“At the party, Emma wouldn’t stop mocking his idea to preserve them,” Maggie continued, her voice trembling. “That’s when she latched onto the glass boxes and coined the ‘prison’ term. Charles told her to stop, over and over, but she kept going, right in his face, even poking his cheek. He shoved her, but only a little.” She clenched her eyes. “He said it was the slightest of pushes, just to give him some air.”
Ellie’s eyes widened as she pictured the scene unfolding.
“But she tripped,” Maggie went on. “Instead of grabbing the wall, she grabbed the corner of the banister. A perfect polished globe, and the momentum made her swing around and tumble backwards down the stairs.”
Ellie gasped. “So I was right? Charles did push his sister. But why didn’t Emma tell anyone at the time?”
“She didn’t remember, not at first. But they weren’t alone. Charles told me he looked up and saw his father standing in the doorway to the bathroom, staring at him. He’d been watching the whole thing—Emma pushing him, bullying him—and he stood by and watched, and then he let Charles push Emma down the stairs.” Maggie’s voice cracked as she continued, “Charles said something to me then that made me believe anything he said after that because the pain in his eyes... James isn’t the only cruel brother...”
Maggie blinked back tears, and Ellie tore off a sheet of kitchen roll, offering it to her grandmother. After composing herself, Maggie went on, “Charles said that their father didn’t rush to help Emma as she lay at the bottom of the stairs. And in that moment… he knew his father would have watched his own daughter fall to her death if it meant it would be one less person between Thomas Blackwood and the manuscript, the last handout his father could ever give him.”
The silence in the kitchen was as thick as the glooped potatoes, broken only by the faint ticking of the clock on the wall. Ellie blinked, trying to process the horrifying scenario Maggie had just described.
“But... Charles did break into the bookshop?” Ellie finally managed, her voice barely above a whisper. “The book…” As soon as the words left her mouth, the pieces began to fall into place on their own. “Thomas blackmailed his son. He forced Charles to fetch the book for him?”
Maggie nodded. “That’s right. ‘Get the book, or I’ll tell the police,’ Thomas threatened, and Thomas couldn’t figure out the riddle on his own. He asked Anne, and then Charles, and he figured it out, and… well… then I got a new hip.” She patted her left side. “That wasn’t part of his plan.”
“Charles couldn’t go through with it after your injury? He told his father to get the book himself?”
“And that Charles didn’t care if the truth came out. He was done, but he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. I know he didn’t stab his father. Thomas tried himself and someone else beat him to it.”
Ellie’s gaze drifted, still grappling with the implications of this new information. Her gran was still so certain, and Ellie’s heart did ache for Charles, but what she’d just heard didn’t rule him out. In fact, it only strengthened his motive for wanting his manipulative father off the page. As she scanned, she landed on a book sitting on the counter next to the burnt parsnips. She’d never seen the cover, but she’d heard the title—it was the book Anne had recommended to Edmund: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini.
Picking it up, she turned to Maggie. “Is this it?”
Maggie nodded. “That’s the one. Turns out I had it on my shelves. I read it and enjoyed it, but you were wrong about the date.”
“How so?” Ellie asked, furrowing her brow.
“Well, you said it came out five years ago, but it was actually published in 2020. Four years ago. It’s only a small detail, but it added twenty minutes to my search for a sci-fi book with ‘stars’ in the title that I think Edmund would have liked.”
Ellie turned the book over in her hands. “I didn’t know that for certain. I was just repeating what Anne told me. She rounded and said ‘half a decade.’ It’s not important, though.” She paused, looking up at her grandmother with a serious expression. “And you’re sure Charles didn’t stab his father?”
“I’m sure.”
Ellie wasn’t. “All based on a look in his eyes?”
“I know how it sounds. Why do you think I haven’t wanted to go into detail about this? Charles... he reminds me so much of you at that age, Ellie. He just needs a push. A little push, like you did, and look at you now. You came back with a backbone, and I couldn’t be prouder.”
Ellie’s heart swelled at her grandmother’s words. They embraced, the warmth of their hug conveying more than words could express.
“We should order some food in and get an early night,” Ellie suggested, her body aching like she’d just suffered a week of Happy Bean shifts. “I don’t care what happens tomorrow. This story is coming to an end so we can get on with our next chapter together, whatever it’ll be.”
Maggie smiled, then gestured to the book Ellie was still holding. “Stick that book back on the shelf if it’s not important, and I’ll dig out the takeaway menus.”
Ellie picked up the book again, scanning it. “You know we can just order on my phone, right?”
“I really have let myself get left behind. That sounds as sci-fi as that book.”
Crouching to slot the book back into her grandmother’s sci-fi section at the back of the dining room, Ellie summarised the back. After slotting it back into its alphabetical place, she found herself browsing the mysteries where she found some Edmund Blackwood books—a couple of the early ones, none from the ‘dark period,’ and all four of the recent second-wind releases. As she flicked through them, she wondered what had happened to Edmund to give him such a second wind in his later works during this period of his life.
Opening the first book, she found a signed dedication to Maggie, ‘his sail in the night.’ She smiled at the endearing dedication. Curious, she turned to the beginning, hoping to find a clue in the dedication. To her surprise, there was indeed something there, and it felt like a clue. The official printed dedication:
To My Sweet Cherry.
Was Cherry a person or was there some deeper significance to the fruit that kept cropping up? She scanned the pages, searching for another clue back and forth across the text.
Turning to the copyright page, Ellie stopped on the publication date: 2020. It matched the year of the book Anne had recommended to Edmund. A coincidence, surely, but…
From the kitchen, Maggie’s voice floated in. “Do you want pizza or Indian? Or we could try that new Greek place in Marlborough, if they’ll deliver this far?”
Ellie barely registered her grandmother’s words, still fixated on the double revelation of the copyright date and Edmund’s dedication to his ‘Sweet Cherry.’ She recalled Anne’s claim about recommending the book based on a review she’d read, mentioning it had been with the bestsellers. The book must have been fairly new, and Anne had said she’d started working for Edmund straight away.
A dull ache began to throb in Ellie’s temples as she tried to piece together the conflicting information. Something was where it shouldn’t have been, but what?
“Or do we go classic and get fish and chips from the Golden Sun?” Maggie’s voice cut through Ellie’s thoughts again. “I could eat prawn toast every day, but that’s my burden to carry…”
But then, a penny dropped, one more valuable than a pool of King of Offa coins, and as it rattled to a halt, a new perspective rang out. A subtle shift, but Anne had told her. Told her who she was in their first meeting.
“Gran, I think I’ve figured something out.”
“Indian?” Maggie looked up from the takeaway menus, concern etched on her face. “What is it, dear?”
“It’s about Anne,” Ellie said, her words tumbling out in a rush. “She told me she was an aspiring writer with a degree who got stuck as a housekeeper. But that’s not quite right, is it? She’s a housekeeper who aspires to be a writer.”
“What’s the difference? I’m not sure I follow.”
“The invisible ink,” Ellie continued, her voice growing more excited. “Anne knew about it. She came down when we were talking about it with James and she told us Edmund liked to write little notes. But the notes I read in the invisible ink in the…” Ellie realised she hadn’t told her gran about finding and ruining the final piece of the manuscript. “I saw some invisible pen notes earlier and they read like they were written for Edmund by someone else. Reminders, nudges, suggestions.”
