Chapter 5 - The Night Mara Disappeared
Eleanor denied it for exactly forty-three seconds.
Then Lily started crying.
Something in Eleanor collapsed.
She sat on the floor.
Eight years earlier, Eleanor was not yet the mistress of Harrow House.
She was Daniel Harrow’s fiancée.
Daniel hosted a private charity gala at the mansion.
Mara worked there for one night through a catering company.
Anna remembered.
Mara had left home wearing black trousers and a white shirt.
She promised to bring Anna leftover chocolate cake.
She never came home.
Eleanor had been drinking.
After midnight, she argued with Daniel.
She left in his car.
Mara was outside near the service driveway.
Eleanor asked her to ride along because she was too upset to drive alone.
Mara agreed.
“You drove drunk.”
Eleanor cried.
“Yes.”
The car left the road twelve minutes later.
Eleanor suffered a fractured wrist.
Mara took the impact on the passenger side.
Metal crushed around her.
Her spine was damaged.
Internal bleeding.
Severe injuries.
Eleanor called Daniel instead of emergency services.
Anna stared at her.
“Why?”
“I panicked.”
“You left my sister dying because you were afraid of being arrested?”
“No. Daniel said he could get a doctor there faster.”
Vale.
He arrived with a private medical team.
They extracted Mara.
Vale said conventional transport might kill her.
He offered experimental treatment at the mansion laboratory.
Mara was conscious.
Barely.
“She consented?”
Eleanor nodded.
Anna did not trust her.
Vale produced old footage.
A young Mara lay on a medical bed.
Bruised.
Terrified.
Still unmistakably Mara.
Vale asked:
“Do you understand this treatment is experimental?”
Mara whispered:
“Will I walk?”
“We don’t know.”
“Will I live?”
“Without intervention, probably not.”
Mara looked toward someone off-camera.
Then said:
“Do it.”
Anna could not breathe.
The recording stopped.
“That proves she consented to emergency treatment,” Anna said. “Not eight years of imprisonment.”
Vale’s expression sharpened.
“I never said it did.”
Another crack in the story.
Erebos initially worked.
Mara stabilized.
Internal bleeding slowed.
Damaged nerve tissue began repairing.
Within seventy-two hours she moved toes doctors believed would never move again.
Daniel called it miraculous.
Then regeneration continued.
It did not know when to stop.
New nerve branches multiplied.
Bone remodeled.
Skin thickened.
Her endocrine system changed.
Her pupils expanded until the visible iris nearly disappeared.
Fingernails grew rapidly.
Connective tissue became unusually elastic.
And Mara developed extreme sensitivity to light.
“What did you do?”
Vale answered quietly:
“I made a mistake.”
Anna hated how small the sentence sounded.
“Then why didn’t you take her to a hospital?”
Daniel refused.
Eleanor refused.
Vale feared criminal prosecution for unauthorized human experimentation.
Everyone had a reason.
Mara paid for all of them.
They moved her deeper underground.
Vale claimed it was temporary.
Weeks became months.
Mara’s appearance changed.
Her speech deteriorated.
But cognition remained.
“She knew who she was?”
“Yes.”
“She knew I was looking for her?”
Vale did not answer.
Anna stepped toward him.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
The word destroyed something.
Anna had spent nights putting posters on telephone poles while Mara was alive less than five miles away.
“Why didn’t she come home?”
“She tried.”
Anna froze.
Vale looked toward the tunnel.
“Three months after treatment, Mara escaped.”
She reached the edge of the property.
A groundskeeper saw her.
Panicked.
Mara ran back into the woods.
Daniel organized a search before police could become involved.
They found her at dawn.
“Did she want to go home?”
Vale’s silence answered.
Anna’s eyes filled.
“You brought her back.”
“Yes.”
“Against her will.”
Vale looked down.
“Yes.”
There it was.
The moment medicine became imprisonment.
But Eleanor suddenly said:
“That isn’t all.”
Vale turned sharply.
“Stop.”
Anna looked at her.
“What?”
Eleanor wiped tears from her face.
“Mara escaped a second time.”
Vale’s voice hardened.
“Eleanor.”
“She reached Anna.”
Anna’s heart stopped.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I would remember.”
“You were asleep.”
Eleanor told her.
Six months after the accident, something stood outside Anna’s bedroom window shortly before dawn.
Anna’s mother heard scratching.
She looked through the curtain.
Saw a gray face.
Huge dark eyes.
Long fingers against the glass.
She screamed.
Anna woke.
By the time she reached the window, nothing was there.
Anna remembered that morning.
Her mother called it an animal.
A raccoon.
A nightmare.
But on the exterior windowsill, Anna found four notes scratched into the paint.
M A R A.
She had forgotten.
Or perhaps forced herself to forget because the alternative was impossible.
Anna looked toward the oven.
Mara had come home.
She had been close enough to touch the glass.
And someone had taken her away again.
“Who found her?” Anna asked.
Eleanor stared at Vale.
Vale said nothing.
That silence gave Anna her answer.
But Eleanor whispered:
“No.”
Anna turned.
“It wasn’t Vale.”
“Then who?”
May you like
Eleanor’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Daniel.”
