“You made him worse,” Tommy hissed. “He really hated you. His little poser. The son of the most famous director born within one hundred miles, and you still haven’t created a single thing of value.”
“You twisted, evil corporate—” Jimmy lunged at his brother, and they grappled, teetering dangerously close to the edge. Rain lashed their faces as they hurled insults and accusations. “Remember when you ‘lost’ Dad’s watch?” Jimmy sneered. “I know you pawned it to go towards that flashy new car of yours.”
“Oh yeah? What about the time you used his contact at the gallery to—”
A blinding flash of lightning struck nearby, startling Jimmy. Tommy seized his chance, wrenching the necklace from his brother’s grasp. But Jimmy recovered quickly. His hand shot out, fisting in Tommy’s shirt. With a vicious grin, he guided his brother to the very edge of the roof.
Tommy’s eyes widened in horror, clasping hold on Jimmy’s wrists. “Jimmy... no...”
But with his free hand, Jimmy pried his brother’s pathetic grip from his cold flesh, wrenching the ruby necklace free with little resistance. His brother was too busy worrying about his impending death to care anymore as Jimmy ran his nail across the smooth edges of the priceless ruby.
“Sorry, brother,” Jimmy said coldly, his fingers tightening around his brother’s shirt collar as he stuffed the heirloom into his pocket. “And you were right. You were Dad’s favourite. I think he liked how... honest of a thief you were. Whereas I…” He hissed, his voice darkening to a wicked whisper. “I was always a little too sneaky for his tastes.” Jimmy let out a calming breath. “Tommy, what are your children called?”
“Jimmy, wh—”
“What are your children called, Tommy?”
“Erin and Chris.”
Jimmy nodded, running his thumb over the corner of the collar. “I’ll tell them your final words were that you loved them.”
With that, Jimmy released the shirt. Tommy plummeted from the roof, his piercing scream lost in the orchestra of the storm. There was a distant crunch as he landed on top of their father’s beloved vintage aqua blue—
---
The extract ended there, but Ellie understood without question why her gran had chosen this one—Edmund had forgone subtlety when crafting the characters so blatantly based on his sons.
“Tommy was Thomas and Jimmy is James?”
Maggie nodded. “And did you notice how he painted James?”
“Like a cold-blooded killer,” she said, scanning those last lines again, the callous nature of Edmund’s assessment turning her blood to ice. “It’s sociopathic.”
“This is how Edmund saw his children,” Maggie said, taking the scene back and placing it in its place in the manuscript. “I wouldn’t call him a reliable narrator, given the rumours about his declining mental awareness at certain times. I witnessed a lot of the confusion first-hand in the final years, but this… it’s biting. It’s not subtle, but he says what he thinks about his sons, and if anyone knew them, well… I trust his assessment.”
Given what they’d seen for themselves, Ellie could see the seeds of truth deep in the roots of Edmund’s Last Draft.
“I think this scene would have fallen somewhere around the middle,” Maggie explained as she closed the manuscript again, like the words might leak out if it was open too long. “The build-up to that murder was mostly showing how each of the brothers was a manipulative liar in… well… you know the story with Thomas and James already.”
“And it seems Edmund thought Thomas and James might fight each other to the death to get their hands on the prized heirloom? The book.” She paused, a chill running down her spine. “And maybe they did.”
Unable to sit still any longer, Ellie rose from her chair and made her way to the back of the shop. She hesitated for a moment before forcing herself to look at the spot where she’d found Thomas’s body. She’d been avoiding it, but now she steeled herself and examined the area. There wasn’t much to see aside from a faint stain on the wood floorboards.
“If Edmund knew his family were going to follow the riddles, he knew that they’d end up fighting each other to the death?” Ellie mused aloud, her voice barely above a whisper. “Why set them on this quest in the first place?”
“I don’t think he was trying to kill them,” Maggie said, exhaling as she rested both hands on the top sheet. “I think he was trying to teach them a lesson, but he knew them a little too well.”
Edmund had certainly painted a picture of two brothers who were easy to despise, just from a glimpse. Caricatures, yet Edmund’s subconscious had forecast that one of the brothers would be murdered.
Jimmy to James.
Tommy to Thomas.
Necklace to book.
Roof to bookshop?
Fall to pen?
A moment of heavy silence fell between them before Maggie cleared her throat. “Anyway, now that you’ve read it, it’s time for lunch. We’ve earned it. Would you mind grabbing something? You can pick the place.”
Ellie lingered for another moment, her gaze fixed on the spot where Thomas had let go of his final breath along with the manuscript he prized so much. The ‘corporate’ brother who might not have fallen to his death, but his greed had tripped him up. A sense of urgency welled up inside Ellie, knowing she needed to speak with James again to see just how close he could get to Jimmy.
However, before another visit to Blackwood House, she felt compelled to uncover more about the riddles that had led them this far, and after a particular person’s swift exit at breakfast that morning, she had an idea where she might find some answers.
Otherwise, she’d been riddled into a dead end.
She’d visited the graveyard again in the cold light of day to see where she’d almost been crushed the night before. The lumps of the stone from the fallen moss-eaten grave cluttered the grass, and the red headstone had been obliterated. Ellie had witnessed the crash, and it had been enough to smash the weathered old stone, but it hadn’t done the damage she’d witnessed. It had been all too easy to imagine the swinging sledgehammer obliterating the musical notes riddle beneath the Maggie clue. And if her imagination was pulling from the facts before her, like Edmund writing his takedown of his sons, the person who’d tried to kill her had gone to great lengths to ensure Ellie wouldn’t find that clue.
Grabbing her backpack from the back of a nearby chair, Ellie turned to her grandmother. “Where’s Willow’s shop? An apothecary, right?”
Maggie looked up from the manuscript, sucked back into its pages. She thought about it for a moment, and then said, “It’s where the old bakery used to be.”
“Say no more.” Ellie slung her bag over her shoulder, her mind already racing with how she was going to approach sensitive Willow without spooking her. “I’m off to see an old bridesmaid at a new apothecary about a secret riddle.”
Chapter 19Burn the Witch
Adragon’s claw, carved from gleaming bone and tipped with gold, held the crystal ball that reflected ‘a maze of mysteries only the bravest dared to unravel.’ Ellie stared back at herself through the glittering rainbow reflections as she peered into the bowl, some rock band playing in the background. Her knees hit the shelf below, and the brass tea set clattered. She reached out to steady the pot, silencing the echo. She stepped back, glad to have averted disaster before something with a spike struck her in the back of the head. She spun around, catching the hanging Eastern lantern she’d knocked before it turned into a wrecking ball.
