She turns in her seat and offers her hand. “Margaret Danvers. I’m the housekeeper.”
Victor glances at me through the rearview mirror. Beneath his heavy brows, blue eyes hold steady on mine. “Victor De La Cruz. Gardener.”
“Aurelia Vale,” I say, careful with each word. I look out the window as the house begins to fade behind us. “House sitter.”
Margaret gives a small nod toward Victor. I catch it just before I turn back. “I told Miss Vale you would explain what happened a year ago.”
I shift in my seat, leaning back, the key turning slowly between my fingers.
“We don’t really know,” Victor says. “Only what we were told.”
He meets my eyes again in the mirror.
“A year ago, the owner came back after two months abroad. He found his wife and daughter in the bathroom.”
His voice tightens, and his eyes return to the road.
“His wife was… a lovely woman. She was quiet and distant, sometimes. No one really knew what was going on in her head.”
He glances at Margaret.
“That night, she told us to leave. Said not to come back until the next day. We didn’t question it.”
A pause settles in the car.
“We only understood why when the owner called.”
“He told us they were both dead.”
My heart starts beating faster with every word he says.
“She drowned her daughter in the bathtub,” Victor continues, “then took sleeping pills and lay down beside her. The owner came too late.”
“After that, he barely came back,” Margaret adds. “That’s when the position opened.”
Victor lets out a quiet chuckle. “You’re not the first one,” he says. “There was a woman before you. She left and never came back. Told Margaret she saw a ghost of a little girl and her mother.”
Margaret nudges him sharply. “Stop it. Don’t scare the poor girl.”
I swallow, my pulse still racing loudly in my ears.
“Do you still want the position?”
“Yes,” I say, my gaze fixed on the window as the road slips by. “I have ghosts of my own haunting me.”
They exchange a look but say nothing more.
The truth is, every house keeps a ghost. Something that stays, long after it should have left. Maybe I’m meant for this place. Meant to haunt it with her.
She never had a second chance, but I do.
Six
AURELIA
Time, they say, is the most expensive currency. Now I’m starting to understand what that really means.
When you’re younger, when someone else is still taking care of you, your mind lives in the future. You build it piece by piece, making plans as if time stretches forever, as if it waits for you. Now, standing here on my own, the future feels so far away. And all I can think about is how to get through one more day.
