I used to love coming to the Beach House in the summers. There’s an old photograph of me on the beach with my mom, where she’s bundled up in blankets with a mustard print scarf on her head, but my most vivid memories are of building sandcastles with Sam when I was little, then with Clara once I got older.
We parked in the garage at the bottom of the hill and made our way up the wooden boardwalk, with Gabriel in the lead. When I was little, it felt like a secret entrance to a magical land, because you couldn’t even see the house through the tall grass until you got a few minutes into the path.
It was a long walk to the house, even with the boardwalk Grams put in for my mom’s wheelchair. I can’t imagine how they did it before, walking fifteen minutes through the sand and jagged rocks. Sam told me they used to come by the water if they had lots of bags, or if mom wasn’t in the best shape. There was a dock right outside the house that only we could use.
The Beach House didn’t have a key hidden under a flowerpot, but it usually had a lockbox under the porch swing, to the same effect.
“It’s not here,” I let them know after extensively feeling around. I even got on my hands and knees to look better, but there was no box.
“It doesn’t take a key anymore,” Gabriel pointed to a little grey box, like the ones from the plantation.
“Of course, technology,” I sighed before putting my thumb on the screen. “Ow!” I brought my finger to my mouth and sucked where the needle poked it.
“Your fingerprint, DNA and heartbeat match,” Gabriel read off the screen.
“That’s way more secure than the plantation,” I pointed out.
“The Beach House was remodeled later,” Gabriel shrugged before putting his finger on the screen and stepping inside once the house cleared him.
He said they remodeled it, but everything on the inside looked the same as it had last summer. It was a mixture of seaside escape and old-time sophistication, which made sense now that I knew more about Cassie.
“We can stay the night and get back on the road in the morning,” Embry suggested, walking around with Gabriel to make sure we were alone.
“I’ll check out the garage,” I headed for the door.
“Wait, we’ll come with you,” Gabriel followed me. I was about to argue and remind them I could manage it on my own, but he had a look of determination, not concern. This was more about me choosing an object that represented Cassie than about my safety.
To get to the garage, which held our boat, you could either walk outside or go through the basement that had a tunnel to connect the two structures. It was apparently the safest place in case of an earthquake. Sam and I would explore it, pretending it was a cave because of all the treasure trunks at the end.
This time, the guys went first, with less adventurous exploration, more making sure none of Henry’s men were camped out waiting for us.
It was no longer a pressing concern when we saw the entire path was covered in a thick layer of dust. If I had to guess, I would say it hadn’t been used since the summer I was six. Sam and I found a rat in the tunnels and decided to never go back.
There was a door at the end to get to the garage, but it hadn’t been updated with the exterior, so all you needed to get in was a key.
“Did anyone grab the key from the hook?” I asked, knowing I hadn’t. Considering Henry has been after us since before Cassie bought the Beach House, it was ridiculous that we used to protect ourselves with a lock box under a swing and all the other keys on a rabbit foot keychain in the kitchen.
“I’ll be right back,” Gabriel disappeared, leaving me alone with Embry.
At first, we both stood in silence, waiting for him. I still wasn’t big on talking, but he kept opening his mouth like he wanted to say something.
“Can you feel feelings too?” I asked him, realizing I should have figured this out ages ago.
“I can’t read thoughts, but I can sense moods,” he admitted. “Although I don’t need powers to read you. The amazing little girl I met at a funeral, whose heart is bigger than anyone I know, who has gone through so many hardships, but still smiles at strangers…”
“I haven’t been that girl for a while,” I argued, wondering if I ever was. “What’s that?” I changed the subject, focusing on the burgundy bag he had in his hand instead of on my pity party.
“This is your piece of Beth,” he looked at it a moment before handing it over, like it really was a piece of the woman he loved.
The pouch had a clear jewelry bag inside, with a velvet box I recognized immediately. “Are you sure?” I asked him, handling it like it was made of the most delicate porcelain. I opened the box and saw the slightly charred ring Beth was holding when she died. It was damaged beyond repair, but I completely understood all the preservation measures he used on it.
“The more it meant to her, the stronger the spell will be,” he said simply.
“Thank you.”
“I don’t know what you saw about your father, but you’re not evil or broken Lucy.”
“I know,” I assured him.
“Got it,” Gabriel rounded the corner and showed us the rabbit foot keychain.
They had me wait on the stairs while they went to make sure the garage was safe.
“It’s clear,” Gabriel came back for me after a few minutes.
I followed him into the garage. It surprised me that the boat was as big as I remembered, even if I was significantly taller. ‘Beloved Lyn’ was etched on the side of it, named by my grandfather for his wife and daughter, Evelyn and Marilyn. Grams never sold it after he died, or even when my mom did. I guess the Boyds had been waiting for me to grow up to do something with it, but there wasn’t much point to it now.
I went upstairs to the room of chests and old luggage. The colors were faded, but the smells of salty air, moth balls and adventure had me smiling. I took it all in and knew I could spend days going through it all and still have more to see.
“Is it stronger if she wore it often, or loved it lots?” I asked when the guys joined me. Part of the discoloration was from the cobwebs that covered nearly every inch of the room, so I grabbed the wooden handle of an old mop and got to work.
“Emotional attachment. Unless it’s something like a brush that has her hair on it; some piece of her,” Embry shared.
“Bonus points if it fits in a Ziploc bag and doesn’t weigh twenty pounds,” I argued with the brush idea, remembering the intricate grooming set in my great grandmother’s room at the manor. It was silver with diamonds encrusted in the handle. Perfect to pawn for a ride or food if you were down on your luck, but not something you would want to carry in your bag while walking for days in the desert or wherever this wild goose chase would bring us.
The old suitcases weren’t locked, but they were closed tight and hard to open, so I let the guys do the honors.
The first one held clothes, perfectly pressed and folded as if she were going on a trip with them. Beautiful and bright colors in the softest fabrics… but not what we were looking for.
The second chest we opened had piles of books on history, geography, etiquette and politics. In the middle of the two piles of textbook-like volumes was a well-read copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
“Was she a fan of horror?” I asked.
“Not so much as when the second edition credited a woman as the author,” Gabriel shook his head with fondness for my ancestor before opening another suitcase full of pamphlets and essays attempting to give women equal rights.
“She was quite extraordinary.”
“They all were,” Embry agreed, but you couldn’t quite compare the richness of Cass’ life to any of the others.
“Cass just got a lot more done,” Gabriel understood.
I discovered a little more about my ancestor with every box. The most interesting one was filled with gifts from Alan. I couldn’t tell you what half of it was, but nothing was as it seemed. Shoes had spikes or knives that sprung out, purses had secret compartments, necklaces held pepper and bracelets acted as rape whistles. Every piece I picked up was more interesting than the one before.
“Driving gloves?” I asked of a pair of creamy white gloves at the bottom of the chest, preserved in their own box.
“Cass was more of a walker,” Embry argued.
“Try them on,” Gabriel suggested with a knowing smile.
“They’re very stiff,” it wasn’t like she never used them… they were quite worn in that respect, but it was as if there was a spine to them.
“Now put them on again while pushing into the top of them…” Both Embry and I looked at him like he lost his mind, before I did as I was told.
“What the…” blades came out of the fingertips like claws, and there were gems on the knuckles to put more oomph in punches.
“That’s why she was so upset when I brought the black ones…”
“And there should be padding at the knuckles for when she uses the ornamental birth stones…”
I could hear the guys were still talking, but I was drifting off to a memory, alone in a dark alley. There was a chill in the air that made me shiver, but Cassie ignored it and wiggled her now clawed fingers from inside the driving gloves. She focused on every sound, and I could tell that she wasn’t afraid to be walking alone at night. She was hunting something. There was a dripping sound coming from a nearby roof and she followed it instead of running away or waiting for backup.
“Hello?” she called once we reached a dead end. If ever I had any doubts about Cassie’s courage, it disappeared as I felt how calm her heart was as she stood in the alley with no escape, hunting an unknown monster without magic or reinforcements.
The wind answered her call, carrying drunken laughter from somewhere close by, and the faintest whimper of a woman who sounded like she was close to giving up.
Cassie took off on a run, taking turns faster than I saw them coming, before we rounded a corner and found a man in a travelling cloak standing over a woman. I couldn’t make out much in the darkness until the moon shifted and revealed bright red blood staining her blue dress.
The man froze when he heard Cassie running towards him, clumsily swinging a cane to protect himself. Cassie stopped the blow from reaching her and used her hand like a cat uses its paw, managing to scratch his face. He roared out in anger and we struggled over the cane before Cassie used her knee to get him in the groin. Cassie had hoped the woman would get up and run away while she fended off the man who assaulted her, but her injuries were much worse than expected, and there was no way she was getting away without a lot of help. The man was winded for a second or two before he charged at Cassie, pushing us into the brick wall to our right. Cassie reacted before my mind recovered from the push, shoving him off and grabbing his arm with her gloved fingers, causing him to cry out in pain. He looked at her face, which I imagined was terrifying to behold, because all I could feel from her was determination and anger, not a drop of fear. He seemed to consider it before running off down the alley.
We ran after him, but the woman whimpered again, and there was no way she would last the night if left to bleed out on the sidewalk. Cassie made the split-second decision to help the woman instead of pursuing her assailant and got to work like she was a trained nurse rather than a homemaker. She applied pressure to the wound and fished what looked like a very primitive flare gun out of a small satchel I hadn’t noticed she was wearing. I wasn’t sure the woman would last long enough for someone to see the flare and find us, but almost as soon as the flares were in the sky, Gabriel showed up.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, worried before seeing the woman.
“We need to help her.” For the first time, I heard fear in Cassie’s voice, as she looked into the fading blue eyes of the woman, before I was back in the room with Embry and present day Gabriel…
I could tell that this was one of the times I acted things out from the slits in the curtain and the way the guys were holding on to things I must have knocked over.
“Did you get him?” Embry asked, looking shocked.
“He ran away, but Cassie stayed to help a woman. She was bleeding so much I don’t know if you could do anything other than make sure she didn’t die alone,” I shared, looking to Gabriel.
“She died in my arms a few hours later,” he agreed somberly. “But they caught the man who did it from scratch marks on his face and puncture wounds in his arms.”
“These are badass gloves,” I tried to give them a smile, thinking of Cassie instead of the woman in the blue dress. My ancestor was the type of woman who wore such delicate gloves to conform to society, yet fitted them with deadly weapons.
“I believe they were her wedding gift from Allan,” Gabriel pointed to the Roman numerals at the wrist, then opened another chest, steering me away from Cassie’s failed rescue attempt.
The chest was full of jewelry, and there was an entire box filled with pictures in frames that must have been too painful for them to keep in the house after she died.
We unanimously decided on the gloves, which both represented her family and the fighter in her. We found a Ziploc bag to carry them in, and I snatched a few of the weapons that looked like they would still work.
After we ate a dinner of leftovers from the freezer, I went upstairs to the bedrooms. I walked past my room and paused outside Clara’s. I was used to knocking when the door was closed.
It looked just like I remembered, with a few extra teddies and trinkets from the beach. She didn’t know I would come here, so it wasn’t like she left me a note or a clue to tell me she was okay, but physically, it calmed me down to be close to her. I grabbed her biggest stuffed animal; a giant panda with a cape and held him in my arms before lying back on the bed. As I looked up at the ceiling Sam decorated with glow-in-the-dark stickers of the solar system, my heart stopped pounding, my breathing slowed, and the tension I hadn’t realized I was holding all over released.
We used to sit like that on rainy days, telling stories before her dad would inevitably come up, pretending to be the tickle monster, and tell us we had to seize the day, even if it was dark and cloudy outside.
“I nearly had a heart attack when you weren’t in your room,” Gabriel’s voice pulled me from a memory as he came into Clara’s room and sat on the bed beside me.
“I’m sorry.”
“You need to stop apologizing,” I could hear the smile in his voice, but we were both looking at the ceiling.
“That’ll probably never happen,” I sighed.
“Lucy…” he was tentative, which made me feel like I didn’t want to know what he was about to say.
“Yeah,” I gave him the permission he was waiting for.
“Sam didn’t die so you could give up.”
My first instinct was to turn and look at him in shock and anger, but I could feel the burn of tears and did not want to let him see that. Instead, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to make a sound. I didn’t know if Gabriel had more to say or if that was the extent of his attempt, but I stayed there, staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe.
I knew he was right, that I had to stop blaming myself for the things I did to save myself, and for the people I came from.
I was taking another deep breath when Gabriel reached over to take my hand in his. There were a million things he could have said, but none of them would say more than he already had.