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EIGHTEEN

Each day at home brought new horrors to light. When Lily had opened the garage to take her father's car grocery shopping, she'd found it was gone, along with the little hatchback Lily had inherited from her mother.

Her stepmother, Cadence, had sold them both to fund her lavish lifestyle.

Mum and Dad's housekeeper, Maria, had answered her phone when Lily called her, but flatly refused to come to the house, as Cadence hadn't paid her for the last month of work. Even when Lily herself offered to pay Maria whatever Cadence owed her, Maria wouldn't take it.

"You should get out of there before she loses the house. Go find yourself a job and somewhere else to live. Don't let that woman take you down with her," Maria told her.

Lily thanked her, both for the advice and all her hard work over the years, and ended the call. Of course she couldn't leave. This was the house she'd grown up in. No matter what Cadence and her daughters had done to it, she owed it to her parents to stay.

The next day, cleaning up the chaos in the living room, she found a pile of papers that told an even more desperate story than the empty garage. Page after page of overdue bills, final notices from every utility, plus credit card statements for dozens of credit cards, all unpaid, in between letters congratulating Cadence on opening a new credit account, with the gum still stuck to them from where the new cards had been attached.

Several times a day, Courteney appeared with her nails painted a different colour, before filming them on her phone in whatever room had the best light.

Every night, Chloe came home with bags of food, clothing and fitness equipment she'd bought with one of her mother's collections of credit cards.

Cadence spent her days visiting friends at their homes, or at various health and sporting clubs where they still accepted her myriad credit cards.

The day after that, the power went out, followed by the water being cut off.

Grimly, Lily took Maria's advice, searching for a new job that included accommodation using the waning power on her phone.

She scrolled down the job ads. She only needed something for a few weeks, until her graduation confirmation came through. Then she still had to register as an engineer, which might take a few more weeks, before she could start up Dad's company again. So two months, maybe three. She didn't much care how much it paid, as long as she had food and accommodation.

There were plenty of jobs for kitchenhands and cleaners, but most of them were casual jobs with hourly rates, and they expected applicants to have their own car.

Then she saw it: an ad for a housekeeper at Moray Castle, a place she'd never heard of, but the pay was much more than the other positions. Only applicants who had experience maintaining historical buildings and were willing to live in for the maternity leave cover position would be considered.

The job was probably already taken. It sounded so perfect...still, it was worth a shot.

Lily called the number.

"Hello?" a posh voice answered.

Lily explained that she was calling about the job ad for a housekeeper.

"What experience do you have with historic buildings, my dear?"

"Well, I've been working at Mirror Academy as a maid and kitchenhand for the last year, for my room and board while I was completing my degree. But now the school is closed for the holidays, and I'm due to graduate at the end of this year, so I find myself in need of a new position for a few months, and..."

"Can you start tomorrow?"

Lily didn't hesitate. "Of course, but don't you want to at least contact my references, or see my CV?"

"Laima and I are old friends. If she accepted you as both a student and a member of staff, that's recommendation enough for me. You'll be on a month's probation, of course, while my housekeeper is taking care of her daughter, who's just had a baby. After that, we shall see."

A month should be enough. "That sounds lovely."

"See you tomorrow, then. Text me your arrival time, so I'll know when to expect you."

The woman hung up before Lily could answer.

Lily laughed softly to herself. She didn't even know her new employer's name, but she suspected it would be better than watching her parents' home crumble as Cadence and her daughters destroyed everything they'd built.

And if Moray Castle's kitchen looked anything like this one had when she arrived, she could decline the job offer and find something else, Lily told herself.

Meanwhile, she'd better pack her things and get onto the next bus out of town, because Moray Castle was a long way from here, and she didn't want to be late.