After the burial, the family gathered in the old provincial house for the reading of his will. Bianca sat quietly at the end of the long table, her fingers twisting in her lap.
The lawyer cleared his throat. "To my great-granddaughter, Bianca Rodriguez, I leave my hacienda, including the mansion, orchards, and all surrounding lands."
Murmurs rippled through the room.
One cousin snorted. "She can have it. That place is cursed."
Another laughed. "Remember when Tito tried to move in? Two weeks later, his store burned down. It's bad luck, I'm telling you."
Bianca frowned. "You're saying no one wants it?"
Her aunt waved a dismissive hand. "It's too far, too old, and too… strange. We're better off without it."
She should have felt insulted, but instead, a curious ache stirred in her chest. Strange or not, this was Lolo's home. And now it was hers.
---
Three days later, Bianca stood at the entrance of the hacienda.
It was… enormous. The land stretched farther than she could see, dotted with empty orchards where the trees stood tall but fruitless. A stable without horses sat quiet and cobwebbed. A poultry shed stood empty, the smell of hay and old feathers lingering in the air.
And in the center of it all was the mansion—three stories of weathered white stone, its windows tall and arched, its carved doors bearing the faint pattern of vines. Time had aged it, but it still stood with a kind of quiet pride.
In front, a fountain trickled lazily, its basin ringed with wildflowers that had grown without care.
Bianca's breath caught. She'd expected something eerie after all the rumors, but instead… she felt something different. Something like the warmth of coming home after a long journey.
---
"Señorita Bianca?"
She turned to see a middle-aged couple walking toward her—a woman in a faded floral dress, a man with sun-lined skin, and between them, a little boy no older than six clutching a toy car.
"I'm Lydia," the woman said, smiling warmly. "This is my husband, Ramon, and our son, Paolo. We've been taking care of the place since your lolo passed."
"Thank you," Bianca said, and meant it.
That night, she settled into the second-floor bedroom Lolo had always kept ready for her visits. The bed was soft, the window open to a breeze carrying the scent of earth and bamboo.
She sat at the desk by the window, notebook open, pen in hand. If she was going to live here, she needed a plan. Farming. Poultry. Maybe live selling on social media—people loved farm-to-table produce these days.
Her pen stilled. She could almost hear Lolo's voice in the rustle of the bamboo: "Anak, this land will take care of you if you take care of it."
---
What Bianca didn't know—what she couldn't yet imagine—was that in the mansion's basement, a pair of curious eyes had been watching her since the moment she stepped onto the property.
Eyes belonging to something small, something magical, something that had been waiting for years for the right person to come home.
And now, it seemed, she had.
---
End of Chapter 2