With the aid of a crew, Thomas could make progress on the machine again. Shovels in hand, the men dug into the clay beneath the machine to return it to level ground. At Thomas's call, Finlay would pull the lever occasionally to test the wheels, but the contraption remained firmly stuck. At least the gears moved.
Around noon, Edith came out with hot meals for everyone. The townsmen loved her, all her quirks included. Being an American mistress made her approachable, for despite her high upbringing, she was no more familiar with aristocratic life than any of the locals. They liked to ask her questions of the railroads and wild west.
After lunch, Thomas helped collect the silverware and bring them indoors. Rolling up his sleeves, he quietly did the dishes, knowing Edith had retreated to the library to rest her feet. She was still there when he finished, curled on the windowsill with letters scattered about. No doubt she was going through finances again. A few looked like they may be references.
She noticed him by the entryway watching her.
"Thomas."
She said his name warmly. He took that as an invitation to join her side, though he felt abashed as he did. His hands were empty, and he regretted not having a drink or some other gift to offer her.
Edith handed him what looked to be a paper of importance.
"This came up when I was at the bank. With all the property renovations and hire we'll be going through, they said this will be easiest. What do you think?"
Thomas read it over once.
"Where do I sign?" he said.
Not expecting such a quick decision, Edith scrambled. She found her pen buried under a pile of half-torn envelopes. The gold gleamed in the light.
Thomas took the pen and gave his signature, before handing both back.
"Anything else I can do for you?"
Edith studied him, then pursed her lips, as if she did not trust the words that might come out. Her hand left her middle, in favor of gathering her paperwork. There was plenty of work to do.
"Not this moment, no."
She took a kiss with her on her way out. Her smile passed to his lips.
Thomas watched her go.
The glow did not last long. After Edith was gone, a chill went through him, as if the warmth in the room had followed her out. The library lost its colors, the neglect in the woodwork and carpentry apparent.
Suddenly, Thomas felt a stranger in his own home. An unwelcome one. He tried not to think too much on it, making his own way outside, where the men would have presumably noticed his absence.
When he reached the foyer, he noticed someone standing in the middle of the main entryway, half-inside, half-out, their body framed by the outside light.
"My apologies, tell them I'm coming right—"
The figure did not react.
Rather, there was no one there at all.
Thomas slowed, then came to a stop at the center of the room, just beneath the broken roof. He stared at the wide open door and its unobstructed view of the outside.
Another tick of time.
Nothing.
Thomas convinced himself it was a trick of the light. As he crossed the threshold, he felt another chill, despite the high sun making the outside warmer than indoors. He kept moving.
By the machine, the crew noticed Thomas and resumed their work. The afternoon chugged away with the sounds of labor.
Thomas oversaw their progress, occasionally getting involved himself. He cranked and pulled, testing the gears and releasing the steam.
The work distracted his mind, but never for long.
Something was still present.
Next to him.
Following him.
He could feel it.
Lucille used to tell him not to be so sensitive. She never felt any of the oddities in the house, or if she did, she was even better at turning her head than he was. As long as you did not acknowledge them, they did not exist.
Except they did.
Whether he believed or not, ghosts were real.
Edith had proved that the moment she met his mother. Over time, many more had spoken to her—his dead wives and child, all his sins laid bare. At some point Edith started speaking back.
Thomas never did ask Edith about them. He feared even a brief mention of the topic would dispel whatever enchantment kept her with him. She would be reminded of the skeletons in the basement; and of him, the monster who put them there. The dead would take the opportunity to condemn his name, detailing crimes he could not deny. And talking it through, Edith would realize what a mistake staying had been, what an atrocity of a man she had married. No charming words or gestures would save him then.
No, he couldn't risk talking to Edith about it. He didn't dare.
He didn't want her to see any more of his past self. It was his future self he wanted to give her. A man of success and wealth, like her father. Honest and respectable. A good man.
He looked helplessly at his machine. Work. If only it would work. Free him. Carry him forward like the engines of a mighty train.
Finlay scratched the scruffles of his beard.
"What's next, Master Thomas?"
Thomas couldn't tell him there was nothing next. Theoretically, the machine should run now. But it remained stubbornly inanimate, leaving him stuck in place alongside it.
A wisp caught his eye. Perched at the very top of the crane, a silhouette blew like the flag of a ship. Its presence eclipsed the whole machine like an overcast shadow. It had no eyes.
Still, he could feel it staring at him.
Thomas kept his head down, unwilling to look back. To the crew, he put on a face of confidence, as if he was in control and not on the precipice of a disastrous fall.
"So what's next?" someone repeated.
Everyone was waiting.
He thought of Edith again. In the months since her return, she had seized the land and made it yield. She walked from room to room without fear. All the things that go bump in the night, she no longer ran from, but approached with open arms and made her allies.
What kind of coward did that make him.
The future had no room for a dithering boy, quivering and uncertain—and in his own birthplace, no less.
"Coal," he finally breathed, looking up. "Let me get more coal for the steamer."
Satisfied, the figure lowered its gangly arm, dissipating into nothing. Steeling himself, Thomas left the machine and the crew, slowly trekking through the fields.
He knew what awaited him ahead.
The mouth to the underground mines was framed by timbers. Beyond lay a dark tunnel that ran through to the basement of the mansion. The land was dead of plant life here, exposing the unnatural redness of the soil below. A reminder of the frigid horror that was Crimson Peak, dormant now but ready to erupt again.
No. No more. He thought of the machine. He thought of Edith. To join her in the future, he had to stop hiding from the past.
Thomas slowly clenched his fists and opened his eyes, putting on his best face of bravery.
"What do you want?" he asked stiffly.
Silence.
He stood ever more still, waiting.
For years, they wanted him to listen. It was time he did.
He would listen and brace himself for what came next. If they wanted a fight, he would fight. If they wanted to bargain, he would bargain.
Whatever it took to settle this. They could haunt him, they could feed his nightmares, they could force him into one sleepless night after the next, but they would leave his work alone.
That one moment of invitation was all they needed, a single second in which Thomas abruptly felt himself lose balance.
After a panicked breath, he felt it again, an invisible tug at his leg.
Heart pounding, he found his center. He forced himself to move in the direction of the pull, first five, then ten feet away.
A distant bark.
He turned his head. The sound was directionless, and yet Thomas seemed to know where it came from.
"Doggie?" he whispered, taking another step.
He felt another brush against his leg. His lips thinned into a fearful smile, as he followed what he presumed was his deceased wife's pet.
He had nearly circled to the back of the house when he lost sense of any presence. He was far enough to no longer hear the voices of his crew. He looked around. There was nothing but a few isolated trees and patches of dead grass and the endless moors beyond.
Lost, he stopped. An uneasy feeling crept up his stomach. Something about the place he was standing in seemed familiar.
When he looked up at the mansion, he understood why.
Two floors up was the window. The same window he had repaired. The same window he had peered out of when he saw the figure.
It had been standing in the same place he did now.
He stared into the narrow, visible portions of the empty hallway. To still his tremble, he gripped his own arms tightly, as he anticipated what came next.
To fight.
To bargain.
To sacrifice, though they were solely mistaken if they thought to convince him to take his own life.
Thomas misunderstood, his fears misplaced.
The dead were dead. They cared not for what he had to give, for they could never receive.
This was not for them.
The curtains spread open.
It came not from the window he was staring at, however, but from one diagonal. Standing before the oriel was something human in size and shape. It took Thomas a moment to realize that he was looking at his sister.
Lucille did not look right. She was moving strangely, without any of her characteristic elegance and control. Her actions were stilted and abrupt, as if her limbs were pulled by strings.
She never saw him, too preoccupied in her plans. It was the one part of her that could still be recognized—her bitter resolution and resolve. The resolve that helped them survive, that guided them through all of life's trials and tribulations. The resolve that was put to a different use now.
Thomas froze upon seeing what she held in her hands.
Lucille couldn't hear him.
The dead were dead. Their pages had already been turned, their tales already completed. If Thomas had any fears left, it should not be for the dead but for the living.
The machine roared. The crew cheered, Finlay waving down his young master to no avail. Thomas did not even see them, did not notice his success, as he pushed a man down in his rush to get inside the mansion.
A second scream. This one came from Edith.
It could be heard all the way from the stairs, up through the hallways.
The door to Lucille's room was wide open. Framed against the window was one vertical line and two women, fabric to fabric, flesh to flesh, waves of thick dark hair flowing down into golden blonde. The first woman, an expression of sleep; the other, wide-awake, hysterical.
"Oh God, Thomas! Thomas, help!"
Edith gave another cry when her balance faltered. She looked up her arms to Lucille.
Bare feet dangled off the floor. Without Edith, they would be dangling lower.
Thomas wasted no time taking his sister from Edith, keeping her body holstered up. He stared in horror at the noose fastened around Lucille's neck.
"Get it off her! Get it off now!"
Edith was trying. The knot was too high. The fabric was too thick. Lucille had created her weapon with finality, torn and twisted and tightened the bedsheet until it would not fail.
There was no time to run down for a knife; Edith had found Lucille only moments before Thomas sprang in. By then, the body had already swung.
Frantic, Edith helplessly looked around. Her eyes traced up the noose to the curtain rod, then to the curtains themselves.
Without another moment's hesitation, she grabbed the curtains and pulled herself up. She managed to wrap one shaking hand around the rod, then both.
It was not enough. Her weight alone was not enough. Finding her strength, Edith pressed her good foot against the wall. She held on tighter and yanked.
That did it. The bolt snapped free from the wall, sending one end of the curtain rod swinging down. Edith fell down with a painful thud amidst the folds of curtains. Lucille dropped into Thomas's arms.
Together, Thomas and Edith worked to unknot the bedsheet and free it from Lucille's neck.
"Lucille! Lucille, do you hear me? Lucille, wake up!"
Thomas shook Lucille harder, his eyes stricken with tears.
"She's still breathing, Thomas, she's still breathing," Edith gasped, holding onto his shoulder. "It'll be okay, it'll be okay." She kept repeating it until Thomas stopping choking, at which point she squeezed his arm to keep him anchored, to keep him from being pulled further into the storm. He needed to breathe too.
They all needed to breathe.
Only none of them could. Not Thomas, who cradled his sister in raw desperation, begging her to wake up. Not the bride, who watched her husband fall further and further into shambles.
In the room, a twisted, angular shadow faded into the wallpaper.
Edith caught it just before it left, the wisping silhouette of the one who had led her here.
Lady Beatrice Sharpe.
The house keys were still at the door, one key in the keyhole.