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CHAPTER 51: Rumors and Rotten Roots 2
publish date:
2026-03-19 04:32:00Liora
My mother is in the kitchen, meticulously wiping down an already spotless counter. She's been pacing in circles for months. Ever since my father's cough set in, turned into a rattle, and ever since the name "Hammond" began to circulate, mingled with the forgotten name "Élianor."
—Have you heard anything from the bank? she asks without looking at me, the cloth still rubbing the formica with desperate energy.
Her voice is worn, flat, as if s
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MarthaThe silence stretches for an eternity. I see the thoughts swirling in my daughter's eyes, I see the mute recognition, the shock, the terrible attraction that sparks between them like flint on dry powder. I have to intervene. Now.—Élianor, darling, I say, forcing a normalcy that rings false. This is Mr. Thorne. Marcus Thorne. He… he's going to rent the cottage for a while.I brandish the money slightly, like proof, a pathetic justification.Élianor blinks, brought back to the surface by my voice. She finally tears her gaze from Marcus to look at me. It is charged with silent questions, reproach, confusion.—The cottage? she repeats, her voice flat.Then, before I can add anything, she turns to me, and her voice, suddenly firmer, cuts through the heavy air.—Martha. We don't need to rent out that cottage. We don't need that money.Her words fall like guillotine blades.
The Revenge of One Humiliated CHAPTER 66: The Echo of a Face 3
MarcusThe cottage is more than adequate. Rustic, yes, but solid, clean. A quietness that the stone walls seem to have absorbed for decades. The smell of beeswax and ancient fireplace lingers in the cool air. After weeks of impersonal hotels, it's a haven. A place to think. To wait. To investigate, now, since chance—or something more deliberate—has placed me at the very heart of one of the town's oldest families.I pull out my checkbook without hesitation. Money has never been a problem, only a tool. I write a generous amount, well above market, for two months in advance. The bills I add from my wallet are crisp and thick. A heavy silence, charged with a mutual curiosity neither of us voices, hangs between the old woman and me. She, Martha Hammond, looks like a guardian, watchful and slightly trembling, as if she's just opened a cage without being sure what will come out.—Thank you, Mrs. Hammond. I think… I'm going to like
The Revenge of One Humiliated CHAPTER 65: The Echo of a Face 2
MarcusThe question catches me off guard. Why this curiosity? Is it a polite way to check my background before renting? Or is there something else, in her piercing gaze, in the palpable tension of her body?The truth burns on my lips. This is why I'm here.—No, ma'am. It's not the first time. I was here… six years ago. For similar business, actually.I see the shock in her blue eyes. It's no longer surprise. It's confirmation. She pales slightly, her hand gripping the back of a dark wood console table.MarthaSix years.The word falls like a stone into a bottomless well.Six years. The perfect timeframe. The exact timing.I don't remember breathing. Everything clicks into place with a terrible and wonderful precision. This man's air, his confidence, his face. His visit to town six years ago. Élianor's pregnancy. Her stubborn refusal to talk. Her decision to keep the child.My God. It's him.Léon's father is in my entrance hall. He doesn't know it. He's looking for a roof over his head
The Revenge of One Humiliated CHAPTER 64: The Echo of a Face
MarcusThe car, a discreet yet comfortable rental sedan, slowly climbs the winding hill. The gardens grow larger, the trees older, the stone walls higher. The bustle of the town center fades, replaced by a hushed, almost oppressive silence. I only gave the driver a rough direction, but when the grand stone mansion appears behind a slightly rusted gate, I instinctively know it's the right one. Hammond House.It has a worn majesty, a beauty that no longer seeks to please. Shutters closed here and there, wild roses tangled in the fence, a lawn in need of a good mowing. But the bones are there, proud, anchored in the earth. A place that has known laughter, anger, secrets. I feel it in my pores.—Stop here, please.I get out of the car, gravel crunching under my shoes. The air is cooler here, heavy with the damp smell of earth and dead leaves. I push the gate, which creaks faintly, and walk up to the heavy oak door. I ring, the sound echoing long inside, like into a well.I wait. Doubt sei
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MarcusHe stares at me, suspicious. I don't fit the setting. I know it.—I might have… something. But it's a bit out of the way. The owner is in a retirement home, the family doesn't want to sell right away, but a short-term rental in the meantime… It might suit them. I'll have to call them.He points to a rickety chair. "Have a seat."I remain standing. The feeling of wasting time, of going in circles in this town that seems to close in on me, is unbearable. While he dials a number and speaks in a low voice, I look through the window. The street is quiet. A woman crosses, head down. An old lady pushes a shopping cart. Routine.Then, my gaze is drawn to a building further away, on a small hill. A large bourgeois stone house, somewhat severe, surrounded by an unkempt garden. It dominates. It has a history, secrets. It's not the kind of house you rent to a stranger for a month.Yet it is towards it that my thoughts turn. Not towards some anonymous suburban house. I need an anchor. A pla
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LioraI am sitting on a concrete bench at the entrance, my back hunched, my hands buried in the too-thin pockets of my coat. The autumn wind whips dead leaves around my ankles.My mind spins in a loop, a machine grinding down the few certainties I have left.Who could possibly want to kill my father?The question is there, cold, implacable. He wasn't a beloved man, that's a fact. The laid-off workers, the crushed competitors, the despised neighbors… The list is long. But enough to kill? To enter his home and press a button?And that doctor… That doctor with a gaze too sharp, too calm. Does he know my work? Has he read my articles on hospital dysfunctions in the region? My name has circulated, sometimes accompanied by mockery, sometimes by veiled threats. If he knew… If it was a way to take revenge, to make me take the fall? Or simply an incompetent hiding his mistake behind alarmist jargon? "The mind can finish of
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ÉlianorFreedom tastes of salt and damp stone. It is heavy, too, with a weight I had not anticipated: that of absolute solitude. The chocolate croissant is nothing but a memory, a grease stain on the paper I keep folded at the bottom of my pocket, like a relic of this brief kindness.The day stretc
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ÉlianorA week!The word resonates in my head, empty and heavy like a pebble. A week since the alley stole my future. A week wandering, a ghost among the living of Penzance. Freedom has shown its true face: it is hollow, hungry, covered in bruises.My steps draw increasingly narrow circles in the c
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MarthaThe seconds that follow are a blur of blue lights and urgent voices. The paramedics are efficient, almost brusque. They lift her with a care that wrenches my heart. Her body is so slight, so broken, on the stretcher. I watch them, unable to move, glued to the asphalt as if by guilt itself.—
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ÉlianorThe cold of the granite has finally become my second skin. I am no longer separate from this wall oozing with humidity and oblivion, this cold stone that seems to absorb the last remnants of my vital warmth. Inside me, no more tears. They have evaporated, leaving behind a great white void,
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