The room is dark. I feel blindly for a light switch and find one, but no light comes on regardless of how many times I flick it on and off. I step inside, barely able to make out the soft edges of furniture. Ahead are four long, thin windows which reach floor to ceiling. The curtains are drawn, so I head over to open them up. As I walk, the floorboards creak. Dust, which has been settled for years, rises up and tickles my throat. It smells musty in here. Unlived in and neglected.
I pull back all three sets of deep purple curtains, coughing as thick dust explodes from the cloth. The afternoon sunlight streams in. I watch the disturbed dust dance in the beams of light before finding the courage to turn around.
When I do, I know this room belonged to Toby. Even if no one had told me, I would have known.
If I had to use three words to describe it, they would be: gothic, modern and elegant.
The room is huge. Bigger than Gabriel’s. The floors are a dark mahogany. The walls, decorated with mottled black wallpaper. Baroque paintings hang on the wall in ornate gold frames. Overhead is a large black wrought iron chandelier with actual candles instead of lightbulbs, and a huge fireplace to the side. There’s a great big four-poster bed that twists right up to the ceiling with black chiffon drapes hanging to the floor. His bed is made. The dark grey bedding lays perfectly flat and unwrinkled, scattered with deep red and black cushions. The furniture is all antique and made of dark wood. In the corner is a black piano, and a cast iron freestanding bath sits by the window.
Yep. This just screams Toby.
The wardrobe doors are slightly open. Hanging over the door is a long and thick red woollen scarf. I find myself feeling it. The soft wool fills me with nostalgia. He would wear this in winter. It would wrap around his neck three times at least. Even with that and his thick black jacket, he was always cold to the touch. Opening the doors up, I see all his clothes. His plain black T-shirts and dark grey jeans. Below, his heavy black boots sit abandoned.
There’s a large desk pushed to the window. It’s strewn with books. Some open and some bookmarked. Edgar Allan Poe. Oscar Wilde. H.P. Lovecraft. All his favourites. I scour the titles. My mother’s book is nowhere to be seen, not that I was expecting it to be.
I look around the room, untouched for years. Probably exactly how he left it.
I smell the air, wondering if I can still detect his scent. But all I smell is stagnant air.
‘We searched his room soon after he left,’ Gabriel tells me from the door. I glance over and see him standing there watching me with an unreadable stare. His face is expressionless. And when Grayson appears behind him, I certainly expect to be hauled out. But Grayson simply looks around him, taking in the room like he’s reacquainting himself with it. He strolls in and runs his finger through the thick layer of dust on the dressing table.
Gabriel keeps his eyes on me and I suspect he’s avoiding looking at his brother’s bedroom at all costs.
He still calls him Bias. I think that maybe, he still misses the little brother he lost. The one replaced by Toby. The young brown-haired boy I saw in his head looked sweet and kind. I bet that seeing this room hurts.
‘What did you find?’ I ask. ‘When you searched it.’
‘Exactly what you see now. Just his personal belongings. Nothing worth anything and nothing significant,’ Grayson replies, sliding his hands into his pockets. ‘You believe he may have hidden the necklace in here?’
‘Perhaps.’
His eyes dance around the room before landing back on me.
‘Then help yourself, Miss Hooper. After all, you certainly seemed keen to get in here when you were wielding a priceless seventeenth-century axe against the door. But you won’t find-’
He stops talking when I walk with purpose towards a chest of drawers, and he watches with curiosity as I start dragging the chest away from the wall. It’s a heavy thing, but I’m very determined. Once moved, I lower myself and start looking for a loose floorboard, which I find quickly enough. I prize it up and drop it beside me before shoving my hand inside. Sure enough, I feel something.
A metal box.
I pull it out and look smugly at Grayson. He walks over and takes it from me, giving it a shake.
‘It’s locked.’ He points out. ‘I’ll get some cutters.’
‘No need.’ Gabriel walks over towards the single plant pot with the husk of a dead flower placed on Toby’s desk. He starts digging in the dried dirt before producing a single key.
‘How did you know that was there?’ Grayson asks as Gabriel joins us, cleaning the key off with the hem of his shirt. ‘How did you both know?’
‘Toby had the same hiding spot in my room back at Harry’s. It’s where he hid the journal.’ And my contraception. But I don’t add that part in.
‘He learnt his tricks from me. Mother, bless her, was a nosey woman after all. I taught him where to hide a key. I never thought to check behind the chest of drawers for anything though.’ Gabriel takes the box and slides the key into the slot. Lifting his head, he looks at me, and then hands me the box. ‘It’s your necklace. You should open it.’
With a quick look to Grayson – who doesn’t object – I take it from him and walk over to the bed. Resting the box on my knee, I wait. I feel like I need a minute. This could be it! My necklace could be hidden in here.
But if it’s not… then what sort of things would Toby hide in his most secretive of hiding spots? What horrible, disgusting things would a man like Toby feel the need to hide?
My fingers stroke the edge of the metal box. It’s no bigger than five inches by three. But it’s a thick and heavy thing. Built to last. I’m chewing my lip again, and part of me wants to just put the box back and leave.
But only a small part of me.
I turn the key and open it up.
The familiar swell of misery fills my chest when I see what’s inside.
I scoop out the pile of photographs hidden inside and start flicking through them. They’re of me. Of me and Toby. And they’re lovely. We’re smiling and kissing. Playing and posing. I remember him taking them on his phone. The first time he pulled it out, I had no idea what it was. I’d never seen a mobile phone before. But then he showed me how it would take pictures.
I look through them all. Me and him in each other’s arms. His lips kissing my cheek as I grin from ear to ear. There are some of me with my tongue sticking out and him with his mouth curled up into a hilarious grin. Then there are some he took without me noticing. Me looking up at the sky or reading a book in the grass.
This is Toby and I together.
In love.
I take another look in the box which is now completely empty, and replace the pictures before locking it back up.
That’s what he hid. Us. Me. The fact that he cared. That’s what he hid from the world.
‘What’s in there, Lilly?’ Gabriel asks me.
‘The past,’ I tell him, putting the box on the bed and getting to my feet. ‘A lie. The box is full of lies.’
As I pass, Gabriel takes my arm and stops me.
‘Can we please talk?’
‘We can talk when my prison sentence is over.’ I yank my arm free. ‘I’ll see you in a year. Unless you can fix it. Then maybe, maybe… We can talk.’ Grayson gives a short laugh as I leave and return to my room.
∞∞∞
I watch the sun set through the nailed shut window, daring Toby to come back. Praying that he does. The rage inside me is stronger than ever. I hate it. And I love it. The clarity of such an emotion is peaceful compared to everything else I’m trying to suppress. The pain, fear and grief. The loss of hope.
Give me anger any day.
How dare he hide all those photos. How dare he keep them. How dare he even take them. I hated seeing them. Remembering the bliss and joy and love I felt for him when he took them all. It makes me sick. Especially when I think of how easily he could have taken me from Harry’s house and brought me here. He lived in luxury and comfort as I pissed in a bowl in my room and ate scraps, all the while he was taking loving pictures and storing them in his secret box.
I thumb through the pages of my Brothers Grimm book and re-read Cinderella over and over to try and distract myself.
Hendrix comes to hand me some food. He also mentions that Gabriel is talking to Grayson about getting things moving rather than waiting.
An hour or so passes and I remain undisturbed, poking at the drying sandwich.
I keep glancing at the bathroom door. It feels like Jade is in there watching me, still swinging at the end of that rope. The poor woman was murdered by the man I once loved because she was in a relationship with the man I love now.
Still clasping my book to my chest, I walk slowly towards the door and push it open. The light from the bedroom streams in and illuminates the spot where she was hanging. She may be gone, but the sight of her body will never leave me. The sound of her swinging will always be there.
The reason for her death can never be wiped clean.
The bedroom plummets into darkness.
Then, suddenly, a sensation washes over me. Slowly, I turn and look at the closed bedroom door. Nerves grip every one of my cells.
I sense magic.
But it’s not Toby. It’s not Grayson or Gabriel either.
It’s Theo.
