“I’m ready,” I said.

Twenty-Five

Lucy

Since the accident ten days previously, Lucy had become accustomed to her sleep being broken by flashbacks. She would wake with a sickening jolt at the moment of impact between the car and the tree. Sometimes she would experience a panic attack; at others her breathing would slow and steady as the terror drained away and she recognized where she was. Either way she was then wide awake, her mind running over everything that had happened in a loop that was difficult to break. It reminded her of when she had first been diagnosed with post-viral fatigue and had had repeating nightmares. The only thing that made it better was when Finn was with her, but she wasn’t prepared to ask him to move in as a cure for her anxieties.

Talking helped, though. They both did a lot of that, Finn opening up to her in a way Lucy knew he hadn’t after Charlie’s death. They talked about Marilynne too. The police had ruled her death an accident and there was to be an inquest. It was thought she had gone back down to the summerhouse site because she was still obsessed with the idea that something was hidden there. It appeared from the evidence that she had slipped and knocked herself out, subsequently drowning in the pond. Her role in Charlie’s accident and in Lucy’s seemed clear, but with her death any proof had been extinguished and for Persis and Gabriel’s sake Lucy felt it was better that way.

Tonight after going through the familiar loop of thoughts in her head, Lucy got up and went downstairs to make herself a drink. It was a stunningly beautiful night and on the eastern horizon she could see the constellation Orion the Hunter, and a scattering of stars like diamonds studded across the gauzy line of the Milky Way. It felt peaceful. She made a cup of cocoa and took it outside onto the patio. The air was warm. The black cat was curled up on one of the sun loungers and looked affronted when Lucy joined her.

“Who do you belong to?” Lucy wondered aloud as it got up and stalked off in a huff.

It felt like a long time since Lucy had seen or experienced Catherine’s ghost because the questions and investigations around Marilynne’s death had filled her mind and inevitably distracted her from everything else. She had wondered whether, with the mystery of Charlie’s death unraveled, Catherine had in fact found peace. It seemed certain that there was no Knights’ Hospitaller treasure to be found, but what of Catherine’s own “treasure”? Lucy sensed that there was something she needed to remember, a whisper that she still heard at the back of her mind, and so she had waited for Catherine to come.

“I am here. It is time.”

The hairs rose on the back of Lucy’s neck and she turned her head very slowly. Catherine was standing on the edge of the terrace. The light from the barn shone on her golden hair and made the red gown glow with rich color. There were pearls on her sleeves and looped in her hair. She was smiling and in her hand was a box, an exquisite box whose rich patina also glowed in the light and showed patterns in the wood, dark and shade. In that moment Lucy recognized the box and also where she had seen it before; then she blinked and Catherine had gone.