by Sarra Cannon
I walked over to her and removed the red scarf that covered her mouth.
“I take it you know who I am?” I asked.
She nodded and pulled her knees up toward her chest.
“Then start talking.”
The Cruelest Joke Of All
Franki
By the time Mary Evelyn brought breakfast, I had calmed down enough to at least attempt to eat.
Whatever was happening to my body, it made me ravenous. I sat down on the wooden floor with the tray of food on the coffee table and scooped it up with my fingers, cleaning the last of it in just a few minutes.
Mary Evelyn just stood there near the door, watching me.
“Is there more?” I asked, embarrassed for even asking anything of this witch who was obviously holding me prisoner.
“I can get you another plate if you need it,” she said. “I’m actually surprised you’re able to eat anything at all. I expected to find you muttering in a corner somewhere from shock.”
“I’m hungrier than I’ve ever been in my life,” I said, wiping the side of my mouth with the back of my hand.
“That’s good,” she said. “You’re going to need to keep your strength up for when the final transfer comes. I have a feeling it’s not going to be easy on you.”
I shrugged, pushing back the tears that threatened to fall.
“What does it matter?” I said, glancing up at her. “When that happens, I’ll be gone anyway, right? The Mother Crow will have taken over.”
“No one really knows what’s going to happen to you in those final moments,” she said, walking over to pick up the empty tray. Her hand trembled a bit as she lifted it, but she quickly placed it against her body to settle it. “Some think that maybe you’ll just be trapped inside of her, much the same way the demons are trapped inside the bodies of the Order’s witches. Your mind will still be aware, but you won’t have any control over your body or your power. You are, after all, half demon, aren’t you?”
“So they tell me,” I said, muttering. I knew it was true. I’d used the demon half of my power and been able to shift the way I’d seen all the other demons do before. But I wasn’t exactly ready to go spilling all my thoughts to this witch.
“Well, it’s possible that part of you will continue to live on, despite the transfer,” she said. “Which is part of why you were so important to the Mother Crow all this time. It’s the one thing she’s always wanted more than anything else.”
“Her own demon?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s the reason she holds such a grudge over that Harper girl and the rest of the Order of Shadows. She was the one who was chosen, you know. To be the Prima of Peachville.”
“That was over a hundred years ago,” I said. “Get over it already.”
Mary Evelyn laughed but then glanced around to be sure no one had been listening. She pressed her lips together to stifle her own smile.
“I’ll get you some more food,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She left, locking the door behind her.
As I sat there alone, my mind started turning. So, the Mother Crow still hadn’t been able to let go of a hundred-year-old grudge against the Order and against Harper’s family. She still wanted a demon of her own.
Which is why she’d chosen me, even though she had any number of crow witches here who would have volunteered their bodies for sacrifice.
I was the lucky one who just happened to have both demon and crow blood running through my veins. Ha. Betrayed again by a mother and father I’d never even met.
When Mary Evelyn came back, she was carrying a full tray of food. Eggs, bacon, biscuits, and fruit with a huge cup of coffee and a glass of water.
My stomach rumbled, and even though I tried to take my time with the second plate of food, it was gone in less than ten minutes.
“Gosh, you really were hungry,” she said.
“It’s insane,” I said. “But thank you for getting me more. I feel much better now.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “The Mother Crow said to get you anything you need, so if you’re still hungry, I can get more.”
I shook my head and smiled, patting my full stomach. “If I eat anything else, I’ll explode,” I said.
I glanced up at her. She seemed to be nice, and she was actually talking to me. I wondered if there was anything useful I could gain from talking to her for a while.
“I’d appreciate some company, if you aren’t busy doing anything else,” I said. “It was hard being alone all night. And honestly, I’ve always dreamed of getting to know my family.”
She glanced back at the door, as if looking to the outside for her answer.
Finally, she shrugged, closed the door, and sat down on the floor opposite me.
“I guess I could stay for a little while,” she said. “My normal chores were given to someone else so I could help watch over you, so I don’t see any harm in it.”
I smiled and leaned back against the chair.
“Thank you,” I said. “There isn’t much to do in here by myself except walk around or sleep. It will be nice to talk to someone.”
“I could get you some cards,” she said. “You know, for later. We don’t have a lot of games or books here, unfortunately. There are spell books, of course, but I don’t think I’d be allowed to bring those to you.”
“So, no one here watches TV or has a computer?” I asked.
Her eyes widened, and she laughed. “Oh my gosh, no,” she said. “Can you imagine? Trying to get Wi-Fi up here in the trees in the middle of—”
She cut herself off, realizing she’d just been about to give up their location. Not that it mattered anyway. I had no way to get word out to Rend, even if I wanted to.
“Well, anyway, no,” she said. “No internet access. No computer games. No movies. It kind of sucks, to tell you the truth.”
How do you even know about those things, then?” I asked. “I mean, if you’ve been up in the trees your whole life, how do you know so much about the outside world?”
“Well, for one thing, I haven’t been up here my entire life,” she said. “I was sent out to keep watch on a certain family for a while when I was sixteen. I did that for a couple of years before I came back to the village. Then, when I was twenty-one, I was sent on my mission.”
“Your mission?” I asked. I already knew what she was talking about, but I was surprised to hear that she’d already been sent out to get pregnant. She didn’t look much older than I was, and I hadn’t seen a baby or small child near her.
She blushed and looked away. “I’m sure it will sound strange to someone like you who didn’t grow up among the family, but it’s important that we continue our line. Without men here in the village, we have to leave in order to...you know.”
“Have sex and get pregnant?” I asked, and she laughed and covered her face.
“You say it so casually,” she said. “Like it’s just a normal part of life.”
“It is for most women, you know,” I said.
“For us, it’s just this thing we’re told is a duty,” she said. “Go out. Pick a strong, handsome man. Seduce him. Get pregnant. It always seemed so much like a job when we were taught about the art of seduction and secrets, but in reality, it was so much more than I expected it to be.”
She glanced at the door again, and I wondered if the other guard was out there, listening to our conversation. Would Mary Evelyn get in trouble for talking about these things with me?
“What was it like for you, then?” I asked, leaning my elbow against the coffee table. “Did you meet someone?”
Her eyes lit up, and she pressed her lips together again, trying to hide a smile.
“I met so many men,” she said, a giggle in her voice. “I mean, I had met different guys when I was out in that town at sixteen, too, but it was different the second time when I knew I was supposed to actually mate with one of them. We’d always been taught that they were dangerou
s, but most of them were actually really nice. It was hard to choose, honestly.”
I laughed and shook my head. Damn, these girls were repressed. How horrible would it be to leave the village, meet some men and have amazing sex, only to have to come back here and never do it again? I shuddered at the thought of it.
“Tell me about him,” I said.
“Who?” she asked.
“The guy you finally chose, silly.”
“Oh,” she said, another blush coloring her cheeks. She brought a hand to her face. “His name was William. He was dark-skinned and perfect. Muscular. Sweet. He was strong and so smart. He made me laugh.”
Her gaze drifted toward the floor, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake bringing this up. This had to be a somewhat painful memory for any woman who’d been through it.
What would I have done if I’d met Rend under those circumstances? I certainly wouldn’t have been able to just leave him.
My stomach knotted, thinking about my own mother. Wasn’t that exactly what had happened to her?
If Silas was to be believed, Solomon and my mother had truly fallen in love and had planned to escape and reunite after I was born.
But it was too late to change the subject now.
“Did you fall in love with him?” I asked softly.
She looked up sharply, wiping the smile from her face. “Of course not,” she said. “Falling in love is forbidden. If it wasn’t for the need to keep our family line going, we wouldn’t need men at all. They only complicate things, and falling in love is not an option.”
“But you liked him?” I asked.
A slow smile touched her lips, and she nodded. “I liked him a lot,” she said. “He was so good to me. Sometimes, I wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t had to leave and come back here, but I know those kinds of thoughts are stupid. I mean, if I saw him right now, he wouldn’t even remember I existed.”
“He wouldn’t?” I asked.
“Oh, no. Once we’re sure we’ve completed the mission, we wipe their memories,” she said. “That way things don’t get too complicated. The Mother Crow says that if we allowed them to remember our time together, they might come looking for us. That could get messy, so it’s better to just take the memories with us when we go.”
This was new information to me. Had my mother tried to wipe Solomon’s memory?
“So, once you’re sure you’re pregnant, you wipe their memories. But how?” I asked. “And is there some way for the Mother Crow to make sure you did it? Or is it kind of on the honor system?”
She looked surprised at my question, but she just shrugged.
“We all have a spell that we cast on them,” she said. “It’s a pretty simple one that we’re taught a few months beforehand, as we’re being prepared for the mission. When we leave, we’re given a small black stone. The memories go into that stone when we’re done with the spell. That way, the Mother Crow knows it’s been cast when we come home.”
I swallowed and stared at this girl. That was some pretty serious accountability there. The memories in the stone would also tell the Mother Crow who the lucky father had been.
How the hell had my mother and Solomon faked that?
And if they hadn’t, well, that meant Silas was lying to us about Solomon.
I wish I had some way to know the truth, not that it still mattered about Solomon right now.
But it did matter, didn’t it? Everything Silas had planned regarding Rend and the Council was based on the things he claimed Solomon had told him.
At this point, my life may have been forfeit, but that didn’t mean I wanted Rend to die, too.
In fact, I’d been thinking about it ever since the Mother Crow told me the truth about the spell she’d cast. If Rend did come to save me, I didn’t plan on ever telling him that killing her would kill me at the same time.
If he knew the truth, he’d never do it. He’d never win the Council seat, and they would put him to death or sentence him to an eternity in the dungeons.
I wouldn’t let that happen. I would die before I allowed it.
I was going to die, anyway.
“Mary Evelyn, can I ask you another question?”
She nodded. “Okay,” she said.
“Do you know my mother?”
She cleared her throat and looked down at her fidgeting hands.
“Her name is Mary Kath—”
“I know her name,” she said. She lifted her eyes to mine. “And yes, I knew her.”
My heart rate skyrocketed. “Knew?”
“She used to live with us in the village back when we were in Peachville,” she said. “But she disappeared after the battle with that girl. Harper. No one has seen her since.”
I let out a long, relieved sigh. I was terrified she was going to tell me my mother had died. Or been murdered.
“There were several women who disappeared after that, weren’t there?” I asked.
“Yes. Twelve,” she said. A pained expression crossed her face. “I don’t know if I should be talking to you about this. The Mother Crow doesn’t like for us to speak of the betrayers.”
“I understand,” I said. But I wasn’t ready to just let it go. I needed to know the truth. “It’s just that I’m with you now, and I’m not exactly going anywhere. It can’t hurt to talk about it now. Besides, in a short while, I’m going to be gone, right? What harm could it cause for me to know?”
Her lips twisted into a frown.
“The thing is, I never got to meet my own mother,” I said. “Or my father. Obviously. I’ve wondered about my mom my entire life, and if my life is about to be over, I’d like to at least know more about her. I deserve at least that much, right?”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I suppose it can’t hurt to talk about her a little bit,” she said. “It’s just that the women who left us after that battle brought a lot of anger into our small family group. We have to be able to trust each other, and after that, it took time for us to start to believe we were truly a family again. And if the Mother Crow hears me talking about it, she won’t be pleased with me. You can’t imagine what it’s like when she’s angry.”
I laughed, but it came out as more of a strangled cry.
“Believe me, I know,” I said softly. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I’d just like to know something about my own mother before I die.”
She grew quiet for a long time, but when she finally looked up, she nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “But I can only stay for a few more minutes. I should get these dirty plates back to the kitchen soon.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re right. Your mother’s name is Mary Kathryn. You look so much like her, actually,” she said with a smile. “Everyone was shocked when she didn’t return after the battle in Peachville. If anything went wrong, we were given very strict instructions to meet back at a certain location just outside of town. The Mother Crow had another village already set up for us, just in case, but no one knew where it was until we’d gotten to the meeting place.”
This also surprised me, because I wouldn’t have thought the Mother Crow would have a backup plan. She seemed like the kind of woman who was determined to see her plans through and win at all costs.
But she’d been surprised when she’d killed Harper’s mom, Claire, so maybe she’d been ready for anything when she went after Harper.
“Your mother was a very kind and gentle woman, Mary Francis.”
“You know, everyone just calls me Franki,” I said with a laugh. “It’s weird being called Mary Francis here. I don’t even identify with it, honestly.”
She opened her eyes wider. “Oh. Well, here, you have to be called by your given name,” she said. “It’s a rule.”
“What’s up with all the Mary’s, anyway?” I asked.
“The Mother Crow’s given name is Mary,” she said. “Mary Alexandria. And since we are all an extension of her, we carry her nam
e.”
She said it almost like it was her religion, but it completely creeped me out. Talk about narcissism at its worst. Was no one here allowed to have their own identity?
The cruelest joke of all was that I was the rare person here who’d actually been allowed to have a life of my own, and yet all of that was about to be stripped away. The Mother Crow would wear my face as if it were her own.
The thought of it made me want to scratch my own eyes out.
“Why was everyone shocked that my mom didn’t come back?” I asked. “Just because she was so kind?”
“She seemed to be utterly devoted to the Mother Crow,” she said. “Mary Kathryn was actually a Favored One before she left for her mission, but her pregnancy with you was very difficult on her. From what I’ve heard, she nearly died giving birth to you.”
“I’ve heard that, too,” I said.
“From who?” she asked. “I thought you didn’t know anything about her.”
“I met another girl on the outside,” I said. “Mary Anne. Did you know her?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line, and her eyes narrowed. “Yes, I knew that girl. Another betrayer. The worst kind,” she said. “She was the reason we lost that battle in Peachville in the first place. I’m surprised the Mother Crow hasn’t sent an army after her, but I think she was terrified of Harper and her friends after that night, though she’d never admit it. Her body isn’t as strong as it used to be, and after she was injured in that fight, it took a long time for her to recover. I honestly don’t think she’s ever fully healed, which is part of why she needs you.”
I blew out a breath, shaking my head. It was so crazy how things came around in this life.
Harper’s victory against the crows saved her life but now had condemned mine. Not that I could hold that against her. I didn’t even want to think about the world we would live in if Harper had died back then.
“Mary Anne told me a little bit about my mother,” I said. “But not a lot. And she didn’t know that my mom had left the crows.”
“Her mother left, too,” she said.
“She did?” I asked.
