Drawn by the sound of her parents’ voices from the living room, Emily walked down the stairs. Her disturbing dreams had continued through the night and she had woken, if anything, more exhausted than she had been when she fell asleep.
Yet she had to know that everything had finished, that the music box had been destroyed.
Why had she been so selfish? How could she have put her family into this situation? Emily vowed she would make it up to her parents somehow, that she would win their trust again, whatever it took.
Reaching the doorway to the living room, Emily saw her parents talking. She stepped in and looked over to the fireplace as they turned, realising she was there.
Emily felt weak at the knees and would have fallen completely if Percy had not reached down and caught her as she buckled. The music box sat there, glowing against the white pile of ashes that surrounded it.
“We tried Emily,” her father said gently, running his hand through her hair. “We kept the fire going the whole night through, we have no wood left.”
“Your father and I have decided we must go and bury it in the woods,” said her mother, a consoling hand on her arm. But Emily knew this would not suffice, that the music box would find a way to be found.
“That won’t be enough,” she announced to her parents, feeling the energy return as she realised she would have to be strong. “There is only one thing we can do, and I must be involved. It must be cast to the very bottom of the sea, to a place so deep that it can never be found.”
Emily knew both her parents were very much against her being out of bed, let alone out of the house, but she was so resolute in her purpose that they soon understood there was little point in trying to resist any further.
Isabelle knew, too, that Emily had been right. Nothing happened in the forest without being seen. Before long the temptation to peek at what they had buried would grow too strong and it would be unearthed by some witness or other.
But more than this, she knew that she herself could not have a day’s rest, knowing it was there. Already, she had been feeling urges, stronger by the hour, to have just a tiny look inside the box, to see what could possibly be inside that could explain everything that had happened.
She knew that it would be foolish, madness to tempt fate, but it felt like something that was increasingly out of her control. She wasn’t sure how Percy felt, but something kept her from talking to him about it, which in itself she knew was a very bad sign. She knew, for everybody’s sake, that Emily was right. The sea was the only place it could be, the only place where whatever power it held over Emily, and now threatened to hold over her, could be laid to rest once and for all.
They must do this, and they must do it without waiting one moment more.
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