Return of the Reborn Princess novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Night I Turned Twenty-Four
Eden is killed at the lake house, wakes on the morning of her birthday and walks out of the Drummond house; at the Lacey door the girl who answers has Adele's face.
The night I turned twenty-four, my family toasted me in front of sixty guests and drove me to the lake house to kill me.
Howard did it with the wood axe, on the boathouse floor.
Adele held the lamp.
She told me to stop crying, because the noise carried over the water.
By the fifth blow I could hear them talking about the lawn.
The last thing I understood was my mother's voice, level and kind, talking about someone else.
"The girl on Marl Street. The Lacey girl. She's ours, Howard. She was always ours."
Then it was dark.
Then it was morning, and I was in my own bed with the sun on my face.
My left arm was on the blanket, whole, with all its fingers.
I held it up and turned it over for a long time.
My phone said it was my birthday, and the time on it was 7:12 a.m.
The party was tonight.
The lake house was after.
I got up, and my knees held.
I took a shower and did not look at the drain.
I dressed in jeans and my old sneakers and put every piece of cash in the house into my bag.
Then I went down to breakfast, because leaving without being seen would have been a mistake.
I wanted them to see.
The dining room smelled like coffee and warm bread.
Howard sat at the head of the table with his paper, big and pink and cheerful.
"There she is," he said. "The birthday girl."
He pushed the basket of warm bread down the table to me, the way he had every morning of my life.
I looked at his hands.
They were clean, and one of them was holding a piece of toast.
Adele came around the table and kissed my forehead.
Her blouse was buttoned to the collar, and under it I could see the small hard shape of the chain she always wore.
She never told anyone what hung on it.
When someone said my name, her fingers went to the chain.
They did it now.
"Eden," she said, and her hand went to her collar. "You look pale. Are you nervous about tonight?"
"A little."
"Don't be. Whatever happens, you're ours. You know that."
She smiled and squeezed my shoulder.
I had heard her say it before, in the same warm voice, with the lamp in her other hand.
Four of the household staff were in the room, laying out the fruit.
The housekeeper had been with us since I was six.
She looked at me and then at the floor.
I put my fork down.
"I'm not staying for the party," I said.
Howard turned a page. "Of course you are. Sixty people are coming."
"I'm not staying in this house."
The housekeeper stopped with the cream jug in her hand.
Adele laughed, a small light sound. "Darling. What's this about?"
"It's about the test."
Her hand stopped on the chain.
"What test?" said Howard, not looking up.
He had a very steady voice. He had used it on the phone last week when I heard him say the word "results."
"The DNA test," I said. "The one you ran in secret. The result comes tonight."
Nobody moved.
The housekeeper set the jug down very carefully.
"Who told you that?" Adele said.
I could have said the lake house.
I could have said the boathouse floor and the lamp.
Instead I said, "I read your email."
It was a lie, and it was enough.
Adele's face did not change, but the housekeeper's did.
I stood up and walked to the hall.
On the table by the front door was the dish where I kept my engagement ring.
Conroy Weatherford had put it on my finger four months ago, in a ballroom, in front of both our families.
He had not said a word to me that night that was not required.
I took the ring off and set it in the dish.
"Eden," Adele said behind me, still gentle, still smooth. "You're upset. Sit down, we'll talk. You are not going anywhere."
"Watch me."
Howard stood up.
Adele was holding the chain so hard her knuckles had gone white.
I looked at her, and I did not say that I knew about the girl.
I said, "I'll be back for my things."
I went down the front steps two at a time.
The gardener was on the lawn, and he lifted his cap at me.
The gate at the bottom of the drive was shut.
I pressed the intercom and said, "It's Eden. Open it."
The guard looked back toward the house, then opened it.
I walked down the hill into the city with my bag on my shoulder, and I took two buses I had never taken before, and I got off on Marl Street.
It was a row of narrow brick houses with the paint coming off the doors.
Number 41 had a handmade sign in the window: Lacey.
I climbed three steps and knocked.
The door opened.
The girl standing there was my age, with her hair in a messy knot and a diner apron around her waist.
She had green eyes and a freckled nose.
She had Adele's face.
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