Revenge10 min read
Lemon Tea and Lasting Trouble
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"I almost spilled tea on the general."
I say it loud enough to make everyone look up. My hands are still warm from the cup. The courtyard is full of midmorning light. Granny Florence Guo is seated like a small bright moon on her chair. Father, Leonardo Avery, huffs and smiles without much humor. Around us, servants rustle. My chest tightens and I force a laugh.
"Miss Isabela," Katherine Butler says softly from the chair across, "you should not stand there with hot tea."
"Thanks," I say. "I know."
They call me Isabela Teixeira here. I remember a different name—Hannah Chevalier—tucked like a photograph in my mind. I remember a car, a phone, lemon slices and a studio apartment. Now I remember wood floors, servants, and a name I never had. My hands still smell faintly of lemon.
"How is the lemon tree?" Granny asks, voice small but real.
"It has leaves," I tell her. "It is stubborn, like me."
"Good," Granny says. "Good. Let it stubborn."
"Will you taste?" Corinne Flores, my maid, offers a small cup. Her hands shake a little when she hands it to me. I take a sip, and the taste of honey and lemon blooms. For a second I am in my old life, slurping lemon tea at a downtown cafe.
"Where did you learn this?" Father asks.
"From a book," I lie. I learned it in a supermarket aisle in another century.
They laugh at that. Finnian Mayer, the boy who grew up next door and who is my childhood promise-in-name only, watches me from the doorway. He looks fourteen—clean and honest. In my old life I would have called this yearning a plot line. Here, I call it care.
"Isabella," Finnian says, and his voice is soft, "you look happy."
"I am," I say, and then I say what I mean: "I will not let this house fall apart."
He blinks. "You say that as if it might."
"It might," I say.
Later, when I'm alone, I unpack memory and plan. The novel I read before I died—before I crashed into a car and stopped being Hannah—left me a script of tragedies. A wicked maid named Diane Vasiliev who would pocket Granny's treasures. A prince named Adrian Courtney who would smile like honey and ruin like frost. I lived that book once as someone else. I will not live it again.
"My turn to change it," I tell my reflection. The reflection is a small porcelain face, all pinned hair and childish cheeks. It feels wrong and right at once.
"Long live the lemon," I say to myself, and then I smile.
*
"I want you to do two things," I tell Corinne and Aurelie Mayer while we plant another lemon seedling.
"Anything, Miss," Aurelie says, fingers already in the soil.
"Keep Granny's room quiet," I say. "And keep her things where I see them."
Corinne nods. "Yes, Miss. I will watch."
"Watch everyone," I add. "If anything moves from a box, tell me. Immediately."
She looks startled, then solemn. "Yes, Miss."
I hand them each a cup of honey lemon tea. They drink, and I watch their faces relax.
"Miss Isabela," a voice says from the gate. It's Bodhi Haas, the owner of the Tianji Pavilion who imports strange goods. He bows, the way a merchant bows when he wants favor. He carries a small bundle.
"You are here," I say. "Good."
"You bought all the lemons," Bodhi says, and then he grins. "You have a taste for things from far away."
"I have a taste for order," I say.
He looks at me for a long time. "Order is valuable," he says. "So are gifts."
He hands me a small carved box. "For Granny," he says.
"Thank you," I say. His shop is a net; expensive things find me too easily. I do not yet trust the net. I cradle the box like a promise.
Later, at the feast for the newborn nephew, the house grows loud with drink and ribbons. Guests file in like weather. I sit beside Granny Florence in silence, putting on the face of a dutiful child.
"Isabela," Prince Adrian Courtney says from the doorway. He bows with a courtier's grace. He smells faintly of jasmine and threat.
"Good day, Your Highness," I say, and my voice is small because he is a prince and because he is handsome in a way that makes lemonade taste like betrayal.
He smiles. "I saw you in the gardens. You handle a knife and a lemon with curiosity. You would look perfect in the palace."
"No," I say. "I will not go to the palace."
"Why not?" His smile thins. Around him, ladies flutter like moths.
"Because I won't," I answer.
He laughs softly. "Such a blunt answer."
"Better blunt than sweet when the sweet is poison." I sip my tea.
He does not like it, but he claps his hands and invites people to drink. The feast goes on. I plant that seed like a marker: I will not be traded for a court favor.
*
The first theft happens small and stupid. A painting, old and dear to Granny, vanishes. The painting was nothing to a collector; it is everything to her.
"Who has handled this painting?" I ask in the sitting room. Corinne stands frozen.
"It was in her room last night," Corinne says. "Then when I woke, it was gone."
"Who had access?" I ask.
"Everyone," Aurelie says. "But no one touched it."
"Show me the room list," I say. "Who entered Granny's room yesterday?"
They look at one another, and someone mentions Diane.
"Diane?" I say the name like a bell. Diane Vasiliev is the woman who has shaped the nanny role into small tyrannies. She smiles at people and feeds them gossip. She has the old woman's trust and the greed of someone who keeps secrets like small birds.
"She looked at the painting yesterday," Corinne says quietly. "She said it was pretty."
"Good," I say. "Bring her here."
Diane comes in with the slow confidence of someone who expects to be forgiven. Her hair is arranged, her eyes are bright. She curtsies to Granny like a well-oiled hinge.
"Miss Isabela," she says, syrup in her voice, "I only did what I thought was best."
"That painting?" I hold up the empty frame. "Where is it?"
"I do not know," Diane says, and she smiles like a knife.
"Then you will open your room," I say. "Everything in it. Now."
She flushes. "You cannot—"
"I can," I say. "Search it with me."
"Miss!" Granny Florence gasps. "No need to make a scene."
"There will be a scene," I say. "If the scene reveals a thief."
We walk to Diane's room. She acts as if the room is a stage and she is the star. But I've read the lines of this house. People hide their sins inside the wall, under the floor, behind paintings.
"Open the chest," I say. "The one with the embroidered cover."
She hesitates, then obeys.
Inside are folds of linen, a woman’s comb, a ledger, and then—hidden beneath—a corner of a scroll. I pull and a small silk wrapped box slides out.
"Where did you get this?" Granny asks, trembling.
"I found it in a charity chest," Diane says. Her voice is thin as paper.
The paper pulled back reveals the painting, folded like a bird. Granny Florence falls to her knees and sobs.
"You—" she whispers.
Diane's smile is gone. For the first time, she looks small.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because I need... I need..." Her voice cracks. She tries to speak like a queen. "I had no choice."
"There is always a choice," I say.
"Then—" she says, face emptying of pride. "I will put it back."
"Put it back now," Granny Florence says, a pain in her voice that I know from nights when she sat alone.
We set the painting back. People look away. Diane's hands shake.
"Do you think this is over?" I ask.
Diane laughs. It is a broken laugh. "You cannot punish me, child."
"Watch," I say, and I call for a dozen people: gardeners, merchants, the left-hand guard. I call for the guests in the front hall. This is not a private thing. If the house caves to thieves, it will crumble in public.
I tell them the story—simple and plain. I tell them the found objects, the ledger, the secret wall. I tell them how Diane used to whisper and trade small gold. I do not exaggerate. I do not need to.
Her face moves from confident to carefully blank, to small, then to red. She takes the first step in a pattern that always comes: denial, anger, collapse.
"I didn't—" she says. "You have no proof."
"Proof is here," I say.
"Then I will leave," she snaps. "I'll go to the magistrate, I'll—"
"You can go," I say. "Or you can stay and face those you hurt."
She draws herself up. "You cannot shame me."
"It is not I," I say. "It is everyone."
That afternoon the courtyard fills. I make certain of that. I send notes to neighbors, to the market, to the miller. I want witnesses—people who will remember that justice was done in the open. The reason is simple: when a crime is private, it can be imagined away. When a crime is public, it becomes real.
The crowd murmurs as Diane is brought out. She is dragged not by force at first but by the weight of her own reputation. She stands on the platform by Granny's gate and looks at the faces that once smiled at her. Their smiles have gone cold.
"Is this true?" a woman in the crowd calls.
"Aye," a shopkeeper says. "I bought a silver hairpin from her last spring. It was not hers to sell."
"She sold my aunt's brooch," another says. "Then she laughed when I complained."
Diane's face goes white.
"You lie!" she spits. "You are trying to ruin me."
"Show them the ledger," I say.
They bring the ledger. Diane had written transactions—names and small coins. Hidden among them are small remarks like a map to the bones of truth: 'From old woman—red box' scrawled like a child's handwriting.
The crowd reads. They look at Diane. She cannot look back at them. Her bravado leaves her like steam.
A boy pulls out a silver coin. "This coin says Diane took it," he says.
"She took my father's jade," a man shouts, and someone else nods. The murmurs become a tide.
Diane's shoulders shake. "I had no choice," she begs. "My father—" Her voice breaks.
But the truth is that she took what she could. The ledger tells us everything. There is no need for further cruelty. This is not revenge for pleasure. This is a public proof, a public unmasking.
"Do you ask mercy?" I say to her.
"Yes!" she cries. "Please! Please—"
She drops to her knees on the flagstones. Her proud face collapses into desperate, raw begging.
"Spare me!" she sobs. "I will give back the coins. I will work for free. I will—"
Phones do not exist here. But a hundred hands point. A child snatches a shard of pottery and bangs it like thunder. People take up the rhythm of punishment: shame, exposure, memory.
Granny Florence steps forward. Her hand is small but steady when she grips Diane's chin.
"You stole from my house," Granny says, voice thin and ice. "You ate my nights. You told lies to my face. You made me think my memories had left me."
Diane flinches. She tries to meet Granny's eyes and cannot.
"You will kneel," Granny says. "You will return all you took. You will stand in the front yard tomorrow and tell every name you touched. You will accept a fine and you will not be welcomed back."
She nods, wet as a child. "Yes," Diane whispers.
"Do it in public," I add. "At dawn. And let the town remember."
"Yes, Miss," Diane says, then she begins to beg again. I do not listen. My throat is dry and steady.
The crowd watches. Some spit. Some whisper. A few weep. A woman takes out a clay bowl and sets it before Diane. "We will take the money and give it back to those she harmed," she says.
Diane collapses entirely then, a heap of pleading limbs. A guard binds her wrists—not cruelly, just enough that she will not steal again before dawn. They carry her to the jail of the town to sleep on a straw pallet and think on what she has done.
Three days later every family robbed by Diane gets a visit. The silver is returned. The painting is hung where Granny can see it by her bed. Diane is made to stand at the gate at dawn, and she names names, whispering apologies that the wind eats.
When she leaves the house for the last time she kneels in front of Granny Florence and begs for forgiveness. Granny does not give it.
"You ruined your chance," Granny says simply. "Leave."
Diane crawls away into the streets and is not welcome in our neighborhood again.
It is not a neat end—the law will do what it will do—but it is public and full and honest. That matters. Justice that hides becomes rumor tomorrow. Justice that is seen becomes a lesson.
*
After the thing with Diane, the household breathes differently. People are quieter but also calmer, like a room after furniture is moved and the sunlight is different. Corinne grows steadier. Aurelie is proud. Granny Florence's laugh returns, small and sudden.
"Thank you," Granny says one night as I pour her honey lemon tea. "You have done a brave thing."
"It was necessary," I say.
"It was dangerous," she says.
"Not for me," I say. "For them." I think of Diane on the jail pallet, face wet. I see other faces—Adrian Courtney's smile returning like a bruise. I think of the ledger and of the painting and of how thin the line between order and ruin is.
"Do you miss your home?" Granny asks suddenly.
I smile. "Every day."
"Then plant another lemon," she says. "And keep the tea warm."
So I do. I plant seedlings, and every morning I water them. I teach the girls how to prune, how to add ash, how to coax a stubborn root. They learn fast. When the first lemon blooms I stand under the tree and touch the yellow skin.
"Promise me one thing," I say to Father one night when he brushes hair away from Granny's forehead.
"What?" he asks.
"Promise me you will not sell us like goods if a prince smiles," I say.
He looks at me, then at Granny, and his face is older than it was that morning.
"Isabela," he says softly, "I would die before I traded you."
"Then keep that promise," I say. "Live by it."
*
Weeks pass. Adrian Courtney tries more than once. He sends small messages, a jeweled fan, a private compliment. I do not answer them.
"Why do you refuse?" he asks once, at the gate, when the wax of evening makes people slow.
"Because I choose," I say.
He smiles and walks away, and I plant another lemon.
Winter comes. The tree grows. People say my lemon tea cures fever and small sorrows. Granny's hands are steadier. The house breathes.
One night before I sleep I sit by the lemon tree. Finnian sits beside me. He hands me a mug of tea.
"Will you ever leave?" he asks.
"I don't know," I say. "I once wanted only to run away."
"Why did you stay?"
I sip the tea. It is warm and bright. "Because I do not want to leave a mess for the ones I love. Because I died once and came here by accident, and I will not waste that second chance."
Finnian nods, as if he understands a deep secret.
We listen to the house make its small noises. A window closes. A baby sighs. The moon touches the lemon tree.
"Promise me," Finnian says. "Promise me you will be selfish sometimes. Let someone be selfish with you."
I look at him. He is still a boy, but with the weight of vows in his jaw. "I will," I say.
I put my hand on the lemon tree. The bark is cool.
"I will learn to keep things," I tell the tree. "And keep people. And keep myself."
A breeze moves the leaves like small coins. The lemon tree smells green and sharp and honest. I close my eyes and remember Hannah—my old life—and Isabela—this new life—and I decide that both deserve the right to be lived well.
When I open my eyes, the moon has touched the first tiny green lemon on the lowest branch. I smile and whisper, "Good. Grow."
I pour another cup of honey lemon tea and keep watch.
The End
— Thank you for reading —