Emily's father's house was a lovely old pre-Spanish antique of course. It was built thirty years ago and lavish care was taken so no termite would come near its ancient old wood. Even the furniture were so meticulously preserved so they would last up to the next three generations.

Her room was everything a young lady could dream of. The wall was papered in light pink with pale orange and gold roses. The furniture was white and matched the princess bed with its canopy and lace curtains.
She looked at the bookshelves that lined the wall. They were filled with books- the very ones she had loved as a child; Rebecca, Wuthering Heights, there was even a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, to name a few.

Emily spun slowly in her frilly white lace nightgown which clung to her body in the most beguiling way. Her face was flowerlike and, in her garb, she looked positively angelic. Emily laughed gleefully before carefully taking down the books from her shelves.

She had always wanted to live near her father. But her mother, his wife's washerwoman thought it best for them to stay under the radar. Sure, Madame Esmeralda knew about Emily and her mother but it would never do to flaunt themselves under her very nose. Especially when it was Madame who had caught her husband atop the washerwoman on a couch in their library.

Thus, Emily and her mother lived in a quiet village, three municipalities away from her father's big house.

He wasn't that horrible as a father when she was a child. He sent them money regularly and he showed up on her birthdays, always bringing her cake and a new dress. He also brought his illegitimate daughter a lot of books. Books to keep her occupied, books to keep her busy so she wouldn't ask too many questions.

But she was a fast reader. The new dresses were often too small or too big and she had an aversion to sweet things.

Eventually, Emily grew up enough to realize that theirs wasn't the usual family. Some of their neighbors talked. There were whispers here and there and an old acquaintance of her mother that they'd accidentally met in town dropped a hint or two.

The next time her father came, Emily had questions to ask. That was the last time she saw him until she turned twelve.

Her mother tried to stifle her inquiries of course, but Emily was smart for her years. She had not realized until then that she only bore her mother's surname. According to the law, she didn't have a father. How could that be possible?

He stopped coming. The money also ceased.

Eventually they could not even afford the most meager of houses to rent. Emily and her mother had to move closer and closer to the woods. They made their rickety wooden house themselves that leaked when it rained and baked them like bread in the summer.

They hunted the woods for wild animals and took what greens the earth yielded. Emily slowly stopped reading books. They were useful as kindling though.

Her mother had not been a gay creature even in her youth and as she was deserted by her lover, she had fallen slowly but surely in to depression that her daughter quietly observed.

Slowly, the garden Emily cultivated carefully began to flourish. The chickens they kept provided them with eggs and there was a cool spring nearby. But her mother didn't recover her spirits.

By the time she died, Emily's mother had turned into a somber and listless woman, almost always relying on her daughter to raise their animals and gather their food. The daughter silently noted her mother's decline until one day she woke up to find the woman swinging from a crude hangman's noose that she had tied to a stout branch of a mango tree just outside their house.

She ran out of the woods and asked for help but there was nothing more to be done for her mother. She had been dead for hours.

The barangay captain took on the task of informing Emily's father that she's now his sole responsibility. He came, of course, albeit reluctantly. He didn't really have a choice.

And here is Emily now. They've taken her in, clothed her, masqueraded her as a distant niece but Emily knew she was as much her father's daughter as her sisters.

Strange enough, she was found a better student than the two older girls. Odder still is the fact that her father and his wife started to adore her as if she were their only legitimate daughter. Emily smiled, studied, bowed and bid her time.

Through painstaking effort, she won everyone over. Even the maids who were distrustful of her at first- the very same ones who had scoffed at her mother when the boss got her pregnant, adored her. How could they not when Emily was so very pretty, kind and helpful? She even took on the job of cleaning her own room and washing her own clothes even though they protested.

Her eighteenth birthday party had been earlier that night. Her father and his wife gave her a grand debut- one that rivaled that of her sisters, two and three years ago respectively.

Already, she was the darling of the neighborhood, the pride and joy of her "parents" and many if not all boys within a five-kilometer radius were rivals for her heart.

Of course, she had already secretly snagged her eldest sister's fiancé. Gerald was indeed a conquest- the only son of an aging sugar baron. He was smitten and though Emily didn't really care for him, she was proud of having been able to seduce him. The other sister's lover was far handsomer of course and likes Emily even more, but Gerald was more exciting as he didn't take to her as soon as she had expected. Yes, it was a pleasure making him fall for her. Emily smiled widely at the remembrance.

Slowly, methodically even, she began dipping the books in a pail full of gasoline which she had secreted liter by liter over the summer. The maids never cleaned her room of course. Sweet Emily had always done that.

When all the books were soaked, she began lining them in her room. Then she took more books from her father's library and repeated the same procedure, but scattering them all over the house this time. She even spared a few near the maids' quarters.

By the time the last drop of gasoline was used, it was almost three in the morning.

Emily lit the match and marveled at its quiet light. Then she dipped it on a gasoline-drenched copy of Wuthering Heights and placed it on the floor, at the very place where the elegant floor-length curtains stopped. She took another book and placed it near the flames where it speedily caught fire.

The ancient old wood of the lovely old pre-Spanish antique house would make beautiful kindling, Emily thought and smiled.