The manor was quiet, and the candles burned softly, casting shadows over the marble staircase. Every creak, every whistle added to the unmistakable sinister feeling of the night. The silence was uncanny, and the moon shone through the windows in crescent slivers. Her heart was in her throat and her palms were damp, so she wiped them on the billowing fabric of her dress, just as her mother had commanded her not to. The wind swept through the house, blowing her careful curls over her powdered face. She finally reached the staircase and hurried up the steps, before crouching down and placing her ear on the cold floor.
She raised her hand and knocked against the marble, listening carefully for the hollow echo. After multiple tries, Amalia finally heard the marble reverberate deep. She took a deep breath before prodding her finger into the cracks between the steps, before finally wedging her nail deep enough. With a careful yank, she pried the marble away from the steps, leaving her with an exquisite slab of marble, and a deep hole that seemed to extend endlessly. When she looked down, she could feel her stomach drop, for she could not see the end, and the silence of the hour only made her spine tingle more.
.Even though she was shaking, she lowered herself into the void, feeling her dress bunching and tearing at the cuts of the marble. It was a near-fit, and the claustrophobia overwhelmed her, and she was almost through the staircase. Amalia gasped, her hands were slipping, but she let go and fell for what seemed like an eternity. Her stomach was in her throat and her hair spiraled around her in the fast wind. She snapped her eyes shut, afraid for the landing.
When she finally hit the floor, she could feel the wind being knocked out of her. Her feet stung with the hard impact, but she continued to walk. The same marble as the staircase continued. She walked towards the light, to find flickering candles, the same as the ones that hung in her hallway. Everything about this place seemed to be a part of her house, not an after-thought, but a room that had been worked into the plan, a secret hideaway with an intended purpose. The light burned brighter and other than her unsteady heartbeat, she could hear something else. Someone else, as though she was being watched.
Ragged breathing now whispered in the halls, and Amalia’s heart raced. When she tuned the corner, she saw a figure crumpled on the floor. She kept silent, but her mind was exploding, her body was shaking, and she wondered whether she would come out alive. She backed away, wanting to run, but the figure shifted and moved, It unravelled itself to form something humanoid. Then it looked up at her. A million different thoughts rushed through her, but one feeling stood out. Recognition
“Rena?”
“Amalia!”
Amalia rushed over to the hunched figure and cupped her scarred face. She looked deep into brown eyes like her own and looked at the tattered mess she lay in. She wrapped her arms around Rena and cried into her sister’s arms
“What are you doing here?” they exclaimed at one another in unison. Amalia sighed. “Okay, I’ll tell you first. I keep having dreams about this place, they tell me to come here every night. And I can’t sleep after that, it won’t leave me alone. And I finally listened. I stole the lanterns and crept away, to the staircase. For the first time, the voices ceased. They guided me here. You must think I’m insane” Amalia sighed, slightly laughing. “I promise I’m not. But they led me to you. I might be crazy, but I’m with you again, so I don’t care.”
“You’re not crazy” Rena said, smiling. She uncovered an elegant hand from within her robes grasped at the air, twisting gracefully. Amalia held her breath, confused, but then gasped when she saw Rena’s hand glow bright white. Flames sparked from her fingertips, burning softly, enveloping her hand in heat and blaze.
“What are you?” Amalia was in awe, but Rena knew she was scared.
“I don’t know. But I know I’m not normal. An abomination. To quote father.” Rena sighed and smiled in regret.
“I always had this gift. Father saw it as a curse. When he found me practicing magic, he was horrified. He whisked me away. Mother begged him to let me live, or he would have dragged me to the town square. No matter I was his daughter, his fear won out. He agreed, out of his love for Mother. He was going to let me live, but what he had in mind could barely be described as living. He set the construction plans and paid the workers heavily to keep our secret. He set the house on fire, claimed I died in it. Then threw me here. A secret hideaway. A house for myself, cursed to live alone listening to my family, but never part of it. A “curse”, father felt equal to the one I had no control over.
“I’ve spent the last few years underground. Sometimes mother knocks on the floor so I know she’s there. It’s a lonely existence, but I am thankful to still be alive, though it isn’t ideal.”
“I survived off of my powers. Barely, but I got by, I got used to it. I listened to you, Amalia. I heard you when you played the piano, and when you sang lullabies when mother wasn’t watching over your lessons. I heard when you talked to the girls from the village when father and mother ran errands. I heard when you cried because you were alone and because you missed me. You’re just as trapped as me. You just don’t know it yet.”
Amalia chose to ignore the last part. She couldn’t accept that she was trapped, even though deep down, she felt as if she was. She shook her head “But how could they do this to you? You’re their child. Magic is beautiful, you weren’t going to hurt them.”
“I knew you would understand.” Rena began smiling. “Magic may be beautiful to you Amalia, but to others, it is something scary, something unknown. What we do not understand and what we cannot control scares us. . He tried so hard to be normal, and he was so scared. Fear is a very powerful emotion, one that discards all logical thought. My magic terrified him because it took away his chance at being normal, at being perfect. That is what most of us want, to be normal. And when they are not, when something falls out of line, we try to do everything in our power to make sure that we are in control once more. Father needed to be in control of our family, he wanted a normal life, with a loving wife and two enviable daughters and money. And I stood in the way of that. So, fear pushed him over the edge. Any love he felt for me was thrown away.
“It is so important Amalia, to be understanding. To listen to those, because when you know what is happening around you, you won’t be scared. When you understand those around you, perhaps you will still love them, despite their differences. Maybe father could have loved me. And the truth is, we are never in control, and it will always be impossible for us to dictate what happens to us. Promise me you will remember this?”
Amalia looked at her sister, her face bruised, but eyes shining. She nodded solemnly and hugged her sister before she left from under the staircase, and she knew she would come back again.
