Page 97 of If I Stopped Haunting You

When she’d climbed down into the tunnel from the church, a lit torch had been waiting for her, illuminating the space with a warm glow as if she’d always been the one meant to find it. It was odd, she knew, that there was a lit torch waiting for her, let alone that there was afreaking torchat all, but she tried not to let it bother her.

Neil flinched as the torch in her hand burst into flames once more, and they both blinked against the sudden light.

“Was that…”

“Just ignore the strange magical torch in my hand,” she said, motioning to him. “Let me show you something.”

Shaking himself, Neil followed her, shuffling across the dirt floor. She eyed him sidelong as he peered around the tomb, taking in the stone caskets that lined the walls, and the packed dirt under their feet. This place was a stone monument to the people whoonce owned this land, and Pen felt ridiculously out of place. She moved the torch from left to right, motioning to the wall as they stopped before a set of caskets, and Neil bent to read them.

The first casket was not in English, nor was the second. The third, though, had that familiar last name, “Walsh.” And so did the fourth, and the fifth. They had stumbled their way into the Walsh family tomb, it seemed.

Pen ran her fingers through the cobwebs, eyes scanning names and dates and words chiseled painstakingly into stone. As she did, she pictured Archie’s grave, there among countless other headstones, sticking grimly out of the snow.

If he was out there, then…

“I haven’t seen it all,” she whispered, turning to Neil. “But I think I know why she sent me here.”

“She sent you?”

Pen nodded as they circled the whole room, dirt-caked fingers running over beautiful stone caskets.

“I’m sorry I didn’t fully explain before I left, but when she pushed you out of her room, she whispered that I needed to come here. And your speech,” she said, glancing at him with a shrug, “it convinced me to come out here myself.”

“You’re already a hero, you know that?” Pen refused to look at him, her eyes intent on something in the distance. He shuffled toward her and touched her hip softly, his fingers soothing. It sent a zap of electricity straight to her toes, warming her from the inside out. “You don’t need to prove yourself to me, Penelope.”

She slipped the torch into a mount and turned to him, the flame a scorching heat beside them, casting him in warm yellow light. “But I do, Neil. I know you believe I’m some sort of hero for calling you out or standing my ground or whatever, butIdon’t see it that way. But this? This is how I redeem myself.”

“You don’t need to prove anything or redeem yourself, Penelope. I don’t need any convincing. I know who you are.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but her eyes went past him to a name she recognized all too well.

“Georgina,”she whispered.

Neil followed her gaze.

Georgina Walsh’s stone resting place was much the same as the others, except for an inscription Pen was surprised to read under her name. She pulled the lingering cobwebs free and smoothed her hands over the lid, brushing away the dust and dirt to get a better look.

“Mother and beloved wife,” she read, turning to Neil.

“So, she was pregnant. And married?” He made a face. “But her ghost is so young.”

Pen ran her finger over the date of death, tapping it. “1818. She was only twenty-one when she died.”

Neil shook his head. “But if she was pregnant in 1815 when he was sent away to Waterloo, could she really have found someone else to marry in that length of time? This crypt doesn’t appear to have been used since Georgina passed, so what changed?”

“Or did Archie return from the war? The sketch in her journal is the spitting image of the ghost we saw leaving my room. His clothing fit the era, and although he was young, maybe he didn’t die in the war. Maybe he made it back to the castle after the baby was born.”

Neil nodded slowly, wincing, and pressed a hand to his temple. Pen reached for him, but he held up a hand, thinking.

“There was that letter about the moon, right? What was it… something like, ‘promised to be mine’? So, maybe they secretly wed, she got pregnant, and when her father found out, he forced him away? Sent him quietly off to his death?”

Pen made a little excited squeak. “But when Archie returnedand Georgina had given birth to a son, the duke had no choice but to let them wed, making Archie the heir.”

“Which is why the castle was renamed afterhim.” Neil planted his hands on his hips, grinning. “Oh, we’re good. Is this what detectives feel like?”

Pen snorted. “We’re more like amateur armchair sleuths than Sherlock Holmes.”

They pivoted back to Georgina’s sarcophagus. Pen sighed as she patted the lid. Although it wasn’t a lot of time, Archie and Georgina had had a life together. Years, maybe, but it was better than nothing, and certainly more time than even she’d imagined.