Chapter 1: Waking in Wellsbury
The car shuddered over another pothole, the suspension groaning like a tired animal. Columbia’s head lolled against the cool window, her breath fogging a small circle on the glass. In the hazy reflection, her own eyes stared back—golden-hazel, strange, always a topic of awkward conversation. She blinked slowly, the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers and the low hum of the radio lulling her.
Then it hit.
Not a sound, not a touch. A tidal wave.
Columbia’s eyes flew open. A jumble of images, sounds, and feelings cascaded through her skull—two rivers crashing into one. She saw a bland apartment, a glowing laptop screen, the distinct Netflix logo, the face of a young actress who wasn’t her. Binge-watching. She felt the detached amusement, the frustration at character choices, the popcorn salt on her fingers.
Simultaneously, she felt the vinyl seat sticking to her thighs, heard her brother Austin’s soft snore from the front passenger seat, smelled the faint, sweet-stale odor of Georgia’s perfume mixed with old coffee. She saw Ginny, her younger sister, glaring at her phone, the green light from the screen painting her dark, serious face.
“How did you sleep, peach?”
Georgia’s voice, syrup-smooth and soft as a whisper, came from the driver’s seat. Columbia’s head whipped toward the sound. Her mother’s profile was a pale curve in the dashboard’s glow, blonde hair perfectly tousled, one manicured hand resting lightly on the wheel. The question was a landmine.
I slept through three seasons. I slept through a whole other life.
The station wagon’s headlights cut through the pre-dawn mist on the two-lane road, aiming for Wellsbury. She knew this road. She knew the oppressive quiet of these too-still pines. This was the opening scene. The move. The fresh start. The beginning of the end.
“Fine,” Columbia managed, her voice rough with sleep and shock. She cleared her throat. “We almost there?”
“Ten minutes, baby,” Georgia said, flashing a smile in the rearview mirror. It was a brilliant, practiced thing, full of promise and warmth. Columbia saw the cracks at the edges, the slight tightening around the eyes. The show had called it magnetic. Now, living it, Columbia understood it was a survival tool, sharpened to a lethal point.
Austin murmured in his sleep, curling tighter around his stuffed frog. Ginny shoved her phone into her hoodie pocket with a sigh that was pure, concentrated teenage angst.
“Great. Another fresh start. I can’t wait to learn all the new ways to be the outsider,” Ginny muttered, not looking at anyone.
“It’s going to be different this time,” Georgia soothed, her tone leaving no room for argument.
No, it’s not, Columbia thought, the knowledge sitting like a stone in her gut. Paul Randolph. The mayor. The engagement. The arrest. The murder. The words were a cold script in her mind. She looked at her mother—really looked. Thirty-three, but with the weary eyes of someone who’d lived three lifetimes. She’d had Columbia at fifteen. A one-night stand with a handsome stranger in D.C. who’d given a fake name. A daughter with strange, golden eyes. Georgia had packed that secret away tight, buried it under new names, new towns, new lies.
Columbia’s heart hammered against her ribs. She remembered it all—the narrative of the show, and the deeper, bone-deep memories of being the older sister. Of helping with Austin when he was a baby because Georgia was working two jobs. Of noticing the locked box Georgia kept on the top shelf of every closet. Of the men who came and went, none of them lasting, until one finally would. Paul.
She was not Ginny, reactive and stormy. She was Columbia, observant and pragmatic. She had plans. Community college applications were filled out in her bag, a secret savings account from her part-time job at the old diner. She was getting out, building something separate, something stable.
This knowledge changed everything. And nothing.
She could never tell. Who would believe her? They’d think she was crazy, or worse, a threat. Georgia’s love was a possessive, all-consuming force. If she thought Columbia was unraveling her secrets from some place of psychosis, the reaction would be swift and decisive. Another move. Another purge. Another new story.
The car turned onto a smoother road. Streetlights replaced the oppressive trees, illuminating neat sidewalks and large, colonial-style houses.
“Welcome home, kiddos,” Georgia announced, the performance note in her voice unmistakable.
Austin woke up, rubbing his eyes. “It’s big.”
Ginny just stared, her expression unreadable.
Columbia looked at the house—the Randolph house—looming at the end of a manicured lawn. It was a character in the story. A setting for betrayal. Her fingers tightened on the strap of her bag. She couldn’t stop the train. Not yet. Georgia was in control, the conductor of this chaotic, runaway engine of their lives.
But she could watch the tracks. She could see the coming curves, the dangerous intersections. She knew where the bodies were buried—literally.
The car rolled to a stop in the driveway. The engine ticked as it cooled. For a moment, they all just sat there in the silent, dark car, a fragile unit of four.
Georgia turned, her smile so bright it hurt to look at. “Ready?”
Austin nodded, eager. Ginny shrugged, already reaching for the door. Columbia met her mother’s gaze. Those blue eyes, so full of calculated hope, searched hers for a moment. For the first time, Columbia felt like she was looking back from the other side of a mirror.
“Ready,” Columbia said, the word tasting like a vow.
She stepped out into the cool Wellsbury air, the weight of two lives squarely on her shoulders. She knew the script, but the lines were hers to say now. And the first rule was to act normal. The second was to survive what was coming. The third, a new one she was already formulating, was to find a way to protect her pieces of this family without getting crushed by the machinery of Georgia’s past.
As she hauled her duffel bag from the trunk, she saw a curtain twitch in the house next door. A face, pale and curious, peered out before disappearing.
Marcus, her brain supplied. Season one, episode one.
Columbia slung the bag over her shoulder, her distinctive eyes scanning the sleepy, dangerous street. The game was on. And she was the only player who knew how it was supposed to end.
And she was the only player who knew how it was supposed to end.
The front door was still swinging shut behind Georgia, who was already cooing over the marble in the foyer, when Columbia moved.
“First dibs on rooms!” Austin shouted, but he was small and sluggish from sleep.
Columbia was already taking the stairs two at a time, her duffel bag banging against her leg. Ginny, startled from her brooding, cursed and bolted after her. Their footsteps thundered on the wooden steps.
“No fair! You’re older!” Ginny yelled, half-hearted, already knowing it was useless.
“All’s fair in love and real estate, Gin!” Columbia shot back, breathless, hitting the upstairs hallway. She scanned quickly. Master at the front, probably for Georgia. A bathroom. Two smaller rooms on one side, a larger one at the end with a window overlooking the backyard’s large oak tree. That was the one.
She slapped her palm against the doorframe of the larger room, claiming it just as Ginny skidded to a stop behind her.
“Damn it,” Ginny muttered, but she was already turning to the next best, a room with a window seat.
Austin trudged up, his frog dangling. “Which one’s mine?”
“That one, buddy,” Columbia said, pointing to the smallest. “It’s cozy.”
He shrugged, too tired to care.
For a moment, they just stood in their respective doorways, listening to Georgia’s heels click on the floor below, the sound echoing in the empty, too-big house. It felt less like a home and more like a set waiting for the drama to begin.
Columbia dropped her bag in the center of the bare floor. The room was spacious, with crown molding and that singular oak tree tapping a branch lightly against the pane. It was perfect. It was hers. A temporary fortress.
She unzipped the duffel with a harsh rasp, the sound definitive in the quiet. The act of unpacking was normally mindless, but now each item felt like an artifact from a ghost. She folded jeans onto the closet shelf, stacked her few sweaters. Her books—AP Lit, a well-worn copy of The Bell Jar, a dog-eared SAT prep guide—went on the bare windowsill as a temporary ledge.
Then she pulled out the decor. A faded tapestry from a flea market, a string of amber fairy lights, a small ceramic dish for her earrings. As she pinned the tapestry to the wall, the hazy image of a forest emerging, she felt a dissonant hum. The girl who’d bought this last year at seventeen loved it. The person she was now, with decades of phantom memory layered over her eighteen years, found it… juvenile. Predictable. The fairy lights felt less whimsical and more like a cliché waiting to happen.
She sat back on her heels, looking at the half-decorated space. A cold, clear feeling washed over her. This wasn’t just about a new town. This was about the new her. The one who saw the wires behind the magic show.
She turned to the open suitcase of clothes. She pulled out a ruffled blouse, a relic of her attempt last spring to dress ‘softer.’ It was cute. It was also a lie. She tossed it into a mental ‘donate’ pile. A pair of distressed shorts with holes that suddenly looked try-hard. Into the pile. A necklace with a cheap, tarnished pendant of a moon. Pile.
What was left? Solid-color tees in olive, black, and cream. Well-cut vintage Levi’s. A single, simple black dress. A tailored blazer she’d saved for. Boots, not sneakers. Clothes that were armor, not costume. Clothes for someone who needed to be taken seriously, who couldn’t afford to look like she was playing a part. She was already playing the biggest part of her life.
She hung the keepers in the closet, the empty hangers chiming softly. The reject bundle sat in the corner like a shed skin.
Downstairs, she could hear the low murmur of Georgia on the phone, her laugh tinkling—the one she used for Paul. The sound grated.
Columbia walked to the window, placing her palms on the cool glass. The oak tree was old, its branches gnarled and complex. She saw her reflection superimposed on the leaves—the blonde hair from Georgia, the sharp set of her jaw that was all her own, and those eyes. That ridiculous, shifting gold-hazel. A family quirk, Georgia had always said. A biological father’s genetic signature, she now knew. A beacon she didn’t yet understand was glowing in the dark.
Tomorrow was the first day of senior year. Ginny would be a sophomore, drowning. Austin would be the cute new kid. Georgia would be the dazzling fiancée of the mayor, eventually.
And Columbia? She would walk those halls as an eighteen-year-old adult. A legal entity in her own right. With a bank account, a social security number, and a head full of catastrophic futures.
She turned from the window, her new-old room taking shape around her. It was sparse. It was intentional. It was a declaration.
She was not just Georgia Miller’s daughter anymore. She was Columbia. And her first day of school wasn’t about finding herself. It was about strategically unveiling the self she had decided, in this quiet, pre-dawn hour, to become. The one who was ready.