My employer, Marcus Hollins, stood over his seven-year-old son in the glass conservatory, yelling as the boy smashed $14,000 worth of antique porcelain against the marble floor.
I crept back to my room, heart thundering, the scent of the warding herbs clinging to my clothes. Sleep never came. I spent the rest of the predawn hours staring at the ceiling, trying to piece together the depth of Marcus’s deception.
The sun was barely painting the sky in pale shades of orange when a sharp rap echoed at my door. Not the gentle knock of a house staff, but a firm, impatient demand.
“Maya. Mr. Hollins requires your presence in his study. Now.”
It was Beatrice, the head housekeeper, her voice clipped and devoid of warmth. Her eyes, usually veiled, held a strange, knowing glint.
I pulled on my uniform, hands shaking as I straightened the apron. My reflection stared back, pale and drawn. This was it. The confrontation I’d both dreaded and yearned for.
Marcus’s study was a grand, imposing room, all dark mahogany and leather-bound books. A roaring fire crackled in the hearth, casting flickering shadows that danced around ancient globes and polished busts. The air was thick with the scent of old paper and something else, something metallic and cold, like the smell of the mirrors in Jonah’s room.
Marcus sat behind his massive desk, bathed in the firelight, looking perfectly composed in a charcoal silk dressing gown. A steaming cup of coffee sat untouched before him.
He gestured to the chair opposite. “Sit, Maya.” His voice was calm, almost pleasant. Too calm.
I sat, my spine rigid. The silence stretched, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the distant chirp of an early bird. He watched me, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips.
“So,” he began, “you’ve finally seen him.”
My breath hitched. He knew I had gone into the west wing. He knew.
“Jonah,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, testing the name.
His smile vanished. “His name is Leo, Maya. Leo Hollins.” His tone hardened, like steel. “And he is my son.”
The air in the room grew heavy. A strange shimmer caught my eye. On the wall behind Marcus, an antique looking-glass, framed in ornate gothic silver, began to fog. Phantom frost bloomed from its edges, delicate as lace, but spreading rapidly across the glass.
Marcus frowned, glancing at the mirror. He subtly shifted his chair, turning away from it.
“I hired you, Maya,” he continued, his voice dropping to a low, chilling register, “precisely because of your past. Your… vulnerability.”
My heart plummeted. My past collapse. The bankruptcy. The involuntary commitment. He knew. All of it.
“I needed you close,” he explained, his eyes locking onto mine, “but far enough away not to notice. I needed to ensure you would never discover Leo’s existence in my private wing. To ensure you never caused trouble.”
The frost on the mirror thickened, obscuring the reflection entirely. It was radiating a palpable cold, a contrast to the roaring fire.
He pushed a folder across the desk. It was thin, filled with official-looking documents. My name, Maya Jackson, was stamped clearly on the cover.
“These are your medical records from three years ago,” he said, tapping the folder. “A documented history of acute delusional disorder, psychosis, and a severe nervous breakdown.”
I stared at the papers. They were real. I remembered fragments of that time, a fog of despair and confusion. But Marcus had engineered it all.
“The involuntary commitment orders are still active, Maya,” he stated, his voice a silken threat. “One word, one attempt to claim ‘Jonah,’ and I will have you recommitted. You will lose everything, again. And this time, you won’t even have a memory of a child to haunt you.”
My blood ran cold. The frost on the mirror pulsed, vibrant and alive. Every lie he spoke, every deception about Jonah’s true origins, was manifesting on that glass. He was using my pain, my very sanity, as a weapon.
“Do you understand?” he asked, his voice soft but menacing. “You will not speak to him again. You will not touch him again. Or you will be gone. Forever.”
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