Prologue
"Who is this?" Elena took it gently between her fingers, raising it before her to introduce it to the light of the setting sun. Careful not to damage the thin photograph, she used her thumb to slowly rub away any dust that impaired her view of the woman. "Stefan?" She called, a little louder this time, allowing her voice to leave the room but willing her eyes to stay trained on the young, beautiful woman. Dark lips, eyes and never-ending hair were merely the product of the condition of the photo: black and white and pocket-sized. Yet there was something in or about her face that made her a truly radiant sight to behold. Perhaps it was the structured softness of her countenance or the gentle upturn of her lips or maybe it was the playful glint that shone in her eyes.
"Evelyn." Elena froze, a strike of guilt surged through her for having grasped onto a memory; for having peered into a world in which she was not welcome. She spun around quickly, causing the skirt of her dress to twirl before returning to pool at her feet. Damon.
"Sorry, I was just–"
"Snooping." His voice was laced with the usual snarky undertone but his eyes told a different, somber story, focused on the picture but blank as if behind them, his mind was in another place.
"Damon, who is she?" He plucked the photograph from between her fingertips, continuing to stare at it in an intimate manner, as if he and the woman shared a deep, dark secret.
"Evelyn Salvatore." Only when he uttered the surname did he look up at an open-mouthed Elena, whose mind was evidently at work, trying to decipher exactly what that meant.
"Salvatore?" she questioned, almost sure she knew the answer to what she was asking.
"Salvatore. As in little sister Salvatore."
"But you never…Stefan never said–"
"Stefan doesn't like to think of her, let alone say anything about her," he paused, only to gaze at the photograph once more. "She disappeared the night of our mother's funeral; there one moment, gone the next. The last time we saw her she was running to her room, sobbing uncontrollably." He was gone again. His mind was in 1858, reliving the night he lost the two women in his life.
"Damon I–"
"Don't," He squeezed his eyes shut. "Stefan was shattered; I didn't think a boy that young could ever recover from such a thing. But he did and part of that's because he doesn't think or talk about it. So just…just leave it be, Elena." From the way his stare drove into her, it was evident that Stefan wasn't the only one who was shattered. She nodded but couldn't help but ask:
"How old was she?"
"Eighteen." A thick silence followed, only broken by the sound of the front door opening and Stefan's deep voice resonating throughout the house.
"The car's running. Wouldn't want to keep the Mikaelsons waiting."