Chapter 3: The West Wing Is Closed

The manor had a heartbeat.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even constant. But Bliss felt it, pulsing through the walls when the house went still. There was something about the way the wind moved through the halls, the way the floor groaned beneath her bare feet, the way doors seemed to sigh closed behind her.

It was the third morning since she’d awakened, and no new memories had returned. Her voice was still missing. But her instincts? Those were wide awake.

Bliss walked the halls slowly, each step measured and quiet. She had convinced Elise she wanted to stretch her legs alone, though the woman had looked nervous about it.

“You’ll be fine,” Damon had said, appearing behind her like smoke. “Just avoid the West Wing.”

He hadn’t offered a reason.

He had simply said it in that even tone of his and walked away.

So now, of course, that was exactly where she was going.

She turned left at the end of the main corridor. The air shifted the moment she did. Warmer, heavier. As if this part of the house had not been touched in weeks. Or months. The walls here were darker, the carpet a rich blue patterned with gold vines.

She passed a series of closed doors. One of them had no handle. Another was slightly ajar, but a length of thick velvet rope blocked the way. She didn’t cross it.

Not yet.

At the end of the hallway stood a set of tall double doors. They were different from the rest painted black with intricate carvings of roses and thorns. A gold keyhole gleamed faintly beneath the right handle.

She reached out, fingers brushing the metal.

It was warm.

Before she could press further, footsteps echoed behind her.

She turned quickly, startled.

A young maid stood halfway down the corridor, frozen. She looked terrified.

“I… I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the maid said, her voice small.

Bliss tilted her head, stepping back from the door.

The maid glanced behind her shoulder, then stepped closer, lowering her voice.

“You shouldn’t be here, Mrs. Blackwood. This part of the house is… private.”

Bliss raised her notebook. Her handwriting was fast and jagged.

‘Why is it locked?’

The girl swallowed. “It’s been locked since before I started working here. Only Mr. Blackwood has the key.”

Bliss hesitated.

‘What’s inside?’

The maid’s eyes flicked to the door, then back to Bliss. “They say it belonged to her. To Ivana.”

Bliss didn’t move.

‘Who was she?’

The girl took a shaky breath.

“I don’t know much. Just that she died. The whole family stopped talking about her after that. Some say she lived here. Others say she only visited. I’ve only been here two years, but…” She trailed off.

Bliss wrote again.

'What happened to her?'

The maid’s hands twisted in front of her apron.

“I heard she fell from the cliff.”

Bliss felt the cold seep into her bones.

“She was beautiful,” the girl added, her voice barely above a whisper. “Everyone says so. But strange. Quiet. People say the house changed after she was gone. Like it forgot how to breathe.”

Bliss looked back at the black doors.

She wasn’t sure the house had ever known how to breathe.

She returned to her room, but she couldn’t rest.

Her thoughts circled the name again and again. Ivana.

It was beyond a name, a sensation. Cool silk, red lipstick, a piano playing in darkness, a hand against glass..

She sat at the vanity, brushing her hair slowly. Her reflection looked pale, but not weak. She was learning her face again. It was the small things that unsettled her: the slight scar under her left eyebrow, the mole near her collarbone, the faint freckle behind her ear.

They were marks that felt borrowed.

She opened the vanity drawer again. The photograph was still there, just as she’d left it.

She stared at it closely now.

Damon was smiling in the picture. Not the tight, tired smile he wore now. This one was real, open, and warm. And she…Bliss, or Ivana, or whoever she truly was, looked radiant. Her hair was longer, curled over one shoulder and her eyes sparkled.

She turned the photo over once more.

Ivana – February 14.

A wedding date?

A birthday?

She didn’t know.

She placed the photograph on the table beside her and wrote in her notebook:

‘I want to remember. But I’m scared of what I’ll find.’

Later that afternoon, Elise returned.

“There’s someone in the storage gallery you may want to meet,” she said. “She used to work for the family. She’s only here for today, organizing some of the older records.”

Bliss followed her through another part of the manor she hadn’t seen. This hallway was narrower, the lighting dimmer. The smell of dust and cedar filled the air.

The gallery was a long room lined with antique cabinets and old boxes. At the far end, an older woman stood on a stool, lifting a rolled canvas from the top shelf.

She turned when she saw them.

“Oh. So you must be the new lady of the house,” the woman said, climbing down carefully. Her voice had the softness of someone who had seen too much and decided to speak gently anyway.

Bliss nodded.

“I’m Marianne. I was the house curator. Worked here twenty years. Retired two summers ago, but Damon asked me back today to help with a few items.”

Bliss gave a polite smile and held out her notebook.

‘Did you know Ivana?’

Marianne blinked.

“Everyone knew her,” she said after a pause. “No one really understood her, but we knew her.”

Bliss underlined the word 'understood' and handed the notebook over again.

'Why not?'

Marianne studied her face before answering.

“She was brilliant. But closed off. Private. I think she loved Damon, but not in the way he needed. There was always something between them. Some wall no one could see.”

She gestured toward a long table nearby.

“I just uncovered this earlier. I’m not sure if Damon meant to keep it hidden.”

She unrolled a large canvas and flipped it face up.

Bliss stared.

It was an incomplete painting, yet vividly detailed.

A woman in a red gown posed against a velvet curtain, her face a perfect mirror of Bliss’s. Exactly the same.

Identical mouth, eyes, and sharp, striking cheekbones.

But the expression was different.

Where Bliss often looked lost, this woman looked deadly.

Her mouth was tilted in a half-smile. Her eyes bored straight into the viewer, as though daring them to look away.

“Ivana sat for this the month before she died,” Marianne said quietly. “The artist never finished it, Damon sent him away.”

Bliss couldn’t stop staring.

It was her. But not her.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” Marianne added, “but I know Damon was never the same after.”

She rolled the painting back up, slowly and gently.

Bliss left the gallery in a daze.

That night, Bliss dreamt of a garden.

She was standing in the center of it, surrounded by roses. They bloomed black under a silver sky. She was barefoot. Cold earth crumbled between her toes. Somewhere in the distance, a piano played a low, sad song.

She walked toward the music.

At the edge of the garden stood a woman in red.

She was identical to Bliss, but her skin shimmered like glass. Her hands dripped with water. Her mouth didn’t move when she spoke.

But Bliss heard her anyway.

“You’re wearing my face.”

Bliss stepped back, heart pounding.

The woman’s eyes flickered.

“You don’t remember yet. That’s good. Because once you do, he won’t love you anymore.”

Bliss tried to scream, but no sound came out.

She woke gasping, clutching her throat.

The fire in her chest calmed slowly. Her bedshee

ts were soaked in sweat. Outside, the sea roared louder than before.

She sat up and reached for the notepad beside her bed.

She wrote one word.

‘Ivana.’

Then she crossed it out.

And wrote:

‘Me?’