Chapter 4
Celeste claimed she never intended to burn Maisie.
She said it four times.
By the fourth, even she heard how little it helped.
“I needed her scared enough to say it.”
I stared at her.
“That is not the defense you think it is.”
Her face tightened.
“You don’t understand what Silas told me.”
“Then explain.”
He had approached her six months earlier.
My fiancée.
Future wife.
Future woman of the Marlowe household.
He told her she would never truly hold that place while Maisie’s dead mother still defined the house.
Photographs.
Stories.
Old staff.
My habit of visiting Amelia’s grave on her birthday.
Maisie saying Mommy Amelia when she wanted comfort.
Silas did not need to tell Celeste to hate any of that.
He only needed to name it competition.
“What did he promise you?”
Celeste looked away.
“If the Hearth Rule was invoked…”
I waited.
“…I would remain with Maisie.”
There.
Not Northgate alone.
Celeste would accompany her.
Safe adult.
Future mother.
The woman who “protected” Maisie from her unstable father.
I almost admired the cruelty of the structure.
First frighten the child.
Then become the person adults call protective.
“What happens after thirty days?”
Celeste cried quietly.
“If you cooperated, Maisie came home.”
“And you?”
She did not answer.
I understood.
She returned as my daughter’s safe parent.
Not simply my wife.
Essential.
Silas gave her something more intoxicating than status.
He gave her a way to become necessary.
“You wanted Maisie to need you.”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised me.
“And she didn’t.”
Celeste’s face collapsed.
“No.”
There it was.
Maisie liked Celeste.
Sometimes.
She loved June.
She loved me.
She loved memories of Amelia she barely remembered.
Celeste could not tolerate being optional.
May you like
So Silas showed her a path to become indispensable.
All she had to do was make my daughter afraid of me first.
