Chapter 4: The Snow Globe Room

The music came softly at first.

It wasn’t the haunting piano melody from before. This was softer, a delicate lullaby, faint and fragile, as if floating through the ceiling or borne on the sea breeze.

Bliss sat up in bed and listened.

The fire in the hearth had died out. The room was dim, cast in the gray morning light that always made the walls look colder than they were. She slipped from the covers, pulled on her robe, and padded barefoot to the door.

The music tugged at something inside her. A whisper in the back of her mind. Not a memory, not yet. Just a feeling. Something familiar she couldn’t quite reach.

She followed the sound through the hall.

Past the main staircase. Past the double doors Damon always kept closed. She turned left instead of right. Down the corridor lined with windows that showed a sliver of the cliffs.

The sound grew clearer.

It came from a narrow archway at the end of the hall. She stepped through it, her fingers brushing the cold stone wall as she moved.

Then she found it.

A round room, like a glass dome, with high ceilings and curved shelves running from floor to ceiling. The walls were filled with snow globes.

Hundreds of them.

Each one rested on its own little stand, carefully dusted and arranged. Some were big, others small and some were pristine, others yellowed with age. And in the center of the room stood a glass table shaped like a snowflake.

On it sat a cracked snow globe, its base chipped.

Inside was a miniature house by the sea, identical to the manor itself. A little figure stood in the window, watching the ocean. The snow inside had clumped, as if frozen in time. She leaned closer and read the inscription on the brass plate at the base.

‘Ivana & Bliss. Sisters Forever.’

Her breath caught.

The name wasn’t merely carved, it was meticulously engraved. A gift, a memory, a connection.

She touched the globe gently.

And something flickered in her mind.

Christmas morning buzzed with joy. Wrapping paper ripped, laughter echoed, and hot cocoa steamed with whipped cream. A woman’s voice rang out, “Girls, come for a photo!” Two girls, one with braids, the other in a red bow.

Bliss blinked, swaying slightly.

The memory was gone.

But it had been there. For a moment, sharp and real.

She reached for the notebook she’d tucked into her robe pocket and quickly wrote:

‘Was I her sister? Or her shadow?’

A creak behind her made her turn.

Damon stood in the doorway.

He wasn’t dressed like usual. No pressed shirt or cufflinks, just a soft sweater and dark pants, his hair slightly mussed. His eyes swept over the room, then to her, and he hesitated.

“I didn’t know you’d found this place.”

Bliss held up the snow globe.

He exhaled slowly.

“You loved them,” he said. “This room was your sanctuary. You and Ivana would spend hours sorting them by theme: winter, cities, animals, dreams.”

She held up her notepad again.

'You and Ivana. Not me and her.'

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he stepped into the room and picked up another globe. This one held a tiny street in Paris, glowing faintly with miniature lights.

“You were always close,” he said quietly. “More than sisters. You shared everything.”

Bliss watched his hands. They were steady, but his voice wasn’t.

“Ivana loved music, you loved stories. She was the quiet one, you were the loud one.”

She raised her brows at him.

He gave a faint smile. “Before. Before the accident.”

She underlined the words ‘sisters forever’ on the snow globe’s base.

“Grief plays tricks,” he murmured. “When you lost her, you broke in ways I couldn’t fix. That’s why I brought you back here. To remind you and help you heal.”

Bliss stepped closer, writing quickly.

'Why don’t I remember which one I was?'

He met her gaze.

“I think your mind is protecting you.”

He reached out and gently turned the cracked snow globe, letting the fake snow fall over the tiny house inside.

“Some memories hurt too much to carry all at once.”

Bliss wanted to believe him.

But something still felt wrong.

She looked at the snow globes again, rows upon rows of frozen moments: birthday parties, city skylines, a ballerina spinning in a music box, a girl on a swing set, a woman in a red dress near a gravestone.

Each one felt like a secret.

And she couldn’t tell if they were hers.

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, her fingers tangled in the sheets. The house had gone still again and even the sea was quiet, as though waiting.

She closed her eyes and dreamed.

This time, she wasn’t watching from the outside. She was inside the dream living it.

She stood at the top of the stairs in the manor, dressed in silk, her hair swept into an elegant knot. She felt taller, sharper, Her lips painted red and her hands gloved.

A party murmured below. Guests in velvet and pearls. Damon stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching her.

But he didn’t call her Bliss.

He smiled up at her and said, “Ivana.”

And she smiled back.

In the dream, she walked slowly down the stairs, each step deliberate. The chandeliers sparkled above and the walls shimmered with gold accents. She passed guests she didn’t recognize.

And then she saw someone who looked exactly like her.

Standing by the piano.

Her eyes were wide. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. She looked scared.

Like a reflection begging for help from the other side of the glass.

Ivana turned her head.

And the other girl vanished.

Bliss woke in a cold sweat.

Her heart pounded against her ribs like a fist against a locked door.

She reached for her notebook and wrote in shaking strokes:

‘I was her. Or she was me.’

Then she crossed it out.

And wrote:

‘He called her Ivana. And he smiled.’

The next morning, she returned to the snow globe room.

The cracked globe was gone.

So was the one with the woman in red.

She searched the shelves, careful and quiet, finding nothing.

On the glass table where the cracked globe had sat, there was a note in Damon’s handwriting.

‘Don’t chase ghosts. Come have breakfast.’

No signature, no warmth, just cold instruction.

Bliss stood there for a long time, the silence pressing against her.

Outside, the fog rolled in thicker than before, curling over the cliffs like smoke from an invisible fire. The manor creaked as the wind moved through it, and the music had stopped.

She tucked the note into her robe pocket and left the room.

But she didn’t go to breakfast.

Not yet.

Instead, she turned back toward the black double doors at the end of the West Wing.

She was done following.

It was time to remember.