RE-MADE

ASHES IN HER HANDS

Rain clawed at the windows of the too-quiet house. Inside, the air was thick and warm, heavy with the cloying scent of too many lilies and the sharp, unforgiving smell of fresh paint—as if they could simply cover up the past.

A girl stood rooted to a spot. Her hair, a cascade of dark, espresso-brown waves that falls just past her shoulders. It has a natural, subtle wave that she often tucks behind her ears or pulls into a simple, low ponytail to stay out of her way.

Wearing a look of downcast, shadowed by grief and anxiety.

And her eyes, which held a lingering sadness that made her look perpetually on the verge of tears she refused to shed.

Kiera Monroe stood in the foyer, a single suitcase at her feet, her knuckles white around the handle. She was staring at the stranger wearing her mother’s wedding ring.

'Step-mother.' The word was a splinter in her mind.

It had been two days. Two days since the earth had swallowed her mother whole. And now this woman—Eleanor—stood under their family chandelier, a practiced smile on her lips, her hand possessively on Kiera’s father’s arm.

“Kiera, darling,” her father said, his voice too bright, too forced. “This is Eleanor. She’s going to help us heal.”

"Darling". He’d called her mother that. The memory felt like a stain he was desperate to scrub away.

Behind Eleanor, a girl emerged. Liliana. Her new step-sister. She was all porcelain skin and golden hair, her head tilted in a show of sympathy that didn’t touch her eyes. A gleam of cold assessment shone there instead.

Kiera caught it. Oh,she did...

She looked down as her fingers fondled with her dress as She forced her lips to curve upward to smile. It felt like dragging glass across her skin.

Eleanor , walked up to her gave her and hugged her,then withdraws as she looks at kiera,slides her had over her hair paused with a smile that didn't reach her eyes “I’ll do my best to make you feel at home,and as a mother” she said, her voice a flat, a placid lake.

Eleanor turned around —lips curled. It wasn’t a smile. It was a smirk wearing a mask of courtesy.

Kiera tucked the warning away behind her ribs, locking it down deep. She had made a promise to herself in the hollow silence after the funeral: No drama. No mistakes. 'Just be better. Be good.'

---

The first cut came that night.

Returning from the bathroom, she found her world in pieces. Her suitcase was eviscerated, clothes strewn down the hallway like fallen petals. Her heart gave a frantic lurch.

She fell to her knees, scrambling. Her piano medals—each one earned with bloody fingertips and sleepless nights—were gone. The scholarship documents, her ticket to a future, were torn neatly down the spine.

Her breath hitched, ice flooding her veins.

From the far end of the shadowy corridor, she heard it: Liliana’s laughter. Light and melodic, the sound of a knife dancing on glass.

Kiera’s trembling fingers sifted through the wreckage, and then they closed around it. Her favorite photograph. Her and her mother, heads together at the piano bench, forever caught in a shared, joyful smile.

Now ripped clean through the middle.

A soundless sob caught in her throat. She clutched the torn image to her chest, her vision blurring. But she did not let the tears fall.

Pain is private, my love, her mother’s voice whispered in her memory. Pain is yours. Don't you ever give it to them.

---

The next morning, hell served breakfast.

Kiera reached for the orange juice just as Liliana’s hand, with calculated slowness, moved to intercept. The glass pitcher met the floor with a violent crash, a river of sticky sweetness bleeding across the tiles.

The room froze.

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Kiera!” The name was a whip-crack. “Must you always be so clumsy?”

Liliana’s gasp was a masterpiece of theater. She pressed a delicate hand to her heart. “I was only trying to help her,” she whimpered, her eyes glistening with manufactured tears.

Kiera’s mouth opened. A denial, a scream, a plea—it died before it was born, slaughtered by her father’s sharp, warning glare.

“I’m sorry,” Kiera whispered. The apology was ash in her mouth. The voice was small, cracked. Almost… not hers.

Eleanor’s smile was winter. “Clearly, you need structure. Purpose. From tonight, you’ll be staying upstairs. In the attic.”

The attic. A tomb of dust and forgotten things. Where the rats whispered in the walls and the rain wept through the cracked roof.

Across the table, Liliana offered a sweet, consoling smile. And in the depths of her eyes, Kiera saw the truth, clear and sharp as a shard of glass.

This was not carelessness. This was war.