here, I could keep her safe, even if only in the most basic way possible. Even if it only meant making certain she had clothes and food and warmth and love. Guilt threatens to consume me. Leaving Ellie with Ginny at the motel was a naive mistake. Leaving her with Ginny every time after was a leap of faith. I’d believed that after the courts granted her guardianship, she’d won—at least, in her mind. But she’d known who Sterling was when he showed up at Windfall. She’d seen all of this coming. None of that explains this move.
I pick up Buddy Bear and look around, clutching him to my heart. “Where are you, baby?”
Turning toward the door, I nearly trip on the bag in the dark. I turn my flashlight on it, wondering how long Ginny planned to hide her away in here. I grab it and unzip it, expecting to find more granola bars and snacks. Instead, it’s full of clothes. Not the pastel, flowery dresses Ginny sticks poor Ellie in day in and day out. Adult clothes. I pull out a shirt and stare at it. Then a pair of pants. It’s my clothes.
My clothes.
Ellie, hidden away in the stables that held my horses with a bag of my clothes waiting with her.
“Ellie!” I scream, dropping the bad and jogging through the stable. “Ellie, are you in here! It’s…me. Come out.”
Come out. Come out. Come out. I chant it over and over in my head like I’m casting a spell. She’s not here. It’s clear from Ginny’s reaction that she was supposed to be. I try not to think of the acres of land that stretch in all directions. Of the number of ponds and lakes dotting the property. Of what kind of animals might prowl my father’s kingdom. I try to think of her.
Where would you hide? Sterling asked me.
I stop and close my eyes. Where would I feel safe? Where would I go? And suddenly, I’m pressed safely in a dark corner, cloaked in soft cashmere as the smell of my mother’s perfume blossoms around me. Daddy never went there when he was angry. It was her place. It was safe. It was always safe.
I run towards the house, stumbling in the dark but never falling. Throwing open the door to the kitchen, I hear yelling upstairs. Ginny’s voice cuts through the air. She’s yelling at someone. Felix? I don’t stop long enough to know for sure. Instead, I seize my chance to get upstairs, past her, past her devious plan. Taking the servant’s stairs, I wind my way up to the second floor. My mother’s room is now Ginny’s. She pretends to sleep in Malcolm’s room, but she took over the space as soon as my father died, boxing up my mother’s scarves and dresses, taking down her curated collection of art in the corridor. But despite her changes, my mother’s presence lingers in the space. Ginny’s make-up sits on her vanity. The bedding has changed. All of these small changes might not add up too much, but they feel wrong, like the room itself is slowly rejecting each one like a heart transplant that doesn’t take.
My mother’s clothes are gone from the closet, replaced by Ginny’s, and the comforting sensation I once felt stepping foot inside has vanished. Even when the clothes and shoes shoved inside, it feels sterile and empty. I force apart the hangers, hoping to find Ellie hidden amongst the clothes, drawn to the safety I once found here. But she’s not here. I slump against the wall.
Through the years, it’s been harder and harder to hide how much my daughter takes after me and her father. Fragile like a bomb, passionate, strong-willed. They’ve tried to stamp it out of her, chipping away at her like a piece of granite, determined to make her into their vision of the perfect child to fit their perfect life. She’s resisted it at every turn, becoming something more beautiful, more fitting of the raw material she was born with—something that looked dangerously like me.
Me.
She’s like me.
I’m in the corridor, passing the main stairs, ignoring Ginny’s voice calling after me as I rush by to the opposite wing of the house. My wing. My room. My daughter.
There’s nothing left inside my quarters now, even the few boxes I’d left behind that day have been moved. The room sits hollowed from the inside with no sign of life.
“Please,” I murmur, running to the closet. Malcolm emptied