Chapter 7: What Sophie Knew
I called her back immediately.
Sophie answered on the second ring.
Her voice was careful and measured, the voice of someone who had decided to do something difficult and was going to do it properly.
"Thank you for calling," she said.
"Thank you for responding." I moved to the chair by the window, away from the door.
"I don't know what my sister told you."
"She told me you married Julian yesterday.
She told me about the bedroom, the vial, the stain.
She told me you were asking questions." A pause.
"She told me you seemed like someone who deserved honest answers."
"I am," I said.
Sophie was quiet for a moment.
Then: "The ritual is real.
Victoria has been doing it for years.
She told Julian it goes back generations, that it's a family blessing.
That part is true, as far as I know.
But Elena — the ritual isn't the problem.
The ritual is the cover."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Cover for what?"
"Victoria uses the night to go through things.
Your things.
Your bag, your documents, your phone if she can get to it.
She's looking for anything she can use.
Anything that gives her information about who you are, what you want, what your vulnerabilities are." Sophie's voice was steady and flat, like someone reciting facts they had spent a long time making peace with.
"She found my journal.
I kept a private journal and I'd left it in my overnight bag.
She read it.
She found out things about my past — things I hadn't told Julian yet — and she used them.
Not all at once.
Slowly.
Over the following months.
Little comments.
Little suggestions to Julian about my character.
Things only someone who had read that journal could have known."
The room was very quiet.
"She dismantled me from the inside," Sophie said.
"By the time I found out about the ritual, I was already so destabilized that Julian thought I was paranoid.
He thought I was looking for reasons to distrust his mother.
And maybe by then I was.
But I wasn't wrong."
"How did you find out about the ritual?"
"His Aunt Ruth told me.
She didn't approve of what Victoria was doing.
She pulled me aside at a family dinner and told me everything.
By then it was too late for us — Julian and I were already falling apart.
But Ruth felt guilty.
She'd known for years and never said anything."
Aunt Ruth.
Julian's Aunt Ruth, who had been at the reception yesterday.
Who had pulled Julian aside while the guests were leaving.
"Sophie," I said.
"Did Aunt Ruth ever try to warn any of the other women?
Before me?"
"I don't know.
She told me she'd tried to warn Julian directly, once, and he'd refused to hear it.
After that she stayed quiet." A pause.
"Elena, I'm not telling you this to frighten you or to push you toward any particular decision.
I'm telling you because someone should have told me, and no one did."
"I understand," I said.
"Can I ask — what did she find in your journal?
What did she use against you?"
Sophie was quiet for a moment.
"I'd had a difficult period in my twenties.
Some mental health struggles.
Nothing serious, nothing that defined me, but I'd written about it honestly in that journal because that's what journals are for." Her voice didn't waver, but I heard the effort in it.
"Victoria started mentioning to Julian — casually, gently — that she worried about my stability.
My emotional resilience.
Whether I was really ready for marriage and family.
She never said anything outright.
She just planted seeds.
And Julian, who loved his mother and trusted her, let those seeds grow."
I sat with that for a long moment.
"Sophie," I said.
"I had my travel bag in that room last night."
Silence.
"My passport is in it," I said.
"And some personal letters.
From my mother.
She passed away two years ago and I carry them with me when I travel.
I don't know why I do.
I just do."
"Check the bag," Sophie said quietly.
"Check whether anything has been moved or disturbed.
And Elena — if there is anything in those letters that could be taken out of context, or anything personal you wouldn't want used against you — you need to know that Victoria may already have seen it."
After I hung up, I sat very still for a moment.
Then I went to the wardrobe and unzipped my travel bag.
The inside pocket was still locked.
The vial was still there.
But the outer pocket — the one I hadn't thought to check — was slightly unzipped.
I always zipped it fully.
I was meticulous about it.
My mother's letters were still inside.
All five of them, still bundled with the elastic band I used.
But the elastic band was on upside down.
I stood at the wardrobe for a long time, holding the bundle of letters, looking at the elastic band.
Then I went downstairs.
Julian was in the sitting room, reading.
He looked up when I came in.
"Can't sleep?" he said.
"Julian," I said.
"I need you to tell me what your mother did while she was in our room last night.
Not the ritual.
Not the tradition.
What she actually did."
He set his book down slowly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean did she go through my belongings."
His face did something complicated.
Not surprise.
Something that was trying very hard to look like surprise.
"Elena, why would she—"
"Julian." My voice was quiet and absolutely level.
"I need you to tell me the truth.
Right now.
Not tomorrow.
Not later.
Now."
May you like
He looked at me for a long moment.
And then, for the first time since our wedding morning, he looked away first.
