Page 63 of A Single Thread of Moonlight

J.F. Fortescue

At first glance the letter was uninteresting, its contents ambiguous. But there must have been a reason for my father to hide it so thoroughly. I frowned, reading the words over for something I might have missed. Then I noticed it: the date.

The letter was dated a week before my father’s death.

Tookes had heard my father arguing about his will with Helena before he was killed. J.F. Fortescue was my father’s solicitor, I knew that much already. Surely that meant that the document in question was his will?

At that moment there was a knock on my door. It would be Helena. I cursed under my breath and picked up the letters, pushing them under the bed. I didn’t know what I was going to do. For a moment my brain flashed wildly to an image of Nick, and then I pushed it away. Whatever I had to face, I had to do it alone. I felt in my pocket for my knife, the weight of it reassuring in my hand.

I pulled my shoulders back and took a deep breath before putting my hand on the door handle. I waited until my fingers were steady, and then I pulled it open.

Standing on the other side of the door was Cassie. She was alone, and she was holding a box in her hands. Her face was pale, and she looked nervous.

“May I come in?” she asked.

For a moment I was too surprised to answer. “Of course,” I finally said stiffly, stepping aside.

I closed the door behind her, and we stood, again, looking at one another.

“I haven’t told anyone,” Cassie said, the words coming out in a rush. “And I won’t, I swear.”

I released a slow breath. She seemed sincere, but how could I possibly trust her? I folded my arms across my chest, careful not to let my guard down.

“It wasn’t right.” Her voice was small but clear. “What they did, the way they treated you, after your father…” She cleared her throat. “I spent seven years hoping that you would walk back through the door, and now you have. I don’t know why you’re pretending to be someone else, but I’m sure that you must have your reasons. I am not going to interfere with them.”

My eyebrows shot up, and she nodded. “I mean it. From what I can gather Lord Wynter must also be involved in this somehow. He brought you here, and he’s also been lying about your past.” Her brow crumpled. “You were always kind to me. You’re my family too. The last thing I want to do is to bring you more unhappiness if you have managed to build something for yourself away from … all of this.”

I felt my shoulders relax slightly, though I remained silent.

Cassie shuffled awkwardly on her feet. “I saved this for you,” she said, holding out the box. “It’s not much but I kept it. In case you ever came back.”

It was a test, of sorts. If I took the box from her then I was as good as admitting that I was who she said I was. Iris Grey trusted no one. A fugitive has no friends.

But could I really be a fugitive, now that I was back here, in my home?

Was there really no one that I trusted?

The silence stretched out between us. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. Cassie gazed at me, unwavering.

I took the box.

As Cassie walked by to leave the room, she reached forward and brushed her hand against my arm. It was the lightest touch, but I felt it all the way to my bones.

You’re my family too.

As soon as she was out of the door, I felt my knees begin to give way, and I collapsed on to the bed, the heavy box in my hands crashing against my chest.

I set it gently on the bed beside me and opened it up.

There was treasure inside. Perhaps not what anyone else would call treasure, but certainly treasure to me.

On top of the box was a fine silver shawl. I remembered my mother wearing it, and I picked it up, the cool material slipping through my fingers like water. I buried my face in it. After all these years I knew that there was nothing left of her scent, but, still, I was convinced that the smell of wild strawberries lingered.

I put the shawl to one side. There were trinkets that I recognized from my mother’s bedroom: a silver hairbrush, a glass vase that always held roses from the garden, a china figurine of a grey horse dancing on its back legs. Wrapped in tissue paper I found a silver hair pin, shaped like a crescent moon and studded with small diamonds. I remembered seeing it in my mother’s hair, and I wondered how Cassie had smuggled it away. There was also a piece of paper, thin and yellowed with age. I picked it up carefully and opened it. Pressed inside the sheet of paper was a beautiful iris on a green stem, its long slender petals curved in purple arches across the page, each one looking as though someone had painted a smooth line of yellow down the middle with a fine-tipped brush. Next to the pressed flower, fragile as tissue paper, my mother had written the words,

Iris Penelope Scott-Holland, 17th December, 1880.

Cassie had saved these things, these pieces of my own history, wrapped them carefully, and kept them hidden all this time, just in case I came back.