Chapter 3: The Silence Beneath Velvet
Evangeline Claire Lioré was reborn into wealth again—but not the sterile, digital opulence she once built with her own genius. This world was velvet and marble, not metal and chrome. It smelled of fresh pastries, vintage perfume, and old money preserved in glass cabinets.
Her new mother had honey-blonde hair, tears in her eyes, and a silk shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her new aunt held her like a priceless artifact—gentle but afraid she might break her. Her crib was hand-carved. Her milk was warm and rich. Her blankets were too soft.
The Liorés were wealthy beyond understanding. Old money, the kind that whispered across generations, hidden beneath layers of polite anonymity and pristine façades. Her parents loved her even though she haven't seen her father, but they were often away—her mother too delicate for stress, her father consumed by invisible meetings and power moves behind closed doors. Her only companion is her aunt Vivienne.
So Eva grew up in a palace of silence and silk.
But she was used to solitude. In fact, she was used to being forgotten, just not so quietly.
*****
The Struggles of Softness
At first, the transition between lives was a whisper. A fleeting thing that slipped between her awareness like smoke through fingers. But soon, the sharp contrasts became impossible to ignore.
Her mind, older than her body, grew restless. She had memories, flashes of a life where she once controlled vast networks of technology, where people answered to her genius, and she could make things move with a single thought. Now, as a child in this unfamiliar skin, her mind struggled to reconcile the limitations of this new form.
The first struggle came when she tried to make her tiny hands move. They were soft, clumsy things. Her fingers, so accustomed to typing commands, now fumbled around in the air as if they were strangers to her. She'd stretch them, focus hard on curling them into a fist—but her palm remained open, her fingers trembling slightly as if they could never quite remember what they were meant to do.
She was two, and already the frustration burned like a steady ache beneath the surface. How could she do anything with this body? She wanted to think, to act, to create, but instead, she lay there, helpless, watching the world move around her like a distant dream.
Her new mother—Evelyn Lioré—would often lean over her crib, her soft eyes filled with affection and an edge of worry. "You're so strong, my little angel. I can feel it, even when you're still."
But Eva wasn't still. Not inside. Her mind raced and her tiny body could not keep up.
It wasn't just the inability to move her body as she had in her previous life; it was the fact that, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't communicate her frustrations. She tried to cry—really cry—but even that felt futile. The cries that escaped her lips were weak, not the shouts of someone who knew what they wanted.
Her Aunt—Vivienne Lioré—would often speak over her head as though she were nothing more than a silent observer. "She's quiet. Too quiet for a child her age. It's… unsettling."
"I think she's just… different," Evelyn would reply, her voice always a little too soft, a little too tentative, as if she feared the wrong word would shatter the delicate world around her.
And maybe that was the problem. Evelyn didn't know how to care for someone like Eva. Someone who was, in many ways, so much older than her body would allow. Evelyn was delicate, her hands always trembling with the same subtle fear that her child might be too fragile for the life she was expected to lead.
Eva watched as her mother doted on her, always seeking to comfort, but it was never enough. There was a warmth in Evelyn's touch, yes, but it always felt as if something vital was missing. The love was there, but it felt incomplete, fragmented by the walls of wealth and isolation that surrounded them. Evelyn's affections were as much a part of the polished marble walls as the house itself—a thing of beauty but lacking the depth of connection that Eva craved.
As time passed, Eva grew restless. She began to show signs of thinking in ways that were far beyond her age. She stared at her hands, her tiny eyes narrowed in concentration, as if willing them to obey. She would watch Evelyn's fingers as she stroked her hair, then try to mimic the movement with her own small hands. But they didn't listen. They wouldn't move how she wanted.
It took time to learn the simple things.
One afternoon, as the sun dipped low behind the tall windows, Evelyn held Eva in her lap, gently rocking her. She hummed a lullaby, her voice sweet and melodic, but Eva wasn't listening. She was focused, fixated on something else. The way Evelyn's finger traced circles on her tiny palm.
Eva tried again.
Her tiny hand moved toward Evelyn's, jerky at first, then steadier. She reached for her mother's finger. Evelyn's smile softened as she saw Eva's attempt, but the child was far more determined than her parents realized.
Eva's fingers brushed against her mother's skin and immediately her face lit up with a sense of triumph. She couldn't speak, couldn't move with precision, but her small hand had reached its goal. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't the way it should have been. But for Eva, it was enough. A victory. A tiny bridge between herself and the world.
*****
The Silence of a Palace
The house that surrounded Eva was grand—too grand for a small child who could barely hold her own weight. The floors were marble, the walls adorned with portraits of long-dead relatives, their painted eyes following her with an almost accusatory gaze. The furniture was antique, too fragile for a child who couldn't stop touching things. But Eva couldn't understand the silence of it all.
When she was first placed in her crib, she had thought it was a prison. Not the soft kind, but one made of gold and velvet. She longed to touch, to run her hands across the plush carpets that were always too perfect for her to mess with. The grandeur of it all was suffocating. It was more a museum than a home.
Her world was filled with voices that spoke around her but never to her.
Her father's presence was more like an unspoken expectation than an actual presence. Reginald was often there, but it wasn't the same as being with someone. He'd stand in the doorway, his dark eyes scanning the room with a sharpness that made Eva feel like an object to be admired from a distance.
"Evelyn, we must be careful. Her… quietness is unsettling. We don't know what she's capable of yet."
But no one ever asked Eva what she thought, what she felt. She was just there. In the silence. Waiting.
Even in her smallness, she could sense the invisible walls they placed around her. Her parents loved her, yes, but it was the kind of love that came with a certain distance—because they didn't understand her, couldn't. They didn't know how to hold her, how to support a mind so much older than her body. And in that silence, Eva felt a loneliness that was more profound than anything she had ever known.
*****
Breaking the Silence
At two years old, Eva didn't have the words to express what she wanted. But her mind, restless and burning, continued to churn, working faster than her small body could follow.
One day, after a long stretch of quiet—long enough that the walls of the nursery felt too still, too sterile—Eva managed to crawl to the edge of her crib. The bars stood tall, a wooden fence that separated her from the world beyond. Her tiny hands gripped them, trembling slightly, her breath shallow with effort.
She wasn't sure what she wanted.
Only that it wasn't this.
Her father's study lay just beyond the east corridor—hidden behind heavy double doors polished to a shine, where only the most important people were allowed to enter. He lived in that world of closed meetings and measured tones, always speaking in a voice that sounded like frost.
Eva had seen him through the slits of her memory. Tall. Imposing. Flawless. And so far away.
She thought, perhaps foolishly, that she wanted to go to him. To see if the man who never came to tuck her in at night might turn and look at her if she appeared before him on her own feet.
So she pulled herself upright. Wobbled. Took a step—
And collapsed back onto the soft blanket with a quiet puff of air.
But the ache didn't go away. The need to be seen, to be held—it was a whisper beneath her ribs. Something more lived inside her. Something bigger than this tiny body.
And so, instead of turning toward the grand east corridor, Eva crawled across the nursery floor, then out into the dim hallway. She didn't cry. Didn't call out. Just kept moving—slow and unsteady—until she reached a familiar door cracked softly open, golden lamplight spilling onto the floor.
Her aunt's room.
Vivienne had never raised her voice. Never turned away when Eva stared too long or reached too slowly. She smelled like roses and ink, and once, when she thought Eva was asleep, she'd hummed an old lullaby while stroking her hair.
Eva didn't know why she trusted her. She just did.
She entered the room like a drifting shadow, barefoot and blinking. Her legs gave out halfway across the carpet, and she landed on her hands with a muffled thud.
Vivienne looked up from the armchair near the window, startled. She had a silk robe tied loosely around her waist and a half-finished letter in her lap.
"Eva?" Her voice was soft, disbelieving.
The little girl didn't speak. She just sat there for a moment, eyes wide, chest rising and falling. Then she reached out one tiny hand.
Vivienne was already moving.
In two strides she crossed the room and knelt, arms sweeping under Eva's small form as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if she'd been waiting to do it for a long time.
"Oh, darling," she whispered, lifting her gently. "Did no one come for you tonight?"
Eva buried her face into the crook of Vivienne's neck. She didn't cry. Didn't make a sound. But her little fingers curled tightly into the fabric of her aunt's robe, holding on like she had finally found something warm enough to keep.
Vivienne carried her over to the chaise and sat down with her still in her arms, stroking her back in slow, soothing circles.
It didn't escape her notice that Eva had gone to her—not to Reginald, the father who lived behind polished doors. Not to the man with perfect posture and glass eyes.
No, Eva had chosen her.
And somehow, that broke Vivienne's heart and mended it all at once.
"You're always welcome here," she murmured, pressing a kiss to Eva's hair. "Always."
The night passed quietly after that. And in the soft rhythm of her aunt's breathing, Eva let her eyes flutter shut—not because she was tired, but because she finally felt safe enough to rest.
*****
Eva's childhood was an echo of the lives her parents lived: filled with luxury, but haunting in its isolation. She was a child trapped in a world of silence and beauty, trying to find a way to break free.
But she was too small. Too soft.
For now.