Ficool

Hotel Driftwood Shores

Rushyanth_Dutta
14
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 14 chs / week.
--
NOT RATINGS
82
Views
VIEW MORE

Chapter 1 - Who is it?

In the middle of the Mississippi River, north of the Turner landing, was a relatively small island, roughly 10,000 acres of neatly kept grass and well build stone pathways. A small bridge linked the I land to the mainland. There was an estate in the middle of the island. A Victorian palace of sorts with well painted walls and a hedge maze spread all around it. 

279 rooms of pure English architecture. Designed by the royal architect of her highness queen Victoria herself. Some would say that blood of the Indian, African and native American slaves was mixed instead of water to put the walls in place. The occasional red scars on the upper walls of the palace type residence made a Greate unalterable mural on the walls adding a since of elance to the ancient building. 

It had a starching resemblance to the Buckingham Palace made it an outcast in middle of modern-day America. Workers did their job in their daily routine. Many of them were given stays on the other side of the bridge connecting the island to the mainland. Few stayed to look after the place in the night. 

Maya driftwood, age- 32. was sitting in her cab when her eyes fell on her ancestral home for the first time in her life. She was listening to music on her old 2000's Walkman, she was 8 years when it came out but was ready to wage a tiny war of tantrums on her mother to make her buy it. She has been clingy to it for the past week. Her memory retarded a week in the past. 

It was 11 in the night when her phone rang. She lived in a rented apartment in Orlando. Maya worked as the head of the tax department in a highly successful law firm. Calls at these hours were not common but take place once in a while. 

"Who is it?" her voice was horse. 

"Miss. Driftwood. is it Maya driftwood I am speaking to?" the voice came out of her iPhone 15. 

"yes" she said, sounding more professional. 

"I am Ericka fetcher, from New York. I am your mother's lawyer." the voice said. A small hint of pity lined in its edges. 

"You have my attention miss fetcher" Maya's sleep lifted off as her mother was pulled into the conversation. 

It's been 5 years since Maya and her mother saw each other. Her mother was against her leaving New York to earn for herself. 

we are one of the richest families in New York. Why would you want to move away and live a life in those stinky apartments? 

Her mothers last directly spoken words played in her ears. 

"Your mother...." 

"What happened to my mother?" Maya asked, tears were ready at her eyes as she guessed the next answer 

"She had passed away two hours ago, in her New York villa." the lawyer spoke each word with care. 

Maya grip on her phone tightened. 

"How much time do I have?" she asked pulling her emotions together to sound more mature. 

"15 hours. The corpse will be ready at your family's burial ground." the lawyer said the word corpse like it was some kind of feces that lined her tongue. 

Corpse. 

the word ringed in her ear. 

"I will be there in 10 hours." 

"Safe travel and sorry for your loss miss driftwood" the lawyer said as she ended her call. 

Her memories ran wild in those 10 hours. From her mother's lawyer cutting the call to she hugging her mother one last time before she was cremated. 

Cut 

She was sitting in the top floor of a glass office building that probably belonged to her mother. Her mother's lawyer was sitting before her. 

Ericka fetcher, age-35. Was an orphan before her mother took her in and raised her as her own. Even though she and Ericka grew up together, they did not consider each other as equals let alone sisters. Once Maya moved away from Maya's mother, they started calling themselves by their surnames. 

Ericka was one of kind beauty with brains. Her long Orbon hair was tied into a bun matching her professionality at work. Her body was athletic, years of tennis and swimming held her beauty even at 35. She was looking into a file stretched her head with the backside of her pen occasionally. 

After some time, Ericka lifted her head and faced Maya. Her blue eyes were as deep as the ocean and tried to pull Maya into them. 

"Why do you want me her miss fetcher?" Maya asked 

"Miss driftwood. Your mother left a will, and I am her personal lawyer. You need to hear her last documented words." Ericka said. 

"Then spell it out" Maya said leaning onto her chair trying to be bossy but failing. 

Ericka clears her throat before she started reading the file in her hands. 

"I, Eleanor Kim driftwood. Daughter of Gregory Hendry Driftwood-" Ericka paused, her voice a clipped, professional murmur that nonetheless carried a weight of finality in the cavernous office. She didn't look at Maya, preferring the sterile comfort of the document. "—being of sound mind and body, hereby declare this my last will and testament, superseding all prior wills."

Maya pressed her lips into a thin, tight line. Her mother's full name, read aloud, sounded alien. Everything in this room—the glass, the steel, the breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline that had been her mother's war trophy—felt like a gilded cage. Maya's hand instinctively found the cord of her old Walkman, a strange, tactile comfort in the face of this emotional void.

Ericka's eyes scanned the page, then lifted, briefly meeting Maya's. "The majority of the estate, including the New York and European properties, the financial holdings, and the majority stake in the law firm, is to be held in trust for ten years, with its revenue managed by the board of directors. However, there is a specific, non-negotiable bequest."

The tension in the room thickened, sharper than the lawyer's professional cologne.

"To my daughter, Maya Driftwood, I bequeath Isle Sainte-Claire—the Summer Palace on the Mississippi River—and its full 10,000 acres, including all buildings, contents, and staff currently employed there."

Maya blinked. The Palace. She had seen the aerial photos in Architectural Digest years ago, that absurd, misplaced monument. She remembered the taxi ride less than an hour ago, gazing at the place in the midnight mist, feeling the weight of its isolation.

Ericka continued, the words now taking on a clipped, determined rhythm that was all Eleanor Driftwood.

"'My wish—and this condition is absolute—is that Maya will not sell the property for a minimum of ten years. Furthermore, I command that she must convert the estate into a fully operational, profitable boutique hotel. She must personally oversee and manage all aspects of the hotel's operations for a minimum period of one calendar year, beginning no later than thirty days from the reading of this will.'"

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the distant, muted sound of traffic twenty stories below. Maya stared, unable to process the deliberate cruelty of the demand.

"A hotel?" Maya finally whispered, the word tasting like ash. "She wants me, the head of a major firm's tax department, to run a bed-and-breakfast in the middle of a river?"

Ericka finally set the pen down. Her deep blue eyes, once so guarded, held a flicker of something close to pity, or perhaps shared frustration. "It's more than a bed-and-breakfast, Maya. It's an enterprise. And your mother made it clear: failure to complete the full year of management—or attempting to sell, transfer, or abandon the property during that time—will result in the forfeiture of the entire Palace estate. It will be immediately transferred to a designated, rival foundation."

"And who is the foundation's managing partner?" Maya asked, her voice dangerously steady.

Ericka hesitated for a fraction of a second too long. "The managing partner of the rival foundation... is me."

The words struck Maya like a physical blow. The quiet beauty sitting opposite her, the woman she had grown up beside but never considered a sister, was her final, professional antagonist.

"So this isn't just a demand from my dead mother," Maya said, finally leaning forward, the bossy tone now fully realized and laced with ice. "It's a countdown. A public, year-long test where the minute I trip up, you get to seize the keys to the kingdom."

Ericka Fletcher, the orphan Eleanor had raised, met her gaze, professional mask firmly back in place. "Miss Driftwood, your mother left you a challenge, not a punishment. The choice, and the clock, is now yours."

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------