It's all her fault

At 7: 45, after a night of very little sleep, I rolled out of the huge guest bed and dragged myself downstairs to pick up my clue card. The cards were hung in the branches of the Christmas tree closest to the dining room. That tree was far from the only one in the house, and it wasn't the biggest, brightest or most beautiful tree. I wasn't sure why it had always been the tree the clue cards were hung in, but as I came down the stairs quickly, aware I was running late. Priscilla was standing right infront of the tree, gazing at it the way you might expect bride and groom to look at eachother on their wedding day.

I joined the line of my relatives on the other side of the room. They must have been alerted of my appearance by pricella, because their eyes widened in shock, and some of the younger kids hid behind their parents, but their were really no overblown reactions. I distanced myself from everyone, but one person slumped over to me. I realized it was uncle Todd, one of the funniest people in this family. His eyes were serious and kind when he faced me and spoke.

"it's so nice to see you, most of us missed you more than we were allowed to admit." " you're allowed to talk to me hear you know," he laughed at my stunned silence, his prominent belly shaking. I couldn't believe he was saying most of them had missed me. My palms felt sweaty, and the rom got a whole lot smaller when other family members started to close in to talk to me.

"ahem," Priscilla stood facing the crowd of the family. The loving gleam in her eye was replaced by a scowl so deep I thought I had I had imagined her smile. Great grandmother now stood in the large doorway, leaning heavily on a new cane I hadn't seen last night. "Now that everyone is here, we may begin," Priscilla announced. I took a few steps towards the tree, about to grab the envelope with my name, before I noticed no one else had moved.

I froze, realizing we weren't supposed to grab our own letters, I tried to sneak back into the crowd noticed, but it was pointless. Once I had gotten back to uncle Todd's side, he elbowed my side "did some of that acid burn away your brain, Priscilla hands out the cards every year," he laughed as he said it, which made me a bit relieved. Sure enough, Priscilla had begun handing out the cards. She reached me last, meeting my eyes with a searching look before turning to adress the crowd once more.

" you must open your cards in private, and if anyone is caught cheating, as per usual, they are eliminated and will no longer be eligible to recieve the cash prize for being the first to correctly geuss their secret santa." She seemed bored of saying the rules, and she was begining to talk as fast as a car on the freeway. " if you think you know how your secret santa is, come back here where great grandmother is waiting with the answers. You will state your geuss to her and thwy will come downstairs to speak with you before you finalize your geuss should you guess correctly, your present will be delivered by your secret santa." She Took a deep Breath and slowed to tell us the final piece of information. " the cash prize for this year is ten thousand dollars." That was met with load cheering from everyone, myself included. Winning that amount of money could pay my rent this month.

" without further ado," Priscilla practicaly screamed over nearly fifty excited people. "Please go open your clue cards in private."

I waited for everyone else to move this time before I ran up the stairs and closed myself in my room. I ripped the envelope with my clue card inside quickly and somewhat carefully, but I still managed to tear the clue card a bit. I scanned the clue card quickly, and my jaw dropped in shock.

These were the three easiest clues I had ever read. This had to be a mistake. In this game, clues were almost impossible to understand, and barely anyone ever geussed right. I read the clues again, still in utter disbelief. Clue one was ridiculously simple, it said "I have a twin". Clue two was a bit more complex at first, it was seemingly a bunch of scrambled letters, but when I unscramble them it said " my nickname is ella."

My breath caught in my throat when I had read the nickname ella. ella, as in-?

My brain was spinning out of control. My vision blurred and my lungs couldn't get enough oxygen. Ella is a commen name, but it always appeared in one place the most. her paintings.

I could remember it so clearly now. The first time had been in the first semester of college. It had been an abstract piece, and I asked her about the darkness on one side of the canvas. It's ella, she had said. It happened again a few weeks later. The painting had been beautiful, a happy family in the sun, but if you looked closer you could see a darker figure in the back. ella, she had said again. the third time it had happened was the most unnerving. She had woken me up in the middle of the night to show me a painting she had just finished. The painting showed three figures. All three were women, one was clearly older and was looking down lovingly at the girl on the right. The two younger figures were identical other than their color. The one on the right was painted an elegant gold like the older figure, while the one on the left was painted black and stood at a distance from the other two.

Confused at her pained face, and her insistence of showing mattention painting at such a late hour, I tried to give her some love. I had complemented her painting, but she had began to tear up at that. I was getting irritated, but I thought i could understand the pattern. " ella?" I had asked, pointing at the dark figure on the left. Shivers ran down my spine as I remembered her response now. " no," she had said "Penny".

The realization felt like a bucket of ice water. It hit me hard and gave me a good shock, but the worst part was the cold trails it left. I thought she had never told me about her. I had been angry and confused and hurt. I felt another cold drip of realization. She told me through her paintings. What ever made ella be represented by darkness and cunningness had likely been the source of some trauma for her. In some of the paintings I could recognise,... jealosy. The room stopped spinning for a second when my anger seeped through again. If ella was that cunning and dangerous, why wouldn't she have told me that when she new it was important.

I was having a full panic attack, and tears started running down my face. I was scared. I had gotten myself into a big mess, that I didn't even fully understand. I read the third clue through the mess of my tears. I decided I had to leave today. It wasn't a good idea for me to be here, even if I would be on the new york streets soon. The third clue only made it even more obvious who my secret santa was. I'm not afraid of forests at night .

I was on my feet in an instant. I could waste no time panicking and breaking down on the floor of this house that was never my home. There was no way anyone else had solved their clues yet, and if I was a little suspicious of how easy the clues were to solve, it was overridden by my desire to make this trip worth something other than to cause traumatic flashbacks I Don't need.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I found great grandmother leaning on her cane with her eyes closed. I was assuming that meant she hadn't spoken to anyone else about guesses. I faked a cough to get her to notice me on the stairs, and her eyes fluttered open. She raised an eyebrow. " here to geuss already," she questioned.

" yes." I stated simply. I walked done the rest of the stairs and stood right infront of her. " it's Priscilla."

" give me your card," was her only response. I handed it over and she promptly left to check the answers. I barley had time to register the fact that if she came back and said I won, I would have ten thousand dollars to go home with, when she actually did round the corner and stop face to face with me. My breath caught on my throat and I could hear my heart beating. The world seemed to slow down as I heard her say the words I desperately wanted, needed, to hear. " you're correct," Priscilla will be done to present your gift to you in a moment".

" and the prize money?" I questioned.

she smiled at my eagerness about the money. I supposed money was really the only thing she cared about. Oh, and the granddaughter that would make her the most money.

" you will recieve your prize when secret santa is finished," she informed me. We fell into an awkward silence. My thoughts started to run rampant, and I felt the room start to spin.

The sound of heels on the staircase prevented me from having a breakdown. Priscilla appeared beside me, with an expression I couldn't quite place.she turned away from me to face great grandmother, and asked her an innocent question. " can I give her the gift upstairs, it's to heavy to bring down". Great grandmother simply nodded,and she turned around to head back up the stairs. It took me moment before I realized I had to follow her, and I had to awkwardly run up a few steps to catch up to her.

"You found out it was me", she said as she turned down a dark hallway. " "because I found out it wasn't you." We stopped in a music room. Her words felt like a physical threat, and I was definitely in fight or flight mode.

" what are you talking about ella," I said, trying to keep my panic out of my voice.

She didn't dignify me with a response to my question. " don't call me that," she snapped angrily.

I took a step away from her. " why not?"

" because only Penolope called me that", she informed me.

well im already in way over my head.

I thought, deciding a bit more lying and gaslighting was my best shot of getting out of here with any money. " ella, I think you need to sit down" I said while dragging over a stool from a drum stand. " I am Penolope, just because we don't look identical anymore doesn't mean we stop being related."

She laughed, and threw the stool I had dragged over across the room. "I spend all my time with politicians and businessmen, don't you realize I can spot a lie from miles away." "You're not Penolope." "My geuss is you're her roommate who supposedly died in the acid attack."

Her face was right infront of mine now, and from this distance I could see the many differences between her and penolope. Of course, they used to look almost identical. But this close up , I could see malice in Priscilla's eyes that I could never see in penolope's. A cold hearted brilliance too. I started trembling slightly. Penolopes paintings had captured her perfectly.

She backed away when she noticed my shaking, but her expression didn't become less intense. " Penolope must have told you I was a monster", she spat out her sisters name as if it was a slur.

" she never once mentioned your name." I informed her. It felt good to drop the act of being penolope. I loved her, but I was not her.

" and how would you now that nickname without her telling you about me," Priscilla questioned.

" her paintings", I whispered. This was the first time I had said my realization about the ella in penolopes paintings, and it didn't feel good. "in her paintings, there were countless occasions when a seemingly evil or malicious force was called ella." "At first I thought maybye she had a bad experience with a hurricane or something, until I saw one paintings in the middle of the night."

Priscilla looked like she had been punched in the gut, but I continued anyway. " it was a painting of three figures, a golden girl and women, and another girl the same size and shape as the other. She stood of to the side and was painted black." When I pointed to it and asked if it was ella, she had said no. She said it was penny."

We were both silently crying now. Priscilla looked up, and we locked eyes for a moment. She looked so pained it was hard to imagine her as a malicious and dangerous force. I had the distinct feeling again that I knew very little about Penolope's and Priscilla's family. Priscilla wiped her eyes, and looked up at me again.

" don't look at me like I'm a monster" , she rasped. " I'm not the one who stole someone's identity in an attempt to make money of off their wealthy family."

That hurt. " I didn't steal her identity", I said without thinking. " I just borrowed it for a little bit, she knew about it." I clasped my hands over my mouth instantly After I realized what I said. Nothing gets passed the dutch family heiress.

Priscilla sneered. "She knew about it huh." She shook her head and laughed a slow,disbeleaving laugh. " you know, she used to call me a tyrant." " she accused me of only caring about money, and that I toed the line between business woman and thief to closely." " how ironic is it that she is involved in a plan to steal part of the fortune she detested and criticized for years." She should have been yelling based on the amount of anger in her voice, but she wasn't. She spoke at a normal volume, letting the anger drip off of her words.

I took a deep Breath, ready to speak, but pricella continued. " you know, she always hated looking like me." " when I had wanted to switch places for a day, she quickly denied, saying she would never want to be me." " I find it interesting that she would allow you to pretend to be her for so long."

In a flash, she was at my throat. She twisted my arm behind my back and forced me onto the ground. " Answer me honestly, is penolope alive"

I froze up. She twisted my arm. Hard. It was excruciating pain before I finally answered her. " no", I sobbed.

She let go of my arm and plopped onto the floor. " I'm sorry", she said quietly. I could have attacked her when she wasn't ready, but she looked so broken and genuinely apologetic.

" I still have a gift to give you", she said. " whether you're Penolope or not I know she would want you to have it." She walked over to the drums on the other side of the room, and pulled a small yellow package out from behind them. I realized gratefully that she didn't get me a huge present she couldn't Cary downstairs, she just hadn't wanted to expose me as someone else infront of great grandmother. The package was long and flat, but was surprisingly heavy when she handed it to me. "merry Christmas" she said with a smile.

I hesitated briefly. "Amy", I said.

" pardon me", she exclaimed

" that's my real name, I was penolope's roommate, my name is Amy."

" well Amy", she said with a smile, open your gift."

I ripped the wrapping paper quickly, exposing the flat wood board beneath the paper. I smiled at the harmless gag gift, until Priscilla pulled a lighter from the back pocket of her dress pants.

Faster than I could blink, she had the lighter underneath the wooden plank in my hands. The board must have been soaked in something flammable, because it was up in flames in an instant. I dropped it as quick as I could, but not before the flames could burn my hands. I screamed and fell to the floor I couldn't think through the pain. I had touched a sparkler once as a kid, and I had cried for a while. This was one thousand times worse. I couldn't feel anything but pain. The pain was the only tangiable thing on the universe to me.

Thirty seconds later, it felt like my hands were still on fire. I opened my eyes and realized they were. Priscilla was knelt down on the ground next to me, burning the tips of each of my fingers. The only thing I could do was moan in protest and in pain, before I shut my eyes shut again to prevent myself from vomiting.

Priscella stood up when she had finished burning all of my fingertips. I continued to lay on the ground facedown. I screamed in agony again, surprised no one had heard me. Then it hit me. No one could hear me. We were in a music room for a reason, and it wasn't because she had bought me a drum set. This room was soundproof. The burning in my fingertips reminded me of the feeling in the ER after my acid attack. I turned over onto my side, and saw Priscilla standing over me with another yellow - wrapped gift.

" I wanted you to open it, but I geuss I can open your second gift for you. She sat next to me, putting the yellow box directly infront of my face. I couldn't see anything other than the box, and my stomach dropped when I considered the fact that she was getting ready to light my face on fire.

She ripped open the paper, and opened the cardboard box underneath. From the angle of my head on the ground, I couldn't see what was in the box until she pulled it out and held it in her hand.

It was a pistol.

" if you wanted to kill me, you should have just shot me instaed of burning of my fingertips first.", I spat.

" kill you?" "Oh no, I'm not trying to kill you, you tried to kill me" she said mockingly. She kept the pistol in her hand when she stood.

" yes, the estranged granddaughter came back home for Christmas for the first time in years, but little did her innocent family now, she had bad intentions. She cornered her twin because of her jealosy and rage about her being expected to inherit much more, then she burnt of her fingertips so no one would know it was her if they found the gun. She shot, and missed her sister, and Penelope Sarah Dutch spends life in prison. "

" why" I rasped. " what's it all for, how does this benefit you at all."

She laughed mercilessly, then bent down to put her face right next to mine. " not everyone shares all their plans and secrets with a stranger they have very good reasons not to trust," she said condescendingly.

She straightened her back, and with less hesitation than a kid choosing an ice cream flavour, she shot herself in the shoulder.

I blacked out from pain and stress and shock.

When I woke up, police officers and first responders filled the room. A police officer and paramedic were standing over me, and I could hear small parts of their whispered conversation.

" no fingerprints,"" but all evidence to suggest that she is penolope dutch. "

" yeah, take her in to the station for now, her injuries don't require hospitalization .

My last memories of my stay with the dutch family was getting marched past them with two police officers at my side.