Page 5 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire

anedifeiriol

(UNREPENTANT)

I leap out of bed and fumble for my bloomers and old brown coat. With battered boots fastened to my feet I hurry down the stairs.

Soft snores emanate from Gran’s room, and the fire in the hearth has long since burned out.

The clock on the mantel chimes midnight.

Wind snakes over the flagstone floor, ruffling tablecloths and decaying flowers.

I follow its call to the kitchen, where the only sound is the ticking of the clock and the bang of the back door against the outside wall.

I hesitate in the gloom. I shut that door before going to bed, I’m sure of it. With a flutter in my chest, I stick my head out into the cool, damp night.

Sheets flap on the line, the forest rustles beyond and my boot sloshes into something wet. The saucer is broken clean in two. Milk leaks over the step. Ceridwen must have knocked it over; she’s not been gone long.

I tighten my coat and duck between the sheets on my way to the back gate.

Ceridwen never leaves the house alone—that’s my bad habit. The thought of her wandering by herself through the dark turns me cold, and the stolen ring on my finger tightens like a vise. I search every shadow, but none are my sister.

We have no gas lamps to light the way in Llanadwen.

Light usually comes only from candles burning low in windows and the pub on the horizon.

The pub should still be busy at this hour, but since the mine collapsed and took half the working men in the valley, the town has been somber and the pub stands empty.

Tonight I’m the only person worrying at the carcass of our village.

My boot heels click over the cobbled main street, the stones shimmering underfoot—wet from an earlier downpour. A fine mist of rain still lingers in the air, carrying the promise of a storm.

I trudge down the main street toward the light of the forgotten pub.

I can’t even imagine where Ceridwen would have gone.

Most of her friends married in the last year while she was ill, so they’ve either moved or are at home with their babies.

I pull my coat tighter around myself, glancing into upstairs windows and squinting into alleyways.

I’ll trace this same path in a few hours on my way to work, and the thought curdles my worry into an irritation that momentarily overpowers my concern.

My sister doesn’t work—cannot work—and here she is, wandering the streets so that I must come looking for her, because God forbid Ceridwen catch a cold or get lost.

My bitter thoughts fall to the floor when a booming laugh echoes through the night. Three figures approach from the top of the street. I curse as I realize who they are and turn promptly on my heel, hoping they haven’t noticed me.

Too late. I’m on the edge of shadow when John Branshaw calls out: “Is that Mad Parry?”

Of course John would be the one to find me. There’s a reason he and his cronies are the only boys out drinking tonight, reveling while the rest of us mourn. Our loss is his victory and he wants everyone to know it.

“It is indeed,” he says to his company, two boys from the village who think they will become something better by association with him. “What in God’s name are you doing out at this hour?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” I lie.

John doesn’t need to know that Ceridwen is out here alone.

He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t bend over backward to bask in the glow of the candle he holds for her.

John is far too mean for Ceridwen, and no amount of money can fix that.

He is twenty, taller and prettier than most men, and determined to make that everyone’s problem.

“Guilt, is it?” Bill Griffiths says. His hands are still dirty from the mine, but he’s daft enough to think that John actually likes him.

“What do I have to feel guilty for?” My cheeks flush red. I hope they can’t see.

“Your father made everyone go as mad as you lot,” the other snaps. “It’s his fault them boys swung.”

I step toward them indignantly. “Tied the noose, did he?”

“As good as,” Bill says.

I clench my shaking hands into fists and take a steadying breath through my nose. Arguing with John will only cause trouble for me. John laughs and puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder, leading him back.

“Sabrina knows as well as any what a fool her father was.” John looks down at me. “It was always going to end this way.”

An insult almost falls from my lips, until I remember Dad’s parting words. Be smarter than trouble. My retort tastes bitter when I swallow it, and my skin prickles with anger.

“Did you know your grandmama has been asking about positions at the house for you?”

I grit my teeth. “’Course I know. And you can shove your jobs up your arse for all I care.”

The words cascade from my mouth like a flash flood. I wince and twitch, and they laugh harder at that. My face is hot, burning, but it’s not embarrassment. It’s pure, clawing hatred.

“Perhaps your sister will take it, then.” John shrugs. “We always enjoy having pretty maids. We like to try them out.”

A furious ringing in my ears drowns out Dad’s warning, and my hand moves without thought. I don’t care about being clever; I don’t care about staying safe. Disgust and anger win. John cannot be allowed to say that without punishment.

My fist connects with John’s jaw—not hard enough to do real damage, but certainly hard enough to bruise. He stumbles away from me, clutching his face.

His father is an earl. Mine is a convict. I may as well have taken a blade to his cheek; it would have brought me the same amount of trouble, and I would have ruined his smug face permanently.

The other boys are too stunned to move for a moment, as am I. I stand there staring at my hand. My knuckles have already begun to throb and I’ll no doubt have a matching bruise there come morning.

I can’t lie my way out of this one.

“Lunatic!” John yells, and snaps me from my stupor. “We’ll fetch the constable!”

One of his friends lunges for me. I jump back, turn like a top and run, my feet pelting down the main street as they follow, bellowing my name.

I bound down my street and shoot through our front door, cursing aloud as I realize what I’ve done. I’ve abandoned Ceridwen to save myself. I should be out there searching, not hiding from John Branshaw. That’s what I get, I suppose, for letting my temper off its leash.

When I look back up the street, only one of John’s friends has followed. He’s watching me from the top of the road.

“Coward!” I shout back at him, unable to resist—I cannot make the situation any worse, after all.

I can’t see his expression, but his shoulders hunch. “We’re not done with you!” His voice echoes through the quiet street. “Constable’ll have you like he had your father.”

I make a low noise of disgust and slam the door shut, leaning my forehead against the wood. If they’re bringing the constable I may as well lead him to where he’s truly needed. A missing girl ought to take priority over a violent one, though I doubt she will.

“Sabrina?”

I whip around, pressing my back to the door. Gran is at the top of the stairs holding a candle, an old blanket wrapped around her nightgown. I take a deep breath, then hurry to help her down the bottom steps.

“Ceridwen’s gone,” I blurt out, leading Gran to a chair at the kitchen table. “I went looking for her, but I ran into John Branshaw instead.”

Gran’s faded brows knit together. “Who were you shouting—”

“Bill Griffiths.” I pace beside the table, tugging at my fingers, my face flushing when I touch Ceridwen’s ring. “I, uh… I hit John Branshaw.”

“Sabrina!”

She doesn’t sound angry, just defeated. Gran told me once that in my worst moments I remind her of her husband.

I think that’s the worst thing anyone’s ever said to me.

I don’t want to be like him, angry and violent and unable to control it, but it’s there in my blood and sometimes it burns right through me.

I throw my arms up in exasperation. “He said something disgusting about Ceridwen! I had to protect her good name if she’s to marry well someday; it’s what Dad would’ve—”

“Yes”—Gran catches my hand as I pass her—“and look where that’s got him.”

I stare down at her in silence, my throat bobbing. Her face is blank, calm, as if I haven’t just told her that her sickly granddaughter has vanished into the night and her stupid granddaughter started a fight she couldn’t finish.

“Why aren’t you scared? Ceridwen is missing.”

Gran licks her lips, and her grip tightens on my wrist. Her eyes dart to the kitchen window, and the woods beyond.

My foot bounces incessantly. I can’t stand Gran’s composure. “Were you this calm when your sister vanished?”

Gran doesn’t deserve my anger, but she’s right in front of me, and the arrow of rage I keep nocked in my chest has horrible aim.

Gran flinches, her face tightening beneath the lines and sag of age until there’s only the scared girl beneath.

My blood runs cold at the thought that this could be my fate too, if Ceridwen doesn’t return home—carrying a lost name in a hollowed cavity in my heart, unable to force it up my throat.

“Do you want to know where Ceridwen has gone,” Gran says coolly, “or not?”

“What?”

Gran pads across the kitchen, stops before the open back door and stares at the woods beyond.

“She’s out there.”

I creep up beside her, squinting into the dark line of trees curtained by the rain-ruined sheets. Gran can’t mean the woods. Ceridwen isn’t that stupid. We’ve been warned since we were small that that forest is a death trap, that fools who wander in seldom come back out.

“I told her to stay away,” she murmurs.

“From what?” I ask incredulously.

Gran ignores me and rubs a hand over her eyes. “Honestly, Sabrina, I thought she was smarter than this. I thought it would be you who’d bring us a new heartbreak, you were always… looking for it. But you were never in danger—not from them.”

Cold rain spits through the door. I shrink deeper into my coat, lips parting with slow understanding as I stare at the trees and the black void beyond.

I laugh. I don’t know what else to do. “You don’t mean…” I can’t bring myself to say it.

The tylwyth teg. Fairies. It’s absurd.

What if they’re real? a sour voice at the back of my mind whispers. What if they’re real, and they came, but they were never coming for you?

Gran’s hand lands on my shoulder, fingers bruising. “She’s lost to us.”

I go cold at Gran’s words and my mouth sets into an ugly line. “No.”

“Sabrina—”

I wrench my shoulder from her grasp and near stumble down the first step into the garden, shaking my head.

There’s something Gran isn’t telling me, that she’s never told anyone. Maybe she has always expected this to happen. Maybe her sister did wander into the woods all those years ago; maybe Ceridwen has too, though only hours ago she promised to try and marry, for our sakes.

Was Ceridwen lying?

Fear is smothered by thick, slithering resentment.

Has Ceridwen run off to avoid the one thing that’s ever been asked of her?

My dissatisfaction and my desire to leave home is no secret, but Ceridwen has always encouraged compromise and acceptance in response.

If she has been planning this escape all along, I’m going to make her wish she’d never been found.

“No,” I say. “That’s not happening. No. She doesn’t get to leave me here—leave us here.

I don’t care if she’s a bloody fairy princess or if she’s just gone mad and run off into the forest—she’s coming back.

” I twitch and a brittle breath runs through me until clarity forces me to still.

I meet Gran’s eyes, ignoring the terror on her face. “I’m going to make her come back.”

As I turn to run to the woods. Gran lurches forward and grabs me by the scruff of my collar like I’m no more than a naughty kitten.

I thrash against her hold. Despite her age, she’s made of sturdy stuff and she doesn’t release me easily, until a fist pounds on the front door of our house and we both leap apart.

I shrink, remembering the other troubles that follow our family—the troubles I’ve brought down on us.

“It’s the constable,” I say quietly.

Gran squeezes her eyes shut. “Duw, Sabrina, you don’t do anything by halves, do you?”

The fist pounds on the door again, near hard enough to break it.

“May I take some air while you welcome our guests?” I say, strained.

We both know what I’m really asking. Can I go? Can I follow Ceridwen? More importantly: Can I drag her back here kicking and screaming?

Gran looks up, her eyes wet and small, barely containing her disappointment. “What will I tell them?”

“The truth,” I say. “That Ceridwen is missing and I’m searching for her.”

“This will reflect poorly on both of you,” Gran reminds me.

“I know,” I reply flatly. “Can I go?”

The fist pounds on the door again. Gran sighs raggedly. “Why ask for permission now, Sabrina?”

A brilliant question for which I have no answer.

I turn on my heel and race for the gate, my old coat barely covering my nightgown. When my hands land on the latch, I pause and glance back over my shoulder.

Gran stands in the doorway, her face lit by a lone flickering candle as she watches me. I don’t know what she wants. She can’t truly expect me to accept that my sister has just run away with the fairies and will never come back?

“We’ll be back before supper,” I call to her.

Gran says nothing in reply. I think we both know that a liar’s promise means nothing.