Page 105 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

“What?” he questioned her.

“I thought this was finally your time to shine and admit you can’t stand Lady Amalthea, and that she can’t stand you either.” Maisie smiled at him as Nathaniel’s jaw dropped.

“You knew and still handed her to me?”

She started to laugh and nodded swiftly. “Only because I adored how hard you were trying to convince me you loved her as much as I do.” She cupped his cheeks and pulled him down to her to place a light kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“Who’s Lady Amalthea?” I asked.

“She’s my dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. My parents surprised me on my eleventh birthday with her.” She covered Nathaniel’s ears. “Amalthea has a deep hatred towards men. Especially towards a man who means a lot to me. My sister Val guesses she’s jealous since she only sees me during the holidays, and she doesn’t want to share me with anyone.”

Nathaniel placed his hands over those of his girlfriend’s and peeled them off his ears. “I can hear you, and I’m very aware that she hates me. Last time, when I woke in the morning, she was sitting in between us on your bed, just glaring at me.”

I had to hold my amusement back at the image my mind was creating of a cute dog giving a boy like Nathaniel the death glare.

Maisie softly brushed her knuckles over his jaw to tease him. “Don’t worry, my knight. You don’t have to be jealous of my precious dog. You and Amalthea are both my number one. I promise.”

Nathaniel didn’t reply, he just gave her a look that clearly showed his disapproval of her mocking. But instead of being pissed, he just let her go through with it, head-locking her gently to press a kiss to the crown of her head, whispering something I couldn’t, and surely wasn’t supposed to, hear.

“Thanks for starting this game with a corny parents’ evening, lovebirds. Not that I know how loving parents talk to each other, but you get the message. Now spin the bottle, Nate,” Jesse pressed, his feet now resting on the table.

“Nathaniel,” he corrected.

Jesse waved him off. “That’s what I said, Nate. Now spin.”

Nathaniel didn’t bother to argue and just did what his friend asked of him.

The bottle landed on Naomi. “Truth,” she breathed before he could even ask, and Jesse groaned dramatically. “I should have known we’d all pick truth. We’re some boring lads. Let’s play truth or truth, then.”

Naomi clicked her tongue at him, with a smile. “Dare’s only entertaining when you’re in public. So I say we’ll stick to just questions tonight. I mean, when will we have another chance to force a bunch of liars to tell their truths?”

She looked at Nathaniel, waiting for him to ask her something.

“What’s the truth behind trying to look perfect on every occasion? We’re having this ridiculous game night at two in the morning and everyone is sitting here in their pyjamas except for you, who made an effort to not have one strand of hair out of place.”

Naomi licked her teeth and stared at Nathaniel with a look I would assume was almost challenging, before she grinned at him and flicked her silky hair over her shoulder. “It’s foolish of you to assume my beauty demands effort, Nathaniel.” She sighed, pressing her full lips to a thin line. “When I was a child, my father used to take me with him on his business trips to discuss the expansion of our newspaper and things like that. My father was my role model; whenever he stepped into a room, the entire atmosphere lightened up with his confidence. I desired to be like him when I grew older. And after he passed and my mother faded away in her grief, I changed everything about me. Something inside of me believed that if I stepped into the footsteps my father had left on this earth, he would never disappear and nothing would change. Daishin Minoru always dressed like the businessman he was, in a way that showed people that he was the one in control, and I adapted to it. My closet changed from dresses designed for children to clothes that were sewn just for me according to my measurements. My piggy tails turned into tight buns and my diamond candy pop into silver jewellery that’s worth a little fortune. So, your answer, Nathaniel, is that the truth behind me trying to always look perfect is that I feel in control when I do so.”

I looked at Naomi, who sat diagonally across from me, and my mind immediately pictured her as a little girl who stepped into the shoes of adulthood overnight. It explained a lot about her. Why she needed everything tidy and neat. Order equals control. We didn’t have a lot in common, but this was something I understood on a deeper level. Her need for a polished life and my fondness for structure were both coping mechanisms for the life we were given and had to deal with on our own.

“Oh, do not look at me with pity. All of us in this room carry a sob story on our shoulders. This is simply a game of truth, and that’s mine. Now hand me the bottle, Maisie.” Naomi took the bottle from Maisie’s hand and spun it. Slowly, the mouth of the glass bottle stopped on me.

Naomi leaned back in her seat and smiled at me. “You were the only one who’s able to see the spirits off school grounds, so I wonder, did you talk to them as a child, believing they were imaginary friends?”

I guess this was now, truth or truth, then.

I shrugged, trying to remember the first time I ever saw a spirit wander through the halls of my home.

“For the longest time, I believed they were real people, like you and me. It was funny, honestly. Since I know about the veil, I remember more and more encounters I had with spirits before the age of twelve, where I truly thought everything started. When I was six, I used to play outside behind our manor in the garden. There was a girl my age, but she wore very outdated clothes and her hair was styled in a really odd and old way. She didn’t speak. All she did was show me a fairy house built into the roots of an old willow tree. She showed me how to lay out little rocks to form a gateway for the fairies to find the way to the house. My grandmother had sent me Dottie’s diaries she wrote at home when she was a child, nothing that could help us with anything, but she wrote about the little fairy girl and how shefound out that her name was Anastasia De Loughrey. She died of pneumonia in the eighteen thirties. I made plenty of friends around our manor who simply didn’t talk. It didn’t bother me because I was never much of a talker myself, but I never thought they were imaginary.”

I danced with a ballerina in the ballroom and played catch with a boy dressed like a sailor. My childhood was so colourful until I was reminded that it was all in my head. And as my own mind turned darker, the spirits did too. It wasn't the souls of children who came to play with me. The excited little faces turned to bloodied clothes and hate-filled expressions. Maybe if they had let me be a child longer, I wouldn’t have been afraid of it all.

“I wish my childhood would have been this fancy. All I ever felt was pain and grief out of nowhere. How unfortunate for me,” Naomi replied with a hint of jealousy, tossing the bottle over the desk to me.

I caught the bottle before it could fall off the table and frowned at her. “Waking up to a girl in bloodied clothes standing at the end of your bed is lovely, isn’t it?”

Naomi didn’t reply, she simply gave me a smirk, which I returned before I spun the bottle. Our arrow landed on Jesse, who grinned excitedly. “Finally–hey!”

Naomi moved the bottle so it pointed at the boy next to me instead.

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