Chapter 4: The Attic Girl's Secret
932 Words
Chapter 4: The Attic Girl's Secret
Kael could not sleep.
He lay on his thin mattress, staring at the dark ceiling, Adrian's words echoing in his head.
Stay away from Elara.
Why? What did Adrian care about Elara? She was nobody to him. Just the orphaned cousin who lived in the attic, the one the family mocked and ignored.
Unless she was not nobody.
Unless she knew something.
Kael sat up. The storeroom was pitch black except for the sliver of light under the door. Somewhere above him, the mansion slept. But he knew Elara would be awake. She was always awake at night. He had seen the light under her attic door more times than he could count.
He stood and pulled on his shirt.
The back stairs were dark and narrow. He climbed them slowly, avoiding the creaky steps by memory. The attic was at the very top of the house, a converted storage space that Miranda had given to Elara because no one else wanted it.
The door was closed.
But light spilled through the crack at the bottom.
Kael knocked softly. "Elara. It's me."
A pause. Then footsteps. The door opened a few inches, and Elara's face appeared. Her eyes were red. She had been crying.
"Kael?" She looked behind him, checking the stairs. "What are you doing here? If someone sees you—"
"I need to talk to you."
She hesitated. Then she opened the door wider and let him in.
The attic was small but warm. A single bed in the corner, covered with a quilt that looked handmade. A small table with a hot plate and a kettle. A rocking chair by the window. And everywhere, drawings. Hundreds of drawings pinned to the walls. All of them drawn by a child's hand. All of them featuring the same figure: a man with dark hair and kind eyes.
A man who looked like Kael.
His breath caught.
"Dorian drew those," Elara said quietly, following his gaze. "He draws the father he's never met."
Kael turned to her. "Who is his father?"
Elara looked away. "I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because it's not safe." She wrapped her arms around herself. "For you. For him. For anyone."
Kael stepped closer. "Adrian warned me to stay away from you tonight. He grabbed my wrist and told me you were a liability. Why, Elara? What do you know about him? What do you know about me?"
Elara's lip trembled.
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she walked to the small table, opened a drawer, and pulled out an old photograph. She handed it to him.
Kael looked down.
The photograph showed two young men standing side by side in front of a luxury car. One of them was Adrian Kade, younger but still recognizable. The other—
The other was him.
Kael stared at his own face. He was wearing an expensive suit. He was smiling. He looked happy. Confident. Powerful.
"You knew Adrian," Kael whispered. "Before."
Elara nodded. "We all knew each other. You, Adrian, Marcus Kade, and..." She stopped.
"And who?"
She shook her head. "It's not my story to tell. But Kael, you were not always a servant. You were not always poor. You were someone important. Someone powerful. And Adrian's father, Marcus, took that from you."
"How?"
Elara's eyes filled with tears. "He drugged you. Five years ago. He erased your memory and left you for dead. I found you in an alley behind my old apartment building. You didn't know your name. You didn't know where you came from. You didn't know anything."
Kael's hands shook. "And Seraphina?"
"Seraphina lied." Elara's voice cracked. "She saw you wandering the streets and realized you looked like someone wealthy. She claimed she found you. She claimed she saved you. She married you because she thought your memory would return and you would reward her."
"But it didn't return."
"No." Elara wiped her eyes. "And when it didn't, she grew bitter. She blamed you for not being the rich husband she expected. And I..." She took a shaky breath. "I stayed quiet because I was afraid. Afraid of what Marcus would do if he knew I helped you. Afraid of what Adrian would do if he knew I kept the truth from them."
Kael looked at the photograph again. At his own smiling face.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because Adrian is back," Elara said. "And he's not here for Seraphina. He's here to make sure you never remember. He's here to finish what his father started."
Kael's blood ran cold.
"What do you mean, finish?"
Elara opened her mouth to answer —
And a floorboard creaked outside the attic door.
They both froze.
Someone was listening.
Kael moved quickly, blowing out the candle on the table. The room went dark. He pressed himself against the wall beside the door, his heart pounding so loud he was sure the person outside could hear it.
A shadow passed under the door.
Then footsteps. Moving away. Down the stairs.
Kael waited a full minute before exhaling.
"Who was that?" he whispered.
Elara's voice was barely audible. "I don't know. But they heard us."
Kael looked at her in the darkness. At the photograph still clutched in his hand. At the drawings on the wall. his face, over and over, drawn by a son he did not know he had.
"I need to remember," he said. "Everything. Help me."
Elara reached out and took his hand.
"I've been waiting five years for you to ask."
- Writer
