Chapter 5
Isadora finally told me the beginning.
Emily died suddenly from an undiagnosed heart condition.
Six years old.
No warning.
Breakfast.
School.
Then gone.
Isadora survived the first year by preserving everything.
Bedroom untouched.
Shoes aligned.
Hair ribbons in drawers.
Rupert allowed it.
Then encouraged it.
Because when Isadora cried less, he called that improvement.
Even if the reason she cried less was that June had started wearing Emily’s clothes.
June was the first.
Same age.
Same height.
For two weeks, Isadora could pretend the world had corrected itself.
Then June rebelled.
The illusion broke.
Isadora collapsed again.
Rupert hated the collapse more than the delusion.
So he found Lila.
Younger.
Easier to shape.
“Why younger?”
Isadora answered through tears.
“Because if she grew into Emily…”
She could replay childhood.
Do it right.
Avoid death.
Prevent the last day.
Grief becoming revision.
Lila lasted longer.
Then Sophie.
Then Ottilie.
My granddaughter.
Why her?
Because she already belonged to family.
No outside parent who could reclaim her quickly.
That thought made me very still.
“Who suggested Ottilie?”
Rupert looked away.
Isadora whispered:
“Benedict.”
My dead brother again.
He had told them Ottilie resembled Emily at three.
Same eyes.
Same chin.
He said spending time together might heal everyone.
Maybe he meant supervised visits.
Maybe.
But he also gave Isadora access to one of Emily’s old dresses kept in Waverly storage after the funeral.
And the pendant.
Why was the pendant in our storage?
Because Benedict had taken it after the funeral “for safekeeping.”
Without telling me.
I pulled it from my pocket.
Looked at the braid.
Tiny engraving on the back.
E.H.
Emily Hawthorne.
Not Ottilie.
Never Ottilie.
I asked Isadora:
“Did Benedict know you were changing names?”
She shook her head.
Rupert said:
“Yes.”
She turned.
“What?”
He closed his eyes.
There it was.
Another secret.
Benedict knew more than Isadora realized.
Maybe more than I did.
Then Rupert said:
“He thought it was better than letting her die twice.”
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
Rupert looked toward Emily’s portrait.
May you like
“Your brother believed forgetting a child was the second death.”
And apparently he had built an entire machinery to prevent it.
