Page 26 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

The only positive about Grandmother Ethel is where she lives. This quaint little village is a dream, it is the picture on a Christmas card, it is winding stone streets and lovely slanted cottages, it is boutique chocolate shops and moss covered stone.

These sorts of villages always have the best fudge and toffee and hardboiled candy.

When I was young and gullible, Serena told me that it was the air.

The mist, the rain soaking the farmlands and the rich soil, the morning steam that lifts from the brook—that it salted the air and, thus, flavoured the food.

For a short minute, I believed her.

The memory whispers the faintest of smiles across my face, a brushstroke that never quite touches.

I slump in the leather seat and, cheek turned, watch the village pass me by through the car window. Bridges arch over the brook before they are swept away behind me, the crooked shops waft the aroma of sugared candies and toffees through the gap in the car window.

My gaze hooks on the passing shops for as long as they are in my line of sight—but they are stolen away by the speed of the car.

Saliva slicks my tongue, and I force it down with a hard gulp.

Mr Younge throws a smarmy look at me from the seat opposite. Probably thinking I’m gulping at the fate just moments away, that I will be under the cruel cane of Grandmother Ethel.

Around her, I won’t be eating any sweets.

The dread thickens in my gut.

I turn my cheek to the window and press the button—it slides up and the silence is quick to tense.

I’ll be fed like I am little more than a rabbit. One on a diet. I’ll be shamed for my body, my looks, my mind, my breathing.

Because for Grandmother Ethel, I will never be enough to carry the Craven name. No deadblood is.

I huff a breath that swells my cheeks, then cross my arms. My oversized white shirt might wrinkle, like the hem of my skirt likely does under my slouched posture, but I slump anyway, I slump in protest as though Mr Younge, my escort, has enough power to decide against my fate and take me home.

He doesn’t.

He wouldn’t.

The village is fast to pass before the car turns onto the road splitting between meadows.

Yellow and green, that’s all I see for a long while up the driveway, until—ahead—my gaze finds the familiar moss-faced country house that has no business looking this pleasant. It’s as scheming as hell having an entrance of gold and pearls.

I narrow my eyes on the small country house, a cottage more like, that stacks up only two levels. The vines are out of control on the stone facade.

Last time I was here, the vines arched to the slanted roof, now they are smothering the slates and creeping around the root of the chimney.

I unbuckle and let the metal of the belt hit the car door, hard. My jaw is tense as I stuff my stocking-clad feet into my boots.

Mr Younge is first out the car.

I don’t wait for him to open my door before I’m climbing out, then swatting at the creases of my skirt.

Never leave Grandmother Ethel waiting. Not even a damn moment.

So I’m finger combing my flyaways, then yanking at the length of my oversized shirt, then swatting at my skirt, all as I run up the old stone steps to the front door.

It opens for me.

I spare no lingering glance on the servant who holds the door, not when a thin, willowy silhouette in black tickles at my peripherals.

Her skirt-suit does nothing for her, since she has no hips, no chest, she just looks like a tall, stretched boy in Chanel.

My movements are automatic.

My chin lifts, hands straighten down my sides, my shoulders roll back for better posture, and I march towards her.

I stop, still, a statue sprouted in the middle of the foyer.

The space is modest, somewhat crammed compared to Elcott, but not too small to not have the bench seat along the wall, the fireplace on the other, a door on each side leading to lounge rooms, and the staircase ahead that takes to the bedrooms.

I dip into a curtsy—and I hold it.

The clack of a cane hits the floorboards.

That releases me from my curtsy, and I rise, but I make no other moves. Again, I am a statue.

Grandmother takes one, pointed step towards me.

Another step, another clack of the cane.

My toes curl.

Then the cane hits a final strike—and she stands nose-to-nose with me.

My muscles brace, jump beneath my skin.

I expect a strike. The whack of the cane, a welt on my skin. But it doesn’t come.

The willowy witch towers over me. A head taller, a straight and proud spine, slim shoulders set with purpose.

Always, she carries this silent authority that even makes male witches shudder. I’ve seen Father flinch from her quick cane movements a few times.

Grandmother’s deep voice is strangled with tobacco pipes over time, and I taste the stale stench on her breath as she speaks, “Tell me you will have your hair done before the ball.”

No hello.

No greeting.

No warm welcome.

Not that I expected it anyway.

My mouth twitches as though to flatten. “I will—”

“Spare me.” Her grip tightens around the curve of the cane. The leather creaks. “You will need more than that. Some spa days, too. A salon to tackle those nails.” Her free hand flicks out in a smack to my fingers. “You are not biting them, are you?”

I shake my head.

Then my neck shrinks, a cringe as she knocks me, hard, on the shin. The cane strikes the bone enough that a breath startles in my chest.

My nostrils flare.

A long inhale floods me before I steady myself. “Pardon me, Grandmother.” The monotony clings to my dull tone. “No, I am not biting my nails.”

She doesn’t care for my answer.

Already, she’s moved on, this time to my face, forgotten all about my perfectly neat nails that I doubt I have chewed once in my whole life.

Her rainforest eyes rinse me over, glaze my jawline, scrape over my nose. A beat passes before she draws her weight off the cane and lifts it until the tip pushes under my chin; the pressure tilts my head, angles my face to align with hers.

More heartbeats pass.

It isn’t silence.

Behind me, the thuds and scrapes and rustles of my luggage being carted inside is a melancholic orchestra that fills the quiet—until Grandmother’s upper lip curls.

“Not a looker,” she says. “You never did have a pretty face.”

My mouth flattens.

My teeth bite down on the insides of my cheeks.

Grandmother dusts those comments over me from time to time. If she doesn’t voice them, she’ll show them. Gift me presents that centre around my looks, how poorly she perceives them. Cosmetics, spa vouchers, hair serums, the latest skincare.

On my sixteenth birthday, she touched my cheek and before I could think it might be some affection, some regret, she said she supposes I’m pretty for a village girl, at least .

For my eighteenth, she sent me a pre-paid consultation with a cosmetic surgeon.

It hurt.

But it’s a lie.

I have eyes, I have mirrors. I know what I look like. I’m not ugly. I’m just not brilliantly beautiful like the rest of my family.

Pretty for a village girl...

I always thought that it was something to do with being a deadblood. That maybe the magic that courses through their bodies is what makes them so lovely to look at.

And mine is dormant, as is my sparkle.

“There is no time to change out of this atrocity,” Grandmother says and steps back. Her cane hits the floorboards as she looks me over. “You missed lunch. You will join me in the parlour before dinner at seven.”

I nod, once.

My stomach twists—it dares to gear up for a hungry growl, but I tense in my core muscles to pause it.

I didn’t have more than two slices of toasted sourdough as I packed up this morning. Then the car took me away. Hours later, and I am on the brink of eating my way through the walls. Maybe that’s just the dramatic urge to escape.

Keeping my chin lifted, I follow Grandmother through the narrow foyer to the door on the left, the parlour.

Her hand flicks in the direction of the musty armchair.

I take the order and sit.

Ankles crossed, hands folded on my lap, my spine is already aching from the stiffness imposed upon me.

The crackle of the simmering fireplace is the background tune to Grandmother grating a book off the shelf.

I watch her move. Slow, but not poorly, not as a senior should move. Rather, it is self-patience, the attitude that the world must wait for her.

I wish she liked me more.

I wish I got an ounce of her strength.

Maybe then, no one would torture me.

Before I was born, her husband passed, and per law my father became the head of the estate. He inherited. Became the man of the manor.

Grandmother Ethel moved out the next day.

She didn’t move into Craven Cottage because it’s her favourite. Not because she loves it here, though she does. She chose to move out of Elcott Abbey because she would rather live on her own, out in the countryside, than be subjected to her son’s authority.

That is the sort of woman she is.

Proud. Fiercely independent. A curator of our ways, and yet a rebel against them.

I don’t mind that so much on paper. I would like a sprinkle of that in myself, to be honest.

But in life, in reality, I learn little from her. I tell her the sky is cloudy and looks like it might rain, she will whack me over the head with the cane and tell me stop cloud-gazing.

This afternoon, she tells me to read.

She hands me the book before she sets herself down in a prim, certainly unrelaxed and uncomfortable posture. Her hands rest on the handle of the cane, and she’s angled towards me.

“Page thirteen,” she says.

The book in my hands is familiar. My old study book, pages filled by me under the lessons of my governess.

Before I can wonder why Grandmother has it in her home, on her shelves, she tuts, once, and it’s enough to spur me into action.

It takes me a moment to find the page.

Her gaze burns into me the whole time. For such rich greenery in her eyes, her stare shouldn’t be so harsh—and yet, it’s something unsettling. Portals into forests that never end, that consume the body and soul and drive a person mad.

That is her stare.

I avoid it and clear my throat. “A king of non-magic reigned, and he slaughtered those connected most closely to the gods. He killed the necromancers, the prophets, those with sight and those without.”

“Enunciate.”

Hard to do that when I’m struggling over my own childish handwriting, such clumsy letters and ink spots.

“The king concealed his identity and searched for a shadow toucher, a witch to reach beyond the realms to the gods.”

Grandmother scoffs. “Banishes and kills our kind, just to chase our magic later when it suits him. That, girl, is why we do not allow them power anymore.”

I don’t take my eyes off the page. “The ordinary king visited the witch in eagerness to have the privilege of her power.”

“Sit up, you look like a hunchback.”

I roll my shoulders back. “The divine spirits were summoned. Many were disturbed from their slumber. The king recognized only one god for his worship. This transgression affronted the other gods. And so, their prediction was unkind. He was at that moment designed to fall.”

“Stupid krums,” Grandmother spits, literally spits into the fire. The flames roar.

She might be old, but her magic is strong.

“Stupid men,” I murmur.

And I go rigid all over.

My eyes widen. My breath pins.

I shouldn’t have spoken.

I shouldn’t have mentioned the king’s malehood and how it ties into his arrogance.

It takes every ounce of strength to fight my instinct, the urge to recoil.

I lift my panicked gaze.

Grandmother slides her narrowing eyes to me.

She considers me for a long moment.

Her grip flexes on the cane.

Then she hums, a curt sound, and looks to the fire again.

The tightness in my chest loosens.

Still, I grimace at my own stupidity, my close call, the narrowly avoided bruise to bloom on my flesh.

“I want to hear Hecate,” Grandmother decides. “Page sixty-one.”

I am not as familiar with the old study book as she apparently is, and I have to count out the pages since they are not marked.

When I find the heading, I read the passage of Hecate all the way through.

The cane meets my shin and my arm and my shoulder whenever I stumble over words of poor handwriting.

But she doesn’t stop me.

And I read until dinner is announced. We eat in silence, then return to the parlour—and I read more.