Years before Elaine Fleming disappeared, years before the pile of rotting corpses was found in her apartment, she arrived in New York to escape the endless expectations defining her life and began on the path towards a dilapidated apartment reeking of death.

She wakes up wearing a floor length black dress and a veil in a strange old building in front of a large portrait of a vaguely familiar young girl hanging above a fireplace with no recollection of who she is or how she got there. It soon is soon brought to her attention that the girl in the portrait is identical to her. Forced to find her way in a world she knows nothing about without even a name, she is consumed in the pursuit of who she is and how she is connected to the girl, in the portrait and the old manor in which she awoke.

Years ago, they were all happy, a family not constrained by the limits of blood. Now, they barely know each other. None of them have spoken in years and the joy of youth has been crushed by the reality of life. When their paths all cross once more, the painful memories of how it all ended resurface, reigniting the trauma and resentment they have all buried for so many years as they reflect on how it all ended.

A poetry collection ------------------- My words will just die without having been read My voice will only be swallowed by the cavern of thoughts without leaving an echo My stories will cease to exist. COMPLETED. ©bil garcia/ flightywords