Scars and Silk
The next time I opened my eyes, I was the long-lost daughter of a family so rich they smelled like money.
The girl who had taken my place—my place—looked at me with pure venom in her pretty eyes. "You're just a stray they dragged in off the street," she hissed. "Don't even think about trying to steal Mom and Dad's affection from me."
No one had ever spoken to me from that close before. The sound of it, the feeling of her breath, was a gift. I broke into a wide, happy smile and told her the honest truth. "Your voice is so beautiful."
Later, when a lie got me cornered and my new mother raised her hand to slap me, I didn't flinch. I closed my eyes and breathed in,
mesmerized. "Your hand smells so nice, Mom," I whispered. "Even the little breeze it makes smells like perfume."
And when my new brother shoved his glass of milk at me—the milk he refused to drink—my heart swelled with a warmth I’d never known. So this is what it feels like to be cared for by a brother.
But eventually, everything changed. When they saw me later, beaten and kneeling on the ground, trembling in fear before a bully, my new family finally broke.
1
The last thing I knew was the toe of a boot connecting with my temple. The pain was a white-hot flash, then nothing.
A shame. I never got a single bite of that hot food.
You shouldn’t steal.
I groaned, my head throbbing like a drum, and blinked my eyes open.
I wasn’t in the alley anymore. I was in a car. A clean one.
Seeing me awake, the driver glanced in the rearview mirror, a sneer twisting his lips. I heard him mutter, "Kid from the sticks. First time in a real car and she just passes out."
A jolt of pure terror shot through me. I instinctively scrambled back, pressing myself into the corner of the leather seat.
"Where—where are you taking me?" My voice was a useless, trembling thing.
My whole body shook. I’d had run-ins with men like this before, men who wanted to grab you. I’d fought them off, gotten beaten for it, and had to run for my life.
But when I spoke, the driver’s disdain vanished, replaced by a wide, unnerving smile.
"Don't you worry, Miss. I'm your family's driver. The moment Mrs. Ashworth heard they'd found you, she got the whole family together. They're all waiting for you."
The words made no sense, but then a flood of memories—memories that weren't mine—rushed into my head, sharp and painful as needles.
I was the real daughter, the one who’d been stolen and swapped at birth.
The girl who had taken my place was the biological child of the couple who’d raised her. She had lived my life for over a decade. She had a beautiful name: Stella Ashworth.
She had parents who adored her, a brother who protected her.
She had the life of a princess, never wanting for anything.
Not like the girl whose body I now inhabited. Her name was a cruel joke: Grace. Thrown away, then found by a family that used her as a workhorse.
This girl, Grace, had never been to a single day of school in her life. For as long as she could remember, she’d never had a full meal. She cut grass for the pigs, washed clothes for a family that wasn't hers, and spent every other waking moment doing back-breaking farm labor.
She was sun-darkened and painfully thin, a girl folded in on herself with shame, who never spoke.
When she learned the truth—that she was the long-lost daughter of a wealthy family—the shock and excitement of getting into this car had triggered a fatal heart condition. She had closed her eyes and never opened them again.
The realization hit me, and tears of guilt streamed down my face.
I'm so sorry. I don't know how I got here.
She was supposed to have this. She was seconds away from having the life she deserved.
I huddled in the corner, my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle my sobs. I was just a pathetic little stray who’d been kicked to death over a piece of stolen food.
I didn't know how to get out of this body, but if there was any chance the real Grace could come back, maybe… maybe I could just have a few full meals before I had to leave.
2
The car glided to a stop. I stumbled out, dazed.
Before me stood a house so enormous it looked like it had swallowed the sun. Three figures were waiting on the porch. A beautiful girl stood in the middle, her eyes red-rimmed and glistening with tears.
As I crept closer, a boy, tall and angry-looking, wrapped his arm around her. "Don't worry, Stella," he said loudly, for my benefit. "No one in this house is going to hurt you."
How nice, I thought. He seems like a good brother.
Then the boy—Caleb—turned his glare on me, his brow furrowing in disgust. "This can't be my sister. She looks like some beggar they pulled off the street."
A tremor went through me. I instinctively darted behind the woman standing beside him. For some reason, I felt a pull toward her. She must be the original Grace’s mother.
My lip trembled. I apologized again to the girl whose life I’d stolen.
Please, just let me call her Mom once.
"Mom..." I whispered.
The woman, Mrs. Ashworth, flinched and subtly shifted away, breaking our proximity. Her smile was tight and awkward. "You must be Grace," she said, nodding stiffly. "Welcome home, dear."
Hearing those words, "welcome home," I couldn't stop myself from nodding back, my eyes welling up with tears of gratitude.
It was real. I had a home.
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