five times lennie scowled + one time they didn't: pt. five

or, a family trinket was (maybe) guilty of murder

Hi, all! Slowly but surely, we're getting through this set of Lennie-centric anecdotes. This part is after Unfair Winds, which may be obvious because we're seeing Robbie and David be somewhat cordial.

As always, if you're new here, you can read these pretty much in any order or at your leisure; they're just little Lennie-focused one-shots in the theme of (clearly) "five times [x]... one time they didn't."

Enjoy, my friends x

"It was a murder weapon?"

Though they weren't given to superstition, Lennie dropped the letter opener in their left hand. It clattered down, nondescript, and seemed at home on David's desk amongst all the other bits of a lived life with which it had been included. A little figurine of a rabbit, a small sheaf of short notes exchanged between David's father and boyhood friends, a scattered number of foreign coins, a battered watch.

And a letter opener supposedly used in a stabbing two, or maybe three, centuries ago. Lennie hadn't caught the exact timing.

Just this morning, an old friend of the Mills family had delivered a box once belonging to Mr. Mills, Senior. Its contents had been unknown until David reluctantly opened it. Nothing terribly important. The letters, maybe, if one were a sentimental type of lad.

With a little shiver, Lennie considered the brownish patina on the blade and decided it must not be due to residual blood, but rather to age. Whatever the age was.

David was tidy as could be; he'd previously said cleanliness and presentability were Mills family values. Lennie could conclude no ancestor of his would discard a bloodied thing to be cleaned up by some Mills in the future, regardless of how disinterested that Mills was.

If it had been up to David, thought Lennie, the box would have been left outside on the street, but they'd convinced David to have Robbie just bring it inside. Their stepbrother had come round to discuss various employment prospects, a rather comical appointment: David wished Robbie to be more financially stable and in purely legal lines of work; Robbie was still nervous of David's powers over life and death.

But as even Robbie had said, it was little bother to move an old box for a toff.

He now lingered to hear the resulting conversation, but neither he nor David were friends. Having the feeling Robbie merely hoped to see some of David's discomfort, or to discern if anything were worth stealing and selling on, Lennie kept themself between the two.

David had agreed to open the box as noncommittally as it was possible for one to agree to anything. Although he was the last Mills, he still wanted little to do with the idea. Helming his family's cloth business was a matter of pragmatism for him, not undue loyalty. Lennie understood that a box of his late father's forgotten effects—enthusiastically presented by some man he had not seen since he was a boy of seven—wasn't particularly welcome.

"Yes, it was. A murder weapon." said David. "Well... reputedly. Father told me about it, although clearly, the thing wasn't with us." Lennie wondered if the object had been lost in the early days of Mr. Mills' mind beginning its eventual disintegration. With a little intrigue in his voice, David muttered, "It was with Mr. Gates this whole time. I do wonder how he managed to receive it, but I suppose it doesn't matter."

He'd just finished telling the anecdote about the letter opener, or a compact dagger, really, that his witch hunting ancestor had used to defend himself from a witch who'd started to act erratically amidst an interrogation. From the sound of things, there was little need for such a strong reaction.

It was one of those old, predictable tales: an elderly woman, likely one with an illness that gave her strange symptoms, being called a witch by some man who'd convinced himself he was an instrument of God's will.

Either she was ill, or she was odd the way their good friend Benson was odd, and if it hadn't been 1901, who knew what Benson might be accused of being. Harm could easily befall such an idiosyncratic and willfully different sort of man. Any accusers would be correct, of course.

Benson, like Lennie and David, was of a witchy persuasion. Unlike Lennie and David, Benson had no interest in passing as normal.

David peered at Lennie, who still must have looked more horrified than they preferred to, and over a story they weren't even sure was true.

They could guess what he was thinking: they weren't squeamish. Lennie wished they had the ability to wordlessly tell him that, although what was done was done, something about holding a letter opener that was also a culprit in a fatal stabbing didn't sit well with them. The Campling family, their family, didn't have heirlooms. Lennie wasn't entirely sure what constituted one, if not literal value, but this seemed a macabre thing to save.

Robbie said, from his position in the corner of David's office on Upper St Giles, "Come on, Lennie, can't you tell it was a murder weapon?"

Though Lennie didn't wish to admit his logic was sound, they supposed they might have been able to tell. It just depended on a host of factors they couldn't always take into account, or understand, or know to consider. Magic could make anyone look the fool.

Their own powers went along the lines of telling the future, as mundane as the future could be. But they could glean things from objects on occasion. Still, they eyed him through the hazy sunlight within the quiet room. "It doesn't always work like that," they insisted. "It's not the future, is it? It's... backward. It's the past."

Robbie, using the younger sibling's prerogative of irksomeness and no doubt driven by Lennie's blooming scowl, said, "Course it doesn't."