I hear her before I see her.
Hesitating, I debate just turning around and going back to my room. I’ve managed to successfully avoid any face-to-face interaction with the delightful Angelica and her scrawny daughter since their arrival, aside from the uncomfortable family dinners enforced by my father.
But the twins are enamored by her. Won’t leave her side. It’s a miracle that she’s alone at all.
Their obsession is enough to make me at least a little curious about the girl. So I slowly approach the end of the hall. She’s tucked away in the empty space, almost invisible apart from the quiet sobs. Her head shoots up, and she wipes away the tears frantically. “Sorry. I was just—,”
“Why are you crying?”
The words slip out, and she shakes her head in blatant denial. “I wasn’t crying.”
A tear plops off her chin with perfect timing, and she reaches up to swipe it away, her chin lifting into the air.
“Sure,” I say shortly. “Your eyes appear to be leaking, in that case.”
She stares up at me, and I blink at the directness of her gaze. “Feel free to turn around, walk away and continue ignoring me, if it bothers you so much. You do it very well already.”
My head tilts to the side in curiosity. She balks when I take a seat next to her on the floor instead, my back resting against the wall. “What are you doing?”
“Not ignoring you.” Not looking at her, I stare at the art across from us. “Come on, then. Out with it.”
I wait for a few minutes, until she gives in. I can almost feel her wrestling with her words. “My… my father died. Five years ago today.”
I glance down at her, mildly surprised. “I didn’t know that. That he’d died. I’m… sorry.”
I assumed he’d left. Anastasia shakes her head. “My mother… she doesn’t like to talk about him. Or acknowledge him at all, really.”
“Why not?” I’m genuinely curious. Dad talks about our mother all the time. Even though none of us really remember her, since she died when the twins were born. All I remember is her voice. But he keeps her memory alive enough for me to feel that I have a sense of who she was. I don’t feel as if I’m missing parts of her, even though she isn’t here.
And I know that she was nothing like cold, greedy, grasping fucking Angelica.
“Things changed,” she whispers. “When he died. I…. I should go.”
But when she moves to get up, I stop her with my hand over hers. “Tell me.”
I don’t feel sorry for her. If anything, I’m wondering if the information I’m about to learn might free us from the curse of Angelica. I can’t stand the woman, and the twins aren’t keen either.
But they’ll put up with her, for Anastasia. We’ve already had that discussion.
I rake my eyes over her face. She’s by no means the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, although I suppose her eyes are nice enough. “Why are my brothers so obsessed with you?”
A hint of color appears on her cheekbones. “They’re not obsessed with me. But… I like them.”
She sounds like she means it. And I watch her closely.
“If you hurt them,” I say finally, “I will destroy you.”
She stiffens. “Your social skills could use some work, you know that? And I have no plans to hurt them.”
“I mean it.” I stare down at her. She swallows, but she meets my eyes.
And the faintest thread of respect works its way into my chest when she nods. “Warning received.”
I shift. I’ve said my piece. She’s had her warning. I can leave now.
But I don’t actually move. My fingers tap restlessly against the floor, my eyes flicking down.
“Tell me about you.”
As she begins to speak, I realize that I like the sound of her voice. And I don’t like many people. Too shrill. Too much. But Anastasia – Stasi, she reminds me – her voice is husky. Soothing.
She tells me about her childhood. About her father, and his travels. How he’d bring her back a book from every place he went, until one day he didn’t come back at all. Her voice begins to shake, and I quickly change tack.
“You enjoy reading?” I ask her. My voice is a little softer this time, and she grasps onto the change in subject even as her eyes flick to mine in awareness, a silent communication that she knows what I’m doing.
“I do. I prefer to write, though.”
My eyebrows raise in interest. “What do you write?”
She flushes. “Anything. Everything. Poetry. Fiction. I… that’s what I want to study, when I’m old enough. At college. It sounds stupid, I know.”
“Nothing sounds stupid with enough conviction behind it,” I say and she laughs, leaning against me. “True.”
“I would like to read something you’ve written.” She doesn’t strike me as someone who would waste her words on frivolity. I wonder if her directness bleeds into her writing. What more it will tell me about this girl.
“Maybe I’ll show you. You have to promise not to laugh, though.”
Time ticks away. We talk for hours, until the twins find us tucked away in the corner of the hall. Even then, I find that I’m reluctant to stop, reluctant to give up the time that I’ve spent listening to her. Even for them as they tease her away from me with promises of an afternoon picnic by the stream.
She turns to me before she leaves. Hesitation lingers in her brown eyes as they scan my face. “Same… same time tomorrow?”
My eyes jerk to hers.
Slowly, I nod.
And somehow, over the weeks and months we spend in quiet corners, talking and laughing and sharing our fucking souls, Anastasia works her way into my heart, right alongside the twins.
And then she rips it apart, from the inside out.
