Chapter 13
Quill
Grand Jury
Atli ?rvarsson
My stomach was already in knots as I walked along the light gray gravel path. Every step I took toward the neoclassical mansion across the driveway left an ominous crunch.
I was screwed.
As rebellious as I behaved, as unstoppable as I pretended to be, on the inside I was still the little girl who hid under tables as soon as the dishes started flying. The girl who wanted to cover her ears and escape to another world until the screaming stopped.
Over the years, I had created worlds between the lines of my books. Books that were already piling up, waiting for me to publish them. But the urge to keep writing, to lose myself deeper and deeper in fiction until the lines between reality and imagination blurred, was too strong.
I missed the days when I had been na?ve enough to imagine Vincent. And yes, perhaps it was foolish, after all this time, to still cling to a wonderland that was far out of reach...
In the distance, I heard glass shattering and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
That sound had come from the house. And there was only one person in that family who threw things around.
My heart pounding, I listened more closely. No screams, no crying.
Lorette was different from Mama. She either yelled back or ignored him by leaving the house and meeting up with her well-heeled gossiping friends.
I didn't have many options left. At some point, I had to enter that house.
In my room, which I always locked before leaving the house or even the room itself, were all the things that were important to me.
My manuscripts, my notebooks. All those semi-material possessions that gave my life its last remaining meaning.
Struggling to keep my sanity, I glanced to the side, where, opposite the wide stone staircase leading down to this lawn, another wide staircase with sandstone balustrades led even further down to another large, well-kept park area with rose hedges, hydrangea shrubs, and lilac bushes, equipped with a fountain and a hedge maze behind it.
On this level here, behind the house, there were two small terraces for summer events.
Dense green deciduous forest surrounded this old estate, as was the case with almost every house in this town, except for downtown.
The place where my grandfather had turned his blood money into this baroque fairy-tale dream gave no hint of my dark family history. Everything seemed so peaceful, so natural. A pretty facade that Joseph Richter, together with his perfect family, tried to maintain.
First Day in Court
Atli ?rvarsson
Taking a deep breath, I clutched the leather strap of my shoulder bag and hurried up the stairs until I reached the open double doors at the back of the villa, where a gleeful-looking Brittany was already leaning against the brown panel door with her arms crossed.
Behind me, I heard hurried footsteps on the gravel, but I was far too absorbed in peeling off the skin next to my thumbnails and assessing the extent of the collateral damage from my half-sister's expression.
“Oh, Gravia,” she snorted, shaking her head. “You’re about to get so torn apart.” I pressed my lips together, stepped past her into the wide hallway, and set the bag down against the wall. “And I'm looking forward to it.”
“Gravia?”
Anthony appeared behind me in the hallway as Brittany disappeared into one of the salons with a final withering glance, and I wondered if she was truly indifferent or even filled with joy hearing her father lose control with me.
I didn't turn to my brother, entered the large foyer with its huge windows, and headed up the wide staircase.
Anthony caught up.
“Do you realize what you've done?”
It had not taken long to accept that I had dug my own grave and that I would most likely never return to Maplecrest once my father was done with me.
But for a moment, I wanted to pretend I was strong enough.
“Relax, Tony. You'll get your money back.” I avoided his gaze, but I could feel him staring at me in disbelief. “I'll drop out at some point and pay you back the rest.”
We reached the second floor.
“It's not about the damn money, Gravia!” I looked at him and his face was completely drained of color. “What you're doing is insane.”
“The most insane artists are the most successful ones.”
I felt too sick to smile.
“God, Gravia! What are you talking about? You don't have a high school diploma, no top grades. Nothing. And anyway?” He followed me around the railing, gesturing. “How did you do it? Does that Thomas guy have something to do with it?”
I looked at him insistently.
“Yes. And you’re not going to interfere. Thomas is a good friend who only wants the best for me.”
“The best? A fake identity at the most prestigious private university in the country is definitely not the best, Gravia. It’s crazy and you’ll end up behind bars for it.”
Maybe he was right.
“I'm not planning to stay. This is all for research purposes.”
Tony's gaze was full of emotion. I knew that wires were exploding in his head right now.
He had inherited our father's temper, but at least he knew how to control it.
“I'm begging you...” He stopped me, turning me around quickly by my shoulders.
“You can still get out of this. If this is really for one of your books again, you can attend guest lectures.
I'll organize something that no one needs to know about. Just please...” He lowered his voice.
“Please don't start a war you can't win.”
He knew. Research was only half of the truth.
“Why does it sound like Maplecrest is a battlefield?” I indirectly avoided his suggestion.
“It is, and I don't want you to become one of the weapons.”
“That sounds...” The corners of my mouth turned up slightly and I shrugged, raising my eyebrows expectantly. “Exciting.”
Despair filled Tony's stare.
“Gravia Onera!”
Glass shattered.
We both flinched.
It had come from our father's study.
My stomach turned once until it formed a knot.
“I will not let you go in there alone.”
Sighing, I turned away and faced my demons in a battle I couldn't win.
Tony knew I was too weak, but since my life was one big deception of lies, I still had a few seconds left before I would lose control.
A butterfly caught in a storm.
“I grew up with this man. Alone.”
With these words, I broke away from Tony and walked the last few feet around the corner, pausing in front of my father's study door.
Another shattering glass, which must have landed in the fireplace, made me hesitate. The knot in my stomach tightened, and only when my fingers wrapped around the cold doorknob, did I discover the bloodstained sides of my thumb.
The dangerous thing was not the combination of me and my father alone in a room, but the combination of me and myself. That was the place where real chaos raged, creating devouring oceans.
With great caution, I opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind me.
My father's head snapped around and I froze.
His eyes were bloodshot, his nose and cheeks reddened, his hair disheveled, and his dark green tie hung untied around his neck, while his shirt collar was unbuttoned, as was his vest.
Alcohol raged through his veins.
Nothing new since I'd been living here. Even though, when I had found out, a fury I rarely felt had been ignited and Tony had had to stop me from opening all the expensive whiskey bottles and pouring them out on Father's carpets.
Mama was dead. Because of him. She had taken refuge in alcohol. Because of him. And now he was doing the same thing, even though he had left us for his oh so perfect family?
Within a month, I had gotten used to what happened here at night after he had emptied three glasses. And it was something else when an already unpredictable person turned into an alcoholic.
I had grown up believing that Mama's next steps would have been the ones to fear the most, but she had never gotten into the car. Never driven to Wonderland. She had found another way.
It was my father whose next steps held the reins to my future.
Silence. It made the air in the room heavy. Wouldn't last long.
He lowered his half-full whiskey glass, cutting through the silence with his menacingly quiet words.
“I gave you a roof over your head.”
Tony had brought me here. Against both my father's and my will. But I had been too weak and my father too drunk to argue that evening.
“Food, money...”
And it disgusted me that every minute I breathed in this house reminded me whose money was keeping me physically alive.
“I gave you your entire life.”
I felt the warm blood under my nails.
“And the only thing you do is find ways to ruin me over and over again!”
The vein bulging from his temple pulsed, but it was his wide-open eyes that held me captive.
I didn’t know where I found the strength for my next words.
“No one asked you to bring a child into this world.”
Before I had finished the sentence, I knew I had poured gasoline on the fire. I would burn.
With a hasty movement of his hand, he made me flinch and slammed the next glass into the fireplace.
“You are an accident that should never have happened! And to this day, I wonder what God wanted to punish me for!”
You might think that after all these years I would be immune to his rage. But you couldn't become immune to what had taught you what it meant to break. The scars he had left would remind me of him for all eternity. They wove their way through my entire existence.
I was the canvas of his anger, stained with the splashes of paint of his unpredictability.
“Quillon Veritas?” He laughed, spun around, and strode around his desk, where he picked up the picture Thomas had taken of me and eventually held it up.
“A fake identity?” He laughed again. “I already thought that you whoring around the neighborhood would have been the cherry on top.” The dangerous grin with which he stared down at the picture sent shivers down my spine. “Now you're turning into a criminal.”
Before my fear could get the better of me, I stepped forward.