Buried Echoes
751 Words
The mansion was quiet, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the front hall. It was the kind of silence that pressed on the walls, watching and waiting.
Alina stood barefoot in her room, staring at her reflection in the tall mirror. The bruise on her temple had nearly faded, leaving behind only a pale shadow of where it had once bloomed like a dark rose. The butterfly clip sat neatly in her hair—a token of her unknown past.
She didn’t know why she kept it.
She only knew she had to.
---
Lately, the dreams have changed.
They came like shadows at the edge of sleep. Fragments. A hand reaching for her. A staircase with gold-trimmed banisters. The scent of vanilla and roses. A voice calling her name—not “Alina,” but something else.
Something soft.
Alice.
It woke her most nights, heart pounding, throat dry.
And then she’d forget all over again.
---
On the sixth morning since her arrival, Alina walked down to the west garden—a private corner filled with ivy and climbing roses, mostly untouched. Vivian had told her it was an old part of the estate, rarely used anymore. The air here was always cooler, quieter. Older.
She wandered between the stones, her fingers grazing the flowers as though searching for something. She didn’t know why she had come here, only that her feet had taken her without permission.
She stopped at the base of an overgrown fountain—dry now, its cherub center cracked and moss-covered.
Then she froze.
Music.
Not real, not near.
But echoing inside her.
A tune hummed softly, just at the edge of memory.
She sat down slowly, her knees tucking beneath her skirt.
And then she began to hum.
At first, it came from nowhere. Just a sound on her lips.
But the more she hummed, the more it made sense—like she was remembering something she hadn’t even known she’d lost.
A lullaby.
A mother’s song.
She didn’t know the words. But she knew how it felt: warm arms, soft cheeks, laughter.
Alina’s hands began to shake.
She stood abruptly, stumbling backward until her spine met the edge of the stone bench.
---
Later that day, during her lessons, Ms. Claire noticed her silence.
“Are you alright, Alina?”
“Yes,” she lied.
But Ms. Claire’s gaze was sharp. “You seem distracted.”
Alina hesitated. “Do you think… people can forget things so deeply that they live new lives… but pieces of the old one still find their way back?”
Ms. Claire smiled softly. “I think the heart remembers what the mind forgets.”
Alina looked down at her workbook. She hadn’t written a word.
She’d drawn instead—a small fountain, and beside it… a woman with long brown hair holding a little girl’s hand.
The woman’s face was blank.
But the girl looked like her.
---
That evening, Vivian knocked on her door, holding a small wooden box.
“I thought you might want this,” she said, setting it down on Alina’s desk.
“What is it?” Alina asked, opening the lid.
Inside were colored pencils, paintbrushes, and a small set of acrylic paints.
“You’ve been sketching,” Vivian said, her eyes kind but measured. “I thought you might want to paint instead.”
Alina ran her fingers across the brushes, her chest tight. “I don’t remember how.”
“Try. See what your hands remember.”
---
The first thing she painted was the butterfly clip.
Then the fountain.
Then a child sitting beneath it, head tilted toward the sky.
---
That night, the dreams returned—more vivid than before.
She was in a bedroom with pink curtains and a white canopy bed. There were stars on the ceiling. A soft voice called to her:
“Alice, come downstairs, darling—your father’s home!”
She ran to the hallway and down a flight of stairs. Her feet were bare. Laughter echoed.
Then flames.
Smoke.
Screams.
She woke up choking on tears.
---
In the morning, she found herself back in the garden, standing before the same dry fountain with a paintbrush in her hand.
And she didn’t remember bringing it.
---
Vivian watched from her window high above, her face unreadable.
“She’s remembering,” Ms. Claire said behind her.
Vivian nodded, her fingers clenching tightly around the porcelain teacup.
“I know.”
- Writer
