Page 74 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
“Leave us,” she instructed the maid. Alice looked at Cordelia, who was busy packing her trunks. Cordelia nodded hurriedly. There was nothing Alice could do to help, and now that her mother was lady of the manor, there was no limit to what cruelties she could get away with.
“Well,” said Evangeline, stretching. “At least that’s over with.” She took a step forward, her eyes hardening. “Now. Is there something you want to tell me, dear?”
Uh-oh. That was a bad sign. Cordelia tried desperately to think of some infraction she might have committed. Other than, you know, conspiring with her enemies. “Con-congratulations?” she hazarded.
Her mother’s fingers closed over her chin. Cordelia felt the scrape of long nails against her throat as she swallowed. That wasn’t it. It’s something else. But what? There were too many possibilities. Her mother had always been infuriated by things that Cordelia never suspected.
“In the chapel…” said Evangeline, in a crooning singsong that made Cordelia’s skin go clammy with sweat.
The chapel. She did see Penelope there. Fear for the poor lost ghost warred with relief that the plot against Evangeline had not been discovered. At least it gave her a direction to point her lies. “I-I-I felt something. Er, thought I felt something. I wasn’t sure. Was there actually something there?”
A puzzled line formed between her mother’s eyebrows. “What did you feel?”
“I…” Was there anything she could say that wouldn’t get Penelope in trouble? Then again, she was already dead, so how much more trouble could there be? “I don’t know,” Cordelia said. “I thought I heard someone talking?”
Evangeline gave her chin a quick little shake, like a terrier with a rat. “What did they say?”
“I couldn’t make it out. It was a long way away, or maybe it wasn’t, but it felt like it was—” Cordelia knew that she was making no sense, but ignorance was almost always safer where her mother was concerned. “And it was cold? Maybe? But not like real cold?” The line between her mother’s eyes slowly faded and relief flooded Cordelia’s veins. “I’m sorry,” she finished. “I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.”
Evangeline’s eyes bored into hers. Those long nails scraped across her jaw. “So it wasn’t you who tried to pull the cup from my hands.”
“What?” Her astonishment must have been so clearly unfeigned that Evangeline dropped her. “How could I—I was nowhere near—”
Her mother gave a short huff of laughter. “No, of course not. Never mind.”
She turned away. Cordelia licked dry lips. “But there was something there? I wasn’t imagining it?”
Evangeline moved with the speed of a striking snake, spinning around, one hand raised. She was almost to the door and nowhere near Cordelia, but the motion was so startling that Cordelia squeaked with alarm.
In the next instant, the world seemed to leap around her. Her ears rang as if she’d been standing too near a gunshot, and her heart stuttered in her chest, then came back with a rapid thud. Cordelia pressed a hand to it, gasping. There wasn’t enough air in her lungs, in the room, possibly in the world.
“Huh,” her mother said. “You didn’t try to dodge that at all, did you?”
“Dodge…” She managed to drag in a breath. It was hard to think over the ringing in her ears. “Dodge… what? What… happened?”
“Now don’t be cross with me,” Evangeline said, taking her shoulder and leading her to a chair. “I had to check.”
Cordelia knew that she only sounded so petulant when she’d done something. It was magic of some kind, then. She hit me? With magic?
She hit me just to see if I’d get out of the way?
“You’ll be fine,” Evangeline said, avoiding Cordelia’s stunned gaze. “It was only a tap. I had to be sure. Go finish packing. Tomorrow we’ll see this manor that your fiancé thinks so highly of.”
And with that, she got up and left the room before Cordelia’s ears had stopped ringing.
In the end, Alice took most of the clothes out of the suitcase and repacked them in a rather more efficient manner, while Cordelia stood around feeling useless. Her ears were no longer ringing, but when she moved her head too quickly in any direction, it throbbed and black spots danced across her vision.
She pled lack of hunger after the enormous wedding breakfast and dined in her room. Even then, she couldn’t bring herself to eat more than a few bites. Food seemed like a bizarre habit. You used your teeth to gnaw off a hunk of something and then tried to force it down your throat with the back of your tongue, while dry bits stuck to the roof of your mouth. Whose idea was this? This is absurd.
Alice took the tray away after she had mangled the pastries into crumbs. “Not feeling quite the thing?”
“Not really. It’s good food! Please tell the cook it was! I just can’t seem to… to quite believe in eating right now.” Which sounded silly, so she tried to explain, and eventually found herself saying, very earnestly, “Why do tongues even exist?,” and gave up.
One corner of Alice’s mouth crooked up during her recitation. “I’ll make sure Cook doesn’t feel like it’s a reflection on her.”
“Thank you.”
The maid slowed as she neared the door. “Ah… forgive me, miss, but… are you all right? Your mother came in here earlier, and I know that sometimes that takes you hard.”
