TO THE BONE ✷ VOL. I, AFTERSHOCK

AMELIE'S DEATH IS not for nothing. Before the Red Room, before nights spent begging to be clean, Iseult had been tender like the soft underbelly; the overly ripe fruit, long forgotten in some carved-out corner, blistering under the sun. But she quickly learns that tenderness does not stand a chance against the truth. The truth, as she comes to learn, is crushing. And so, Isa learns to be crushing too. She no longer begs for what she wants; she takes it. She stops pulling teeth and starts carving them out. She kills the softness, smothers the desire, becomes less reticent, more teeth, more hunger.

Grief has stripped her bare and there are no more wildflowers or braided hair or secrets whispered beneath covers—no more softness of sisterhood, no more swimming in lakes, no sticky candy and no more baby teeth. And though Iseult had stood with the legs of a newborn deer and barely crawled her way through the threshold of the Red Room, she had not made it out alive. She knows this much because she never really left that house. When she dreams, she is there, stuck beneath the floorboards, buried in the lining of its skin, still in the belly of the beast with Amelie and her crown of thorns and weeping wound.

And when they said that all who entered the house up on the hill would die, they were right. No one ever left, just stayed stuck in amber, reliving the worst moments of their lives—the moments that would erode at them—when they were monstrous, when they were loved, the moment of their death, the moments where they wished they had died. And if they were still here, wouldn't that just eat at them?

So, for the past few months Iseult has been half-dead, half-bleary eyed nonbeliever. She hasn't worked since August, and Amelie's mother still forces her to go to church every Sunday and gets a little too heavy-handed in the evenings when she's had too much to drink, and no one is there to protect Isa so she learns to make herself small. She chips away at herself, molds herself into something that can be stomached. It's survival. And as unflinching as she becomes, she never quite unlearns how to disappear.

Still, even after months of wasting away, Amelie's mother doesn't make her move out—her one kindness—but really, Isa knows that it is inherently selfish. Amelie's mother is mourning, not in the way that you would a loved one, but in the way you would when you lose something that you thought would always be yours. Even Amelie's mother, as unsparing as she is, knows the truth.

There is nothing worse than being alone.

Now it's mid-November and Isa is withering against the sharp winds and unforgiving morning light. She leaves through the front door, not bothering to shut it on the way out; she doesn't bother with existing like a ghost—never again. This is the last time that she will ever be in the house where she disappeared, with the person who carved so much fear into her.

She becomes very good at leaving.

If Amelie were here, they would leave together, dropping their bags from their bedroom window and clambering down the side of the house, messy limbs and all. There would be the familiar taste of fear and anger and guilt, but mostly something foreign; it would be hope. Amelie always had dreams, had an insatiable longing, and Iseult had always had Amelie. Isa comes to find that she never really had anything outside of Amelie—no real hunger for anything more than to be seen.

But Amelie is not here. Her body is freshly buried at the cemetery by the church. So, Iseult travels alone with two bags and her rapier strapped to her hip. She leaves in the morning before Amelie's mother wakes and heads to the train station at the edge of town. But first, she has to see the grave, the place where they buried her body—but not Amelie. The sunken flesh, the sutured wound, the pale, weeping eyes—that wasn't Amelie. Still, she visits anyways, reads the headstone that says Amelie Ward, nothing more, nothing less.

When she touches the newly turned soil, she knows that it can't be Amelie with so little life, so little to give. And when she turns to look at the church—its looming steeple, its watchful eyes—she doesn't beg for forgiveness or the things that she hungers for. She kills the hunger and takes what she wants.

She takes one last look at the pews where she and Amelie would dream about the future instead of singing hymns, where the nuns would whip her knuckles when she said the words wrong—one last look at the place where she tried to atone but found nothing greater than herself and one last look at Christ hanging from the cross, one last martyr and one last glimpse of Amelie.

When she arrives at the train station she can see everything. The chimney of her old house peeking out in the distance, the house on top of the hill, shrouded by trees, and the church—a beautiful, stretching pyre with wisps of smoke waning like ghosts in the morning light. The church, its bones, its jeering sanctimony, like a beacon of light. The entry goes up in flames first, then the pews, the bibles, and Christ himself still nailed to that cross, drenched in gasoline that spills over him like blood.

There are screams from the passengers, wildflowers outside the train window, awards with Amelie's name that were never taken down in the living room, and a great, burning offering at the heart of it all.

Iseult takes a seat by the window, wipes her hands on her jeans and pulls the black gloves up to her elbows. The faint smell of gasoline still lingers on her skin, but it doesn't bother her.

She turns to the sun and doesn't look back.

THE LIGHT OVERHEAD flickers violently. Beneath the ghost-lamp, Iseult is shrouded in a fluorescent green light. It's cold and detached and flooded by moths who each take their turn kissing the light, escaping the darkness. But Isa, reeling from the aftershock, is ghostlike, hollowed out, ripped right open. She stares out into the darkness and the darkness stares back.

She'd left early in the morning, not really knowing what she was hoping to find. All she knew was that she couldn't stay. So with her belongings and her savings and all of the grief that she could carry, she came to London which no longer feels like a dream but somehow, still feels so far away. It's not what she had thought it would be. It's nothing like Amelie had said. Amelie had always had a way of making such ugly things into something beautiful. She turned pain into love, ghosts became memories, her own suffering a testament to her strength. But it had ruined Isa.

All she could do was turn good things bad. Isa had never really had the capacity to create, only to cut away at herself.

She feels like that now. Even though she does nothing, hands glued to her sides, weighted down by an unseen force, she still feels the familiar gnawing erosion, chipping away at her. She becomes a small, sad thing—the dead bird driven into the pavement, a wingless, feeble thing, unimpressive even in death.

But this feeling isn't hers, no matter how much it feels like it. The dark shadowy figure that stands at the edge of the tree line swallows her grief like it's starved—and truthfully, Isa thinks that she is familiar with its hunger, even has some of her own.

Anyone else would run—anything to escape that harrowing feeling, that emptiness. But Iseult doesn't bother.

          This is how she feels all the time.

In all of her sadness and longing, Isa doesn't notice the two lone figures hovering a few feet behind her. They come so quietly, so unexpectedly, that even Isa cannot feel them.

          "Excuse me? Are you alright?" The voice is gentle, concerned, unlike the next voice that comes.

          "Are you alright?" It's jeering, comes with a scoff. "Lockwood, she's obviously mad. She's having a pissing contest with a stalker!" His voice is pitchy, riddled with wariness and distrust. Already, Isa can hear the self-preservation, not as self-sacrificing as his companion. He adds on, more so an afterthought. "Figurative, not literal."

It's silent for a moment. Isa doesn't turn around, no one moves—not Isa, not the stalker, not the two strangers behind her—not until a hand brushes her shoulder and her body reacts so viscerally, so violently that both her and the boy flinch as if they've been burned.

She looks at them, watchful now that the stalker goes forgotten. One of them, the offender, cradles his hand against his chest, worry and surprise clear across his face. He's handsome in an uninteresting way. Too clean, too pleasant; his smile unnerves her. It's been practiced—a tool, the sharpened blade of a knife as it curves.

          "I'm sorry. I hadn't meant to startle you." That smile: easy, manufactured. She stares at his mouth and then his eyes. The boys share a wary glance.

But Isa is making note of the dark bags beneath his eyes, monuments of his burdens. The way he holds himself, the way he smiles, the way he grabs for control of the situation, almost distracts from his eyes. Almost. But Iseult knows better. Nothing could veil that kind of pain from her, that self-loathing, the plague of grief.

          "You're sorry you startled her?" Again, the other boy's voice comes out higher. He can't get a read on her; he doesn't like what he doesn't know. "She's more of a danger to us than we are to her!"

Now Isa has turned her attention onto him, the wiry, uneasy thing that he is. He pales under her watchful gaze. It's harrowing, how she looks at him like she has seen every dark thing that lives inside of him, has known every ugly truth that has ever been his.

And there is a darkness. Beneath the weary eyes and nimble fingers peeling at his own skin, there are edges, there are teeth. There is a hunger.

No one else would be able to finger past the softness, the unthreatening demeanor, the endearing oddities. No one else would question if the walls that he had built up actually kept anything out, or if all they had done was keep him caged with all of his dark thoughts—the jealousy, neediness, the disgust, and worst of all, that ugly, long-suffering hunger to be seen.

He looks away first. Her stare is unnerving, and maybe he's coming to find, that being seen for all that you are is an ugly thing after all.

          "George," the other boy scolds. His suit almost blends into the night. Isa thinks that he looks ghost-like in many ways, haunted, but she knows that she is no better. Lockwood turns back to her. "It isn't safe to be out past curfew. Ghosts can be quite interesting to witness, but they're also very dangerous." He doesn't mean to, but Isa notes that he's speaking to her with the softness that you would with a child. "Especially if you haven't been trained to deal with them."

Isa rolls her eyes, an action that takes Lockwood by surprise. She had seemed so despondent, so lifeless, that it hadn't occurred to him that he was not a hero—not tonight.

          "And you've been trained to deal with them, then?" Isa asks, half-turned on the bench to face them.

          Lockwood straightens up and clears his throat—and then, that smile. "That's right. I have my own agency. You might have heard of us," he pauses with an easy shrug. "Lockwood and co."

          "Do you think that rapier and a silly piece of paper means that you know anything?" Isa questions coldly. It's unfamiliar, but so are a lot of things lately. It sounds like the burning church, the blazing pyre in that small town. It feels like it too. "Believe it or not, there are worse things in this world than ghosts." The guilt swells; she swallows it. "If you were anyone that mattered then I would have heard of you. You're just boys who have been handed swords and have been told to kill what you don't understand—all because the people that were supposed to keep you safe have failed you."

For a moment, no one says anything at all. The weighted groans and sounds of shuffling feet have disappeared. They are truly alone.

          And then: "And what of you?" Isa doesn't respond, just really looks at him. Lockwood continues, "You're just a girl with a sword being told to kill what you don't understand." It's scornful when he says it. Isa can tell that she's struck a nerve, but when her eyes follow his down to the barely visible gleaming hilt of her rapier on the bench, she feels sick.

It feels like a violation. She feels vulnerable again, like how she felt in that house without Amelie. She feels powerless. She feels the guilt eating away at her, can feel the blood that never came clean.

Without saying anything, Isa slings her bags over her shoulder, rises to her feet, and grabs that dreaded rapier. George looks between the two of them with wide eyes, but says nothing. If it were up to him he would let her walk away, would let her leave without another word. Later, he might wonder what happened to the dark haired girl that they had met once in the park, the girl who looked half-dead but still had enough life to see them as they were—the child soldiers whose childhood was ripped away from them. He might wonder what she saw when she looked at him, wondered if she had seen him for all that he was. And then, he would wonder if she could have seen that darkness, that hunger, and stayed anyways.

But he doesn't have to wonder. Before she leaves, Lockwood comes to his own decision. He'd been oddly quiet after his remark. It had been uncharacteristically mindless. As reckless as he was, Lockwood was also calculated and cunning. The recklessness was fine so long as he was in control of it. But Isa's words had dug deep. She had peeled away the perfectly crafted mask and like an animal that has been backed into a corner, he lunged for her, hooked teeth and all. It was pure ire, so intense, that for a moment he was certain it couldn't be his—not all of it at least. But the worst part was not her detached tone, the condescending words, or rejection of his kindness—no, the worst part was the truth of it. The truth was something that he just couldn't stomach.

He would have readily let her walk away, would have bid her good riddance and went home to tend to his wounded ego, but something had stopped him in his tracks. It was her eyes, the overwhelming grief. Lockwood knows what drowning looks like. He knows all too well how suffocating loss can be. And when he had reminded Iseult of her glaring rapier, she seemed so human, so real. She certainly didn't seem like the lunatic that George was convinced she was. She really did just seem like a girl with a sword and too much grief and nowhere to lay it down.

          "Wait," he calls out. His voice is strong, so certain that she does stop in her tracks. "I didn't mean that."

          "No," Isa bites back. "You did."

          Lockwood pauses for a moment to really look at her tired eyes, the furrow of her brow. He decides that he won't bother with lies, even the pleasant ones. "I wanted to hurt you," he confesses. "Now, I'm wishing that I hadn't."

George still says nothing, just bites his cheek. He knows he doesn't have a say, not really. He feels like an outsider looking in at his own life. Nothing has ever felt more lonely than this.

          Isa stills. The candor had been unexpected. A good politician never sheds their mask, but again, he is just a boy—nothing more, nothing less. So she asks, "What do you want?"

          "You've passed the fourth grade, haven't you?"

She gives a short nod.

          Lockwood nods in approval. "And which agency did you train at?"

          "St. Mary's."

          He chuckles. "Right. I heard about the agency run by nuns. Figured it was just an exaggeration, not an actual convent."

          George speaks up for the first time in a while. "Doesn't seem very righteous, does it?"

          "No," Isa agrees absently. "Not very righteous at all."

"St. Mary's is up North, no?" Lockwood raises a brow, but doesn't wait for an answer. "It's eleven o'clock now, so not exactly a day trip, is it?"

          "How observant of you," Isa says flatly.

          "You need a place to stay," He states; there's no uncertainty. He's factual about it with his cunning smile. "And we need another member."

"No," George interjects quickly with wide eyes. "No, we don't!"

Isa watches him warily. She can read him so easily that even with her gloves on and a great distance between them, she can still feel his distrust, but more so the stabbing insecurity. George hadn't found many people who could stomach him. He was sarcastic to a fault, had a hard time understanding other people, spent more time between pages than anywhere else. He was obsessive at times, short when he didn't mean to be, and never as kind as he knows he should be. He was not for everyone, a fact that he'd become quite used to. But him and Lockwood made sense—they fit.

George had never taken kindly to strangers. He could never read other people, could never understand their motives or what they thought of him. Books are easy but people? Not so much. People are not open books. Certainly not Isa who he notices has been watching him curiously the whole time. The worst part is that she takes no offense, shows no real interest in his words at all. She just looks at him with her dark eyes and he feels so vulnerable, so small that it scares him.

No one has ever looked at him like that. No one has ever really seen him at all.

Lockwood just shakes his head at the boy—not surprised, not even disappointed. He expected this resistance and there's a fond tug of his lips at his friend's words. "We do need another member," he corrects. "We're a growing agency, you see? Two people isn't exactly a team, now is it?"

It's not cruel or biting, but still, George feels that suffocating insecurity. He often feels small and sad and inadequate, and he's never really known what to do with that. Isa notices of course. She sees his eyes fall to his feet, tracing the laces on his sneakers. He gets lost in thought, worries that he's not enough—wants to be somewhere else, be someone else—sees himself as unworthy, unwanted, unseen. Less worship, more abasement.

Lockwood continues. "You'll come back with us tonight. We'll give you a bed, a proper meal—" He pauses briefly. "And in the morning we'll provide you with a few tests. Then we will decide whether or not you'll be joining Lockwood and Co."

He looks at George then and waits. No one says anything, not a movement, not even a breath. It's not even really about Isa or where she fits into the picture. When he looks at George with his tired eyes and shoulders sinking from the weight of the cross, there is an underlying question of faith. Do you believe in me?

Finally, George gives a single determining nod.

          I believe in you. Believe in me too.

35 PORTLAND ROW is alive—not haunted like every other house that Isa had stepped foot in before. There's so much warmth and life and memories that it's suffocating. Not in the way that you feel when you're drowning, but in a way where you feel truly full. Even if it wasn't really hers to feel, she hadn't felt that way in a long time.

There was dark wallpaper in the entryway, muddy boots left by the door, pictures lining the staircase, indents in the steps that were used most often—each one marked with a history. There were so many emotions, so much depth, such warmth. It was almost enough to mask the lingering agony, the grief that no one could let go of. 35 Portland Row, much like the boy who owned it, was not real. Behind the pageantry and falsehood, there was a sadness—something that not even a well-manufactured smile or lived-in appearance could hide.

Isa had always been good at that—reading people. Even if she didn't understand them or didn't care to, she still could see them clearly with no distortion. She knew what they felt, their motivations, their wants and dreams, what they longed for, what they longed to kill. But people that are hard to read are hard to trust. And Lockwood with his Machiavellian smile is not the kind to be trusted.

He had left Isa and George as soon as they arrived at the townhome. He'd excused himself quickly, though not impolitely, and swiftly made his way upstairs. Isa had listened to his footsteps as he ascended the stairs, taking two steps at a time—not even sparing a glance at the wall of frames and not bothering with a hand on the railing. His footsteps stopped once he reached the next floor and there were no sudden movements or sounds, not even George who stands next to her says anything. He watches her for a moment, seemingly bothered by the way her eyes don't bother to take in any of the new surroundings and instead settle on the ceiling above her where Lockwood remains stationary.

George knows that Lockwood is likely standing in front of a door with dust collecting on the handle, his hands tucked deep into his pockets as he stares on aimlessly. He doesn't do it often—finds it hard to even look at it in passing, finds it hard to relive the past. But occasionally, he has to face it head on, to ensure that the door is truly closed, that no part of the past ever claws its way into the present.

Downstairs Isa is tempted to reach out to the bones of the house, feel it's walls quiver, find the heart, the stomach; she wants to know it deeply, to understand what it hungers for. But her gloves stay on and her eyes finally leave the spot where they both know Lockwood is. George can feel his shoulders loosen, the sudden protectiveness he felt over Lockwood lightens. He too doesn't trust easily, doesn't like what he can't understand. He's spent most of his life trying to finding answers, but Isa does not seem like the kind of anomaly that has a neat explanation. If people were paradoxes then she would be Schrödinger's cat.

George knows that some answers are not easy. Some answers are complicated. They're things that you don't want to hear. How something could be both dead and alive all at once was something that never quite sat right with him. He understands in theory that two opposite states can exist simultaneously, but it feels wrong in practice. How Isa could be all things and nothing, half-dead and half-alive. When does it start to become one or the other?

Where does the fissure begin?

Isa looks at him then, horrifically alive and dead all at once. He doesn't understand her, half convinced that he doesn't really want to anyway—a lie for the sake of comfort. Against his instinct, George defies Isa's understanding of him and turns to her rigidly. He sacrifices. It's a small but complicated act. For the sake of Lockwood—Lockwood who had given him a home, had made him feel real, called him a friend, called him a brother—he beckons Isa deeper inside.

          "Cuppa?" George asks, already moving to put the kettle on, half-boy and half-martyr.

✷ AUTHOR'S NOTE: first chapter is kind of all over the place... but don't be fooled by the fact that isa and george have already met by the first chapter, this will in fact be a slow burn as per usual!

also the fact that every single oc i write is the same person. they're all just mean, angsty, emotionally unavailable, traumatized, angry, sad girls. they're all so me

also also with the cancelation of lockwood and co this will leave a pretty unsatisfying end to the story. i'm not sure if i want to rework the plot so that isa and george have some romance. i was definitely planning a slow burn and banking on working romance into the next season slowly, so this kind of fucks things up. still undecided about where this will leave george and isa, but also fuck netflix

✷ WARNING: i also wanted to put as a little warning that there will be talk of food and a loss of appetite in the next chapter. because isa is still grieving she hasn't been eating much or getting much sleep or just taking care of herself overall. so i do touch on this and i realize that this is something that can triggering especially given this context, so i just wanted to give a heads up!