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It felt like forever had passed by the time they touched down in London. Taxis were all booked so Owen helped to organize a rental car for them. The teenage boy moved slow, uninterested in his job. He spent a lot of time making small talk that no one was returning. He chatted about how England was having a warmer winter than they'd had in ten years. That fact felt like the knife in Jamie's stomach was twisted even more with the idea that the lake was probably not frozen over.

"Where are you headed?" The teenager asked. His pen was poised over the paperwork, waiting for an answer.

"Bly," Owen said.

"Huh, interesting." He wrote the name down on the paper and as he did, he said, "Just rented out to some cute American twenty minutes ago who was also headed that way. Small world, I guess."

For the first time, Jamie felt a small wave of hope pass through her. She looked at Owen, eyes wide. "Twenty minutes. We might make it in time."

They hadn't really given Miles and Flora the full story yet. The kids knew they were returning to Bly, knew Dani had left overnight to go there, but nothing more. They were smart kids, though, who understood the inner workings of their old home and their mind filled in the gaps on their own.

It was another long, quiet period of travel. The closer they got to Bly, the more anxiety stirred inside Miles and Flora in the backseat. They shared more and more looks between themselves. When they finally turned down the driveway to the manor, Flora gasped and grabbed her brother's hand.

Owen made to drive to the front entrance of Bly but Jamie instructed him to drive around to the lake.

"What, like over the grass?" Owen said. "Are you sure?"

"Not my grass, anymore," Jamie muttered. So, he turned the wheel and weaved between bushes and stone fixtures until he made it to the lake. Before he could even put the car in park, Jamie jumped out.

"Dani?" She yelled. She spun in a circle, trying to find any sign of the other woman. Next to the lake, Dani's jacket and bag sat on the ground. "No," Jamie whispered. Her heartbeat picked up with the fear that she was too late.

Behind Jamie, she heard Owen's feet crunch across dead leaves. "Oh, God, do you think she's in the lake?"

"Go back to the car," Jamie yelled over her shoulder. "Watch the kids and do not let Flora get out." He did as told and walked backward to the car, unable to peel his eyes from the lake.

Jamie waded into the water, completely oblivious to the shock of cold. Once the water was up to her waist, she went under. She caught sight of Dani's blonde hair floating below her. The water was muddy and tall plant life obstructed her view a bit, but she knew her mind wasn't playing tricks on her when Dani whipped around at the sound of water moving.

"Dani," Jamie sobbed through the water. She propelled herself forward and grabbed Dani's waist, pulling her back to the shoreline.

The two gasped for air at the surface. "What are you doing here?" Dani exclaimed, frustration edged around her words. They climbed out of the water and collapsed onto the wet grass.

Wet hair was stuck to Dani's face and Jamie pushed it back. "I thought because I understood that I would be okay with this, but I'm not. I'm not okay with losing you," Jamie said. "I need you and those kids need you. Owen dropped everything to help you. None of us want you to go. So please, Dani, I'm begging you. Please don't go."

Dani pulled Jamie against her and kissed her. "You," she ran her hand along the side of Jamie's face. "You, Jamie Taylor, are the love of my life. No matter what happens, you deserve to know that."

"And you're mine, Poppins. So I'm a bit stuck with you. I'm not leaving without you and do you really want me living in this big old house by myself for the rest of my life?" Jamie laughed a little.

"You would have a lot of room for plants," Dani offered.

Jamie laughed again, "You're right. Screw it."

Dani pressed her eyes closed and a shiver passed through her. It wasn't the cold that got to her, but the sadness. When she spoke, it was barely a notch above a whisper. "I'm okay, Jamie. I've made my peace with it."

As Jamie pressed her lips together, no doubt trying to drown a growing sob, she shook her head. "But I haven't." She grabbed Dani's hand and squeezed. With each word, her panic rose higher and higher inside of her. "I can't raise two kids without you, or run a business without you. Fuck, I don't know how to live without you."

"It's going to be difficult, but you've got Owen and Ellie." Dani looked at the wet grass beneath them as tears slipped down her face. Even as she said all these things, even as she accepted this was how her story ended, she still shook as she cried, she still held tight to Jamie's hand, not ready to let go. She was convincing herself just as much as she was convincing Jamie. "You've been to hell and back before. You can do it again."

Jamie rested her forehead against Dani's and gasped for air through her tears. "That wasn't hell. Hell is losing you."

"We don't have a choice," Dani said. "The kids…" her voice trailed off and she looked over her shoulder at them. It broke her heart. Their faces were pressed against the window, desperately trying to see what was happening. Owen was perched against the hood of the car. When he noticed Dani staring, he tried to divert his attention to the trees off to the side.

"They'd want you to say goodbye," Jamie whispered. She moved back from Dani and wiped her face. The two stood up together and they waited there, as cold and sadness filled up the space between them. It felt like the night Dani first took Jamie's hand outside Bly. Neither knew what was supposed to happen in that moment, or what the right thing was. Finally, Jamie cussed under her breath and threw her arms around her girlfriend, pulling her tight. "I love you."

Dani leaned into the hug and let out a deep sigh of relief. "I love you too," she said back. The goodbye was hard. She thought it would be too hard to have, but now she knew that not saying goodbye would have been even harder. They stood there, holding each other, tears pouring down their faces for what felt like forever but also nowhere near long enough. When Dani pulled away, she gave Jamie a long kiss then retrieved her bag from the ground. She silently handed it to Jamie who took it without question, but cried harder at the meaning behind it: Dani would no longer need it.

Sitting on the top of the bag was Henry's letter and it caught Jamie's attention. "You brought that?"

"I, I thought it would help me, but," Dani shook her head. "It didn't. All he wrote about was the history of Bly."

"Let me see," Jamie said. She picked up the letter and dropped the bag to the ground, knowing that she was just buying more time with Dani.

Dani leaned over the letter as Jamie opened it. "Apparently, some of the first owners were these two wealthy sisters. The oldest got married and had a baby. She got really sick with pneumonia and was pretty much confined to a bedroom for years until she died, basically unheard of during that time. Anyway, the younger sister and the husband fell in love, got married, and she raised the daughter as her own until one day she was mysteriously strangled in the middle of the night."

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Jamie asked. The cold was starting to kick in and she rubbed her arms.

Dani kept going. "The dad and the daughter left the next day. Before they went, they made sure to throw a trunk into the lake. Henry thinks it's the trunk that ties all of this together. He goes on to say if Flora is going to be saved, he has to be responsible for his part of the story. I don't really know what he means by that, but he wrote, 'There are some secrets so shameful even a man facing death cannot confess them'."

Jamie thought for a moment. "Well, he is Flora's real father. Or, at least we all thought."

"What do you mean?" Dani asked.

"I wasn't there when she was born, obviously, but according to Hannah there were just some questionable timelines regarding Flora's birth. Dominic would go on these long business trips and Henry would come stay almost the entire time. Even saw him leaving Charlotte's room early in the morning a few times." Jamie glanced back down at the letter. "Do you think that's what he's talking about?"

As she listened to Jamie talk about the affair, the Lady inside of her started to writhe with anger and pieces began to connect for Dani. "The Lady in the Lake is the older sister, she has to be. She sees Henry and Dominic's betrayal as a mirror of hers. That's why she's so attached to Flora. Every time she walked the house, she would probably see some part of it playing out and it angered her."

Jamie looked up from the letter and back to the lake. "Do you think the trunk is why Henry left you the place?"

"You said yourself, there's no reason why he did this," Dani reminded her.

"What was the thing he included in his will?" Jamie thought to herself and, when she had it, her eyes glistened with excitement. "Don't sell Bly until you break the lock. Maybe he means the locks on the trunk. That's probably what those weird keys are for."

Dani looked back down at the letter and then at the lake. Something inside of her seemed to be whispering into her ear that Jamie was right, that she had to find the trunk. It scared her, but she couldn't help but feel that if they had a chance, this was it. "If we try this," she started, slowly, "and it doesn't work, you have to promise me that you will turn around and leave as fast as you can. For Flora."

Jamie nodded, "For Flora."

The two dove back into the lake, this time together. Below the surface, Dani pointed it out to Jamie. It was a large, brown thing, with intricate metal work and three key holes. Each of the women grabbed a side and hoisted it up. It was heavy and they had to resurface a few times for air, but they eventually pushed it to a point in the lake where they could leverage it out of the water.

The trunk, now safely on the grass, poured water from its sides and corners. The metal was a bit rusted, but it had remained locked. "How do we open it?" Jamie asked. Dani remembered the keys that Henry had left her. She retrieved them quickly and found that they were a perfect match for each of the three locks. With the final lock turned, Dani went to open it, but Jamie clamped it back shut. "Are we sure this is the right thing to do? Maybe we're supposed to just destroy it or find a ghost to give it back to."

"It's the only thing to do," Dani said. Any feelings of doubt she had were pushed aside by the overwhelming feeling of eagerness. Every part of her was screaming out to open the trunk. It was all she could think about, the only thing her hands wanted to do. Jamie's finally moved over and together they hoisted the heavy lid open.

The contents of the trunk were perfectly kept despite its decades in the water. Beautiful dresses were folded carefully on top of each other. Gold jewelry rested on top of the fabric. To top it off, wilted rose petals were sprinkled throughout the trunk.

"Dresses?" Jamie said, almost disappointed. She stopped talking as soon as she realized that Dani's attention was no longer on the trunk but on her. When she met her girlfriend's gaze, time seemed to freeze and her heartbeat was so loud in her ears she couldn't hear anything else.

Dani's one blue eye was now just as brown as the one beside it.

Jamie wondered how much of the story Dani had told her was true and how much was a setup by the Lady in the Lake to take full control. A calm sense of dread passed over Jamie. She wondered if she should run, but she thought of the kids in the car. If she ran, the only place she could go was to the car in hopes of escaping, but if it didn't work then she would risk the lives of Owen, Miles, and Flora. If she stayed, let the Lady of the Lake take her, too, they would have time to leave.

She closed her eyes as Dani's hand wrapped around her neck and held tight.

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