By Alexandra Nugent
The rose garden was beautiful, but it felt like a trap. The scent of the blooms was so thick that it was almost rotting, a sweet, heavy mask for the “lemon bleach” smell I knew was waiting inside. I crept toward the servant’s entrance-a small, unassuming green door tucked behind a wall of thorns.
Just like Sage said, the library windows were directly above me, propped open to let in the spring air. I paused, my hand on the cold iron handle of the door, and held my breath.
Above, the “clink-clink” of china was punctuated by the sharp, glass-like voice of Elesha’s mother.
“It’s a necessary arrangement,” her mother was saying. “The board is looking at the family’s legacy, and with the estate’s audit looming, Elesha’s performance is the only thing we can control.”
“But a tutor from that district?” another woman’s voice asked, sounding amused. “Isn’t it a bit risky? What if she talks?”
“She won’t,” Elesha’s voice cut in. It sounded different than it did at school–flatter, like all the bubbles had been squeezed out of it. “She’s adequate. And adequate people are grateful for whatever scraps we throw to them. She’s just a ghost in the house, Mother. She doesn’t see anything.”
I stood frozen, the “vintage” pencils in my bag feeling like lead weights. A ghost. They were talking about my life like it was a line item in a budget. My grip tightened on the door handle. I looked down at the neon-green smudge on my hand, now faded to a ghostly lime color.
I see everything, I thought.
I pushed the door open. It didn’t groan like the front gates; it was perfectly oiled and silent, meant for people who weren’t supposed to be heard. I found myself in a narrow, dimly lit hallway smelling of floor wax and old paper. Following the back stairs, I emerged into the library just as the voices from the terrace began to fade.
Elesha was standing by the window, her back to me. She looked smaller somehow, framed by the massive velvet curtains.
“The ‘ghost’ is here,” I said quietly.
Elesha spun around, her face pale. For a split second, I saw a flash of genuine panic in her eyes before the mask slammed back down. “You’re late,” she snapped, though her voice lacked its usual bite. “And you used the wrong door.”
“I used the door you told me to use,” I replied, walking toward the glass table and setting my worn notebook down with a deliberate thud. I didn’t sit. I waited for her to look at me. “Is the Historical Society enjoying their tea? Or are they too busy auditing your legacy?”
The silence that followed was different than the one in the cafeteria. This one was sharp. Elesha’s eyes darted to the open window, then back to me. She walked over and shut the window with a forceful click.
“You were listening,” she whispered.
“I’m a fast learner,” I said, opening my book to the chapter on limits. “Now, shall we start? Or are you too busy being ‘exceptional’ for the board?”
Elesha didn’t snap. She didn’t scream. Instead, she sat down in the velvet chair across from me, her movements stiff like a porcelain doll with cracked joints. She stared at the glass tabletop for a long beat, the silence in the library growing so heavy I could hear the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock in the hall.
“You think you’re so clever,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She finally looked up, and for the first time, her eyes weren’t just cold; they were glassy, rimmed with a thin line of red. “You think having a secret makes us equals? It doesn’t.”
She reached into her rose-gold tablet case and pulled out a check. It was already written out. The amount was double what we had agreed on. She slid it across the glass toward me.
“That’s for your ‘vintage’ pencils,” she said, the snark returning, though it sounded hollow. “And for your silence. My mother… she’s obsessed with the image of this family. If the Society thinks we’re struggling, the funding for the estate disappears. We lose the house. We lose everything.”
I looked at the check. It was more money than I’d seen in my life. It could pay the “Past Due” bills and fix the refrigerator. But as I looked at Elesha, I realized she wasn’t the queen of the castle. She was the prisoner.
“I don’t want your money, Elesha,” I said, pushing the check back. “I’m here to tutor you. If you want to keep your legacy, you’d better start learning how to calculate limits, because your family’s time is reaching one.”
The session was brutal. We didn’t speak about the audit again, but the air was charged. Every time our hands brushed near the textbook, she flinched. When the hour was finally up, I didn’t wait for her to dismiss me. I packed my bag and headed straight for the back stairs.
I burst out the servant’s door, needing the air. I headed for the side gate, but Sage wasn’t leaning against the latch this time. Instead, the gate was wide open.
I followed the path to the greenhouse. The “Sanctuary” was dark, but a single flickering light was coming from the back. I pushed aside the ivy and froze.
Sage wasn’t at the telescope. She was standing in front of a massive canvas I hadn’t noticed before. It was a portrait. But it wasn’t of stars or Saturn.
It was me.
In the painting, I wasn’t wearing my scuffed sneakers or my thrifted skirt. I was wrapped in neon-green light, and my eyes were filled with stars. But that wasn’t the surprise. The surprise was what Sage was holding in her other hand-a gold embossed card, exactly like the one Elesha had given me, but Sage’s name was printed on it in an elegant, flowing script.
“Willow,” Sage said, turning around. She looked caught, the tennis ball sitting forgotten on the floor. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you yet.”
“Tell me what?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Sage looked at the gold card, then back at the portrait of me. “I’m not just the groundskeeper’s daughter, Willow. My dad… he’s the one performing the audit. And I’m the one who told him which house to start with.”