Page 68

Chapter Sixty-Two

B riony

I blink.

My eyes are deceiving me. They must be. Because it’s not possible to be at the academy one second and here in the yard of our house the next. I am not a shadow weaver. I cannot displace. This has to be an illusion. Except, it’s so real, so vivid.

The wind blowing through the yard and into my face, the same bitterly cold wind that always blows through Slate, chilling me right through to the bone.

And the smell, the smell is the same too.

Rancid, the air full of that thick choking smoke that gets into your eyes and mouth, sticking to your tongue, the taste of decay.

I stare down at my feet and it’s the frozen mud of our yard, covered in a fine dusting of dirty frost. I stamp my foot hard on the earth and it doesn’t shatter into a thousand pieces, doesn’t melt away into ash. It’s solid ground.

In the distance, I can hear the chug of the factories, the creak of machinery, the battering of the mining drills. The same as always.

There is no doubt about it. Home.

And when I lift my gaze, who do I find waiting for me on the far side of the yard? My step-mother.

Muriel.

Muriel right there, apron tied around her waist, gray shapeless dress beneath, brown stockings pulled up to her knees, old ratty boots on her feet.

Her graying hair hangs limply and unwashed on her shoulders and she’s tied an old rag around her head, and there is dirt in the tired creases of her face.

She observes me with her cold blue eyes and the permanent scowl on her face grows more pronounced. She reaches for the old broom resting against the tatty fence and grips it with both hands like a weapon.

“You brat,” she snarls, and her voice is so loud, so real, this can’t be an illusion, some misfiring of my brain. I’m back home, back in the nightmare.

Or maybe I’ve awoken and everything else was a dream. Maybe there never were any Princes, no friends – no Beaufort or Dray, Thorne or Fox, Fly or Clare. Maybe I invented it all in my sad lonely brain.

Fear spirals down my spine, because I’m back here, where I belong, where every moment is painful and so very lonely.

“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.

“Hold still, you silly bitch,” she grunts, her face red with rage, her piggy little eyes bulging in their sockets as she swings the broom about frantically and I dart from side to side.

Most of the hits I avoid, but one more catches me on the shoulder and another around the face.

“You worthless bitch. Nobody wants you. Nobody loves you.”

I freeze. Because that isn’t true. Not anymore. Beaufort Lincoln says he loves me. I have four fated mates who want me. I even have friends, actual friends. And all that was real. It wasn’t an illusion, it wasn’t a dream.

I raise my arm and catch the broom in my hand.

She tries to wrestle it from my grip and the two of us tussling over the old broom – its bristles bent and missing, the handle cracked – makes for such a ridiculous spectacle that I laugh.

She looks at me in horror, like I’ve lost my mind.

And for the very first time, I see her for what she is.

Not the demon, the monster, the witch, I’ve always feared, but a bitter old woman with nobody and no one who loves her – who even likes her.

Not even my father, who I doubt remembers her name on most days.

A bitter old woman so desperate she married a drunk from the dirtiest, poorest part of the most worthless Quarter in the realm.

I grip the broom-handle with both my hands and push her backwards.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I spit. “Not anymore.”

And just like that, as if my words are potent magic, my stepmother dissipates into smoke, curling away on the breeze. I watch as she’s carried up into the sky and far, far away.

Then the broom in my hand melts away too, along with the yard.

And I realize it was all an illusion.

Was it part of the trial then? And if so, is it over now? Did I complete it?

I spin around on the spot, expecting to find myself back on the academy field, expecting twin number two to start blowing his whistle in my face and sending me on my way.

But I’m not.