I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. My father was arrested until his lawyer managed to get him bailed, and he was told that he wasn’t allowed to leave the country until his appearance in court.
Then he went crazy.
The following weekend, he went out, got drunk, and came back to the house in the early hours. And then he started to put his plan into action.
Whilst his family was fast asleep in bed, his two dogs, Zach and King, were kennelled, and our horses stabled. My father set fire to our entire estate, the house, the outbuildings, everything.
I’d been told weeks later by my father’s lawyer that it was captured on CCTV. Horrific scenes that I had never had access to and would never want to watch anyway. I imagined there would be details about it in my file from the foster agency. Something I wouldn’t have access to until I turned eighteen.
After ensuring the fire would consume the Manor, garages, and stables, my father, a proud shotgun owner, shot Zach and King and then turned the gun on himself.
My mother, who used to take sleeping tablets, perished in the fire, as did the horses in the stables. Only part of the house remained standing after the fire brigade extinguished the flames.
It was the end of that part of my life, like all the chapters before I was ten, were wiped away.
I remember flashes of that night, the panic I felt when I woke up and saw the smoke under my door. It was thick and acrid. I’d kept my body low, having learned all about fire safety from school. The first thought that drove me was to get to my mother’s room, but that part of the house was already engulfed, and half the roof was missing.
I remember seeing the flames licking up into the dark sky, like devils' tongues. My room was the closest to the staircase, so I managed to climb down, with fire all around me. As I got to the ground floor, I remember hearing sirens in the distance and trying to scream for help, but no words left my mouth, just a painful croak. The air had been so hot.
The last thing I remember from that night is making it to the front door, in my pajamas, drawing clean air into my lungs. A crunching sound followed by a fizz, and that was it. Nothing.
I woke up in the hospital after surgery, lying on my side with gauze covering the top left section of my back and shoulder. There were tubes everywhere and beeping. It was terrifying. I knew my mother was gone before the policewoman told me.
After a few days in recovery, more police came and asked me what I remembered, which was very little. And then a doctor explained how I’d sustained my injuries. A burning balustrade that held up part of the archway to our front door had fallen on me. Had it hit my skull, I wouldn’t have survived.
The tragedy made the news. Social services, the law, and my father’s old legal team did everything they could to keep the media away from me. It was like a circus, and I had hated it. Not being allowed to grieve in peace was hard.
Eventually, Mr. Brookes, our family lawyer, arranged for a Court Petition to change my name.
I was once Hailey Anne Radcliffe, the sole survivor of the tragedy at Radcliffe Manor. I was rushed into the hospital as Hailey and left as Harper. Crazy right?
And that was that, as I said, those chapters had been erased.
As far as I was concerned, I was glad my given name was lost in the fire that day. My father chose it after his late mother, who had sadly passed away years earlier. And that’s why I was cast into the system. I had no other living family members. Just friends, who turned their backs on us the day they found out what my father had done.
I was lucky to be alive.Was I? I had heard those six words spoken so many times during my recovery. But the only time I had agreed with them was when I met Phoenix at Mr. and Mrs. Jackson’s house.
And now look. What had happened to us?
You grew up. You are no longer children. And… he let you down.
Moving away from the door, I walked over to my closet. Pushing the hangers back, I leaned in to look at the box of trinkets I’d taken from school that week: a couple of phones and an Apple Watch. Remorse knifed through me as I looked at the pink strap and how small it was. It must have been for the wrist of someone younger at school, probably a freshman. And I was a junior.
It had been sitting on the bench in the girls’ locker rooms, basically begging to be taken. Whoever it used to belong to needed to take better care of their stuff.
Swallowing, I traced my finger across one of the cell phones. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t know how to stop.
I shoved my pitying thoughts from my mind and walked over to the mirror. A confident Harper stared back at me, that façade I had created to protect myself from harm.
Standing five feet barefoot, my build was slender. I had pink skin, smattered with freckles. Girls now drew freckles on their faces at school, but I hated mine. To me, they were hideous, just more blemishes on my pale skin to add to my scars.
I turned, watching my reflection as I pulled off my hoodie. Twisting my neck slightly, I looked at the burn damage, which took up part of one shoulder blade.From the front, I looked perfectly normal, but from the back, I looked like a freak. My scars made me feel vulnerable, and I hated that.
I ran my fingers over the slightly bubbled texture. It didn’t hurt to touch it anymore, and I had some feeling there now. Occasionally, my shoulder would stiffen up and ache, but that was about it.
When I showed Phoenix, he said I shouldn’t hide it as it was part of who I am. He’d called me beautiful and unique.
Pursing my lips, I looked at my face. I wasn’t ugly and had always had guys interested in me,beforemy junior year, anyway. My hair was ginger,burnt copperas Nix had called it before realising his mistake. I hadn’t held that against him and had chuckled, knowing how bad he’d felt. I missed that protective, caring side of him. He seemed to grow out of that more each day as he made that transition from boy to man.
