Chapter 14 - The Woman in the Mirror
Back at Margaret House, the storm knocked out the main electrical grid at two in the morning. The mansion plunged into suffocating darkness, illuminated only by the intermittent strobe of lightning outside.
Claire ran up the wooden staircase, two steps at a time. "Mother!" she called out, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Evelyn had stayed behind to watch Margaret. When Claire pushed open the door to the master bedroom on the second floor, the room was eerily still. The sheer curtains billowed in the draft from an open window.
Evelyn was slumped on the armchair by the hearth, breathing deeply, an overturned cup of chamomile tea pooling on the Persian rug beside her. A crushed sedative tablet was visible along the rim.
"Evelyn!" Vanessa rushed to her side, checking her pulse. "She's alive—she's just heavily drugged."
Claire turned toward the adjoining bathroom. The door stood ajar. A faint, sweet scent hung in the air—the smell of vintage French lavender, the very perfume Margaret Whitmore had worn in the society columns thirty years ago.
"Mother?" Claire whispered, stepping over the threshold.
The bathroom mirror was completely covered in steam, though the water wasn't running. Sitting on the marble vanity stool was Margaret. She was dressed in her pristine white nightgown, methodically brushing her silver hair with an ivory comb.
"You went to the cemetery, didn't you, Claire?" Margaret asked. Her voice wasn't the trembling, fragile tone of the broken woman they had rescued from Room 417. It was smooth. Cultured. Chillingly composed.
Claire halted. "Who are you?"
The woman stopped brushing. She turned slowly around. In the dim lightning, her eyes gleamed with razor-sharp intellect.
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"I am the mother who survived," she said, tilting her head. "The question you should be asking, my sweet girl... is why Charles thought you were the one worth saving."
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