I stare, stare at the portraits in the main hall.

Too many of them are of dead people, the very same people who haunt my dreams.

They - but most especially Jacques - are why I drink.

"Mommy?"

I nearly fall over when my youngest comes up and hugs me, nearly spilling the bottle of cabernet in my hands on her.

What I will never understand is how she doesn't seem to care, never is bothered by such things when the rest of my children seem ashamed to even admit I exist. I can't remember the last time I talked to Winter. Whitley has become more and more withdrawn since Weiss left, and he was too often a shadow before. From what I've heard him say on the phone with his few friends, he wants nothing to do with Weiss anymore. I can't blame him. I know why, too. She left him here…with me, and with Jacques. And I know better than anyone how much of a curse that is. Winona, somehow, doesn't. She's the oddest child, somehow nearly identical to me apart from her eyes and nose being the same as her father's. She is bothered by so little, does well in school, and I've never gotten a complaint about her. She's calm, quiet. And attached to me. I have no idea why. Whitley, I suppose, is somewhat closer with Jacques, but that's not saying much. It's more than clear he wants little to do with either of us. Again, I can't blame him for that.

Winona also is irrational. Gets attached to odd things for no reason. When she gets angry, she fights, she bites, and she yells words I'm well aware she only knows from overhearing fights between me and her father. But, most of the time, she's the sweetest thing, and she only acts that way at home. I have no idea why. Perhaps she bottles up her emotions, like Winter. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to know. And, feeling her still hugging me, and realising she's looking up at me with a wide eyed smile, only makes me feel worse. I neglect all of them, but how can I not? Why the hell is she not bothered by it? She should be. I know I certainly would be. When my parents would fight - which, in all honesty, was not often - I would run away, cover my ears if I couldn't run far enough, and try to avoid them at all costs until I knew things were right again. Winona is not like that. She just doesn't see it. Or, perhaps, she doesn't care.

How can she love me when I'm like this?

When, for her, I've always been like this.

"Mommy," She presses again. "I want to wear that pretty dress in the ballroom."

There's one more thing she's inherited from Jacques. She's much taller than the average seven year old, and, unlike me and Weiss and even Whitley, I imagine she will be quite tall like Winter. Whitley is only her height, and he's a teenager, now.

How did any of this happen?

Where did everything go?

"I'm not sure you're big enough to," I tell her. Even if she were, I wouldn't want her to. That's her sister's alone. "Same with the jewels, though I think we've already had that discussion, haven't we?"

Winona pouts but eventually relents. "Are they family heirlooms?"

I've never told her about Cate Lynn.

None of us have ever talked about her much since she died, for good reason.

"In a way," I pause, take a long drink of the cabernet, and then ruffle her hair, well aware that my speech is slow, almost dizzy. "No one has worn them since you were a very young baby. You weren't even a year old."

She nods, then looks up at the very portrait my eyes have fallen on since she broached the subject.

The small, pale, narrowly bespectacled daughter of mine, dyed white hair, in a long, green dress like the one in the ballroom, adorned with her favourite emeralds. Just like she was when we buried her, albeit in a slightly different dress that had once been hers.

What hurts the most, though, is how much she looks like Jacques.

And the fact her portrait is beside the even larger one of my father.

That's the one I've had a camera hidden in like I have around the entire manor, connected only to the scroll the Adels gave me. It's been years. I can barely remember putting them in, nevermind that I use them every single day, saving everything they record.

A safety valve.

An escape hatch.

I doubt I'll ever find the strength, the reason to use it.

"Is that my aunt?" Winona asks.

"No," I reply.

"Well, then who is she?"

I want to tell her she asks too many questions. But I just can't.

She deserves more than that.

She deserves a better mother.

She deserves better parents in general.

"One of your siblings died shortly after you were born," I finally get out. Winona nods, her face falling. "It was an accident. But she loved you. Always admired you when she spent time with you. You weren't even a year old when it happened, but she spent as much time with you as she could, okay?"

That's true.

I just wish it weren't.

"She's really pretty," Winona says. "Like you."

I tense.

She hugs me tighter.

I'll never understand why she does things like that.

"You're beautiful, too, Winnie," I shakily bend down to her height to cup her cheek with my free hand. "I know you're going to be a gorgeous, wonderful young woman one day."

She giggles and taps my nose.

"I love you, momma."

I smile.

"I love you too, dear."

I like not having to lie.

She does bring out the best in me.

I just hope she will never have to know where she came from.

She deserves to stay innocent like this.

Kind.

Happy.

Knowing how she came into the world would kill that.

At least, it would kill me if I were her.