Chapter 29

PEN

Pen pressed a hand over his mouth, biting back a gasp.

"Neil!" she said, the sound of her voice echoing around them. "Neil, it's me. Penelope."

She pulled her hand away, blinking against the darkness. Pen hadn't heard or seen him; she'd been too focused on what was down here, waiting for her in the dark.

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 a freaking torch at 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 who once 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, but I don'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 returned and 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 after him ." 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.

"But this doesn't explain why the ghosts are still here," Neil said. "Are they the type of ghosts who need to wrap up their unfinished business in order to move on? And if so, what's their unfinished business?"

Pen took up the torch once more, pausing as her eyes slid to another sarcophagus parallel to Georgina's.

"Penelope?"

She shook her head and crossed to it, eyes going wide and heart sinking as she read the inscription.

"It's him," she whispered. "Archibald Skinner, Archie." She brushed her sleeve through the dust, coughing into her arm as she scanned it. "He died ten years later in 1828. ‘Beloved husband and son'… but his inscription doesn't say duke."

She scooted back for Neil to join her. His hip bumped against hers as he sidled up beside Pen, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her before leaning over the sarcophagus. He read over the inscription several times before stepping away, his bottom lip clamped between his teeth.

"They were both so young," he murmured.

Pen sighed but said nothing. Neil held out a hand and she stared down at it, at his waiting fingers. Fingers that belonged to a familiar hand that belonged to a familiar man. They were filthy, covered in grime, and dirt was stuck beneath his fingernails, but they were his. Sniffling, she entwined her fingers with his.

They climbed out of the tomb, and she stamped out the torch in the snow, watching as the flames sizzled out. Quietly, they fought their way through the snow and stopped before the grave, the one he'd shown her what felt like a lifetime ago.

They knelt in the snow side by side, sitting back on their heels. The cold leached in through her jeans as she reached out and tugged off the ivy wrapped around the stone, brushing away the dirt and grime from the engraved dates.

"Born December seventeenth, 1815." Pen glanced sidelong at Neil. "Their son. By mid-March, she was already pregnant with him, and Archie was sent away in April. He fought in Waterloo, and for whatever reason, wasn't able to return home until the baby was born."

"Hold on." He leaned past her, ripping the last of the ivy from the headstone to reveal a set of Roman numerals after the name. Archibald Skinner II .

"That would have saved us a lot of time," Pen murmured.

"Would've, could've, should've."

They sat in front of the grave for a while. Pen's heart felt enormously heavy. She'd hoped for a happily ever after, and she supposed Georgina and Archie had had one, but it wasn't some fairy-tale ending. Pen leaned her head on Neil's shoulder and stared blankly at the gravestone until her hands were cold and she'd lost feeling in her thighs. Finally, after minutes or hours, she couldn't be sure, they stood, and Pen wrapped her arms around Neil, pulling him close. When she leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him, he tasted like coffee and snow, smelled of the tomb and the macabre things in the ground beneath them. But his hands and his lips were comforting, something she never thought she'd come to know.

When they finally pulled apart, Neil looked dazed, his hands on either side of her face as he bent down and pressed his forehead against hers. He sighed, and she could feel the sound all the way down to her toes.

"As fun as this was," he breathed, "I'm so ready to get the hell out of this castle."

"I concur." She pulled back and brushed a few stray curls from his eyes. "We still have some things to do. Like taking you to the hospital."

"Is that really necessary?"

She raised a brow in answer as they pivoted toward the castle to glance up at the window. Georgina stood as she had the day before, half turned toward them, eyes cast down. But there was something different about her, about the softness around her mouth and the glimmer in her eyes.

Was this it, the closure to her story? Could Georgina and Archie and all the spirits in Skinner Castle finally rest? Or was there more? There was only one way to find out.

"Let's go."

They trudged back through the snow, but Pen did not feel the cold. Neil's hand was warm in hers, and she tried to focus on that instead of what was to come.

When they arrived at the side door to the castle, Neil tugged her to a stop, bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, voice low.

Pen looked at the door.

This was it. Once they walked into that castle, there was no turning back. But Georgina and Archie deserved the closure, whatever it was. That's why ghosts lingered, right? They lingered because they had unfinished business, and Georgina had been ripped away from her family at such a young age. Wasn't that traumatic enough?

"I'm sure."

Neil kissed the top of her head. "Okay."

Clearing her throat, she opened the door. Silently, they shucked off their boots and coats, and when they rounded the corner, Laszlo and Daniela were leaning over the kitchen table, eyes wide as their heads snapped up to take them in.

"We need to get Neil to a hospital," Daniela said, rounding the table.

"What about the snow? We still haven't heard back from Fanny," Laszlo said, scratching his neck as he turned to Pen and Neil.

"I'm okay for now, really," Neil insisted.

"You're not okay," Pen said.

"Well, I can't drive those roads with the ice. And the car won't start; I already tried. I don't know how icy it is, or if we can get someone out here—"

"Keep trying Fanny," Pen said. "I think Neil has a concussion, and he shouldn't have followed me out into the snow."

"I'm fine."

"On it," Laszlo said.

Neil grabbed Pen's hands, ignoring her protests. Scrunching up his nose, he pulled Pen with him through the kitchen and down the corridor, pace quickening as he hurried toward the foyer.

"Where are you going?" Laszlo called after them.

"To figure this out!" Neil responded.

"Neil," Pen said as she tugged him to a stop at the base of the stairs. "Neil, I'm not joking. You're injured. And we don't know what we're doing. These are ghosts . We don't even know how any of this works!"

"Georgina won't leave us alone. She pushed me and I hit my head. No, don't look at me like that. Okay, fine, whatever. I'll get it looked at later. Ghosts, whether they can physically touch us or not, can make you see things, make you think things, and make you do things. We have to help Georgina and Archie do… whatever it is they need to do before it's too late for us all."

Pen's eyes caught on something over his shoulder, and her pulse faltered at the horrific sight behind him.

"Neil."

"Come on, we don't have a lot of time."

"Neil."

She grabbed his shoulders and turned him toward the portrait of Georgina. Black gunk seeped out of the canvas, dripping down and splattering to the floor. The woman in the portrait was practically unrecognizable. The black liquid bled from her eyes and mouth, trailing over the material, staining it.

"Oh, I do not like that," Pen said. "Now this is really some real Dorian Gray shit, and I am not comfortable with the level of creeps that portrait is giving me."

"If Daniela and Laszlo don't see this, I'm gonna be pissed."

Georgina was not going to stop. Things were only escalating, and sooner rather than later, somebody was going to get seriously hurt. Pen threaded her fingers with Neil's, squeezing.

"Okay, if we do this, if we go up there to Georgina's room, can you promise me something? Promise me you'll be careful."

He looked at her for a dreadfully long moment. "I promise."

"Okay, then up to our deaths we go."

Neil blanched. "No need to be so dark about it."

He started up the steps, her hand still clasped tight in his.

It shouldn't have been possible; none of it should have been possible. The ghosts, the castle, even she and Neil. Pen sprinted up the stairs behind him, her heart thundering.

She was quickly learning nothing was impossible here.