Chapter 11 - The Ghosts of St. Moritz
The winter of 2027 brought a brutal blizzard to the Swiss Alps.
In an ultra-exclusive private psychiatric clinic perched on the snow-covered slopes of St. Moritz, Victoria Blackwood sat in a plush velvet armchair near a floor-to-ceiling glass window. She was sixty-two now, her hair dyed a harsh, artificial platinum blonde, her face thin and lined despite years of cosmetic procedures.
She wore a cashmere robe, a glass of expensive dry gin held in her trembling hand.
Behind her, on a high-definition television screen mounted to the wood-paneled wall, a CNN financial broadcast was playing quietly on mute.
The ticker at the bottom of the screen read:
VANCE FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES $500M GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE EXPANSION; FORMER BLACKWOOD ESTATE DECLARED NATIONAL HISTORICAL LANDMARK.
Victoria stared at the screen, her eyes dilating with a slow, toxic rage that ten years of therapy and psychiatric medication had failed to erase.
A quiet knock sounded at her suite door.
A Swiss nurse in a crisp white uniform stepped inside, holding a small silver tray with two pills and a glass of water.
"It is time for your evening medication, Mrs. Blackwood," the nurse said gently in accented English.
Victoria didn't turn around. She took a slow sip of her gin, her eyes locked on the television image of Margaret Vance standing beside the Governor of New Hampshire, smiling as she cut a gold ribbon at a new community center.
"Do you know who that woman is, Nurse?" Victoria rasped, her voice thin, dry, and bitter as vinegar.
The nurse looked at the television screen briefly. "That is Chairwoman Vance, yes? The philanthropist from America?"
"She was my maid," Victoria spat, turning her head violently, her eyes burning with an unhinged, pathetic fury. "She washed my undergarments! She scrubbed my kitchen floors! And now she lives in my house! She sleeps in my bed!"
The nurse gave a quiet, practiced sigh—a sound she made every time Mrs. Blackwood suffered her evening delusions.
"Please take your medication, Mrs. Blackwood," the nurse said calmly, placing the small paper cup on the side table. "It will help you sleep."
Victoria looked at the small white pills on the table. Then she looked back out at the blinding white snow falling over the cold, dark Swiss mountains outside her window.
She was surrounded by luxury, funded by a secure, untouchable offshore trust that Margaret Vance had granted her as part of the legal settlement—a golden cage built of clean money, five thousand miles away from the home she had lost.
Victoria raised her glass of gin, her reflection in the dark window showing a woman completely consumed by the ghosts of her own arrogance.
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"You stole my life, Margaret," Victoria whispered into the empty, sterile room. "You stole my life..."
But the mountains did not answer. Only the cold, howling wind of the blizzard echoed against the double-glazed glass, drowning out her bitter voice in the silent white expanse.
