Liliana

By Kimberley Young

Liliana has come to work.

In a lonely mansion, a young woman lives and works with the few servants of the house. As the newest maid, she doesn't know much about the rest of them, or even their employers.

But, on an especially stormy evening, after endless tales of the story of the ho

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kimberley Young
• Release date: Nov 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781739246518

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Liliana © 2022 by Kimberley Young. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United Kingdom

First Printing: Nov 2022

ISBN- 978-1-7392465-1-8

Lili flinched as the iced wind slammed the aged, wooden windows open wider. It forced them further back than their hinges should have allowed. The panes of glass rattled in their loose frames and for a horrifying second, she wondered if they would shatter.

She was confident, however, that her nerves were much closer to breaking point than the windows were.

Regardless, Mrs Appleby would blame her for it, if it did. That was another thing she was sure of.

Lili sighed. The latch on the window was broken, so she had to keep a pile of whatever she could find to jam the windows closed. Most times she used her own books.

Not that it did much good. The books would end up on the floor, wet and weathered. Still, better her books than a potted plant.

As the wind howled, she rummaged through her belongings and dragged out a long strip of fabric. It had once been a scarf, royal blue and noble, but she hadn’t the heart to use it for its intended use.

She wrapped the fabric around the handles, once, then twice, then three times for good measure and tied it with a knot.

The windows barely moved with the next gust of wind, and Lili stepped back in satisfaction. At least that was dealt with, for now.

She rubbed her hands together to chase away the cold. The layers of her dress kept her mostly warm and her boots warmed her feet, but she had nothing for her hands. She didn’t own gloves and her chamber didn’t have a fireplace.

She glanced over her shoulder at the doorknob of her bedroom, and the frail lock below it. Every time she grabbed the handle, it rattled in the door frame. It was hardly any defence against an intruder, but it would be enough to calm her nerves for now.

Yet, to make a move towards barring her door would be to give in to paranoia.

Mrs Adelaide Appleby had seemed nice enough at first, despite her pinched face and narrowed hawkish eyes. But that had still been their first meeting.

Mrs Appleby had waited until the ink dried on the parchment, the front door had been locked, and her suitcase opened before she let her mask slip. She was much colder than Lili had initially thought, and that alone should have been telling.

Inside the bleak, musty bedroom Mrs Appleby had given her, Lili had asked the older woman by the doorway, all her burning questions. To Lili’s surprise, the other woman had ignored Lili and strode further into the room.

She kicked Lili’s open suitcase aside with her boot as she made her way over to the large window that perched over a giant wooden desk in the room's corner. She shoved at the windows, fighting to push them open. They had warped and swelled with years of neglect. They struggled to disobey her, but Mrs Appleby ignored their protests and threw them open with surprising strength. A bitter breeze rushed in and Lili shivered as goosebumps raised on her skin.

Mrs Appleby had stood in silence, a spindly silhouette framed by the window, as she took in the dull grey grounds below. She twisted around and had answered each question Lili had asked her, carefully and concisely.

With a surge of bravery, Lili had asked a few more that came to her.

A pattern had emerged. Mrs Appleby would ignore Lili if she posed a question that was, to her mind, inane and unnecessary. Clearly, she assumed they had an obvious answer, but still, reluctantly, give the questions curt answers.

Should Lili report back after every task, or go on until she had finished? Should she wait for an inspection of her performance before she moved on? Was there a curfew? There had been in other places that Lili had worked.

And there had been so many places.

Those questions had looked especially important to Lili. Mrs Appleby had already shown her distaste for the disorderly, and Lili didn’t wish to aggravate her further.

The older woman had then left Lili to find her own way around the imposing mansion, for the first time as a resident.

Lili followed the corridor from the entrance of her chamber, treading on the worn carpeted floor. She memorised the rooms, doorways and staircases so she wouldn’t to provoke Mrs Appleby to anger with silly questions.

Lili would explore surreptitiously, and no one would be any the wiser. Nothing was expected of her for the rest of that evening. Her duties would begin the next day.

The shadows left behind by the diminishing sun