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27

Penulis: Thekla Jackiv
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-30 23:05:31

My room smelled like lavender soap and rotten luck. It was too clean to trust and far too quiet to sleep. I shut the door behind me with the heel of my court shoe, twisted the lock, and stood still for a moment, listening.

The house had its nighttime heartbeat: the whisper of velvet drapes, the low growl of pipes with old grudges, and somewhere deep in the west wing, the faint shuffle of guards who’d been hitmen in the height of their careers.

I sat at my desk. I’ve never used it before, but it was nice to have it. It had tooled leather top, a Mac computer and a lonely wireless mouse, still boxed. It had three drawers, none of them trustworthy to keep a flash drive, and a reading lamp that buzzed like an angry bee. I unboxed the mouse. It worked. It even had batteries. I pulled the flash drive from my boot. It was still warm from touching my skin.

I plugged it in. The Mac screen lit up like the last page of a murder mystery. And there she was. My mother. Not the murmuring ghost I vi
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  • The Vision She Hid   27

    My room smelled like lavender soap and rotten luck. It was too clean to trust and far too quiet to sleep. I shut the door behind me with the heel of my court shoe, twisted the lock, and stood still for a moment, listening.The house had its nighttime heartbeat: the whisper of velvet drapes, the low growl of pipes with old grudges, and somewhere deep in the west wing, the faint shuffle of guards who’d been hitmen in the height of their careers.I sat at my desk. I’ve never used it before, but it was nice to have it. It had tooled leather top, a Mac computer and a lonely wireless mouse, still boxed. It had three drawers, none of them trustworthy to keep a flash drive, and a reading lamp that buzzed like an angry bee. I unboxed the mouse. It worked. It even had batteries. I pulled the flash drive from my boot. It was still warm from touching my skin.I plugged it in. The Mac screen lit up like the last page of a murder mystery. And there she was. My mother. Not the murmuring ghost I vi

  • The Vision She Hid   26

    The sun came down on the terrace like it was trying to bribe someone. It turned the silverware into petty thieves and the linen into starched liars. I sat under a striped parasol sipping black coffee I needed badly, stirring it like it held answers. The only thing it held was bitterness—and not the metaphorical kind.I was wearing one of Marta’s handpicked outfits—some tasteful beige thing with ruffles that made me look like a slightly burnt cupcake on house arrest. The look was important. The cameras liked the tastefully helpless looks. They valued soft girls around here, with gentle hands and no dark secrets. I almost ticked the boxes, but the secret bit was letting me down. I was considering to check myself into a mental hospital after it crossed my mind my father could have faked his own death. If he did, I am sure he had a good reason. I was surprised how calmly I took it. No fuss, no drama, no silly tantrums. But what reason he could possibly have to concieve a daughter in secre

  • The Vision She Hid   25

    I came back from the garden wet and shivering. Went straight to have a bath, leaving my soaked linen dress on the floor for Marta to pick up. My tongue was itching to ask who was that hooded guy in the garden, and how come she’d referred to me as Anastasia’s girl. And, above all, what were those important choices I suppose to make. Then Marta came in and the words stuck in my throat like a fish bone. She picked my soaked dress and put it in the laundry basket. She moved her sad green eyes at me and said nothing. Her cheeks flushed a little. ‘You were caught in the rain,’ she said almost angrily, under her breath. Then she raised her voice. ‘Where have you been, Ms Leo?’ she asked.I didn’t say a word. Instead, I studied Marta’s tidy clothes, her brown wool sweater and linen apron, her polished leather boots and the white starched collar of her shirt. She didn’t look like she was caught in the rain. She had that kind of class. She moved her graceful head around delicately and studie

  • The Vision She Hid   24

    The moonlight slashed the ballroom in blue ribbons. The chandeliers overhead was off, but the floor still gleamed like a polished lie. I was barefoot on wooden floor, spine arched, arms lifted—dancing like no one was watching.Which, of course, meant someone definitely was.The air was humid with gathering storm and yesterday’s cigar smoke. My pulse was doing a tango with my ribs, but I moved slow, liquid—Marta called it dancing, but she never saw what it supposed to look like in my head. I wasn’t really dancing. I was remembering how it feels to be happy. And then I felt the heat.Not from the fast movement or polished floor or the tired moon. But from the shadow in the doorway.He didn’t speak or breathe, not in a way a normal human does. Just stood there like a question I didn’t want to acknowledge, watching me dance with the kind of attention you only give to something you’re thinking of breaking. I swore in my mind, didn’t say anything, and stopped.“Elky,” I said eventually with

  • The Vision She Hid   23

    The house was quiet. Not the peaceful kind, but the kind that walks in after men leave with guns and come back with holes in their bodies. I could feel their absence like a weight in the air, heavier than those brass chandeliers in the hall and just as likely to fall on your head if you weren’t careful.They’d gone. All of them. A full-pack raid on the competition, Rick’s lot, I guessed—one of those revenge things that end with bullet casings and at least one tooth on the floor. That’s in the best case scenario. Even Marta had disappeared somewhere with her brand new mop and a foul mood. That left me alone. Or as alone as a woman pretending to be blind in a house full of cameras focused on her could be.I wasn’t supposed to be walking, not mentioning thinking and snooping around. I was supposed to be sitting quietly in a pretty French toile armchair like a sad little statue. But I was restless. The letter I’d seen in Jennings’ study itched under my skin like a bite I couldn’t scratch

  • The Vision She Hid   22

    I even cried a bit after he’d left. I sobbed until I decided all that crying business was too lame for a tough cookie like Leo Christofides. So I’ve caught up with resting, and I had my dreamless beauty sleep until someone turned the engine on in the early hours. That morning rolled in like a punchline—gray, slow, and a little too full of itself. Light leaked through my French windows in long, arrogant shafts, catching on the polished edges of a breakfast spread. The house was quiet, but not peaceful—more like a poker room after the shooting, when the bodies are gone but the death’s still playing its hand on the table.I sat across from Elky. My face wore the mask of polite vacancy I’d practiced in mirror while having a crying session the other day, the kind that says, “No, officer, I didn’t see a thing.” Only now it was breakfast theater, and I was the star who never got her well-deserved applause.He sat with his arm bandaged and his ego glowing faintly through the bruises. Big bad

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