28 Elle To Discover
Elle
To Discover
I fight off true sleep but doze into dreams of knives and crashing waves, only to wake in a fit of clenched fists and sharp breaths.
Where’s Liney?
I reach across the bed. Nothing. I sit up. The front door is closed. Moonlight falls over Liney standing near the stairs, something in her hand. My vigilance must’ve given my hearing more sensitivity in my sleep. She’s as spooked as I am when I ask her what she’s doing.
“Just checking things,” she says vaguely, then walks back to the couch. I don’t have it in me to insist on more details. Is that where Bridget’s hiding?
Liney turns back to the chesterfield, but I don’t hear her soft snores that used to help me sleep.
I lie back, my eyes traveling across patterns on the ceiling.
Liney should’ve sulked. I should be thankful, but this isn’t like her.
Liney’s marveling at the supplies was theatrical.
Theater to appease my pride. I didn’t mean to become this to Liney.
When I’m no longer under Mr. Pratterman’s contract, when I can breathe again without fearing his tricks, I’ll make it up to her.
I won’t sleep again until the deed’s done.
I rise only when sunlight has filled the room. It’s breakfast time. I make Liney’s favorites. I heap a pile of sizzling bacon and perfectly fried eggs on a plate and the freshest fruit she’ll have eaten in half a year in a bowl.
Liney wakes up slowly. She takes her time getting to the table.
“It’s getting cold.” I keep my voice light. “I added maple syrup to the bacon, like—”
“Like Mother used to,” she finishes. Is it sleep that lowers her voice? “I’m not hungry.”
I don’t keep the hurt from my face. “But I made it for—”
“You promised you’d tell me anything I wanted when you got back.” Her voice is sharp as the knife I left beside her plate. This isn’t sleep. “I did what you asked. I was good.”
I change my tone to an order. “Eat. No use putting good food to waste.”
She sits down and takes a chunk out of the egg with her fork, swallowing it in a forceful gulp. Her eyes are focused, not drifting. I left her here in safety, yet she’s changed. The young woman before me seems capable of exactly what she threatened—discarding me, thus losing herself.
I grab my own portion, my bacon burnt because of my distraction, and join her at the table.
“When did they die?” she asks, stabbing her breakfast again.
I should’ve known. So many more pressing matters at hand, yet it’s our past she focuses on.
“I told you,” I say carefully. “It was a gas leak, last year.” That I started.
“Elle.”
I don’t look up. It might all come out. Tension keeps me silent. It must remain that way.
“Elle,” she repeats. When did she learn to speak like that? Like me. My yolk runs, spreading across my plate. “You can tell me. Trying to protect me from the truth hasn’t worked.”
As if it were that simple. One exposed lie would tip the first domino, and the rest would tumble, pushing our relationship into the deep.
All I’ve worked for to keep her safe from me while in arms’ reach would shatter if she knew the truth.
She’s been left in darkness. Is there more comfort there than in the searing light?
Both hurt, but one absorbs while the other grants clarity.
“Look at me. You owe me that.”
I do. She’s never looked more like me. Eyes and jaw set in opposition. But her lip quivers, betraying her.
“It was that night, wasn’t it? When we escaped.”
I can’t hold it in anymore. Like I’ve been holding my breath for a year. I nod. I can’t give Liney our parents back, but I can give her the truth. Let it be one good mark to my name.
“What happened?” she asks, surprisingly calm.
I’ve got two paths, like my yolk’s path down the ridges of the egg. Delve deeper into the truth or retreat. I smash the middle of the egg with my fork, splattering yellow across my plate.
“I told Thomas we were leaving,” I lie. She got one truth out of me. That’s enough for now. “I believe he did something the night we left, out of revenge. But the cause of death was a gas leak.”
“How could you have talked to him when you were locked in your room?”
I fight not to grind my teeth. If I’d broached this topic months ago, perhaps she would’ve been easier to talk to. Now her curiosity has sharpened into inquiry. How do I explain without everything falling to pieces?
“He found me when I was on the way to your room, the night of the escape.”
It sounds fake to my own ears. How do I reorient? Liney nearly interjects but must believe she’ll frighten me off. She nods for me to continue.
“You must understand that I once cared for him. I thought I could reason with him, show him an easier, better path.” I gulp, the truth harder to say. “Foolish of me. He has posters of us all over town. They say I did it.”
Liney’s eyes widen. Something oddly hopeful is in them.
“But you didn’t.” A sentence or a hidden accusation? Her voice is so flat, nothing like her.
My tongue moves in my mouth to spin another thread around my web of falsehoods, but I clamp my lips shut. Maybe my time with Mr. Pratterman has served me well in one way. I know when to think before I speak.
“Why would Thomas kill our parents that night and let us leave?” Liney asks, sitting back. “Wouldn’t that make him less likely to receive our inheritance? That’s why he wanted to marry you in the first place.”
“I saw him.” The words come out, confessional; I’m desperate to no longer hold the knowledge alone. “Yesterday.”
Liney straightens. The terror in her eyes makes me want to take the words back at once. Am I letting her in or distracting her?
“I swear it’s true, Caroline.” Her full name falls out of my mouth like sand, heavy and gritting. “I saw him in the inn. Do you remember Mr. Croxton?”
Liney nods, her breath shallow and the rest of her body still.
“He was there too,” I continue. “I went to the society, the one that had the keeper wages. The wages weren’t there, but his initials were in the ledger, and—”
Liney holds her hands out. “Slow down. You went where? You could’ve been found, Elle! Arrested!” Then what would happen to me? The question doesn’t leave her lips, yet it sits between us.
Heat rises in my face. I didn’t mean for this to happen, sitting at breakfast as though recounting pleasant travel stories while divulging my mistakes.
I tense my gaze, an instinct slithering up from my gut.
Liney isn’t acting right. Where are the tears?
When did I stop knowing what my sister believes?
“This is why I don’t tell you things,” I mutter, rising from the table.
“No,” Liney protests, standing too. “Don’t shut me out, Elle. Not now. Tell me.”
What can I say until I get my bearings? “I got something.” I look back, smiling; her gaze doesn’t break through my new plan. “To protect us. If Mr. Croxton and Thomas are meeting, along with a group of men I don’t know, they may attempt to find us here. I found this.”
I hurry upstairs to the stashed bag and bring down the dagger, showing her the leather pouch. I undo the closure and slide it out carefully. Better to keep it hidden, but this fraying trust with Liney is more important to patch.
“I know I haven’t acted as I should toward you,” I admit, feigning embarrassment. I can’t be ashamed of what I’ve had to do, even if I regret it. “After this—when we’re free of all this, I’ll make it up to you.”
“You keep saying all this.” Liney turns away from my prized possession with a scowl. “As though there’s any plan but to stay here the rest of our days. What does it matter that you have one knife or another? You shouldn’t have any knives, Elle!”
She pops a last forkful of fruit into her mouth and leaves the table. The wool coat flies off the hook, and she slams the front door. She didn’t ask to leave this time.
I don’t run after her. Holding the knife still, I turn it.
It’s darkness, beauty, gleaming in the sunlight.
I expect it to whisper secrets to me, but it remains silent.
There’s no sin I’ll be forced to commit.
The knife will steady my nerves and help me surpass my weakness. But everything is my choice.
I can’t rely solely on this blade. Mr. Pratterman believes I’ll swing whatever I’m given, an extension of himself to use as he pleases. But while I don’t understand his power as he does, there’s something I want to try. Beneath the lighthouse.
It’s high time I commune with the spiral directly. I won’t wait for it to reach for me. No more middleman either. If Mr. Pratterman can bleed, perhaps the control of the spiral isn’t so out of my grasp. He’d never tell me how to equal his strength. That doesn’t mean I can’t.
Wasn’t this year, this rotting in my bones, leading to this?
I’m not a person of half measures. Mr. Pratterman, even Douglas, underestimated my ambition.
Not marriage, not wealth. This isn’t just duty.
I want this power for my own. No more limited freedom under another man’s wrath.
This was always a half deal, a limbo of sacrifices just to stay afloat within Mr. Pratterman’s sphere. No more.
Liney will be distracted with Bridget now.
There’s no point attempting to shackle her so tightly, and the distraction may help.
It’ll take them a while to catch up and plan.
The weakness of two. Bridget is under the impression that I have a way to help her avoid legal trouble.
She has a reason to stay. It’s a gamble, but I must take the odds.
I finish my breakfast, eat the rest of Liney’s, sheath and pocket the knife, then push the chesterfield out of my way.
My white ribbon lies torn in two, tucked beneath the lock as though I wouldn’t notice.
Well then. So that’s why Liney had so many questions. Yet none of them were about Douglas. I’ve run out of anger against her. Knowing the root of all this rage is my own terror has removed its edge. If our positions were reversed, I’d have checked the basement long ago.