SNOW IS FALLING. BECAUSE OF course it is. Nothing about this is going to be easy.
Lily presses her forehead against the cold window, her duvet wrapped around her. It’s four in the morning and she can’t sleep. Streetlights shower gold rings onto Catford High Street. Snowflakes dance down from the sky. Two blokes stumble along the middle of the road, arms around each other, shouting, ‘It’s Christmas!’ A fox runs away from them, eyes glinting.
At one time, lying awake on Christmas Eve would have been down to excitement. But Lily doesn’t believe in Santa anymore. She hasn’t believed in anyone since Mum passed. And today she has to go back to the place where her mum died.
Lily hauls a hoodie over her head and gets out of bed. She fights her way between the rails of costumes and into her tiny living room. Well, that’s what the previous tenant had called it. Lily doesn’t really live anywhere. This is her workroom. It’s stuffed with starched cotton and velvet; thread, trims and ribbons; boxes of beads, bone and steel. Her sewing machine waits by the window. A paper dress-pattern lies in pieces on the floor, like the silhouette of a body at a crime scene.
It’s not much of a home, but at least she doesn’t have to house-share. She needs solid walls between her and other people. And the lack of space is a good reason to not bring anyone back, even if she is lonely. That’s what Lily tells herself, anyway.
Avoiding the piles of material, she steps from one glimpse of exposed carpet to another over to the kitchen in the corner of the room. If you can call a camping stove, toaster and microwave a kitchen. She puts the kettle on, and a teabag in her mug, then drags her suitcase out from under a box of tulle. What should she take for Christmas at a country house she hates? The high street doesn’t cater for that. Good job she makes clothes for a living.
Washbag filled, corsets and dresses folded inside the case, Lily sits on the sole armchair to drink her tea. Only now does she let herself think about the journey ahead. Of the relatives she’ll have to see. Of Endgame House itself.
Just the thought of the place makes her heart hammer like her sewing machine at full blast, so she takes out her latest commission and starts embroidering by hand. With every flick of the needle, each satin stitch in place, Lily calms. Her heart is back to slow pedal speed. Maybe she should stay in her flat till Christmas is over. Not go anywhere at all. Get back in bed with a selection box and pull the duvet over the holiday. That would save a lot of driving and, more importantly, it would keep the pain where she’s placed it behind walls and locked doors in her mind.
But if she doesn’t go, she’ll let down Aunt Liliana. Again.
Lily reaches into her handbag and takes out the envelope. She strokes it. Traces the looping letters made in her aunt’s handwriting. When she eases the letter out of the envelope, the paper is as soft and smooth as Aunt Liliana’s rose-powdered skin. It still smells of the base notes in her Calvin Klein perfume – Truth.
Dearest Lily,
I hope you never have to read this letter, because if it now lies in your hands then I am dead. I’ve entrusted your old friend Isabelle Stirling with the task of making sure you get this if I die before the Christmas Game begins. I fear that I shall. I hope I’m utterly, shamefully askew on the subject. But I don’t think I am.
So, this is my insurance policy, delivered by my solicitor. I know you don’t want to come to Endgame, or play a silly divertissement. I know that you have absolutely no interest in inheriting the house, even though I dearly wish it to be yours. But I have another reason for asking you to take part in the game. It is time that you learned the truth, and the game is the way I will reveal it.
If that’s not enough of a reason, then let me give you one part of the puzzle. Your mother was wrongfully killed. There. I’ve said it. I know you will have so many questions, and the answers will come. They will be there, in every clue: the beginning and end of all that has haunted our family for so many years. The coldest of cases. Each clue, bar one, is a message to you. Heed them. Dead women’s words cannot be ignored, diminished or apologised away.
I haven’t had the guts to come forward and say what happened to Mariana – your mum, my beautiful, brilliant big sister – because I’ve also done wrong. Maybe you will have more courage. Maybe you will have the fortitude to sing out. I hope so. You have always been loved. I know you don’t like to talk about your mum, but she loved you so much, and she didn’t leave you. She never would. I’m so sorry I couldn’t prove it at the time.
Please go to Endgame and play this Christmas. You’ll be well looked after. I’ve hired a housekeeper but other than that it’ll be you, your cousins and their partners, if they have them. It won’t be a merry gathering, but it’s essential that you’re there. It’s my last wish. How awful is that? The deceased asking a favour of her favourite. That’s awful, too. Don’t tell Sara and Gray. If I weren’t dead, I’d be ashamed of myself.
Your mother and I taught you so much, as did your grandmother. Search the past for memories that can help you solve the clues and what happened to Mariana Rose. You’ll need to remember everything, I’m afraid. And I am afraid. For me, and for you. Don’t trust ANY of your relatives, for their sake as much as yours. Knowledge can lead to death. You’ll also have to keep that secret I suspect you’ve got hidden. I want to give you freedom, Lily. To help you escape your own walls. It’s time to take those doodles and transpose them onto the real world. Cast those corsets of f. Major clues are hidden among the minor. You’ll need to remember how good you are at this. No more hiding.
Adopting you was the best thing I ever did. I hope this game is the next best.
Your ever-loving aunt, and adoptive mother,
Liliana Armitage-Feathers
Lily’s heart feels like its stitches have been unpicked. She has to go. And soon. If it’s snowing in London, you can bet there’ll be drifts by dinnertime in Yorkshire.