Emily
The first thing that wakes me up, as always, is Victoria's voice. It's so loud that even mice would grab their tiny bags and run away looking for somewhere quieter. It has a special quality, a sharp, metallic edge that scratches across my nerves like a rusty key turning in a lock that hasn't been oiled in a century. This morning, a resounding statement echoes from the foot of the main staircase, two floors below my attic sanctuary.
"Emily! Are you dead up there, or has the weight of your laziness finally fused you to that sad excuse for a mattress?"
I sigh, the puff of air turning into a small white cloud in the freezing morning air of my room. A little bit of both I think, a sliver of dark humor that I keep tucked away for myself. It's one of the few things that is truly mine. My room, if you could call it that, is the attic. The forgotten space. The floorboards are rough and have sharp bits of wood sticking out and protest with a groan every time I move, and the air is thick with the scent of dust, cold stone, and the faint smell of decay from a family of mice that met their end somewhere in the walls last winter. My bed is a lumpy mattress that feels stuffed with rocks and broken dreams, and my only window is a single, stained circle of glass that looks down upon a world I am not truly a part of.
From here, I have a perfect, lordly view of the gleaming manor. It spreads below me like a sleeping beast, its stone walls glowing warmly in the early morning light, its gardens,neatly trimmed, well kept, and carefully maintained to within an inch of their life. I can see the heart of the house begin to beat, smoke curls from the kitchen chimney, promising a breakfast of bacon and fresh bread that I can smell even from up here, a imaginary feast that will never reach my plate. I can hear the distant, softened clatter of porcelain and silver as the table is set in the grand dining room. It's a world I can see, a world I live inside the walls of, but one I can never touch. It's a gilded cage, beautiful and fancy, but my part of it is the iron bars of the attic, not the velvet cushions of the parlor.
My father Hector lives down there. He is the master of this grand house, yet in the years, he has become a ghost in his own home, a silent, brooding presence that haunts the hallways. His silence is the heaviest thing in the house. It's a constant, suffocating weight, a thick blanket of unspoken blame that buries any chance of warmth. He blames me for the death of his first wife who was also my mother, Eliana.
He is a man of the human world, simple, solid, and completely lost in the face of the magic that took his wife and marked his daughter. His first wife, my mother, was not like him. She was a runaway princess from Silverwood kingdom, a place that sounds more like a myth than a memory. Her story is a forbidden whisper in this house, a fairy tale my father refuses to tell.
She died the day I was born, and in his grief stricken mind, I am not a daughter, but the sorrow he can see and touch. He rarely looks at me. On the few occasions our eyes have met, his are not filled with anger, but with a deep, hollow sorrow that I know, with a certainty that chills me to the bone, is all my fault. It's a look that says, you cost me everything.
I sit up, my joints cracking in protest against the cold, and reach for the one treasure I possess. On a string around my neck, hidden beneath the collar of my threadbare nightgown, is a small, silver locket. It is worn smooth from my constant touch, its surface a soft, dull gray. It was a gift from a forgotten moment of tenderness, a memory so hazy it feels more like a dream. I must have been very small, perhaps four or five. I remember the feel of his large, tough-skinned hand, so different from the soft, manicured hands of Victoria. He knelt before me, his eyes for a brief moment, clear of the storm of grief. He didn't smile, but the lines around his eyes softened as he fastened the locket around my neck. "From her," he had whispered, his voice a rough, unused thing. "So you'll remember."
I never knew if he meant I should remember him in that brief moment of connection, or my mother, whose face I have never seen. There is no portrait of her in the house. Victoria saw to that on her first day here. The locket is empty. I've checked a thousand times, prying it open with a hopeful thumbnail, only to be met with two small, vacant ovals of silver. Still, it is my only connection to him, to the father who existed before the grief, and to the mother I never knew. It's a promise that things weren't always this way.
Holding tight the locket until the metal warms against my palm, I take a deep, steadying breath. The air I draw in is thin and cold, but I hold it in my lungs, a small armor against the day. I swing my legs over the side of the mattress, my bare feet landing on the shockingly cold floorboards. Time to descend. Time to face the day. Each step down the narrow, winding attic stairs is a deliberate act of will. The wood creaks under my weight, each sound a countdown to the moment I will step into the main house and into Victoria's line of sight.
I reach the first floor landing and pause. I can hear her now, not shouting, but humming a self satisfied tune as she directs the cook in the kitchen. She'll be in her comfort zone, in charge of everything, strict but also polite about it. As I start down the grand, sweeping staircase, the one meant for ladies in fine gowns, I see him. My father is standing at the bottom, one hand resting on the polished stair post, his back to me. He is dressed for his work at the lumber yard, his broad shoulders slumped with a weariness that has nothing to do with physical labor. He must have heard my steps, but he doesn't turn. His entire body goes rigid, a statue carved from regret. I see his hand tighten on the wood, his knuckles turning white. He knows I am there. I could stand here all day, and he would not acknowledge me. This is his daily ritual of punishment.
My foot lands on the last step, the sound a soft thud on the thick hallway rug. He pulls back, a barely noticeable movement, and then, without a word, without a glance, he pushes off the post and walks away, disappearing into the dining room. The empty space where he stood beats with everything left unsaid. My breath escapes me in a shaky sigh, the armor I had so carefully constructed cracking around me. The silence from him is a deeper cut than any of Victoria's high-pitched and unpleasant words. I square my shoulders, lift my chin, and take a breath, bracing for the day's first verbal assault, the one that will inevitably come from my stepmother, the one that I can at least predict.