Chapter One
I wake from my dream, if you could call it that, with a sudden gasp that scorches my throat.
My heartbeat drums against my ribs as though I’m late for something I can’t name.
For a moment, I’m adrift, expecting to see red floral wallpaper and a bedroom door I know is barred from the outside, to hear adults' laughter drifting up the stairs, reminding me I don’t belong there.
Instead, I find plain white paint on the walls, a ceiling fan speckled with dust, and the steady hum of the radiator that works on its own terms. Reality seeps in, slow and sure.
I’m safe.
The nightmares haven’t stopped; over time, for the most part, they have gradually lessened and softened around the edges, but then there are the ones that take me immediately back to living with Uncle Reed, the ones that remind me of the loss of my mom.
Sometimes the dreams emerge in vivid images from my past, every detail painfully recognizable.
Other nights they twist reality, faces I can’t identify, voices warped into a symphony of accusation, leaving me awake with tears drying on my cheeks.
Tonight’s terror was mercifully vague: no faces, no voices, just the suffocating certainty of being watched, measured against an invisible standard I can never meet.
I suppose it was progress.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, pressing my bare feet into the cool wooden floor. The chill grounds me in the present. The air is laced with the bittersweet aroma of coffee grounds and the faint floral sweetness of my lavender detergent.
My apartment is a quiet studio above a small bookstore.
The room contains one large window that overlooks the main street, a kitchenette so tiny it barely earns the name and a queen bed I managed to squeeze up the stairs.
It may be a little drafty in the winter and hot during the summer, but it’s mine.
I discovered that freedom rarely is loud. Sometimes it’s the fragile safety you build yourself, brick by uncertain brick. Sometimes it's the certainty that the life you’ve built was made by your own hands and not forced by others' wants.
I stand and stretch, feeling old tension pull between my shoulder blades. Five years later, my body still mistrusts rest. I know my nights are never truly restful, but I had hoped for more than the few hours I received. It’s my day off and I had planned on sleeping late.
I shuffle to the bathroom and flick on the overhead light. The brightness makes me squint and regret turning it on. I splash cold water on my face, setting my hands on the edge of the sink until they slowly warm the porcelain.
When I look at my reflection, I see Aria James staring back.
Those wide-set brown eyes, Mama’s eyes, greet me with blunt honesty.
Flecks of gold catch even this dim glow, as if they were made to notice everything I’d rather ignore.
She would say the gold meant I was born to see the truth. Some days it feels more like a curse.
My curls spring around my face, flattened on one side by sleep, sticking up crazily on the other. I’ve tried taming them into something more acceptable but they never stay subdued. My hair protests every attempt at control.
My skin carries a warm bronze that winter cannot wash away, an obvious sign of my parents’ heritage for the world to read.
It’s usually the first thing people notice.
The second is my shape: soft curves I never asked for but learned to inhabit.
Hips that round where others narrow, a waist that dips, a body that refuses to vanish no matter how many layers I pile on.
I once dressed in shadows, hoping the world would step around me. But then I realized it never would.
I turn slightly, tracing the blooming sleeve of florals, vines, and thorns tattooed on my left arm.
Each petal, every thorn was chosen by me, a reminder that I decide what marks me.
At my right temple, a thin streak of silver curls through my dark hair.
It’s faint but I know it’s there, the same strand that went gray in Mama’s hair first. I lift a curl and remember her teasing voice: “Curious girls age faster.”
At twenty-five, I carry tension in my posture and map exits everywhere I go. I learned my role well, tough enough to survive. Yet here, in the quiet of this early morning, no one waits for me to fail. Five years since I left Uncle Reed’s house, and my body still hesitates to believe I’m safe.
I hold my reflection one last time. “You’re still here,” I whisper. And for now, that’s enough.
I promised I’d never be owned by another person, another set of expectations that didn’t fit.
I’ve upheld that promise. My life since leaving has been made of short leases, furniture I can abandon in an hour, with no roots to hold me.
Staying light means leaving is easier, just in case. Old habits built from fear die hard.
Back in the main room, I go to sit on the edge of the bed and scan the dim space.
On my desk sits my closed laptop and beside it a neat stack of printed job listings I’d meant to sift through days ago.
I pick them up, riffling through roles: retail, restaurant host, office assistant, temporary childcare gigs that barely scrape my expertise.
Then I see it again: Live-in caregiver needed. Private residence. One child. Long-term preferred.
My pulse flickers. The paper feels weighty in my hand. I remember printing it and nearly tossing it right away. Live-in anything has always been a hard no. Too close, too vulnerable, too easy to lose yourself in someone else’s walls.
But the pay is tempting, more than tempting: enough to stop scraping by, enough to inhale without counting pennies first. If pressed, I’d admit permanence scares me more than loneliness ever did.
I smooth the paper against my knee, eyes on the address at the bottom: Blackbriar House.
The name sounds like a novel setting, old money, hidden secrets woven into the foundation.
The reasonable part of me wants to shred it.
Sticking with what I know feels safer: brief, predictable, solitary.
Grabbing my phone, I manage to find the listing on one of my many open tabs.
My résumé is already saved in the files on my phone. Updated and honest without being revealing. I fill out the required information and upload my résumé. I stare at the submit button longer than I should, my pulse loud in my ears.
I think about my nightmare.
About the bedroom with the red walls, the click of the lock every time I was put there.
About how running saved me from Uncle Reed but staying in one place now has me more scared than he ever did.
I hit submit before I can overthink myself into paralysis.
A confirmation email appears instantly. Polite. Automated. Noncommittal.
I lock my phone and slide it into my pocket, a strange calm settling over me as I lean back in the chair. I wait for regret to crash into me.
It doesn’t.
Days pass.
Then a week.
I hear nothing.
The job fades into the background, filed away with other almosts and maybes. I focus on work. On routine. On the small victories of children learning to trust, to sleep, to let go. By the time I leave each day, I’m tired in a way that feels earned.
I forget about Blackbriar entirely.
Until my phone buzzes late one afternoon as I wait for the bus home.
New email.
I almost don’t open it.
When I do, the name at the top sends a quiet shock through my chest.
Blackbriar House
The bus pulls up beside me, brakes hissing, and I step on automatically, finding a seat by the window before opening the message.
Ms. James,
Thank you for your interest in the caregiver position at Blackbriar. Mr. Rochester has reviewed your résumé and asked that I reach out to arrange an interview, should you still be interested.
Warm regards,
Helen Cross
Property Manager, Blackbriar