His Enemy's Daughter

Chapter 1

The world always tastes better with a cup from my favorite café.

Jules swore the mocha at Marigold's was cursed - "too green, too smug" - but she still ordered it, because sometimes you pick your poison for the aesthetic. I ordered the sunrise capaucinno because it matched my mood: sweet, slightly ridiculous, and liable to cause trouble if given enough of a push. Taking this deluxe with a pack of shortbread that I managed to sneak from the kitchen.

We sat on the sun-warmed bench by the duck pond. As usual the old man by the edge of the pond feeding the ducks with some breadcrumbs, the children playing and running round the park, the trees dancing as the wind blew over. It was ordinary, and that's why I loved it.

I wasn't allowed outside too often, just with people and places my dad trusted and that's a very small list. Jules, my very best friend, perky and full of life. We've been friends since grade one after I gave her a new pencil because hers broke in art class. I had extra hy not share.

"You're quiet," Jules said, poking her straw into the remains of her mocha like she was a surgeon saving the world one sip at a time. She always did this - found something pathetic to save. "Did sketchy leave you for another girl?"

I let out a traitorous chuckle at the word Sketchy. and then I schooled my face into its neutral, composed expression. "Sketchy and I are on very good terms. It's committed to me."

She named my Sketchbook, Sketchy and declared that we were together. Because I never let it out of my sight.

She snorted. "That's new. Last week it was your camera. The week before that you were 'in love' with a stray cat named President Whiskers."

"President Whiskers had dignity," I said. "And a platform. Also, you don't get to make fun of my artistic loyalty."

In my defense, I only carried the Camera because I used it to snap portraits and angles so I could draw when I'm inside.

Last week I sketched the abstract art I snapped when my father took us to the Detroit institute of art downtown, as a gift

I enjoyed every second there.

"I get to mock everything you are ever devoted to," Jules declared, taking a dramatic bite of a shortbread as the particles scattered all over her skirt "It's in the friendship charter." she continued after brushing it off.

We argued about this until I realized I was aggressively still trying to sip the last of my capaucinno. Jules laughed until she hiccuped. The afternoon slid into the kind of easy rhythm that makes me forget about how much outside I miss. At least I get to spend time with Jules outside biweekly on Fridays to anywhere we want to with at least one bodyguard. The other thing is either I go to her house or she comes to mine.

I don't complain because I enjoy her company and we spend time with our other friends the time I'm allowed to go out.

At first I barely used to go out after the incident but I convinced my dad that I could still live my life and still be protected. It took a lot, but I made due with the conditions this time.

We walked, because walking is how ordinary afternoons refuse to end. We wandered past the bandstand where a local duo was rehearsing a song they would never release, through a patch of roses that smelt like heaven. I took out my small Moleskine and a cheap mechanical pencil - my two true loyalties - and sketched what my eyes stole: the rose bush, the crooked way a child chased a dog, and hoped to continue it when I got home and adding more features.

"You're weird," she said, peering over my shoulder. "You make garbage look like it belongs on a poster. Are you going to sell that to the museum of 'Things My Dad Bought Me'?"

"Maybe," I said, and I meant both the joke and the place it echoed from. My father bought a lot of things. Museums would just be a more tasteful showroom.

When we finally walked back toward the car - Jules in her sensible flats, me in my scuffed sneakers that my caretaker pretended to dislike - I felt, for the first time that afternoon, like I could breathe without permission. I shoved my sketchbook into my bag and promised myself I'd keep one of the pages for later, the one where Jules' grin looked like victory.

___

Back home, the world tilted - discreet, familiar by. By the wrought-iron gates, the chauffeur leaned toward the telecom, fingers tapping in the passcode with practiced ease. A low hum followed, and the gates glided open.

The mansion emerged from behind a veil of ivy-clad walls, its pale stone glowing under the late afternoon sun. Arched windows caught the light like polished glass, and a sweep of marble steps curved toward towering double doors. Lush gardens framed the driveway - rose bushes heavy with blooms, manicured hedges cut into precise shapes, and fountains that whispered in the breeze.

I entered the massive arena, a mansion that seems like it's out of old money, the place I've lived for the seventeen years of my life.

"Isla!" Mrs. Baines called from the steps before I'd even climbed them. Her apron was ironed into a declaration. "Manners. Change out of those-" she eyed my sneakers like they were a small national crisis. "-immediately. We do not greet the household in street shoes."

I chuckled at her distaste in my sneakers, while removing it "Good afternoon Mrs Baines" I greeted her, then went up to my room.

I Plopped on my bed and opened my sketchbook and drew until the margins fuzzed with graphite. My hand always drew best while the house hummed around me -

A loose photograph slid from between the pages

I stared at it. My mother stood there in the picture, in her prime, her smile reaching her young eyes. My father - tall, a cigarette pinched in his fingers though I'd never seen him smoke in real life - had his arm around her. They looked dangerous and stupid and remarkably in love. I'd seen this photograph in albums, but in my hand it became immediate and unfinished.

"Mum," I whispered, and the word felt like spring thawing ice. I never met her. She died when I was born. That was the kind of tragedy that shaped people - the missing woman who became a brand of absence. My father kept her memory like a secret jewel: polished, displayed, kept far from the everyday.

There were crumbs of a life in that photograph I didn't have permission to explore. I folded the picture and tucked it back into the book. My father had done everything for me - maybe not always the right everything, but everything with a fierce, relentless dedication that had kept us safe and wealthy and impossibly visible. I loved him for it.

___

The sunset pooled in my favorite window seat in my room. I curled there with a sketchbook open on my laps and watched the horizon. It was habit.

A car rolled down the path in the driveway, black and composed and carrying a presence like thunder.

I stood because I'm a creature who stands for surprises now.

I folded my hands over my sketchbook and waited, because whatever this evening promised, a good drawing always starts with watching closely.