Little Hidden Darknesses

Despite their carpeted exterior, the stairs creaked as Freya, Branka and I ascended to the second landing – the only noise save for Branka’s inaudible grumbles and Freya’s soft humming. The sisters both walked ahead of me, striding to the tick, tick, tick of the grandfather clock in the corner of the first landing, right beside the stained window that overlooked the foyer. Blue and orange and red, and with the picture of a couple. A man and a woman. A young, golden-haired, blue-eyed lady that so strongly resembled Genevieve.

Almost identical to the statue in the centre of town.

I gawked at it, at the uncanny resemblance. “When was this window put up?” I dared to ask.

My voice cut through the silence as a dagger.

Freya’s humming cut off. “A very long time ago. Right after the mansion was first built.”

“Oh, I see.” I kept my eyes pinned on the window as we passed it. On the woman’s face, her far-off gaze and puckered lips. She wore a scowl between her brows. Not a scowl, exactly, but the most serious expression. The exact expression Genevieve so often wore.

And Lilith too.

All of them, in fact.

Either it was a family trait, or they considered it their brand. Their aesthetic. I could only imagine what Genevieve might say. No Vinsant shall ever smile. A sad thought, really. But I didn’t actually care whether they lived a sad life. In fact, I hoped they were all miserable.

Harsh, but true. Unfortunately.

“The Vinsants were the first to set foot on this island,” Freya went on, and my head snapped back around. She peered across her shoulder at me, her eyes simmering with suspicion. Hesitance. “The sole survivors of a shipwreck. Well, together with their grubby slaves.”

Alejandro and his family.

“A shipwreck?” I asked, vaguely recalling the single hit I got for Evermist Island on google. Something about a trading ship from Denmark, and a storm that had caused it to sink. “I imagine that must’ve been terrible for them. Do you what happened? Why they sank?”

Branka gurgled from her throat. “Come on, enough history already. Who cares how our ancestors got here?”

“You should, Branka,” Freya insisted. “If not for the shipwreck, we’d never have landed here.”

“Our ancestors, you mean.”

Freya cast her sister a stern glance, and for the briefest moment she looked the spitting image of Lilith. Eyes as black as night. Frosty enough to freeze you from the inside out.

“Our ancestors,” she said, “of course.”

I watched her turn, adjust the lacy collar that peeked out under her sweater, and up the last few steps to the second landing. There, she turned left down a lamplit corridor with floor-to-ceiling windows swathed in thick, velvety curtains. A chill swept through my bones, the air suddenly colder, less breathable. Branka’s boots rang off the hardwood floors.

Clop.

Clop.

Clop.

The only sound save for the distant grandfather clock. And maybe my heart pounding in my head.

If ever they wanted to murder me, this proved the perfect location. A corridor with a thousand rooms to store my body in. A thousand rooms to confuse me if I tried to run away.

I briefly glanced over my shoulder at the staircase, at the last bit of sunlight that spilled through the stained glass onto the carpet. Maybe I should’ve told Alejandro I was coming here. Or maybe I shouldn’t have come here at all. Maybe. Maybe. The word haunted me.

“Is something the matter?” Branka asked, although her voice had barely any sincerity to it. I whirled around to find her with her hands in her pockets and her right leg extended to the side, her hip popping outward. She chomped on a piece of white bubble-gum.

“No,” I lied as I caught up to them. “I was just – uh – intrigued by that painting over there.”

Branka raised a brow. She cast a doubtful glance at the frame on the wall across from the staircase. A painting of the ocean, of the dock before it fell prey to the ever-crashing waves, salt and sun. Far on the horizon, the artist had painted an island. A harbour with ships and tackle shops and restaurants. A land without fog, without any restrictions or limitations.

“Oh, that old thing?” she said after a moment of studying it for herself. “I painted it a few years ago. Took me less than a day. It’s not worth anything if you thought about stealing it.”

“Branka!” Freya hissed, but her sister merely rolled her eyes and brushed past her with force.

They led me past a series of rooms with crystal knobs and patterned doors. The doors were all closed – all except for one at the very end. Freya reached it first, upon which she leaned in and shut it before I saw inside. She pressed her back against the knob as I passed.

“What’s in there?” I asked, my voice dripping with curiosity.

Freya reinforced her stance. “Oh, well – nothing you ought to concern yourself with. Not right now, at least,” she replied, then ushered me around the corner and into the first room to our right. Once inside, she crossed to the line of windows and yanked on a golden chord. The curtains parted to reveal an expanse of trees and fog, as far as the eye could see.

I blinked at the sudden change in lighting, my nose tickling from the many dust particles that floated about the room. A bedroom, complete with a queen-sized bed, crystal chandelier and matching mahogany wardrobe and dressing table set. Perfectly lavish. Perfectly worn.

Branka traced her index finger along the edge of the dressing table. She raised it, covered in dust, then screwed her lips together. “I bet you feel right at home. Don’t you, Eira?”

I grimaced, but Branka merely shrugged and blew on her finger, little bothered by my disgust.

“You’ve got to admit,” she went on as she adjusted her hair in the mirror. A packet of blotting paper caught her eye at the corner of the table, and she took one out and started to dab around her forehead and chin. “It’s a step up from that grubby motel you stayed at.”

Grubby motel? I cleaned that place, mind her. Only one room, sure, but I still did a smashing job.

“What’s it called again? The Peru ... Paramount ...”

“The Perez Motel,” I corrected her.

“Ah, yes. The Perez Motel. The name doesn’t quite fit the island’s schema, but it’s not like anyone ever checks in. Except for you, of course.” Branka opened up the wardrobe with a whoosh. She dove right in, rummaging through the selection of clothes inside. Dresses, blazers, shirts and skirts. Mostly pastel, mostly printed with flowers and dots.

“Boy,” she said with her face buried in clothing, “your mum had even worse style than you do.”

I felt the blood draining from my head, and my stomach wrench together. “M – My mum?” The words sounded distant as I said them. Foreign, almost. “This really was her bedroom?”

Freya shook her head, her curly ponytail bopping up and down. “It’s yours now, though.” She wormed herself in between Branka and the wardrobe, then searched the hangers.

I paid little attention to their doing as I roamed about the room, absorbing its looks and smells. Knowing my mum spent most of her life in here, it no longer seemed as bleak, as worn. Her style bounced off the walls, clear as day. The floral prints. The many pinks and peaches.

My hand met the soft wood of the bedpost, my eyes shutting and my lungs filling with as many memories I could conjure. The way my mum smelled of jasmine, of sweet vanilla.

“Here,” said Freya, suddenly next to me, “try this one on.”

My eyes snapped open and I jerked. I had to blink away the tears in order to see, to maintain my act of composure. Freya held out a vintage-looking dress – white – with red-and-green roses all over it. The cut wasn’t particularly my style, what with a high collar and poufy bottom, but by the looks of the other dresses on the floor, it proved the best of the rest.

“Thanks,” I said as I took the dress from Freya. It weighed more than it looked, and smelled nothing like my mum. The scent of mothballs reach my nose. Maybe a trace of mahogany.

“Go on, then,” she insisted.

“Put the damn thing on already,” Branka added. She had arranged herself on an armchair in the corner, one foot dangling over the armrest and the other up against the wall.

I waited for them to turn around, to show me to a dressing room perhaps, but they stared at me as if awaiting a show. “Uh, right here?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Branka sat up. “Ha! Look who suddenly got shy.” She blew a large bubble, then popped it with her pinkie. “What’s the matter, eh? You hiding three bellybuttons or something?”

“No.” I might’ve said that too quickly.

“What’s the hold up, then? Chop, chop!”

I crunched on my teeth when Branka snapped her fingers at me, the bangles around her wrist jangling with each click. If only I was better at thinking up comebacks on the spot. But I wasn’t, and that forced me to suck it up. Especially since I wanted them to trust me. Enough to award me free rein of the mansion. To perhaps allow me into the forbidden room.

So, with both sisters watching, I stripped down to my underwear and slipped the dress over my head. It fell across my body in a single, swift movement, moulding with every curve.

It fit perfectly.

Like a glove.

“Mmm,” Freya hummed, the most impressed I’ve seen her. “Not too shabby. For a tomboy.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Leave it to a Vinsant to make even a compliment sound like an insult. What did she expect in the first place? That I’d look like a troll in the dress?

“Now,” she went on, “I think we need one final touch to brighten you up and bring it all together.”

“What –”

With a single swift movement, Freya reached behind my head and undid my ponytail so my hair fell across my shoulders. A wave of golden. Straight-but-not-flat, and shiny-but-not-oily. A mane that resembled my mum’s so much, I couldn’t so much as look at myself. Not even when she brought me closer the mirror, her Lilith-like hands latched around my shoulders and a grin across her face. It faded when she saw me.

Really saw me.

“Look at that, Branka,” she breathed. “Isn’t she a dead ringer for Piper?”

Branka peered up from where she studied her nails, and I watched her face fall. She scooted to the edge of the chair and narrowed her eyes. Not to intimidate me, but in visible disbelief.

“I almost can’t tell the difference,” Freya breathed into my neck. The sensation made me shudder.

Not as much, though, as the eerie atmosphere that had suddenly filled the room. I swallowed before I asked, “How would you know what my mum looked like? You weren’t born yet.”

Not a second after the final word had passed my lips, Freya let go of my shoulders and spun. She swiped her sleeve under her eyes, then turned again with hardly any expression.

“We’ve got pictures, of course,” she said as she shared a glance with Branka, who had rapidly risen to her feet. “I’m sure you’ve seen them. There are frames all over the mansion.” She failed to meet my eyes when she finished, her reservation evident in her curved shoulders.

“There are frames, yes, but only one that features her.”

“Not true,” Branka defended her sister. “There’s one at the school. Don’t tell me you didn’t see it.”

“I did,” I admitted, as there was no point in denying it. But something still wasn’t right. Something that had been bothering me since yesterday afternoon. “You took it down, though.”

“What?” asked the sisters together.

“The one in the corridor with the glass ceiling. The only photo of my mum. You took it down. Why?”

Every ounce of Lilith vanished from Freya’s being, leaving behind only an unsure girl in her twenties.

Two unsure girls with too much to hide.

“I guess mother must’ve taken it down in order to clear the air. You know, forget the past.” A perfectly valid reason, although highly unlikely. Especially considering the circumstances.

“Anyway,” Freya went on in her best attempt to act unphased, “welcome to the family, Eira.” A pause in which she grabbed my shoulders again and squeezed. Her nails stabbed at the fabric, at my flesh underneath. “After tonight, you’ll never be alone again.”