The Heiress

Wake up, Cecilia, an all-too-familiar voice cooed from somewhere above the rafters of her bedroom, breaking through the dawn. It is a new day, full of new opportunities, should you partake!

With a groan from her parched throat and creaky bones, Cecilia forced herself up until she slumped forward. “Does that imply choice on my part?”

So clever, he said dryly. Now come on, chop chop, there is much to do today. And I’m sure you can find more fun things to do than cause property damage—

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with her thumb and middle finger. “Doubtful.”

Or wasting so much of your valuable daytime playing with your coworkers.

She dragged her hand down her face, glaring into the air. “What is that supposed to mean?”

It is nothing accusatory, just a mere observation.

Cecilia could practically hear the way he shrugged his invisible shoulders and stuck his imaginary nose in the air.

Your story holds a lot more potential than just scrubbing floorboards and dusting windows if you were willing to engage with the right players.

“If you had such an issue, why are you deciding to complain just now?”

I am the narrator, Dmitri said, enunciating each syllable and giving far too arrogant a tone for her liking. While the story is actively progressing, I try not to interrupt too directly.

“What a relief,” she sassed. “So far, you haven’t been distracting or interruptive at all.”

Your sarcasm is toeing the line between charming and irritating.

“That just about sums up the both of us.” With another groan—this time less groggy and more tortured—she finally threw the quilt off of her, swinging her legs over the mattress’ edge and pushing herself to her feet. “Now go whimsy off somewhere else,” she said with a wave. “I need to get dressed. Because some of us have to work for a living.”

Whether Dmitri was still skulking about the ether or not, at least he was quiet while she prepared herself for whatever the manor had in store next.

…

The day was as dark as the evening and twice as dreary. By late morning, a hearty drizzle fell from the thick scud clouds choking the sky. With the windows closed and all activity kept indoors for the time being, the halls felt especially stifling, and for once it was not born just from a gut feeling.

The wind was rising from a whistle to a howl by the time the bell announced another guest’s arrival, prompting the immediate need for courteous service. From the servants’ hall, Cecilia was sent with the tea board—china cups carefully rattling against the polished silver—and a not-too-subtle warning to be careful with the tray. She followed the head butler’s instruction up the narrow stairway, balancing the tray against her stomach to decrease any chance of pouring steaming tea over herself.

She may have also given the tray an up-close and personal inspection, though she could not spot any hint of chips or dents in its frustratingly shiny surface.

Once safely up the stairs, Cecilia explored her way to the manor’s private library. Carefully nudging the door open with her foot, she entered into a space that, to her surprise, immediately set her at ease. She was engulfed by the scent of aged paper and worn leather, a hush befalling the room that encompassed a true peace, rather than a calm before storm. The room as well as the collection were expansive, almost overwhelming; rows upon rows of books, countless sizes and colors and binding styles, built up bookshelves that touched the ceiling. They were broken up only by the occasional ornamental bookend, a marble stag or onyx globe acting as an unyielding Atlas to hold a world’s worth of knowledge in check. She ambled so slowly it could hardly be considered a walk, drinking in the spines and their silver-etched lettering, names and titles she had never heard of setting her eyes alight. Carefully balancing the tea board on her hip, Cecilia tentatively grazed a spine with her fingertips, tracing elegant calligraphy from one word to the next—

“Oh my, oh my! My guest has arrived at last!”

Sweet Jesus!

It was a miracle the entire tea set did not go flying from how violently Cecilia jumped. She clutched her chest with tense, curled fingers, willing her thundering heart to not start palpitating. This story was already committing horrors upon her mental health; now it would send her to an early grave from shock and cardiac arrest.

Her neck snapped as she followed the voice’s origin. A stone fireplace with a tall fire burned from behind the grate, light gilding the carved shelves that housed centuries of tomes. The guest was already there, splayed perpendicular across the seat of a chenille armchair. Her feet swung back and forth in lackadaisical kicks as she stared straight at Cecilia, upside down, with a close-lipped smile.

Cecilia blinked, once, twice, a third time. Another person? Another actual person? This was a guest, assumedly no blood relation to Lord Olrin, something to reasonably justify having a face and personality. But…What did that even imply?

The young lady could not have been more than twenty—smiling, fair, her gown a charming yet refined fashion, pale-rose silk softened at the sleeves with lace. Her hair pooled and tumbled around the chair’s arm as her head rested against it, and her eyes—so deep a blue they seemed almost bottomless—pierced into Cecilia as though she was studying not her appearance, but the measure of her soul.

“Ah! An angel, just and divine, has brought ambrosia on silver wings,” the heiress said brightly, her voice ringing with the sort of easy cheer that would be most fitting in a theatre troupe.

And yet—Cecilia’s hands stiffened on the tea board. There was something in that smile, too knowing, too pleased, as though she already knew how Cecilia would place the tray down, how the china would clink, how she made each hair across her arms stand on end.

Before she could inspire any sort of negative attention, Cecilia curtsied and set the tray upon the low table by the armchair’s side. “Tea, miss.”

The heiress pulled herself upright, though she still sat sideways in her seat, staring with tickled eyes as if Cecilia were a grand amusement. the firelight dancing on her jewels. “Do they tell you much about me, here at the manor?” she asked as she delicately lifted the teapot.

The firelight danced on her jewels, a kaleidoscope of blues, greens, and off-whites jingling from the clips in her hair to the charms of her bracelets. There were enough on one arm to make royalty flush green with envy.

Cecilia opened her mouth to offer a non-offensive, noncommittal answer, but the heiress did not wait for an answer before pouring, her hands so steady that not a drop spilled as the smell of mint and lemon flooded the room. “They say I am frivolous, you know,” she said, winking, as if sharing a secret, “They say I spend money like water, seeking too many baubles and reading too many books. I seek and I find too many strange things. But truly, what can be expected of me?” She sighed deeply, dramatically, performatively, as she lifted her teacup. She wagged a finger as she took a long sip from her cup. “But that is wrong—The books and gems are not strange.” Her free hand rested on her chest as she proclaimed, “Nay, nay, be certain—I am the one who is strange.”

Yeah, she would have to agree. This girl was nuts.

“After all, what good is all the money in the world if there is nothing to do with it? No greater purpose to indulge it with? No, my dearest thing, I find my pleasures in less worldly pursuits.”

Did Cecilia even have to be here? Was she supposed to participate in the conversation, or did she just need to witness it?

The heiress’ laughter was light, soft, yet it prickled across the back of Cecilia’s neck. With another she handed Cecilia a cup with the graciousness of a hostess rather than a guest.

“Oh, but where do my manners run off to—I haven’t even offered you a name, mine specifically. You may know me as all the others do—Calliope. It’s a decent title, fitting enough. But what I am interested most in is this library,” she went on, her scanning eyes climbing up the shelves, “especially ones like these. Some books pretend to be mere fancy—tales of binding charms, of spoken words that shape reality.”

Cecilia felt her world pause, hit by a cold wave. She was not sure if the rolling in her ears was the thunder outside or something more engrained and concerning.

Calliope shrugged. “Fiction, of course. But…” She leaned forward, lowering her voice with a conspiratorial delight. “Don’t you ever wonder whether fiction is merely truth written in disguise?” Her eyes squinted further, offering only a small shine of blue under her golden lashes. “I think so. I think this house may hold secrets older than its stones. And in fact—” Calliope leaned off of the armchair, the length of her arms poising her upward until her face leaned as close to Cecilia’s as she could physically reach, their breaths mingling together with the smell of mint and the glint of Calliope’s cuspids. “—I think you might agree.”

She knew better; Cecilia knew she should just keep her eyes downward, politely excuse herself, and get the hell out of dodge before she caught the attention of another deranged rich person. She knew that.

And yet, she didn’t. Instead, she held eye contact, her heart racing as her expression remained stony and guarded.

It felt like waiting. Whether she was waiting for this one-sided conversation to end or for another shoe to drop, she was not sure. But she knew better by now, that there was something to anticipate.

No hint of tension marred the heiress’ face, though, as she merely chortled at Cecilia’s seriousness. The young mistress’s tone was still friendly, playful, but beneath it ran a current like cold water under thin ice. “Such focus you have—It’s admirable!” The young mistress’ tone was light, playful, but it also felt misleading—Thin ice over freezing water, a false safety waiting for the reveal. “You must see so much, working here.” Calliope’s smile softened into something oddly tender. “You carry trays, you hear footsteps in the night, you learn the rhythms of this place.”

“What was that middle part?”

“You’d know if anything…” There was a pregnant, purposeful pause, Calliope biting her lip and drumming her nails into the studded velvet armchair as if they were sharing a secret. “Unusual…” Another pause, allowing the word and whatever implications it carried to land. “Occurred, wouldn’t you?”

Sweet slow-dancing Buddha, she was crazy. Cecilia was the one hearing an omnipresent voice narrate her surroundings, and she was the crazy one between the two of them.

Cecilia inhaled sharply through her nose before she murmured a careful, “My only concerns are my duties, Lady Calliope.”

She hummed, thoughtful, though her pleased expression did not change; if anything, from the slight rise in her eyebrows and curl of her lips, the verbal sidestep seemed to satisfy her even more. “Of course,” she whispered, nodding solemnly, mindfully, “Of course.”

Such mimed somberness did not last long, though, as the heiress laughed again, leaning back against the chair like the conversation was nothing more than your average teatime chitchat. “How proper you are. The house will like you for that.”

Cecilia watched her carefully, probing Calliope’s expression for any deeper meaning. “The house itself?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, “Homes do choose who they like, after all. Haven’t you felt it? Walls that breathe differently for some than for others? Ceilings that watch? Floors that follow? All of them listening…”

The question lingered, light as a feather and heavy as a shackle. Cecilia kept her expression devoid of any giving emotion, unsure what the purpose of such a bizarre interrogation could be.

Oh, look at you, Cecilia! You’ve actually stepped out and exchanged substantial words with someone above your station. How fun!

Cecilia’s eye twitched as her ears burned.

“There! Right there!” Calliope leaned forward once more, even closer, paying no mind to the teacup’s integrity as she repositioned herself. Her smile was razor-sharp and wild-excited, her gemstone eyes wide and frenzied as she pressed close enough to mingle her breath with Cecilia’s. “You heard something, something spoke to you and you listened to it—I saw you!”

Finally, Cecilia grit her teeth with a grimace, having enough of this conversation. She clutched the empty tray under one arm, pressing it to her chest like a shield as she took a large step back. She curtsied once more, eyes downcast as she asked, “Is there anything else I can offer?”

The heiress sipped her tea again, those abyssal-blue eyes watching over the rim of the cup. “Not yet,” she said, her smile easy and sated. “But I will be here some days, at least. I think you and I may have interesting talks, once you are less shy.”

Her hand floated like a butterfly, pointer finger poised and swaying in the air before landing a tap to the tip of Cecilia’s nose, making it wrinkle. “Boop.”

Lords above and below, every person of recognizable status was a freak.

Cecilia backed toward the door, each step measured, as the fire crackled and the shadows lengthened behind the guest’s chair.

And though her tone had been sweet as honey, Cecilia could not shake the sense that she had just been weighed and measured by something far older than the pretty young woman smiling after her, pressing against her hunched back.