CHAPTER 2
1071 Words
Fractures in the Glass
“Dreams had a way of always haunting Anya in Julian’s house, even when she wished they vanished.”
The car drove back from the Sterling gala. Inside, Anya sat silently and calmly against the car’s leather seat, her hands folded gently in her lap, the pressure of Julian’s hand from where he held during the gala still painful. The glow of the ballroom played back in her eyes, not the glitter of chandeliers or diamonds, but the revealing eyes of Charles Sterling, the way his voice sounded around her secret: You are not who you think you are.
She held the locket around her neck unconsciously.
“You were… distracted tonight.”Julian’s voice stopped her flashbacks and brought her back to reality.
Anya turned her focus from the window back to Julian.
“I was just tired,” she replied.
“Mm.” He said with a very serious look on his face “Sterling spoke to you more than I prefer.”
“We only spoke of… of the portraits.” Anya hesitated a bit before she replied.
Julian’s mouth forced a smile that was not a smile. “Portraits. Of course,” He sat back and folded his hands. “Remember, Anya, not all conversations are safe. Some men are skilled in planting doubts where none should exist.”
The car became quiet once again. The words from Julian and Mr Sterling hovered around Anya leading her into doubt. Yet in her heart, the seed planted by Sterling’s words began to take root.
There was silence throughout the rest of the ride, broken only by the steady clatter of wheels.
The mansion greeted them with its familiar hush. Servants silently like the shadows, their faces neutral, their voices calm. Anya’s emerald gown swept across marble as Julian walked her inside.
“Sleep well,” he said, as he kissed her cheek. “We will get up early. Tomorrow, there are meetings. Appearances must be kept.”
“Yes, Julian.”
When he shut the door behind him, the silence returned back.
She undressed slowly,taking off the emerald silk and jewelry until she was left only in a thin nightwear, the locket still around her neck. She walks to the wardrobe and touches the glass. For a moment, she saw herself different, not as Mrs. Julian Vance, the ornament-wife, but as something… else. Someone who belonged in one of those portraits at Sterling’s estate. Someone who knew the lullaby that hummed in her sleep for years.
The song rose before she could stop it, a faint hum, uncertain at the beginning. It wrapped around her like an old memory, soft and soothing, but filled with grief.
A floorboard creaked.
Anya froze.
In the mirror, she saw a servant standing behind her in the doorway. Young Clara, the maid with downcast eyes and quick hands. Their gazes met briefly in the glass before Clara dropped into a hurried curtsy.
“Forgive me, madam. I thought you rang.”
“No,” Anya whispered, heart pounding. “I… I didn’t.”
Clara hesitated, her eyes look once toward the locket at Anya’s throat. Then she lowered her head again and walked down the hall, leaving only silence behind.
But the silence was different now. Charged.
Morning brought no peace. At breakfast, Julian read the newspaper, his eyes sliding down columns of politics and finance, while Anya’s untouched tea grew cold. She could not shake the look Clara had given her, it was not a look of mere curiosity, but recognition.
“Anya,” Julian said without looking up at her, “You were humming in your room last night.”
Her spoon rattled softly against the edge of the porcelain cup. “You… you heard me?”
“I hear everything.” His eyes lifted at last, cold and unblinking. “Where did you learn that tune?”
Her lips opened, but no words came. She did not know where she had learned it, only that it lived inside her, older than her life with him.
“I don’t remember,” she replied.
Julian’s gaze sharpened. For a long moment, silence stretched, taut as wire. Then he smiled faintly. “Curious. See that it does not become a habit. Music should soothe, not disturb.”
His notion was clear: her song disturbed him.
The day passed in a fog of duties. She accompanied Julian to a luncheon with investors, smiled when instructed, laughed when cued. But each time she caught her reflection in the gold plated mirrors, It was not submission she noticed, but fractures quietly breaking through the surface.
That night, as she sat alone in her sitting room, at her door came the soft sound, a whisper of movement followed by a folded note slipping under the gap.
Her breath caught. She glanced toward the hall empty. Heart beating fast, she picked up the note and unfolded it with trembling hands.
The handwriting was elegant, deliberate.
Mrs. Vance,
If ever you wish to speak without interruption, there is a place where truth is safe. Tomorrow at dusk, in St. Cecilia’s courtyard. Ask for David. He will know.
C. Sterling
The paper trembled in her hands. Truth. The word blazed like fire.
Her first instinct was fear Julian would never forgive such a secret. But beneath the fear, a fierce hunger surged. The same hunger that had driven her to hum the lullaby when alone, that made her clutch the locket until her fingers ached.
For the first time, there was proof and someone else knew.
She folded the note quickly and hid it in one of her jewelry box where Julian would never think to look. Her pulse raised so violently she thought the silence might shatter from the sound alone.
She stood up, moving to the window.
She looked beyond the iron gates, the city was glowing faintly with life, laughter, footsteps, and the promise of something other than walls and silence.
Her reflection in the glass looked back at her, fragile and desperate. But somewhere in that desperate looking eyes of hers’, she saw hope.
Tomorrow, she would go.
Tomorrow, the cracks in Julian’s glass would widen.
Anya receives Charles Sterling’s secret note, giving her a place to meet and learn the truth — but Julian’s suspicions are mounting, and she now risks everything if she dares to step outside his control.
- Writer
