Perhaps - under different circumstances- Matilda Lockwood might have been grateful for the silence that currently filled the kitchen. After all, it was hard to experience peace and quiet in a house occupied by a moody girl with a country drawl, a messy and insulting researcher, a younger brother always complaining or pretending to be professional, and an eighteen year old depressed woman who always had something nasty to say in response to something that annoyed her.
However, this silence that surrounded Matilda wasn't exactly peaceful. In fact, it was laced with tense anxiety and worry.
Matilda sat across the table from George Karim. They didn't speak - and that was the silence. The only actual noise in the room was George nervously flipping through the newspaper clippings he and Matilda gathered the night before on the case. The case that the other two had left for without them. There was also the sound of Matilda writing on the thinking cloth, her chin in her hand, her knuckles white from clutching her pen. She wrote a poem. They always helped to calm her when she was restless. Every once in a while, one of them would take a sip of tea, or sniff, clear their throat, but they didn't speak.
Matilda had only been living with her brother and his associates for three months - and by no means was she back on good terms with him - but when he didn't return the night before, and when the morning news came out, the young woman was immediately horrified for what could have happened.
Matilda told herself she wasn't worried. Why should she be? Her brother was a pain in the arse and had done nothing but piss her off for the past two years - so much so to the point where she left home. She shouldn't be worried.
But perhaps it was some evolutionary - sisterly - instinct that caused Matilda to stare at the television screen that morning next to George with wide eyes and an aghast expression.
Whatever it was, she knew she wasn't feeling it willingly.
As George sat at the kitchen table with Matilda at nine twenty-two that morning, he stared at what the older teenager was writing. A poem, so far consisting of four lines - written in dark ink messily. George suspected that he wouldn't be able to read the poem until later when Matolda walked away, as she tended to be a bit protective of her creations at first. There was several of her poems sprawled on the thinking cloth already, and George had read them all. His favorite was one Matilda named "Colbat".
Cobaltt
He has always had
cold fingers.
In the winter they
turn blue.
He is cobalt.
She used to have
shimmering eyes.
In the sunlight they
glowed sapphire.
She is cobalt.
I now always have
ghost-touched thoughts.
In the darkness they
poison my heart.
I am cobalt.
- M.L.
George didn't know the context behind this poem of Matilda's, but he could only guess it had something to due with her past. Most poems do. But it was also curious. George knew that Matilda's brother hated poetry, thought it was "a load of ninny and barmy." Maybe Matilda's interest in poetry came from her brother's dislike for it. Another way to annoy his arse.
The Lockwood siblings were a right foul mystery to George Karim. As far as he could tell, they were very well not found of one another. They constantly did or said things just to berate the other. On more than one occasion George and Lucy had stood outside the kitchen or the library with saddened expressions when a fight between the brother and sister broke out. They both would scream verbal abuse, throwing things, shove each other around. Once, Matilda had pushed her younger brother into the umbrella stand of rapiers in the hall, and the blade of one had cut through his shirt and sliced a thin line across his back. George was the one to clean the cut, and had listened to his friend's upset ramblings. That was the only time George had ever seen his employer - his best friend - cry. Matilda didn't speak a word to anyone for a week after that.
George only had minuscule hints and clues as to what had happened between the Lockwood siblings two year ago. He knew it had to have been bad, and from what he'd gathered in Matilda's thinking cloth poems, it was tragic, too.
When Matilda set her pen down, George was quick to flicker his eyes back down to the newspaper clipping still sitting limp in his hand.
Matilda sighed quietly. Her hand reached for her half empty and now cold cup of tea, but paused abruptly when they heard the doorbell ring.
Matilda and George turned their heads to the hall, and then glanced at each other. They both sprung from their chairs and left the kitchen.
Holding her breath, Matilda was the one to open the door.
She was met with the sigh of Lucy Carlyle - newest member of the Lockwood & Co. agency, if you don't count Matilda. Lucy was wearing a hospital gown, blue with rainbows, clouds and unicorns. She held her jacket in her right hand, her face was blemished with tiny cuts and scratches.
Lucy was a Listener, just like Matilda. She had a snarky attitude, was bold, and could come up with insults in quick time. Matilda suspected that was why they both got along so well.
Matilda was beyond grateful that Lucy was alive and well, but she felt a conspicuous pit of dread form in her stomach when she saw that her brother did not stand beside the younger girl.
But still, Matilda sighed in relief and hugged Lucy's tense form, which only grew more stiff with the action - Lucy had never seen Matilda hug anyone. She had in fact been convinced the Lockwood girl was incapable of showing affection through actions.
George came up on the other side of the open door way as Matilda stepped away from Lucy's stiff form and had a more direct reaction than the eighteen year old.
"Where's Lockwood?" George asked.
Lucy pushed past the other two to step inside. "Don't sound to pleased to see me." She grumbled. Matilda closed the door behind her and she and George turned as Lucy walked up the hall. "How about, 'Oh My God, Lucy, I'm so glad you're okay' or 'I'm so relieved you're still alive'?"
The other two followed Lucy through the library.
"Oh my God, Lucy, I'm so glad you're okay. I'm so relieved you're alive." George said in a voice that made it hard to tell if he was being sincere or not.
Lucy spun around yo stare at her associate. "Don't just say exactly those words!" She turned back around, exasperated, and entered the kitchen
"Lucy," George said, seemingly not caring about the previous statement and following the girl with Matilda close behind. "Where's Lockwood?!"
When they entered the kitchen, Lucy was at the sink, filling a glass cup with tap water. "How the hell should I know? He just...disappeared." She mumbled before gulping about half of the cup down.
It seemed that only then George realized what Lucy was wearing, and his eyes grew wide. "You've been in a hospital." He stated. "Why were you in a hospital?!"
Lucy closed her eyes, frustrated and exhausted. "George. Just give me a second."
"If you're talking metaphorically, please tell me what you mean by a second." George said, talking fast. "Because if its longer than a minute, I'll occupy myself while you waste your time-"
"In the last twelve hours-" Lucy sudden interrupted George with a raised, angry voice. "- I have nearly been murdered by a Type Two. Twice." Lucy turned to George and started walking towards him as she spoke, progressive getting louder and more aggressive. "I've jumped from a burning house, fallen twenty feet face-first into a bush, and had a tube shoved down me throat to hoover out me lungs, so give me a second!"
If she hadn't been so angry, George would have commented on Lucy's country drawl coming through her accent. But somehow, he still found it in him to patronize her.
"If you'd waited for Matilda and I, none of this would've happened." George said as Lucy turned to set down at the table.
"You were late." Lucy said simply.
"I was doing my job so we'd know what we were walking into, which I'm assuming wasn't a man who fell down the stairs-"
"That's her." Lucy whispered to herself, staring at one of the newspaper clippings as she sat down.
"How exactly did the house catch fire, Lucy?" George asked, disregarding her whisper and sitting down. Matilda, who still hadn't said anything, sat back where she'd been before the doorbell rang.
Lucy held the paper and stared down at it, ignoring George. "God, she was so young."
"You burned it dow, didn't you?!"
"This woman. Who was she?" Lucy asked, pointing to the picture of a victim in the paper.
George stared at her. "You're not even listening."
"George." Lucy's voice was stern. "This picture. This is the woman whose ghost attacked us last night. It felt like...she needed my help. Tell me who she was."
Matilda answered before George could. "Annabel Ward." Lucy turned to her. "She was an aspiring actress. Rising star in the eighties, all set for Hollywood. But then she went missing."
"We found her body bricked up in a chimney." Lucy said. "Someone did that to her."
Of course, George had something snarky in response. "Maybe if you been more interested before you went charging in there-"
"That was Lockwood's decision! I've only just started!" Lucy said defensively. "What am I supposed to say to him?"
"No!" Matilda said, exasperated. "You're meant to say no! My brother may be the leader of this agency but he's incredibly dim and insanely reckless!"
"Yes, exactly," George said. "You have to, or you'll make him...worse-"
All three of them turned their heads at the sound of the kitchen door opening and a familiar, exhausted voice.
"Glad to see you three getting on without me."
In the doorway stood Anthony Lockwood. Sixteen years old like the others, sporting a white button down shirt and black tie, normally flawless hair a right mess, soot covered face, trenchcoat over his left arm, and Trademark Anthony Lockwood Grin gracing his lips rather exhaustedly.
"I'd say like a house on fire, but-"
Lockwood - as he insisted on being called - was cut off by his older sister jumping up from her chair, scowling.
"Where the hell have you been?!" Matilda demanded, her voice whispy with incredulity and relived anxiety.
The other two teenagers stood up as well, asking their own questions.
"Aren't you hurt?" Lucy asked.
"Why didn't you wait for us?!" Asked George.
"Matilda and George know who that ghost was." Lucy held out the news clipping. "Mattie said that-"
"Can we please do this later?" Lockwood asked with a tired sigh. Everyone went silent. "I need to sleep. Let's catch up over breakfast, yeah?" He settled his eyes on George. "If you could make your ghormeh sabzi with a shedload of rice, I'd love you forever, mate." He offered a quaint, already thankful smile before turning to leave, but he paused when he realized what Lucy was dressed in. He looked her up and down and furrowed his eyebrows, poking out his bottom lip thoughtfully, and nodded once. "Ingeresting outfit, Luce. Didn't have you down as a fan of unicorns. Or rainbows." He smiled small again, and left the kitchen, his footsteps fading.
Lucy, self-consciously, tugged at her hospital gown. George stared at the doorway before aggressively turning around to the stove.
Matilda watched her brother leave, a lump in her throat, before turning to George. "Uh, do you need help with cooking, George?"
The boy in glasses glanced back at her, hesitating. Then he shook his head. "No. Not at the moment." Matilda nodded slightly. George hesitated again. "Go talk to him." He told the girl.
Matilda tilted her chin slightly and made a sad face - one that said George should know that was a bad idea.
"You'll be fine." The boy told her, shrugging.
Matilda sighed, scratched the back ofher neck as she thought about it. "Okay." She muttered. The two younger teenagers watched her walk out of the kitchen following her brother's steps.
George waited until he heard Matilda open Lockwood's bedroom door and close it again before he slunk away from the stove and back towards the table.
Lucy watched him with furrowed eyebrows. "George, what-"
The boy shushed her as he walked around to the side of the table that Matilda had been sitting at all morning. His eyes settled on her new poem, and he read it in his head.
Arson
It wasn't on purpose,
because
tragic things don't happen
by themselves.
It wasn't on purpose,
because
a single person can't cause this.
Maybe it was on purpose,
because
it wasn't a
person at all who
did this.
No.
It wasn't on purpose,
because
she didn't see it coming.
It wasn't on purpose,
because
he was too young to
stop it.
Like the burning house,
it wasn't on purpose,
but what it did to my heart,
felt like arson.
- M.L.