Grimm Manor was their home and, dreams aside, Ophelia couldn’t imagine leaving the place that raised her. The last place that she could feel her mother and her grandmother. The only place that knew her. Body and soul. Skin and bones. The manor’s dust currently clung to the skirts of her dress, its dirt beneath her fingernails, the scent of wild roses woven in her hair. She had spent all twenty-three years of her life running around the creaking floorboards, playing hide-and-seek within its walls, falling asleep in the parlor after stealing sips of absinthe from its cupboards.
