Page 95 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
Cordelia shook her head silently.
“Right. Up you get.” She made a gesture and suddenly Cordelia was being pressed down, down into herself, and her body was rising and bracing her back against a tree trunk. Obedient, she thought, and wished that she could pass out.
Her mother bent down and began to rummage through a pack on the ground. “Now, let’s see what that groom left in here… ah, here we go. Just the thing.” She turned toward Cordelia, holding a penknife in one hand. “Now, then. You’re going to tell me exactly what you were doing, and more importantly, who you told. Do you understand?”
Cordelia stared at the little knife in her mother’s hand and thought, What? Is she going to stab me?
The obedience lapsed and she sagged against the tree. “I said, do you understand?”
I can’t tell her anything. I won’t. She can’t read minds. “I haven’t told anyone,” she croaked. “It was all me. I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
Her mother sighed, looking disappointed. “Try not to be stupid, will you, dear? For me? Obviously you had help. You couldn’t chop off a chicken’s head, let alone Falada’s. And he’s already told me that there were more of you.”
Cordelia gulped, her mind a blank. “I… I…”
“I can see we’ll have to do this the hard way. Really, Cordelia.”
Obedience gripped her again. She pushed herself back up. One hand went down, grabbed the edge of her skirt and lifted.
“Outer thigh, I think,” her mother said, handing her the knife. “Your future husband won’t see the scar until the wedding night, and it’ll be too late by then.”
She can’t mean… she can’t possibly mean…
Her obedient body rucked up handfuls of fabric, exposing her left leg. Her own hand set the blade against the skin a few inches from the knee.
“This hurts me more than it hurts you,” her mother said, and then Cordelia felt the cold edge of the knife enter her skin.
She couldn’t scream. That was the worst of it, somehow. If she could have screamed then she could have wedged the scream in between herself and the pain, but her body didn’t scream, not even when the knife slipped, not even when she began sawing mindlessly away at her own flesh, cutting off a shallow triangle of skin and leaving a bloody flap that hurt and hurt and went on hurting, even after the obedience dropped and she dropped the knife and then fell over on her side, clutching her leg, and had no strength left to scream with.
“Tell me,” said her mother, standing over her. “Tell me who knows.”
Cordelia whimpered, curling in a tight ball around the pain, trying to contain it. There was nothing in the whole world except the pain and the choking smell of wormwood.
Fingers snapped next to her ear. “Cordelia,” her mother said. “I don’t want to have to get your attention again.”
“It… it was… Lord Evermore,” Cordelia gasped. She hated herself for saying it, but she needed to say something and it had been his estate, after all. She could hardly think through the pain.
Her mother groaned and ran a hand through her dark hair. “You had to spoil the engagement, too? Really?”
“I didn’t… I…” Cordelia tried to think of something that her mother would believe. The pain made it hard to think. “He… he and… he… I…”
“Don’t tell me you fell in love with him!”
The words were like a gift from heaven. The lie opened up in front of her and Cordelia plunged inside. “You were right,” she whispered. If she pressed hard on the wound, it hurt a little less. “It’s not like anything else I’ve ever felt. Being in love.”
“Oh Cordelia.” To her astonishment, her mother sat down next to her. “I tried to warn you. It’s amazing, isn’t it? But it doesn’t last. And you do terribly foolish things when you’re in love. And then you have to clean up the mess.” She sighed, patting Cordelia on the shoulder. “I was certainly that way with your father.”
“My f-father…?” The words seemed as if they should be important, but Cordelia didn’t have the energy to spare to care.
Evangeline sighed. “You’re hardly the first to make a fool of themselves for a man, believe me. I was young and I thought he’d have to marry me. But he never even considered it, just sent me away to the country and sent me money to keep me quiet. I held out hope for far too long, but I was so very much in love.”
A week ago, I would have cared so much about this. And now I can’t make myself care at all. Cordelia made a choked sound that would have been shocked laughter if there wasn’t so much pain in the way.
“By the time I finally realized that he was never going to marry me, you were toddling around and clinging to Falada’s tail.” Her mother shook her head. “I almost killed you, too. It’s so impossible to marry up with a brat in tow. And were you ever grateful?”
“… sorry…” whispered Cordelia, who had known her role in this play for a long time.
“I know.” Evangeline stroked her hair. “And anyway, it will all come right, you’ll see. You weren’t a sorcerer and I realized that you could marry where I couldn’t. Real money, not just sad little nobles like the Squire. I know it hurts now, but it’ll be better this way. You’ll see. Being wealthy is much better than being in love. If you’d ever been really poor, you’d know that.” She squared her shoulders. “Now, who else knows?”
