The bonfire had burned through the night. I had watched from the cold, still air near the great oaks as the staff, their faces grim and reluctant, fed my life into the flames. My mother's letters curled into black ash. The velvet box holding my first pair of ballet slippers melted into a foul-smelling plastic. The smoke that rose into the starry sky carried the scent of my entire history, a funeral pyre for a girl they refused to believe was even missing.
By morning, the house was cleansed. My room was a sterile guest suite, anonymous and waiting. The photographs in the hallways now showed only a triumphant trio: Alistair, Liam, and the beatific Seraphina. I was a ghost not just in spirit, but in fact. Erased.
The arrival of my Aunt Caroline was like a cannonball through the stained-glas
