Chapter 20 #4
She looked up in time to see her sister’s tear-stained face before Lydia threw her arms around her, silent sobs making her body shudder.
“I’m sorry,” her sister whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
It didn’t sound like a simple I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. More like I’m sorry we fought. I’m sorry I saw Plan B as a risk but not your job. I’m sorry we might never see each other again.
“I love you,” Beatrix murmured.
Lydia drew back, took the notepad and wrote a single sentence: I can’t lose you.
Beatrix was crying now, too, and she wondered whether going to jail—with the presumption of getting out again someday—would be the better option.
If she ran, she could never see her sister again.
Escape meant their shaky relationship wouldn’t be rebuilt.
“Bee …” Lydia pressed her hands to her eyes. “Sing me the song?”
Beatrix didn’t have to ask which one. She had sung it every night until her sister got too old for bedtime songs—and, it had seemed, for Beatrix.
She put her arm around Lydia, took a shuddering breath and sang:
Honeybee, honeybee, swimming in your flower sea
Sip from the blossoms like a sweet cup of tea
Honeybee, honeybee, working every hour bee
Oh, how grand! To fly so very free.
Honeybee, honeybee, thunder roars so near to thee
Storm winds blow you from your hive in yonder tree
Honeybee, honeybee, shrewd and strong you are though wee
Fly, dear one, fly—please come home to me.
A wretched performance. She thought of how Lydia would sing it back to her, substituting “sister Bee” for “honeybee,” and barely got the final words out. They sat in silence on their parents’ bed, her shoulder wet with Lydia’s tears, Lydia’s hair wet with hers.
It must have taken him at least thirty minutes to get to Beatrix’s back yard, minutes that felt like hours.
Would she be here? He stared at the kitchen door, debating whether knocking or just spelling it open and slipping in would be more conspicuous, and decided that with the tele-vision camera pointed away from the door, the best tactic was silence.
He got in with only the slightest of noises.
The ground floor was empty—no one in the kitchen, dining room or sitting room.
He crept upstairs and, heart twisting, found all the second-floor bedroom doors ajar, no one there, either.
Up to the third floor he went, anxiety mounting with each step, and there he found her—Beatrix, thank God, curled up with Lydia, the two of them a picture of misery and sisterly love.
A notepad lay near them, full of writing in various hands.
He looked at her explanation of what had happened and barely held in a curse at what Garrett had offered in exchange for her freedom.
This room had only audio recorders, he knew, so he turned the page with care, trying not to startle them and make them assume the worst before he could explain himself.
He wrote the simplest of messages: It’s Peter.
Kicking the side of the bed to get their attention, he held the notepad up. He watched Beatrix’s expression shift from alarm to relief and then suspicion. She plucked the paper out of what, from her perspective, was thin air and took up the pen. Who raised you?
A wise precaution. Nan, he wrote, and she nodded, apparently satisfied it was him and not Garrett. In a rushed scrawl, he added, Are you packed? No time to lose.
Beatrix took the notepad. He watched her write the words, but he still couldn’t believe what they said.
Not running. Will go to prison.
No! he wrote in response. Then he underlined it and added another exclamation point.
She grabbed the pen back. If I run, I can never come home. Never see Lydia.
How do you know they won’t sentence you to life? he asked.
It’s not in the sentencing guidelines. I checked. Months ago.
This made him feel even worse. She’d anticipated this—it had hung over her the whole time. Beatrix, he wrote, please, please don’t make me leave you here to bear responsibility for the disaster I created.
She shook her head as she wrote her answer. Remember, you gave me a way out and I said no.
He looked at her sister and saw from her horrified expression that they had not already discussed this. He wrote: Lydia, tell her not to do this!
But Beatrix grabbed the paper before her sister could get to it. My mind is made up. Leave, and keep working on R&D. Don’t tell me where you’ll be. Safer that way.
Lydia jumped to her feet, a grim set to her mouth, and dashed from the room.
He was out of ideas—Beatrix certainly looked as if nothing would sway her. Demoralized and bone tired, he lowered himself onto the bed. She slid next to him, found his hand and laced her fingers with his.
They sat together, shoulder to invisible shoulder, in the charged silence of a room he’d long associated with despair. Time passed. The thought that Garrett might show up while he was still here was not sufficient motivation to make him let go and stand up.
Then Beatrix reached out with her other hand, identified his ear and put her lips to it. The zip down his spine was electric. “Go,” she whispered. “See you dreamside.”
He didn’t think about whether to kiss her. There was no rational thought involved. He simply started doing it, and just like that, they were caught in a powerful feedback loop.
Unclear if he pressed or she pulled or they did both at once, but they were flat on the bed, Beatrix under him, gripping his face.
He grabbed at her skirt and ran his palm up her thigh until the stocking gave way to skin and—God, she was unbuttoning his pants—his hand reached her underwear, and yes, this, this was how he convinced her that she loved him, that she required him, that she absolutely had to go with him—
He sprang back, shivering at the abrupt return of sanity. She didn’t love him. She didn’t want this, never mind what she’d been doing under the influence of her Vow. And how did he think fleeing with her against her will would be all that different than what Garrett demanded of her?
He backed off the bed, re-buttoned his pants with trembling hands, and tried not to look at Beatrix as she sat up and put herself back together. Heaven and hell, he’d nearly had sex with her on her parents’ bed not ten feet from a magiocracy audio recorder.
He picked up the pen. I love you, and I will do what you ask.
A tear ran down her cheek. He wanted to say a thousand things to her, but saying anything—having even the hint of a male voice on the recording—was out of the question.
She got up. He trailed her down the stairs, vainly trying to come up with an alternative, and followed her out the back door.
Wind riffled her hair. His chest ached. He took her hand, and for a second, perhaps two, she clung to it with such desperation that he thought she’d changed her mind. But her fingers slipped from his. She stepped inside and closed the door.
He turned, so heartsick he could barely think. What should he do? Stay within sight of the house to watch for Garrett and see him haul Beatrix off? Go to the Sederey farm and escape in his car?
Retrace his steps and confront the wizard?
He crouched on the back steps, pressing his palms to his eyes. Then he stood and set off.