The grand manor, once filled with laughter and the warmth of a young family, became a museum of grief. Its high ceilings now seemed to trap the silence, its long halls amplifying every sigh and creak into a mournful echo. For Christina, it was the only world she knew. Her infancy was spent in the care of a stoic, pitying housekeeper, her childhood a lesson in invisibility.
She was a quiet, preternaturally observant toddler. Her eyes, a sharp, startling blue like her brother's, missed nothing. She learned quickly that the heavy, uneven tread of her father's boots meant she should make herself small, a mouse in the wainscoting. She would hide in the library, behind dusty velvet curtains that smelled of neglect, tracing the intricate patterns in the worn Persian rug with a small, solemn finger.
Alistair Jenson was a ghost haunting his own life. He drank whiskey from morning till night, the sour-sweet scent of it clinging to him like a shroud. He could not look at Christina without seeing the ghost of his wife, without reliving the shattering of glass and the finality of that soft, sighing impact.
The abuse began not with violence, but with a devastating absence. He refused to hold her. He would not speak to her directly, referring to her only as "the girl" or "it." If she stumbled and fell in his presence, he would step over her, his face a stone mask, as if she were merely a piece of furniture. Clark, only a child himself, became her surrogate parent. He would pick her up, brush off her knees, and whisper, "It's alright, Christina. I'm here. I see you."
The first true act of violence happened when she was four. She had been chasing a brightly colored ball, her childish giggles—a sound so rare it was almost alien—echoing in the silent hall. The ball rolled into Alistair's study. Tentatively, she pushed the heavy oak door open. He was at his desk, staring not at paperwork, but at a small, painted portrait of Elara. The ball bumped gently against the leg of a small, delicate table upon which sat a crystal vase—a wedding gift, one of the last tangible pieces of his dead wife.
It teetered, then fell. The sound of shattering crystal was apocalyptic in the suffocating silence.
Alistair's head snapped up. The vacant sorrow in his eyes was instantly incinerated by a rage so pure it was terrifying. He was upon her in two strides. "You clumsy, wretched thing!" he roared, his voice echoing off the bookshelves. His hand, large and calloused from a life of wealth that still demanded physical pride, caught her across the side of the head with a crack that silenced her giggles into a stunned, breathless whimper. She fell to the floor amidst the shards, a tiny, terrified heap.
"You break everything you touch!" he spat, looming over her, his shadow swallowing her whole. "You are destruction itself! You are nothing but a curse!"
Clark came running, his small feet pounding on the hardwood. At ten years old, he was already showing the broad build of his father, but his heart was entirely his own. He didn't hesitate. He threw himself between his father and his cowering sister, his small hands pushing against Alistair's legs. "Stop it! Leave her alone! It was an accident!"
Alistair looked down at his son, his anger faltering for a moment, replaced by a confusing mess of shame and renewed grief. He staggered back, his hand going to his forehead as if to contain the storm within. "Get her out of my sight," he muttered, his voice suddenly tired, hollow. "Clean up her mess."
Clark didn't need to be told twice. He gathered his sobbing sister into his arms, ignoring the way the crystal shards bit into his own skin, and carried her away. In the kitchen, he cleaned the cut on her cheek, his own tears mixing with hers. That night, as he tucked her into bed, he promised her, as he would promise her a hundred times over the years, his voice fierce with a determination that belied his age, "I won't let him hurt you. I'll protect you. I will always protect you."
But the seal was broken. The hatred had been given permission to become physical. The shadow in the nursery had grown teeth.