Chapter 4
Elara
"Please give this to Mr. Vane."
I pressed the necklace into the guard's gloved hand. My voice came out flat, emptied of everything.
"Tell him the compass is broken. It doesn't point home anymore."
I paused. Drew breath. Forced out the rest.
"Tell him he got what he wanted. He has no daughter now. And I'll never bother him again."
The guard looked uncomfortable—the first crack in his professional facade. "Miss Vance, maybe you should—"
"Just give it to him."
A side door opened. A maid in black and white uniform emerged to collect the necklace. Middle-aged, her face pinched with the perpetual disapproval of someone who'd spent too long serving the wealthy.
Her eyes fell on the bundle in my arms. "What is that thing?"
"It's..." My throat closed. "It's Lily."
Her face twisted in disgust. "What garbage! You can't bring that in here!"
Before I could react, she kicked at the coat-wrapped bundle, trying to shove me away from the property line. The worn fabric came loose.
The plastic urn tumbled into the snow.
The cracked lid popped open.
Ash scattered across the white ground—gray powder stark against pristine snow, mixing with ice and dirt. My daughter. My baby. Reduced to dust and spilling across the driveway of the house that destroyed us both.
I dropped to my knees.
My fingers—bare, frozen, bleeding where the skin had cracked—scraped at the snow. Trying to gather her back. Trying to separate Lily from the ice and mud. But it was impossible. The wind caught some of the powder, carried it away into the blizzard.
Gone. Scattered. Lost.
"I'm sorry." I was sobbing now, past caring who saw. "I'm sorry, Lily. Mama couldn't protect you. Mama couldn't even—"
My voice broke.
From inside Blackwood Estate, piano music swelled. Pachelbel's Canon, played with concert hall perfection. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I could see the reception. Crystal chandeliers. Ice sculptures. Champagne.
Julian had his arm around Sloane's waist, turning her in a slow dance. A small boy in a miniature tuxedo—their son, three years old—was being passed around by cooing relatives.
"The Vane heir!" someone declared. "Look at him! The spitting image!"
A legitimate child. A wanted child. A child whose existence would never be denied, whose death would never be ignored, whose ashes would rest in a proper grave with flowers and dignity.
I looked up at the second floor. Third window from the right.
My room. Or what had been my room for seven years.
The curtains were drawn now. The lights off. According to the maid, it had been converted into a guest suite. Fresh paint. New furniture. Every trace of Elara Vance erased as if I'd never existed.
No one in that house remembered the girl who'd lived there. No one cared that a child named Lily had died alone and afraid.
I gathered what ashes I could back into the urn. My hands left bloody smears on the plastic. The coat was ruined—soaked through, covered in mud and ash—but I wrapped it around the container anyway.
The security guards watched with uncomfortable pity. Neither moved to help.
I stood. Turned away from Blackwood Estate. Began walking toward the road.
Behind me, the celebration continued. Instagram likes climbed into the millions. TikTok comments gushed about fairy tales and true love and dreams come true.
No one noticed the security camera catching a figure in a soaked sweater, walking alone into the blizzard, carrying a broken urn wrapped in a ruined coat.
The compass had been right about one thing: I'd found my way home.
And home had shown me the truth—I never belonged there at all.
The bus to Rockaway Beach cost my last $47. When the driver asked if I was sure about getting off in the middle of a blizzard, I just nodded.
The Glass House stood at the end of the beach—all transparent walls and merciless exposure. Julian had built it during my pregnancy, calling it a "recuperation retreat." The truth: a fishbowl where every moment of my captivity was visible. Observed. Controlled.
Now it blazed with light, construction crews preparing it for Sloane.
I didn't look at it long.
I walked to the water's edge. Pulled the bottle of pills from my pocket—the anti-anxiety medication I'd been hoarding for months, pretending to swallow while hiding each one under my tongue.
I unscrewed the cap. Poured the white tablets into my palm. Swallowed them in handfuls, washing them down with sea water that tasted of salt and death.
Then I walked into the waves, the urn pressed against my chest.
The water hit my ankles. My knees. My waist. So cold it felt like burning, like my body was being erased one inch at a time.
With each step deeper, I whispered to the plastic container in my arms:
"Don't be scared, Lily. Mama's here now. We're going somewhere without pain. Without cold. Somewhere the Vanes can't reach us. Somewhere we'll never be separated again."
The ocean swallowed me. The pills were already working—my heartbeat slowing, my thoughts fragmenting. The last thing I saw was Lily's face from a photograph, smiling that gap-toothed smile.
My final conscious thought formed with perfect clarity:
"If I could do it over... I would never love you again. Never let them touch us. Never..."
Then darkness.
Above the drowning woman, the storm raged on. The Glass House's lights continued to glow, warm and indifferent. In the distance, Blackwood Estate's windows began switching off one by one as the household retired for the night. The Atlantic took what it was offered—a mother and daughter reunited—and asked no questions.
By morning, there would be no trace except a cracked plastic urn washing up on shore, and a silver compass pendant returned to its owner, who would never understand what it had once meant.
The compass had been right after all—there was no home left to find.
