By Lillian Bradbury
He eyed me with suspicion, sucked in his cheeks, lips clamped tight. I only had one case, which he pulled out of the boot, slamming the door shut with such force the rooks took flight. Bennett glared at me with contempt, then making as if to dust down his uniform, he took my case inside.
Walking into the museum of dead people, I shivered. Paradise hadn’t changed. Since the seventeenth century, dull woven tapestries hung on every wall and flanked the wide staircase leading to the bedchambers. The horrors of the crypts beneath my feet would still be there.
“You’ve arrived then?”
“Hello, Mother.”
I faced the beak-nosed anorexic.
“You look well.”
She turned her cheek for the obligatory air kiss. Mother didn’t like human contact—well, not from me anyway.
“I’ve brought you a gift; it’s to keep in your bedroom,” I smiled, taking out the leather purse from the top of my backpack, knowing the rare and expensive relic would appeal to her vanity. “It’s said to give longevity and enhance beauty.”
She raised her painted eyebrows and snatched it from my hand, turning it over and bringing it closer to her face to inspect the markings.
“Ugh! Two a penny in the souks! Your sister had one; it was an original. It can stay here,” she spat, placing it by the stained-glass window.
A silver frame holding a picture of my sister as a child sat alongside.
After she had retired for the night, I picked up the relic and stuffed it in my pocket. She would rather stick pins in her eyes than admit it was the real thing.
In my room, with the door ajar, I waited until I could hear her throaty snarl and crept into her chamber. She was laid on her back wearing a turquoise silk eye mask that caught a chink of moonlight from the crack in the window drapes. A drool of spit oozing from the corner of her mouth onto her pillow.
I placed the tiny relic on her bedside table amongst the jars of cream and bottles of vitamin pills.
My first night back at Paradise, I was to sleep alongside an oil painting of my sister, displayed on the wall. The mortarboard settled onto a mass of thick blonde curls, she held a scroll tightly to her gold and blue sash.
I was the first-born twin. Making my entrance as a screaming purple blob. Hence, I was named Violet. Amelia followed silently with ease.
Mother favored her from that minute.
Father didn’t care either way, spending our growing years as an occasional visitor to Paradise.
We were tutored at home and got along reasonably well with each other. The preferential treatment of my sister made my life quite bearable compared to hers. While her days were monitored hour by hour “for her own good,” mine were uncluttered and filled with freedom.
Amelia’s autopsy in Egypt ten years ago was “unexplained death.”
She passed away in our family villa, peacefully. Silently.
I have since spent that time, incarcerated.
Never convicted.
No proof, you see.
Returning to my family home to write my memoirs is my right.
My revenge.
© 2024 Lillian Bradbury
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“Paradise” by Lillian Bradbury is a chilling psychological tale of family secrets, favoritism, and unresolved pasts. A story woven with gothic tension, mystery, and an undercurrent of revenge, it explores the dark recesses of memory and the shadows of a haunted lineage.
