Page 55 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
She certainly had enough to say about my cleaning back home.
A pang of longing swept her at the thought, for the little room in the ramshackle house, the windows barred with wunderclutter, the two boards that squeaked when you stepped on them, but in different notes, so that you could stand with your feet apart and bounce and draw a creaky call-and-response from the bones of the house.
She had not been happy there, but she had only had herself to worry about. Worrying about other people was becoming exhausting.
The suite was a mirror of Cordelia’s, in rich greens instead of blues. “Who’s there?” her mother called from the bedroom, in a trembling voice that still carried remarkably well.
“It’s only me.” She went to the doorway and looked in.
Evangeline lay propped up in the bed, pale and wan, her hair artfully disheveled around her face. She wore a dressing gown that looked too big for her, making her look small and fragile in the vast expanse of dark green damask coverlet.
She tilted her head to look at Cordelia and didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. “Ah.” Her gaze went past her, to the maid, and then she stretched out a hand. “Come here, my darling. Mildred, will you fetch us a fresh pot of tea?”
The maid, presumably Mildred, dipped her head and turned away. Evangeline waited until the outer door had clicked shut, then sat up, scowling. “Close the door,” she said, “and lock it. I still don’t trust these servants. They all answer to that dreadful butler.”
Cordelia closed the door and stared at the lock. It was the simplest kind of lock, a little bent hook that dropped into a metal eye. She had never locked a door before. She had never been allowed to lock one. There were no locks on the doors at home.
“Hurry up,” said her mother, voice no longer trembling. “The Squire’s promised to come by later, and I don’t want him to be standing around waiting.”
She lifted the little hook. She could not shake the feeling that it should have been enormous, a weight that she could barely lift with both hands, instead of a little piece of iron that she could pinch between her thumb and forefinger. She fed the hook into the round metal mouth and it made the softest clink, barely heard over the sound of the ice breaking inside her, cracks running in every direction, ready to split apart at the slightest pressure and cast her into an icy sea.
She schooled her face to dull amiability before she turned back. Mother can’t read my mind. She can’t. Even though it felt as if her guilt must surely be emblazoned on her forehead in foot-high letters, if she kept her expression quiet and didn’t run off and tell Falada, there was no way that her mother could know that she had confessed everything to Hester.
“Well?” said her mother, carefully tugging the neck of the dressing gown aside to reveal the slender length of her neck. Her skin was as pale as her familiar’s, her ice-blue eyes picking up the green of the bedclothes. “How do I look?”
False. Wicked. Sly. “Like Falada,” Cordelia blurted.
Evangeline sat up, dressing gown forgotten. “Like a horse?”
“No! I didn’t mean…” She swallowed, trying to fumble forward. “Pale. And graceful. And beautiful. Like him. And your eyes look green because the fabric…”
“Oh, I see. Hmm.” Evangeline sat back, carefully re-mussing her hair. “I am trying to look waiflike. It’s not easy when you’re over thirty-five.”
Cordelia relaxed infinitesimally. “The Squire sent me to see you,” she said cautiously. “He seemed worried about you.”
“That’s good. That’s very good. Mind you, you should have come on your own.” Her eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t know if that’s what you would want.”
“Mmm.” That was a worrisome sound. It meant that judgment had been deferred, not forgotten. “What is happening out there?”
“Errr… well… everyone is very upset, of course…”
Her mother’s eyes speared her. “Upset that I was nearly killed, or upset that woman is dead?”
“A little of both, I think,” said Cordelia, wondering how much she could express without putting someone in danger. “They aren’t saying which out loud. And the Squire keeps saying what a shock you’ve had.” There, that ought to be safe.
“He’s the one that matters.” Her mother took a small hand mirror from the bedside table and checked her appearance in it. “What about that dreadful sister of his?”
“I think she’s just generally upset,” Cordelia said carefully. “She kept saying that she couldn’t believe Mrs. Green would do that.”
“Not without a great deal of work, she didn’t.” Evangeline set the mirror back on the table. “Miserable creature. She couldn’t even die politely.”
Blood roared in Cordelia’s ears. She missed the next few words. She just admitted it. I didn’t think she would just admit it.
Why not? She admitted what she’d done to Mr. Parker. She’s proud of it and you’re her audience. Who else does she have to brag to? Falada?
Her calm failed her. The ice had broken apart at last and her chest was full of shards. Penelope had died and the maid she’d never met had died and Ellen’s family had died and her mother had done all of it and nothing Cordelia did, not now, not ever, would bring any one of them back.
