The House That Abandoned Her
910 Words
Chapter Three:
The Everharts did not wait long.
Elisha felt their presence before she saw them — a suffocating weight pressing against the air, as though the room itself remembered the indifference they had once poured into this body. The door creaked open again, and two figures entered, draped in noble finery polished to perfection.
Lord and Lady Everhart.
Camila’s parents.
Her mother’s eyes shimmered with sudden tears, but Elisha saw through them withcold clarity. These were not tears of care or guilt. They were tears of inconvenience — of fear, of reputation, of What will they say?
“Oh, Camila…” Lady Everhart rushed forward, her voice trembling. “My poor child, you’ve finally awakened. We thought we had lost you forever.”
Lost me? Elisha nearly scoffed.
Two years in a coma, and not once had they asked for her hand to be held. Two years, while they paraded her sister as the new gem of their family.
If this was love, she feared to see hatred.
“You thought,” Elisha repeated softly, studying them. “Yet you did not look.”Her father stiffened at her strange tone. He had always been a proud man, quick to demand obedience and quicker to dismiss weakness.
“You’ve been ill for a long time, Camila,” he said sternly. “Your confusion is understandable. The healers warned us your mind may not be… quite as before.”
“How convenient,” she replied calmly.
A sharp silence fell like snow over glass.
Lady Everhart’s hand froze mid-reach. “Wh-What do you mean, my dear?”
Elisha lowered her gaze briefly, then lifted it with a chill that settled deep into their bones.
“You buried me before my heart ever stopped,” she said. “You married my sister to the man meant for me. You smiled while I slept in darkness. Am I to thank you for such devotion?”
Shock rippled through them — raw, unguarded.
“That is not fair!” her mother protested. “We had no choice! The kingdom demanded stability! Prince Fredrick needed a bride—”
“And I needed parents,” Elisha cut in quietly.
Silence again.
Her father’s voice hardened. “Mind your tone. You are still an Everhart.”“No,” she corrected. “I was an Everhart. That girl died on a staircase you chose not to investigate.”
Her mother flinched as though struck.
“Camila, how can you speak so cruelly? Your sister has nothing to do with —”
A sharp, humorless laugh slipped past Elisha’s lips. “Then I shall be delighted to hear how ‘nothing to do with ’ results in shattered bones and stolen vows.”
Her father stepped forward, face dark with anger. “This bitterness will not be tolerated. You will attend your sister’s courtesy banquet tomorrow as planned. The court expects unity.”
Ah. So that was their true reason for visiting.
Appearance.
Reputation.
Their precious image.
Elisha’s gaze sharpened. “You wish to display me like proof of your innocence.”
“Enough!” her father snapped. “You will do as you are told.”
Old Camila would have trembled. Old Camila would have apologized for breathing too loudly.
Elisha smiled instead.
Slow. Controlled. Unsettling.
“I will attend,” she said.
Relief flickered across their faces, swift and foolish.
“But understand this,” she continued softly. “I am not coming as your obedient daughter. I am coming as the wronged fiancée who has risen from the grave.”
Their relief shattered.
“And when I walk into that hall,” she whispered, eyes glittering with quiet menace, “no one will remember the bride who replaced me… only the girl she thought she had erased.”
A soft intake of breath escaped hermother. Her father looked as though he had swallowed glass.
“You cannot behave so recklessly,” he warned. “You will ruin this family.”
Elisha tilted her head. “You ruined it the moment you chose convenience over your own child.”
They left soon after — shaken, speechless, afraid — and for the first time, that fear belonged entirely to them.
When the door closed, she allowed herself a slow inhale.
Tomorrow.
She would face the sister who had pushed her down the stairs. The prince who hadlet another wear her crown. The court that had pretended she never existed.
A knock echoed again, softer this time.
When the door opened, Adrian Blackwell stepped inside once more, his gaze darkened with unreadable thought.
“I heard raised voices,” he said quietly. “and shockingly your parents seemed panicked. ”
Her lips curved faintly. “It seems even you enjoy a worthy spectacle, Your Grace.”
“I enjoy fairness and a littlebit of thrill,” he corrected. “And you seem to be made of it now.”
She met his eyes, unwavering.“Tomorrow,” she said, “I return to the world that abandoned me.”
His gaze lingered, assessing, measuring.
“Then tomorrow,” he replied, “the world will tremble — and I find that I would regret missing such a moment.”
A dangerous hint of approval passed between them.
Outside these walls, whispers already bloomed like wildfire.
The abandoned fiancée would walk again.
And the court that celebrated her downfall would soon learn—
ghosts do not rise quietly.
- Writer
