe it was the way it seemed to mark a little time with chords before the guitar started, far more confident, complex playing under strange sonic effects, the steady pulse of a drum beneath it all, a bass guitar keeping time.

No lyrics but more and more sound, loops of play overlapping, sometimes discordantly but then resolving, and then something else, something outside their usual instruments.

It was eerie. It was a little like a theramin, but she knew how they sounded and it wasn't like that. Still, that strange electronic tone soared like a flute. It gave the music shape somehow, a feeling that was at once euphoric and tinged with melancholy. Maybe it was the key it was in.

She wished she understood a little more of what they seemed to treat as second nature musically.

"What was that... sound?" she asked when the piece faded, ending on a beautiful echoing high note. "It's stunning."

"It's me," Thomas said. "It's my voice. I was trying to write lyrics but I wasn't managing to say what I wanted so I just sang a note, looped it, cleaned it up a little and then pitch-shifted it for the melody I heard in my mind. Did you... like it?"

Edith nodded, thinking about the poetry of embedding something as fundamental as his voice into the music in an unrecognisable form, hidden in plain sight. Or plain sound.

"Lucille?" he asked.

But she shook her head.

"No," she said. "It's not ready yet."

"Alright. You just let us know."

Edith knew if it had been her going last, she'd have just forced herself to do it, powered through her nerves feeling underprepared and inadequate.

Maybe it was better sometimes to simply admit you weren't ready.

Chapter 94: Red Spots

The beginning of spring snuck up on her. Just the first glimmers of it. After what seemed like weeks of gray skies and early darkness and horrible sleety hail rattling off the windows, she suddenly noticed a warm sun beam shining through the window of her office, through spiders' webs that she couldn't yet climb up to clean. It wasn't warm outside, still frosty a lot of the time, but at least she'd seen a glimpse of sun in February.

She felt like she was swelling by the day. She'd started receiving a lot more information from her doctors; whooping cough vaccination reminder, pelvic floor exercises, reassurance about stretch marks and water retention.

There was so much she hadn't known. Like her hair. It was thicker than it had been in years, apparently a fairly common side effect of pregnancy. That was quite a nice surprise.

The nosebleeds weren't. The first one had come as a shock, going about her day normally and then she leant forward and felt the rush of warm liquid, the horrible iron taste. She managed to only get a few smears on her keyboard, Pam gasping and getting her some tissues. Just one of those things really.

The second one made her more concerned. One freak nosebleed was one thing, but two...

Gripping her nose and hurrying to the bathroom, she called for Thomas, for Lucille, whichever of them was closest, not even sure either of them were in.

The look on Lucille's face to find her with a stained shirt, stemming the flow as best she could, trying not to panic...

"What happened?" she asked.

"Nothing. It just... started bleeding. It did this a few days ago too."

"Doctor. Come on."

How strange to be eager to enter a medical facility...

Her nose stopped bleeding somewhere on the journey, maybe even before they set off, tension everywhere in the car, Lucille tapping her fingers against the steering wheel every time they had to stop for traffic lights or yield signs.

"Give way," they said here. Same meaning, different words.

Her usual consultant wasn't available, another doctor skimming over her notes with raised eyebrows. It was a lot, she knew, and he didn't even know the half of it.

"You did absolutely the right thing by coming in," he said gently. "But I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about?" Lucille asked, incredulous. "She's been bleeding."

Steady gray eyes flicked to her for a moment and then back to Edith.

"You've had two incidents, you said. How long did they last?"

"A few minutes," Edith said uncertainly. "Maybe five. I'm not sure. I wasn't exactly counting."

"Any feeling of sickness or light-headedness?"

"No. But it's still frightening."

He smiled.

"I understand," he said. "And you did exactly the right thing by coming in to have it checked out, but nosebleeds in pregnancy are more common than you'd think. As with most things, hormones are to blame. Your body is doing something incredible and your blood pressure is elevated while lots of different natural chemicals are rushing around. But unless they last for more than ten minutes or you lose a lot of blood or you have several in one day then you can treat them at home."

She got yet another advice pamphlet and left feeling at least a little reassured, especially with Lucille putting an arm around her.

"So patronising," she murmured. "Didn't you think so?"

"It's fine," Edith said. "I'm just relieved that it's nothing serious."

Apparently her beloved fan heaters were not only keeping her warm and keeping the damp out of her little office but also drying out the air and making her capillaries more likely to rupture and that was how she ended up coating the inside of her nostrils with petroleum jelly as she spoke to Alan.

"It's meant to help," she said. "And it's not as gross as I thought it would be. Thomas got me the aloe vera type so it smells better than plain."

"And is it working?"

"Well, I haven't had another nose bleed, but it might be correlation and not causation."

"How are you feeling apart from that? You look well."

Clearly her exhausted eyes weren't being picked up on webcam.

"Tired?" she sighed. "Mostly tired. But that seems normal. And I don't know if it's all pregnancy or if it's also work. Things are getting close now. Most of the book is at the editors being proofread and we've chosen layouts and fonts. I'll be glad when it's done, but I don't know what I'll do with myself."

"I'm sure you'll figure something out. And I've booked my flight so at least you'll have that distraction before publication and baby. It'll be fun. I've never been to Europe before."

"I don't know if Allerdale is exactly representative of England, let alone Europe."

The Sharpes definitely weren't representative of English people... They were also hard at work, getting their album together. "Simultaneous release" Thomas kept saying and Edith was convinced he knew exactly what that combination of words made her think of.

She felt strange having sexual thoughts while she swelled by the day. It didn't seem right somehow. Then again, having such thoughts - or more properly acting on them - we're what had got her in this situation.

All the same, she didn't exactly feel sexy with her random aches and pains and uncontrollable body temperature and frankly reading pamphlets that said she should ask her partner to massage her perineum to reduce the risk of tearing during birth made her never want to be touched again.

The Sharpes did try. They kissed her, caressed her skin, asked her what she wanted. But she was tired... All the time she was tired.

She knew they had sex without her. They didn't need to be a three all the time; she slept with them individually too, after all. But it was still a bit of a surprise to wake in the night and realize there was distinctly thrusting happening nearby.

Lucille was breathing hard, gasping, and that was what had woken her, she thought, pretending to be asleep still, not wanting to disturb them with the knowledge that they'd disturbed her.

And something in her found this a little exciting. Not watching them together, facing the wrong way for that, but hearing them when they didn't know it. Faintly voyeuristic, slightly forbidden.

A little cry from Lucille set arousal unexpectedly racing through her, her heart pounding.

"Shh," Thomas whispered. "Don't wake her. She's so tired."

"Well, don't fuck me so hard then," Lucille whispered back.

"That's how you like it though."

"Mm..."

Definite kissing sounds, long and passionate and then a sharp gasp, a moan cut off and muffled...

He'd covered her mouth, Edith surmised, imagining the way her voice must be vibrating against his hand.

She wanted to roll over and see but if she did that, they'd try to include her and she didn't feel up to that at the moment. But she wanted to see what little she could in the dark and under blankets. The shine of eyes, the shake of Thomas's hair, maybe even Lucille's hand moving quickly against her flesh and arching upwards...

Thomas was so quiet when he came, just a soft little grunt and heavy breathing. Edith felt the bed dip and took the motion as a chance to get her hand into her own shorts, just to relieve a little pressure.

"What will you do if you're feeling the urge while Dr Alan is here?" Thomas asked softly. "Are you planning to sneak along the corridor to my room in the night?"

"Maybe Edith will be feeling a little better then. Or I can handle myself. Or we can find time in the day if we're still in the studio."

"Shame. I was finding the thought of some old-fashioned secrecy exciting."

"Edith's stressed enough without worrying her ex-boyfriend is going to catch us in the act."

Alan was not her ex-boyfriend! He was her friend. Who'd admitted he had feelings for her. But it was fine. He was over that. He was coming over as a friend to celebrate the book publication and the imminent birth of her child. That was all. And it was still weeks away anyway.

She'd never masturbated angrily before, but as the Sharpes slept beside her, she worked her own flesh just enough, just to deal with the heat within her.

It wasn't the most satisfied she'd ever been, but it helped.

They'd be on their best behavior when Alan arrived, she was almost certain.

And besides, she had ages to subtly urge them towards that goal.

Pam was bright and excited the next day when she arrived, practically vibrating. It seemed a little strange considering that as far as Edith knew, all that was planned for her day was trying to engage a photographer for the album cover art even though from what little she'd heard, the Sharpes didn't have a solid concept yet and were very against outside opinions.

New beginnings was the vague plan, she thought, for obvious reasons, but she really felt they were struggling to combine the positivity of that with their general aesthetic of gloom.

"Where's Thomas today?" Pam asked. "I have news."

"I think they're in the studio all day," Edith replied, double checking once again that she hadn't left in any names of anyone who didn't want to be in the book.

She checked at least once a week even though there were editors and lawyers for that kind of thing.

"Do you know when they'll be back?"

"Not really. Usually they reappear for lunch but sometimes they forget."

She wasn't meaning to be cold, but she could tell Pam was absolutely desperate to tell Thomas something and would be fairly single-minded about it all day. The sooner it was done, the better things would be.

She texted Lucille, trying to be subtle about it, not even knowing if they'd read it. Sometimes they deliberately left their phones outside the workspace, locked behind the entrance door.

Edith had a key now. She didn't make it common knowledge. As far as she was concerned, their work time was sacred and she would only disturb them if there was an emergency.

All the same, she wasn't overly surprised by Thomas knocking on the door a little earlier than they usually came in, evidently curious about this big news.

"You should be sitting down," Pam said, her smile so wide and bright, joyful.

"We have very strong constitutions," Thomas said. "Don't keep us in suspense."

Lucille had sidled in too, but Pam only had eyes for Thomas, taking a deep breath.

"I've secured you a headline slot at Termons Festival."

Edith had never heard of it, but given the shocked reaction, she understood this was something of a big deal.

Good. Something else to occupy all their minds and keep the worries away.

Notes:

It is really hard to make up fictional festival names, it turns out. Too many of them turn out to be real!

Chapter 95: Imagery Management

"Termons?" Lucille asked. "Are you serious? I thought we were barred after the... unpleasantness."

Edith's ears pricked up, not entirely positively. What had they done? Who had they done it to?

"That was a long time ago," Pam said. "And it's only the Thursday headline slot, not either of the big two, but still. Your tour went very well, got a lot of press and with the new album and the book, they were willing to give you another chance."

"When is it?" Edith asked.

"End of June. Last Thursday of the month."

June? She couldn't even think about June. The book came out at the end of March and she was due in April. June was a distant future she couldn't yet consider.

April, May, June. The baby would be around six weeks or two months old. Not very big. Practically still newborn. And presumably this wouldn't be just a one-day thing. They'd have to do set-up and liaising with organisers, stay overnight. They'd have to leave her and the little one in Allerdale by herself, maybe for days...

She was being silly. People raised babies alone all the time. She could handle a long weekend. Mags would be around during the day.

But then again, they were so isolated out here. What if something happened? What if she needed help? What if she fell down the stairs and there was no one around...?

"They do know we'll be bringing a very small child?" Lucille asked, surprising her.

Edith felt her heart throb with a strange blend of relief and apprehension.

"You'd want us there?" she asked.

"This is a big festival for people who make our kind of music," Thomas said. "One of the biggest in the country, highlights sometimes put on TV. Of course we'd want you there."

He crossed the room and leant down to kiss Pam on the cheek, setting her blushing.

"Thank you," he said. "It must have been a lot of hard work. And so we should go and polish up the songs thinking about performing them live."

Lucille squeezed Edith's shoulder before leaving, maybe having the same thought that while allowing Pam that crumb of affection would make her day, probably in the long run it was cruel.

But that wasn't her immediate concern. And she was putting aside her urge to start looking for baby-sized ear defenders because now she had a question...

"So what was the unpleasantness?" she asked.

Pam rolled her eyes.

"Oh, it was a misunderstanding really," she said. "Years ago - seven or eight years back - they played at Termons and the group performing before them were... less professional than them."

"In what way?"

"Well, they were young men who'd had one hit and become fairly popular very quickly and they were excited to be getting their big festival break and they got a little too merry and ended up drunk and late to the stage, pushing back all the acts after them."

"Well, surely that's their fault, not anyone else's."

"It was and that would have been the end of it but apparently when they came offstage, after an hour or so they suffered from terrible, er... gastrointestinal problems. They claimed they'd been deliberately poisoned and that Lucille or Thomas probably did it. They were sharing a portacabin dressing room so they had access to all their food and drink. All nonsense, I think, but it caused some problems for the organisers. It wasn't the atmosphere they were going for."

"So were both groups banned?"

"The other group broke up after their first album so it wasn't really an issue, but, yes, for years I only got polite refusals when I tried to get Crimson Peak on the list. But now they've reached out to me. Water under the bridge."

Edith was already convinced that Lucille had spiked them. And that was terrible, she definitely shouldn't have done that, but she also couldn't believe that this was a random crime or that she'd done it because they'd dared to be drunk and tardy. Something else must have happened there.

Maybe she'd ask later.

In the meantime, she googled the festival. Apparently a termon was something to do with the outskirts of a monastery and the whole thing took place in the field opposite the ruins of an old ecclesiastical site that was destroyed during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, a complex-sounding historical event that she wasn't going to get into now.

The pictures looked very impressive. Big crowds. Lots of tents. Fancy yurts for people who wanted to pay for it. A sweet little town nearby with cute tearooms full of goths and metalheads for one weekend a year. Sunset over the craggy wreck of an old abbey, orange sky through the ribs of empty window frames.

A big deal. She felt like she'd seen them perform live so often, but this would be different. A festival audience was surely a different beast to a concert one.

And she was going to be there with a small child. A baby. What were the changing facilities? Bathing?

Did musicians stay on site or would they have a hotel room with a bath and a travel cot and all the other things she'd want for safety and comfort?

It was months away. Months and months. She had to get through the book launch and all the fall-out that might cause and the birth and those difficult first weeks.

Now was not the time to worry about logistics that were so far off.

But that was easier said than done. Much easier. And she was still thinking about it hours later, reheating some dinner leftover from yesterday and retreating to bed with her laptop, looking at travel cots and baby car seats - which they would need anyway - and reading advice on what to absolutely pack when staying overnight with an infant and discovering that they did make teeny tiny ear defenders, but she was still suspicious that they wouldn't be as protective as they claimed or that they definitely wouldn't put pressure on the skull and it wasn't like you could use earplugs on a baby and...

A kick. Enough to make her gasp, more than the usual flutters. Like they were able to sense her racing thoughts and wanted to distract her.

"This is for you, you know," she murmured. "I'm thinking of your wellbeing."

"Whose wellbeing?" Lucille asked from the doorway, looking rather tired, taking down her braids.

"Oh, uh..." Edith said, feeling a blush starting to grow. "The... The baby. I was talking to the baby and I know they probably can't hear me or if they can they don't understand, but... I mean, they're with me all the time and so sometimes I talk to them."

Typical that the one time she accidentally said something out loud was the one time someone was close enough to hear it.

"Shouldn't you be planning your photo shoot?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

"Ah. That's actually something we wanted to talk to you about."

Now, why did that sound ominous? She took what was left of her dinner along to the kitchen to eat with them.

"So we've been trying and failing to think up concepts," Thomas said. "Imagery is so important, even if most people only see album art in passing on their phones these days. And we'd like you to be in the picture."

Edith practically recoiled.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, no. No, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not? There's a lot about you and us and the future in the lyrics. It makes sense."

How could she make them see?

"I'm sure I'm already annoying the fans. I don't want them to think I'm inserting myself into anything. I don't... I don't want to be accused of that."

"Who cares if they're annoyed?"

"Me. I do. I hate that there are people out there right now judging me. I don't want to attract any more attention, especially for when the baby arrives. I want them to have as normal a life as possible and so I don't want to be... in magazines and things. What's happened so far is bad enough and it was two or three paparazzi shots."

Lucille rested her chin in her hand, looking thoughtful.

"Alright," she said. "How do you feel about making it really, really subtle?"

"How do you mean?"

"In the back, tastefully blurred, like a passer-by. A secret. Something we know is there but nothing obvious. We'd really like to include you."

Hm. Well, that didn't sound quite as bad. She'd just be a woman in the background - frankly exactly where she wanted to be.

"What's the wider concept of the album?" she asked. "I don't even know what it's called - still #Titleless?"

"It sort of has to be," Thomas said. "To fit with the tour and the book. Probably the first time we've had the name before writing most of the tracks. But the tone has changed, I would say. And you can feel it. Some of the early ones are so... scared almost and then they're confused and then they're hopeful. Which is fairly new for us, I think. Even our happiest songs tend to be a bit... triumphant. Imperial."

That was not helping her fears that the fans wouldn't like the album and would blame her for Crimson Peak losing their edge...

"We can't really be bothered going on location to have them taken so we'll likely just be outside here," Lucille said. "The barren landscape, windswept, maybe with a guitar and bass. We talked a lot about changes and rebirth and maybe we can put hints of that in; snowdrops perhaps, little shoots of new life. And the house there fits with the theme of home and the title, bringing in the estate and the baronetcy and so on. But with the visitors going in and out. The changing times, the ultimate emptiness of nobility."

"Oh, so you're going to have extras," Edith said, feeling a lot more comfortable with that idea. "Or at least people who consent to being in the background and I'll just be one of them. OK."

Thomas nodded, satisfied, but Lucille still seemed a little concerned.

"You told me once that you used to want to disappear," she said. "And I understand what you mean about not being in the spotlight, but all the same. Don't vanish. You're too sweet for that."

It wasn't the same. In the depths of her illness, her terror at becoming sick and growing sicker and sicker as she tried to avoid it, simply ceasing to exist had been a great fantasy. Not dying, not taking steps towards that, but... not being. It was difficult to explain.

But now she wanted to live, she wanted to have her strange life with her two partners and their child and growing together and hopefully finding a better future. She just didn't want strangers treating her like they owned her or were entitled to her life in some way.

"I want to be visible to you," she said. "It's the outside world I want to stay away from."

She wasn't sure that either of them totally understood what she meant, but they weren't pushing.

Chapter 96: Holly

The photographer was a little older than Edith had anticipated. Somehow she'd expected someone twenties to thirties, probably dressed in a loose vest and corduroy, long hair. Bohemian.

Instead he was definitely somewhere in his forties and he'd arrived with a lot of equipment, wearing a sensible jacket. Checked pants, though. A little hint of style. He called himself Holly; whether it was a first name or a surname wasn't exactly clear. And he seemed absolutely fascinated by Allerdale, that look of wonder that Edith knew she'd worn once but which had faded now it had been home for months. Sometimes she forgot about the size of the foyer, the sheer scale of the whole place, the paintings and the antique wallpaper and the wood. Apart from looking spooky in the dark mornings as she hurried along to the bathroom, she was used to it now.

At least with four of them, she could take the stairs and not the elevator up to the office room. The writing was all filed away but the final cover proofs were out as inspiration.

They'd used one of her Polaroids for the main image. It was Las Vegas, that night when Finlay had gone to hospital and they'd ordered room service. Thomas and Lucille against plush bedsheets eating all the fast food available. They looked stunning in it, she could see that, the deep red satin of Lucille's nightwear matching her lipstick and making the orangey shade of the ketchup seem lurid, Thomas still dressed but somehow loose, his hair tousled and shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest.

Even enlarged for the book cover, the definition wasn't enough to show the scars on Lucille's skin where her calves and knees and lower thighs were visible, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

They looked like a strange allegory for an old painting, maybe the Arnolfini Portrait or American Gothic, the pair of them looking the camera and therefore Edith and therefore the viewer right in the eye, calm but arresting, a private moment now for public consumption.

Crimson Peak Present #Titleless: The Collected US Tour Writings by Edith Cushing with Never-Before Seen Pictures, Behind-the-Scenes Insights and Additional Words by Thomas and Lucille Sharpe

It looked good. All the same, Edith hadn't exactly been thrilled to have her home nation represented by stuffed potato skins and hamburger sliders...

"You took this?" Holly asked, looking at it. "It's good."

"Oh, uh... Yes, I did," Edith said, acutely aware that she was speaking to a professional photographer. "Just got a lucky shot, you know."

He listened to their ideas, but seemed most excited by the concept of Edith being hidden in the background.

"Have you ever seen the back cover of Hotel California?" he asked. "It's a group of people in the lobby and above it all, barely visible, there's a shadowy figure. People think it's meant to be the devil. What would you think about being just visible in one of the windows, not obvious, not blatant, but there? Perhaps in the small round window at the top?"

"We'll have to clean it first," Thomas said. "But I like that. Our angel looking out at us."

"And do you still have these outfits you're wearing on the cover? Could be a nice tie-in if you're wearing the same things. We could even get a blanket and have you in the same pose."

Wearing pyjamas outside in the North of England in February didn't strike Edith as the most pleasant situation for Lucille, but she seemed happy enough with the idea, doing her make-up in the bathroom mirror while Edith wiped down the circular window. She had to be on a little stepladder to do it, Thomas and Holly outside working on angles since they'd be so low to the ground, waving and giving her a thumbs up that they could see her and attracting a fair amount of curious glances from the day's visitors.

"Are you not going to be freezing?" Edith asked, really wanting to ask something else.

"Probably," Lucille said. "Suffering for my art."

She was joking, but it did rather let Edith ask what she'd actually meant.

"Are you... OK with your legs being visible?" she asked. "Your scars?"

There was a pause, eyeliner being applied.

"I've been thinking about what you said about being visible," Lucille said. "I can't guess what you wrote about but maybe you mentioned the scars and where they came from. So I might as well show them. You know people write to us sometimes to tell us that the music helps them with depression or whatever. Maybe I can help other people with scars, regardless of how they got them, by showing that I'm not ashamed."

"And will it be a weight lifted for you as well?"

After all, that was the important thing. That was what Edith worried about. Lucille's mental health was understandably delicate but if she thought this might help, then that was positive.

"Maybe. I mean, we'll always be hiding. We'll always be lying. And on top of that, our personas aren't us. But maybe I can start addressing what I keep hidden because I want to and because it's just for me or for the three of us to know about and what I've been hiding out of fear."

Well, that sounded good.

Photoshoots from a distance were very dull, as it turned out. Edith had managed to sit on the steps so at least she wasn't having to stand, but it wasn't exactly comfortable and likely wouldn't have been even if she wasn't seven months pregnant.

She liked this viewpoint though. She could see so much from up here, even down into the industrial heritage part of the estate. She watched as Lucille crossed the grass wearing a bathrobe, Thomas's brown tartan blanket under her arm, Mags trailing behind her and starting to divert visitor traffic so as to be out of view.

A small crowd gathered all the same as Holly lay down on the ground - surely getting his clothes absolutely filthy, taking a few shots, waving his hands to ask for them to move slightly.

Even from here, she thought she could see Lucille shivering. And she clearly was because in between pictures, Thomas took off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.

That would have been a nice one. Linking the two of them together.

Even though it didn't take very long, by the time Thomas was waving at her to let her know they were done, Edith had already planned to get one of her space heaters along to the office and properly warm Lucille up.

She found herself awkwardly alone with Holly as he loaded his pictures onto a laptop while Lucille and Thomas were changing.

"So is it true?" he asked.

"Um," Edith said. "Is what true?"

"That you're shagging them both?"

Despite herself, she felt her cheeks heating up. But she could do this. She could handle it.

"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that," she said, proud that she didn't stammer. "I'm in relationships with them both."

"Hey, I'm not judging. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, right?"

"Well, definitely not the middle one."

Unless you counted a sedative or two in the early days...

"I just hope you have contingency plans. I mean, what if you fall out with one and not the other?"

No one could understand. If she fell out with one, she'd fall out with both. She couldn't separate them and break up the band, as it were. It was impossible.

"I'd say I know what I'm doing," she said. "Though that's not exactly true. But it's my life to screw up. Let's keep this professional."

She didn't like having this man in their house suddenly, far more relaxed when Thomas appeared. She felt safer with him around. Which she kind of hated, but it was better than the faint discomfort of being alone with a stranger.

The pictures were very good, to be fair. He clearly knew what he was doing. The natural light couldn't have been easy to work with, dull and gray as it was, but the way they were placed so incongruously on the scrubby grass, the reddish earth nearly matching Lucille's outfit, and just visible in the top left, her own face in the circular window. Barely perceptible, definitely not when people would be distracted by the foreground.

Lucille came in fully dressed, a deep blue jumper, immediately gravitating to Edith's side and the warmth of the heater.

They'd really taken the idea of matching the pictures to heart, comparing each shot to the book cover until they found one that had almost the exact same pose. The shadows were different so it clearly wasn't cut and pasted. But it all looked a lot more deliberate than it had felt when they were discussing it a few hours ago. Like they'd had a plan all along.

"Of course, I'll be touching it up a bit," Holly said. "The standard stuff - making the colors pop a little more, sharpening the contrasts. I can also airbrush out anything you don't want showing."

"Such as?" Lucille asked in a perfectly polite tone, the ice pick in velvet that meant she was annoyed.

"Oh. Oh, well, I don't know..."

"Leave us as we are, please."

So much being said without being said. He hadn't necessarily been talking about the scars, but Lucille had evidently taken it that way. Maybe that was her fault, Edith mused, putting that idea in her head.

"Perfect," Holly said, packing up. "Now, I understand if this is a huge violation, but could I take some pictures downstairs? You have a beautiful house."

"Speak to our building manager, Mags," Thomas said. "Though I believe the only rule is no flash."

"Thank you. I'll send the final image through in a few days to check you're happy with it."

Edith let out a long exhale once he'd left the room.

"You OK?" Thomas asked. "Feeling alright?"

"Oh. Yeah, I'm fine. I just... wasn't a fan. It's been a long time since I had time deal with a stranger, I guess."

"Did he say something to you? Should we sack him?"

"No! No, no, it's fine. I mean, he's leaving and the picture is good. There's no need to make a fuss."

"Edith, if he made you uncomfortable..."

"It's fine. Honestly, it's fine."

"Did he hit on you?"

She gave him a withering look, gesturing at herself.

"In case you missed it, I'm heavily pregnant."

"So?" Lucille asked.

"So no, he didn't hit on me. He... he asked about our relationship - relationships - and I didn't appreciate it, that's all. It's fine. Use his work, pay him and then we never have to see him ever again."

Thomas came to her, holding her to his chest, kissing the top of her head.

"Don't waste another second of thought on him," he said.

"I won't. But don't sack him. And don't poison him either."

They were shocked. They didn't know what she was talking about.

"I asked Pam what happened at Termons," she said. "I assume it wasn't coincidence that the people you were sharing a dressing room with suddenly fell ill?"

At least they didn't try to deny it. At least they respected her enough for that. They just sighed lightly, a little defensive, Lucille folding her arms.

"Do you actually want to hear about it?" she asked.

"I think I could understand if you told me why. I mean, I don't think you did it for no reason."

Seeing Lucille embarrassed wasn't exactly a common sight, but now she was shrinking a bit, clearly ashamed.

Because she'd changed. She wasn't that person anymore.

And part of Edith wanted to let her off the hook, but a greater part wanted to know everything.

Maybe that was something she could work on. Later. Once she knew all about it.

Chapter 97: Valentine's

"OK, so the first thing to know is that we were playing a bad slot. It was mid-afternoon on the Saturday so everyone at the place was either hungover or still drunk from the night before or already drunk. I think we had a few fans in attendance, but not much beyond that."

"We were there to try to grow our audience," Thomas said. "Trying to get our name better known, maybe sell a few CDs and t-shirts. Happy to slum it. It would have been fine."

"What did they do?" Edith asked.

Lucille tugged the sleeves of her sweater down slightly, covering her hands, covering the ring.

"I didn't know until afterwards," Thomas said. "Or I might have asked them to step outside."

That didn't sound like him. He turned a blind eye to violence, he wasn't violent himself as such. It must be bad. Really bad.

"Did they hurt you?" Edith asked Lucille.

"Not physically. But... Well, I was changing in a room with four tipsy young men while Thomas was organising our accomodation with just a curtain between us. They... They looked at me, they took pictures..."

Edith felt a real sense of rage in her chest suddenly. A hot, burning hatred for these men. Taking intimate pictures without consent of anyone was bad enough, but with Lucille's past, with what had been done to her...

"They deleted them when I was upset but they seemed surprised I was so furious. Rock chicks are easy, they said. That's how they get gigs."

Thomas's nostrils flared even now. Still angry. But so was Edith really.

"Why didn't you report them?" she asked.

"No evidence," Lucille sighed. "My word against theirs. And I didn't want the trouble. So instead, during their set, I went to the medical tent, told them I was dreadfully constipated and then I opened and spiked every single beer. If I'd known they'd report me the morning after, I might have been more subtle."

She rubbed the back of her neck, raising her eyebrows in a way that said she was done being vulnerable.

"But now they're a half-remembered one-hit wonder and we're about to launch a new studio album following an international tour, so who's really winning?"

Well, there was that.

Edith found herself still feeling little pops of anger for days afterwards, any time it came into her head, any time she thought about Termons at all. On one hand, it was helpfully distracting her from the fact that the book was at the editors now, only weeks away from being finalised and printed and out into the world, out of her control.

She didn't particularly like this side of herself, though. Angry and vengeful. She found herself really appreciating dark, discordant piano chords, seeing just how bad a combination of notes she could make.

"Valentine's Day is coming up," Pam said, shaking her out of her thoughts one morning.

"Yeah."

She wasn't sure what kind of response was expected.

"Do you have plans?" Pam asked.

"Oh. Uh. No, I don't think so. How about you?"

"No, no. But if you wanted some help organising a little gift, I could do that."

She wanted to buy something for Thomas. Thought she knew him better. Maybe it was subconscious, but...

"That's a really nice idea," Edith said. "I'll have a think."

She was genuinely thinking about it as she replied to the publishers about early review copies for the music news magazines and websites. Would a romantic gesture be welcome? The Sharpes didn't necessarily seem the type.

Then again, they never could be the type. They couldn't do flowers for one another.

Maybe she could get them some each. On behalf of herself and the other side of the triangle. That might be nice. Sweet.

She googled the language of flowers, not totally convinced that either Thomas or Lucille would understand anything she tried to convey, and quickly realised that she was also limited by the types of bouquet available.

It was better to try to choose ones she thought they would like.

Not basic red roses, beautiful though they were. She could have more imagination than that. She really wanted something more goth if possible, something really dark.

For Lucille, she went the exact opposite in the end. White roses and lily-of-the-valley, little sprays of baby's-breath. The website said a lot about purity and while Edith found it a bit trite, she also wondered if Lucille had ever felt like that in her life, really.

Thomas was harder. She ended up in the sympathy flowers, the funeral ones, and there she found something perfect. Deep red tulips, so dark red that they'd almost pass for black, and something called sea holly, a strange spiked plant with an almost electric blue hue. Beautiful and unusual and just a little dangerous.

"What do you think?" she asked Pam, since it had been her idea.

"Oh, flowers for both of them?" she asked, taking Edith's laptop.

"Yeah."

"OK. It's just... unusual to buy them for a man."

"What would you have bought him?"

Pam was getting better at hiding her blushes.

"Well, I hadn't thought about it, but perhaps a gift hamper or something. But this is lovely too."

She frowned lightly.

"The messages for the cards, though - what do you mean, 'Love from both of us'?"

"Me and the baby."

It was so deniable. She was getting away with it so easily.

"Oh, of course. That's really sweet."

It was exciting to have a nice secret, waiting for the 14th to roll around, Mags knocking very politely on the open kitchen door to say there were deliveries downstairs for both Thomas and Lucille, the look of confusion across the table as they got up, Edith making slow progress to follow.

And then the realisation, the surprise, the fact neither of them knew or expected it.

"You really shouldn't have," Lucille said, luxuriating in scent. "We didn't get you anything."

"It was Pam's idea actually," Edith said, beaming but slightly embarrassed somehow. "I'm so glad you like them."

They produced a huge, probably antique vase from the back of a cupboard, arranging the two bouquets together, light and dark, soft and spiky.

Thomas took a stem each for Pam and Mags, putting them in tall glasses, just little decorations of the season, coming to kiss Edith afterwards.

She felt him jump when the baby kicked as he was pressed against her, pulling back and grinning.

"Was that...?"

"Yes," Edith said. "Yeah, that's... that's them."

She hasn't expected to have her belly touched quite so much when she woke up that morning, but it wasn't unpleasant to have them surrounding her. It was nice to finally share this with them, letting them feel their baby move.

And, yes, it was scary too, the reminder that they could be perceived by other people now, they were so nearly here.

But maybe the sense of excitement between the three of them was worth that fear.

Chapter 98: Euro Visions

"Have we ever told you about the time we tried out for Eurovision?"

It wasn't like Edith hadn't known what Eurovision was. She'd heard of it, the big contest. She just hadn't expected Thomas and Lucille to be into it at all. It didn't exactly seem like something they'd be interested in. But the UK entry had been announced and now they were listening to an inoffensive pop song over dinner with the kind of scrutiny usually reserved for forensic investigations.

"Oh, no, Thomas, don't remind me," Lucille groaned.

"It was fun! Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't enjoy yourself."

She rolled her eyes instead.

"The time afterwards was fun, the experience itself was excruciating."

"I'd like to hear about it," Edith said. "I mean, I'm no expert, but your music doesn't strike me as especially... Eurovision-y."

"There's always at least one alternative performance and sometimes they do really, really well," Thomas said. "Sometimes they win."

"Well, I never expected to win Eurovision," Lucille said defensively. "We'd be representing the UK after all and I'm not totally delusional. I didn't think we were going to be the next ABBA. But the chance to go there, to perform there, in front of that crowd... Part of history. I bullied Pam for weeks to get us an audition with the committee who decide the shortlist. Long weekend in London, a fun little jaunt if nothing else."

Edith hadn't ever been to London so she was imagining some studio near Tower Bridge or possibly Big Ben when it had probably been in some quarter she'd never heard of.

"I don't know what they were expecting," Thomas said, smiling at remembering. "They had clearly read 'family band' and were expecting maybe something folksy. And we can do folksy, we can, but that wasn't what we'd written."

"What was it?"

"Well," Lucille said in a way that instantly made Edith think she was in for an in-depth lecture on music theory. "Eurovision is all about either universality, appealing to the popular vote, or specificity to utilize authenticity. We tried to go both ways. It was called A Love Song - never released, obviously - and it was about... you know, love and pain and the agony of existence, all that good stuff, but musically we went deliberately strange and esoteric."

"We didn't want to sound like anything else," Thomas said. "Standing out is good, it's memorable. We just might have stood out a little too much."

"I still think it was more about the attitude of the panel."

Thomas laughed in his quiet way, his real laugh.

"Their faces when we walked in," he said. "They'd been expecting some sweet little hippies and instead they got us, looking like death warmed up and sounding like a horror film does just as you fall asleep, dark and strange."

"We'd never performed it better. I stand by it, it was a good song. Some weirdos would have liked it. But we got to the end of our carefully measured three minutes and I saw their faces, the shock. I don't think they'd taken any notes, not really, too surprised."

"Well, you decided to scream in the middle eight."

"It needed a scream. I took my voice as high as I could and then, when there's nowhere else to go and no better way to express things, a good scream can come in handy."

Edith loved this kind of story. Sure, it was a little arrogant to think they could just stroll into such a prestigious situation when they clearly hadn't read any brief that was provided, but it could never have happened any other way. They borrowed and stole from other artists, but they could only be themselves.

"But then the interview," Lucille said, covering her eyes. "Oh, my God."

"They asked us about our inspiration and background and all of that and then they asked us - with completely dead eyes - if we understood that being the UK representative meant being an ambassador and that the successful candidate must conduct themselves with dignity and not do anything that might bring the country into disrepute. At Eurovision! Can you even imagine?"

"Is it... rowdy, then?" Edith asked.

"It's billed as the biggest party in Europe. It's fun, it's joyful, but they were talking like drinking too much would be considered a risk. They warned us off being too political, about being too outspoken or loud, about... loads of stuff that really didn't matter because they clearly had absolutely no intention of choosing us."

"And then we went back to the hotel," Lucille added. "The cheapest one we could find that didn't also look like you'd be murdered there - and proceeded to break as many of those rules as we could."

"You went back and had a detailed conversation about EU policies?" Edith teased.

Teasing experts in the field of teasing probably wasn't the best of ideas, and she saw the sparkle in their eyes immediately.

"Oh, we couldn't possibly tell you," Lucille said, all raised eyebrows, false innocence. "It's much too shocking."

They had definitely noticed that Edith hadn't been open to much sexual activity of late and had been usually respecting her boundaries, even if they were occasionally reminding her that they still found her attractive. It wasn't just the way her body had changed - the very idea of it made her feel a little uncomfortable for reasons she didn't like to interrogate.

But that didn't mean she didn't still have a sex drive. She'd been handling herself when she felt the urge. Right now, hearing a spicy story sounded quite fun. And this was rather new to them, the Sharpes seeming a little intrigued by a new game.

"I'd like to hear all about it," she said.

Thomas's eyes had visibly darkened, moving the plates and cups off the table.

"Well, we stopped for wine on the way back," he said. "Little bit of day-drinking."

"Drowning our sorrows," Lucille added. "My sorrows anyway. And somewhere after the first half bottle and the supermarket salad dinner, somebody said that really they'd missed out on us - after all, there'd be no chance in us being involved in any kind of sex scandal."

"Actually, I think I said that there was no chance in us being caught in any kind of sex scandal. And that I'd be glad to take your mind off closed-minded industry professionals' opinions."

"Mm. Several times over, as I recall."

That wasn't really enough for Edith. She was embarrassed to realize it, but she wanted something to fantasize over.

"No details?" she asked. "Well, that's hardly shocking at all."

She watched the look between them, the heat between them all suddenly, feeling her own anticipation rising.

"How about we take this to the bedroom and we can recreate it?" Thomas suggested.

"How about you get started right here?" Edith threw back.

"Well, we did start off on the hotel desk," Lucille mused.

Edith had a sudden memory of the time she and Thomas had almost not made it to the bed, almost matching that. Maybe he kind of liked that wild passion, using whatever piece of furniture was closest. Lucille smiled and leant over to her, kissing her slowly, deep.

"If you want to watch, we'll put on a show," she said, moving her chair out of the way and slipping onto Thomas's lap, side-saddle, loosely wrapping her arms around his shoulders and sighing into kisses that soon grew more passionate, Thomas moving to her neck and clearly doing something very enjoyable from the way she gasped before he lifted her onto the table and began undoing her clothes.

"Was it like this?" he murmured, peeling off her leggings. "I definitely remember getting my mouth on you, but was that first?"

"Briefly, I think. And then more a little later."

"I thought so."

He knelt down between her legs, stroking his way up and down them, Lucille sighing with pleasure, clearly just enjoying it. Edith undid the fly on her maternity jeans, getting her hand into her underwear, seeing Lucille's eyes on her, the way she smiled and unbuttoned her shirt, squeezing her breasts lightly, showing off. Trying to rile her up.

"Oh, Thomas," she breathed. "Oh..."

"Mm-hm?"

"I need you inside me. Please, please..."

She gently pulled his hair, pulling him upright, sitting for kisses as he hurriedly undid his belt, both of them eager and needy, a hard first thrust making them both moan and Edith feel her arousal spike.

It was different having them aware of her observation, her gaze. Thomas locked eyes with her, managing to ask questions with just a quirk of eyebrows, checking if she was suitably entertained and grinning when she nodded at him. Yes, she was here and while not actively participating, she was certainly actively witnessing, active in her own way.

No wonder it had taken Lucille's mind off everything. It was fortunate that everyone had gone home and left them alone for the evening as the table rattled and scraped against the floor, the air filled with moans and heavy breathing, Edith moving her own fingers faster and faster, having the strangest sensation that she was controlling them somehow, that they were following her tempo even though that was impossible.

At a slight distance like this and in the brightness of the kitchen, she really appreciated how attractive they were, especially Thomas in this moment. All that strength and energy entirely dedicated to providing pleasure, openly moaning when Lucille caught him with her nails, hauling her leg higher on his hip for a deeper angle. The pink on his cheeks, the way his hair shook, the way his muscles moved under his shirt.

Somehow only just being out of his clothes enough was very exciting.

Lucille clung to him like she was drowning, clearly extremely close to coming but not wanting to tip over, her hips in constant motion, rocking up to meet him, unable to get much purchase but not letting that stop her.

Edith finished quicker than she expected to, overwhelmed slightly, gasping sharply in a way that apparently spurred on the Sharpes, Lucille letting out a cry and Thomas quiet as he always was, breathing heavily afterwards as he kissed Lucille before easing her to her feet, moving to help Edith out of her chair.

"Bed for cuddles?" he suggested.

"Mm..."

It took a fair amount of effort to get into pyjamas, but getting to snuggle up in comfort was well worth it.

"We should go to Europe," Thomas said. "In school holidays maybe."

"Where?" Edith asked sleepily.

"Wherever. Spain, Sweden, Slovenia, places that don't begin with S..."

"One day. Let me get through Termons first."

Lucille caressed her gently.

"Are you dreadfully stressed about it, sweetheart?" she asked.

"Not dreadfully. A little. But it's a long way off. I'm trying not to let my mind run away with me."

After all, she had plenty of other things to worry about in the meantime.

Notes:

(I don't actually know how exactly they pick the Eurovision entry/shortlist but the idea of Thomas and Lucille trying and failing to qualify - and being outraged that anyone would dare not pick them - wouldn't leave me alone)

Chapter 99: Listening Party

We have not read this book. We have read none of the articles. In fact, we have studiously avoided reading any of Edith's writing about our tour. We have had no input, no overview, no sign-off. These are her words as she set them down. No editing, no varnishing, no touch-ups.

The start of Thomas and Lucille's introduction kept rolling around in Edith's head. She'd read all of their little essays - sometimes written together, sometimes individually - and she'd even suggested where they could fit in.

They were refreshingly different to her articles. She'd been writing in the moment, reacting to what was happening and what she was feeling and thinking at the time. They were remembering, recalling. They had the benefit of retrospect.

She loved how much it was like their music, in a way. She couldn't tell which of them had written which sentence of the joint pieces but she felt she could literally hear their voices in what they'd written alone.

It wasn't that I didn't expect America to be different from home, but I hadn't really appreciated quite how much. Maybe it was partially the intensity of the tour, all those weeks and months of travelling, maybe it was discovering some things about myself that I had never realised were there.

Lucille was often defensive, introspective, keeping some distance and mystery. And at first, Thomas didn't seem like that, but he was, in different ways.

A journey of over 10,000 miles was possibly a ridiculous decision when we made it what seems like so long ago. I wouldn't change much about it, though. There were some bumps along the road, including illness which meant our wonderful driver was unable to complete the tour with us, but I feel artistically and personally, it has been unbeatable.

Superficially more open, more sensitive, but his parts were full of technical tidbits about venues, facts about locations rather than his emotions necessarily. He said a lot and gave little away, whereas Lucille used fewer words but showed a little more of her feelings even as she tried to hide them.

Edith woke on the day the books would arrive feeling sick. Purely psychological, not physical, but simply dreadful, barely able to face breakfast for waiting on Pam and the boxes for the launch.

It was all falling into place now. The songs were finalized, the books printed, the invitations to the event sent, the first reviews being written. And in their private sphere, Thomas had cleared out a bedroom for Alan to sleep in, insisting on doing it himself, only accepting help with making the bed.

Alan would be here in only two days and Edith felt so nervous about it. The three of them were so used to being alone once the guests and Mags had gone home. What was it going to be like having someone else there, even temporarily?

Thomas had already started sleeping in his own room to get them all used to that, which was sensible but it did mean that Edith was having to wake up alone, hearing the piano downstairs. It gave her time to think by herself, which was sometimes nice but sometimes a bit overwhelming.

Like today. She'd decided that she wanted Thomas and Lucille to read the book before the launch party, which meant they had to read it this week.

The boxes had been sent to Pam's office and the familiar sound of her car arriving to the rear of Allerdale brought another pang of nerves into Edith's stomach, making her way to the elevator. To her annoyance, it was rather easier than the stairs at the moment.

Of course Thomas beat her to the back door to carry in the boxes, Lucille appearing with scissors to cut them open.

A book. Her book, her name picked out in embossed black.

They looked beautiful, even more than she'd expected. It felt like the kind of book people would want to touch, want to hold and own, maybe even display. Something for placing on coffee tables and between artful bookends.

That was the cover, though. It was the words inside it that would be judged.

"So what do you think?" Pam asked.

"I'm amazed," Edith said. "I think I almost didn't think they'd ever really be here. After all our hard work, all of us, it's finally done. I don't know what to say."

Hours of choosing pictures, approving layouts, agonising over fonts... She almost couldn't imagine what she was going to do now.

Well, beyond caring for a newborn...

Lucille was flicking through it, smiling, and it seemed as good a time as any to say it, get things over with.

"I want you to read it," Edith said. "I know you were planning to wait until it was actually published, but I'd rather you knew what was in it before then."

She watched as the Sharpes exchanged a look, one of those glances that held whole conversations.

"Alright," Thomas said. "But then you need to listen to the album. It's only fair."

"Not the bonus track," Lucille said. "You need to listen to that when I'm there so I can see your reaction. I did the production work on it myself and everything. But, yes, the rest of it."

And so Edith found herself back in the office, big headphones on, trying to listen openly and carefully, trying to find the balance point of letting the music wash over her and evoke an emotional response and listening critically and looking for the word games and written clues that the Sharpes loved to include. She wanted to be part of their gang, she wanted to understand.

Thirteen tracks. Twelve, really, since she wasn't going to listen to the last one yet. The opening track, Trip was a sort of driving, looping piece, familiar to their style, a low sound vibrating through her very bones, feeling the rise of it before the vocals came in. Thomas's voice first, not even really singing but definitely not speaking either, something in between.

It's a journey, it's a process, it's a trip
It's a journey, it's a process, it's a trip, trip, trip, trip...

And then Lucille's voice joined in, a little higher but not much, letting things blend together.

Process, journey, trip
Journey, trip, process
Process, process, journey, trip
Trip, journey, process...

The words stopped meaning anything, stopped even sounding like words. They were percussion almost, an underlying texture to the more prominent guitar melody and shimmering piano, a turbulent, nervous soundscape that still showed off their skills.

She knew some of these tracks, or versions of them anyway. There was Write To Me, all about wanting to communicate, wanting to say more and hear more from someone.

This was the first song they'd written about her, Edith thought, blushing a little. It was the first little glimmer of interest on Lucille's side, which she'd violently denied. It didn't... sound happy, though. It sounded lost and yearning.

Maybe that was just for aesthetics and vibe, or maybe it was reflecting how she'd actually felt experiencing new emotions, confused and almost scared.

They really were playing into that sensation, being honest here about fears. There was Canyon about being on the edge of something huge and terrifying and beautiful and there was The Desert which she definitely thought was about sexual frustration just as much as it was about the wonders of the American Plains.

It made the pop joy of This Wasn't Meant To Happen all the more jarring, starting with a rapid, falling bass glissando and then right into an upbeat duet, sounding like carefree summer evenings even while the lyrics were all about unexpected emotions and apologies for hurt.

It sounded like a single. A song that could wildly mislead the casual listener into thinking they were a different kind of band. And maybe that was the point, or part of it.

She enjoyed it, the variety of sounds and moods, glad that while it didn't sound the same as their other albums, it also wasn't a huge departure or surprise. People would like it.

Thomas's private tune was hidden in plain sight around the middle of the second half, that instrumental composition that secretly wasn't fully instrumental at all. He'd called it Us. She liked that.

She did not like the fact that one of the songs was called E.D.I.T.H.

Listening to it, Lucille singing and Thomas harmonizing, she realised she'd heard it before in a much rougher form, unpolished and unfinished. She'd thought it was called Home.

Even when I met you
Didn't realize just how much
I needed someone like you
To take me
Home...

Ever since I met you
Darkness has slipped away
I'm not used to living in the light
That you call
Home...

It spelled out her name, didn't it? And now she was doubly annoyed that it wasn't subtle at all and that she still hadn't caught it.

She was frowning a little when the door opened and Lucille filled the door frame. Also frowning a little.

"They examine the people they interact with like butterflies in a collection," she read out loud from the book. "As something beautiful but fleeting. To be under their gaze is to be beneath the microscope."

Ah.

Exactly why they wanted them to read it sooner rather than later.

Chapter 100: Room

"This song is literally my name," Edith said, trying to get a shot across the bow early. "I thought we agreed to be subtle?"

"You've made us sound like... I don't even know what."

"That was months ago. My feelings have changed."

"You made us sound scary."

"You are! And don't forget what you were doing to me back then. Your feelings have changed too. You've changed, full stop. But I was scared of you. You scared me. And you can't tell me I was wrong to feel that way."

They had a brief stand-off, Lucille seeming genuinely hurt. And then she pouted and sighed, giving ground a tiny bit.

"I suppose this is what we asked for," she said. "Unvarnished takes. I shouldn't complain now."

"Honestly, you haven't even got to the stuff I'm most worried about yet," Edith said. "The stuff about your parents, your... past. I deliberately didn't put in details, but it still might be more than you're comfortable with."

"No, I trust you with that. You're empathetic, you would be sensitive about that kind of thing. I suppose I just... don't like how we were coming across."

"It was an intense situation," Edith sighed. "And I was feeling out of my depth and like I was a fraud. I was trying to give insights and impressions from an intimate but detached viewpoint and completely failed at the latter, obviously."

A little self-deprecation softened Lucille even further, Edith carefully putting aside her own annoyance for a calmer moment.

"How's Thomas taking it?" she asked, bracing herself.

"Oh, he thinks it's hilarious. He keeps chuckling away to himself."

He even looked amused when Edith popped her head round his door after Lucille left to read some more on her own, finding him lounging in bed with a mug of tea, effortlessly relaxed.

"You're having a rather different reaction than Lucille is," she said.

"Oh, don't worry about it. She's just taking it a little too seriously."

Edith wasn't sure how to react to that. She'd intended it to be serious. Of course she had. This was her work.

"How do you mean?"

Thomas turned another page, tilting his head to the side.

"Oh, you know. You saw through us, I suppose. You looked at us and our strange ways and realised that it was all curated - we don't pretend to be normal, as such, but we pretend to be a normal kind of weird. Mainstream weird, aesthetically so, and that's how we hide the real darkness and crimes. I suppose it just offended Lucille a little that you'd started peeling back the layers as early as you did."

It took a little effort, but she shuffled onto the bed with him, sighing.

"Have you got to the... the bad stuff yet?" she asked.

"What bad stuff?"

"When I talk about your parents."

"Ah, that. Yes, I have."

She waited a moment or two until it was evident that he wasn't going to elaborate.

"And?" she asked. "What did you think?"

He took her hand, squeezing it, running his thumb gently over her knuckles.

"I found it very sensitive," he said.

That was a relief, but his opinion wasn't quite the same as Lucille's on that front.

"So what did you think of the album?" he asked.

"Oh, I liked it," she said, maybe a tiny bit too quickly. "It's strange when I'd heard some of the earliest incarnations of a song before. Like reading a first draft or something. There was one thing I didn't like."

"Yes?"

She shuffled, uncomfortable against his cotton sheets somehow.

"One of the song titles spells out my name. I can't exactly do anything about it now and I like the song. It just... surprised me, that's all. And not a very nice surprise when I've been trying to talk about privacy and so on. I'm not like you; I haven't built a persona over years and years to hide myself behind. There's just me all... exposed."

The word was barely out of her mouth when the door opened, Lucille standing there looking a little sheepish.

"I told you we should have called it something else," Thomas said. "I told you she wouldn't like it."

"I know," Lucille sighed. "And you were right. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Edith said, her initial anger faded and replaced with faint unease.

"No, it's not," Lucille said, slipping into Thomas's desk chair and pulling her legs up, shrinking a little. "I should have listened. I should have thought more about your feelings."

These felt like words she'd been practising, but were no less heartfelt for that. She was genuinely regretful.

"It's a very nice song to have my name attached to," Edith said. "I'll get used to the idea."

She watched Lucille pick lightly at fluffs on her jeans, clearly wanting to say something and struggling. Thomas idly stroked Edith's arm, like he was having the same thought and encouraging her to wait and see.

"I got to the part about Mother," Lucille said. "And... I wanted to thank you for how you approached it. You could have published all the lurid details."

"I couldn't do that."

"I would have, if it was the other way round."

"And I would have gone along with it," Thomas said.

That was true. They all knew it.

"But you wouldn't now," Edith said slightly uncertainly.

Lucille made a doubtful face, like she wasn't so sure about that.

"You'd hesitate now, at least," Edith insisted. "You're working on it. That's all I asked for and I know you're trying."

"I named a song after you even though ultimately I knew you wouldn't want that."

She did this sometimes. Edith wondered if it was tied to her protective streak, that she wanted to take blame, wanted to be the bad one and keep Thomas out of it. And yet sometimes she also clearly resented that a little, into being forced into the role of villain.

It was difficult to know how to respond, how to give her the room to explore coming out of that cycle.

Edith had said so often that they were all works in progress. They all needed space to grow and develop, but perhaps Lucille most of all and she needed to know it was safe to do that. She didn't have to take everything on her own shoulders. Never had since their childhood.

"You're sorry," Edith said. "Genuinely, and you understand why I'm a little upset. That's progress, isn't it?"

Pouting, Lucille seemed to be grudgingly accepting that. And so Edith shuffled over as best she could, patting the bed to invite her to join them for cuddles.

"I'm glad everything is out there now," Edith said. "It's been worrying me."

"Not all of it," Lucille said. "Neither of you have heard my song yet. Maybe another night though."

"What's it called?" Thomas asked, a little impatient. "Surely you can tell us that."

"Oh, I literally called it Bonus Track. Because I never expected anything like this to happen, I never expected to write a song about anyone other than you or me. An unexpected bonus in my life. And it will drive the fans mad trying to work out the real title."

Despite the unease still nestling in her heart at what said fans would think of the album, Edith couldn't deny liking that sentiment a lot.

Chapter 101: Arrivals

Edith felt sick again. Not morning sickness, that was long past thankfully, but a horrible rolling anxiety.

"What if we're not ready?" she asked at breakfast.

"How do you mean?" Thomas asked into his coffee cup.

"It's been just the three of us for so long now. What if we're not ready for a visitor?"

"Then it's a bit late," Lucille said, looking at her watch. "The flight will have been in the air for hours now."

Yes, it would. Alan had said he wouldn't message unless something was wrong so as not to wake her in the middle of the night and so the fact she'd heard nothing meant he was already on his way.

And suddenly she was so, so nervous about his arrival. She was so sure that he'd figure out the truth of their relationship somehow. He knew her better than anyone, he'd know she was hiding something.

Then again, it wasn't like she was part of the hidden relationship as such, she just knew about it and sometimes tangentially partook but really it was Thomas and Lucille and they had a lifetime of experience of hiding it, but all the same...

She kept thinking herself into knots and she felt dreadful, awful, anxious and ill, her heart heavy and her stomach churning. She had to force herself to eat, aware that she really needed to these days. The baby was getting big now.

"You're looking forward to seeing him though," Thomas said, nearly a question.

"Of course. I'm just... I don't know."

"Unused to outside company after hours?"

"Exactly."

"It will be fine," Lucille insisted. "He's your friend, he's kind of in love with you, and he's here to support you for the book launch. And we're going to be on our very best behaviour, I promise. Absolutely no teasing at all."

"He's not in love with me," Edith said reflexively. "We've discussed that and moved past it. He loves me as a friend. I mean he's practically my... brother."

She hadn't meant for it to be a test, but to be fair to them, only the sparkle in the Sharpes' eyes gave away their amusement. For an outsider, nothing would seem amiss. They could be trusted, with this at least.

"Shall I drive and you two go in to collect him?" Lucille suggested. "I mean, we could always send Pam but even I think that might be a little too far."

Yes, it really would be, not least because she was busy trying to get everything fully organised for the big launch. Banners and pens and canapés and hired chairs because Mags was not letting a bunch of music and book journalists sit on the antiques for the reading and the performance and the interviews.

Ah, yes... Edith wasn't particularly looking forward to any of it, but especially not the reading part. She didn't like hearing herself, being aware of her own voice like that. And she was having to do it just before Thomas and Lucille played live.

Well, at least it wasn't afterwards, she supposed. That would be the worst possible order.

She ought to be glad Alan was coming. He was so often her support, her connection to the world outside Allerdale. A reminder of perspective. So why was she so nervous about him coming?

Maybe because she didn't want an outside perspective right now. She was feeling much happier these days, especially now all her writing was read and understood, and she didn't want someone coming in and telling her she was lying to herself.

She didn't think she was lying to herself even, but Alan had always been able to see through her, sometimes better than she was at knowing herself. He'd known when she was ill, he'd known just how not OK she was when her dad passed. And so she was terrified he'd come here and it would turn out she wasn't OK now either.

No. No, she was fine. She wanted to live here. She liked it here, living a life she'd never expected. That was why they were seeking legal advice now, exploring the options of spousal visas. Mostly it was unbelievably expensive - which made her feel a little guilty, though she didn't know why - and extremely invasive. From everything she'd been told, their relationship was going to be thoroughly interrogated over years before she'd be granted leave to remain, let alone citizenship. And for that, you had to do some kind of exam called the Life in the UK Test which, by all accounts, was not actually helpful in any way if you wanted to learn about life in the UK.

She hated the words "leave to remain". Though it wasn't logical really, it made her think of corpses. Remains, left behind.

A child would help convince the Home Office that they were in a serious romantic relationship according to Lucille, but Edith wasn't totally convinced and wasn't looking forward to finding out.

But that was for later. Now she had to deal with Alan and the launch and then she could relax for a month before her due date.

The fact that she definitely wasn't going to relax was a different issue.

No matter how much she willed it not to, time continued to pass and she had to climb into the back of Lucille's car, feeling butterflies and kicks in her stomach. She practised breathing, slow inhales, long exhales. Not at all how you were meant to do it when giving birth. That was all quick and steady, all about dealing with pain and getting enough oxygen as efficiently as possible.

Not that she'd be dealing with pain. Part of her wanted to. Part of her somehow thought it wouldn't count as having properly given birth if she had an epidural or something, but she was getting better at rationalizing it to herself - childbirth had caused so much suffering and pain in the course of human history and her ancestors would have been grateful for the chance to mitigate that. It would be an insult not to take advantage since she could.

The airport was strangely monolithic, a squat gray building surrounded by fields. Lucille deliberately drove as close to the paid drop-off zone as possible, flaunting nearly breaking the rules, letting them hop out.

Well, Thomas hopped out. As with everything she did at the moment, Edith had rather more of a shuffle and strain to move, feeling more unwieldy than ever as they headed for the entrance.

It was just Alan, she said to herself as Thomas perused the arrivals board and took her hand. It was more comforting than he probably realized, something to cling to and also meant she was clearly with someone.

"Gate 20A," Thomas said. "Still nervous?"

"A little."

"Me too. I mean, when we last met Alan, we were trying to lead you astray and hide that. Now we want to prove that we're good enough for you and I fear he might be difficult to impress."

Maybe. But seeing that familiar dark blonde hair, Alan's face coming through from immigration control, suddenly a huge amount of fear flowed out of her, unexpectedly glad to see him, reaching up for a gentle hug.

"You look great," he said.

"I look enormous."

"No, you look healthy. Glowing."

He and Thomas just nodded at each other and shook hands, but Alan let him take his bag for him. They were friendly enough. Hopefully not feeling any jealousy or animosity or anything like that.

"How was the flight?" Edith asked.

"Fine. Long, though. And you know me and jetlag. Just an hour's time different would be enough to throw me, let alone five. I'll try to recover tonight and be ready for tomorrow."

He helped her into the car, taking the other back seat, looking only slightly unnerved by driving on the other side of the road.

"Are we all looking forward to the big launch?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," Lucille said. "And looking forward to it all being finished. Now, I must warn you, there's only one shower and I fear we'll be monopolizing it tomorrow so you might want to either get in early or be ready to wait. But you'll see it all at the house."

Despite her pictures, Edith could see the astonishment in his eyes as they drove down the entrance way. This was their house. It had its own road sign.

"Oh, wow," he said. "It's huge. I mean, I realised it was going to be big, but... Wow."

If Edith wasn't mistaken, Thomas and Lucille relaxed a little bit hearing his evident awe. They felt safe hiding behind the house, behind the weight of history and the architecture. This is us, it said, this is where we come from. Our ancestors are terribly impressive and that makes us impressive too.

Considering how they felt about the family name, it was borderline hypocritical.

He could do the proper tour with Mags later if he wanted to, but for now it was very much pointing out the parlour where Pam was still organizing the set up for the launch day and then up to the main living floor, the bathroom, kitchen and the room that had been cleared ready for him.

"Are you terribly jetlagged?" Edith asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. "You can have a nap if you need to."

"No, I think I can power through. Might have to go to bed early, but I'll stay up for now."

And that was fine. She really needed to calm down and stop being so nervous. It was just Alan. He was her oldest friend. She shouldn't be nervous about him being here.

Even so, finally sitting down in the kitchen, left alone as the Sharpes went downstairs to help Pam, she had absolutely no idea what to say to him.

"How's work been?" she tried.

"A bit better now we're out of winter, but still not great. I've really been needing a break."

"Well, sorry that I'm not in the best of positions to show you around. The countryside might do you a world of good. Fresh air and all that."

"Don't worry about it. I'm here to see you. And to get to know Thomas and Lucille better. I mean, they are your... partners. Are you calling them partners?"

"I don't really call them anything, except to the Home Office. But, yeah, they're my... We are partners. But they're... You know. They're strange. They're... British."

He laughed.

"Well, I know culturally they'll be a bit different, but not that much, surely."

"And they're rich. I mean, look at their house. Imagine growing up here and turning out like other people. And they have... darkness in their past. Sometimes they're blunt when they don't mean to be. And that sounds like I'm making excuses, I'm not, I'm actively helping them to be more conscientious but sometimes old habits creep in."

"Edith," he said, such warmth in his eyes. "It's OK. You love them and you must have reasons for that. I promise to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure I'll like them. Once I get to know them."

She really hoped that was true as he yawned through a slightly stilted dinner and Thomas suggested that they ought to all go to bed early since they had a such big day tomorrow.

"Does he like us?" Lucille asked, curling in behind her, the bed seeming absolutely enormous with just the two of them in it.

"I hope he will. I'm nervous about it. I'm nervous about everything though. The launch, the reading, the baby coming soon..."

"Oh, sweetheart. You do know you can talk to us about anything, don't you?"

"Well, yes, but I don't want to worry you with my worries."

Lucille kissed her shoulder through the thin cotton of her pyjamas, just a little warmth.

"OK," she said. "I understand. It's just how your brain works. But I just want you to know that you can talk to us and that we want to help. I do, especially. Sometimes I feel like you and Thomas use up all your energy looking after me because my brain is so broken, but I want to be able to look after you sometimes."

Despite all her nerves and the vague ill feeling that had been rolling through her all day, Edith found that she wanted that too.

Chapter 102: Launch

It wasn't like Edith had never been to a book launch before. She'd moved in writing circles. She had connections here and there, old friends from college who frequented these things socially and professionally. But it was very different seeing her own face on the banners, her name everywhere.

She'd blow-dried her hair in an effort to make it lie straight, though that had really made it fluff up in a way that made attempting to tie it back pointless so she was left with a long wavy mane. And, of course, none of her nicest clothes fit her at the moment so she had chosen comfort above everything else, wearing an oversized Crimson Peak merch t-shirt that Lucille had carefully cut for her to make it more like an off-shoulder dress. A belt above the bump and black leggings and make-up to cover the shadows under her eyes had made her more or less presentable.

Alan certainly seemed to think so, boggling at her.

"You don't look like you," he said. "I mean, you do look like you, but you look different."

"Good different?"

"Different. You look great, though. Now, have you had breakfast? Or lunch, more like."

"Oh... No, I can't. I'm not hungry."

She knew that look, the soft worried eyes, the fear. It wasn't because she was relapsing, it was because her stomach was bubbling with nerves and anticipation.

"I'll have a big dinner," she sighed. "I promise, OK?"

"You'll feel better even if it's just a little. Get your blood sugar up a bit."

She forced herself to have some dry cereal just so he wouldn't worry so much, Thomas arriving freshly showered, damp hair curling into its waves, but in his dressing gown. Couldn't risk getting crumbs on his outfit, of course.

"How are we this morning?" he asked, starting to make toast.

"I'm afraid I'm bullying Edith into eating, as usual," Alan said.

The inference was fairly clear, she felt. Asking if they were looking after her properly, if they cared for her like he did. And now Edith felt a little concern rise in her. How would Thomas handle this? He'd want to soothe Alan's worries, of course, but she didn't want to be thrown under the bus for that, even temporarily.

"It's a very nerve-wracking day," he said, rubbing her shoulder gently. "I've hardly any appetite myself and Lucille probably won't eat before dinner. But I'm glad to see you keeping your strength up."

She didn't feel very strong. She felt very fragile, especially when Lucille put in an appearance looking like cast iron made flesh, her braid like a lacquered rope, perfect red lips and pale face. And as Thomas predicted, just coffee, leaving a vivid stain on her mug.

"It's only a few hours," Thomas murmured.

"I know, but it's different," Lucille said. "It's in the house. And these aren't paying music fans; they're critics and journalists. No offense, Edith."

None taken. She understood exactly what she meant. These people were working. Sure, you could get someone who didn't enjoy a show or a piece of writing and that was fine, but the people coming to the launch were there to form opinions and their judgements mattered to her somehow. Maybe because she was broadly managing to stay away from online comments but would be obliged to read these ones.

They could hear them already, somehow a different kind of hubbub to the tourists they had most days. Alan headed downstairs to take his seat, the whole thing about to start.

And she was up first... Her mouth suddenly felt very dry, getting herself a glass of water.

"Are you alright?" Thomas asked. "Really?"

"It's just nerves," Edith said. "I'll feel better when it's over."

She clutched her glass tightly all the way down in the elevator, Pam waiting at the door to the parlour and starting to wheel herself inside after Thomas gave her a nod.

The hubbub stopped, the distinct thunk of a microphone being switched on.

"Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Pamela Upton and it is my pleasure to welcome you here today to stunning Allerdale Hall. Our schedule today will be a reading from the collected writings of the #Titleless tour, a live performance of the lead single, 'This Wasn't Meant To Happen', and then questions. Refreshments are available on your left, please help yourselves. In the very unlikely event of an emergency, please exit calmly via the main entrance."

Nothing helped nerves like the specter of a potential evacuation, even though really Edith was glad someone was thinking about such things.

God, they should really have an evacuation plan themselves, a general home plan, avoiding the elevator...

"...and without any further ado, please welcome Miss Edith Cushing and Crimson Peak, Sir Thomas and Lady Lucille Sharpe."

Thomas gave her a gentle nudge, just a hand on the small of her back but it was enough to shock her into the present, walking through the centre aisle between the chairs, seeing Alan smiling in his seat at the back, the polite applause barely registering in her brain.

It was only a few dozen people maximum, why did she feel so sick?

Their table was at the side, keeping the view of the microphones clear for their respective performances, Thomas helping Pam to adjust the stand for her as she tried to breathe, taking a final sip of water and concentrating on her steps to the centre of the room, the book clutched under her arm.

She probably looked like an enormous pigeon waddling around, trying to be subtle as she cleared her throat and opened to the right page, neatly marked. She'd be reading one of her new essays, new writing, something only those with advance copies might have read. It was just reading. She could do this.

Slow breathing. Try for good posture. Enunciate clearly and project enough but the microphone would do most of the work. Hold the text high enough to read it and be seen, don't hide.

She tried to look only at Alan, tried to let everyone else fade into a blur. It was just Alan and she was just reading a paragraph to him to see how it flowed, like she had so many times before.

"One thing I would have expected to learn about after such extended travel with Thomas and Lucille is more about their creative process. I was certainly aware of them writing songs around me, working things out in their heads. It's in a slight pause in their replies to questions, minds elsewhere, or in a rhythm tapped out over and over on a restaurant table. In truth, I think music occupies a large portion of their brains even subconsciously. I don't know if that's immutable or because they worked at it and I don't think it particularly mat... matters..."

She felt very strange. Very warm, much more than just from nerves. Maybe Pam had turned up the heating too high?

And the letters were a little blurry, making her blink hard.

"Whether they were born with music in their souls," she read, trying to keep her voice steady and unsure if she was managing. "Or whether they've used their skills and talent to develop rhythm in their very bodies, the effect is the same - they don't just play music, but live it, from the moment Lucille sits at her piano in the morning to..."

Something was running down her leg. Something wet was... What was that?

"Edith?" she heard. "Are you alright?"

That was Lucille talking to her but she suddenly felt so strange, faint, needing to sit down before she fell.

"Something's... Something feels weird," she managed. "I'm fine, I just need to sit..."

Thomas suddenly there supporting part of her weight, easing her down to the floor, calling for Alan for some reason, and Pam was saying something to the room at large but...

Alan's eyes were huge in front of her, his nostrils flared in alarm.

"Edith," he said softly. "Have you had... contractions today?"

"What? No," she mumbled, absolutely mortified. "No, I can't have, I'm not due for another month..."

"OK, then this is probably nothing but we're going to call an ambulance just to be sure."

"You're a doctor," Thomas said. "You can help."

"I'm not this kind of doctor. Ambulance, now. Just to be sure."

"Pam!" Lucille called. "Could you escort everyone out, please?"

"I'm fine," Edith insisted even as Lucille stepped away from her, pulling out her phone, the room full of hushed murmurs. "I can't be having the baby. That's... That's ridiculous. It doesn't even hurt, I'm just dizzy."

She felt very damp, glad she was on one of the plastic protection sheets and not an antique carpet because she really felt quite wet now. Maybe the baby had moved and pressed against her bladder or something, though she didn't feel like she was peeing.

A glance down was a mistake. That fluid pooling around her was mostly clear but some of it...

Was that just the colour of the rug underneath her?

Poking it with a finger made part of her brain stop. Because that was blood. There was some blood here. Only a little bit, but still. And that was... that was bad.

"Ambulance, please," she heard Lucille say. "Yes, she's breathing but she's eight months pregnant and feeling light-headed. Allerdale Hall, the National Trust property. Quickly."

Chapter 103: Checks

"You're going to have to take a look," Thomas said. "You're a doctor, you must know something."

"I studied it years ago, but I'm not an obstetrician," Alan said.

"Try," Lucille said, her voice like ice, barely concealed threat. "If anything happens to her that you could have prevented..."

"Not helping," Edith said quietly.

Thomas was right, she knew it, but she was so scared. She wasn't ready for this. And she wanted to be in a hospital, she wanted to be safe...

But she needed to know.

"Pretend I'm just another patient," she mumbled, scooting up to ease off her leggings.

It was amazing she could still feel embarrassed even while seeing smears of blood on her thighs, and Alan clearly was too, looking away at first, affording her some dignity until she was ready.

"OK," he said. "Right, uh... There's no delicate way to ask this - have you noticed any unusual discharge in the past few hours, especially something like a sort of... plug?"

"I don't think so. I don't know..."

"And the baby's been moving as normal?"

Had they? She thought so but then again, she hadn't been paying much attention. Oh, God...

"They've been moving," she said. "I think normally. I hope normally."

"Right. And you've had no contractions?"

"I don't know what contractions feel like. I've felt... I've felt a bit sick the last couple of days, but I thought it was just nerves."

He nodded and finally knelt down properly.

"OK, I'm just going to check for any dilation, but I'm not going to touch anything."

It was still mortifying. Thomas was with her, rubbing her back, but Lucille seemed... scared. Afraid to approach. Maybe ready to run to get the EMTs as soon as they arrived.

"I... I honestly can't really tell," Alan said. "You could be in the very early stages of labor. But it might be nothing. Either way, we'll get you taken along to hospital and they'll make sure everything is alright."

He was trying to keep her calm, using all his training to soothe her but it really wasn't working.

"What if it's bad?" she asked. "What if... What if something's wrong?"

"Then we'll deal with that," Thomas said. "Won't we? Lucille?"

His voice seemed to snap her into reality, approaching Edith's other side, taking her hand.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, of course. No matter what this is, if it's nothing to worry about or if the baby's coming a little early or whatever..."

What if the baby was coming now? She wasn't ready. She was not ready. There was meant to be another month to go and she hadn't let the Sharpes sort out a nursery or even buy diapers just in case it somehow brought bad luck down upon them...

"Yes, through here," Pam said from out in the hall. "Sorry, we were in the middle of an album launch."

Strangers in green uniforms, Alan standing up and filling them in with practised skill, and Edith immediately found herself having her heart rate taken, being examined briefly and then a wheelchair was rolled through for her, which felt insulting to Pam somehow in the back of her mind.

There was a pad on it to soak up the blood and fluid.

"Who's coming in the ambulance? We've got room for one."

There wasn't even a pause.

"You go," Thomas said to Lucille. "I'll drive with the good doctor."

It was the most sensible option. Without either of them really noticing, their hands were locked in a tight grip, and when Edith glanced at Lucille, her perfect pale skin was deathly white. Clearly in no fit state to operate a car. It reminded her of the time Thomas had slept in her hotel room and Lucille had arrived the next morning completely terrified.

She'd been scared Thomas had left her. And now she was scared for Edith. But as soon as she noticed she was being observed, she visibly tried to cover it, tried to be strong for her.

And her presence as they left drew away some of the worst of the gawking, Pam already in full damage control mode, telling everyone that for obvious reasons the event would not be continuing that day, that she'd be in touch with updates. Edith almost hoped something serious was happening so anyone annoyed they'd come out here for nothing would feel really terrible about it.

"It's absolutely nothing to worry about," the paramedic pushing the chair said. "We'll get you up to the hospital and find out exactly what's going on. You just tell us if anything changes on the way."

"What do you think it is?" Lucille asked.

"Well, this kind of discharge can be indicative of preterm labor, but it's often absolutely nothing to worry about, especially with no contractions. Are you the... sister?"

"I'm the aunt. And co-parent. We're complicated, don't worry about it. We just want the best care."

"Of course."

They locked the chair into place and set off, attaching various monitors, but not the one Edith wanted most.

"Do you have an ultrasound?" she asked. "I want to see the baby."

"Not here. And you'll have to see what the doctors at the hospital recommend."

She didn't want to wait, she didn't want to have recommendations, she wanted to know what was wrong.

Breathing steadily, she tried to stay calm.

"I can't be having the baby," she said out loud. "I haven't had any contractions. I've seen it on TV, they're meant to really hurt, so I must just have... I don't know. A minor infection or something, something that will clear up and it will all be fine."

"Yeah," Lucille said. "Yeah, you're probably right, they'll probably just give you some antibiotics and it will all be fine and we'll come straight home."

It was a surprisingly short journey, even though they weren't sounding the siren. Edith tried to take it as a good sign that they didn't. That meant they didn't consider this an urgent emergency. They considered it a routine check. Everything was going to be fine.

Oh, wait...

"I'm not a citizen," she said. "Is this... Is this allowed? I have private health care."

"Don't worry about that," the paramedic taking notes said. "We'll sort all of that out afterwards. You're doing really well with staying calm. You just focus on yourself and tell us if anything changes."

Had anything changed? She wasn't sure. Was that the baby moving or did she just feel sick? Was it just nerves?

She pressed against her belly and definitely felt movement. They were fine. They were alive.

Lucille took her other hand as she was wheeled into the hospital, taken directly up to maternity and helped onto a bed, a curtain being drawn around her. There was a lot of noise, chatter and distant labor and babies crying.

"This is Edith, approximately 36 weeks' gestation, some vaginal leakage with blood, suspected PPROM but requiring further investigation."

The head midwife smiled at her, like an aunt or young grandmother, trying to soothe her. She was maybe fifty, short grey hair, large gold stud earrings.

"Alright," she said. "No need to be concerned. I'll get the ultrasound ready and we'll have the doctor along in a minute."

"What's PPROM?" Lucille asked, forgetting to be charming and just being blunt.

"Don't worry about that, we'll do some checks first before confirming."

"But what is it?"

"Like I say, nothing to worry about at this stage. Can you roll up your dress for me, Edith?"

At least they put a bit of that strange medical paper over her from the waist down, giving her at least a little dignity, the cold gel like an old friend.

The relief at hearing that familiar whooshing noise released some tension that Edith hadn't realized she was carrying. The baby's heartbeat. They were fine. There was nothing wrong.

"Hm," the midwife said.

The tension rushed back immediately.

"What?" Edith asked. "What is it?"

"Well, we'll have to do a few more tests first, but the amniotic fluid does seem to have decreased a little. When did you first notice the leakage?"

When had they called an ambulance?

"Not long ago. Not longer than half an hour."

"Alright. And was it more of a sudden gush or a steady flow?"

"Steady. Is that bad? Is that worse?"

"No, no. Usually around this time, you'd have a bit under two pints of liquid around the fetus, but if you're losing fluid... Well, either labor will begin on its own or we might induce it, just to be on the safe side."

Edith's heart pounded in her own ears, feeling hot and cold, her vision blurring a little.

"But they're not ready," she whispered. "It's too soon, they're not finished growing. How can it be safe when they're not big enough?"

"I've seen plenty smaller ones than this turn out perfectly fine. Try to stay calm. You're in good hands, I promise."

The bulge that seemed so enormous when she couldn't get into her clothes now seemed far too small.

Chapter 104: Rushed

The midwife left with some fluid samples and Thomas and Alan arrived before the doctor could see her, being let behind the curtain by clearly somewhat confused nurses. Probably wondering which of them was the father, which was mortifying.

How had this become her life all of a sudden? She'd never expected to be pregnant at all, let alone in these circumstances and having her oldest friend and her two partners here in a strange place, a strange country...

Oh, she should never have left Buffalo, she should never have done this...

"You," Lucille said. "Doctor Alan, explain to me what the hell PPROM is and what it means - go."

Alan held up a hand, very placating.

"Lucille, I know you're stressed, but for Edith's sake, you need to calm down."

Rage flashed in her eyes, a deep anger brought on by fear.

"You know, this is part of why I hate hospitals," she said, her tone like ice. "Everyone talks to you like you're an idiot, like you're a child who shouldn't worry their stupid little head about what's going on. Just explain what it means. Unless you don't actually know, of course."

A blatant appeal to ego, challenging him. And Edith understood but it really wasn't helping.

"Edith," Thomas said, gentler. "Do you want to know? Or are you happier with it being a bit vague? It's up to you."

Did she want to know? Yes, of course. Why wouldn't she?

"There's no point in hiding from the truth just because it's scary," she said. "It's going to happen anyway. Alan, if you know what it means, could you please tell me?"

He nodded, clearly trying to get into a sort of clinical mode.

"Well, it usually stands for preterm prelabor rupture of membranes. Prelabor means that it started before you were in labor and preterm means that you're under about 37 weeks of pregnancy. Just under. And rupture of the membranes... That's just... That's what it sounds like. So essentially, the membrane around the baby has opened a little before expected. Buy they don't seem worried. Everything's fine."

He'd no sooner said that than the curtain moved, a doctor appearing behind it, a rather small balding man with glasses.

"Oh," he said. "Gosh, this is more people than I was expecting. Right, so, from what we can tell, it's definitely amniotic fluid leakage so we're just going to see how things are moving along. I'm going to check for any dilation and then if necessary I'll do what we call a sweeping."

"What's that?" Edith asked.

"I'll just insert a couple of fingers into the birth canal and try to sweep the remaining membranes away from the cervix. It often causes labor to get underway."

"I'm not sure I want labor to get underway."

"Well," he said mildly. "Unfortunately, we think this may have been caused by a minor infection, so for the sake of you and the little one, it's best to go ahead and prevent any further complications."

She looked to Alan for reassurance, getting a shrug and a nod. Probably the best option in his opinion. But she wasn't ready, she still wasn't ready.

"What if it doesn't work?" she asked. "What then?"

He'd put on gloves, preparing lubricant gel, sitting on a stool and looking up at her over the frames of his glasses.

"If there's no movement in another hour, we'll consider some chemical inducement. This might be a little uncomfortable, but it shouldn't hurt. Ready?"

No.

"OK," she said.

She ended up squeezing her eyes closed against the unpleasant sensation of something probing into her, grunting and feeling tears behind her eyes and then a distinct pain, grabbing at the wheeled bed.

"Oh. Sorry about that. Well, congratulations, that may have been your first contraction."

It hurt. She'd known it was going to hurt, but actually feeling it was different, a wave of the worst cramps in the world that then subsided, her head aching and horror deepening within her that this would probably go on for hours and get worse and worse.

"We'll get some pain relief organized for once you're a little further along," the doctor said, taking off his plastic gloves. "How many people plan to be with you?"

Alan wasn't meant to be here at all and she wasn't totally comfortable with the idea of him seeing her actually give birth, but she didn't want to tell him to leave because that was so mean and...

"Two, I think," Alan said. "I'll wait in the corridor. I can go on water runs and all that kind of stuff and stay out of the way."

Edith nodded, grateful, and embarrassed that clearly her hesitation had been written all over her face.

Why was she crying? That didn't make any sense. She felt like a stranger in her own body, trapped within it and unable to control anything and being out of control was the worst thing she could imagine and...

"Two people, OK. We'll get a room for you soon."

Soon seemed to be a relative term. She went through several more contractions but couldn't tell if they were getting closer together or not. And beyond the simple terror that this would kill her, that she couldn't do it, there was the endless, gaping horror of knowing that the baby was coming now, so much sooner than expected.

"What are we going to do?" she kept asking. "What will we do?"

"Everything's going to be fine," Thomas insisted. "We won't be going home right away so there's plenty of time to sort out a crib and everything else we'll need. It's not like we can't source everything."

"They don't have a name. We haven't even thought about names and you can't rush names, it's too important..."

"You don't legally need to register a birth for weeks. We have time."

Always researching. Always looking things up. How long ago had he found that out?

"We need to see them before we can give them a name," Lucille said, looming just on the edge of her vision. "What if we chose one now that didn't suit them at all?"

"Stop logic-ing at me."

The tears just kept flowing, fear and pain, Alan bringing endless little cups of water until she was finally pushed out along a corridor to an actual room, lifted from her wheeled bed onto a different one and obediently let them attach different machines.

She couldn't decide if the beep of the heart monitor was comforting or not. On the one hand, it proved she was alive, but on the other she felt separate from it, like it was following someone else.

After all, that couldn't be her heartbeat. It was too steady. Fast but steady.

Everyone she saw was very nice, too nice, trying to calm her down when she didn't want to be calm, she wanted someone to tell her that this was awful and she was right to be so upset. And she wanted painkillers but apparently she wasn't allowed to have them yet.

And she couldn't stop crying. That seemed to be causing the most concern. It wasn't pain, it was distress.

"Don't be scared," one of the midwives said. "You can do this. Your body is meant to do this."

"Then why do so many people die in childbirth if we're meant to do it?"

She didn't like to be combative. It wasn't in her nature. But everything hurt and everything was terrifying and it wasn't supposed to be this way...

Another contraction rushed through her, so painful, making her gasp and groan. How was this the best way to have babies? How had the species survived? Why would anyone go through this more than once?

Closing her eyes didn't really help but it was too bright in here, too loud, and she didn't want to look at anyone.

She didn't hear Lucille approach, but she knew it was her hand slipping into hers, the cold fingers with little callouses from her bass, the faint smell of perfume when she moved.

"What do you need? What would help?"

"Gas. An epidural. Drugs."

"Can we help?"

Edith shook her head. She didn't want to say that what she really wanted wasn't sympathy or empathy or for anyone to tell her it was all going to be alright, it was permission to feel hopeless and awful and dark and not be forced to be positive and think of how happy she'd be when the baby was in her arms. She wanted to wallow in despair even while she knew that wasn't useful. It was how she felt.

And she must be almost crushing Lucille's hand by squeezing it through the pain. Someone else was stroking her forehead and hair. Thomas maybe.

They finally brought her gas and air, encouraging deep, steady pulls, the sound of it disconcertingly like Darth Vader's breathing.

"Are you feeling the urge to push?" someone asked.

"What?"

"Don't worry. You'll know when it happens. And when it does, you need to push and push hard."

The gas was helping but it was strange. An inhale and then reduced pain for a little while but then it wore off. You were meant to time it with contractions maybe. She just felt dizzy and sore and terrified.

"What if I don't know when it happens?" she mumbled.

"You'll know. Your body will tell you."

It was meant to be comforting, but this wasn't right. Sharing her body with the baby had been one thing, a surprise but something she wanted, but now... Now it was like she'd been taken over, her body was operating completely outside of her control, abandoning her to strange and painful sensations, rushing her when she wasn't even remotely ready and that didn't seem fair. She'd done everything right. She'd been very careful. She'd taken the iron tablets and done everything else they'd told her to do. It wasn't fair. This wasn't even the right hospital.

"You're doing really well, Edith. Dilation looks good."

She wasn't doing well. She wasn't doing anything, she was just lying here in pain while her body got on with things.

And then she felt it. Pressure, an overwhelming pressure, like she needed to expel something, gripping Lucille's hand tightly where she'd gone a little limp.

She needed to push.

Chapter 105: Arrival

They told her later that it was quite short, all things considered. Nine hours from when she first arrived in the hospital to the baby being out. It could have taken much longer.

It felt longer. It felt shorter. She hadn't been able to judge. The urge to push had been just as obvious as they said it would be, coming in waves. They kept telling her to breathe, to do what she'd practised, but even with Thomas trying to count her through it, she couldn't manage very well. She felt certain she'd passed out at one point, but apparently not. And she'd done a lot of swearing. And screaming, and grunting and loud groaning. It wasn't dignified and miraculous like on TV; it was sweaty and awful and she felt like she was covered in every bodily fluid she could produce.

They'd told her the head was out, but that wasn't the worst part. The shoulders were worst, her whole body burning despite the painkillers, convinced that something must be tearing open. Maybe it was, maybe it had, maybe they'd cut her to make it easier like they said in the prenatal class, but they were telling her to keep going, keep pushing, almost there...

The baby's cry seemed to reach directly into her ribcage, a sob bursting out of her in sympathy, her whole body trembling, shaking from effort and pain and a huge wave of relief.

"A girl," someone said. "A little girl."

They put her on Edith's chest, like all the websites and pamphlets said they would. It was meant to be good for them.

She was tiny. So tiny and smeared with blood and purplish from screaming. Dark hair like the Sharpes. So small. Too small? And should her head be like that?

"Why is she all... pointed?" she managed to ask.

"Don't worry - some babies' skulls get a little compressed during birth. It's nothing to worry about and will sort itself out. Now, we need to be thinking about the placenta..."

Edith couldn't think. She couldn't register words. She was just staring at the baby, watching her skin go from livid to pale as she stopped crying, two incredibly dark eyes gazing at her but unable to focus yet. The first moments of life must be so terrifying. Cold after the warmth of the womb, bright, everything so new and different.

But holding her, feeling little hands gripping at her clothes and skin, so delicate and warm... She never wanted to put her down. She wanted to hold her forever.

They even let her keep holding her while Thomas cut the cord. They called him Dad. It was too strange, far too strange. If he was a father then that meant she was a mother and that couldn't be right. Even when they helped her move the tiny head up to her nipple to latch on, even feeling that little mouth instinctively start feeding, taking nourishment from her, it didn't feel real.

Someone rubbed antiseptic on her arm to inject her with something, something about needing to move the afterbirth along. They could have done anything to her really. She was too tired to question anything.

Until they tried to take the baby.

"No," Edith mumbled as strange hands touched her. "No, don't."

"We're just going to weigh her and give her some vitamin K and do a few other little tests and then we'll bring her straight back."

"No..."

"Can I take her?" Lucille asked softly. "I'll keep her safe, I promise."

She still didn't like this, but Lucille was at least familiar, at least a known quantity. And fierce, so fierce. If anyone tried anything, they'd live to regret it.

Someone was talking to her about stitches, local anaesthetic, freshening up, but she wasn't listening. She was watching and listening, seeing the baby gently taken from Lucille's arms and laid in a horribly cold-looking scale, people gathering round and then an awful shriek.

They wouldn't let her get up even as she tried to, compelled to go save her child from whatever was happening.

"She's OK," Thomas said beside her. "I can see her, she's fine. They've just given her a little jab. It's nothing bad."

It felt like forever before they brought her back, in a tiny diaper and blanket, a knitted hat on her head. It had ALLERDALE picked out in the design around the edge.

"Mags made it," Thomas said. "She'll be very pleased that we actually used it."

It was sweet, if a little large. Made for a full-term baby. And she wasn't at full-term, not quite. Was even that few weeks enough to be dangerous? After all, she wasn't... done yet, she wasn't finished.

They took Edith and the baby through to the maternity ward, wanting her to stay in overnight if not longer, letting Alan come in to see them. They all had to speak softly, trying not to disturb the other patients so early in the morning.

"How are you feeling?" he whispered.

"Tired. Sore."

"Well, I think that's understandable. You've done so well. She's beautiful."

Everyone was just calling her Baby. Baby Cushing-Sharpe. That's what it said on her little plastic anklet. Even though home wasn't ready yet, needed a lot of adjustments to make it safer, Edith wanted to go home. She didn't like the noises here, the unfamiliar place, the strangers.

"How will you sleep if I'm not there?" she asked Lucille, not sure how well this projection was going, how well she was managing to pretend this wasn't just an excuse to ask for what she wanted.

"I will be fine," Lucille murmured. "And I will be comforted by the knowledge that you and the little one are in the best possible hands and that you are sleeping and recovering. You've just grown a new human in your body and then pushed her out into the world. You need to rest."

Even as exhaustion tugged at her, she was trying to resist. She had so many other worries - not least that Alan was about to leave with the Sharpes and she wouldn't be there to moderate, wouldn't know what they were talking about, what misunderstandings might arise between them.

"I want to go home."

They all looked at her with such softness, tenderness but also pity. She felt so young suddenly, so helpless, like she was shrinking back to her teenage self somehow. She'd wanted to go home then too, the first time she'd had to be an inpatient.

"I can stay with you," Lucille said. "If that would help."

It was better than being left here alone.

"Good idea," Thomas said. "And Dr Alan and I will head back, get some rest and get organized. We'll ready the nursery, make sure all our supplies are in order. Nappies, bottles, all of that."

All the things Edith hadn't let him buy, saying that preparing too much was bad luck, that something was sure to go wrong if they had everything ready.

With Lucille settling into a plush pleather chair beneath a thin blanket, still more or less perfectly made-up, like a strange statue of a saint watching over her, and with Baby's chest definitely rising and falling in her crib, definitely alive, Edith finally stopped fighting her body and let sleep come.

Chapter 106: Calling

She was woken up several times in the night, or what was left of it anyway. Or maybe it was the day now. She found it hard to tell. Blood pressure tests, temperature, Baby waking and needing to be fed. Edith hated that she was thinking of her that way, so impersonally, but they hadn't chosen a name in advance. She hadn't wanted to choose one, so certain that naming the baby would somehow cause harm.

If you chose a name, they were a person and a person could die.

And now there was a poor nameless soul beside her and she had the precise opposite fear, that she needed to be named as soon as possible or something awful would happen. You shouldn't die without a name, if something happened, her child would be doomed somehow.

Perhaps it was the exhaustion talking. She was drifting in and out of awareness, hearing Lucille's voice just on the edge of her consciousness, Thomas's too later, but unable to make sense of their words really.

"...clothes... Yes... McMichael... Sleep..."

It was only when she heard a different sound, not a cry but a distinct baby gurgle sound, that she woke, immediately wanting to attend to whatever need was required.

Empty crib. She whipped her head to the other side of the room. Where was she? Where was she?

"Hey," Thomas said, so softly it was almost a whisper but gentler than that. "How are you feeling?"

He was holding Baby, her little face gazing up at him calmly but also with a faintly mistrustful expression. Everyone was a stranger to her. Everything was new. But presumably she felt safe enough in his arms.

"She needs a name," Edith murmured.

"I thought you didn't want to..."

"I didn't, not while she wasn't here, but now she is, she needs one."

Maybe he was a little surprised that that was the very first thing on her mind, but he didn't try to make her talk about anything else.

"Well, then I suppose it depends what kind of name you want to give her. Something more traditional or something unusual."

"You don't mean traditional, you mean common. You're wondering if I want a name that half the other kids have. Because you want to give her a weird name."

He smiled at her, getting up out of his chair to bring Baby over, letting Edith take her. She'd probably need feeding again soon. Every two hours or so, they said, but she made it known when she was hungry.

"Well, I realise that Lucille and I might have rather different ideas of what's suitable than you do, but I think the three of us will have some ideas in common. We want something... meaningful. Special."

"I got teased for having an old lady's name," Edith said, gazing into Baby's eyes, wondering if she could possibly have any sense of who they were to one another.

"So Ethel and Jemima are right out of the question?"

"You're not serious."

"No. But I know Lucille and I can practically sense her at home right now trying to find the perfect allegorical reference, the perfect Ancient Greek muse or goddess. We'll talk her round. I think it would be cruel to make a child go by Calliope or Euterpe in the village nursery."

"Where is Lucille? She was here."

"Gone home to freshen up and get a little horizontal rest. And to check on what Alan and I have organised, make sure we haven't missed the mark entirely - we unearthed the old crib and put it in your bedroom, we've got bottles and nappies and sterilisers all to hand, and there will be baby clothes by the time you're ready to come home."

Those were important things, intellectually she knew that, but her brain had room for only one subject.

"I want something that means... miracle. Impossible. Because I thought it was, I thought I couldn't..."

"Dorothy?" Thomas said. "Gift from God. Or Dorothea or Theodora..."

"No."

"Alright. What does Edith mean? Do you know?"

"It's like... richness. But it can also mean strife. I'm not sure I understand it really."

"Thomas means twin, if you can believe it. Get into the Bible and people will keep using it regardless of relevance, I suppose. And Lucille is from lux, like light. I'm not sure our parents were thinking of the etymology when they chose them. Leave it with me. I'll think."

Edith was torn. The name had to be found quickly, it was vital that they gave Baby a proper name, but it had to be perfect and she wouldn't know it until she found it.

Maybe she was feeling like this, nervous and fearful, partially because everything hurt. Ached. And she was so dreadfully tired, falling into broken sleep for several more hours, having horrible nightmares of waking up alone, abandoned by her new family, her child taken from her, evicted unceremoniously from Allerdale, from England...

The midwives - or were they technically nurses now? - seemed very concerned about her, checking frequently. Was she behaving strangely? She couldn't tell. What was normal when you'd just pushed a person out of your body?

When she was awake, she felt like her arms were empty unless Baby was in them. She felt oddly offended when she was awake and yet Baby slept. Maybe she'd be grateful for it soon enough, but she was already feeling that enormous cavern between their experiences, a gulf that would exist for years and years: on one hand her own knowledge of how wondrous this tiny being was, how incredible it was that she had been born at all, how fragile she was and on the other no real consciousness yet.

When did babies start to think? Her own mind was a constant river of words. If they didn't have words, could they think? They must have emotions. Happiness and fear and love and all of that. But perhaps, for a little while, the brain was only occupied with the immediate requirements of survival.

They checked that she knew how to change diapers, how to hold Baby and feed her and bathe her, giving strict instructions about not using soaps or cleansers or lotions for weeks in case it damaged her delicate skin. They checked both of them over, Edith wincing a little in embarrassment and discomfort. It was going to be some time before her body would even begin to feel healed. Even going to the bathroom was difficult, her stitches stinging.

And they warned her that she could technically get pregnant as little as three weeks after giving birth, as if there was any kind of risk. There wouldn't be time to get pregnant even if the odds could be beaten again.

She still couldn't go home. Not quite yet. Even a slightly early birth led to an abundance of caution about checks and observations. Jaundice could take time to develop. Edith privately thought that maybe it was partially because Allerdale was so remote. Too far to get to quickly, far easier to do all the early days tests here.

Every couple of hours, she fed Baby. She watched over her. She slept. They brought her menus and she chose food but felt like she barely tasted it, only eating for fuel.

Lucille arriving was a relief she didn't expect, her shoes clacking down the corridors.

"I've only got a moment while Dr Alan helps to waylay him with the nurses," she said, coming and kissing her on the forehead. "But he's terribly pleased with himself so let him down gently if you don't like it."

Edith couldn't quite understand what she was saying. Pleased about what? What?

And then Thomas and Alan joined them and she saw Thomas's face. The smile, the excitement.

"I have an idea," he said. "Potentially a middle name idea if you want to veto it as the main one."

Middle name. She hadn't even thought of middle names. Poor Baby was going to have so many initials.

"OK," she said. "What is it?"

He looked so delighted that she found herself really hoping she liked whatever he'd come up with.

"Well, you said you wanted a special name," he said. "But I thought something like Miracle or Precious would be a little too direct for you. And so I thought about precious things, precious stones, and about colors - obviously red is an important shade for all of us at Allerdale so I was looking at red gems but somehow Ruby and Garnet didn't sound right."

No, they didn't. Lovely though they were, they weren't leaping out at her.

"So I looked up some less common red gems," Thomas continued. "Jasper is out, of course, and while I believe Beryl comes in a red variety, I thought it might fail the old-fashioned name test. But then I was looking at carnelian and I thought of carmine and then of Carmen and I think I found it - Carmina. It's a form of the Latin word for songs and while it's not etymologically connected to terms for red as far as I can tell, it's inspired by that in my head and we could call her Mina for short which is more usual but not too common..."

"And it's the name of the heroine of Dracula," Lucille said. "Suitably literary for you and so very, very gothic."

Carmina... It was certainly unusual and while she couldn't bring to mind anyone with it as a name, it didn't sound too far fetched. Carmina Cushing-Sharpe or Carmina Something Cushing-Sharpe? Was it too much? Then again, living at Allerdale, maybe you had to be too much.

And Mina. She looked at Baby's sleeping face, small and round and slightly squashed against her tiny pillow. Carmina? Mina?

Was that the perfect choice? She felt very unsure, but she didn't dislike it.

"I'll try it out," she said. "See how it feels."

Even having a possibly temporary name soothed a very deep part of her soul.

Chapter 107: A Partial Return

Notes:

Not even going to say aiming to finish this by end of year, let's pencil it in for 2026...

Did Mags have some kind of endless supply of soft-focus kitten-themed greeting cards? The one she'd given Edith to welcome her to England was still on the windowsill and now there was a highly saccharine partner for it with a tiny cat in a pink basket on the front addressed to Carmina.

Body-worn baby carriers were a wonderful invention, Edith thought. Putting Mina into a car seat for the first time had been worrying, carefully securing her into the back of Pam's car and knowing that in the event of anything happening, this was safest, but also wanting to be close to her as much as possible.

Part of her was slightly jealous when other people held her, even though she knew that was ridiculous. They were a family. She was very lucky to have two people to share the responsibility with, temporarily three with Alan.

Alan holding her was particularly strange. She still remembered him as his teenaged self, all zits and unwise haircuts, studious but awkward. It seemed far too weird to see him hold any baby, let alone her baby.

Maybe her envy was that Mina seemed broadly relaxed regardless of whose arms she was in. A vindictive part of her just wanted that hint of a special relationship, a sense that only she could soothe her when she was fussing. And maybe that would come later, maybe once she was reacting to things more certainly. During their time in the hospital, she'd mostly just slept and Edith was happiest when she slept in the baby carrier, securely strapped to her chest where she could feel that she was warm, feel the occasional wriggle and imagine that her own heart beat was providing some familiar comfort.

It felt almost like entering Allerdale for the first time, seeing it with new eyes. There was great familiarity here, but there were many differences too, not least the large antique crib that had been placed at the end of their bed. It was deep brown wood, strangely shaped with tall sides. Simple bedding, nothing dangerous, a firm mattress like all the advice said to have.

"Did you sleep in this?" she asked Lucille.

"Of course. We both did. I don't remember seeing Thomas for the first time, but I remember him standing up in here as a nearly toddler. Do you want to try it out?"

Not particularly, but she'd probably have to eventually, gently lifting Mina from the carrier and laying her in the cradle. She looked so tiny, her little fists clenched, but evidently comfortable enough, not making a sound, not waking.

"I can still hardly believe she's here," Lucille murmured. "Now, come and have lunch. You've been living on hospital food for days."

Was her hesitation obvious? Even seeing the baby monitor switched on didn't soothe her.

"She's never been left alone before," Edith said as Lucille handed her the receiver.

The smile took a little moment to spread across Lucille's face, loving but also faintly patronizing.

"We're not leaving her alone. We're going to be just along the corridor and we'll be alert to any noises. She's just going to sleep in peace while you get some nourishment and when she wakes up, you'll be right back."

Anything she wanted to say would sound mad. The fears that swirled around her head that if someone didn't watch over Mina at all times, no one would notice if she suddenly stopped breathing or if she moved into a bad position and couldn't move out of it on her own. In an ideal world, she wanted 24-hour visual monitoring.

You couldn't do that, though, even with three people, letting Lucille take her hand and ease her out of the room, pulling the door gently almost closed.

"It's been dreadful having you away," Lucille said. "Thomas and I are very excited to have you back."

Edith only just resisted the urge to pull away. She probably meant nothing by it, but Edith knew she wasn't ready for any kind of intimacy yet. Her body felt strange still, tender and out of sorts, like a deflated balloon. She didn't want to be touched.

Thomas and Alan were getting lunch organized, an overwhelming amount of choice really. All the sandwich fillings she could imagine, fresh bread and salad and then odder options like quiche. Edith got some juice while she considered something more solid, thinking about vitamins and minerals and how she was the only source of food for Mina, how she had to ensure peak nutrition.

"So, Alan," Lucille said, slinking into a chair. "Do you think we'll do? You and Thomas have done a wonderful job getting everything prepared."

"Oh, well," Alan said, charmed like everyone was when Lucille turned her attention to them. "We only had to go to a store really. Moving the furniture was easy enough and then it was just buying the essentials. Mina's down for a nap, then?"

Edith nodded. Maybe she was still tired, but she felt like her brain wasn't fully functioning. Food helped though, the familiarity of the flavors of home soothing.

"So what have you bought?" she asked. "Diapers, obviously, and bottles and so on but what else?"

She wouldn't have expected it, but Thomas was in his element. There was so much baby tech. Sterilizers and touch-free containers and a kind of sensor for the bottom of the crib that would alert if Mina was moving around more or less than usual.

"And a breast-pump," he said. "I've not investigated it too closely, but we were reassured that it was an extremely good model."

Doctor or not, Alan had gone a little pink. After all he'd seen over the last couple of days, seeing her in very intimate situations, a suggestion of breasts was still enough to get him flustered.

"I'm not planning to leave her alone very often," Edith said. "Do you think I'll need one?"

There was a moment, a definite moment, where everyone else exchanged a look. Talking about her without talking.

"We'll be doing our share of night feeds," Lucille said. "I'm not going to let you exhaust yourself by getting up every two hours when we can help. Honestly, I'm looking forward to it. Being in those strange hours, dark outside, gently warming up a bottle, knowing that you're cosy and snuggled up in bed."

Why did she feel jealous? She knew this was the best suggestion, the best idea, and that in a couple of weeks she'd probably be really grateful that she wasn't doing this alone, but right now she just felt envious. That connection, that closeness with Mina was hers by right. She'd carried her, she'd given birth. Oh, Thomas had been involved in conception, but everything after that had been her.

She felt awful thinking things like that.

"Are you alright, Edith?" Alan asked.

"Of course. I'm just a little tired still. I might have a sleep and then I'll be alright for the evening. They say I should sleep when Mina sleeps if I can."

She wasn't going to sleep. She knew she wasn't. Anxiety melted away from her when she slipped back into the bedroom and found Mina still slumbering peacefully, closing the blind as quietly as she could and lying down in the dark to wait.

Even so, she must have dozed because she definitely woke up when Mina stirred, not crying but starting to make noise.

"Hey," she said softly, lifting her out of the crib. "Hello."

Her eyes still couldn't focus well, but Edith felt sure that there was recognition there. A feed, a change, a cuddle. She was still holding her when Lucille sneaked in, turning off the baby monitor.

"We could hear you moving around," she said quietly. "Everything OK?"

"Yeah, I've got her."

A smile, coming to join her, just sitting on the other side of the bed.

"You will have to let us help eventually, sweetheart," she said. "Just say the word. But I can only imagine what it must be like. I'm sure I'd be exactly the same."

She'd been pregnant, Edith knew that. And they didn't talk about that very often. It seemed too painful, one of many aspects of the past that they didn't bring up.

"Is it... hard for you to see her?" Edith asked.

"No. No, it's... It's bittersweet, of course it is, but I'm mostly full of joy that she's here and we're going to get to see her grow up and give her the safe childhood that Thomas and I didn't have. Of course, I think about the others sometimes. The potential people. But that's not what happened. And now my attention is on Mina. And on you."

"I don't need that much attention."

"Well, we missed you terribly, even if it was only for a few days. And it was strange lying awake by myself waiting for Thomas to sneak through in the night. Almost like very old times."

Shifting Mina's weight to her other arm, Edith made doubly sure that the baby monitor was off.

"Did you... you know, while I wasn't here?" she asked.

"Only once. Should we not have? Should we have waited for you?"

"No! No, no, I don't think I'll feel up to that for a while."

"Shame. I've been looking forward to it. Your sounds, your taste..."

Edith blushed furiously in the dark, hoping it wasn't obvious.

"I just meant it was risky with a stranger in the house," she said.

"Well, Thomas is usually quiet, as you know. He may have had to muffle me a little, but not much. I confess the danger got me overexcited."

Muffle? What did she mean by that? Edith's mind was full of images of her face against the pillow, pleading cries barely audible, or maybe Thomas used his hand, feeling her moans vibrate against his palm.

"Just let us know when you're feeling yourself again," Lucille said. "But there's no rush. There's no pressure."

"Mm-hm," Edith said, unsure if she would ever really feel the same ever again now she had someone so important to think about.

Chapter 108: A Fight

"You do know I'm leaving pretty soon?" Alan asked.

He and Edith were taking a walk around the grounds, a beautifully warm spring day that had Edith concerned about sunburn, making sure Mina's babygro covered as much of her skin as possible, a sun hat protecting her head and face. Did she recognize that this was outside and different to inside? Did she understand night and day being different yet? So far, she woke up fairly regularly regardless of the time.

Even though it exhausted her, Edith was managing to do everything herself. The feeds and the carrying and the changing and the gentle sponge baths were entirely her domain. She only showered and used the bathroom when Mina was sleeping.

And still she worried. Babies were supposed to cry a lot and yet apart from when she was hungry, Mina mainly slept. Was that normal? Was there something wrong with her? It wasn't like she wanted her to cry, she just wanted some reaction, some sign of the person inside her tiny body.

"When?" Edith asked. "I've lost track of the days."

"That's understandable. You've had a lot to think about. But believe it or not, I've been here for nearly two weeks."

Had he really? His arrival felt like it had happened months ago and barely a few days ago at the same time.

"Sorry," Edith said. "If things were different, we could have gone places, let you see a little bit of England."

"No, I came to spend time with you. That's all I want. It's nice to be away from work as well. Maybe it's just being out in the countryside where it's so dark and quiet at night but I haven't slept this well in ages. And I wanted to properly meet Thomas and Lucille, of course."

"What do you think of them?" Edith asked, even though she was afraid she might not want to hear the answer. "Honestly."

"Honestly? They are so weird. But I think that's primarily a cultural thing. We haven't exactly grown up in the same kind of environments. But I think some of it is just them. I mean, have you seen them make coffee? They'll be talking about something totally different but they'll pass the beans and the cups to one another like it's a dance or something. But I think they really care about you. They're really worried about some kind of festival coming up and they don't want to stress you with it."

Oh, Termons. She'd forgotten all about that.

"They want me to go with them," she said. "I didn't much like the idea when I thought Mina would only be two months old, let alone now. I mean, yes, she'll be older technically but she's so tiny. Everything I read talks about babies being basically newborn until they're twelve weeks. She'll only just be past that. And it doesn't matter really; because she's premature, they only count things from the due date anyway..."

He smiled at her in a way she tried really hard not to find patronizing.

"I think you'll be surprised by how much changes in twelve weeks," he said. "People don't just hide away for three months after their baby is born. Once she's alert and babbling and laughing, you'll be more confident."

Would she? It felt like her whole life should be dedicated to keeping Mina safe now, regardless of if it had been a few weeks or a few years.

"Are you OK?" Alan asked suddenly.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, you know me and how much I worry. I just want to be completely sure that you're OK. Babies are a lot. Your body is doing all kinds of things right now, trying to heal, your brain is doing all kinds of stuff. And I know you. You're good at hiding it when you're not fine."

Birdsong and buds, spring underway all around them. She ought to feel hopeful, she knew that. Despite the stress and the pain - and her body was still sore, felt like she'd never be the same again, worse than she'd expected it to be - she had her baby. She ought to be looking forward to the future, to raising her child, to having all those monuments like first words, first steps... And yet when she wasn't worrying about everything, she just felt empty. Worrying was what was keeping her going, worry and a deep, deep love. But it wasn't love like she knew it. It felt more like her brain had been hijacked and rewired.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked quietly. "I'm recovering from a traumatic birth. My baby is tiny and delicate. What kind of mother would I be if I didn't worry all the time? But you've seen me eating. I'm eating, I'm fine."

"You're eating for her. You're eating what you think you need to eat for Mina."

"Yes, because that's what she needs!"

"But what do you need? And if what you need isn't what you want, what will we do about that?"

She couldn't talk about this. It felt like being a child again, in hospital having her mind and body picked at, picked over. It made her feel raw and itchy.

"Isn't it normal for things to change?" she asked. "For people to change when they have children?"

"It is. But if it's too much, if you're struggling, then you need to get help. For your own sake and Mina's. You can't be the mom you want to be if you're not able to let anyone in."

He was sounding annoyingly reasonable. And intellectually, she knew what she had to do. She had to let Lucille and Thomas help her, she had to submit to them being able to feed and bathe and clothe Mina too but she just... She couldn't do it. It felt like a betrayal and she didn't know why but it did. Like she'd be a failure if she needed anyone else, like she ought to be able to do everything or else what right did she have to call herself a mother?

And when she'd last been ill, they'd taken her away from home, away from her dad. What if they took her away from Mina?

"I'm fine," she said, fearing horribly that it wasn't true.

He didn't quite manage to hold back the sigh. And she could hear everything he was thinking in that sigh. That she was lying to herself, that she needed help. But what if it all worked out? What if she could manage actually?

She knew they were talking about her behind her back. She knew Alan was telling Thomas and Lucille that she was ill. That they had to bully her into getting help. She could hear them whispering, all the time.

She resented Lucille being in the room with her and Mina. If Alan wasn't here, she could go and stay with Thomas for a bit. Just for space, for breathing room.

And she was only more determined about it when she woke up a night or two later and Lucille had Mina out of the crib.

"What are you doing?" she mumbled.

She felt like she could hardly move... She felt so tired...

"It's OK," Lucille whispered. "She just needed changing. Go back to sleep."

"I'll change her... Stop, let me."

"It's done, sweetheart. Go back to sleep."

She fought through it, managing to sit up. Why did she feel so strange?

"Have you drugged me again?"

Even in the dark, she saw the sharpness of Lucille's reaction, the way her head whipped towards her.

"How can you even ask me that?" she hissed.

"Well, have you? I feel weird, I feel so exhausted... I feel the same way as I did when you did it before."

"Oddly enough, no, we haven't been risking the health of our baby by potentially having you pass sedatives to her through your breast milk. That's an insane thing to think."

"You're insane. What have you done to me?"

"Nothing! You're just exhausted because you won't let us fucking help you!"

Mina's cry shocked them both, disturbed by their increasingly harsh whispering.

"Give her to me," Edith said.

"You're knackered. I've got her."

"No! Give me my baby!"

A light came on in the hall, hurried footsteps approaching, Thomas opening the door and almost blinding them.

"What's going on?" he asked, taking Mina immediately.

Edith burned at the way she settled so quickly in his arms, held against his chest.

"Nothing," she said. "Everything's fine."

She was cringing away from the light, her eyes stinging, head sore.

"It's not nothing, is it?" Thomas said. "Come to the kitchen, have some tea or something. Calm your nerves."

"I am calm. I'm just upset because Lucille didn't wake me for Mina."

"Edith," Lucille said softly. "You need help. You need to let us help."

"I don't need help."

She couldn't really see it, but the Sharpes were definitely sharing a look, conspiring against her.

"Can you turn off the light, please?" she asked. "It's hurting my eyes."

Thomas leant out into the hall, the switch clicking, the comfort of darkness falling over her.

"I'm going to disturb Doctor Alan," Thomas said. "And then we are all going to talk like adults. It will be good for his jetlag probably, to get used to being awake in the middle of the night."

He carried Mina away, giving Edith little choice but to get up and totter after him.

Chapter 109: An Agreement

Sitting opposite Lucille in the kitchen, Edith tried and failed not to pout. She felt like she'd regressed to her teenage self, absolutely furious at the world and how unfair it was but also terrified and anxious. Alan was yawning, wearing an old medical school sweater over whatever he'd slept in. He seemed only half awake.

At least Thomas put Mina in her arms, where she belonged, before putting the kettle on, taking a seat by Lucille. The two of them versus her, or that's what it felt like.

"Can you tell us what happened?" he asked.

"Mina was grizzling," Lucille said before Edith could speak. "I woke up and changed her and Edith seems to think I should have kicked her awake and made her do it instead of trying to be a helpful partner by doing my share and letting her sleep, which she clearly needs to do."

"No," Edith said. "No, you're up to something, the three of you, you're talking about me behind my back and you're trying to make me think I'm ill. I'm not ill."

There was a horrible silence.

"Edith," Alan said softly. "I'm sorry, but I do think you might have some kind of postpartum issue. It's quite common and it's not your fault but you need to speak to someone. And you need to let people help you."

"I'm fine. I'm not depressed, I'm not."

"You're exhausted at the very least. It sounds like you were so tired that you didn't wake up. You have two people here who love you and who love Mina. You need to let them help you so that you can rest. And I'm saying that as your friend and as a doctor."

She didn't want to cry. It felt pathetic to cry. And yet tears welled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks, splashing onto Mina's back where she was holding her against her chest.

"But they'll take her away," she said, her voice tiny and shaking. "If I'm sick then I can't look after her and they'll take her away."

"Who will?" Alan asked.

"I don't know. Whatever child protective services are called here."

Lucille reached across the table towards her, lacquered nails resting on the wood.

"You know that we would never let that happen," she said. "We'd use every dirty trick in the book, we'd lean on every privilege we have as rich, famous, titled people."

"And we won't even have to," Thomas said. "Because you are a wonderful mother. You just need a little help. Maybe you need to talk to someone professional. There is absolutely no shame in that."

She knew there wasn't, she'd done it before, and yet it hurt so much. She felt so worthless, such a failure. She'd wanted a child so badly, she loved Mina so much, and yet she couldn't function properly. It tore her heart to have to admit that and now they were going to try to make her talk to a stranger about it.

There had to be a way out of this...

"I'll go to therapy if you go to therapy too," she said.

She had them. Or she had Lucille at least, she could tell from the way she withdrew, folding her arms and shrugging.

"Not a problem," she said.

"No," Edith said, shaking her head. "No, no - I know you. You'll go to one session and then say you're cured. However long you want me to go for, you go as well."

There was an icy pause, Lucille trying to stare her down, Alan looking nervously between them and Thomas stepping away to make tea. Looking away from discomfort.

And in another situation, Edith might have yielded, but not this time. If she was going to be put through this indignity, she'd drag Lucille along with her.

"OK, fine," Lucille said in the end. "How many sessions, then?"

How many made sense?

"At least one every week until Termons," she said. "How many is that?"

"Ten," Thomas said. "Depending on how quickly we can find suitable doctors. Maybe more like eight."

Alan nodded in her peripheral vision, wiping a bit of sleep from his eyes.

"It's not my specialty," he said. "But that sounds like a good start. Maybe you'll take to it."

Lucille scoffed a little.

"I think it's a very good idea," Thomas said, delivering various hot herbal infusions to the table. "It will do you good."

"You're not getting away," Lucille said. "I know you think you're Mr Balanced, but you could do with having your head shrunk too. Sort out your conflict aversion."

"Sort your combativeness."

She stuck her tongue out at him, a vague memory of playfulness behind how tired and grumpy she was. And Edith felt like she'd triumphed a little. There was no way Lucille could stick at therapy. She hated being told what to do, hated having to externalize the things she wanted to keep private. And obviously Edith didn't want them to discuss everything, but maybe some of it would be good for them. Maybe they could heal some deep, old wounds from their childhood.

But it would never stick. And in the meantime, she'd just have to have a chat with someone well-meaning and then she could quit and get on with things.

Mina slept right through to Lucille's piano playing the next morning, apparently unaware of all the fuss going on around her.

Was she going to be musical? She'd been hearing professional level playing while in the womb. They said music was good for babies, helped their brains to grow. Edith opened the door while feeding her, looking at her enormous eyes and wondering how good her hearing was, how much of that gentle piano she could make out. Her eyes seemed to be starting to focus now. Did she recognise her mother's face?

Did she love her?

She didn't know where that thought came from. Mina was a tiny baby. She wasn't big enough to have complex emotions probably.

Was that what was driving her partially? A determination to be the first person Mina loved? She wouldn't be able to verbalize it or even know what that meant for so long.

As a child, a young child, Edith had loved her parents. Of course she had. But it wasn't until her mom was ill that she understood what that really meant. It meant letting your heart be vulnerable to being injured so severely that you feared it might never heal, to feel as though something inside was surely physically broken and bleeding, as though you couldn't keep going forward after something so devastating. She never, ever wanted Mina to feel that way, but at the same time, that was the cost of love. And she wanted to be first, the first person. Even though it didn't matter at all and, of course, she would love Thomas and Lucille and probably lots of other people, part of her was jealous and wanted to be first.

Maybe that was the kind of thing it would actually be useful to discuss with someone outside the Allerdale bubble.

Chapter 110: Departure

Taking Alan to the airport was the first time Mina had been out of Allerdale's grounds since coming back from the hospital. Edith must have checked the car seat a dozen times before getting in, Lucille driving them out to the airport.

Of course, it was only when they arrived that Edith realized she was going to be obliged to leave Mina in the car while accompanying Alan inside. There might be time for her to get the carrier out in the drop-off zone but no way she could get it safely back in...

She tried to breathe and be rational. It was only for a few minutes, definitely less than half an hour. Lucille would be with her the whole time. And, as usual, she was sleeping.

"Well, it's been lovely meeting you properly, Alan," Lucille said as they turned off the main road. "I hope we haven't made too bad an impression."

"Of course you haven't. I hope I can come back and see you soon, see how you're all getting on."

The most ridiculous fears were going through Edith's head. It was like using a knife and seeing visions of blood everywhere, or walking over a bridge and feeling so sure that it was about to give way. She just had the deepest fear that Lucille would drive away, that she'd take Mina and abandon her.

It was a ridiculous fear. For one thing, she'd go back to Allerdale where Edith could easily follow her. It wouldn't be a good plan.

All the same, she had to force herself to get out of the car and head into the airport, feeling like part of her had been removed. Like a part of her body had been cleaved off, her arms so empty, so light.

"I'm not going to lecture you," Alan said. "But I'm so glad you've agreed to see someone about what's going on in your head."

If she hadn't been so anxious, she would have been annoyed. As it was, she was concentrating on not looking like she wanted to sprint away from her oldest friend and chase down a car currently doing laps of the carpark.

"Just... do your best to be well," he said. "I know that's a stupid thing to say, but I'm saying it anyway. We all care about you and Mina, that's why we want to help you. And now I'm taking off my doctor hat, I promise. It's been really great seeing you. And that house! You must be used to it now, but I felt like I was dreaming waking up there every day. And it's alright with you if I come back for visits, right?"

No. Not if he was going to think she was sick.

"Of course," she said. "Obviously. You're basically family."

She felt like she might faint as he went to bag check, sending his luggage off on the conveyor belt and getting his boarding pass, coming back towards her.

"So, uh... This is me, I suppose," he said.

The reality that she was about to be alone with Thomas and Lucille without his mitigating influence managed to cut through at last, pulling him into a strong hug, trying to find some comfort in it.

"Tell me when you arrive," she said. "And when you're back in our... your apartment."

He smiled at her, both of them feeling the ache of separating again, a part of their lives that had seemed like it could last forever well and truly over. She went as far as she could go with him, up to the security gates, waving as he joined the queue and feeling a deep heaviness as she had to turn away.

Anxiety rushed back into her veins suddenly. Car, car, car. She had to concentrate on walking instead of running, feeling like running towards an airport exit was surely dangerous, out into a gray day, threatening rain perhaps and looking for the sign for the pick-up area.

Of course, she was in completely the wrong place, coming out of the departures door and not arrivals, having to make her way along most of the side of the building before spotting Lucille.

Racing around people with luggage carts and wheelie suitcases, her feet slammed against the tarmac, barely looking as she ran across the bus lane and threw herself into the back.

"Jesus," Lucille said. "Careful."

Edith leant around the passenger seat, finding Mina awake but unconcerned, huge eyes gazing around. The sigh of relief was out before she could hold it back.

"Did you really think I'd do something to her?" Lucille asked quietly. "Do you trust me that little?"

"No. No, I know it makes no sense, but I... I just have to be with her all the time, I have to be."

"Or what? What do you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know."

She stroked Mina's cheek, feeling the softness of her skin, the warmth that showed she was alive. She wasn't smiling yet, too young apparently. Between six and twelve weeks according to the books. Soon. Very soon.

The wait for a proper smile was torturous to her, terrified that she might miss the first one.

"What can I do, Edith?" Lucille asked, still in that soft tone. "What will make you feel safe? Is there a logic behind it?"

"Literally the opposite. I know that I'm lucky, I'm blessed to have two additional caregivers. I know I should calm down and take advantage of having you both here but I just... I can't do it."

Very, very carefully, Lucille rubbed her finger against Mina's fist until she took hold of it, little tiny pink knuckles curled around paler skin.

"Oddly enough, that makes me feel a bit better. We did terrible things to you. I did terrible things to Thomas and to myself. It would be logical if you didn't want me anywhere near her. But if it's not a conscious choice, then maybe talking to someone can help. Maybe it can help me, loathe as I am to admit it."

That felt like a positive sign.

"What are you... going to talk to them about?" Edith asked.

"Well, not the big secrets, obviously. But I'll talk about Mother and what she did to me. How scared I am that maybe I'm broken, that I can't be as empathetic or as warm as most people. How all I want is for Mina to have a happy, emotionally healthy life and to try to find out how to do that. I do worry that it's me, that I'm the problem, and I'll realize - or you'll realize - that you're better off without us and the mess we bring with us and the lying and the secrets. And that makes my heart ache just to think about."

Mina's eyelids were starting to droop, like she was being told a bedtime story.

"I think I'm tangled up too much now," Edith said. "I'm in the lie. Even after everything that's happened, no matter what happens, I can't expose you without exposing myself. People barely understand the lie we've told about how our relationship works; they definitely wouldn't understand the choices I made from the full picture. I barely understand it sometimes."

"Oh, you could get out if you wanted. You could say we manipulated you. It wouldn't even be untrue."

"Mm. But I think at some point I stopped being manipulated and started making my own choices. And that's on me. I decided that being with you and Thomas was worth it."

Lucille extracted herself from Mina's grasp, rolling her shoulders.

"What if it's best for Mina if you leave us?" she asked quietly.

Edith thought about it. What if it was? What if there was just too much darkness here?

"At the moment, my problem is irrational fear," she said carefully. "And the fact that even though I consciously know I'm being ridiculous, I can't break out of that cycle. I'm not sure leaving two people who love me and our child and want to share all the duties that come with having a baby would be the best idea."

She put her seatbelt on as Lucille started the engine, setting off for home.

"Maybe you're right. I was worried you were feeling trapped by it all."

Edith wondered about that. Right now, she couldn't picture her future at all. There was only now and the next few weeks. She didn't feel trapped as such, more like she wouldn't notice if she was.

"I mean," Lucille said. "What I'm trying to say is that if you did want to leave, we'd understand."

"I don't want to leave. I want to try."

It made her feel a little reassured that she genuinely meant it.

Chapter 111: Check-Up

"Well, she's very healthy. Lovely clear eyes, evidently normal hearing, beautiful reflexes. A little below average weight, but nothing concerning."

Thomas's hand on her shoulder was the only thing holding Edith back from leaping to her feet and taking Mina right out of the doctor's arms. Having him at the appointment had been a calculated decision. She was afraid of appearing too clingy, too nervous, too everything. Thomas was very charming; he'd smooth things over. He'd soothe concerns. Those twinkling eyes, that closed-lipped smile, even the way he blinked was designed to draw people in, it seemed.

"So, I know you'll have been asked these questions many times, but it's just routine. Where does she sleep?"

"In a crib, alone but in the same room as me," Edith said. "With a firm mattress and one blanket carefully tucked in and no loose bedding."

The doctor smiled at her, crows' feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

"Ms Cushing, have you been googling the answers?"

Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the patronizing tone. Edith tried to maintain a neutral expression.

"I understood that was the safest way," she said. "And so I chose the safest way."

"And you're quite right, of course. And you're breast feeding, I understand?"

"Yes."

"Is that causing you any difficulties?"

The very suggestion left her affronted. Difficulties? What did that mean? What did that imply? Was he saying he thought she wasn't doing it right? That it was her fault if Mina was a little small?

"I'm managing," Edith said.

"It's just that some people find it tricky. Especially with a pump. They're not the most intuitive things."

"I don't use one."

The look. The surprise. The confusion.

"But surely your partner is helping with the night feeds?"

She didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to admit the truth either, shuffling awkwardly on the leatherette chair.

"We're working on that," Thomas said smoothly. "Edith gets rather anxious if Mina needs attention and she doesn't know for sure that everything is taken care of. But we are working on it."

He'd done a lot of research on potential therapists. He'd planned it all as carefully as he'd planned their tour. Specialists only - post-natal depression for Edith even though she didn't think that was what she had and two separate experts in childhood trauma. He didn't want them to see the same person.

To Edith's surprise, Lucille was going first. She'd be on her way now. And to make sure she wasn't just pretending to go, the clinic would even call them afterwards to confirm her attendance.

Edith was quite nervous on her behalf. It took Lucille so long to trust people. It was going to take a long time for her to be able to voice what had happened to her. And she undoubtedly wouldn't talk about the extent of her relationship with Thomas or about the crimes she'd committed to protect them both.

Could therapy even work if you were lying? Or not lying as such, but omitting things? And those things were so big...

She supposed she'd find out when it was her turn.

Maybe it was a good sign that she felt calmer with Thomas holding Mina while she had her bloods taken and was generally checked over.

"How are you sleeping?" the doctor asked.

"I try to sleep when she does," Edith said. "At first she slept a lot but she's started to wake in the night a lot more often. I feel like I'm always sleeping really, just interrupted."

"Well, remember it's important to take time for yourself. Taking care of a little one is a lot of work. You need to look after yourself as well."

Mm-hm. She was getting increasingly sick of hearing that. What helped her was being absolutely certain that Mina was safe and comfortable. Being separated from her for even the shortest time made her anxiety spike. She was considering cutting her hair to make it quicker to wash, make her already fairly quick showers even shorter.

"Your blood pressure is a little high, but still within what we call normal. Really my advice is that you're doing really well, you clearly want what's best for Carmina, but a little relaxation and consciously taking a break would be good for you. Remember that you're not alone. Your partner is there for you and you can always call us, day or night. Now, do you have any questions?"

"She doesn't cry," Edith said. "Or... Well, she does, but only if there's a sudden loud sound and she's startled or things like that. She makes noises, like she's going to cry, but then she doesn't. Is that normal?"

The usual faintly placating smile. It was probably meant to be comforting.

"All babies are different. If you always go to her at even the tiniest hint of a noise, why would she need to be louder? Consider it a blessing. Some babies cry habitually and there's nothing to be done except wait for them to grow out of it. If you're very concerned, you could try leaving her for just a moment longer and see how she responds."

Edith already knew she wouldn't do that. She couldn't even consider it. Her role, her reason to exist was to make sure Mina experienced the world in the gentlest and most comfortable way. Leave her to cry? That wasn't just ridiculous, it was insulting. One day she wouldn't be able to protect her. She'd go through all those normal things like scraped knees and stomach aches and paper cuts and eventually to grief and heartbreak, but right now, she was her baby and she could make the world close to perfect for her.

"Well done," Thomas said as she strapped Mina into the car seat, little fists waving. "I could tell that was hard for you."

"It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be."

"Good. But I also know you don't plan to take on his advice just yet."

Edith sighed, climbing into the back while he took the driver's seat. He was very good at this gentle needling. A little comment, just an observation, and yet it got right under her skin. It went with the charm, how he'd learned to survive by manipulating people with a smile.

"Thomas, please. You know I'm going to see a professional. I'll work on it. I promise. But right now, that's not helpful."

He'd been looking at her in the rear-view mirror, like he had for all those months of traveling, but looked away now, shaking himself a little.

"You're right," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm just a little worried about the whole thing. It's going to be good for us, I'm sure, but it's going to be hard and I'm just... worried about it, that's all."

"Why? What are you worried about?"

"Well, we don't exactly have a healthy dynamic, do we? I know we don't. Lucille and I, we've found a way to live with the darkness and I'm scared that we'll lose that. Not the physical side or the love necessarily, but something. I don't know."

Shuffling forward, she laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly.

"Let's drive somewhere that's not a parking lot and we can talk about it?" she suggested. "Think of it like practice."

Exhaling, he nodded, easing his car into gear. They stopped outside Allerdale, in a little viewpoint over the hills, clouds billowing overhead. Looked like rain later.

"Lucille always protected me," Thomas said, gazing out at the landscape. "She kept me safe. She cared for me. Yes, she... abused me too, I suppose. But I needed her. And I wanted, consciously and unconsciously, for her to need me too. Now she thinks I'm the less unwell of us, and that's probably true. I have trauma, of course, I have physical and mental scars from what happened, but I don't have it like she does. And I've been realizing that, in a strange way, I like that she's ill because if she's ill then she needs me to help her. What kind of monster does that make me, enjoying that someone I love is in pain? And so I'm scared that if she gets too much help elsewhere, she won't need my help anymore. It's disgusting. I hate myself for it."

"But you don't enjoy it," Edith said. "I don't think you do. You're just used to it. She'll always need you and you'll always need her. You're the only two people in the world who know what you went through and nothing will ever take that away. But maybe, if you get a bit of help, you can focus more on the good things you need each other for. Your music. Your lives now, not in the past."

She hoped it was helping. He seemed to relax a little bit, even if only a little.

"Given Lucille's history with therapists, I think we're going to need to be there for her today," Edith said.

"Mm. Yes. Yes, you're right."

He made no effort to set off though, watching beams of sunlight moving across the reddish earth, slipping through the clouds.

"Edith," he said carefully after a few moments. "Could I come back there and kiss you, please?"

She hadn't expected that, getting a little flustered.

"Sorry," he said, flexing his hands. "It's just with Alan having been around and Mina, we haven't had a lot of physical affection recently. None of us have. I've been missing it."

She had no space in her brain for anything other than the baby. He hadn't thought about kissing or sex since that single conversation with Lucille just after returning from hospital.

"Alright," she said. "Of course."

He stepped out of the car, climbing in beside her. She felt nervous somehow, like this was prom night and she didn't know how far she was willing to go. Except it was Thomas and their baby was in the front seat, probably sleeping. They'd already gone pretty far.

Her heart pounded as he undid her seatbelt and reached for her, a hand on her waist pulling her closer, physically moving her until she was in his lap, straddling him, gazing down at those blue eyes. She was so stiff, so tense.

A hand on her cheek, running his thumb over her skin, trying to ease her down towards him. The whimper when their lips touched seemed to come from somewhere in her chest, a sudden dam breaking as though her body remembered this closeness, this intimacy, hearing him growl as her hands flew to his head, fingers tangling in his hair as a gentle kiss became something more ravenous.

For a moment, she forgot everything and then his hand brushed her breast and suddenly she couldn't, arriving back in her mind with a bump, pulling back, pushing his hands away.

"I'm sorry," she said, dismounting. "Sorry, I... I can't, I'm not ready."

"It's OK," he said. "That was more intense than I meant. We should take it more slowly."

He wiped a hand over his face, but smiling a little.

"You still want me, though," he said. "That's good to know. I was starting to get nervous."

She crossed her arms, embarrassed.

"You know how I feel," she mumbled. "That hasn't changed. I'm just not ready. You and Lucille should... do it, though. Don't wait for me."

"And will you join us? Maybe just to watch?"

She hated how quickly she blushed.

"Not yet," she said.

He nodded understandingly and moved back to the front seat, pausing to adjust his pants slightly on the way.

Chapter 112: Evening

Edith got the phone call a little later, letting them know Lucille was coming home. She was in the kitchen, Thomas making a start on dinner.

"What are we going to do?" Edith asked, Mina asleep in the baby carrier strapped to her chest.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, she might not want to talk about it. Should we try to pretend that everything is normal? Like she didn't go?"

He glanced at her over his shoulder, his eyes telling her everything she needed to know. She wasn't sure when she'd started understanding some of the looks, but she definitely got this one.

"No, you're right," she said. "You're right. She'd hate that. We should just let her feel whatever she's feeling, say whatever she wants to say or doesn't want to say."

Her nerves were clearly palpable, Mina waking up and fussing a little, needing to be released from the carrier and properly held against Edith's shoulder, squirming as they heard the door open downstairs. Edith deliberately turned away, scared to look. Thomas was hunched over his pans, both of them closing their eyes against unpleasantness.

Lucille didn't come right away. They could hear her though, the sound of footsteps against the plastic in the hall, the creaking of the staircase and the corridor as she went to the bedroom first.

Why did her approach feel so forboding? It was just Lucille. Edith kept telling herself that, pacing the room, doing that little shuffling step to rock Mina just enough.

A soft sigh from the threshold.

"Well?" Lucille said. "Aren't you going to ask me how it went?"

The pause lasted just a moment too long, Edith having to clear her throat.

"How did it go?" she asked, her voice coming out somewhere between a croak and a whisper.

A little half laugh. Lucille went to the refrigerator, pulling out a mostly full bottle of wine and pouring herself a large glass.

"I want to be declared better as soon as possible, so I laid it all out for her. Mother, Father, the belt, the camera, the ropes... I thought just getting it all out from the start would speed things along but I think I might have panicked her a little. She's very keen to see me again. She can probably smell several case studies on me. Performance as a response to trauma, post-parental-mortem rebellion, self-guided music therapy, that kind of thing."

She took a deep gulp of her wine.

"Are you keen to see her again?" Thomas asked. "That's the main question."

"I feel I should persevere. I've done the first bit, started ripping off the plaster, so I should keep going unless it becomes completely unworkable. I'll even do the homework she's set me. But now I don't want to talk about it. I want to have some wine and some dinner and ideally some sex. Positive reinforcement."

Edith's heart pounded so hard that she was sure Mina could probably hear it. If anything, it seemed to soothe her, though.

"Don't worry," Lucille said, catching her discomfort. "I won't expect you to partake. I was mostly talking to Thomas anyway."

"I'm sure I can oblige," he said.

"Mm. How was your doctor's appointment?"

"Fine," Edith said. "Mina's very healthy, very normal."

"Well, that makes one of us."

They were sharing. They were being open and honest. And while Edith's resolve wasn't shaken, her heart did still ache a little that she was making Lucille relive her trauma, even if it was for her benefit, all their benefits.

"They told me I need to make some changes," she said. "I need to let you help more day-to-day. And I'm not ready for big things, but I'm going to try, I promise."

Lucille gave her a long, slow look and Edith could see the smudged eyeliner beneath the top layer, where it had been cried off and reapplied, blending with the shadows under her eyes, bright red lipstick staining her glass as she put it down.

"Can I hold her, then?" she asked.

Despite it all, despite knowing she was being ridiculous, Edith felt such dread in her heart. Of course other people held Mina. She couldn't always avoid letting them. Sometimes she even thought they were sneaking cuddles, convinced she could smell Lucille's perfume when she came back from showering. And she knew it was ridiculous and cruel that she felt so jealous, that she wanted Mina to only be comfortable in her arms, but...

"Get a cloth," she said. "Just to protect your shirt, just in case."

A little grunt from Mina as she was dislodged from Edith's shoulder, but nothing worse than that. Lucille inhaled deeply against her scalp, even though that distinct new baby smell had mostly gone now, leaving her generally smelling of milk and infant soap. Still amazing though. Edith hoped it would never fully leave her nostrils.

"We're doing this for you, you know," Lucille said softly, turning her so those big eyes could stare up at her. "So we don't let our fucked up childhoods fuck up yours. That's called transgenerational trauma and we're going to try so hard to stop it touching you. Because we love you."

Maybe distracted by the color, Mina raised one of her little hands, bumping it against Lucille's lips.

"You're right, I shouldn't swear in front of you. I'm very sorry."

That gentle story-time voice, saying such painful things so gently... Maybe it was just the exhaustion or the stress, but Edith could feel herself wobbling, standing up carefully so her chair wouldn't scrape.

"I'm just going to the bathroom," she said.

The tears were falling before she was even halfway around the landing, trying not to sob in case they heard, locking the door firmly and sitting on the toilet to cry.

How had any of them thought it was a good idea to bring a child into this? Thomas and Lucille were ill and irrational so maybe they had an excuse but with all her history, with all the complexes around food and health that she could potentially instill in a tiny person, why had she ever thought she could do this?

She was such a bad mother. And that was why she had to be so careful, she couldn't relax ever because if she did then something terrible would happen...

The knock at the door startled her, desperately trying to keep her voice normal.

"Yes?"

"Edith?" Thomas asked. "Are you alright?"

"Of course. Yeah."

Was she managing to be convincing? She wasn't sure. Thomas wouldn't say anything either way, wary of upsetting her further.

"OK. I'm plating up - would you prefer cranberry or raspberry and apple? I won't call it juice since legally it's juice drink and it's important to be precise about these things."

He was giving her time to steel herself, which meant she wasn't hiding the slight tremble in her voice.

"Cranberry, please," she said, thinking of vitamin C. "I'll just be a minute."

She heard his footsteps creak away, breathing deeply, flushing the toilet for appearances and scrubbing her hands hard. Thirty seconds, soap and water, making sure every finger got attention...

The distraction helped. She looked normal afterwards, not a hint of tears or blotches.

Mina was perfectly content in Lucille's arms when she returned. Edith worried sometimes that her nerves and anxiety would be transmissible in some way, that her fear now would make Mina a fearful person too. Maybe it was more likely to be genetic though.

"I suppose I ought to give her back," Lucille murmured.

"You don't have to," Edith said, even while she was desperate to feel that weight and warmth.

"Well, the carrier is set to your size."

It was. Edith strapped it on, checking the buckles were secure before reaching for Mina. She was sleepy, annoyed at being moved, but soon settled. She was used to Edith eating around her.

Thomas was better at this kind of thing than she was. Maybe he was more practised at steering conversations gently, keeping away from potentially dangerous topics. Set list ideas for Termons and how Mags was trying to get a grant of some kind to update the information boards, even just to get the sun-bleached ones exchanged. Lucille said it was amazing that they even managed to get enough sun over the years to fade, as though she didn't cover every inch of skin with sunblock to prevent even an errant freckle.

When Lucille finished her second glass of wine and poured herself into Thomas's lap, Edith decided to go to bed. She wasn't tired but Mina was asleep and it was late enough that she probably ought to be in the crib.

She lay in the dark, just resting, trying to stop her mind from creeping over to her fears about her own looming session with a psychiatrist. She'd done that dance before but it was so different now that it wasn't just her own health at risk.

Well, that wasn't true. Her dad had suffered terribly worrying about her. Sometimes in her dark moments, she worried that it had been her fault that he'd died young, that she'd made him so stressed that it had weakened his body somehow.

And if she had, then she was undoubtedly doing the same thing to herself and then she'd die and Mina would be here all alone with Thomas and Lucille and they'd do their best but it wouldn't be enough, nothing was ever enough...

She heard the creak of footsteps in the hallway, the way the house sighed when people moved around it. They were going to Thomas's room, probably for the whole night so as not to disturb her.

Lying alone, she found herself straining her ears for any other sounds. A sigh maybe, or a moan. Like she'd ever hear anything so many rooms away and with them being so deliberately quiet.

It wasn't like she was feeling in the mood for anything like that. Apart from that moment in the car with Thomas, she was much too stressed and tired and distracted to think about any kind of physical contact or even doing anything sexual by herself. Her body was too sore still, for one thing.

Still, Thomas had sounded so... wistful. So nervous. And she knew Lucille would be soothing him, obviously. She wanted support and distraction and he'd jump at the chance to feel like he was giving her that strength and it would help them both.

But Edith worried. Worried that they were all too broken, too messed up to maintain even their most messed up of dynamics.

Eventually she slipped carefully out of bed and crept down towards Thomas's room. She just wanted to hear something, just to know that they were alright.

Just a sound and she'd feel much better.

Chapter 113: Watching

There were no lights on, not much by way of moonlight either, Edith relying on the faint shadows of the bannister and columns to guide her down the hallway. The floor was cool under her bare feet, trying not to make a sound with her footsteps.

The old doors were huge and thick, but they had enormous keyholes. The keys to them were kept carefully in Lucille's dressing table with Mags having copies of the ones for the public areas.

Listening at a keyhole. Maybe a long time ago, she'd imagined this would be what journalism would be like. Very Nancy Drew.

She tried to steady her breathing, tried to keep it silent, straining her ears. Was that creak from motion or was it just the house? It was always making noises.

The faintest of sighs. Edith wasn't sure if it was even real or just in her imagination.

The gasp was real though. Definitely. That was a sound she'd heard Lucille make before, sharp and short, a sound of faint surprise. And then a quiet, tiny moan. Thomas liked to tease Lucille about being loud even though she wasn't at all, not by most people's measure. Louder than him, maybe, but that wasn't hard.

She couldn't hear him at all. Not yet. Not until she heard Lucille whispering, the words too quiet for Edith to catch, and then she heard him breathing, a long, hungry exhale.

He made that sound for her sometimes. A sound of want, of desire, hardly there and yet all consuming at the same time.

The faintest of grunts made her certain of what was happening. That was definitely the sound of Thomas pushing into her, a familiar sound by now. As they harmonized in their music, they harmonized here, Lucille's soft cry being matched by Thomas's sigh. She'd seen them together - and been with them - enough to imagine it. If Lucille wanted comfort, she'd want to be fully in control. She didn't want to feel weak and so Thomas would make her feel strong as he took care of her.

He'd have used his mouth first, being so intimate with her, so easily intimate, showing his devotion in the movement of his tongue. But that wasn't enough; Lucille would need more, reaching for him, asking him - no, telling him what she wanted. And he'd obey. He loved having someone take control, loved to serve and give of himself.

Edith could hear them. More the bed creaking than anything else, maybe faint moans, heavy breathing. Her heart was beating loud enough to almost deafen her to outside sound, her body warm for almost the first time since Mina was born. She still didn't feel ready for sex and yet...

If she opened the door, they'd welcome her. She knew that. They'd put on a show for her. And that made her not want to do that, both from the embarrassment she'd feel at being so tempted by carnal pleasures and also because she felt the Sharpes needed to be alone now. No show, not on display as they so often were.

Every so often she remembered that she ought to be disgusted, horrified by all of this. They were liars and killers and incestuous. And yet she loved them. She wanted to help them, wanted to help all of them move to a healthier place. And right now, that felt like Thomas being reassured that Lucille still needed him, that their love - twisted though it was - still held as strong as ever.

But she still wanted to see...

Lining her eye up to the keyhole, Edith shuffled to the left, trying to find a good angle to see Thomas's bed. It was so dark, almost completely so, but he always had some computers glowing and she could just make out two figures entwined, a broad back, dark fingernails stark against it. She knew the bite of those nails but Lucille was definitely gentler with her; Thomas liked things a little rougher.

Her arousal only grew as her eyes became accustomed to the strange blue light and she managed to make out more details among the shadows. Lucille's knee where one of her legs was hooked around Thomas's hip, the curls of his hair just visible, the muscles of his thighs flexing with every thrust.

It did look good from this angle. She simultaneously wished she could see and hear better and felt thrilled by her own voyeurism.

She could feel her body responding, semi-dormant sensations awakening within her, a faint throbbing, a definite heat.

She pressed her thighs together as she watched Thomas speed up, those gasping breaths growing slightly louder. Were they close? It felt like they must be getting there. When she heard it, when she saw it... Then she'd go back to bed.

The steady rolling of Thomas's body was hypnotic, her lips parted around her quickening breathing, feeling herself tensing...

Mina's cry shocked her, guilt flooding her veins as she leapt to her feet, sprinting back down the hall. She'd been gone far too long. What if something had happened? Oh, selfish, selfish...

Picking her up and holding her, Edith felt so terrible, sick with worry. What was wrong? Hungry, cold, hurt?

She needed changing. Edith turned on a lamp, the shade protecting her eyes from the worst of the brightness but still finding tears splashing down her cheeks. It was just the shock, just the fear getting to her.

Despite trying to hold them back, sobs racked through her body, trying to make them quiet at least as she got the baby wipes, the new diapers, the cotton balls...

The hand on her shoulder startled her.

"Hey," Lucille said softly. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"She... She was crying..."

Lucille didn't understand. She couldn't know the horrible blend of guilt and embarrassment settling in the pit of her stomach. She'd left Mina alone for her own sexual satisfaction. She was a monster, awful, a terrible mother.

"Babies cry," Lucille said. "It's OK. It's the only way they can communicate, that's all. She's fine."

"But I should have got to her before then."

The sigh was only just audible but it might as well have been a slap. A reminder that she was unreasonable and illogical and unwell, setting herself impossible targets but unable to get out of the spiral.

"When's your first appointment?" Lucille asked, getting to the heart of the tension immediately.

"Thursday. Thomas has his before me so he can't back out. But it's not going to fix me overnight."

"I know, but I think the sooner you speak to someone about this, the better. This isn't sustainable. I don't want to have to force you into letting us help but you can't keep this up. We need to look after you too."

Picking Mina up from the changing table, her cries forgotten, Edith held her close, maybe a little too defensively. She was fine, she was safe, she needed to go back to sleep so she could channel all her energy into growing and getting stronger.

But she wanted to hold her just a moment longer.

"Am I welcome here tonight or would you rather I went back to Thomas?" Lucille asked.

"You're always welcome here," Edith lied. "You and Thomas if you want. But if you'd rather go back..."

It was obvious that Lucille knew she wanted to be alone, kissing her cheek and turning off the lamp for her.

In the darkness, Edith sat on the bed briefly, feeling as Mina fell asleep in her arms before returning her to the crib.

If only it were so easy for her to drift off...

She felt like a zombie for the next couple of days. She slept when Mina slept, her body and mind so tired, only really surfacing to eat. She didn't really want to leave the bedroom if she could avoid it. She felt safe in there.

"Babies need stimulation, Edith," Lucille said over breakfast. "I'm going to the studio today while Thomas is out. You should come with me. Bit of fresh air, change of scene."

"Won't it be too loud for Mina?"

"Well, we actually got a little present for her. Or Thomas did anyway."

Earmuffs. Tiny earmuffs on an adjustable strap. Clearly designed for babies.

"I needed a distraction," Thomas said. "I'm a bit nervous about letting someone poke around in my head. So I've been looking into all the options and regulations and learning all about decibel blocking. These meet all the EU certifications for infant and toddler hearing protection in loud environments. I thought maybe in the studio, where it's safe and it's not too loud, you could give them a try."

He gave her all the safety information to read. She didn't understand all of it. The language was quite technical. Decibels and attenuation and ratio reductions. The stuff about the straps was better. How they were adjustable and padded and able to remain in place without putting pressure on the head.

And she read the safety instructions very carefully. Recommended time limits on wear, how to put them on properly.

"Will they fit her?" she asked. "She's smaller than most babies."

Too big, but nothing a safety pin shortening the strap just enough couldn't solve. They made Mina look like a tiny Princess Leia but she didn't seem distressed. Once they were on, she seemed perfectly comfortable.

"This is for Termons, isn't it?" Edith asked. "So she'll be safe during your set."

"I thought maybe it was a good idea to try them out at home nice and early," Thomas said.

He didn't have to say that this was blocking one of her excuses to avoid the festival entirely. It was obvious. But then again, if she was feeling more confident then, she would want that knowledge, she'd want to be sure.

"Alright," she said. "Yes, you're right. We should test them."

Some tension left the room. Some worry vanquished. She felt a little bad that she was bringing those emotions into the house but she couldn't help it.

"Right, wish me luck," Thomas said, finishing his tea and kissing them both. "I'm sure I'll return with a certificate saying I have the most healthy mind they've ever seen and that I'm excused from all future appointments."

Lucille sipped her coffee as he left, waiting until they heard the front door close.

"I'm afraid he's about to join me with a CPTSD diagnosis," she said. "And that will be tricky for him to deal with. But I'm sure it will be worth it eventually. Like cleaning out an untouched old room. The dust is awful but in the end, you've got a usable space."

Of course she'd think of brains like bits of an old house, full of antiques and dead spiders.

What was Edith's equivalent? What was her brain like?

A huge screed of writing probably, a stream of consciousness done without spellcheck or a second draft. Needing an editor to help her proof-read and spot errors and smooth things out.

Maybe it was helpful to think about therapy in the abstract for now. It made it less daunting.

Chapter 114: Waiting

It was a crisp spring day, bright sunlight but not particularly warm. The studio was just out in the grounds though, a short walk. Lucille didn't even take a proper coat, just wearing a sweater. Black, embroidered with white ivy.

Edith didn't go to the studio often. For a long time, it had been off-limits while one or other Sharpe was working on their secret songs.

That felt a long, long time ago now. It had only been months really but everything was different now.

"Do you think Thomas will settle into therapy once he's there?" Edith asked.

"I hope so. You know how he is - quite the people pleaser. He'll want the doctor to be happy with him. But that means he's at risk of just telling them what they want to hear and not what he needs to tell them."

Privately, Edith pondered the fact that he probably couldn't talk about what Lucille had done to him when they were young; what she'd done to both of them. Talking about their parents and more generally about how their family fit together might help him, but all the professionals they were seeing were going to be missing a fairly large chunk of the puzzle.

And while he was, indeed, desperate to please and be liked, there was a darkness in Thomas too. It wasn't as obvious but it was definitely there. The way he used his charm to get what he wanted, the way he could manipulate people so easily... Lucille was much more openly defensive and reactive; Thomas could get under your skin before you realized.

And, of course, he'd been a very willing participant in seducing and impregnating a vulnerable young woman. It wasn't like he hadn't known that's what they were doing.

"I just hope he's alright," she said.

Lucille unlocked the studio door, the modern building almost hidden among scrubby trees at the edge of the estate grounds. No windows. You'd mistake it for a storage shed and never imagine the thousands of dollars' worth of equipment inside. Anyone thinking of breaking in would have to get past the house, though.

"Is there something you want to record today?" Edith asked.

"Not particularly. I want to go over some things, practise some of the songs we might play live. A couple of things from the new album that haven't had live debuts yet, some deep cuts that we didn't play on this tour. And you know us; we like to do an unexpected cover and it needs to be thematically relevant. Any ideas?"

A cover for Termons? She didn't know much about the festival beyond the setting beside the ruined abbey. And the story about what had happened last time, the reason that they were banned for so long.

Were there any good songs about spiking someone's drink with laxatives for revenge? That felt like quite a niche ask... Revenge felt like an easier one. Or returning triumphant after difficulties. Or...

"All I can think of is Poison," Edith said. "You know, Alice Cooper. Because of your last Termons experience and what you ended up doing."

She couldn't tell how well that suggestion was going down. Was it too harsh? Lucille's face was almost unreadable, tuning her bass, the low notes strange without any amplification.

"We could make it a duet," she said eventually. "All that call and response... I can see that working. Are the little one's ears nice and safe?"

Not yet. Mina seemed deeply suspicious of having something placed on her head, or as suspicious as someone too young to make complex facial expressions could look, but she didn't react to the dull thud of the amp being switched on or the hum as Lucille adjusted the volume, carefully keeping it low.

No reaction to the first few notes. It wasn't very loud and out of curiosity, Edith moved one of the shells away from her ear, seeing her turn immediately towards the sound.

"Does it work?" Lucille asked, two of her fingers keeping a steady rhythm.

"I think so," Edith said. "So far, at least."

They tested how far the volume had to be increased before Mina was aware of it again. Quite loud. Festival loud? Edith wasn't sure about that.

Drums were a real test. Mina didn't startle too much at the first bass strike but she could definitely hear it, trying to look. Was musicality heritable? Or would she develop good rhythm from being surrounded by music all the time?

"Thomas probably has a sound meter somewhere," Lucille said, playing a last drum fill so that the symbol crash hung in the air. "We can let him measure everything scientifically. But as a first test, I'd say this was successful."

She started a proper practice session. Edith had seen her do it before, of course, could easily have left her to it, and yet she felt like she'd just be worried if she went back to the house. She'd just be thinking about Thomas and worrying.

Her first faltering steps into therapy had been unpleasant. She remembered so clearly resisting, hating being asked to examine herself and how illogical she had been. But that was how she knew she was ill, because she wasn't making sense and she had to learn how to deal with that.

Thomas had something different happening. He was very logical in a lot of ways. He manipulated and adapted to get what he wanted and needed, he made himself desirable and agreeable and likeable as a protective measure in a way that concerned her. It was a very strange kind of selfless selfishness. He wanted his people - Lucille and her and Carmina - to be safe and comfortable and happy and he didn't really care about anyone else. He'd happily inconvenience Pam and string her along and it wasn't that he didn't realize he was doing it; otherwise he wouldn't have such perfect deniability.

Would a therapist recognize that habit of making himself be whatever he thought people wanted, whatever he thought would make them give him what he wanted? Or would he manage to convince them that he was fine actually and was just attending one appointment because his sister and partner worried about him and he wanted to soothe them and prove that he was entirely mentally well...

He'd selected his own doctor. Should they have let him do that?

"What are you thinking about?" Lucille asked from the keyboard, running scales up and down, exercising her fingers.

"Thomas," Edith admitted. "I hope they're being gentle with him."

"You don't think he'll be able to handle it?"

It wasn't that. Not exactly. He'd lived through so much, for one thing. He could survive talking to someone.

"I just think he might find it harder than he expects. And that if it's not harder than he expects, it's probably not working."

"He's not like us," Lucille said. "You're brave - even if you think you're not - and I'm reckless. He doesn't want to look at anything horrible at the best of times, let alone when the horrible thing is his own damaged psyche."

She talked about it like his brain was a dead fly or a nasty bruise. Bruising was probably about right. The physical marks their parents had left on him may had faded, but his mind was still lividly purple-green.

"He'll be fine," Edith said firmly. "Even if it takes a while."

Her mind was still turning it over when she had to take Mina inside to change her diaper. He should be back soon. Would he want to talk about it? Or would he absolutely not want to talk about it?

Shouldn't he already be back actually?

From downstairs, she heard the familiar sound of Mags starting the latest tour on the hour. Thomas was probably waiting until five past or so, avoiding too many prying eyes. He was sensible like that.

Feeding Mina and then walking her up and down the hall, more and more time passed. Well, maybe the appointment had overrun. Or maybe there was traffic.

When he was an hour late, Edith returned to the studio, finding Lucille still at the keyboard, manuscript paper covered in scrawled notes in front of her.

"How is he?" she asked. "I thought he might need some space."

"He's not come home."

Despite trying not to sound worried, her voice definitely didn't come out right. And Lucille wasn't looking at her. Why wasn't she reacting?

"Have you tried calling him?" Lucille asked.

"No. No, I... No."

"You should try that before catastrophizing."

Maybe she was right.

"I left my phone charging," Edith said, checking Mina's breathing reflexively.

"You should call. Don't use my phone."

"Why not?"

There was a long pause and suddenly Edith noticed that she was pale under her make-up, green-ish. Sick with worry.

"Because if he's realized that about 70% of how fucked up he is comes from me, he might not want to talk to me. I did terrible things to him when we were both far too young, let alone that we're brother and sister. Normal people don't do that, don't even think about it. Without me, he could have been normal. He could have been happy."

"Your parents hurt you," Edith said uncertainly.

"Does that excuse it?"

No. They both knew it. And yet...

"If he'd wanted to stop, he could have. You're adults now. And he loves you. You know he does."

"I do," Lucille said, blinking back tears. "I just... wonder sometimes if he'd be better off without me."

It felt more like she was a shard of glass near his heart that would be far too dangerous to remove. Edith wanted to help them, not destroy them.

"He needs you," she said firmly. "And, sure, that comes from an unhealthy place, but you need each other. And I need you both. If I'm going to get better - if we're all going to get better - we need to support each other."

A sigh and a nod, getting out her phone to try calling. If he was driving, he wouldn't answer, but at least they'd know if his phone was off.

Edith nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard him answer behind her.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"How was it?" Lucille asked at the same time.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Mina was squirming in the carrier, clearly aware that something was happening. Hearing her dad's voice. Edith freed her, turning her round so she could see.

"Well, my plan to walk in and explain that I don't need therapy was apparently a sign that I may, in fact, need therapy," Thomas said. "I don't really want to talk about it."

He hadn't mentioned why he was late, Edith noted. But she wasn't going to push. She'd bullied them into seeing professionals and that was quite enough.

"What do you want to do?" she asked.

"Honestly? Not sure. I'll probably mess around with some potential effects for Termons, reverbs and sound baths. Now, has anyone had lunch?"

Even when clearly out of sorts, he was still looking after them.

Chapter 115: Commiserating

Edith felt like she was walking on eggs. Both Sharpe siblings retreated after a mostly quiet lunch, Lucille back to the studio and Thomas to his bedroom to hunch over his computers.

A house full of awkwardness was not a good place for her and it couldn't be good for Mina. Edith was restless, wandering around the landings like a phantom, full of vague anxiety that she didn't want to examine too closely in case it became more tangible.

On the one hand, she was being ridiculous. She knew how long it took to make any kind progress in therapy; one session wasn't going to change anything too much. And Thomas wouldn't have revealed huge amounts about their private lives anyway, probably hadn't been forthcoming about anything really.

Mina fell asleep and although Edith wanted to keep her held close, putting her down for a nap was probably sensible, placing her in the crib and double, triple, quadruple checking the monitor was working.

She was tired herself but lying down in the dark did nothing for her worried heart, finally making her way to Thomas's room. She didn't really know what she was going to do or say, but she felt that she couldn't just wait for things to boil over. She had to go and poke a little.

He was clearly engrossed. He didn't look round as she opened the door but he didn't jump when she touched his shoulder either, leaning his head gently against her wrist.

"Thought you'd be Lucille," he murmured, taking his headphones off.

"She's giving you space," Edith said softly. "She's... worried."

"About what?"

She hesitated, going to sit on his bed, setting the baby monitor receiver on his nightstand. The sheets were still rumpled from Lucille's visit. Maybe she was right, maybe Thomas just had to react to things in his own, different way.

"I'm not sure it's my place to tell you."

He let out a tiny laugh, more like a strong exhale than anything else.

"Well, she won't tell me and you know that so maybe you'll have to if we're going to get anywhere."

Hmm. Lucille probably wouldn't voice her fears even under risk of torture. It was a huge unspoken truth where they all knew the issue but wouldn't say it.

"She thinks that you'll realize that it's her fault that you're... how you are. And that you'll resent her for that."

He shrugged, nonplussed.

"I know it's her fault," he said. "But why would that matter? It is what it is. We were being raised in a house of hate and abuse and she tried, in her broken way, to do something different. She bound us to each other irrevocably. But if she hadn't done that, things would probably be worse."

"Worse how?"

"I imagine we'd have taken all our damage and inflicted it on other people, so that would have been at least two more unhappy, unhealthy marriages in the great Sharpe tradition of spouses who despise one another. At least we've kept our madness contained. Or mostly contained. I have great guilt about it but I wonder sometimes what would have happened if she had escaped to boarding school. Would Mother's attentions have passed to me? Would Father have become more violent without her here? All alone with no one to protect me, I might have had it a lot worse and that would have made me a different person. It might be Lucille's fault that I turned out this way, but I don't blame her for it. She didn't know that what she was doing was wrong when she expanded our love beyond what it ought to have been. Meanwhile, our parents knew exactly what they were doing. It can't be undone and we won't give each other up so why waste time on it? If I must be medicalized, it's so I can learn how to stop hurting other people. I want to learn to be a more conscientious, empathetic, kind person. But to do that, I need to try to undo some damage which left me only able to think of myself and Lucille as real people and everyone else as tools at best and that's going to take time."

That was upsettingly logical. All alone here, with parents who hated them and tutors who willingly or otherwise always turned away from their pain, maybe it wasn't surprising that they'd never developed what seemed to Edith like the most vital of social skills, being able to empathize with others. Maybe she was a little too far the other way, come to think of it. Why else did her heart ache for incestuous murderers?

"Do you think Lucille will need reassurance?" Thomas asked.

"Maybe a little. I certainly feel better now. I was so afraid that I might be harming your relationship, which isn't what I want at all."

A smile, warm at least, if slightly condescending.

"We've been through far too much for that," he said. "I think it will take death to separate us. And even then I'm not sure. We're two trees that have grown into each other. Natural grafting."

That was nicer than all of her metaphors.

She kissed him and made her way back to her own bed, checking on Mina, watching her chest rising and falling for a few minutes before resting herself, managing perhaps half an hour before she was woken again. She felt more refreshed than she perhaps deserved to, getting up immediately.

Her heart swelled at the way Mina raised her tiny arms towards her, asking to be picked up. Even though she couldn't possibly consciously feel affection yet, Edith loved knowing how comfortable she must be, how confident she was that all her needs would be attended to. No doubt in her little head. No worries, no fears.

If only she could protect her forever...

Thomas had left his room and didn't seem to be anywhere else on their usual floor. Had he gone to see Lucille? That was good.

No matter how much she tried not to, Edith worried about going back to therapy. Her biggest fear used to be her own health and she'd damaged it hugely. Now that her biggest fear was Mina's well-being, she couldn't help worrying that she was harming her somehow. Maybe carrying her around like this was going to give her attachment issues. Maybe she was feeding her too much or not enough or maybe there wasn't enough structure to their days. Maybe Mina needed to be exposed to other babies to start her social skills but just the thought of how many germs might be lurking and potentially dangerous to someone so tiny terrified her.

Thomas wanted to become a better person. Lucille wanted to regulate her emotions more, learn techniques to deal with her trauma. And Edith...

Well, she just wanted to function. She knew she wasn't, not really. She hadn't slept for longer than about three hours in a row since Mina was born, she wasn't really enjoying anything in life - not food, not anything. She felt like a machine that existed to keep Mina alive. She ate so that Mina could eat, slept just enough, dedicated as much time as possible to her. But intellectually, she knew that wasn't sustainable. Eventually, she'd break. She needed help to prevent that and she needed help to accept help.

Knowing it didn't make it any less difficult though.

As she brushed her wet hair the next morning - she didn't use a dryer anymore in case the sound frightened Mina or, worse, made her miss a cry - she tried to fall back on old techniques. Deep breathing. Counting. Focussing on small details like the play of sunlight creeping around the edges of the blinds, the feeling of the bristles against her scalp, the distant sound of the piano downstairs.

She was getting her appointment out of the way nice and early, limiting how much of the day could be lost to anxiety. Of course, she lost most of her days to anxiety at present and depending on how the session went, she might end up losing the day to her own head anyway.

There was a soft knock on the door, just Thomas announcing his presence.

"Would you like me to drive you?" he asked. "Or I can ask Pam."

"I don't think driving me to appointments is anywhere in her job description. You or Lucille can drive. I don't really mind."

"I think it ought to be me. She'll do better if she has a house full of distractions. And you need some breakfast."

"I'm not hungry."

"I'm sure you're not, but you should eat something anyway. We can't have your stomach rumbling halfway through your appointment. I won't have them thinking that we don't feed you."

She didn't really appreciate the tone, even if he was right. For Mina, she made herself eat, even if it was just toast and orange juice, the taste of the toothpaste as she brushed her teeth afterwards feeling like a preview of an unpleasant day.

Technically you weren't meant to brush your teeth so soon after consuming something acidic but she wasn't going to see a doctor with dirty teeth. She knew they were looking for signs of post-natal depression and she was almost certain that wasn't what she had.

What she did have was a different question but she wasn't a doctor. It was their job to work that out.

The elevator creaked around them, the rattling alerting Lucille. The music stopped, her figure looming out of the parlour door. The whole previous evening had been a little awkward with Lucille electing to spend the night in Thomas's room. That had felt positive at least.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"No," Edith said. "But you've been to yours, so I need to be brave and do it."

She didn't feel brave as she checked and rechecked Mina's car seat, feeling sick as she got into the passenger side. What if it turned out that she was harming Mina? She'd never forgive herself.

Part of her wanted to jump out and run every time they stopped at signals or junctions. She could still back out. She could still change her mind. All the way along the motorway, she was reminding herself of that fact, even into the city and the small carpark behind a squat, square building, seeming very modern now she was so used to Allerdale.

She felt better with Mina's carrier strapped to her. How ridiculous that a tiny, vulnerable infant felt like armour.

"Do you want me to come in with you?" Thomas asked. "Just to reception, I mean."

Did she? Did she want to be the kid on the first day of school who couldn't bear to walk in alone? She couldn't remember if she'd been like that or if she'd been a brave child, merrily walking in without fear.

"I'll be fine," she said, her voice slightly betraying her, dry and creaking. "I'm OK."

"Alright," he said. "Take as long as you need."

Now there was an idea. She could also take as short as she wanted, right? A ten-minute session was still a session.

She pressed the intercom button, instantly reaching into her pocket for hand sanitizer.

"Good morning, how can I help you?"

"I have an appointment. Edith Cushing?"

"Of course."

The door swung open silently, as if it wasn't the last barrier to having to step inside and embark on one of the hardest things she'd ever have to do.

Glancing down at Mina's sleeping face, her tiny nostrils moving slightly as she breathed, Edith tried to take courage and stepped inside.

Chapter 116: Ogilvie

She had to prove her identity, handing over her passport to be examined. She had to confirm her date of birth, her middle name, her hometown. Briefly she wondered who would lie just to get into therapy but then remembered that she was jumping the line, getting healthcare paid for that plenty of people were desperately waiting to receive. And then she felt guilty for not appreciating it.

The clinic was incredibly clean, every surface able to be wiped down from the pleather chairs to the tiled walls. There was art hung there, all peaceful pastoral scenes, rolling hills and gentle rivers, held in plexiglass frames screwed in place. It was probably meant to be calming. Part of Edith liked the slight chemical smell, that evidence of cleanliness. Increasingly, she was very concerned about contamination. Allerdale had a slight mustiness from age that probably couldn't be removed without destroying something.

The doctor's door was open, waiting for her.

"Ms Cushing? Good morning. Please, come in. Make yourself comfortable. I'm Dr Ogilvie."

Somehow she hadn't expected a man. Had Thomas told her the doctor was a man? Maybe, but she'd have expected to remember. He had a bright office, a window with frosted glass for privacy that still let in plenty of light, pale oak-effect furniture. She settled herself onto another faux-leather chair as he closed the door, walking back with very soft foot-falls. Like he was wearing slippers.

"I understand you're here for post-natal depression," he said, a kind voice and yet Edith felt herself prickle.

"I don't have depression," she said. "My partners think I do, but I don't. But I have... something. I don't know what it is."

Maybe she expected push-back. She was used to push-back, to an extent. She hadn't wanted to believe she was ill as a teenager and she was used to mental health professionals telling her that she was sick and what she was sick with. But not here. He nodded, definitely observing her. He had a very oval face, lined but in a way that Edith found difficult to put an age to. Fifty-ish? Maybe. Maybe older.

"Alright," he said. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

About herself. Wasn't he able to make assumptions from her voice, from her bearing? She knew from seeing her face in the mirror that she was visibly exhausted, under-eye bags, dull skin, pale lips.

"Don't you have my notes?" she asked. "This isn't my first time."

"I do," he said evenly. "But they tell me about how you were then, not how you are now. I'd like for you to tell me what's not in the notes. You're a person, not a piece of paper."

He was saying all the right things but that didn't do anything to put Edith at ease.

"My name is Edith Cushing. I'm from Buffalo, New York, but now living in Allerdale. Allderdale Hall. I've previously been diagnosed with anxiety and a non-typical form of obsessive-compulsive disorder which affected my relationship with food and led to several ongoing physical complications. I was told that I would be extremely unlikely to ever conceive without fertility treatment but last year, I found myself unexpectedly pregnant with Carmina. It felt like a miracle, something unrepeatable. I harmed my body so much and yet somehow it was still able to make new life."

"And how old is Carmina?"

Despite feeling like she had no idea when one day ended and the next began, Edith knew Mina's age perfectly.

"She's just over four weeks old. But she was born at 36 weeks so she's technically zero. We took her for an early check-up a few days ago. I didn't want to wait for the standard one."

Dr Ogilvie nodded, writing a few lines.

"A month is a long time when something so monumental happens, but it's not necessarily a long time in health terms," he said.

Edith could feel the tension in her own jaw, in her temples.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means that I think you're very in touch with your mental state and that if you don't think you have post-natal depression then we should explore that and work out exactly what is going on."

A small, hopeful wave of relief rolled through her. Very small, but definitely there. A doctor, an expert, was agreeing with her. That hadn't happened to her very often.

"Can you tell me what's brought you here today and what you're hoping to get out of therapy?"

Edith took a deep breath. She had to be honest. There was no point in doing this if she wasn't honest, she couldn't be helped properly if she wasn't honest.

"I'm not sleeping well," she said. "I'm... scared. All the time. I'm exhausted but I'm scared to sleep in case something happens but I'm scared not to sleep because I know that will affect how well I can take care of Mina and so I lie awake panicking about the fact that I'm awake. I don't like leaving her alone. I want to watch over her, all the time. I only eat and shower so she can eat and so I'm clean because germs are so dangerous."

"Is it disease that you're most afraid of? Germs and infection?"

"Germs. Choking. Injury. Allergies. What if she stops breathing and I'm not there to help her? What if I fall down the stairs with her? What if I drop a cup of tea and scald her? What if I accientally eat something that transfers through breastmilk and she has a reaction? What if she gets a scratch and it gets infected? We live in a house that's open to the public; what if someone brings measles in with them? What if the elevator falls? What if the ceiling comes in?"

She'd never verbalized her fears even in her own head properly. The nausea was almost overwhelming, feeling hot and cold, skin prickling, heart pounding in her ears and against her ribs so hard that if she looked down, she'd surely see her chest thudding. She had to breathe, she had to ground herself, standing up and taking a few steps, shaking her arms and trying to inhale and exhale slowly. Dr Ogilvie didn't react, not openly anyway.

"How do you feel when your partners take care of Mina?" he asked.

"I don't really let them. I... I can't bear it. I have to do everything or I'm failing and if anything happens, it will be my fault because I should do everything for her."

"Do you think they would harm Carmina?"

"No," Edith said instantly. "No, I know they wouldn't. They love her."

"But you're afraid she might be at risk in their care?"

"They're not careful enough. They might... miss something."

"Alright. Can you imagine trusting anyone with her? Your own parents, perhaps?"

"They're, uh... They're both dead."

For the first time, he reacted with surprise to something she'd said, barely but definitely. A fleeting frown, looking down at her notes. Would it even be in there? Lots of people lost their parents. She didn't think it had any relevance to what was happening in her brain.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I must have missed that."

"It's fine. It's not important."

"I don't like to write anything off as unimportant. How would you describe your childhood?"

"Perfect. Idyllic, until my mom got sick. Cancer. And then to try to deal with that, my brain decided I had to eat only food that I considered healthy and that category got smaller and smaller until I was hardly eating at all. But I got better. I worked so hard to get better and now my brain is... doing it again, making me do things I know are ridiculous and unhelpful but I can't get out of it..."

He passed her a box of tissues before she realized she was crying.

"I need to let them help me," she sniffed. "It will be better for Mina. But I can't... If I'm in control then I know nothing has been missed. But I know I'm more likely to make a mistake and I know Thomas and Lucille want to bond with her..."

She'd paused facing a wall, trying to take a breath, a sequence of awards and qualifications in frames in front of her. He was an expert. He would be able to work out what to do.

"Can you tell me a little about your relationship?" Dr Ogilvie asked.

He hadn't reacted at all to her saying partners, plural. Not shocked by multiple people raising a child together. But she had to let him know one important thing.

"Thomas is Mina's father," she said. "And Lucille is her aunt, Thomas's sister. But she and I are... also together as a couple. I'm with both of them and they're both aware. It's not normal but it works for us."

"Right."

She tried to judge what that tone was, that single word. What did it mean? Was he drawing conclusions? Was he assuming things about them? Anyone who dated siblings simultaneously clearly had something wrong with them. If he knew the full truth, he'd probably have her committed or arrested and Mina taken into the care of the authorities.

"You don't seem... surprised," she said awkwardly, returning to the chair at last. "Most people don't know what to say."

"I've heard of stranger arrangements."

"Like what?"

A smile, warm and compassionate.

"Obviously I wouldn't talk about other patients even anonymously," he said.

Edith didn't know if she thought that meant he was lying or not.

"My usual techniques aren't working," she said. "It's not like I'm not trying. But it's not the same. I used to be able to think about the worst possible things that could happen and rationalize them but now it's not about me getting sick, it's about something happening to Mina. It's irrational. I know it's irrational. Knowing doesn't help."

He nodded, very serious again.

"Alright," he said. "So are you looking for alternative techniques to try? Or would you like to try medication?"

Edith's stomach lurched, skin prickling hot and cold.

"I'm breastfeeding," she murmured. "I... I can't take anything."

"There are options that have no known effects when breastfeeding. But we can set that aside for now if you'd rather try other things first."

"Definitely. I can do the work. I've done it before."

Worksheets. Exercizes. She remembered being surprised by how much therapy resembled school the first time around. It was less lying on couches talking about problems, more actual work. It wasn't a quick fix. It was effort and waking up every day and doing her best to maintain progress no matter how slowly. There was one she had to do right then and there, some kind of screening questionnaire. It asked her about guilt, lethargy, anxious thoughts, suicidal ideation...

She was tempted to lie. She could tell she was scoring highly on a lot of the criteria. Not harming herself, though. The exact opposite really; clearly she had to live forever and shield Mina from the world.

She couldn't get better if she wasn't honest. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

Some of the sheets to do at home were very familiar, very similar to the kinds of things she'd done about a decade previously.

"You think it's the same thing," she said. "You think it's obsessive-compulsive. I thought you were a postnatal depression specialist?"

"A lot of problems come about in the postpartum period, including anxiety and forms of OCD. What most people call postnatal depression actually encompasses a lot of different conditions. So, yes, I think that this big change in your life may have caused a similar group of symptoms to reoccur. It's definitely worth examining."

She'd been so worried about being put in a box. But this box was familiar. It was a box she'd spent a lot of time in.

And it still had the torn edges from when she'd got out of it before.