Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
Ormdale
Una ran through the stable yard and garden and into Drake Hall, almost colliding with Simon who must have seen something out the window because he steadied her long enough to demand, “Where?”
“On the roof!” Una gasped, and they ran up together.
Una had felt something crack inside her as she watched her sister tumble out of the sky and disappear among the roofline of Drake Hall.
Since yesterday, Una had begun to think of Violet as a restless wind—it might knock off your hat and make you chase it through the heather, but it also brought the colour to your cheeks and blew away the clouds over the moor so the sun shone down on you.
If the strong, vibrant person had been reduced to a broken thing on the ridgeline…
But upon reaching the roof of Drake Hall, they found Violet leaning against a chimney stack listlessly, for all the world as if she had missed a train.
“I’m all right,” Violet said in a flat voice. “Sliding down that sloping bit of roof broke my fall. I turned my ankle. That’s all.”
Una found something to hold onto blindly as Simon crouched down with Violet, and Hanna appeared with a roll of bandages, a pot of arnica, and a disapproving expression.
“One day it will be something that arnica cannot fix,” Hanna murmured as she examined Violet’s ankle, shaking her head. “Shalena!”
Una closed her eyes and hugged herself, waiting for the tightness in her chest to loosen so she could breathe fully again. But she kept seeing her sister falling, then broken and sightless like the doll Violet had given her once.
“Una?” Violet said, curious. “Are you all right?”
Una’s eyes flew open.
“Me?” Una asked. “I’m not the one who fell out of the sky five minutes ago!”
But Violet was looking at her as if she’d only just seen her for the first time.
“Right. Come in, both of you, and have some tea,” said Simon, and this time it was not a suggestion.
“It’s like Cariad was with me,” said Edith after Simon explained what had happened. She poured tea so excitedly that Una feared for everyone at the breakfast table—especially the plump two-year-old Baby Margaret on Edith’s lap.
Simon gently took the teapot from his wife.
“I was separated from my dragon, too, just after we bonded in Wales,” Edith continued, “and it made things much more difficult than it ought to have been. But we made it in the end.”
Violet stared at Edith. “He thew me off him.”
“Onto the roof,“ emphasised Edith. “I’ve seen Cariad crack a man’s ribs without a moment’s hesitation. Elfed could have broken every one of your bones! But he didn’t! Did he, Simon?”
Edith grabbed Simon’s arm. He passed the teapot to his other hand.
“On the whole, I agree with you,” he said reasonably. “Violet, I think there is a chance you can train him. But it will be hard.”
“I don’t mind hard things,” said Violet.
“There’s no leaving in the middle,” warned Edith. “It might take some time.”
Una stared at her lap. She felt suddenly as if she were the only sane person in the room. It was not a feeling she liked.
Then Violet said something very surprising. “I need to ask Una something.” There was a little pause while everyone waited for her to say it. “I think it’s not the sort of question I can ask in front of other people.”
Simon picked up Margaret. “We’ll be just outside.”
“And very much not listening,” Edith assured them on the way out.
Una swallowed her tea with difficulty. She dreaded what Violet might say, and what she might have to say back.
“I’ve been thinking, Loon—since I’ve come back.” Violet stirred her tea, making a regrettable clanking with her spoon. “I know I’ve been very slow getting my head around why you were so angry with me.”
Una froze.
“I always knew we were different—completely different,” Violet went on. “Chalk and cheese, and all that. But it’s more than just that, isn’t it? Loon? Is it more than that?”
Una coughed. “I thought you were going to ask me about whether I minded you training Elfed.”
“Do you?”
Una shut her eyes. “I don’t want to watch you fall again.”
Violet shifted in her seat. “Yes. It sort of sums up what I mean. I did a jolly lot of falling while I was away from home. But you didn’t have to see it.
Up on the roof just now, I saw your face.
” Violet’s voice went quiet. “At first I thought you were just angry at me for the way I left, and then the way I came back. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?
It was easier for you when I was gone, wasn’t it?
Even when we’re getting along, like last night, I make everything just a bit harder for you.
Perhaps more than a bit.“ There was a silence, and Violet looked at Una, her face unusually soft. “You didn’t want me back at all, did you?”
There was only one answer Una could give—and it felt like falling off a sky-borne dragon.
“No,” Una whispered, her hands knotting in her lap.
“Well,” she said, and gave a long, low whistle.
For a moment, the two sisters sat together in agonising silence. It was as if the tea tray had just been smashed on the carpet and they were both wondering how to clean it up.
Una fought the urge to strike out that no, to explain it or make it smaller. Instead, she took a deep breath.
“But the reason I didn’t want you back,” said Una, “was because I forgot all the good things about you. About us. I made myself forget them, and only remember the things that pricked at me. It was easier not to miss you that way. It didn’t hurt as much.”
Violet rubbed her face. “I suppose there aren’t so very many good things to remember.
I’m sorry for all the times I’ve…pricked at you.
It wasn’t meant. No, that’s not right—most of it wasn’t meant.
“ She made a sound of frustration. “Ugh! I suppose I’m just a nettle in human form. What are nettles good for, anyway? Is there anything?”
“All sorts of things, as it happens,” Una said stoutly. “Tea—and soup. And Thomas likes to put them in the rubbish heap for the garden; he says it encourages everything to fall apart.”
“That does sound like me,“ admitted Violet.
“You’re right about us being different, terribly so,” Una continued.
“We found a way to live together before because we had to. We were children, and there wasn’t anyone else.
But now we’re grown up.” Una put her teacup down carefully.
“What if we can choose to find a way to live together? What if we don’t have to be chalk and cheese forever?
Maybe we could try being something else.
Maybe even something that goes together, like… ”
“Cheese and pickled onions?” Violet suggested doubtfully.
Una nodded. She took a sip of her tea. “But on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“I’m the cheese, not the onions.”
“Oh, I think we all know who’s the onions,“ Violet retorted.