Chapter 16 #2
Everywhere we look, there are piles of junk.
Broken chairs with stuffing leaking out like guts, old trunks bound in rusted iron, and stacks of yellowed newspapers that look like they'd crumble if I breathed on them.
There are headless mannequins draped in rotting fabric, looking like corpses waiting for a burial, and crates of old toy parts—wooden limbs and porcelain faces staring blankly from the shadows.
It's cluttered, suffocating, and smells of decay.
Amara shivers, wrapping her arms around herself as she looks around the dismal space.
"Bloody hell, Ophelia," she whispers, her voice echoing. "It looks like a fucking ghost lives here.”
"It really does," I whisper, the words barely leaving my throat. The attic feels like it's breathing, the stale air pressing against my skin like a damp shroud.
We begin to sift through the wreckage of my mother's existence.
I move with a cautious, trembling hand, but every time I spot a photograph—any image of me as a child with my sisters—I quickly slide it toward Amara.
I can't do it. I can't look at those frozen smiles and feel the crushing weight of their absence.
I can't afford to have a fucking panic attack right here, not in front of the only friend I have in this godforsaken world.
I need to stay composed, or I'll shatter into a million jagged pieces.
Amara notices my avoidance but doesn't push. Instead, she picks up a dusty ledger and glances at me. "What was your mum's name, love?"
"Marguerite Hansburg," I reply softly.
Amara whistles low, her eyebrows shooting up. "Hansburg... sounds like proper old money, that. Like the kind of people who have estates with more rooms than they know how to use." She pauses, looking at me curiously. "What did she look like? Your mum?"
A hollow feeling opens up in my chest. "I've never seen a picture of her. Not one. My Papa... he got rid of everything."
Amara stops moving, her expression shifting from curiosity to genuine confusion. "Jeez. Why the fuck would he get rid of every single photo of the love of his life and the mother of his kids? That’s not just sad, Ophelia, that’s suspicious. It’s properly weird."
I shrug, though my heart is starting to hammer against my ribs. I don't have an answer.
"How did they even meet?" she asks, her voice softer now.
"Papa always told me they met while he was taking over the toy shop from his dying father," I explain, the story sounding like a rehearsed script in my head.
"He said it was love at first sight. They went steady, and he proposed almost immediately.
But her parents... they were rich, and they didn't want their daughter marrying a lowly toymaker. They told her if she went through with it, she’d be cut off and disowned.
And she chose him. She chose Thomas Sorrell.
After that, they never spoke to her again.
They didn't even reach out after she died. "
Amara scoffs, a sharp, cynical sound. "Right. Because rich people are known for being so fucking forgiving and kind. Absolute tossers, the lot of them."
I ignore the comment and keep digging, my fingers brushing against cold metal and rotting fabric. Amara continues to sort through the photos, her face focused, until she reaches a stack of yellowed, brittle newspapers. She freezes. Her entire body goes rigid.
"Ophelia," she says, her voice tight. "Get over here. Now."
I walk over to her, my boots clicking softly on the wooden floor. She’s pointing to the front page of a newspaper, the ink faded but the headline still screaming from the page.
January 4th, 2007.
The headline reads: Marguerite Hansburg, Heiress of Hansburg Family, Missing.
Below the text is a photograph. I feel the air leave my lungs in one violent rush.
The woman in the photo is a mirror image of me.
She has the same facial structure, the same delicate curve of the jaw.
Her long black hair is swept up into a beautiful, intricate bun, and her eyes...
they are a piercing, ice-blue, staring back at me from twenty years ago with a haunting intensity.
She wears modern clothes that look quite expensive. The white gloves she has have a Chanel logo.
I snatch the paper from Amara's hand, my fingers shaking so hard the newsprint rattles.
I read the article, the words blurring before my eyes.
It describes her disappearance, claiming she had been kidnapped by a man she had complained was stalking and harassing her.
The police had a main suspect, though his identity remained unconfirmed.
The suspect is described as approximately 5'8" with brown hair and brown eyes.
At the bottom, a reward is offered: ￡100,000 for any information leading to the recovery of Marguerite Hansburg. Please contact the police or the Hansburg residence at... followed by a phone number.
They say this photo was taken just before she disappeared so how she is dressed in that photo is her clothes they can spot her in.
I can't breathe. The world tilts on its axis. "I... I can't believe this," I whisper.
Amara, who has been reading over my shoulder, lets out a breathy, horrified sound. "That woman looks exactly like you, Ophelia. Exactly. And she has your mother's name." She pauses, her eyes narrowing as a realization hits her. "Wait... doesn't your Papa have brown hair and brown eyes?"
I freeze. I think of my father—the man downstairs snoring in his stupor.
"His hair has some silver strands now," I stammer, "but...
but it is brown. Many people have brown hair and brown eyes, Amara!
It's common! Maybe... maybe my grandparents just thought she was kidnapped because they were arrogant, when she actually just ran away to marry the man she loved. "
Amara doesn't look convinced. Her gaze is hard, probing. "Then where is her grave, love? Did your Papa ever take you to visit her? Even once?"
I shake my head slowly, my eyes locked on the photo of the woman who should have been my mother. "No. Never. Even when I was a little girl... even when my sisters were still alive... he would always say no. He'd just get angry. He'd scream until we were too scared to ask again."
The silence that follows is suffocating.
Amara looks at me with a mixture of pity and horror.
She reaches out, her arms opening to pull me into a hug, to offer some shred of comfort in this nightmare.
But as she moves, her gaze shifts. She looks past my shoulder, staring at something deep in the shadows of the attic.
Her eyes go wide. Her breath hitches.
"Ophelia?" she whispers, her voice trembling. "Do you... do you see that too?"
A cold chill, like a plunge into ice water, washes over me. I slowly turn around.
Standing there, amidst the dust and the rotting mannequins, are two small figures. Two girls. My sisters.
They are wearing their twelfth birthday dresses—white lace that should have been pure, but is now drenched in dark, crusty crimson. They are holding hands, their small fingers entwined. Blood smears their faces; it drips from their clothes, staining the floor beneath them.
Their pale, hollow eyes lock onto mine. Their lips part, and in a synchronized, ghostly wail that echoes through the rafters, they call my name.
"Ophelia..."
I let out a piercing, guttural scream, the sound tearing from my throat as I recoil in absolute terror.