Lockwood & Co. The Secret Of Penelope Fittes

The last secrets/Chapter Thirteen

When we finally returned home, Lockwood and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into our rooms and sleep for another hour. Well cut in George.
"Don't even think about it!," he roughly held Lockwood back by his sleeve, "You don't really think I'm going to leave you two alone, do you?"
"George!" I interfered.
"No! No more talking! You'll both come to with me to the archives!"
"But we just got here!" Lockwood tried hard to free himself from George's grip.
"I don't care! You're coming with me! Besides, maybe we'll finally find something."
George stormed up in his room and grabbed his stuff. I sighed and than followed George out of the house again.

..........*****..........

In the archives, George immediately ran to a pile of old newspapers, while Lockwood and I wandered around rather haphazardly. After half an hour George had already found more than five articles that could possibly help us whereas Lockwood and I hadn't found anything. Well, I would say that says a lot but George still wouldn't let us leave.
When I finally found an article that might be useful, I heard voices behind me:
"Anthony Lockwood! What a surprise! I don't think I've seen you here!"
Lockwood turned around: "John Grant. Nice to see you. Nice outfit! I thought you worked at Rotwell?!"
The boy who had approached us had blond hair and sky-blue eyes. He could have passed as an angel, with his pale skin, if only it hadn't been his huge nose.
Of course he wore the grey jacket and black trousers of the Fittes employees.
"Rotwell? Oh, you don't know yet? Fittes took over Rotwell now that Steve Rotwell is, well, gone.
Lockwood opened his eyes in surprise: "Fittes has done what now? How is that even possible?"
John Grant just shrugged his shoulders. „To be honest I don't really care. Steve's gone and you know Fittes has enough money to probably buy all the agencies here. She's paying well enough and nobody complains. I mean, what could any of us do about it, right?"
He laughed and Lockwood and I shared a look. "Right... okay John, listen. Have you noticed anything..."
"I'm sorry to interrupt your chat..." George ruthlessly pushed himself between Lockwood and John Grant, "... but we still have a lot to do and not so much time left, so goodbye!"
George grabbed me and Lockwood by the arm and pulled us into a corner.
"I didn't know that it was even possible to get rid of an agency that's worth millions. How did Penelope manage to do that?"
Lockwood was about to answer but George came first.
"We are talking about Penelope Fittes, Lucy. That woman can do anything she wants. But look, I actually found something interesting," he showed us an article, "I haven't read the report yet, but the picture speaks for itself. Well, it's about the Fittes anniversary and the photo shows Penelope with none other than Charlotte Hamsworth and another woman. I don't know her but something about her looks reminds me of someone!" He looked at the picture briefly. Lockwood joined George and took a look, too. When his gaze hit the unknown woman, he froze.
"Give me that, I think I know who she reminds you of," he took the sheet from George's hand and read through it quickly.
"Do you know her?" I asked him and tried to look at the picture. He stayed silent. His eyes froze at the last words.
"Hello! Lockwood! Care to answer my question?"
He handed me the article. Puffing I took it and read through it:

Annual Fittes celebration lived up to its name once again

Yesterday the annual Fittes celebration took place with all employees and a few guests of honour. According to Penelope Fittes, head of the headquarters, the feast was a total success as everyone had a lot of fun and had a great time. After her speech Mrs. Fittes sat down again on the podium of honour, where she meet her two best friends since youth .
Penelope, Charlotte Hamsworth (at the middle in the picture) and Celia Lockwood (at the right in the picture) have known each other for many years and try to maintain contact.
More about the article on p. 3-4
An interview with Mrs. Fittes on p. 5-6
What is the best way to protect yourself against the plague of ghosts? S. 28,29

I stared at Lockwood, who had turned around with an expressionless look. I swallowed: "Uh, Lockwood... Celia Lockwood... does that mean she's..."
"Yes", Lockwood turned around again and looked me straight in the eye, "She's my mother and apparently she was one of the best friends of Penelope Fittes.

..........*****..........

After two hours, Lockwood and I gave up. While George kept looking among the old articles, Lockwood called a cab.
When I got home, I went straight to my room and threw myself on the bed. An hour later I woke up as I heard something crash on the ground followed by silent cursing. I got up, hit my head on the sloping roof, cursed and left my room.
In the living room, as I expected, I met Lockwood. He sat in his favorite chair and browsed through the magazine without even looking at the pages. Instead, he stared thoughtlessly at the bookshelf. I cleared my throat, "Uh, Lockwood?"
He shrugged and straightened up, "Yes, Lucy?"
"Well, I thought... well...that we..." I stopped. This stuttering was terrible!
"Okay, I don't want to keep silent anymore! Because of this morning's article I thought maybe we could take a look in Jessicas room. Maybe we'll find something..."
I bit my lip when I saw Lockwood pinching his eyes together.
"Lucy, I think you already know my answer and know I don't want to talk about it anymore!" It was the first time he really looked at his paper.
"But, Lockwood..."
"No! We're not going up! We wouldn't find anything anyway!"
Now I got angry too: "How would you know?! You probably don't know what's up there any more than I do. You're just too stubborn to look! Maybe you wouldn't have been so confused today if you'd actually got over your stubbornness and confronted yourself with your past! Ever thought about that?"
Annoyed, Lockwood threw his magazine into a corner: "Then go upstairs and look! You've done this before anyway! I'm surprised you even asked me this time!"
"Damn it, Lockwood! If I hadn't gone in there back then George and myself still wouldn't know what's in that room and that you even had a sister! What's your problem? What are you afraid of? I know as much about you after three years as you knew about me after a week! But, okay! At least I tried to figure something out! If you don't want to, don't do it. I can't force you to do anything," I hissed at him. I gathered all of my dignity and stormed out of the room.
A small part of me hoped that Lockwood would stop me and that we would talk about the subject normally. Well, that didn't happen.
With a loud bang I slammed the door and kicked angrily a shoe through the room that bounced back from the glass of the skull.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
The skull gave me an evil look from its place.
"Oh, shut up!"
Angrily I planted myself on my bed.
"Ohh! Someone's angry. What's the matter with you? Oh, I know. You and Locky had a fight. Is that right or am I right?"
Now he got a bad look from me.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No!"
Less than five seconds later, I told the skull all about our argument.
"... I just can't understand why he doesn't tell anything, and with that I mean nothing at all, about his past!"
It was actually more of a thought that I had thought out loud and didn't expect an answer to, yet the skull answered me:
"Well, I think that Lockys life started perfect, with a sweet sister, mummy and daddy and then went down pretty fast and pretty bad from one day to the another. Just imagine how you'd feel if your entire family died within two years and you had no one left. I don't think you would talk about it every day..."
I looked at him in astonishment: "Since when do you defend him?"
"I don't know, maybe I'm high?"
"You're a ghost!"
He grinned at me: "Let's just say: I can really understand him and wouldn't act differently in his place..."
I puffed. „I hate it when you're right..."
And with these words he dissolved and left me alone with my thoughts.