Page 20 of Her Soul to Own

I slip through the hedgerow path behind the garden’s edge, the one no one uses anymore. The path leads to the old treehouse. My secret place. The only place where I can go and be myself. It’s my kingdom made of splinters and chipped paint.

It stands like a forgotten shrine among the branches, cloaked in ivy and the kind of peace that feels alive.God, how long has it been since I last came here?

I climb up slowly, my feet freezing and numb, and when I open the creaky hatch, the scent hits me first. Cedar. Dust. And her perfume.

It’s faint, but it’s still there. Like she just left. Like she’ll walk in any minute and tell me I’m too stubborn for my own good.

I sit cross-legged on the warped floor, the wood creaking under my weight. I press my palm to the floorboard under the window and pry it loose. There, buried like treasure, is the old journal I hid after she died.

Her handwriting curls across the page, inked in blue, elegant but strong.

I run my fingers across the words, and then I read aloud, my voice barely above a whisper, “They’ll either worship you or break you, darling. There’s no in-between.”

My throat tightens, and my vision blurs. But I don’t sob. There are no gasps or theatrics, just heat sliding down my cheeks, betrayal-shaped and burning.

I clutch the journal so tightly that it wrinkles under my fingers.

“Why didn’t you just leave him?” I whisper, my voice breaking.

There’s no answer. Just the wind, curling through the open window like breath from another world.

She used to sit right there with me. I must’ve been eight, maybe nine. After dinner, we’d sneak away to the treehouse while the help cleared the dishes and my father pretended to read the paper in the study. She always brought a brush and a thermos of chamomile tea, and while the crickets sang and the stars blinked awake, she’d brush out my hair in long, slow strokes.

She told me stories of Paris in spring, of narrow streets that smelled like pastry and rain, of a time when she thought she’d be a painter in Marseille or maybe a poet somewhere near the ocean. Her voice would go soft when she talked about the life she almost had.

But fairy tales have expiration dates, and hers ended the day she married Evander Vane.

They called it a love match, with press releases and champagne receptions. Rothschild meets Vane, legacy secured. But even as a kid, I knew it wasn’t love. It was politics. A merger in a designer dress. My father was around only when the press needed pictures. The rest of the time? He chased deals like other men chased adrenaline.

When my mother got sick, his absences stretched longer. Weeks at a time. Always meetings. Always “urgent business.” She’d ask about him with that tiny trace of hope still clinging to her voice.

And I’d lie.

“He’s coming home soon,” I’d whisper.

Because even at eleven, I knew the truth would only kill her faster.

The illness came like a thief, quiet at first. Then cruel. It hollowed her out, little by little. The medicine didn’t help. The house filled with the soft rustling of leaves and peace. I remember the way her hands shook when she held the tea I brought each morning. I remember the day she couldn’t finish a sentence without wincing.

I remember how she stopped looking in the mirror.

A week before she went to Paris, where she died, I sat beside her on the bed. She was thin. Bones and memories. She brushed her thumb along my cheek and said, “Don’t let them harden you.”

I wanted to promise her that I wouldn’t. But I already had.

She was the only softness I had left.

Now, all that remains is the scent of her perfume in cedarwood and a journal full of questions no one will ever answer.

I press the journal to my chest. The tears dry on my cheeks, salty reminders of the girl I used to be.

The wind whispers through the trees, but it brings no answers.

The journal rests against my chest, heavy like a second heartbeat. I wipe my sleeve across my face, sniffling like some goddamn child.Get it together, Vane. You’re not eleven anymore. You’re a woman with a stalker, a handler, and a personal security system worth more than some countries’ defense budgets.

Still. The quiet wraps around me like a too-warm blanket. Safe but smothering.

And then I hear it.

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