REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 84: Chapter 84

The week rolled forward like a loaded cart with one bad wheel—fast, loud, and slightly off-balance.
Joe and his team were still climbing up and down that cursed mountain like it owed them answers. Forensics vans came and went. Officials tried to be discreet, but you can’t exactly hide crime scene tape and an archaeologist in a neon vest from mountain joggers and nosy plant moms with binoculars.
Meanwhile, I was busy wrangling snack schedules, scraped knees, and emotionally fragile cupcakes for the kids’ upcoming Beach Picnic Extravaganza. I barely had time to breathe, much less think about bones and moss and secrets from five years ago. But then—
Three days later rolled forward like a loaded cart with one bad wheel—fast, loud, and slightly off-balance.
But then—
A knock on the door.
Not the normal kind. No cheerful courier smile. No neighbor with a Tupperware request. Just one solitary knock—sharp, intentional.
By the time I opened the door, no one was there. Just a box.
No label. No return address. Just… a box.
I brought it inside slowly, already getting goosebumps. The kids paused their banana split negotiations to stare. Maya raised an eyebrow like she knew I was about to spiral. She wasn’t wrong.
I opened the box.
Inside—a single red lipstick, classic scarlet, and a photo.
But not just any photo.
It was my painting. Leon Darrow’s painting.
The one I painted when I was seven or younger was a painting of a girl, long hair on a swing made of stars. It was my pride and joy, a swirl of childhood dreams and terrible color theory. My father told me to paint a girl in a neon dress. It hung in the old mansion.
That painting… was supposed to be gone.
My hands shook.
Because I remembered something else now—my father.
He once stood in front of that very painting, glass of whiskey in hand, telling me something odd.
"There’s more to that than paint, darling. I hid something important. You’ll understand when you’re older."
I didn’t understand. I was young and furious he wouldn’t let me dye my hair blue.
I thought he was being poetic. Or drunk. Or both.
Now?
Now I was pacing the kitchen with a half-eaten donut in my mouth and panic in my lungs while all three kids watched me like I was a reality show meltdown.
Maya finally spoke. “Mom, uh… are you okay?”
“No,” I said honestly, donut crumbs raining like snow. “I think someone just mailed me a breadcrumb from a trail I didn’t know I was on.”
Aliya clutched her detective spoon. “Is it… a clue?”
“Yes. And no. And maybe,” I muttered, rereading the photo like it could suddenly whisper secrets.
Maya leaned over my shoulder. “Wait—what’s that in the bottom corner?”
I squinted. There. A smudge. Or a mark. A tiny shape I’d never painted. A… keyhole?
I dropped the photo.
“Get your shoes,” I said.
Maya blinked. “Where are we going?”
“To the attic.”
“Mom, we don’t have an attic.”
“We do now,” I said.
Because wherever that painting ended up, I was going to find it. And for the first time in years, I wondered what else my father hid. Not just in that painting—but in me.
An hour later.
After wading through weekend traffic that tested the limits of my sanity and the kids' snack supply, we finally arrived.
The gates groaned like they recognized me—and weren't thrilled.
We were standing in front of my father’s abandoned mansion. The same place we once led Dorothy and her unfortunate henchmen into. The same mansion I swore I’d never step foot in again unless I was being chased by debt collectors or memories.
Well, here we were.
The metal gate stood tall, rust-kissed and vine-wrapped, like it had grown tired of holding secrets and wanted to be left in peace.
I stared.
The wind stirred. Dust danced in lazy spirals. And suddenly, it all came rushing back.
The smell of old paper and floor wax. The echo of boots on marble. My father’s cough in the library. My painting, hanging over the fireplace. The summer I tried to escape through the dumbwaiter and got stuck halfway. The winter I found a note in his desk written in code I never solved.
“Mom?” Maya's voice tugged me back. “You said this was a friend’s place. But... this looks like something out of Scooby-Doo but richer and slightly haunted.”
Aliya was crouched by the gate, cradling a few dead butterflies with tragic reverence. “They must have died of boredom,” she whispered.
“Okay,” I sighed, opening the gate with a dramatic push, “so maybe it’s not a friend’s mansion.”
Maya squinted at me. “Then whose?”
“Technically… mine.” I walked ahead. “Or was. Long story. Keep up.”
We stepped inside like we were on a quest. The air was colder. Still. The kind of stillness that feels like it’s listening. Jaya was with me trapped in her carrier as we surveyed the place.
The mansion loomed, windows like eyes, vines creeping along its stone ribs. Inside, it was darker than I remembered. The furniture was still covered, like the ghosts got cold sometimes. Our footsteps echoed like we were intruding. Which, we were.
Aliya clutched my sleeve. “Mom… I think the house is looking at me.”
“Good,” I muttered. “Let it look. We’re here for answers.”
I rampaged through everything. Drawers. Cabinets. Old books. Boxes. Closets filled with outdated coats that still smelled faintly of expensive sadness. The kids followed behind me like confused interns in a very weird internship.
“Mom,” Maya said cautiously, “what exactly are we looking for?”
I stopped in front of the fireplace. And pointed.
The wall where my painting once hung. Gone now. Only a faint outline remained, like it had been yanked from the wall mid-rush.
“There used to be something here,” I said softly. “My painting. Dad said he hid something behind it.”
Aliya’s eyes lit up. “Like treasure?”
“Like answers,” I replied. “And maybe… danger. Who knows.”
Jaya gasped. “Are we gonna die?”
“No,” I said firmly. “We’re just going to commit light trespassing and light breaking-and-entering in the name of curiosity. It’s very literary.”
Maya had already pulled out her phone and started scanning the bricks around the fireplace.
“Wait,” she said, squinting. “There’s something… weird.”
She pointed to a hairline crack running vertically down the panel. And a faint shimmer. We all leaned in.
I reached out and pressed against it.
Click.
Something inside the wall gave way. And then, with a soft whirrrr and the quiet sound of air escaping something very old…
A hidden panel slid open. Inside—dusty, wrapped in yellowing velvet—was a wooden box.
I reached in slowly, heart pounding.
Aliya gasped. “It’s the treasure!”
Maya screamed.
Aliya muttered, “Mother, if this box kills us, I’m blaming your dad’s dramatic instincts.”
I held it up. It was heavier than it looked.
“Let’s take it home,” I whispered. Because something told me…
The past wasn’t just knocking anymore. It had kicked the damn door open.
We didn’t speak much on the way home. Jaya was asleep with her pink bunny pacifier on her mouth.
Aliya clutched the wooden box in her lap like it was a sacred relic. Maya stared at it with the kind of suspicion only a teenager could perfect. She kept whispering to herself, writing mental notes for the pretend detective case she and Aliya were now fully convinced was very real.
Me?
I kept driving with one hand on the wheel and the other chewing at what was left of my thumbnail. My thoughts were all over the place—part memory, part dread, and part caffeine withdrawal.
We got home just as the sky turned gold and bruised. That weird, in-between hour where shadows get long and secrets feel heavy.
I put the box on the kitchen table like it was a ticking bomb.
It didn’t look threatening. It was carved with delicate roses and vines, the kind my father always etched into the borders of his letters. The latch was old. Rusted. Locked, of course.
“Do we open it?” Maya asked, arms crossed.
“No, Maya.” Jaya said dramatically.
Aliya said, “We wait until midnight. That’s when the curse lifts.”
Maya shushed her. “This isn’t a cartoon. We need gloves and a sacred chant.”
I stared at it.
“Let me,” I said finally.
I found Catherine’s grandfather’s letter opener in the drawer and carefully wedged it into the lock. The metal creaked. Maya hovered behind me, half-curious, half-ready to call the police if the box released a ghost or worse—another unpaid bill.
With a soft click, the latch gave way.
I opened the lid.
Inside... was a stack of folded papers, brittle with age. A photograph. And... a small velvet pouch.
I reached for the photograph first.
It was me. Paint on my cheeks.
“Mommy, who is that boy in the picture?” Aliya asked.
“That is Leon. Um, a friend.” I replied with a straight face. “He painted that silly thing behind him.”
“And who is that girl with neon dress in the painting behind that boy?”
“Have no idea.”
I frowned at the picture, behind the little boy-me, barely visible in the background... was a man. Watching. Not my father. But somehow very familiar, that this body, Catherine’s body remembered.
Odd.
“Who’s that?” Maya asked, leaning over.
I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know. And because my heart had dropped to somewhere around my knees.
Aliya opened the velvet pouch and gasped.
It was a key.
Old. Silver. Engraved with something in Latin—too faded to read properly. But I knew one thing for sure:
It wasn’t a regular house key. I unfolded the top page from the stack.
A letter. In my father’s unmistakable handwriting.