Page 168 of Spark of Sorcery

“Where have you been?” she asks me. “I’ve been calling your name for hours!”

She shakes the broom violently in her hands and takes a menacing pace towards me.

I attempt to back away from her, but my legs are like jello. They won’t move. I’m frozen as always, unable to defend myself against this woman who hates me with every bone in her body.

“I … I …” I mutter, clutching my hands in front of me and wringing them.

Where have I been? What have I been doing? What can I say that won’t make her angry with me? What excuse can I make that won’t provoke her into a rage?

But I’ve never known the answer to that. Every word I’ve ever uttered has displeased her.

“Forget it. I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses. Leaving me to do all the hard work, shirking your duties. Lazy little bitch. Think you’re too good for this place, do you?”

She marches closer and I see the menace shining in her eyes. I see it in the cruel smile pinned to her face. This is all a game to her. One that’s rigged in her favor. One I can never win no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I work.

“What’s wrong, Briony? Cat got your tongue?” She snorts. “Or are you deaf as well as stupid? Can’t even string a simple sentence together. Now,” she glares at me, broom gripped in her hands like a threat, “I asked you a question. Where have you been?”

I try to open my mouth and speak – to move my tongue and my lips but they’re stuck like glue and no sound emits from my throat.

I don’t need to stay here and take this, though. I don’t need to bear it. I can run, run far far away. Except my legs are as useless as my mouth. They refuse to move, frozen in a terror that grips every cell of my body.

“Not even an apology? You’re going to pay for your laziness and your disrespect. I’m going to make you pay.”

My legs shake. I know what’s coming. I know what she is going to do.

The same thing she’s done to me over and over again.

I try to recall if it’s always been like this. Was there ever a time when we were friends? When she cared for me like a stepmother should? Did she beat me that very first day my father brought her home, or was it something that came on gradually? First a slap, then a punch, then finally the broom. I don’t even remember anymore.

I let my face fall blank and I gaze out over her head, into the distance. Our home stands behind her, the paint peeling from the rotting wood, the panes of glass in the windows so dirty they’re black. This house is no more welcoming than the woman herself.

I will not cry. I will not beg.

I will float away to my place of safety, where she cannot reach me, where I won’t feel the pain.

Except this time I can’t. I can’t find that sanctuary. My brain is alert, taking in every word and her words penetrate loud and clear. Her horrid face is vivid in front of me.

“Nobody wants you here, you silly little brat,” she snarls. “We don’t need another mouth to feed. You’re a waste of food and you’re a waste of space. You would have been better off dying with your worthless mother. Dying like your whore of a sister did.”

I blink again.

Usually those words would stab me like a thousand knives right in my heart. My sister, my precious sister. The mother I never knew. Haven’t I longed to join them so many, many times?

But today, those words don’t hurt.

Today they make me angry.

Raging, full on, freaking angry.

This woman was meant to care for me, to look after me. A little kindness. That wasn’t so much to ask for. Instead, she chose to abuse and mistreat me at every opportunity.

I didn’t deserve that. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t ever my fault.

“My mother wasn’t worthless,” I hiss, my hands shaking too now because I’ve never spoken back to her. I’ve never found that courage. Not once. I’ve only ever wanted to please her so she wouldn’t hurt me anymore. Not today. Today, I tell her exactly what I think. “And you’re the whore, not my sister. A cruel, miserable whore who deserves to rot in hell. And I will put you there if you come one step nearer.”

The smile falters on Muriel’s face, but she doesn’t heed my warning. She swings back her broom to hit me.

I try to jump back, to duck away. I’m too slow. The first swing catches my shoulder but I don’t feel it, and I manage to dart away from her next swing.