By the time I reached eighteen, the changes within me had become impossible to ignore. They crept in slowly, the way the bayou swallows land inch by inch, quiet but relentless. My mind felt older than my years, shaped by the hardships of being a dark‑skinned girl in a world that preferred me invisible. Those same hardships sharpened my gifts, strengthening them until they felt less like blessings and more like burdens, I had no choice but to carry.
My body had changed too. I had grown tall, my limbs long and lean from the constant work demanded of me in that house. My chest had filled out, my hips curved in ways that drew the eyes of men who had no right to look at me. More than once, I had slipped away from Mr. Louis’s drunken friends, avoiding the fate that had befallen other serving girls who were not quick enough or lucky enough to escape. Mr. Louis did not care what happened under his roof, so long as none of those men laid a finger on his precious Liora.
I had been spared only because the spirits trapped in that house watched over me. They whispered warnings, tugged at my senses, and guided my steps when danger crept too close.
And speaking of spirits. The woman Liora killed at five remained trapped in that house. Every time I entered the guest room on the top floor, I saw her standing on the balcony, her face pale with confusion, her hands resting protectively over the belly that would never swell again. She did not know she was dead. She did not know her unborn child was gone. She did not know her end came from the hands of the sweet little girl who had greeted her with such warmth.
I once told Liora the woman was still there. She laughed. She found her own cruelty amusing.
At ten, Liora remained unchanged; still beautiful, still wicked, still wearing innocence like a Sunday dress. But I could see the shift in her. She was growing tired of pretending with Mr. Louis. She despised her daddy with every beat of her black heart. She never said it aloud, but her eyes betrayed her. They were cold, calculating, waiting as if at any moment, she’ll kill the man given the chance.
One evening during supper, I saw a figure standing behind Mr. Louis. A man in a grey suit, his shirt soaked red as though the blood had bloomed from his chest like a dark flower. His face held pain, heartbreak, anger, and betrayal all at once.
Antoine Moreau.
I had heard whispers about him, Mr. Louis’s brother, the one who had supposedly run off with a rich girl named Inez Fontenot. But I knew better. I knew because the house had shown me.
It happened the day I brushed against Antoine’s portrait in the upstairs hallway. The moment my fingertips touched the frame, the vision seized me. It was sharp, violent, and absolute.
The hallway dissolved. The air thickened until it felt like I was breathing through cloth. And suddenly I was standing in a room decade earlier, watching two brothers face each other across a gulf of old wounds.
Antoine looked younger than the ghost. He was handsome, hopeful, and trembling with the kind of joy only a man in love can carry. He spoke of Inez, of how she loved him, how he loved her, how she carried his child. His voice cracked with fear and excitement, with the fragile belief that he had finally found something good in a world that rarely offered goodness.
Mr. Louis’s face twisted as he listened.
Not with heartbreak. Not with jealousy. But with something deeper; something rotten, festering, born from years of resentment and the knowledge that their father had always preferred Antoine.
The house seemed to hold its breath.
Antoine stepped closer, pleading now, saying he intended to marry Inez, saying their father had blessed the union, saying the land and the house and the inheritance were meant to pass to him as was willed by their father. Antoine from what Nadira could see held love for his brother as he seemed to be willing to work out a deal with Louis so that Louis could inherit something. Too bad Louis did not see it that way.
The vision sharpened, becoming painfully clear.
I saw Mr. Louis’s hand slip beneath his coat. Saw the glint of metal. Saw Antoine’s eyes widen, not in fear, but in disbelief, as though he could not fathom his own brother capable of such a thing.
The gunshot cracked through the air like thunder splitting a tree.
Antoine staggered backward, clutching his chest. His fingers trembled, stained red, his breath catching in his throat. He looked at Mr. Louis, not with anger, but with a sorrow so deep it felt like the house itself shuddered. His knees buckled, his body folding to the floor, his eyes still open, still pleading for an explanation he would never receive.
The vision did not release me.
I saw Mr. Louis drag Antoine’s body away, his movements cold and methodical. I saw him lure Inez to the house days later, her face bright with hope, unaware she was walking into her grave. I saw him strike her down, her scream swallowed by the walls. I saw him bury her beneath the rose garden, the soil dark and wet, the roses blooming brighter than ever above her.
When the vision finally let me go, I was shaking.
I never told a soul. Not then. Not ever.
Mr. Louis had spent years pretending I didn’t exist, and I had no desire to draw his attention.
That night at supper, I looked away from Antoine’s ghost and toward the table. Liora sat across from her father, eating daintily and delicate like a true heiress. She was on her best behavior, sweet and polite, but I did not trust it. Something in the air screamed at me, but I knew better than to interfere with whatever Liora was planning.
That woman was not the only person Liora had gotten away with murdering. I suspected she had something to do with Mr. Louis’s driver being found drowned face down in the bayou after he killed one of her kittens. Liora did not forgive cruelty toward anything she claimed as hers.
I went to bed that night trying to push the thoughts away, but I should have prepared myself. I should have questioned why Antoine’s ghost hovered so close to Mr. Louis.
In the morning, screams rang through the house.
Still in my nightdress, I ran toward Mr. Louis’s office. Mrs. Lorraine and the other serving girls stood frozen in the doorway. I pushed past them and stopped cold.
Mr. Louis sat at his desk, dead, his eyes wide open and staring straight ahead. A knife was buried deep in his chest, right where his heart should have been. I followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at: a large black‑and‑white portrait of him and Antoine.
“Mrs. Lorraine,” I said softly, “we need to call Mr. Louis’s doctor. He’ll need to call the sheriff and notify the coroner.”
She nodded and hurried off. The others fled, wanting no part of what had happened.
Once they were gone, I whispered, “Why?”
I knew Liora was hiding nearby. She always covered her tracks well. No one would ever suspect a ten‑year‑old girl of killing her own father.
Liora stepped out, carefree as ever. She didn’t bother hiding the truth. She simply smiled and walked into the room, looking at her daddy’s body with no more emotion than if she were staring at a dead insect.
“I grew tired of him,” she said. “He was starting to bore me. All that talk about tryin’ to do right, about his sins weighin’ heavy on his soul. Bunch of nonsense from a man who made his livin’ off the backs of women.”
“Don’t pretend you did it to save those girls,” I scolded. “We both know you don’t care what happened to them.”
Liora shrugged. “I don’t. I did it because I wanted to. Now that he’s dead, the house and everything in it belongs to me. And now you can stay by my side, and I can do whatever I want.”
She grinned wide, bright, beautiful, and utterly unrepentant.
It should have terrified me, how far she was willing to go, how deep her evil ran. But another part of me that was lonely and wounded did not want to abandon her the way Mama abandoned me.
So, just like before, I protected her. Protected this beautiful, innocent‑faced thing with a devil’s heart.
