Chapter 11
Heathcliff
“That’s… that’s not true!” Mina whips around towards Quoth, who has emerged from the shadows once more. Her face tightens with fear. I grip the arms of my chair so I don’t storm over there and wring the bird’s neck.
We agreed we weren’t going to say anything. That was your idea!
Mina chose to hide her vision loss from us. Granted, she wasn’t doing a good job. But she would tell us when she was ready. That’s what we agreed.
Quoth’s lip wobbles. He sinks back into the gloom. I’m sorry, he whispers inside my head. It slipped out.
Morrie flicks his icicle gaze to me, checking that I’m not about to send bird guts flying everywhere, before turning his attention back to Mina.
“That true, gorgeous?” His voice is gentle, but I know him well enough to know that a gentle Morrie is a dangerous Morrie.
“How… how did you know?” Mina whispers. She looks like she wants the floor to swallow her.
My heart thuds heavy against my ribs. I know that feeling all too well.
All my life, I’ve been the one who didn’t fit, who’d been forced into a cage that was too small.
I rage against the bars of that cage, and Mina shrinks from them.
I’m not sure that either of us has figured out the right way to exist.
“I observe people.” Quoth tucks a silken strand of hair behind his ear.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I noticed when you were stacking the shelves today. You hold the books close to your face to read the titles, and you turn your head at an odd angle, as if you lack peripheral vision.”
“So you were watching me in the shop. That’s creepy, especially since you haven’t bothered to show yourself.
” Mina doesn’t sound angry. She sounds frightened – not of Quoth, who she must sense is too timid to hurt her, but of what this means for her secret.
She folds her arms across her chest, but her hands are trembling.
She whips her head around to look at me and bites her lip, and I understand.
She thinks I’m going to fire her because she’s going blind.
Why the fuck would she think that?
Quoth shrugs. “I’m always here. I blend into the background.”
“You don’t—”
“You can kill Quoth later. Lord knows it would solve half my problems.” I need Mina to talk. Carrying this secret is hurting her. She needs to get out what she’s afraid of so I can kick it. I will break the bars of her cage if it kills me. “Does he speak the truth?”
“Yes, fine, it’s true.” Mina throws up her hands. “I’m going blind, okay?”
Her words ring in the silent room, words that drip with pain.
I leap to my feet and pat my chair. “Sit. Tell us about it.”
“You’re letting her have your chair?” Morrie’s voice rises. “I’ve lived here for three years and never once have you let me sit in that chair—”
“Keep harping on about it and I’ll throw the chair out the window, and I’ll shut off the hot water,” I growl.
Morrie nudges Mina’s frozen body toward the chair. She’s shaking so badly that she can hardly walk.
“Bloody hell, Quoth, you’ve upset her. You can’t just blurt out shit like that.
” Morrie slides an arm around Mina’s waist, his head dangerously close to hers.
“Quoth didn’t mean anything by it. He’s not great at reading social cues.
If it will make you feel better, I can concoct an elaborate revenge plan.
I’m very good at revenge. Piano wire may be involved. ”
Quoth winces.
“Can I think about it?” Mina allows Morrie to lead her over to my chair. She sinks down into the cushion. I try not to think about my chair smelling like her. I don’t think my heart can take it.
Mina stretches her hands out towards the fire. She looks so comfortable here. How can a woman like her ever be comfortable around three villains?
I would give her my favourite chair if she would stay.
I need something to do with my hands. I lean my elbow on the mantle and hunt around in my pocket for a packet of cigarettes.
Drawing one to my lips, I flip open a lighter and light up.
Quoth glares at me. I’m supposed to be quitting, but a pretty girl is sitting in my chair. What does he expect me to do?
Morrie folds himself into his gaming chair and wheels it across the room. Quoth clings to the doorframe like it’s the only thing stopping him from melting through the floor.
We’re all wretched souls.
“You look like you’re carrying some mighty burden, gorgeous.” Morrie rests his chin in his hand. “Allow us to unburden you.”
Mina glances between us, her eyes shimmering with tears. She takes a shuddering breath, and her story comes out in a huge rush, as if it’s been dancing on her tongue this whole time, waiting to escape.
“I grew up here in Argleton, but I spent my whole life wanting to escape. I can’t explain why, but people just never liked me.
Kids at school bullied me because we were poor, because my mum’s weird, because I liked strange music and weird films and drawing pictures or writing stories instead of playing football.
And because I read books, all the books, books way above my age level.
As soon as I had my O levels, I booked my plane ticket out of here, and I haven’t been back until now. ”
“Why did you come back, gorgeous?” Morrie reaches across and runs his fingers over her knuckles.
Her lips purse, and she lets out this little rush of breath.
I glare at Morrie, but he either doesn’t see me or – more likely – is pretending not to see me.
He shouldn’t be trying to move in on her while she’s upset, especially since he’s likely to succeed.
“Let her talk,” I snap.
“I’ve spent the last four years in New York City, finishing my fashion degree, and then working at this amazing internship with Marcus Ribald – he’s one of my favourite designers.
I got to shadow him for a year, work on the collections, manage the shoots, basically be his personal dogsbody.
It was amazing. And what was even cooler was that my best friend, Ashley, was one of the other interns. ”
“I have a deduction!” Morrie cries. “Ashley’s the girl who came into the shop yesterday.”
“How do you know a girl came into the shop yesterday?” Mina asks.
“Heathcliff told me. He’s a right gossip if you ply him with Scotch. I asked him all sorts of questions about your first day. What you did, how efficient you were, whether you bent over in that hot little skirt of yours—”
“Don’t be disgusting.” I am going to murder that long-legged, self-aggrandising twit. Focus on Mina now. Kill Morrie later. “This girl was Ashley.”
Mina nods. “She said she was visiting her family for the holidays. Ashley’s from Argleton, too.
We’ve been friends since secondary school.
Ashley is always the life of the party. She’s hyper creative.
She runs a million miles a minute and she’s always full of ideas.
She says what she feels and she doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks.
When I hang out with her, I feel invincible.
But she’s also shallow, and selfish, and ruthless when she wants something, or someone.
She doesn’t see how her decisions step on other people.
I thought I was different. She called me her best friend.
I thought she cared about me enough not to crush me. I was wrong.
“There were four interns on the placement program, and we were all competing for one full-time position with Ribald’s studio.
Not to sound like a snob, but I pretty much had that job in the bag.
One of the girls had shagged her way through the entire styling team; the other one was a kleptomaniac.
Ashley is competent but disorganised, and she was spending too much time becoming a social media influencer to focus on Ribald’s work.
On more than one occasion, I had to save her arse before Marcus discovered a mistake she’d made. ”
“Looks like you hired the right lass for the job,” Morrie says to me. “Maybe our Mina can help you transcend your grubby aesthetic.”
“Better a grubby Romani than a dandy coxcomb,” I shoot back.
“Did you just call me a coxcomb?” Morrie snorts. “Nice topical reference. You got any more Shakespearean put-downs? Tell me how I art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in your corrupted blood—”
“Quiet, both of you.” Quoth raises his voice in a rare moment of annoyance. “Let Mina speak.”
Mina takes another shaking breath and continues.
“A few months ago, I started noticing I couldn’t see very well in low light.
I was sitting at this bar with Ashley. She’d convinced a couple of guys to buy us drinks, and I realised I couldn’t tell if they were the same two guys we started the night with.
I couldn’t discern their faces. I thought maybe I’d had too much to drink, but then later that week I fell down the stairs to our flat.
I scraped my arm all up. It hurt like hell. ”
She rolls up her sleeve to show them the scar along her forearm.
Once I’ve finished murdering Morrie, I’ll find that staircase and tear it up.
“There was other stuff, too. Ashley said I kept bending my head weird. It turns out I’d been angling my head because my peripheral vision was receding at an alarming rate.
A couple of weeks later, I crashed into a filing cabinet and chipped a tooth.
Then I missed the edge of my desk and dropped my cold-pressed cacao smoothie on the floor.
In New York, that’s fucking sacrilege, like spitting on the pope.
It was weird, but I just thought I was stressed about work.