2. Where All Great Journeys Begin
Where All Great Journeys Begin
A sharp, rapid pounding jerks me from sleep, each knock a demand rather than a request. The sound doesn’t linger—just a few decisive raps before heels strike the wooden floor in retreat, their clipped rhythm echoing down the corridor.
Deidre Wallis never lingers. She announces, disrupts, and then vanishes before protest can form.
I groan, dragging the pillow over my head. The dim light slipping through the curtains tells me it’s not urgency that’s roused me—it’s fussiness. Deidre has been restless these past few days, no doubt because we’re preparing to part ways.
She is the reason I’ve been able to attend school so far from my family.
My parents, trusting her beyond measure, have relied on her since I was twelve to oversee my education and well-being.
Over the past six years, she’s been more than a governess.
She’s a mentor, a maternal figure, and a maddening force of nature.
Despite the friction between us, I can’t deny her dedication.
She’s given me more than knowledge—she’s helped develop some of the best parts of myself.
Deidre embodies contrasts. Middle-aged grace shapes her, with fine lines that hint at wisdom earned.
Her deep brown eyes hold untold secrets, her rich, dark skin mirroring her steadfast strength.
Just as the roots of an ancient tree, she’s unyielding in her convictions.
Everything she does, no matter how exasperating, is for others’ benefit.
She doesn’t need words to fill a room—her presence alone commands it. She carries herself with the certainty of a queen and the impatience of a soldier, her gaze a silent reprimand before she’s even spoken. She’s moulded me with that stare alone.
When she first broached the idea of my attending Mrs Lotraine’s School for Girls, I remember the weight of her words settling over the room.
She argued that time away from our secluded home would teach me to navigate the world, to forge connections and alliances I might one day need.
‘ Scotland has known its share of hardship ,’ she’d said, her voice steady.
‘ And there will be many more to come .’
Practicality was her shield—proximity to resources, access to books—but I suspect she saw the hunger in me, the restless yearning for something beyond our borders.
Perhaps, in her wisdom, she knew I needed this more than I realised.
After a heated debate, my parents agreed to her plan, albeit with strict conditions: relentless studying and almost daily sparring with my brothers, Callan and Casey, assigned as my reluctant guardians.
Bound to the role out of duty rather than desire, fulfilling our parents’ expectations rather than their own wishes.
I accepted the terms without hesitation, diving headfirst into a gruelling routine of academic studies and rigorous training alongside my brothers.
There was no room for excuses, no leniency for failure—this had been my father’s way since I was a child.
It had shaped me, tempered me, just as steel in a forge.
Not just tradition, but a way of survival.
A foundation built stone by stone for a life filled with unknowns.
I learned the weight of a blade before the weight of expectation. I endured the sharp sting of bruises, and the sharper sting of failure, long before I understood how rare it was for a girl to fight for her own life, let alone receive the training to do so.
I may not be the strongest among my siblings, but I am certainly the fastest. My agility, both physical and mental, gives me an edge in contests of strategy and wit, much to my brothers’ frustration.
Callan, my eldest brother, takes his role as guardian with a deep sense of duty.
He sees himself as an extension of our parents, embodying their authority and values at every turn.
His domineering nature leaves little room for sibling camaraderie, so weeks spent by his side drag on as if time itself has slowed to torment me.
To him, being my brother is secondary to being my overseer, and I suspect he wouldn’t have it any other way.
To top it off, he has a maddening habit of scaring off anyone I might show the slightest interest in.
His hypocrisy only adds to my frustration.
He scrutinises my every move, judging my virtue as if he is some moral authority, all while indulging himself in ways he thinks I take no notice of.
How dare he preach restraint on me while ignoring his own?
It is enough to make me want to lob the nearest heavy object at his impossibly thick skull.
Casey, the middle child, is a gust of wind in a stagnant room—chaotic, refreshing, impossible to ignore.
Where Callan constrains, Casey liberates, turning arguments into laughter and competition into camaraderie.
Our closeness is effortless, woven from playful jabs and whispered conspiracies.
He admits, in rare moments of honesty, that Edinburgh has awakened something in him too—a yearning for more, for the stories we’ve read to become places we see with our own eyes.
Only a year apart in age, we share a competitive streak that often turns playful.
We bicker constantly, but Casey has a way of turning every argument into a joke, leaving me laughing and forgetting what I was mad about to begin with.
A sharp knock on my door snaps me back to the present. Deidre’s unrelenting spirit will be the death of me.
Another sharp rap rattles the door, insistent. I groan, making sure she hears my suffering. “Triona isn’t here! Try again later!”
The floorboards creak—my only warning before the door swings open with force. Deidre storms in, her presence as commanding as ever. “Caitríona Sinclair, get out of that bed this instant, or I’ll fetch a pail of cold water!”
I bolt upright, rolling off the opposite side of the bed to escape her wrath. Deidre’s warnings aren’t idle threats. She gives one, and only one, before following through. It didn’t take many incidents for me to learn that the hard way .
Raising my hands in surrender, I let out a resigned huff. “All right, you win this one.” A playful smirk creeps onto my lips, but Deidre just rolls her eyes, muttering, “ gods help me .”
She crosses her arms and surveys the room with a critical eye, her gaze narrowing as it settles on me. “Were you up late reading again? This chamber looks a bloody disaster!” she declares, gesturing dramatically, as if the room were in shambles.
The scene is far from the chaos she describes. A few scattered papers lay on my desk, a shawl hangs casually over the chair—but the rest of my belongings, meticulously gathered over nine months, sit neatly packed away.
“Triona, the necessity for departure is—”
“It’s hardly chaos!” I protest. “Callan’s training and your relentless studies have left me utterly spent. You loom over me like the Abhartach , draining the life from your victims!”
A sharp scoff escapes her, disbelief etching itself into her features.
Amusement bubbles within me, threatening to spill over, but I bite the side of my mouth to stifle a laugh.
I’ve overplayed my hand, and I know it. Her expression shifts, the faint trace of humour evaporating into something far darker.
“The bloodsucker, is it?” she muses, lips pursed as if seriously considering my accusation.
Then she moves—one step, then another—rounding the bed with purpose. My eyes widen, the humour draining from me as quickly as it had come. “Deidre…” I warn, my voice trailing off. Whatever her intention, I’m certain it won’t bode well for me.
Shite.
To escape her advance, I roll over the bed to the other side—a nearly impossible feat in a shift—as she narrowly misses whipping me with a towel she’s holding. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I run for the door, unsure where I‘m going.
I make it only a handful of steps before I crash into a solid, immovable surface.
Casey.
His hands land on my shoulders to steady me, his gaze already full of suspicion as he gauges the source of my giddiness.
His eyes shift over my shoulder, and I can only imagine the sight awaiting him.
A grin spreads across his face, warm and infectious—the very image of our father’s smile.
Behind me, Deidre sighs, her tension dissolving into exasperation .
“Good morning, piuthar . Trouble so early in the mornin’?” he asks, his attention still fixed on Deidre, as if awaiting her account of the unfolding chaos.
“She’s going to kill me,” I whisper under my breath.
“She likened Callan and me to the Abhartach,” Deidre replies, her tone dripping with theatrical flair.
“You know—the bloodsucking fiend that drains the life from its victims. It seems this poor maiden—” she emphasises the word with a flourish—“has been so cruelly worn to the bone. Perhaps I’ll inform Callan he’s finally bested her. ”
My jaw drops as I turn to face her. “You wouldn’t dare—”
Casey cuts me off with a booming laugh, turning me around before I can hurl an ill-advised retort. I caught a fleeting, mischievous glint in Deidre’s eye before my back was to her once more. She looked as if she has a secret she wasn’t sharing.
“That’s not a fair match, Triona,” Casey teases. “Ye’re far too kind to our dear brother.”
We laugh, Deidre included, and as if summoned, Callan enters the hallway from behind Casey. He appears just as tense as Deidre, no doubt eager to seize the day ahead.
Callan’s sleeves are rolled to his elbows, revealing muscular forearms, while his usual partial topknot secures part of his dark-brown hair, as the rest cascades over his shoulders in effortless waves.