The meeting was not announced by trumpets or anticipated tears. There were no warnings or foreboding dreams. It just happened, like an unexpected bolt of lightning on a clear afternoon.
Ana never thought she would see them again. Her father. Her brothers. To the mother she had loved in silence, even when her gaze became distant.
After that note under the door, the night she almost got away -almost-, Lucian had taken her on a journey. An impulsive decision, disguised as protection. But fate had other plans.
It all began with a stop in a small town, one of those where the clocks seem to go back and echoes of the past walk among the houses.
There, in the haze of a local fair, among faces that seemed alien, he saw them.
His mother, thinner, older... with her face covered by a sad serenity.
Her siblings, now teenagers, laughing awkwardly in front of a bread stand.
And his father. The same father. Unmistakable. As if time had not passed him by, or perhaps it had only hardened his gesture.
Ana was paralyzed.
The world seemed to sink into silence while her chest pounded wildly.
She didn't know whether to run. Whether to scream. Whether to hide in the shadows.
But then her mother looked at her.
Fixedly. As if something inside her had awakened.
-Ana...? -she whispered, though there was no logical way she could recognize her. Not like that. Not with that face weathered by fear and years, with that rigid posture of a maid brought up by blows.
-It can't be..." said one of the brothers, the eldest, now almost a young man.
The father turned around, attracted by the tension. He recognized her. She knew it. She knew it by the way his jaw hardened, by the flash of discomfort in his eyes. As if she'd seen a ghost.
-You're dead," he spat coldly.
Ana shivered.
-No. You just sold me. Like I was trash.
The silence that followed was icy. The mother began to cry. The siblings just looked at her with a mixture of confusion and horror. And the father... the father didn't deny anything.
-He had to. We had nothing. Viktoria promised help in exchange for your silence," he said at last, without a trace of guilt.
-You condemned me to a life even you couldn't endure," Anne whispered, her voice breaking.
The mother took a step forward.
-I... I didn't know. I thought you had escaped... that you had died in the river. Your father said nothing for years. He swore he didn't know what happened to you.
-And you believed him! -Ana exclaimed, the pain welling up like an open wound.
One of the brothers took a step closer, his eyes glazed over.
-Sister... we hardly remember you. They told us you were gone. They never let us talk about you.
Anne looked at them, heartbroken. She couldn't blame them. They were children then. And now, even with the words, the gulf between them was huge.
Lucian, watching her from afar, did not intervene.
And that was the strangest thing. There were no orders. There was no control. Just presence. As if he understood that there were battles he couldn't fight for her.
Ana took a deep breath.
-I don't want revenge. I just wanted to know if anyone... ever thought about me.
Her mother knelt in front of her, her hands trembling.
-I thought of you every day. I am not innocent. But I am sorry.
Anne looked at her. For a moment, she felt warmth in her chest. It wasn't forgiveness. But it was a beginning.
-I'm not ready," she whispered. But someday... maybe.
And with that, she turned away. She left behind her father, her brothers, the guilt floating in the air.
Lucian was waiting for her a few steps away.
She approached without a word. And he just offered her his coat in silence.
Sometimes the deepest wounds don't bleed. They just throb. And although Ana was still broken, at least now she knew something important:
She was not a ghost. She was alive. And the story... wasn't over yet.