A Daughter's Dark Canvas

In the dim corners of London's most exclusive restaurant, a young server tends to her final customer—the celebrated art professor Emyra, waiting for guests who will never arrive.

Some debts demand payment. Some silences must be broken. And tonight, in the flickering lantern light of a private dining room, old wounds will finally bleed.

A chilling tale of art, ambition, and the terrible weight of the past—where revenge is served alongside the finest wine.

Perfect for readers who crave psychological tension, Gothic atmosphere, and the dark satisfaction of long-awaited justice.

The Story Behind the Story

Palette of Vengeance is not a tale I would normally set out to write. I don’t write or even read psychological thriller or suspense, and I don’t usually have this much dialogue in my short stories. I wrote it for the NYC Midnight 2022 short story contest, in which contestants are to write a story in an assigned genre under a time constraint.

Flummoxed, I Googled “How to write suspense,” and “What makes a story suspenseful,” and wailed about my limited writing skills. What emerged from all that was this strange, little tale of revenge. While I didn’t make it past the first round of the competition, being forced out of my comfort zone was still an enriching experience.

On re-reading it for consideration to be posted here, I revised the dialogue and tightened the prose, but otherwise left it more or less the way it was.

I did add the barest hint of doubt on the narrator’s story by having Madame Emyra say, “Wanted shortcuts. Lying wench,” about the mother. One aspect I enjoy playing with when using first-person point of view is the unreliable narrator. I wanted to throw in a dash of ambiguity about the server’s story, which can lead to questions about the morality of her actions and motivations.

There’s also some irony in the statement, “Wanted shortcuts.” I wanted that questioned, considering Madame Emrya’s position of wealth and privilege.

The themes I played with here were: class and power imbalances, the reversal of roles, justice and morality, fate and choice, the extremes grief can drive a person to.