Nothing is Ever Exactly as It Seems

Nothing is Ever Exactly as It Seems.

The hillside looked like a painting. A soft sweep of green rolling down into the valley, cottages scattered below, smoke curling from chimneys though the day was warm. The sky carried no blemish, only the clear blue of a summer morning. I stood on the balcony of the house, the one that was supposed to feel like home. It was her house, not mine, and I was here because everyone said it was time I met her. The mother of the man I had chosen. The old dear, that was the name whispered with fondness, as if she were nothing more than lace curtains and tea cups.

She opened the door with the smile of a grandmother from a storybook. Silver hair neat, a cardigan even though the sun blazed down, her voice sweet as sugar when she said my name. Her hand was cool in mine, not frail, not trembling, but steady. She led me through polished halls lined with photographs of family I had not seen before. I thought I might feel welcome, but the deeper I went into her house, the heavier the air became.

The balcony doors were wide open. Roses climbed the trellis, their scent drifting through. She told me to sit, to enjoy the view, while she poured the tea. I sat. The wicker chair was soft, the cushion freshly pressed, the table laid with china so fine I felt clumsy touching it. A bird circled in the distance, gliding with no sound, no struggle. All was perfect. All was wrong.

Her eyes told me first. When she set the cup down in front of me, she smiled with her mouth, but her eyes never changed. They were sharp, calculating, a shade too focused. She sat opposite me, her hands folded like a prayer, her back so straight it looked unnatural. She asked me questions. Not the kind of questions a mother asks a son’s new wife. These were cuts hidden in silk. How much money did I make. How many times had I failed before meeting him. Why did I think I could manage him better than the others.

Her words dripped like honey, I felt the sting. The cup in my hand trembled though I did not want her to see. She leaned forward, her cardigan sleeve brushing the table, and whispered so softly I almost thought I imagined it. She told me she had ways of removing problems. That she had removed them before.

The sun was still bright. The roses still bloomed. The bird still circled. Yet the view no longer held beauty. It was a stage set to cover something cruel.

I laughed lightly, the sound thin, a string pulled too tight. She laughed with me, her teeth small and white, her lips curling just enough to show me she enjoyed my discomfort. She spoke of the others. Not directly, not in full detail, but enough. A broken engagement. A vanished fiancée. A girl who had gone home and never come back. I wanted to believe she was joking. I wanted to believe the old dear mask was not a mask at all.

The tea was untouched on my tongue. Too sweet, too strong, laced with something I could not name. She drank hers in slow measured sips, her eyes never leaving my face. I felt like a specimen pinned under glass.

When my husband walked in, he kissed her cheek, called her darling mother, and thanked her for being so good to me. She patted his hand and beamed. The perfect old dear again. He never saw the shadow in her eyes. He never heard the words she saved only for me.

I sat there on that balcony, the view spreading wide and perfect, the flowers brushing against the rail, the bird gone now into the sky. I held my cup, smiled when expected, and said nothing. The hillside was too green, the sky too blue, the peace too clean. All of it a lie, all of it a cover. The kind of beauty that blinds you if you look too long. I thought how everything looks better from far away.

And I knew then. This was not the last cup of tea I would be forced to drink with her. This was not the last smile I would wear like armor. She was no old dear. She was the knife behind the curtain, the poison in the glass, the hand that could crush without ever lifting its voice.

Yet she never knew who she was dealing with.

I never returned to that balcony. Days later, her foot slipped on the staircase, and she fell hard and fast. The news came like a gasp through the family, their grief raw, their shock deep. My husband’s eyes swelled with sorrow as he buried his face in my shoulder. I stroked his back, murmuring comfort, while inside I whispered thanks to the universe.

The spell had answered. It always did.

Those who tried to hurt me never lingered long. She had thought herself a queen with her sharp eyes and her cruel little smile. She had thought her house and her son were hers alone to guard. But she became what the others had become. A forgotten memory, a name lowered into the ground.

Now her home is ours. Her money is ours. Her son is mine.

The hillside shines the same as before, green rolling into the valley, the sky unbroken, the roses still climbing high. Yet the chair on the balcony sits empty. Her voice is gone, her laughter gone, her eyes gone. She lies silent, while I sit in her place, drinking my tea with steady hands.

The old dear is no more. She never saw the danger in me. She had not a clue I am not what I seem at first glance. Yet there again show me a true witch that is. Lol lol lol