1
MIRANDA
The Louisiana humidity doesn’t just sit on you; it assaults you. It’s a damp, suffocating blanket that smells of wet rot and ancient mud.
I check my watch—a 1920s Elgin wristlet that usually keeps perfect time. The crystal is fogged. The moisture is already seeping into the casing, threatening the delicate balance wheel inside. That irritates me more than the sweat trickling down my spine or the fact that the GPS on my phone died three miles back, surrendering to the thick canopy of cypress trees.
"Recalibrate," I mutter, tapping the glass face of the watch. "Focus on the mechanism."
I steer the rental sedan around a pothole that looks deep enough to swallow a tire whole. Spanish moss hangs from the live oaks like grey, tattered shrouds, motionless in the dead air. It is exactly ten days before Christmas. In Chicago, the wind is probably stripping the skin off commuters’ faces right now. Here, the air is heavy enough to chew.
There isn’t a single festive decoration. No plastic reindeer, no wreaths, no blinking LEDs. Just the oppressive green-black of the swamp and the looming shadow of the iron gates ahead.
Belle Rêve.Beautiful Dream.
The iron gates are rusted open, welded into place by time and neglect. As I drive through, the house rises out of the mist like a warning. It’s a monstrosity of columns and wrap-around porches, the white paint peeling to reveal grey wood that looks like bruised flesh. It’s gothic, imposing, and completely silent.
I kill the engine. The resulting silence is vacuum-sealed.
I shouldn't be here. The logical part of my brain—the part that understands gear ratios and mainspring tension—is screaming that this is something I can't control. But the emotional part, the jagged, lonely piece of me that spent twenty-six years in the foster system, overruled the logic.
It started with a Black Friday sale on DNA kits. I’d spit in a tube, mailed it off, and expected nothing more than a breakdown of generic European percentages. Instead, I got a ping. A match. A first cousin, once removed. Then came the letter from a lawyer in St. Jude’s Parish, claiming I was the last of the Duval line eligible for an inheritance.
I didn't come for the money. I came because when you’ve spent your whole life as a spare part in someone else’s machine, the promise of a blueprint—a family—is impossible to ignore.
I grab my bag from the passenger seat. The leather strap digs into my shoulder as I walk up the steps. The wood groans under my boots, a low, protesting creak that sounds too much like a growl.
I reach for the knocker—a heavy brass lion’s head, tarnished black—but the door swings open before I make contact.
The woman standing in the foyer looks like she stepped out of a daguerreotype. She’s tall, painfully thin, wearing a high-collared dress that went out of style before the telephone was invented. Her skin is the color of parchment, translucent enough that I look for veins but find none.
"Miranda," she says. It’s not a question. Her voice is dry, like leaves skittering on pavement.
"Matilde?" I try to smile, but my facial muscles feel tight. "I’m... hi. It’s good to finally meet you."
I step forward, half-raising my arms. A hug? A handshake? That’s what families do, right? They embrace. They cry. They talk about whose nose I have.
Matilde doesn't move. She doesn't blink. Her eyes are dark, swallowing the dim light of the hallway. She looks me up and down, her gaze feeling less like a welcome and more like an appraisal. She’s checking for defects.
"You are early," she says softly. "The Solstice is not for ten days."
"The lawyer said to come as soon as I could," I explain, lowering my arms. I feel foolish. "And I wanted to beat the holiday rush. It’s ten days until Christmas."
"We do not celebrate the Christian holiday here," she says, her tone clipping the sentence short. "We observe the Longest Night."
She steps back, allowing me entry.
I cross the threshold, and the temperature drops twenty degrees instantly. The humidity vanishes, replaced by a sterile, preserved chill. The air insideBelle Rêvedoesn't smell like the swamp. It smells of dried roses, beeswax, and something sharp and chemical—like the formaldehyde I used in high school biology.
"Your room is prepared," Matilde says, turning her back on me. She moves with an eerie, gliding grace, her skirt not rustling despite the heavy fabric. "Dinner is at sundown. We observe the old traditions here. Do not be late for the toast."
"Is anyone else here?" I ask, following her towards a sweeping staircase that disappears into shadow. "The lawyer mentioned other cousins?"
"The family gathers when the sun bleeds out of the sky," she says, evasive. She pauses at the landing, looking down at me. Her neck is long, elegant, and unnervingly stiff. "You have the look of your mother. The bone structure. It is... satisfactory."
Satisfactory. Not beautiful. Not beloved.Satisfactory. Like a replacement cog that fits the machine well enough to function.
She leads me down a corridor lined with gas lamps that hiss softly, casting flickering, jaundiced light against the velvet wallpaper. She opens the last door on the left.
