the resurrection apprentice

by kimaracretak

The corner that Graves had thought empty seems to shimmer as she blinks at it, the shadows parting around the suddenly weak lamps. And there, in the corner table, chin propped on her hand next to a half-empty wineglass, sat Sylvia Walsh, as if she didn't have a care in the world.

(Something comes back down from Dean House.)

The pub falls silent the moment the door swings shut behind Graves, and she tries not to take it personally. Better their silence than the inevitable, incessant questions the whole town has about the bodies up at Dean House.

The bodies she can't say anything about, lest it mean admitting Matilda Gray had the right of ... well, something.

Behind the bar, Trudy sets down the glass she was cleaning with a dull thud that's nonetheless enough to make most of the patrons turn back to their conversations. Graves ignores them all, weaving between tables to wait at the edge of the bar.

She scans the patrons as she waits for Trudy, fiddling with the edge of her hi-vis. The absences are almost more noticeable than the townsfolk present: no Tilly, no Hal, no Harry. But she knows better than to let her guard down just because nothing seems immediately out of place.

"Do you see her?" Trudy's voice, low and in Welsh, is still enough to make Graves jump even though she'd been waiting for it. She turns back to Trudy, pushing aside the momentary flicker of fear.

"Who?" She asks, dropping into Welsh as well. The English ones might not be around to hear, but she couldn't deny that the language felt like an extra measure of safety.

Trudy jerks her head towards the corner. "Her."

Her, indeed. The corner that Graves had thought empty seems to shimmer as she blinks at it, the shadows parting around the suddenly weak lamps. And there, in the corner table, chin propped on her hand next to a half-empty wineglass, sat Sylvia Walsh, as if she didn't have a care in the world.

"No," Graves murmurs, and "Yes," Trudy hisses, her own eyes also fixed on the corner she'd previously - Graves realises - been avoiding looking at.

"She came in alone just before I called you," Trudy continues. "Hasn't talked to anyone else. And no, I haven't seen Matilda," she says, anticipating Graves' next question. "But considering ... I just don't want anyone else kicking off in here, okay?"

She grimaces. "Yeah, let's not have an Aron Morgan repeat." She sighs, wishing a dram wasn't a bad idea before pushing off the bar. "I'll go talk to her."

Trudy pats her hand. Better you than me, she's not saying.

Sylvia doesn't look up as Graves sits down across from her. "Lot of people looking for you," Graves says quietly.

Sylvia shrugs, and the light ripples down her hair. "Found me." Her voice is calm, almost eerily so. It's the voice of a woman who doesn't know all her friends are dead, or maybe something worse.

"Right," Graves says. It's hard, suddenly, to remember everything she wanted to say, and she listens as the silence stretches on too long. "Can we talk outside?" But I just sat down, she thinks, before remembering that part of the reason Trudy called her was to get Sylvia outside.

Sylvia shrugs again, and stands up, taking her glass with her. "Lead on," she gestures to the door, and wine splashes up against the side of the glass, a deep blood-crimson pool where what light there is dies. Her eyes are just as dark, almost just as red, and for a moment Graves thinks about the thing up at Dean House with Stephen's watch on its wrist and something else for a face. If she turns her head, she can almost see it in the lines -

But she blinks, and it's just Sylvia again. At her side as they leave the pub, smirking as Graves mouths sorry about the glass at a glaring Trudy. Just Sylvia, like always.

Outside is dim, a sickly deep green edge clinging to the trees, the asphalt, the edges of the building that seem to bend around Sylvia's form. "Where to?" Sylvia asks in the car park, all innocence.

"The station," Graves starts to say, but what comes out is, "Your house." Why?

"Oh," Sylvia's face splits into a grin and she reaches out with her free hand to tuck a lock of hair behind Graves' ear. "I was hoping you'd say something like that."

And then, as a hand slides into hers, she feels the press of metal against her own wrist. Stephen's watch, she thinks, and dread settles in her stomach. She's going to lose the fight to keep her face blank sooner than she'd like.

She really should have listened to her first instinct.