#i had to triple check that the fic wasn’t set in the 1800s | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

askullinajar · 7 years ago

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The Shattered Frame (Part 2/7)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Fic info: this is a sequel to my previous fic, The Living Ghost so go read that or this won’t make sense. Rating: General. Pairings: Lucy/Lockwood, Holly/Rani. Ao3 link: here.

A cluster of hauntings in a decrepit manor and the dripping spectre of a woman dressed all in black hits a little too close to home for Lockwood & Co’s newest member.

Part 2 – A New Case

“We’ve got a case!” George declared as we walked through the door, laden with shopping bags that he made no move to help us with. “A big one! Reckon it’ll take all of us to sort this out, even you, Skullykins.”

Skully glowered at the nickname. “Sleep with one eye open, b–”

“What’s the case?” Lockwood interrupted as he made his way upstairs to dump the bags in Jessica’s-turned-Skully’s room; so much for using it as a guest bedroom. “We’ve still got a lot of other cases lined up, remember?”

“Oh, but this is gonna be good, trust me,” George insisted, following us up the stairs. “Not to mention it’ll get us some serious spending money. More than all our recent cases combined. I’ll be able to get that new scientific equipment I wanted.”

“Keep it well away from me or watch your research burn,” said Skully.

“Why will it make us so much money?” said Holly, before George and Skully could get into an argument. With our recent fame, cases had been coming in by the bucket load, and our purses were much heavier as a result.

“Because, this guy is loaded,” George declared. “He rang up this morning. There’s this huge manor that he recently inherited. It’s been left abandoned because it’s so teeming with visitors, but he found out if he does it up it’ll be worth a fortune, and we’d be in for a cut of that if we helped clear it!”

“Interesting…” said Lockwood.

Holly held the bedroom door open for us to carry Skully’s new belongings in; her arm was still healing from our run-in with the Orpheus Society, so she wasn’t carrying as many bags as us.

Where the other bedrooms in Portland Row were cluttered with our personal belongings and decorated according to our personality’s, Skully’s was bare. It made me want to buy him a bunch of useless trinkets for his birthday, maybe draw him something as well, just so he had something of his own to display.

We dumped the bags on the bed, which looked like it hadn’t been slept in last night. Incidentally, it hadn’t; it had become a common occurrence that Skully slept on the floor in my attic bedroom by the window. He said it was because he missed annoying me at night, but I knew his newly living brain gave him nightmares, not that either of us said anything about it. I didn’t mind so much; my mind wasn’t so nice to me at night either, not after the things I’d seen. Our impromptu sleepovers gave me some comfort.

On the nights he wasn’t there, and I’d woken up from a bad dream, I’d creep downstairs to the library. Sometimes I’d draw in my sketchbook until my thoughts quieted, other times I’d find Lockwood there too, and we’d curl up on the sofa together and just talk. Occasionally about what we’d been through and what we’d seen on the Other Side, but mostly just random things – families, the cat that kept visiting our garden, the time Lockwood actually caught George in the act of stealing his Choco Leibniz… It was nice and helped clear our heads enough to fall asleep, propped up against one another until we woke up the next morning to a camera flash and I had to chase George around the house.

We left everything on the bed to sort out later, though Rani had to drag Holly away from trying to sort it all out, and gathered in the kitchen. At some point, while we were out, Kipps had returned and let himself in, something he did quite often but no one mentioned. I’d almost forgotten he didn’t actually live with us.

“So, what’s the deal with this mansion?” I said.

“According to the information Mr Taylor gave me,” George started, “there seems to be a cluster of hauntings caused by one powerful Visitor. And, boy, it seems like a biggy. Pretty much anyone who’s spent the night there over the past fifty years was found drowned by morning. The place is full of their spirits.” “Drowned?” said Kipps, alarmed. “How?”

“Well there’s a swimming pool outside,” George explained, “but the weird thing is it’s been empty for decades, yet a fair few people were still found at the bottom of it with their lungs full of water.” He removed his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. “Aside from that, bodies were found near sinks, bathtubs… basically anywhere with pipes.”

I grimaced; I wasn’t a huge fan of water after my mother had taught me and my sisters to swim by throwing us in the deep end of the local pool.

Lockwood hummed thoughtfully. “Well, obviously we’ll need to do some research before we…”

“Actually,” George interrupted, “I already got that covered, seen as you lot took so long at the shops.” Skully sent Holly a dirty look which she pretended not to notice.

George quickly darted to his desk in the office downstairs and retrieved his research, which he then spread out on the kitchen table. Lockwood took a seat and examined the papers while I stood behind him, peering over his shoulder and absentmindedly rubbing my hand up and down his arm; this case made me a little nervous.

George wasted no time excitedly delving into the history of the manor. “Ok, so back in the late 1800s, Redwood Manor was owned by a Lord Arthur Moore, who lived there with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two daughters. Now, here’s the thing about Elizabeth –” He pushed up his glasses which flashed in the light as he grinned sadistically – “She used to be a maid working for the Moores family before she fell in love with young Arthur, here. Arty got into a lot of trouble with his family after that, and they carted him off to live away from the rest of the family, so he wouldn’t be such a disgrace. None of that stopped him from marrying Elizabeth, though…”

“How romantic,” said Holly, smiling softly.

“Disgusting,” said Skully. I elbowed him.

“Anyway,” George continued, “Elizabeth here didn’t have such a great childhood. Had a lot of siblings, but most of them didn’t make it past the age of nine, and both her parents died when she was fourteen. Fortunately, she was already working as a maid by then. But then her brother vanished…”

“What happened to him?” said Rani.

“No one knows,” said George. “Most likely starved in the streets or something. Elizabeth tried to look for him, but the police didn’t want to waste time looking for some random orphan.”

“That must have been awful for her,” said Holly.

“What was the brother’s name?” said Skully. It surprised me that he was actually paying attention; he usually zoned out.

George shrugged. “Dunno. Wasn’t a lot about her life before she got married. This stuff’s all I found out. Anyway,” he continued, “it gets worse. See, she settles down with Arthur, has a couple of kids, everything seems to be looking up, right? Except in 1890, her husband and daughters were involved in a fatal accident when the train they were in derailed, and Elizabeth, basically driven mad with grief, went and drowned herself in the pool.”

“Oh, god…” said Kipps.

“So, you think Elizabeth Moore is our main ghost?” said Lockwood.

George nodded. “Track down her source and we stop the other Visitors too. Then hello new chemistry set.”

“Sounds riveting,” I said. “Where exactly is this manor?”

“About that…” said George. “It’s kind of way up north. Near the seaside.”

Lockwood gave him a look.

“Hey!” said George, defensively. “Just goes to show how big this company’s gotten, right? They’ve heard of us even way up there!”

“And how exactly do you plan to get us up there?” Lockwood said. “What with all our equipment.”

“You could borrow my car,” said Rani. “Holly’s insured on it. And it’s a family carrier, coz I have to pick up all my siblings from school sometimes, so you should all fit.”

“Are you sure that’s alright?” said Holly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rani replied. “I can always get a cab if need be. Just make sure you don’t get yourself killed before our anniversary; that wine was expensive.”

Holly stuck her tongue out at her.

“I don’t know, George,” said Lockwood, unconvinced. “It’s such a long way away for one case.”

“Trust me, Lockwood,” said George, “you’ll want in. Mr Taylor’s pretty desperate to have this place cleared; a lot of other agencies have failed. Here, I wrote down how much he’s willing to pay us.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Lockwood.

Lockwood stared at the paper. I leaned over his shoulder and gasped. “Did you… did you miss a decimal point or something?”

“Nope,” said George, grinning. “I triple checked.”

“Well,” said Lockwood, still staring at the paper, “I guess we’ll be having a company road trip to the seaside.”

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