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“Brooks is gone,” her mother recited. At this point, it seemed that all of the emotion had fled from her voice—as though she could no longer generate any sort of passion for this horrific occasion.
Her father cast a confused glance towards Charlotte. “Brooks?”
“Apparently, he was found dead this morning,” Charlotte stated.
The mystic said this would happen. The mystic told me it would be so. Should I have done something? Should I explain?
Charlotte’s mind raced with panic. Her father jumped towards the side to assist her mother to her feet. He carried her towards the parlour, where he laid her across one of the couches. He ordered the maid to bring tea immediately, then stabbed his hands on his waist and muttered, “What could have happened? Brooks is entirely too young. It must have been foul play.”
“The courier brought only news of his death. I know nothing more,” Charlotte’s mother breathed.
Minutes seemed to stretch on for hours as Charlotte and her parents awaited more information. Charlotte never bothered to return to her bedroom to change and instead spent the remainder of the morning in her nightclothes. Intermittently, her father rose to smoke his pipe outside and pace. Occasionally, her mother broke into tears.
Finally, around lunchtime, another courier arrived with information from her mother’s sister, Brooks’ mother. Her mother lifted the letter to her eyes, then immediately dropped the note. Charlotte’s father raised the page from the ground and cleared his throat. It was up to him to do what his wife was too weak to do.
“Brooks’ death is a mystery to us all,” he read from the note. “As you already know, he was found in an alleyway in town. His placement isn’t entirely out of the ordinary. After all, he spent several nights per week with his friends at the brasserie, located only a few blocks away. We hadn’t seen Brooks in a number of days, and we imagine that someone forced him into something against his will. According to the authorities, it seems as though he was murdered. We hope and pray that some information will reveal itself, although we’re not optimistic. People are murdered all the time. We just never imagined that this sort of horror could ever befall our family. Be well, my lovely sister. Know that we will see one another soon. I hope you’ll help me grieve the death of my son, a man I raised with love and adoration and pride.”
Again, Charlotte’s mother’s cries rang out. Her face was blotched; tears swept down her cheeks. She gripped the sides of the sofa, seemingly on the brink of collapse. Again, Charlotte’s father fell beside her and wrapped his thick arms around her.
Charlotte felt the words like a punch to the stomach, yet found that she couldn’t cry. She stood slowly, on legs that felt entirely rickety, and marched to the edge of the room to gaze out the window. The moors were far too foggy, ominous, as though a reflection of the act that had been committed against Brooks in the night.
Charlotte’s memories of Brooks were bright, glossy: marvellous times spent riding horseback and dancing in the garden. In previous years, as they’d both grown older, they hadn’t caught one another so often. They’d had the occasional joyous reunion at various balls and parties and had always been eager to tease and joke with one another. Even still, Charlotte wouldn’t have labelled Brooks as someone incredibly close to her. A friend, certainly—but not a dear one.
But regardless of all of this, regardless of the life Brooks had once lived, he was now gone. It mattered not what had come before.
And now, Charlotte was left with the sinister question: how on earth had the mystic known?
Charlotte and her father attempted to bring her mother lunch. She glanced at it—cured meats and cheeses, and turned her face away, scrunching her eyes closed. Charlotte and her father made heavy eye contact. With this, her father tilted his head towards the hallway, and Charlotte followed his lead towards the back end of the corridor, near the garden. There, her mother wouldn’t hear what they said.
“I don’t know what to do,” Charlotte whispered harshly. Her heart pattered. Should she inform her father of the events that had transpired at the mystic the day before? Still, she felt that knowledge if this changed nothing.
“I think we should put your mother to bed,” he said. He rubbed his fingers through his grey curls, still thick despite his age. “She’ll require her rest for the days to come when her sister calls for her.”
Charlotte agreed. “I’ll help prepare her for sleep. Perhaps I’ll administer sleeping salts.”
“Yes,” her father affirmed. He turned his eyes towards the ground and heaved a sigh. “It’s precisely the way your aunt describes it, you know. People are murdered every day, and yet, one never imagines that sort of horror will touch one’s life.”
Charlotte swallowed sharply. “No. One never thinks of it,” she lied.
Throughout the rest of the day, she and her father struggled under the weight of her mother’s devastation. Her mother blinked into slumber occasionally, only to rise an hour later with a wild screech that fell into a heart-wrenching wail. Charlotte and her father took turns to rush to her mother’s side, administering more sleeping salts and cooing her back into slumber.
**
An hour before dinner, Louisa arrived at the estate. As Charlotte’s world had turned upside down, she felt as though she hadn’t seen Louisa in several weeks, rather than fewer than twenty-four hours. She clutched Louisa and shook slightly. Louisa stretched a hand over her back and whispered, “It’s going to be all right. They’ll find who killed him. I know it.”
Charlotte and Louisa sat in the parlour. Charlotte described the events that had transpired that morning: her mother’s cry, the endless parade of horror since. Louisa was a comfort, a firm nod, words of encouragement. Charlotte weighed up the idea of mentioning the horror of the mystic’s words to Louisa but reasoned that Louisa would give far too much power to it.
Suddenly, silence stretched between them. Louisa furrowed her brow and whispered, “I don’t suppose the mystic said anything about this yesterday?”
Charlotte swallowed a rock-hard lump in her throat. “No. Why do you ask?”
“She didn’t mention anything at all about some sort of dark event?” Louisa asked.
Charlotte bit hard on her lower lip. She yearned to articulate just how idiotic she’d once felt the mystic to be. Now, however, fear stirred in her stomach.
“No. I don’t know. She didn’t say anything incredibly nice about my future. I’ll give her that,” Charlotte breathed.
Louisa nodded, lending a knowing look. “She knew.”
