Traitorous Heart

Thalia

Slipping out onto the rear veranda, I drew in a lungful of cold night air laced with the sharp tang of woodsmoke. Leaving the house behind felt like shedding a physical weight, trading those dim corridors—with their dark antique woodwork and heavy velvet drapes—for the open sky above and an escape from the suffocating ghosts haunting the halls.

I dropped onto a weathered garden bench tuck