Chapter 4
Selena (Past)
My mother started her chores before the sun came up.
I woke to the soft sounds of her moving around the cottage downstairs, opening cabinets with careful hands and closing them even more carefully, like she thought the Montgomerys might hear every little noise from the big house up the path.
The bedroom stayed dark except for the thin grey light pushing through the curtains, and for a few seconds, I lay there forgetting where I was.
Then it came back to me all at once. No peeling paint on the ceiling above my bed.
No shouting drifting up from the living room.
No sour smell of whiskey soaked into the walls.
Just the steady tap of rain against the window and my mother whispering to herself down in the kitchen as she checked the clock again and again.
I got out of bed and pulled on yesterday’s jeans.
The knees still felt damp from the rain.
My sneakers waited by the door, stuffed with paper towels the way my mother said would help them dry faster.
They hadn’t. When I slid my feet inside, my toes curled against the cold lining. I went downstairs anyway.
In the tiny kitchen, my mother stood at the counter in her plain black dress and cardigan, hair pulled back so tight it made her face look both younger and more tired at the same time.
She had made me toast and cut it into neat triangles, even though I was ten and not a little kid anymore.
The plate sat on the table next to a glass of real orange juice.
Not the powdered stuff we used to mix from the big plastic tub back in Portland.
This tasted bright and cold when I took my first sip.
“You’re up early,” she said, turning when she heard me on the stairs.
“So are you.”
“I have to be at the main house by six.” She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress, then did it again, the fabric whispering under her palms.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s only five-thirty.”
“I know.” She gave a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I don’t want to be late on my first day. First impressions matter here.”
“You won’t be late,” I told her, sitting down at the table. “You’re never late.”
She watched me pick up a piece of toast. She had spread the butter all the way to the edges, thick and yellow.
Back in Portland, she used to scrape the knife across the bread until there was hardly any left, saving the rest for later when my father might want more.
Here she had used too much, like she was trying to prove to both of us that things could be different now.
“I need you to stay in the cottage today,” she said quietly.
I looked up from my plate.
“Don’t go wandering around the estate. Don’t go near the main house unless someone comes to get you. Mrs. Montgomery said we can use the cottage and the path to the staff entrance, but that doesn’t mean the whole property belongs to us.”
“I know.”
“Selena.” Her voice stayed soft, but I heard the worry underneath it.
“I know,” I repeated, gentler this time. “I won’t go anywhere.”
She came around the table and rested her hand on the top of my head, fingers warm from the toaster. “I’m not saying it because I don’t trust you. I’m saying it because this matters. We need this to work.”
We. She always used that word when things felt shaky. We need to be quiet. We need to wait until he falls asleep. We need to leave tonight. Now, it was we need this to work, and I understood what she meant better than she probably thought I did.
She bent down and kissed my forehead, her lips cool and quick. “I’ll come back at lunch to check on you.”
“I’m not six anymore.”
“I know.” She smiled then, a real one, small and sad around the edges. “But you’re still my baby.”
She picked up her work bag, gave the kitchen one last look as if she was memorizing it, and stepped out into the rain.
Through the window, I watched her walk the wet garden path toward the mansion, shoulders straight, bag held tight against her side.
The big house looked even larger in the morning light, grey stone walls and tall windows shining with rain.
She disappeared inside the staff entrance, and the door closed behind her with a soft click.
I finished my toast slowly, then washed the plate and glass so she wouldn’t come back to chores waiting for her.
After that, the cottage felt too quiet. At first, I liked it.
I sat on the couch and listened to the rain, letting the silence wrap around me like a blanket I had never been allowed to keep before.
But after a while, the quiet started pressing against my ears.
I wasn’t used to safe quiet. I was used to listening inside it for the next slammed door or raised voice.
By nine o’clock, I had opened every cabinet, folded the clothes from one of the garbage bags into the small dresser upstairs, and tried reading the three gardening books on the living room shelf. After two pages about soil types, I gave up.
Outside, the rain had softened into mist that hung low over the gardens.
I told myself I was only going to look.
The path from the cottage wound between wet hedges and pale stones.
I kept my hands in my jacket pockets and walked slowly, careful not to step on the flower beds.
Everything smelled clean and cold, rain on roses mixed with the sharp salt of the ocean.
The gardens looked almost too perfect, each plant placed exactly where it belonged, nothing bright or messy or out of line.
I stopped near a stone fountain that wasn’t running and looked up at the second-floor window where I had seen the girl the night before. Nothing moved behind the glass, just the grey sky reflected at me. I should have turned around then. Instead, I followed the path a little farther.
The side door near the kitchen opened before I reached it. A woman carrying a basket of linens almost walked straight into me.
“Oh,” she said, startled but smiling. “You must be Mira’s daughter.”
I froze. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to—”
“It’s all right.” She shifted the heavy basket against her hip. “I’m Nora. I work mornings in the kitchen. Come on in before you catch a cold. But wipe your shoes properly first. Mrs. Montgomery hates mud tracked through the back hall.”
I wiped my sneakers on the mat until it looked worse than when I started, then stepped inside. The back hallway smelled like fresh bread and coffee. Voices drifted from deeper in the house, soft and even. Nothing here ever seemed loud.
Nora led me into the kitchen. It was enormous, with copper pans hanging over the big island and two ovens built into the wall.
Bowls of fruit lined the counter, apples and pears and oranges stacked like decorations no one actually needed to eat.
A woman in a white apron rolled dough near the window, flour dusting her arms.
My stomach tightened even though I had already eaten.
“Selena?” My mother asked from the sink. She had rubber gloves on, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Her face changed the second she saw me, not angry exactly, but afraid. “I told you to stay at the cottage.”
“I was just outside.”
“She was by the garden,” Nora said easily. “No harm done.”
My mother gave her a grateful look, then turned back to me. “Selena.”
“I’m sorry,” I said before she could go on.
She sighed, the sound tired but not sharp. Before she could say anything more, a voice came from the doorway.
“She’s the girl from the cottage.”
I turned.
The girl from the window stood at the edge of the kitchen, watching me.
In the daylight, she looked smaller than she had behind the glass.
Dark blond hair fell straight past her shoulders, neatly brushed but a little messy at the ends, like she had run her hands through it.
She wore a navy sweater over a white collared shirt and a plaid skirt that looked like a uniform.
Her socks sat at the same height on both legs.
She looked at me the way someone studies a question they haven’t finished reading yet.
“Katherine,” Nora said, “your breakfast is in the dining room.”
“I know.”
“You’re not supposed to be in the kitchen.”
“I know that too.”
My mother wiped her wet hands on a towel and straightened up fast.
“Good morning, Miss Montgomery.”
Katherine glanced at her, then back at me.
“You’re Selena.”
It wasn’t really a question.
I nodded.
“You moved here last night?”
I nodded again.
“From Portland?”
Another nod.
She frowned a little. “Do you talk?”
Nora made a soft sound like she was trying not to laugh. My mother’s eyes went wide.
“I talk,” I said quickly.
Katherine studied me for another second. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because you were saying everything already.”
For one heartbeat, the whole kitchen went still. Then Katherine smiled. Not a big smile, just a tiny lift at the corner of her mouth, like I had surprised her in a good way. I felt strangely proud of earning it.
“Katherine,” a woman called from down the hall, “you’ll be late.”
Katherine’s smile disappeared. “I’m not going to school today.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I have a stomachache.”
“You had a stomachache yesterday.”
“It came back.”
Nora turned toward the stove, but I saw her mouth twitch again. Katherine looked annoyed, but not the loud, scary kind of annoyed I was used to. Hers stayed quiet, folded inside herself.
A moment later Mrs. Montgomery appeared behind her. She wore a pale grey dress, hair smooth, small pearls at her ears. Her eyes moved from Katherine to me, then to my mother at the sink.
“Mira, I’m sorry. Katherine is supposed to be having breakfast right now.”
My mother looked like she wanted to apologize for taking up space in a kitchen where she belonged. “It’s no trouble at all, Mrs. Montgomery.”
Mrs. Montgomery touched Katherine’s shoulder lightly. Katherine stiffened under the hand. “Come along, sweetheart.”
Katherine didn’t move. “I don’t want to go.”
“We are not doing this again this morning.” Her mother’s voice stayed gentle, but something underneath it had closed off.
Katherine looked down at the floor. I knew that exact feeling, wanting to push back and knowing it would only make the room colder around you.
Before I could think better of it, I said, “School isn’t that bad.”
Everyone turned to look at me. My mother’s face went pale.
Katherine narrowed her eyes. “You don’t even know my school.”
“No,” I said. “But if it’s bad, at least it ends at three.”
Nora coughed into her hand. Mrs. Montgomery looked almost amused. Katherine stared at me for another long second.
Then she asked, “Are you going to school here?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why not?”
My mother answered before I could. “We still have to sort a few things out, Miss Montgomery.”
Katherine’s gaze flicked to my mother, then back to me. “You should come to Bellamont Academy.”
I almost laughed out loud. Even I knew girls like me did not go to places like Bellamont Academy.
Mrs. Montgomery’s expression changed, the careful way adults’ faces shift when children say something impossible in front of people who know better. “That’s enough, Katherine. We need to get you to school.”
But Katherine kept looking at me. “If you came, I’d show you where everything is.”
I didn’t know what to say. No one had ever offered me something like that so simply, like a whole world could open up just because you wanted it enough.
My mother gave me a quick warning look, so I lowered my eyes. “Thank you,” I said, careful and polite.
Katherine seemed disappointed by the politeness. Mrs. Montgomery guided her gently toward the hall. “Say goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Selena.”
“Goodbye, Katherine.”
She stopped at the doorway and looked back once, eyes wide and curious again. Then she was gone.
The kitchen felt warmer after she left, louder somehow, even though no one had raised their voice. My mother pulled me aside near the pantry, voice low. “What were you thinking, speaking up like that?”
“I didn’t say anything bad.”
“You can’t speak to them like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re equal.” The words landed heavier than I expected. My mother seemed to hear how they sounded because her face softened right away. “I don’t mean it the way it came out, sweetheart. I just… we have to be careful. This is new for both of us.”
She was right. That was the worst part. I looked toward the hallway Katherine had disappeared down.
“She asked if I could go to Bellamont,” I said quietly.
My mother closed her eyes for a second. “Selena.”
“I know.”
“No, sweetheart.” Her voice turned gentle, which somehow made it hurt more. “You don’t. Bellamont is very expensive. Mrs. Montgomery is kind, but we cannot ask for things like that.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know.” She touched my cheek with the back of her hand, cool and soft. “But you wanted to.”
I looked away. Through the kitchen windows I saw the black car waiting on the front drive. A man in a dark coat held an umbrella by the open back door. Katherine stood beside it, arms crossed, arguing with her mother again in that quiet, stubborn way of hers.
Then, suddenly, she looked toward the kitchen window. Toward me.
I lifted my hand before I could stop myself. A small wave.
For a moment, she did nothing. Then Katherine lifted her hand too. The gesture was quick and stiff, almost embarrassed, but it was real.
My mother sighed softly beside me. “Go back to the cottage after lunch,” she said. “And please don’t wander.”
“I won’t.”
I meant it when I said it. Mostly.
Katherine climbed into the car. The driver closed the door. As it pulled away down the long gravel drive, I stood at the kitchen window and watched until the black car disappeared between the trees.
I didn’t know her yet. Not really. I didn’t know she was lonely in that big house, or that she hated most of the girls at Bellamont Academy almost as much as she wanted them to like her.
I didn’t know she cried quietly in bathroom stalls and corrected people’s grammar in her head because saying it out loud had made everyone hate her by the third grade.
I only knew she had looked at me and seen something interesting. After years of being looked through, looked past, or looked at like a problem someone else had to fix, it felt dangerously close to what I desired.