CHAPTER 3
1275 Words
The letter hadn’t left her bedside table.
It lay there untouched since yesterday , but Olivia couldn’t stop glancing at it like it might rise on its own once she takes her eyes off it and it will tell the truth that she had been avoiding . She tucked it beneath a book of poems in the mini bookshelf across the room— something real Lila used to read when she wanted to escape the real world .
Lila. Stop pretending. I’m not as dead as you think. I am coming for you.
That single line had freaked her out, making her doubt her very own existence.
All morning, her reflection had betrayed her — the makeup didn’t sit right, the wave would not hold the same way . Even the dress she wore today a dark brown silk with a conservative neckline — felt too modest, too unlike Lila’s careless elegance. The silence in the corridors of Ashbourne Hall wasn't helping her at all.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
Whoever wrote that letter knew something and they just started.
Still, she smiled as she passed the staff. Nodded like Lila would. She even paused at the portrait in the hallway and tilted her head, as if she was admiring it. But inside, Olivia counted every room, and listened for any suspicious footsteps. Hated how easy it had become to live in another woman’s skin and how fast that was coming off.
Sebastian stood in the east study, where sunlight cast its shadow through the tall windows . A crystal lamp near him.
He wasn’t working. He was staring.
Spread across the desk were photographs — some faded, some shining— all showing Lila in pieces: dancing with her hair loose in the old garden, laughing in the courtyard, asleep in a library chair with a book slipped from her hand. Real Lila. The girl before the tragedy.
He didn’t remember taking most of them.
He didn’t remember the way she laughed. Not fully. He had fragments: sensations, instincts, things that made no sense. The way she used to hum when anxious. The way her hand always reached for his left wrist first, never the right.
But the woman living in this house now?
Called him “Seb” — a name Lila had only ever used when mocking him.
He tried to dismiss it. Amnesia did strange things. Trauma blurred images. But now… now the photos had him on the edge. Behind him, the door creaked open.
Mrs. Delacroix stepped in, a feather duster in one hand, though it was clear she hadn’t come to clean.
“You shouldn’t be going through those alone,” she said softly.
Sebastian looked up, startled but he didn’t hide the photos.
“She used to chew on pens,” he murmured, lifting one image. “Always blue ones. I can’t remember why.” “She said the ink tasted like violets,” Mrs. Delacroix said with a small smile. “Ridiculous girl.” He stared at the photo again.
“Why can’t I remember that?” “You hit your head hard, monsieur. They said it might take years.” He hesitated. “Or maybe the memories I do have don’t match what’s here now.” She didn’t answer.
He placed the photo down. “Tell me honestly, Delacroix. Do you think she has changed?” The housekeeper’s eyes changed, as she walked slowly to the window and drew back the curtain a little more to let enough ray enter.
“She speaks with Lila’s voice,” she said at last. “She walks with Lila’s posture. She pronounces my French name correctly . But no matter how closely a song is mimicked… it isn’t the same as the original song.” Sebastian’s throat tightened. “So you think she’s an imposter?” “No,” she said carefully. “I think grief changes people. But instinct, monsieur… instinct is harder to fool.” She turned, eyes sharp. “And yours…is trying to tell you something, isn’t it?” Olivia hadn’t eaten.
The chef had prepared Lila’s favorite—seared tuna with lemon butter, potatoes, and spinach—but she had only pushed it around the plate.
Her stomach squeezed too tightly and excused herself from the dining room .
She rushed to her room and read the letter again. She had even checked the envelope for fingerprints. There were none. But the words lingered in her mind.
Who would send something like that?
Celeste wouldn’t risk exposing her.
No one else knew the truth.
Unless… unless someone saw something that night.
The crash had been violent and final. The cliffs had swallowed the car. Celeste had made sure there were no survivors: the housekeeper, the creepy nurse and the curious doctor - all gone. At least, that was what she claimed.
But what if she’d been wrong?
What if they hadn’t died?
She stood from the table too quickly, the room tilting. She caught herself against the chair and tried to steady her breath. The air felt heavier now, like the whole world was watching her.
That night, Sebastian couldn’t sleep.
He wandered the halls of Ashbourne hall like he had never done before. He stopped again at the family portrait in the great room. His father’s stern beside her. His mother dressed in a ghostlike silk gown.
He hadn’t thought about her eyes before. He stared at her eyes with the hope of getting an answer.
Now he couldn’t stop.
The Lila in the painting had icy-colored eyes. Bold, wide, unflinching.
The woman upstairs — the one asleep in the guestroom — blinked too much when he looked too closely. She flinched when startled. He turned from the portrait and returned to the study.
But this time, when he opened the desk drawer to gather more photos, something else fell out.
A pressed violet.
Dried. Flattened between two envelopes.
He froze.
Violets. Again.
He didn’t remember placing one there. He hadn't seen one in the gardens recently.
With trembling hands, he lifted it — and a slip of folded paper beneath it caught his eye.
It was empty, save for four bold words:
> “It all ends tomorrow”.
His pulse stuttered.
A trick? A game? Or something else entirely?
At Olivia’s room
Olivia woke with a jolt. Her heart beating against her ribs.
Had someone been in the room?
The window was slightly opened. The curtains moved in absurd directions. She scrambled to her feet, checked the lock, turned on the light. No signs of forced entry. No footprints. Nothing out of place.
Except… The book of poems on her nightstand had been moved.
And the letter was gone.
She staggered back, cold crawling up her spine.
It had been there. She’d seen it before bed. She’d locked the room.
Unless she hadn’t.
Unless someone knew how to get in.
Someone had taken it.
She opened the closet door, her breath coming fast. Every gown still in place. Dozens of them, Lila’s original collection was untouched, elegant, watching her.
The lie was collapsing.
Her voice trembled when she whispered aloud:
“Who else knows?” At dawn, the first rays of sun spilled through the windows of Ashbourne Hall, casting long shadows over marble floors and long hallways.
Sebastian stood in the courtyard, watching the sea.
In his pocket was the violet. The note.
He didn’t know who left it.
But he knew one thing now:
The woman upstairs might look like Lila, move like Lila but he wasn't sure she was his Lila.
And someone else out there might know it too.
- Writer
