For the next two days, I left my room sparingly. I would leave for meals and to use the water closet, but for the rest of the time I stayed shut up with my books. No one disturbed me, no one tried to get me to leave. They all just left me to it and I was grateful for that.

After my fight with Alice and the immediate aftermath, I didn't want to face anyone because I knew how they felt about me. Alice had no doubt informed them all of our argument and how she felt about it. They were not conversations I wished to have, especially as I knew no one would believe me. I would rather not think about it at all.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. I knew something was wrong with the whole situation, but I couldn't prove it. Rebecca was unlikely to say anything, as she had remained silent about the Marlows since she arrived. There was no proof to my theory, no evidence that I was right, and without it, I might as well have been screaming down a well for the good it did me.

The day of Doctor Merrick's visit arrived, and I could scarcely find the urge to get out of bed and face the day. It didn't feel right for Rebecca to be sent back with the Ramones when there was no actual evidence that she had come from them in the first place. Everything had moved too quickly and I couldn't stop it. I resolved to speak to her one more time before Doctor Merrick's arrival.

I might not get the information I needed to allow her to stay, but it was worth a try.

"Do you intend to leave the room of your own volition today or do I have to drag you?" George said, stepping into my room without knocking as I put a brush through my hair. He crossed the room and tore open the curtains along with the window.

"You were the one who suggested that I keep myself out of sight for a little while." I shrugged. "I'm just following your instructions."

"I thought you understood my humour by now, Master Nate."

"Yes, well, I am not exactly the best company at the moment, so following your instructions seems like the most logical thing to do."

"Is this about Miss Edwards?"

"This is about me not being good company. I just said that."

"Your sister told me what happened the other day," he said. "She's worried about you, as am I. This behaviour, the lashing out, isn't like you and I'm concerned."

"What is it with everyone feeling the need to tell me that I am not acting like myself? First Father, then Alice, and now you?" I raised an eyebrow at George. "It is nice to know that everyone thinks they know me better than I know myself."

"Except this isn't you, Master Nate. I know you have been struggling recently, and that's what concerns me the most. Shutting yourself away isn't going to help you, and will probably make you feel worse than you already do. I understand that Mrs Ramone's appearance was a shock, but behaving like this won't help anyone, least of all yourself."

"And what do you propose I do? Go to the village and face the stares and comments from everyone because of the state I'm in? I don't think so."

"I'm about to head into the village myself. You are welcome to join me."

"It looks like there is to be a storm and we both know how Lightning is. Besides, I should be studying."

I turned away from George, placed my hairbrush down, and sat at my writing desk where my law books had been sitting gathering dust. George sighed. I listened to the sound of his footsteps as he stepped from the room, closing the door behind him. His footsteps continued to echo down the hall before they faded completely, leaving me in silence once again.

My intention hadn't been to be mean to George. He had been the only person who I felt I could talk to, but I was fed up. Everyone thought they knew what was going on in my head before I did. I knew I wasn't acting like my usual self. I never would have snapped at Alice the way I did, for one, but that didn't mean everyone else had the right to try to butt in.

They didn't believe me about the Marlows; they didn't want to listen to me, so they didn't get a say in whether I was acting like myself. If they took the time to listen to me, then maybe, just maybe, I might be inclined to have an honest discussion about the way I was feeling. For the time being, I was willing to keep all of that tucked away.

I had gone to bed not long after my fight with Alice, owing to the fact that I was emotionally exhausted from it all. When I was summoned for supper, I waved the notion away and simply complained of a headache, which wasn't a lie. George had come to speak to me later, but I had ignored him. From then, I was determined to just push my emotions away and not let them get the better of me. I couldn't go through that again.

Once I was sure George had gone, I stood up from my writing desk and slipped from the room. I tipped down the hall, keeping my eyes open for any sign of Alice, but her bedroom door was shut and I knew I was safe. Rebecca's door was partially open as I approached it, and I could hear her muttering to Sooty as I knocked lightly.

"Come in."

"Forgive me for the intrusion, Miss Edwards," I said, stepping into the room. "I just wanted to see how you are before Doctor Merrick's visit."

Rebecca shrugged, continuing to scratch Sooty behind the ears. The cat was curled up on the very end of the bed as she sat on the edge, dressed in something that had once belonged to Alice. She no longer looked like the broken, bruised girl who had appeared in the woods almost two weeks before, but that didn't mean she wasn't still suffering from what had happened.

"If there was anything we needed to know, you would tell us, wouldn't you?"

"There is nothing to tell," she whispered.

"Absolutely nothing? You can trust me, you know that. If this isn't what you want, if this isn't the truth, you can tell me and I will do everything in my power to make sure this doesn't go ahead the way Father intends it to. All you have to do is say the word."

She looked at me, her lips moving as though she wanted to say something, but she just shook her head. "Nothing."

"Very well, I won't press any more. I shall leave you to spend some alone time with Sooty. He is going to miss you if Doctor Merrick allows you to travel."

"I shall miss him too."

I nodded and turned towards the door, stepping through the doorway and turning to close the door behind me.

"Thank you, Nate," Rebecca said, looking at me through the open door. "For everything."

"You're most welcome. I wish I could have done more to help you."

With that, I put the door back to its partially opened position and returned to my bedroom, closing the door tightly behind me. I sighed, pressing my back against the wood of the door. She wanted to say something to me, to elaborate a little more. I had seen it on her face, but she had either been too scared to or didn't think I would believe what she had to say.

I could hardly blame her. No one believed me either.

I pushed myself off the door and approached my dresser, rummaging through my sock drawer until my fingers wrapped around the cold metal of the pendant. If Doctor Merrick saw fit to send Rebecca away with Mrs Ramone, I would have to return the pendant. I should have handed it over the moment I found it, but something told me that it might have been more important to our investigation than first thought.

Still, I hadn't wanted to open it because it would be an invasion of Rebecca's privacy to go poking around in something that didn't belong to me. Holding it in my hand, it did present an interesting series of questions. Why would Rebecca have had the pendant on a trip to the village if they took her on the road? Not only that, but why would whoever took it allow her to keep it?

Yet another series of questions that didn't have any answers to them, and I was fed up with it. Although I promised myself that I wouldn't open the pendant, I realised I no longer had a choice. If something wasn't adding up with Mrs Ramone, perhaps the pendant would be the key I needed to get someone to listen to me.

I ran my nail under the clasp of the locket and popped it open, resting the two ovals on the palms of my hands to get a better look at them. In one of the ovals was a small photograph that slotted into position perfectly. It showed a woman a little younger than Mother with her hair twisted into an elaborate knot on her head and a small trace of a smile dancing on her lips despite how long she had no doubt been sitting there.

She looked strangely familiar. Her eyes reminded me of someone, but I couldn't place it. Deep down, I felt as though I knew her, or at least had seen her before, whether in person or through a separate photograph.

Someone knocked on my door with one sharp knock. I snapped the locket shut and shoved it under my pillow to hide it from whoever thought to make an appearance.

"Come in," I said, watching the door. The door opened to reveal Father casting his imposing figure over the room, darkening it more than the rain clouds outside.

"I thought you should know that Doctor Merrick will be here soon," he said, looking around my bedroom, which was in its usual state. After two days of barely leaving it, not even the servants had come in and cleaned it and I had not bothered to put anything away.

"Thank you."

"Would you like him to take a look at those bruises? Your mother is still concerned, especially after you missed supper the other night with complaints of a headache. You have been off-colour for a little while now."

"No, thank you. I'm fine. Mother is making a fuss over nothing and the bruises will be gone in no time."

"And the rest of it? Even George didn't sound too convincing when I asked him about you yesterday, Nathaniel."

"Just the heat. Perhaps this approaching storm will chase it away, and I'll be back to a semblance of myself in no time."

"Do you want to take that chance? You might have a real illness disguising itself as an issue with the heat."

"I can assure you, it's the heat."

Father didn't appear all that convinced, but I didn't care. He had lost his right to care about me and my health several days before, and I was not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right. Although the heat became unbearable, it wasn't responsible for the way I had been feeling. Some of the blame rested on his shoulders, not that he would ever admit to being at fault. It was always everyone else's fault, never his.

"Are you going to come down and greet Doctor Merrick?"

I shook my head. "I'll stay here just so Mother doesn't force me to talk to him. If he agrees that Miss Edwards is fit enough to travel, then I shall come down and bid her farewell."

"Very well, I won't force you." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small white envelope. "This came for you, although I don't know who it is from."

"Thank you. I'll read it in a moment."

Father placed the letter on the top of my dresser and backed out of the room without another word. He closed the door behind him and the moment he was gone, I scrambled off my bed and across the room to open the letter. Only one person would have been writing to me. Joseph. I had asked him to inform me of any developments in uncovering who Abacus the horse belonged to and it looked as though he finally had my answer.

I tore open the envelope and unfolded the sheet of paper within. The letter was written in an untidy scrawl, but as someone with notoriously bad handwriting, I managed to read it as well as I could read my own.

Dear Master Nathaniel,

I'm sorry it took so long to respond to your question. Some of the stable hands were too busy to speak to me at first. After a few days of asking around, one of our stable hands, David, said that he remembered a horse by the name of Abacus staying at the Inn a few times, but it was a long time ago.

He said the horse belonged to a Mr Marlow.

I hope that helps.

Yours,

Joseph.

~~

A/N - And here we go, the mystery of Rebecca is about to unravel and it all starts with this note! We are so close to the end now, only a few more chapters to go! Also, we hit 1K reads which is awesome!

Questions! Do you think Mr Thorpe's concern for Nate was genuine? Is Nate being too harsh? What about the letter? Any theories?

Comment below!

First Published - May 16th, 2023