The day of her parents' funeral dawned bright and sunny, cloudless and perfect. It was a beautiful day, a perfect day; the air was a warm sixty-five, the humidity minimal, and there was a cool breeze that stirred loose locks her red hair from the proper bun. She wore black, of course, and stood tall and statuesque in the graveyard as they were lowered into the ground.

There was not one whining comment from her as her grandfather's hand tapped her shoulder; as her cousins offered their condolences. She smiled and shook hands and thanked them, her shoulders back, her chin lifted perfectly. This story wasn't any different from hundreds, maybe even thousands, of stories playing out across the city; everyone was getting ******** over by this. Plenty of people were suddenly missing both parents, and she hadn't loved Jan or Amelie van der Weydin as much as she should have. She wasn't even that depressed over the loss of the unborn child; it was just numbness she felt.

No one was particularly close to them, either, so she did her duty at the wake; she smiled and made conversation, didn't let it on that it had been the butler who organized her household staff into properly work. She was far too disorganized, and had worked herself into a tizzy trying to make things work.

It was after everyone left that she ran lightly up the stairs, the folds of her proper black dress rustling around her knees. She brushed by a maid with a quiet excuse me, and then she was standing in the master bedroom. In life, her parents had never allowed her in this space; it was, strictly, an adult space. But now she was the woman of the house; in their wills, she'd been emancipated, granted her the rights of an adult. And surely that meant she could enter a room in her own house?

Once, her parents had held the deeds to three or four houses; she didn't quite remember how many, but she'd set a relator to selling all but the one she stood in; the items in the homes would go, too, everything but her own possessions and furniture she was going to put in the smallish townhouse. Those would be boxed up and put in storage.

Her parents' room was painted in a shade of lovely burnished gold; the furnishings were heavy, dark wood she didn't recognize, but as she touched it it seemed to darken. Her mother's vanity was swept clean of items; of course, she'd sold them all. Her father's desk held his laptop and little else. She threw herself on the ivory bedcovers, took a deep breath; it smelled empty, of course, because they'd been gone for so long. The hospital, and now dead. Her mother had smelled of peppermint; her father of pipe tobacco and engine oil.

For a moment, she considered sleeping there. It was the master bedroom, and she was the master now. But it was also, deeper in her mind, her parents' room. This was the bed where she'd been conceived. There was the vanity where her mother had dressed for Kaatje's First Communion; the closet where her father's suits had been kept. The hope chest at the foot of the bed was full of things for her, things that were going to be given to her on her wedding day--full of her parents' hopes for her.

This gave her an idea. She scrambled down off the high bed, bare feet on the cold white carpet; the redheaded girl skittered to the hope chest and snagged the simple antique key. The cherry chest was bound in iron; she slipped the key into the lock, twisted it and then shoved the lid open.

Half-hearted ideas of an empty chest proving they hadn't cared at all were dashed. The space was full--there were tablecloths, plates and dishes, her christening and first communion gowns, silverware--a quilt from her childhood, her parents' journals--and at the very bottom, a letter, sealed shut with wax.

She held it in fingers that felt nerveless, thinking: These are the last words I'll ever have from my parents. Ignoring their journals, which weren't written for her; this was it, this letter. So she set the letter back in the chest, piled everything back into a shabby semblance of its former glory. She slammed the lid shut on top of the chest, and then locked it; the key and its chain, she looped around her neck. It was her secret, her inheritance.

Someday she'd read that letter, she promised as she retreated from the room to her own, smaller space. And she changed for bed, pulled the pins out of her hair; laid under the covers with the key clutched between her fingers.

She had peaceful dreams.