Chapter 5
1098 Words
Hannah POV
The glass of the window was cold. I pressed my forehead against it. It was a good, clean cold. A real feeling.
Down below, in the east garden, she was on her knees, weeding the roses.
Helena.
The sunlight caught the dark strands of her hair. She looked so small from up here. A little gray mouse in a field of color. I watched the way she moved. Careful, Precise. Every motion was quiet, Unseen. I taught her that. Not with words. But with my own silence. My own fear.
The guilt started. A familiar pressure in my chest, heavy and dull.
I thought about the sandwich I left for her last night. The book. It felt like such a small, pathetic thing to do. A crumb. A whisper against the screaming silence of this house.
My hand trembled a little. I wrapped it around the warm porcelain of my teacup. What if he’d found out? Lloyd. He had been in such a state this morning. Angry. The air around him practically crackled. He had that look in his eyes. The one that meant he was losing money. The one that meant everyone else was going to pay for it.
He would know. He always knows.
I took a sip of tea. It had gone cold.
My gaze drifted back to the garden. Helena flinched as a groundskeeper passed by with a wheelbarrow. She made herself smaller. It was a movement I recognized. I did it all the time.
She was never supposed to be here. Not like this.
The thought came, sharp and old. A piece of glass in my mind.
Not mine. Not… Helena.
I remembered the day he brought her to the house. She was just a little thing. Five years old. All bones and big, dark eyes that didn't cry. He stood in the foyer, his hand on her shoulder, and he told me the story. The daughter of a junior executive. A tragic accident. Nowhere else to go.
It was a lie. I knew it. I didn't know how I knew immediately. I just did.
Years later, I found the proof. I was in his study. Looking for a book he asked for. My hand brushed against a small, cheap-looking photo album tucked behind a row of histories. It wasn't one of ours. Ours were leather-bound and gold-leafed. This one was plain. Cardboard.
My heart had started a fast, hard beat. I knew I shouldn't have. But I opened it.
Inside was a woman I had never seen. She was beautiful. Not in the sharp, polished way Salma was. But soft. Her smile was a little crooked. Her eyes were full of a light I hadn't seen in this house in years.
In one photo, she was holding a baby. A little girl with a tuft of dark hair.
I heard the door open behind me.
I didn't have to turn around. I could feel the coldness fill the room.
Lloyd.
He didn't say a word. I just stood there, frozen, the album still in my hands. He walked over to me. He gently took the album from my fingers. His touch was so light. It was terrifying. He closed it. He put it in his desk drawer and locked it.
Then he looked at me. A long, empty look. A look that said, “This is a grave. Do not dig here again.”
And I didn’t. I was a coward. I buried the secret. I buried the girl’s mother. I buried the girl. I smiled at dinners. I hosted parties. I said nothing.
My hand went to the locket around my neck. I opened the secret catch. The little stick-figure drawing Helena had given me so long ago was still there. The paper was soft, almost worn through. Proof, Not of her secrets, Of mine.
I was no better than him. I was just quieter about my cruelty.
Down in the garden, Helena stood up. She brushed the dirt from the knees of her uniform. She looked up at the house. Not at my window. Just at the house. At the big, stone walls. The prison.
I had to do something. More than a sandwich. More than a book.
But what?
The thought was useless. A hamster running on a wheel in my mind. There was nothing I could do. My marriage was a business arrangement. A contract. I knew that when I signed it. I had my own cage. Mine was just bigger. Warmer.
The intercom on my wall buzzed. A sharp, ugly sound.
“Yes?” I said, my voice coming out smooth, Practiced.
“Mr. Carrington requested the book on Roman history, Mrs. Carrington, from his study.”
It was Marjorie.
My stomach tightened. His study. The one room in the house I never entered unless I had to. The room with the locked desk drawer. The room where the ghosts lived.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll get it now.”
I stood there for a long moment after the line went dead. The silence of my bedroom felt heavy now. Accusing.
Just get the book. That’s all. Go in. Get the book. Come out.
It was a simple task. But it felt huge. It felt like walking into the lion’s den.
He’s not even here.
But he was. He was always here. His presence was soaked into the wood, the leather, the very air of that room.
I took a deep breath. I walked out of my bedroom. My silk slippers were silent on the thick hallway carpet. I walked toward his study. Toward the one place I was most afraid of.
Maybe I will see something. A piece of paper. A file left out by mistake.
It was a stupid, desperate hope. Lloyd was never careless.
But I had to look. For her. For the girl in the garden.I reached the heavy oak door of the study. I watched my own hand shake slightly as it moved toward the door. The house was silent around me. Completely still.
My fingers touched the cold, brass knob. I took a shallow breath, ready to turn it.
And then I heard it.
A soft sound from inside the room. A quiet scrape, like a book being slid back onto a wooden shelf.
I froze. A different kind of fear, sharp and immediate, shot through me.
Marjorie had just told me Lloyd was at the office. I was supposed to be the only one on this floor.
But someone was in my husband's private study.
- Writer
