Chapter 3 : Something Was Never Finished
1218 Words
I didn't move from the floor for a long time.
Just sat there with my back against the desk and the ring in my closed fist and watched the place in the garden where the figure had been standing. The garden was just dark now. No movement. No shape at the edge of things.
I just sat there and held the ring and listened to the house.
I thought about the figure.
They hadn't moved.
Hadn't looked around.
Hadn't acted like someone worried about being seen.
Just stood there.
I put the ring back in the velvet. Locked the drawer. Put the key in the pocket of my cardigan where I would know where it was.
Then I sat back down on the floor and didn't sleep.
---
Julian knew there was a camera above the front door.
I had seen it in his shoulders when I noticed it. That small adjustment, the shift of weight, the half-turn that wasn't quite toward me. He had known it was there and said nothing.
Which meant either the camera was his. Or it belonged to someone else entirely. And he was afraid to tell me which.
When the garden lamps clicked back on at six I got up slowly. My legs had gone stiff sometime in the night. I changed clothes, washed my face, and went downstairs.
---
I found him in the kitchen at half past six.
Already dressed, standing at the counter with a coffee he wasn't drinking. He heard me and looked up.
"You're up early," he said.
"Couldn't sleep." I poured coffee without asking. "You?"
"Seven o'clock call." He picked up his phone and set it down again. "How's the room?"
"There was someone in the garden last night," I said.
His hand stopped against the counter.
Not for long. Just long enough for me to notice.
"What time?" he asked.
"Around eleven." I watched him. "You don't look surprised."
"I'm not." He said it flat and even. "Keep the curtains drawn after dark. Stay back from the windows at night."
"Julian. Who was standing in my garden?"
"I'm handling it," he said.
"That isn't an answer."
"I know." He held my gaze. "I'm handling it."
I looked at him. Even now he hadn't touched his coffee.
"The ring," I said.
His shoulders shifted. Slight. Enough.
"It belonged to you," he said. "It was always yours."
"That's not an answer either."
"You always have answers," I said. "You just decide which ones to give."
He turned back. For a second his jaw tightened. Then it was gone.
"Why did you keep it, Julian?" My voice stayed low but something in it shifted because he went still. "Three years. You got married. You have a son. And you kept that ring in a locked drawer. Why?"
He picked up his phone. Set it back down.
"Because throwing it away felt wrong," he said. "And giving it back felt worse."
Outside, a bird gave up on something in the hedge and left.
I picked up my coffee and walked toward the hallway.
"Maren."
I stopped. Didn't turn around.
"I'm glad you're awake," he said. Like the words had been stored somewhere close to him for a long time.
My grip tightened around the coffee mug.
I kept walking.
---
Elise was better in the mornings.
She was on the floor with Noah when I came through, a block in each hand, considering them with the same seriousness he was. For a moment before she heard me she just looked like a person. Not my sister who had married my fiancé. Just a person on a floor with a small boy.
Then she looked up.
The smile disappeared first.
I leaned against the doorframe. "What's he building?"
"Changes depending on when you ask." She looked at Noah. "What is it today, bug?"
"Castle," he said, without looking up.
"Who's it for?"
He considered this seriously. "The dragon."
"The dragon lives there?"
"No." Like the answer was obvious. "He guards it."
He glanced at me, decided I was acceptable, and went back to his work.
I pushed off the doorframe. "I want to see the accident report," I said.
Elise's hands went still.
"The official one. Whatever was filed."
"Maren, you've only just..."
"I've been awake five days. I want to know what happened to me."
She looked at the carpet. At Noah. "You should ask Julian."
"I'm asking you."
"I know." She turned a block over in her fingers. "Julian handles all of that. I don't have access to..."
"Are you telling me you don't know what happened the night your sister nearly died?"
The block stopped moving. Her shoulders drew in, more like someone bracing for something they had been expecting long enough that the dread had gone flat.
"I know some of it," she said.
"Then tell me some of it."
She glanced at Noah. "Not here. Later. Tonight."
Not a yes. But not the wall I kept running into with Julian either.
"Tonight," I said.
---
There were no photographs of me anywhere in the house.
I understood it. But understanding something doesn't stop it from landing.
Three years ago I had known where every photograph in Julian's apartment had been hanging.
Here, there wasn't a single sign I'd ever existed.
I was standing in the upstairs hallway when I heard voices from the room at the end of the hall. His study. The door not fully closed.
I should have kept walking. I didn't.
"She's asking questions, Julian." Elise's voice. Low and pulled too tight. "Real ones. About the accident. About the ring."
"I know." Julian. The words clipped short.
"She asked me for the accident report today."
Silence.
"What did you tell her?"
"That it was complicated. That she should ask you." A breath. "She's not going to stop. You know that."
"I know who she is, Elise."
A beat of quiet. Then Elise, lower now.
"What do we do if she remembers the wrong thing first?"
I went still.
"Everything collapses," Julian said. "That's what happens."
Then the sound of his phone ringing. He answered on the second ring. One word, clipped and low.
"Grieve."
I pressed my back against the wall.
He listened. Then, low enough that I had to hold my breath:
"She doesn't remember anything."
A pause.
"I said she doesn't remember. Keep your people off my property."
The call ended.
I walked quickly back to my room and stood with my back against the door in the dark.
*Keep your people off my property.*
Someone named Grieve had sent the figure in the garden.
And Julian had known exactly who to call.
I crossed to the nightstand and opened the drawer and felt the corner of something tucked underneath the notepad.
An envelope. No stamp. No return address.
Just my name.
*Maren.*
Julian's handwriting.
The envelope had been opened and resealed. Pressed shut like someone had made a decision quickly and committed to it before they could think better of it.
It had been placed here deliberately. In this room. Before I arrived.
Just like the ring.
I slid my finger under the seal.
A folded page slipped into my lap.
Julian's handwriting again.
My eyes found the first line.
*If you're reading this, something has already gone wrong.*
- Writer
