Chapter 3 The ghost in the frame
The walk back from the bus stop felt longer than usual. The heavy silence of the Blackwood estate seemed to have hitched a ride on my shoulders, follows me all the way to our creaky front porch. When I pushed the door open, I expected the usual chaos—Leo’s toys underfoot, the television blaring, the smell of something frying.
Instead, the house was eerily still. Leo was at daycare, and Maya was likely still scrubbing floors at the clinic. The only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator.
I walked into the dining room and stopped. My mother was sitting at the table, her back hunched, her hands cradling a faded wooden picture frame. She didn't hear me come in. She was staring at the face of a boy with bright eyes and a mischievous grin—Jacob. My brother.
He had gone missing thirty years ago during the Great City Riots. The world had turned into fire and broken glass that night, and in the panic, a four-year-old boy had simply vanished into the smoke. My parents had spent decades searching, but the trail had gone cold before I was even born. To me, Jacob was a ghost; to my mother, he was a wound that refused to scab over.
"I wish my son was still around, Elena," she whispered, her voice thick with tears she didn't bother to wipe away. "Maybe things would be better. Maybe your dad wouldn't be as depressed. Jacob would have been a man now. He would have looked after us."
I felt a sharp pang of guilt, followed by a weary frustration. I walked over and placed my bag on the table, the thud breaking the spell.
"Mother, don't you think it’s about time you bury that memory?" I said, perhaps a bit too harshly. I reached out and gently touched her hand. "Jacob won't come back. It has been thirty years. Please, let it go. For your own sake. For ours."
She pulled her hand away, tucking the photo against her chest like a shield. "You don't understand, Elena. A mother never lets go."
"Enough about Jacob," she said, her voice suddenly shifting as she wiped her eyes with her apron. "How was your first day? Tell me everything."
Just then, the back door creaked open, and my father shuffled in. He looked smaller lately, his flannel shirt hanging loosely off his thin frame. He sat down heavily, his eyes searching mine.
"It was... fine," I sighed, pulling out a chair. "Actually, no. It was awful. This Victor guy... he’s so tense. He’s rude, he’s bitter, and he acts like having me there is a personal insult. I don't think I can do this, Mom. He doesn't want help."
"Remember, you’re there for work and only work, Elena," my father added, his voice gravelly but kind. "You carry a light inside you. No one can resist that forever. He’s just in a dark place. He’ll melt, and eventually, he’ll see the greatness in you."
I took a deep, jagged sigh. "I don't even care if he sees it. He’s so arrogant. He looked at me like I was a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe."
A knock at the door interrupted my venting. I opened it to find Liam standing there, looking far too handsome for a Tuesday evening. He was wearing a clean denim jacket and holding a bouquet of bright yellow daisies and a bar of the expensive sea-salt dark chocolate I loved.
"I figured the first day at the fortress required reinforcements," he said with a wink.
Dinner was a rare, cheerful affair. Liam had a way of making my father laugh, telling stories about his job at the garage while we tucked into my mother’s chicken stew. For a few hours, the shadow of Jacob’s photo and the cold walls of the Blackwood mansion were forgotten.
"To Elena," Liam said, raising his water glass. "The soon-to-be favorite employee of the wealthiest man in the city."
"Don't hold your breath," I laughed, feeling a bit of my bubbly self returning.
After dinner, I walked Liam out to his car. The night air was cool, smelling of damp earth and woodsmoke.
"Seriously, El," Liam said, pulling me into a hug. "Don't let that guy get under your skin. Use that bakery charm. If you can handle a line of fifty hungry people on a Monday morning, you can handle one grumpy rich guy."
"I'll try," I promised, kissing him goodnight.
When I came back inside, Maya was home, sitting on the sofa and painting her toenails a violent shade of pink. I sat down next to her, and we chatted late into the night. She told me about the "peanuts" she’d earned in tips, and I told her about Victor’s jawline—though I made sure to emphasize how much I hated the expression on it.
Monday morning arrived with a burst of defiant energy. I refused to let Victor Blackwood intimidate me. I chose my outfit like I was going to war: a bright, sunshine-yellow sundress with a pattern of tiny white daisies, paired with a soft mint-green cardigan. I looked like a spring morning in a house that felt like a permanent winter.
I caught the bus, the daisies on my dress bobbing with every bump in the road. By the time I reached the high stone gates, I had my "bakery smile" firmly in place.
The suit-clad guard let me in, and I marched up the driveway. The mansion looked even more imposing in the morning light, but I didn't let it stop me. I entered the foyer, my heels clicking cheerfully on the marble.
I headed straight for the lower level—the glass cage.
"Morningggg!" I sang out as I pushed open the heavy glass door. I sounded like a flute playing in a graveyard.
Victor was already there. He wasn't in his parallel bars today; he was sitting in a sleek, high-tech electric wheelchair that looked more like a throne than a medical device. He was wearing a charcoal gray cashmere sweater that made his dark eyes look even deeper, even more cold. The room was silent, the only sound the faint hum of his chair’s motor.
He didn't look up at first. He was staring out the glass wall at the courtyard, his jaw set in a hard, straight line.
"Look here," he said, his voice cutting through my cheer like a blade. He finally turned the chair toward me, his expression bored and utterly unimpressed. "My mother told me that you are very chatty. She thinks it’s 'charming.' I think it’s a migraine waiting to happen."
My smile faltered, but I held my ground. "I just thought a little greeting—"
"Can you please be unchatty around me?" he interrupted, his voice dripping with icy calm. "I don't need a narrator for my life. Today, I need my space. In fact, I’d prefer if you acted like furniture. Stay in the corner, be quiet, and only move when I tell you to."
Before I could even wrap my head around the insult, he flicked a switch on his armrest. The wheelchair whirred to life, and he drove off toward his bedroom, the door sliding shut behind him with a final, metallic clack.
I stood in the center of the room, my yellow dress feeling absurdly bright against the gray stone walls. My "light" hadn't melted him. If anything, it seemed like he wanted to blow it out just to see me sit in the dark.
"Fine," I whispered to the empty room, my jaw tightening. "You want furniture? I can be the most stubborn chair you’ve ever met."