I Am Her Revenge

by Meredith Moore

  Arthur and I spent the next few weeks in a golden fog, secreting ourselves away in the spot behind his house whenever we could and kissing each other like we could make the whole world disappear.

  One afternoon, instead of taking me into his arms and kissing me, he looked at me with the most serious and hopeful expression I had ever seen on anyone before. “I have to tell you,” he began, looking down at the ground and then back up at me. “I have to tell that I love you.”

  I closed my eyes, absorbing his declaration. And then I opened them and smiled the most brilliant, shining smile. “I love you, too,” I whispered, the truest words I’d ever spoken. I loved him. I stood there and offered him my entire heart.

  I couldn’t sleep at all that night, too afraid that the moment I closed my eyes, that afternoon would become nothing more than a dream. I replayed the scene over and over in my mind, committing to memory the look in his eyes as he gazed into mine. The way he brushed the dirt off his hands before he touched me. The press of his lips on mine.

  That next morning I tripped down to breakfast, hoping to hurry through the meal with Mother so that I could find Arthur and kiss him again.

  Mother was waiting for me in the breakfast room, buttering a piece of toast. “No prepared breakfast this morning,” she told me. “Boy ran away. Helper says he packed up all his things and left in the middle of the night.” Her voice didn’t hold her usual amount of ice. It confused me so much that I had trouble processing her words.

  “He’s . . . gone?” I asked.

  She nodded, still focused on her piece of toast.

  “But, he can’t—he can’t be gone,” I sputtered out before clamping down on my words. I wasn’t supposed to care, I reminded myself. I was supposed to think of Boy as less than human, the way Mother treated him.

  It was too late, though. Her gaze snapped to mine, and then the strangest thing happened. Those gray eyes looked at me not with wrath, but with something more like pity, maybe even empathy. “You loved him, didn’t you?”

  I couldn’t deny it. And I couldn’t admit to it either. I said nothing, but I couldn’t hide the misery on my face.

  He had left me. He’d run away, just like he’d always planned, but he hadn’t taken me with him. He didn’t care about me at all.

  “I told you what would happen if you let love overpower you,” Mother said softly, rising from the table. “He didn’t care about you. He ran away to escape you.”

  I didn’t know if it was the softness of her tone or my lack of sleep, but suddenly I was crying. I hadn’t cried in front of her in years, but now I couldn’t stop.

  Through the blur of my tears, I saw her step toward me, and then she enveloped me in her arms. “I am so sorry,” she murmured. “I never wanted you to go through what I went through.”

  I clung to her for what felt like hours, until the very last tear had dried on my cheek. I could count on one hand the number of times Mother had hugged me, and all had been because we were in public. This time, though, she hugged me because she cared. Because she knew the blinding pain that I felt.

  “Take your time,” she cooed softly, pushing me back so she could look in my eyes. “Get over this heartbreak. And when you’re ready, I will teach you how to be strong.”

  I hid in my room and cried for days. How could he have left me? Had he been lying when he told me he loved me? He must have. It must have all been a joke to him. Or at least not enough to keep him here.

  When I emerged, I promised myself I would never fall in love. I would never care about anyone ever again. Mother needed me to be a weapon, and I would not fail her.

  Back on the moors, I pull myself out of that memory, realizing I’ve lingered too long. I’m standing too close to him. I open my eyes and step away, out of the reach of his arms. I face him and let fire fill my expression. “I hate you.” I’m desperate for the words to be true, but their sharp edges cut my tongue as I spit them out.

  “Stop acting,” he orders, his voice low.

  I blink, and he steps forward again, and suddenly we are engaged in a complicated dance.

  “You don’t hate me.” He hesitates, then brings his hand to my face, smoothing a wisp of hair behind my ear. Steps closer again.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, stiffening. The feel of his skin on mine makes me shiver. I don’t know what he wants with me.

  Something in my eyes makes him step back, and finally I can breathe again. “Why are you really here? At Madigan?” I ask.

  “Because of you,” he answers, his eyes still locked on mine. It’s the same answer he gave before, but it feels different now. It means something different.

  “To stop me?” I ask.

  He shakes his head slowly. “Because of you,” he repeats. He’s opening his mouth to say something else when something catches his eye behind me, and before I can stop him and beg him to give me more answers, he turns and walks away.

  I look over my shoulder and find Arabella spying on me from the back door of the boys’ house. I’m too far away to read her expression, but I know it can’t be good. My mind scrambles back over the last few minutes, trying to see them as she would. I was talking to the gardener. No, I was too close to be just talking. And that moment, when his hand brushed against my cheek . . . something flutters in my stomach.

  She’s still watching me as I lift my chin and head back toward Faraday as if it was my destination all along. I wait until the coast is clear before I climb the wall and disappear down the hill.

  I spend the next several hours at the cottage drawing Ben’s face and charcoal sketches of the house I saw in Loworth, trying not to think about what I have to do when I get back to campus. I need a strategy. But I can’t think about that yet. Not here. This is a place of escape, not somewhere to sharpen my weapons.

  Still, the dark thoughts creep in. I begin sketching a shadowy figure across a wide space of dead earth, imbuing the picture with the alarm and the shock I felt when I saw Arabella watching me. The figure stares out at the viewer. It’s the viewer’s enemy.

  I throw my sketchbook and pencils into my bag and head back. Better to face the problem head-on, I decide. I can manage it easily enough. But I hate the thought of Arthur becoming a part of this. I want him to be separate. Untouched. Unbloodied.

  Because he was right. I don’t hate him, no matter how badly I want to.

  I start running. Dinner will be over soon, and I have to gauge how dire the Arabella situation is before I respond to it.

  I slow down to catch my breath as I approach the dining hall. I have to look confident and calm to be confident and calm.

  When I open the heavy wooden doors, people look at me and then turn to their neighbors to whisper, and I know that my fears are confirmed. They think I’m dating the gardener. That I’ve been sleeping with him, too—that’s how Arabella will spin it. I hunt the room for Ben, and when I see him, he meets my gaze with one of curiosity. He doesn’t smile. He just looks back down at his food and chuckles half-heartedly at something a boy next to him says. Maybe he’s laughing about me. In any case, he thinks he has a rival now.

  I wait until Ben deposits his tray and leaves before I walk steadily toward Arabella’s table. “Why, exactly, is everyone staring at me?” I ask her.

  She looks up at me and smirks. “Because you’re shagging the gardener, of course,” she answers matter-of-factly.

  I like the girls who are direct. They’re easier to dismantle.

  “I’m not shagging him, actually,” I say nonchalantly. I step closer to her and lower my voice so that only she and the two curious girls next to her can hear me. “But it sounds like you want to be.”

  “What?” she scoffs. In the unforgiving light of the room, she looks pale, her blush two incongruous rosy spots on her cheeks. Her pink lipstick has smudged and strayed from the line of her lips. She’s just a girl.

>   I laugh. “He was telling me how you left that pair of underwear with a note on his doorstep last week,” I whisper. “A bit kinky, if you ask me. Sorry he wasn’t interested.”

  She stares at me, her mouth open in shock, as I smile. I’m walking out of the dining hall before she can think of a response.

  Ben finds me the next afternoon sitting at a study carrel in the library, far inside the stacks where no one can hear us. Most students study in the main reading room: a two-story cavern with bookcases lining the walls and paintings of Greek gods on the ceiling. It’s a place covered with an awed hush, where the only sounds are the squeaks of chairs being dragged and the crisp flicks of pages being turned. Everyone is on display there, and even on Saturday afternoons like this one, it’s always crowded. In the stacks, though, I’m surrounded by only clothbound history books, and the scent of worn pages permeates the air. When Ben turns a corner and spots me, I shove my sketchbook under a textbook so that he won’t see the drawings I’m working on. I didn’t expect anyone to discover me here.

  “So what, you’re a bitch now?” Ben asks, standing over me.

  I widen my eyes as if I’m surprised, then widen them even more as if hurt. “Is that what they’re calling me?”

  He nods, his eyes serious as they examine me.

  “Because Arabella told them I was shagging the gardener?” I ask, my tone incredulous.

  “No, because you accused her to her face, and in front of the whole school, of, you know, trying to shove her knickers on him.”

  “What?” I say. “God, the rumor mill at this school is ridiculous. All I did was tell her that I’m not dating the gardener. And then I apologized, because it seemed like she was upset about it. I thought she had a crush on him or something.”

  His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Why would everyone be spreading this other story, then?”

  I shrug. “Maybe because they’re not her biggest fans? I don’t know.”

  He considers this for a moment. Then his forehead clears, and his easy smile is back. “So you’re not dating the gardener?”

  I look down at my desk, then back up at him. “No,” I say. My softness wipes the smile from his face. “Did you find the portrait of the Lady of Shalott that I told you about?” I ask.

  He relaxes again. “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  He half smiles. “I don’t know. I don’t really ‘get’ art, you know? But I can see what you mean about the male gaze.”

  I nod with an encouraging smile.

  “And I can see why you hate it,” he continues.

  “I don’t hate it,” I say quickly. “I mean, I do, but I always value paintings that produce such strong reactions. The paintings that I love or hate. Have you ever heard of the play Art by Yasmina Reza?”

  He shakes his head, that half smile still on his face.

  “It’s about this guy who buys an expensive painting. To his friend who doesn’t like modern art, the painting is just white paint on a white canvas. But the guy who bought it sees so much in the painting, and it changes their friendship. So the painting’s powerful, even if it’s just white on white, because the people react to it so strongly. That’s the point, I think, of art. The reaction. So even though I hate it, I don’t really hate Waterhouse’s painting. If that makes sense.”

  He shakes his head slowly, his smile in full bloom now. “Not really,” he says, “but you know who you should talk to? Ms. Elling.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Art teacher. She gives private lessons to anyone who wants them. She’s kind of mad, but she’s all right. And you seem so, uh, so passionate about art.” He pauses. “I see you all the time with that sketchbook.”

  I stand so that I face him, so that we’re on an even playing field. “I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

  He glances down at the red writing on my ballet flats. “What does that say?” he asks.

  “It’s a poem. By Catullus.” I trap his gaze. “It means ‘I hate and I love. You ask me why, perhaps, I do it. I don’t know, but I feel it done, and it burns me.’”

  There is a breathless pause between us. “You know Latin?” he asks.

  “No. Someone translated it for me.”

  He steps forward, drawn in, and there is so little space between us now. Nothing but a thin sheet of air. I peer up through my eyelashes into his hazel eyes. Then, as if nervous, I step back, nearly tripping over the chair in my haste, and I can breathe again.

  “I still like the story of Elaine and Lancelot.” He’s trying to joke, but his uneven voice gives his nervousness away. “Do you want to study together sometime?”

  “I study better alone,” I say quickly.

  He raises his eyebrows. He’s not used to rejection. “Maybe we can get together for something else, then.”

  I bite my lip, as if his words have affected me. “I don’t think so,” I say, letting my voice become breathless, uncertain.

  He steps forward again, just as I wanted him to. I look at the floor. Before he can say anything, I sidestep him so that he no longer blocks my exit. “I have to go,” I say over my shoulder as I leave him there.

  Why do I always feel so strange leaving him? As if I have lost something, as if he has beaten me somehow? I’m playing a game, I tell myself. It’s all just a game, and I’m in complete control.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Sunday morning I wake up to the next day is dark, the wind and rain banging against the window. Claire stays burrowed under her covers, hiding from the dreary world. She clattered in at three in the morning, smelling of sweat and alcohol and earth. And something else, too, that I can’t quite name. I buried my head in my pillow as she stumbled onto her bed. She smelled dangerous.

  I get dressed and tiptoe out of the room, as much as one can tiptoe in heavy combat boots.

  The rain pelts my skin as I head outside, and the wind whistles harshly around me. I duck my head and run to Arthur’s cabin, pounding on the door until he opens it.

  He stares at me a second, taking in my soaked hair and clothes. I jerk my chin up, trying my best not to look pathetic. “Let me in,” I demand. I’m tired of dancing around the truth with him. It’s time for answers.

  He narrows his eyes at my tone but nods. “Come inside,” he says with a deep sigh. “I’ll make you some tea. We need to talk.”

  I should ignore him. I should keep him out of my life completely. But I have too many questions.

  His shed is small, and he stoops to fit in the space, but he’s made it his home. Sheets of paper marked with the long, easy scrawl of his handwriting clutter the table, and a cot rests in the corner. A healthy fire roars in the grate, keeping out the cold and the rain and the bleakness of the world outside. I reach my hands toward the flames.

  “I forgot you wrote poetry,” I lie. I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten anything about him.

  “There’s a lot of inspiration here. On the moors. My verses have gone wilder.” I feel him look at me, but I keep my eyes on the fire. “Do you still draw? Or has your mother twisted that out of you yet?”

  I ignore the barb in his words. “I draw all the time. I want to capture this world.”

  “It’s impossible to capture,” he says, but he’s not mocking me.

  “It’s impossible not to try.”

  The crackling flickers of the fire fill the heavy silence of the room.

  “I have questions,” he says before I can say the same thing.

  I wait.

  “My father . . .” He stops. But I know the rest of his question.

  “He’s still with Mother. Still her spy. He goes away for longer periods of time, though.” I glance at him, but his face gives nothing away, his jaw set in a firm line.

  He just nods. “There’s more going on now. He needs to make sure Collingsworth doesn’t know what your mo
ther is planning.”

  “And that takes weeks to find out?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “He has other jobs, too. He works as a private investigator for wealthy clients from the city. Only the shady guys with shady connections know how to contact him.”

  I didn’t know that, though I had always assumed it. I keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to reveal how ignorant I am, how terrified I was of asking Mother any questions about the man who lived in the guesthouse.

  He hands me a mug of tea, which I cradle in my hands. The mug is white and cracked and smells of cinnamon and what must be the scent of comfort. I take a sip, letting it warm me from the inside out.

  I feel the heavy weight of his gaze, and I make sure my face is blank before I turn it to him.

  He looks down at the sheets of paper on the table and shuffles through them, looking for something to do with his hands.

  “Why didn’t your father ever give you a name?” It’s a question I’ve never had the courage to ask. No, that’s not quite true. It was only that I used to care about not hurting him. Now—I shouldn’t care. I know that much.

  “I was never a son to him,” Arthur says, his eyes still examining the paper under his hands in order to avoid meeting my gaze. He learned years ago that his mother was an addict, which was why she abandoned four-year-old Arthur and his father. If she had named him, he never remembered it. Or he had blocked it from his memory. He never talked about her, and he hardly ever talked about his father. It was all too painful.

  I always thought that, despite her faults, Arthur’s mother loved him. How else could he have turned into the boy who always knew how to show me light in the darkness?

  “Why weren’t you a son to him?” I ask.

  Arthur snorts, still not looking at me. “Because he’s incapable of love. You know him. Okay, so he didn’t let me die. Maybe I should give him credit for that.” His hands are forming into fists. I watch them, fascinated, as the knuckles turn white with the effort.