Read Chapter 18: The Debt to a Ghost

The crypt smelled of cold stone and old earth, and Evelyn’s breath plumed in the lantern light as she crouched beside Annabel. The girl’s face was pale as candlewax, her cheekbones sharp against her skin, and she shivered beneath the moth-eaten blanket Mary had draped over her shoulders. For a long moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the drip of water somewhere deeper in the darkness.

“You said Mr. Thorne helped you,” Evelyn said, keeping her voice low. “Helped you how?”

Annabel’s eyes flicked toward Mary, who stood guard at the crypt’s narrow entrance, then back to Evelyn. There was something guarded in her gaze, a wariness that had not softened since Evelyn had first stepped through the iron gate. “He found me the night I was meant to die.”

Evelyn’s stomach tightened. “Meant to die?”

“Mother had finally decided,” Annabel said, her voice thin but steady. “She had been waiting for the right moment—for Father to be away, for the household to be distracted. I don’t know how she planned to do it, but I knew. I could see it in her eyes, the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t watching. Like I was a stain she meant to scrub from the floor.”

Mary shifted by the door, her face half in shadow. “She came to me first,” the servant said quietly. “Told me she feared for her life. I didn’t believe her—not at first. But then Miss Reeves came to me too.”

At the governess’s name, Annabel’s expression softened, and Evelyn saw a flicker of something raw pass across her face. Grief, perhaps. Or guilt.

“Miss Reeves,” Evelyn repeated, pressing gently. “She helped you.”

“More than helped.” Annabel’s voice cracked. “She saved me. She knew what Mother was planning before I did. She had been watching, keeping records, waiting for proof that would hold up against her. And when she realized there wasn’t time, she went to Mr. Thorne.”

Evelyn’s mind turned over the pieces. Mr. Thorne, the gardener, whose name had appeared in Miss Reeves’s ledger, owing a debt he could not repay. She had assumed it was money, or a position secured, some small kindness between servants and a governess. But now, sitting in the cold dark of the crypt with a girl who should have been dead, she understood the shape of it differently.

“She asked him to take you,” Evelyn said slowly, “from the estate. To hide you.”

“Not just to hide me.” Annabel pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “She asked him to marry me. To take me away, far from Blackwood, where Mother could never find me.” A bitter laugh escaped her, dry and brittle in the still air. “He said yes. He would have done anything for her, you see. Miss Reeves had saved his life.”

Evelyn’s brow furrowed. “How?”

Annabel looked at her then, and there was something older in her eyes, a knowledge worn thin by too many secrets. “Mr. Thorne was not always a gardener. Before he came to Blackwood, he was a soldier, and he killed a man in a duel over a woman’s honor. The man’s family wanted him hanged. Miss Reeves—she was not always a governess either, you know. She had connections, friends in places the Blackwoods would never dream of. She used them to have the charges quietly buried, and in return, Mr. Thorne swore he owed her a life.”

The words hung in the air, heavy as the tomb around them. Evelyn’s pulse quickened. “And so when she came to him and asked for that life back—for your life—he gave it.”

Annabel nodded slowly. “He arranged everything. The empty dress in the lake, the note, the rumors. He carried me here himself in the middle of the night and promised he would return as soon as the search quieted. But he never did.”

A silence fell between them, thick with unspoken questions. Evelyn remembered what Mary had told her—that Mr. Thorne had been found drowned in the lake, the same lake where Annabel’s dress had been discovered. She had thought it coincidence, a tragic bookend to a terrible story. Now she was not so sure.

“Mr. Thorne is dead,” Evelyn said softly, not as a question.

Annabel flinched, but she did not look away. “I know. I heard Mary speak of it when she first brought me food. I could not mourn him as I wished—could not even leave this place to see his grave.” Her voice faltered. “He died, and I owe him everything. He gave me his life so I could have mine.”

Evelyn’s thoughts raced. If Mr. Thorne had been in love with Annabel, or at least bound to her by a solemn promise to Miss Reeves, then his death carried a different weight. Someone had silenced him. Someone had known he was helping Annabel escape, and had chosen to stop him before he could return for her.

“Who found him?” Evelyn asked. “Who said it was an accident?”

Mary spoke from the doorway, her voice low and grim. “Lord Blackwood’s men. They pulled him from the water at dawn, said he must have slipped on the banks after too much drink. But Mr. Thorne did not drink. Everyone knew it.”

Evelyn’s chest tightened. The story was neat, too neat. A gardener who had helped a missing girl vanish, found drowned the very morning he was meant to return for her. And no one had questioned it. No one had looked beneath the surface of the water for the truth.

“If Mr. Thorne owed his life to Miss Reeves,” Evelyn murmured, thinking aloud, “then when she asked him to save you, he was repaying that debt. But if someone knew he was helping you—knew before he could return…” She trailed off, looking at Annabel. “Who else knew?”

Annabel shook her head slowly. “No one. We were careful. Miss Reeves trusted only Mr. Thorne and me. She had a plan to leave as well—she was going to write to Father herself, to tell him everything, once I was safe. But she vanished the same week Mr. Thorne died. I have wondered ever since if Mother’s men found her, if they silenced her for what she knew.”

“Or if someone else did,” Evelyn said carefully, watching Annabel’s face.

The girl’s expression flickered—a tightening at the corners of her mouth, a brief lowering of her eyes. “You think I did.”

The words were not an accusation, but they were close. Evelyn hesitated, feeling the fragile thread of trust between them. She had promised herself she would not push too hard, not yet, but the question lay between them now, cold as the stone floor.

“Miss Reeves was your friend,” Evelyn said quietly. “Your ally. I find it hard to believe you would harm her.”

“Then you are kind,” Annabel said, and there was a weariness in her voice that made Evelyn’s chest ache. “But kindness is a luxury I have not been able to afford for a long time. Miss Reeves was going to leave with me, you know. She had packed a bag, hidden it in the garden shed. She said we would go north, start a new life together, that no one would ever find us.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I believed her. I believed in her until the moment she disappeared.”

Evelyn’s mind snagged on the words. “She was going to leave with you? Not just to help you escape, but to come with you?”

Annabel nodded. “She was to be my companion, my guardian, until I was of age. She had no family left, she said. I was to be her new purpose.” A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she wiped it away roughly. “And then she was gone, and Mr. Thorne was dead, and I was alone in this crypt, waiting for a rescue that never came.”

Evelyn stared at her, the pieces rearranging themselves in her mind. Miss Reeves’s debts were not only to strangers. She had owed something to Annabel too—or perhaps she had simply loved her like a daughter. And if she had planned to leave with her, then her disappearance was not a betrayal or a flight. It was an interruption. Someone had stopped her before she could keep her promise.

“Miss Reeves’s ledger,” Evelyn said slowly. “The one she kept. I found it in the schoolroom. Do you know what she did with proof of your mother’s attempts against you?”

Annabel’s eyes widened, faint hope flickering across her pale face. “She said she had hidden it somewhere safe. Somewhere Mother would never think to look. She would not tell me where.”

Evelyn rose to her feet, her legs stiff from kneeling. Outside, the wind had picked up, whistling through the gaps in the old stones. “Then I have to find it. Before Lady Beatrice does.”

Mary stepped forward, her voice urgent. “And if she does? If her men find it first?”

Evelyn looked down at Annabel, who stared up at her with desperate, trusting eyes. The weight of the promise pressed against her chest.

“Then this crypt becomes a grave,” she said. “And we have run out of time.”