I was your secret santa! I had such a good time revisting these characters (I haven't written for this fandom in a While) and it was a joy to craft a little story for you. I hope you like it!
@untildawn-secretsanta
...
'Jess and Mike survived that night on the mountain, but that doesn't mean they escaped it. Now living their lives as best they can after those traumatic events, Blackwood Mountain still finds ways to slip into their day to day routines.'
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Little ficlet for day two of Lockwood&Co. Appreciation Week 2023! It was SO hard to pick a favourite scene, so I ended up going with one that I loved and that I’d wanted to write something about since watching the episode. I’m so so glad I got to explore it, even if it’s quite small.
Lucy sends a tape to Norrie...
Lucy had exactly one blank cassette in her bag when she came to London.
She couldn’t spare the space to bring more, and she figured she could always buy some once she had an income. But it also gave her a pang when she pulled it from her duffel; the thought of sending it all the way back home was, for some reason, hard to stomach.
"To Norrie" she wrote on the label.
She sat on the floor with her recorder for a long, long time, trying to decide what she wanted to say.
It felt selfish to talk about herself, her own struggles over the last two weeks. How would it sound, her voice prattling out of a player, whinging and moaning about how hard everything had been, while Norrie lay literally comatose?
But she couldn’t just talk about Norrie, either. She couldn’t send a tape of pleas, apologies and incoherent sobbing.
What would Norrie want to hear? If they were together, sitting side by side, what would they talk about?
Lucy got to her feet, let her idle steps take her towards the window. She looked out over Portland Row; all was silent and still.
If they’d had a few days apart, then Lucy guessed (and she had to guess, because they’d not gone more than a day without seeing each other these past three years) that Norrie would want to know what she’d been doing.
She clicked the Record button.
‘Hey Norrie.’ Somehow, she managed to say it without bursting into tears. ‘You’d never guess where I am...’
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Favourite Dynamic? The trio, of course.
Another fic I’ve been wanting to write for a while, this was inspired by... some source (tumblr? I’ve forgotten) of the idea that Lockwood and George did not understand how weird teenage girls could be when they decided to hire one. And then they learn.
***
When Lockwood and George came up with the idea to hire a girl to round out their team, they’d patted themselves on the back. It was brilliant, really. Lockwood figured the mere presence of a girl would subconsciously encourage himself and George to keep Portland Row (and themselves) a little more neat and tidy. George thought a female co-worker would bring some much-needed emotional competence to the team.
What neither of them took into account, unfortunately, was that neither one of them had spent much time with girls their age, and their perceptions were… well, a little skewed.
It wasn’t that Lucy was a slob, but she wasn’t exactly tidy. She always put her food scraps in the bin and didn’t leave things out to spoil, but she wasn’t above leaving her laundry scattered all across her room, or tracking gravedirt through the hall after a job. And seeing as she was comfortable with that level of mess, Lockwood didn’t really feel the need to clean up his act quite as much as he’d planned to.
And while Lucy was definitely more emotionally intelligent than his other co-worker, George quickly came to realise this was because Lucy was, overall, just more emotional in general. His solutions to seeing her in tears and seeing her in a fit of outrage were the same: back away slowly and quietly, and hope she didn’t notice him.
Then there was the food situation. Both boys had, optimistically, hoped that maybe their new hire would have some concept of healthy eating, and hold them a little more accountable for the fact they had the same thing for dinner nearly every night and donuts for most breakfasts. But Lucy had leapt at the poorly-structured diet of 35 Portland Row, and had even brought in her own additions from the bottom of the food pyramid; George had not yet recovered from learning that her favourite sandwich was tomato sauce. Just tomato sauce, between two slices of bread. Nothing else.
One night, somewhere around 3am, George shambled into the kitchen. He was tired, he was without his glasses, and when he saw the shadow silhouetted by the fridge light, he nearly leapt through the ceiling into Lockwood’s bedroom. It took several seconds of heart-thundering panic to realise the shape was not a Visitor, but one of his housemates.
‘Lucy?!’
‘Oh, hi.’
She said it through a full mouth. A packet crinkled in her hand.
‘What… are you doing?’
‘Um…’ There was a very embarrassed pause. ‘Midnight snack?’
George had to get closer and squint hard to see what she was holding.
‘Is that the shredded cheese?’
Lucy didn’t speak. After a moment she swallowed, and held the bag out towards him.
George looked at it. He looked at her. Her expression was inscrutable, but maybe that was just the fact he could barely see.
‘Don’t tell Lockwood,’ he said, and took the bag of cheese.
‘Yep.’
Lucy took one more handful of cheese, and went back up to her room, and they never spoke of the incident again.
Another time, Lockwood had been enjoying some peace and quiet with one of his London Society magazines in the library when an earth-shattering belch echoed through Portland Row.
‘Nice one, George,’ he called, turning a page. ‘Practically rattled the windows with that one.’
‘Thanks,’ said Lucy.
Lockwood’s head snapped up, but Lucy was already passing out of sight towards the kitchen. He thought he caught a glimpse of a rather smug grin on her face, but he was never brave enough to ask about it.
And Lucy?
Lucy liked her new co-workers. Friends. Family?
George was strange and Lockwood was pretentious, but they made her feel at home in that messy, cluttered townhouse at the end of Portland Row. They didn’t care what she wore or ate or did with her free time, but they did care about her. She could be and do whatever she wanted, so long as she came home safe with them at the end of the night.
She wasn’t very good at telling them so, but that simple fact meant a lot to her.
They certainly weren’t what she’d been looking for when she moved to London, but the more nights she spent at number 35, the more she thought they were exactly what she needed.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It’s Favourite Ship day for L&Co Appreciation Week, and since everyone is going to be having their Locklyle moments, I’m here to deliver some Whirlyle instead.
Just a little (big) look at Lucy and Norrie’s lives, the day-to-day of life, work, love, and ghosts.
Oh, and there’s kissing in this one :)
***
Working with ghosts had a lot of drawbacks (imminent death among them), but one upside was that Lucy and Norrie’s home hours were during the day, when their parents were at work. This meant they could sprawl on the couch in front of the TV and watch whatever they wanted, and nobody would tell them off for getting biscuit crumbs on the carpet.
‘Ice cream,’ Norrie announced, as she deposited a carton of choc-mint into Lucy’s hands. ‘And a spoon, unless you want to shovel it into your face with your hands.’
Lucy chuckled, taking the spoon.
‘Thanks.’
Norrie flopped down beside her with a sigh.
‘How’s your face?’
Lucy grimaced. She’d had her braces for nearly three years, but she never got used to how painful it was when they got adjusted. At least she didn’t have to endure them for too much longer; six months, and she’d be free. But until then…
‘Sore.’
‘Well, hurry up and crack open the carton.’
She did so, and Norrie produced a second spoon from her pocket. Her spoon clashed with Lucy’s as they both went for the tub at the same time.
‘Oi!’
‘What? You don’t get the whole thing to yourself!’
Norrie flicked her wrist, employing a motion usually used with a rapier, successfully twisting Lucy’s spoon out of her hand. She squeaked and fumbled it, managing to catch the utensil, but not before Norrie took the first scoop at the ice cream.
‘You bitch!’
Norrie only grinned, and triumphantly closed her lips around her spoon.
*
The air tasted of mud.
The marshes were always fragrant, but they were worse than usual tonight. The summer sun had spent the day baking the area, and as night came on the stench of brackish water and rotting plant matter thickened in the air.
Paul, Norrie, Lucy and Julie shared a pack of gum between them as they squelched their way across the muddy expanse. Their torches swept back and forth ahead of them, the beams weak; the batteries were due for replacements, but Jacobs wouldn’t care until they fully died.
‘Jacobs seemed real sure about there being bones around here somewhere.’
‘He’s obsessed with this one, I’m telling you. He’s wasted so much iron out here looking for them.’
The other half of their team were a little ways over; the faint light of their torches was a shifting beacon in the darkness.
Paul kicked at some reeds.
‘We’re not going to find anything. If there are bones out here, they’ll be so far under that-’
‘Shh!’
Lucy held up a hand. They all stopped. There was no sound but the whistling of the summer breeze.
‘She’s here.’
Norrie drew her sword, and the others did likewise. They wordlessly drew together, shoulder to shoulder, facing out into the night.
‘Which direction, Luce?’
‘I… I’m not sure…’
Against her inner ear, Lucy was hearing a distant voice. Distant as in faint, though; not distant as in far away. Whatever was making those noises, it was close. Lucy could feel its eerie presence settling in her bones.
‘There!’
Something long, pale, and dead was streaking at them across the marshland. The psychic voice rose to a screech, and Lucy yelled and covered her ears.
‘Throw a flare!’ someone shouted.
‘I don’t have any!’
‘Lucy!’
Lucy hurled down the bag she was carrying, and Julie – always the coolest in a crisis – was quick to haul out their length of iron chain. She tossed it desperately at their feet. Lucy grabbed one loose end and scrambled across to the other; Norrie grabbed Paul by the collar and yanked him roughly into the misshapen circle, colliding with Julie as she did so. They all went down in a heap.
When they wiped the mud from their eyes, the ghost was hovering at the edge of their protective circle, baleful eyes looking down on them. It did several slow loops of their clumsy, oblong forcefield, probing gently at the edges and drawing back when its plasm spat and fizzled against the radiance of the iron.
Finally, after many long minutes, the Other-Light faded, and the spirit winked out, as if it had never been.
The kids were left lying in the mud, half dogpiled, stagnant water soaking slowly into their uniforms.
Lucy knelt by the very edge of the circle, still holding the two ends of the chain folded over each other. Her hands burned with cold and her ears were ringing. A hand found her belt, and she was tugged away. She fell clumsily backwards, landing with ill grace on top of Norrie. From the way Norrie’s arm wrapped around her and squeezed, she figured that had been her goal all along.
‘Good work, Luce.’
Lucy just clung to Norrie’s arm and gazed up at the stars.
*
‘Are you sure about this?’
Lucy was sitting on a stool in front of Norrie’s bathroom mirror. A towel was draped around her shoulders. She was doing her best to avoid looking at her reflection.
Norrie stood behind her, flourishing a pair of scissors and a comb, frowning in concentration.
‘You trust me, don’t you?’
‘With a rapier, yes. Not so sure about scissors.’
Norrie laughed.
‘Close your eyes, I’m going to do your bangs.’
Lucy obediently closed her eyes. Anxiety thrummed in her veins, but there was something thrilling about it. She felt Norrie’s fingers in her hair, heard the snip of the scissors. Bits of hair tickled her face as they drifted away, and she fought to keep still.
‘You can open your eyes.’
‘Mm, might wait until you’re properly done.’
‘Are you scared?’
‘No. I just want to be surprised.’
‘If you say so.’
Lucy could hear the smirk in Norrie’s voice.
‘So, Luce,’ Norrie said after a moment. ‘Anyone you’re hoping to snare with this flash new haircut?’
Lucy felt her cheeks go hot.
‘No.’
‘Liar. Paul?’
‘Ew, no!’ Lucy paused. ‘Wait, don’t you like Paul?’
‘Gross, no. We tried that, it didn’t work.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah. Realised pretty quick that men don’t do it for me.’
‘O-oh… Cool.’
Cool? Lucy mentally kicked herself. Her crush just came out to her and the best she could come up with was “Cool”? Bloody hell.
She kept her mouth shut until Norrie finished.
‘All right, you’re not allowed to hate it.’
Lucy opened her eyes.
Her hair was… short. Shorter than it had ever been. It barely brushed her shoulders now. Her horrid fringe – which she’d been trying to grow out this year – had been cut back and neatened, transformed in such a way that it actually made her face look good.
For the first time in years, Lucy looked at her reflection and felt pretty.
‘Luce?’
Her eyes had filled with tears, and Norrie was clutching her shoulder, looking mortified.
‘Luce, I was joking! If you hate it I can fix it, I promise.’
Lucy shook her head; her hair felt so light. It swished as she moved.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘No, I love it.’
She looked back over her shoulder, met Norrie’s eyes.
‘Thank you.’
Norrie’s smile was uncertain, but beautiful.
‘Any time.’
*
They staggered out of the old abattoir close to dawn.
They were alive. It wasn’t much, but it felt like a miracle. A cluster case of Raw Bones had nearly been the end of them. Five hours of hunting sources, fighting apparitions, and fending off the sickening psychic phenomena that filled that horrible building; it was one of the worst cases they’d ever had.
Paul leaned heavily on Julie as they stumbled their way through the front yard. He was pale and shivering, his eyes glassy. He’d escaped a bout of Ghost Lock by the tips of his fingers, and the sensation of freezing cold and despair hadn’t left him yet.
Lucy wasn’t in much better shape. She got one breath of fresh air before she doubled over, heaving. The final ghost had charged her as she struggled to free its Source from a mess of cobwebs and get it into a silver-glass case. Norrie had come to her rescue, hurling a magnesium flare into the gory apparition. The ghost had dissolved into ribbons, and Lucy had copped a faceful of magnesium smoke. Her front was spattered with burnt salt and flecks of metal, and her face was painted with silvery ash.
She let herself fall to her hands and knees as she coughed and retched, trying to get the ashy, metallic taste of the fumes out of her throat and mouth.
‘Luce? Hey, Luce…’
Norrie knelt down beside her, shoved a water bottle at her. Lucy clumsily grabbed it, took a mouthful and rinsed her mouth out before taking a long drink.
‘Ugh,’ she groaned. ‘That sucked...’
Shoes crunched on gravel, and they all looked up as Jacobs approached them. He took in their ragged appearances, empty workbelts, blades and clothes lightly steaming from ectoplasm burns.
‘Look at you lot,’ he snarled. ‘What a goddamn disgrace. Get up, come on. I want to go home.’
They all traded looks; anger, defeat, exhaustion. Alfie and Joy took over helping Paul so that Julie could shrug off her smouldering jacket. Norrie helped Lucy up; she was bleeding from a cut over her left eye, where Alfie’s sword had swung wide when deflecting a spectral hand.
Despite their sorry states and the blood on her face, Norrie smiled wryly. She nodded to the horizon.
‘Lived to see another day,’ she said. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’
Arms around each other, they hobbled home beneath the rising sun.
*
It was the night the town’s kids had been waiting for: the night of the school dance.
Dressed in the finest eveningwear their parents could afford, teenagers streamed into the brightly-lit gymnasium with smiles and laughter, excited about old music and spiked punch and sausage rolls and a night with minimal adult supervision.
Lucy and Norrie shared none of their feelings.
‘Classy,’ Lucy commented, as Norrie spread a ratty picnic blanket over the grass behind the gymnasium.
The far side of the school grounds backed onto the marshes, and nobody in their right mind went there after dark. There was no light, no iron, and very little chance of anyone hearing you scream for help if a Visitor came crawling up from the reeds.
In other words, it was perfect.
‘Only the best for my girl,’ Norrie replied.
They set out their spoils on the blanket – cakes and sweets, packets of chips, a bottle of whiskey taken from Lucy’s mother’s cupboard – and laid an arc of iron chain around their little oasis. They were reckless, but they weren’t stupid.
‘Jacobs is going to flay us if he finds out,’ Lucy said, as Norrie poured whiskey and Coke into plastic cups.
‘We’re sick, Luce,’ Norrie insisted, passing her a cup. ‘You and me, puking our guts out after we shared a dodgy curry. He won’t be arsed to check. So let’s enjoy it.’
She raised her cup, and Lucy mirrored her, grinning madly.
‘To us.’
‘To us.’
They tapped their cups together, and drank.
By the light of a shabby lantern, the pair dug into their feast. There was no punch and no sausage rolls, but they didn’t care. The whiskey was strong and the night was warm. From behind the wall of the gymnasium, music thudded, faint but intense. They listened to it and bopped along idly as they talked.
As the music shifted again, one song folding over into another, and Norrie’s eyes went wide.
‘Oh, shit yeah! I love this one!’
She leapt to her feet and grabbed Lucy by the hands, dragging her up as well. Lucy yelped, laughed, dropped her cup but didn’t really care. Her head was light and her worries were few.
Neither of them were good dancers, but it didn’t matter. Nobody was watching. They threw themselves around the grass, steps clumsy and smiles wide. Lucy grabbed Norrie’s hand and tried to spin her, but their height difference got in the way, and they ended up half falling over, laughing in each other’s arms.
The song faded into something new, and they came to a standstill, breathing hard.
‘Wow,’ Lucy said, grinning.
Norrie quirked an eyebrow at her, a smile tugging at her lips.
‘What?’
‘Nothing, just… This must be what being normal feels like.’ Lucy shrugged. ‘Not sure if it suits us, but it’s fun.’
Norrie chuckled, nodded.
They slowly caught their breath. Lucy draped her arms around Norrie’s neck, and stood on her toes to kiss her cheek. Norrie ran her hands down Lucy’s back.
‘You know,’ Norrie murmured. ‘I kind of regret that we never got to finish school. Go to the dances, all that stupid stuff.’
Norrie’s hands were on her waist now, and she was pressing forward, steering Lucy gently backwards. Lucy didn’t resist.
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
Lucy’s back hit the wall. Her gaze didn’t leave Norrie’s face.
‘Because I never got to make out with someone behind the gym.’
A mischievous smile toyed at the corners of Lucy’s mouth.
‘We could fix that.’
‘We could.’
Norrie leaned in, and Lucy moved to meet her.
They’d kissed before, of course, plenty of times. They knew how they liked it.
For a little while they stayed here, kissing slowly, enjoying the softness of the moment. Lucy’s fingers curled into the fabric of Norrie’s cardigan, holding her close, keeping herself anchored. It was just them and the night, and it was beautiful.
Lucy let out a deep sigh, and Norrie drew away.
‘All right, Luce?’
‘Perfect.’
A faint blush showed under Norrie’s freckles; she darted in to peck Lucy on the lips again, then ducked lower, pressing a hard kiss to the point of her jaw. Lucy’s breath caught.
‘Okay?’ Norrie checked.
‘Mmm…’
Norrie continued, trailing kisses down Lucy’s neck, lingering longer, pressing harder. She reached the curve between Lucy’s neck and shoulder, and – after a teasingly light kiss – fastened her lips against the skin and sucked, hard.
Lucy gasped and squirmed.
‘Norrie… Norrie, not so rough! If I come home with a hickey, my mum will flip!’
Norrie pulled away slightly; her lips still brushed Lucy’s skin as she spoke.
‘Just don’t let her see. I’ll give you my scarf.’
Lucy sighed, then groaned when Norrie returned to sucking on her neck. She reached up, tangled a hand in Norrie’s hair and tugged gently, urging her lower. She could at least try to mitigate the damage by keeping Norrie’s attention below collar height; and Norrie’s teeth scraping her collarbone did feel amazing.
Somewhere inside the gymnasium, someone turned the music up. A thudding electric beat filled the surrounding night. Norrie pressed flush against her, pinning her to the wall, but Lucy could barely hear her own moan beneath the music. A hand left her waist, moved to cup her jaw and tilt her chin up. Norrie’s lips met hers again, her tongue pressed into her mouth, and Lucy’s weak knees all but gave in.
Norrie broke away.
‘Need a breather, Luce?’
‘Don’t you dare,’ Lucy panted. ‘Get back here.’
Norrie laughed. She was more than happy to oblige.
*
The church bell tolled.
It was a sunny day, warm and bright and beautiful.
The assembled townsfolk stood in a ragged crowd around the grave. Everyone wore their funeral clothes; black and neat, with oft-mended hems and buttonholes.
The children of Jacobs&Co. took up the frontmost rows, beside the family of their fallen fellow agent. Instead of funeral attire, they wore their uniforms, rapiers gleaming at their sides, black armbands on their sleeves. Their eyes were red and puffy.
Six feet down, Julie lay in a closed mahogany coffin.
One touch by a Wraith. That was all it took.
Lucy and Norrie stood side by side, the brightness of the day burning their tired eyes. They’d been there when it happened, and there’d been nothing they could do.
It could’ve been them. Either of them. One day it still might be, and what then?
Lucy found Norrie’s hand and gripped it, hard.
Norrie stroked her thumb over Lucy’s knuckles, a gentle promise:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It’s Favourite Minor Character day so naturally, I had to write something for Norrie. I absolutely adore her, and I’ve got all my fingers crossed we get to see more of her!
Click through or read below!
Norrie White lived in a tiny country town, and she hated it.
It was too small. Everybody knew everybody, and if for some reason you didn’t know somebody, you knew someone else who did. There was one school. One church. One pub. Two each of the grocery stores and takeaways, always on the verge of forcing each other out of business.
With so little around, Norrie was always told she couldn’t afford to be picky about what she wanted. That went for everything – what she wore, what she ate, who she spent her time with. But even when she was very young, Norrie thought this was stupid. Just because her parents had shitty friends and ate the same thing five nights a week didn’t mean she had to do the same.
She spent her allowance on fish and chips, and spent her time with the only boy on town who didn’t make her want to bang her head against a wall.
Paul was charming and whip-sharp, more clever than his stupid haircut would have you think. When Norrie decided he was her friend, he took to the role with pride. He did ask her out once, when they were twelve, and they dated for all of three weeks before Norrie concluded she didn’t like boys. Paul had only shrugged; he hadn’t enjoyed dating either, and if he didn’t like dating his best friend, then why bother at all?
They both had Talent, and that particular traumatic quirk that had made them friends also landed them both positions at Jacobs&Co. in the same year. Norrie got hired first, her parents hustling in the same day the local paper announced an operative had died on a case the night before. She spent three lonely months learning how to make salt bombs and polish chains and swing a rapier, while Paul tackled his maths homework by himself for the first time in two years. But soon enough another kid died, and Paul was back to filling Norrie’s ear with conspiracy theories about the Problem.
The job wasn’t good. It was one thing to see Visitors now and then, at a distance. It was another to actively pursue them on a weekly basis. But at least it was something. For Norrie, it was a first step. Get her qualifications, build her skills, and she could take her certificates and piss off somewhere else, leave this shitty town behind. Everywhere needed agents; she’d be able to go anywhere she wanted.
Her parents didn’t think much of her long-term plans. They either didn’t believe she’d actually achieve them, or they didn’t care. They were nice enough, really, they just didn’t have the energy to spare to properly afford Norrie any kind of affection. She was the oldest of four, and with the others being a set of pre-teen triplets, she was never her parents’ priority. But her mother was still perfectly happy to take majority of her wages and go across to the next town, where they had a tanning salon and a halfway decent manicurist. Her dad just went to the pub on payday, like most of the other men in the town. Norrie herself was usually afforded enough of her own earnings to go down to the corner store and buy a small paper bag’s worth of humbugs, which she would tuck into a pouch on her workbelt between the matches and the lavender water, and would secretly snack on when Jacobs turned his back.
The town square was between her house and the Jacobs&Co. office, so every evening she had to walk past the ugly stone monolith that formed the heart of the town. At sunset the light caught on the bronze plaques that decorated three of its four sides, and the thing became a sickly beacon; fifty years of dead children, their names glinting in the fading light. Norrie always took care to stay out of its shadow when she passed by.
Norrie had seen two kids die by the time Lucy joined Jacobs&Co., and her first thought when Jacobs walked her into the room was ‘God, she’s going to be the third.’ More than any Spectre or Wraith, that thought haunted her as the years passed; as she and Lucy grew closer, and closer, and Norrie realised how badly her heart would break if Lucy did become that unlucky third. It used to keep her up during the day, when she was trying to sleep after a night of ghosts and salt and iron.
She didn’t realise she needn’t have worried.
She didn’t realise she ought to worry more about herself.
She didn’t realise until it was far, far too late.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Here it is! My day one (yes, late, I know) piece for L&Co. Appreciation Week 2023! A little grief study for Lucy, in the days following the events of the night at Moorgate Mill.
Click through or read below!
(Content warning for grief and suicidal thoughts, stay safe <3)
The night she lost everything, Lucy went to bed at 3am.
They’d entered the mill around 10pm. By 11pm, her friends were dead. She was sitting on the dirt path outside the building, sobbing into Norrie’s hair, while the sound of Jacobs’ bicycle on the gravel faded.
By midnight, half the village was up at the mill. Norrie was taken away, and Lucy vaguely remembered screaming until her throat was raw and someone had the idea to stick her with a sedative so they could get her into a car and take her home.
She didn’t remember her mother saying anything kind, but the tone of her voice was softer than usual. A cup of tea had been put in her hands, and she’d drank it.
For about half an hour, it didn’t feel real. Norrie would knock on the door any moment, alive and kicking, ready to skive off work for the night and go mess around the park, or sit down by the marshes and look at the stars, with their swords by their sides, just in case.
Her sword. She’d left it at the mill.
She started to shake when she realised that. Then she started to feel sick. She clung to her mug of tea like an anchor and tried to breathe, but her chest had become a black hole and nothing that went in seemed to come out again. Everything was awash with dark, draining horror.
She went to bed. Bed was the safest place. And when she got to bed, the pain came.
It wasn’t like when her dad died; she’d been too young then, and she’d had plenty of time since to mourn in bits and pieces. This came all at once, an earthquake which brought her down hard against the concrete of reality.
Norrie wasn’t coming back. None of them were.
Her mouth opened, but the scream of agony built up in her chest came out as a pitiful wail. Tears flooded over her cheeks. Her whole body locked up, clenched tight with the force of her sobs. A distant, weakened part of her mind was trying to calm her, but it wasn’t strong enough. Grief wanted to drown her, so drown her it did.
The anguish stretched from moments to minutes, to hours.
A light reprieve would come, and her thoughts would gain clarity – and then she’d think of Norrie, and Paul, and Alfie, and Joy, and everything would hurt anew.
Kill me, she begged the universe. Just kill me, please. Please. I can’t keep hurting like this...
But when dawn came, she was still alive, and she had to figure out what to do next.
The easiest thing first, she decided. Reach over to the night stand, drink the glass of water sitting there. That made her sit up, and sitting up made her realise she felt gross. She hadn’t washed; had barely had the wherewithal to change her clothes before she fell into bed.
That was the next thing, she decided. Stand up, hobble to the bathroom, take a long shower. The steam helped clear her stuffy sinuses, which made her head ache just a little less. That gave her enough energy to brush her teeth, and after that she found – to her enormous surprise – that she was hungry.
She did not want to eat. How could she eat, after everything that had happened? But she made a cup of tea, and took a biscuit to go with it, and she managed to get those down.
Her mother was at work. Small mercies, Norrie would say. Be grateful for small mercies.
Lucy cried some more.
Her head hurt. Her face hurt, from all the crying. Other aches and pains of the night were coming through too; sore legs from the long walk, strained shoulders from carrying Norrie. But the worst pain was still somewhere between her sternum and her spine, lodged hard and sharp beside her heart. She could take some painkillers. She’d heard that helped. But she didn’t want to.
She wanted to feel the pain, all of it. Putting it off wouldn’t make it easier. Better to feel it now. And if it crushed her, so be it. She didn’t care anymore.
Around lunchtime, the doorbell rang.
It was Norrie’s mum. Lucy blinked at her for a few seconds, then stood aside to let her in. She’d brought flowers.
Lucy didn’t know what to do. They stood in the kitchen together for a long time, just looking at the little vase of purple hyacinths.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy said at last, and it was the first thing she’d said all day. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save her.’
Mrs White started crying, but she crossed the kitchen and took Lucy in her arms and squeezed her gently.
‘You tried, Lucy.’
Lucy felt sick again. Her knees were shaking. She buried her face in Mrs White’s shoulder and cried. She wondered if she would ever stop crying.
*
The funeral was horrible, and the trial was torture.
At least at the funeral, she was allowed to speak. Of all the agents, she was the only one who would. Or could, maybe. After all the family speeches were done, Mrs White asked if anybody wanted to say something. It took a moment for Lucy to gather the courage to raise her hand.
The kids around her, her fellow agents, the ones who were left, murmured as she stood; encouraging things, things like ‘Yeah, Luce’ and ‘Go on, Luce’ and ‘Thanks, Lucy.’
The adults only watched her with baleful, hard eyes as she moved to the podium.
Her voice shook; it was weak and broken, like the rest of her felt. But she did her best. She spoke of long nights training together, playing games, making jokes. She went through each name she’d lost and said one thing she’d miss about them. And if she told an extra story about Norrie, and said three things she’d miss about her, well, she didn’t care. She was going to miss Norrie the most, and she didn’t care if anyone else thought that was unfair. They didn’t understand that even though she fought ghosts every other night, this was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
*
Days and nights, days and nights.
They used to be separate. She worked nights, so she slept days. She spent twilight hours doing housework or homework. Everything had its place and time.
Now everything was just… gone.
She felt like a ghost in her own house. She drifted room to room, avoiding sunlight and running water. Sometimes she spoke, but it rarely made sense, was rarely more than snippets.
The argument with her mother was the most she’d said in a week.
After the door slammed, she went to the window. She used to sit there when Norrie visited, sometimes. One of them on the sill, one on the bed. Just talking.
Lucy pushed the pane open, sat on the sill with her legs resting on the strip of shingled roof below.
It was cold tonight. Wind whirled gently through the darkness, soothing her stinging cheek.
She let the cold blow through her, and thought about death.
It was really so easy, wasn’t it? One day, you’re there, alive and smiling. The next, dead. Cold. Swollen with Ghost Touch. Or worse, alive, but wrapped in death’s arms, unable to claw free, staring at nothing for ever.
Better to die for good, Lucy thought. Better to commit. The tension of holding on was too horrible.
A little voice in her head protested; wasn’t it worth the hope? The hope of recovery, of clawing free, however impossible?
She didn’t know.
Lucy looked down. Below the small slope of shingle was a short drop to hard ground. Too short to kill her, if she fell. Probably.
God, she was tired. She was so tired. And sore. Her head ached permanently from the intermittent bouts of tears. Her chest still felt like a twisted wreck of bloody flesh and broken glass. It hurt to breathe, hurt to think, hurt to feel. She wanted a break. She wanted it to end. She thought of lying on the ground, in the soil, pain-free and peaceful, and the idea was so welcoming that for just a moment, she wanted it more than anything.
Then fear and hope joined forces and kicked her, hard. She snapped back to herself. Her heels dug in against the grave-dirt. Her hands gripped hard around hope and held tight.
No, she thought. No. I won’t let this end me. The world is going to have to try a lot harder if it wants me dead.
Gritting her teeth, Lucy let the tears flow down her cheeks. She raised her head, defiant against the darkness.
‘Fuck this town,’ she growled.
Careful not to slip, she clambered back into her room and shut out the cold. Then, working in darkness, she began to pack for London.
I hastily dragged my sleeve under my eyes and turned away from the window. Lockwood stood there in my doorway, coat folded over his arm, his usual megawatt grin dampened slightly. His face fell further when he met my eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’
I swallowed hard; my throat was still swollen with tears. Despite my best efforts, I could feel my lower lip trembling.
He was at my side in moments, casting his coat onto the foot of the bed and gently grasping both of my arms. I fell into him, burying my face against his chest and wrapping my arms around his waist. He pulled me against him, warm and steady.
‘It’s all right, Luce, it’s okay…’
We stayed there for a little while, until my knees began to tremble. Lockwood withdrew, and led me by the hand to sit on the bed. He sat beside me, opened his arms in invitation. I crawled into his lap, curling against his chest, where I could press my ear to his shirt and listen to his heart beating. The sound made it easier to breathe, somehow.
One of Lockwood’s hands found mine, and he paused.
‘Luce? What are you holding?’
I bit down on another sob. My hand, stiff from gripping tight around the object, slowly opened. Lockwood took the object with great care.
It was a salt bomb; a small, glass globe filled with shiny white grains that shifted as Lockwood held it up to look at it. It was slightly warped, the glass bubbled and melted on one side where it had been super-heated and cooled again. Streaks of ash were ingrained in the warped glass, making it look like the sphere was in eternal shadow.
‘What’s this?’ Lockwood asked, his voice soft.
It took a few tries to make my voice work.
‘I picked it up… during the night at Wythburn Mill…’
I felt the gentlest of sighs pass through his chest.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I see.’
He rolled the salt bomb in his hand, lightly passing his thumb over the warped side. The salt within whispered as it shifted.
His hand returned to mine, pressing the salt bomb back into my palm and wrapping over it.
‘I’m so sorry, Luce.’
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to say so much – about that night, about the friends I’d lost, about how it still hurt, still made me want to scream and cry until all the pain was gone – but it never comes out right when you try to verbalise those things.
Instead, I held Lockwood’s hand, the salt bomb pressed between our palms. I tucked my head beneath his chin, and he slid a hand into my hair, running his fingers through it, deftly undoing tangles where he found them.
‘I love you, Lockwood.’
His hand stilled. Panic shot through me; of all the things I’d considered saying, that wasn’t one of them. It had just… slipped out.
I felt him shift. Warm lips pressed a kiss to my temple.
‘I love you too, Lucy.’
He returned to resting his chin on the top of my head. His hand continued stroking my hair.
My heart slowed. I leaned into him, and closed my eyes.
(Also on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44408626/chapters/111694141 )
