Fiona

by Meredith Moore

  I can feel my eyes widen and the blood drain from my face. Does she know she’s talking about my grandparents? Is she taunting me?

  I study her for another moment before saying an awkward goodbye and excusing myself. Once I’m beyond the doorway, I hurry down the hall until I’m sure my footsteps are out of earshot, then lean against a wall and try to breathe. I can feel my pulse racing in my throat.

  I can’t get rid of the strange, sickening feeling in my gut. I don’t know why, but I think that Blair is planning something . . . bad. Something that would affect not only me, but Poppy.

  She wants Charlie all to herself, that much is obvious. But how far will she go to make that happen?

  I try to keep a discreet eye on Blair for the rest of the day, but I don’t want to do anything that would antagonize her further. All I gather is that she spends most of the morning on her laptop and then eats lunch in front of it in the dining room, alone.

  After lunch, she meets Albert in the entry hall. “Ready?” he asks.

  She hitches her purse up onto her shoulder, nods, and then they walk out the door together.

  I should be upset that so far my efforts to figure out her game have been a bust. But the castle feels brighter as she drives away. All I want to do is take a nap, but I can’t waste this rare opportunity to enjoy the rest of the day with a clear mind. I decide to brave the fierce November chill and swirling, pre-storm clouds and take a walk out to the woods.

  I put on the rain boots that Poppy picked out for me—black with white polka dots, “Adorable and practical!” Poppy had exclaimed—and clomp through the bracken, muddy pine needles, and wet, dead leaves.

  I pass by the entrance to the hedge maze and then skirt past the stables as quickly as I can. I’m still not ready to face Gareth, though I know I need to at some point. I need to apologize.

  Later. For now, I just want to enjoy the afternoon. I wander out beyond the stables and the paddocks into the forest that the Moffats have purposefully left wild. The trees here are tall, some like overgrown Christmas trees and some with thick, soft-brown trunks that stretch up for a hundred feet before sprouting any branches. The air is fresh, with scents of soil and spicy pine swirling around me.

  There’s a hush in the air, a waiting quality. Mom used to tell me about the way nature likes to stop and hunker down when a storm is coming. She said she always knew she should get inside when the birds stopped singing.

  Right now, I don’t hear a peep from them. I shouldn’t wander out too far.

  The rain starts so gently that I hardly even notice it at first. But it builds steadily, and the wind picks up, stirring into a fury as I turn back for the castle. A few minutes pass, bringing lightning flashes in the sky, the boom of thunder responding.

  And for the first time in weeks, I hear my mother’s voice, shouting in my head: Run, Fiona! Run! It’s coming!

  I gasp, my feet stumbling into a run. What does she mean? Of course I know a storm is already here—so what else is coming? What’s out here with me?

  My boots feel heavy, and I stumble a few times, scratching my palms on the tree trunks I grab to brace myself. I’m soaked through, my clothes weighed down with water. The rain is now pouring sheets, and I can hardly see anything.

  Am I going the right way? Or am I lost forever in this forest? All I can hear is the howl of the wind and the rain, angry as it pelts into me.

  Something that feels almost like a human hand grazes the back of my head, and I nearly drop to my knees, suddenly dizzy. Was that a falling branch? I shake off my dizziness and sprint forward as fast as I can.

  Limbs grasp at my coat, at my arms and legs, pulling at me, as if trying to drag me backward. They’re just tree branches, I know this, but still I fight and shout and keep running. Everything out here is harsh, even harsher than my reality. Time seems to slow down, and as hard as I push forward, I feel like I’m not moving, as if this forest is pulling me back in.

  I’m sobbing, terrified, scrambling wildly, until I’m finally out of the woods, back at the stables.

  I’m so relieved that I’m crying, my tears mixing with the rain sliding down my cheeks. I don’t stop running until I charge through the back door of the castle.

  It’s only when I’m inside that my pulse finally begins to slow. What just happened?

  It doesn’t matter, I tell myself, shrugging off my coat and stepping out of my boots, which have completely filled up with water. I’m back home, and perfectly fine.

  I bend over, struggling to catch my breath, and then wring out my soaking red curls, careful to touch the back of my head gingerly. It’s pretty sore—that branch struck me with surprising force—and I’ll probably have a knot there by tomorrow. But at least it was just a tree, I’m sure of it. I shouldn’t have let myself get caught in that crazy storm.

  I’m almost laughing at myself, buzzing with relief, when I turn a corner and run smack into Charlie.

  I yelp as he reaches out for my shoulders, bracing me. The heat of his hands travels through my sweater and into my skin before he pulls them away. “What happened?” he asks, looking me up and down.

  I look down at myself as well, at my sweater and jeans that are now plastered to my skin. The sweater is black, so thankfully it’s not see-through, but the way it clings to me doesn’t leave much to the imagination. The texture of the lace of one of the new bras I bought is pretty clearly visible.

  I cross my arms over my chest as he forces his eyes up to meet mine. “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice sounding almost . . . strangled, as if he’s having a hard time focusing.

  “I’m fine,” I say, even as my teeth chatter and rainwater drips from me onto the carpet. “I just got caught in the storm, that’s all. A hot shower and I’ll be fine.”

  His eyes widen slightly, their green growing darker, and I feel the heat of a blush light up my cheeks. He backs away, nodding, as if he can’t get away from me fast enough. “Okay,” he says quietly, before turning and striding down the hall in the opposite direction.

  I bite my lip, watching him go.

  • • •

  After a long, hot shower, I go out to meet Albert at the car. He’s just come back from his outing with Blair to take me to Poppy’s school. “Where’s Blair?” I ask him.

  He raises his eyebrows, as if surprised by the question. “I saw you two driving off a few hours ago,” I explain as quickly and casually as possible as I slide into the backseat.

  “She had a fair amount of errands to run in the village.”

  “Errands? In Almsley?” I ask. There’s only one store in the village, and I can’t imagine needing to spend longer than fifteen minutes inside it.

  “No,” he answers slowly. “Perthton.”

  I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Perthton?” I repeat.

  With my grandparents? I wonder. Is she there with them now, having tea while they coo over her and tell her she’s the granddaughter they always wanted?

  I close my eyes, trying to push down the sudden urge to throw something. Instead I pick at my fingernails until one of them bleeds as we start speeding away from the estate.

  Albert must see me fidgeting with anger and stress, because he keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror, his dark brown eyes examining me with curiosity.

  “Anything you want to tell me, lass?” he asks.

  “No,” I say quickly. When I catch his eyes in the mirror, though, I can tell he knows I’m lying.

  I feel a wave of relief once we reach Poppy’s school. Soon her happy chatter fills the car on the ride home, and I can avoid Albert’s questioning gaze.

  Back at the castle, Poppy changes into her riding clothes, and I walk with her to the stables.

  The storm has passed, leaving only puddles and dripping trees in its wake, but I can’t help but tremble as I look out at the woods. I can still hear my
mother’s urgent voice in my head.

  Gareth is out front saddling Copperfield as we approach, and I can tell the exact moment he sees me. His hands go still for a second, but only for a second, before he finishes tightening the saddle belt and comes around to help Poppy mount.

  “Here for another riding lesson?” he asks me. His tone is easy and teasing, but he doesn’t look at me. Instead, he focuses on adjusting Poppy’s stirrups and hands her the reins.

  “No,” I say quietly.

  “It’s muddy out there today,” he tells Poppy. “Be careful where he steps. And make the jumps smooth.”

  Poppy nods solemnly and touches her heels to Copperfield’s flank, guiding him over to the paddock where they’ve set up the jumps for her to train.

  Gareth and I watch in uncomfortable silence as Poppy starts Copperfield at a trot, then brings him up to a canter. She expertly leads him over one jump, clearing two low bars. The next jump is higher and more difficult, two sets of three bars. My heart’s in my throat as I watch her push Copperfield into a canter again, and then they soar over the jump in a graceful arc, Poppy’s body melding into her horse’s until they are one intention, one pure movement. They clear it easily, and I can breathe again.

  Gareth’s still not looking at me, but I can distinctly feel his awareness of me.

  “She’s really amazing, isn’t she?” I say finally, trying to overcome the gap between us.

  “Yes,” he says simply. Still not looking at me.

  I sigh. I have to tell him about the photo and that Alice knows what happened. “Look, Gareth—”

  “I have to go check on the other horses,” he says, cutting me off. “See you around, Fee.”

  He walks away, and I watch him until he disappears into the stables.

  Why did I have to ruin everything? Now Alice hates me and Gareth can’t even look at me, leaving me with exactly zero real friends here.

  I trudge back to the castle, practically kicking myself as I go. This place is growing darker and colder to me by the day. And I can only imagine it’s the opposite for Blair.

  CHAPTER 17

  I find him in the library the next afternoon. Charlie stands at the window, his back to me, looking out at the manicured garden. I know he hears me come in, but he doesn’t turn around. Something about his posture, the way his shoulders are set, makes me close the door behind me, sealing us off from the rest of the house. “Are you okay?” I ask softly.

  “I have to meet with the family lawyer today,” he says after a small silence. “Make sure everything from the estate has been handled correctly.”

  I stay pressed against the door of the room, but every part of me wants to go to him, wrap my arms around him, bury my head in his chest, comfort him as he confronts the pain and grief of his parents’ death all over again.

  He finally turns to face me. “All I want to do is hide from it for a little while,” he says, his voice raw and honest. I don’t ask him what “it” means, though I wonder if it might include Blair.

  I move toward the piano and sit down at the bench without another glance at him. I close my eyes, breathe, and begin playing the only song that can fit this situation.

  Liszt’s transcription of “Ave Maria.” My mother was never much of a vocalist, but she used to sing this to me as a lullaby. For me, it’s a song of comfort tinged with sadness, and it’s overwhelmingly beautiful. It’s a complicated piece that took me hours of practice in my high school’s music room. But learning it was my way of remembering Mom, and I would play it until my wrists ached.

  I’m nearing the end, building toward the climax, when the door bangs open. Blair stands in the threshold like a thunderstorm, her eyes flashing with lightning. I stop playing, and the notes hang in the air, unfinished and tangled. She looks from me, my hands still resting on the keys, to Charlie, who hasn’t moved from the window. “What are you doing here?” she asks him, blinking. In that blink, the lightning fades from her eyes, as if it had never been there in the first place, leaving only concern and care. “The lawyer’s been waiting for you for twenty minutes,” she says.

  I feel the heat on my cheeks, as if she’s caught us doing something wrong, interrupted something intimate.

  Maybe she has.

  But then Charlie saunters around the piano, stops at the doorway to kiss Blair’s forehead, and walks past her and into the hallway without a word, leaving Blair alone with me.

  She looks to me, and though her expression is calm and mild enough, I swear I see the lightning return to her eyes. I try to keep my face blank and unconcerned, but she still stares at me, as if hopeful that her gaze will be able to pierce through my skin and leave me bleeding. Finally, she turns and follows Charlie, and I’m left alone.

  My hands tremble on the keys, and I clasp them together to still them. Stupid, stupid girl. To think something was happening between Charlie and me, when he’s about to have a baby with Blair.

  But maybe . . . maybe I’m not so stupid. He just opened up to me because he couldn’t talk to her. He confided in me that he wanted to go somewhere and hide. That has to mean something. Even if it’s not everything I want it to mean.

  And I can still feel the thrill, the memory of his thumb resting on my lips that day in his office.

  Maybe Blair has a reason to be threatened after all.

  • • •

  That night, I make my tea and head up to my room. But as soon as I open the door, I’m hit with it: Highland Heather, a scent I haven’t smelled in years. My mom’s perfume. It was her one luxury, which she special ordered because it reminded her of her childhood. Smelling it here, now . . . it’s like she’s inside this very room, waiting for me. I stand, rooted in the doorway, my pulse racing as my eyes dart around the empty space.

  A door creaks open down the hall, startling me so much that I jump back against the hallway wall, dropping my mug with a crash. Hot tea splashes my hand and splatters down my leg, and I gasp at the sting of the burn. Alice steps out of her room, her eyebrows raised.

  “I—I just . . .” I begin, but then realize there’s nothing to say that would make any of this make any sense. I smell my mother’s perfume?

  But it doesn’t matter. Alice isn’t concerned about me; she brushes past me like I don’t even exist.

  I slump against the wall, sliding down until I’m sitting, and stare into my room. I know I need to go to bed, but my legs don’t feel strong enough to hold me up anymore.

  The smell is fading, or maybe I’m just getting used to it. Or maybe it’s not even here at all.

  I force myself up from the floor, pick up the broken pieces of my mug, and walk back to my room, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth as I settle into bed. Curling up beneath the covers, I try not to think about the fact that this is the technique Mom used to use when she thought she might be spiraling down into one of her episodes.

  But how many times can I brush aside these kinds of thoughts? How long can I keep telling myself it’s nothing, that I’m still normal?

  I need to sleep. So I do the only thing I can think of. I imagine my mother singing “Ave Maria” to me, and the soft, imaginary notes finally lull me into oblivion.

  CHAPTER 18

  A couple of days later, I leave Poppy with her homework to grab some carrots and hummus, her favorite afternoon snack. When I get back to her room, I find Blair there, sitting on the floor beside Poppy.

  I nearly drop the bowl of carrots, and as I recover I have to stop myself from warning Poppy to get away from her, the girl who everyone else sees as harmless and sweet.

  “Poppy was just telling me about this history test she’s got coming up,” Blair says, smiling. I feel the air around me turning cold and tense.

  We’ve been studying the Battle of Culloden Moor of 1746, when the Scottish Highlanders and their allies rebelled against the British crown in favor of
Bonnie Prince Charlie, the grandson of a former Stuart king who’d been kicked off the throne decades before. I’ve been trying to make it more engaging by including some facts I learned about her family from the old book in the library, that her branch of the Moffats was against the Jacobite side, many of them dying for King George II. There are so many names and maneuvers to memorize, though, that we’re both going a bit cross-eyed.

  “I could help, if you like,” Blair says, tossing a long swath of her dark hair over her shoulder. “I did pretty well with the Jacobite revolutions in school.”

  “That’s okay,” I say quickly. “We’ve got it under control. Right, Poppy?”

  “I guess so,” she grumbles.

  Blair rises slowly to her feet, smiling down at Poppy. “Well, I’ll leave you two to it, then,” she says. But before she leaves, she stops in front of me.

  “Are you sleeping well?” Blair asks, her mysterious blue eyes examining me. “You have bags under your eyes, poor thing.”

  I resist the urge to run to the mirror, and stare straight ahead instead. “Just some noises that wake me up every now and then.”

  “Mmm,” she murmurs. “The creaks of an old house.” She shrugs. “I meant to tell you the other day, you play the piano beautifully.”

  “Thank you,” I say quietly.

  “I can see why Charles seemed so enchanted by it.” She says it pleasantly enough, but I can hear barbs in her words.

  I turn back to Poppy, ignoring the comment completely. “We should get back to the battle.”

  Poppy sighs and opens her textbook. Blair finally leaves the room as Poppy begins to read out loud, and I shiver in the cold air she leaves behind.

  • • •

  The next day, Poppy and I are returning from her riding lesson when we run into a construction crew coming out of Charlie’s room.

  “They must be almost finished with the nursery!” Poppy exclaims, running to the open door.

  I follow after her, my feet moving as if by their own accord. I can’t help my curiosity; I’ve never seen inside Charlie’s room. Blair and Charlie’s room.