She broke off into a sob, turning away to wipe her eyes. I bit my lip.
“Can’t you do it?” I pleaded in one last feeble attempt.
“No,” Tressa said, nothing more than a whisper now. “No, I don’t want to leave her in case it happens again.”
I fought within myself, weighing the options. I hated being the first to surrender, even when the opposition didn’t realize there was a battle, but my friends were everything to me. More than that, they were my life.
“Fine,” I uttered through my teeth. “For Evelyn, I will.”
She blew her nose in gratitude, giving me watery smile
Tressa, on the other hand, didn’t sing praises or thank me. She just mutely nodded and adjusted Evelyn’s pillows into a more comfortable position
“What’s going on?” Fred asked the moment I appeared.
“Don’t press me,” I growled, in a foul mood. “I have to go ask B— I have to go get something.”
“You’re going to get Beatrix?” Avery gasped incredulously.
As I thundered down the stairs, I heard him whisper to Lucas, “Bet you the answers to numeracy that only one of them comes out alive!”
The kitchens and staff quarters were located down a steep but small staircase behind the foyer and next to the tunnel leading into the dining hall. They took up most of the lower floor with their stone simplicity, yet I had only visited once or twice for the odd cooking lesson.
I found Beatrix, not working, but dozing in a rocking chair outside the locked kitchen door. A recipe book was lying open in her lap, and I wondered for a moment whether she had accidentally locked herself out. My face hardened as I remembered her abilities. She could unlock any door.
“Beatrix,” I said, as tonelessly as I could.
She started and looked around wildly, slamming her book shut.
“Oh, Penny, it’s only you! I thought you were… Never mind. What is it, dear?”
I took a deep breath, stopping myself from spilling into a full-blown rant of hurt and betrayal. I wanted dearly to see her crumble with the same pain she had showered over me. But at the same time, I wanted her to present me with an explanation that would solve the whole thing and bring me back the Beatrix I had known and loved for fifteen years. Instead, I managed to keep my head and stay with the matter at hand.
“Evelyn is not well,” I explained. “She has a blocked nose and can barely breathe, and then just a few minutes ago passed out.”
Beatrix’s eyes widened. After a moment’s thought, she seemed to have reached a conclusion and uttered a small laugh. “I suppose you haven’t had any experience with colds before, have you? I only wonder…”
Her voice trailed off so that I couldn’t quite catch the ending, but I was pretty sure it was along the lines of “who brought it in?”
7
“So you’re saying it’s not actually fatal or anything? She’s just got something common?” Tressa probed when I returned to the bedchamber, hardly daring to believe it.
“How am I supposed to know? Beatrix just seemed very relaxed about it, so I’m guessing that Evelyn has come down with some perfectly ordinary…thing. Unless she wants us to all die,” I added on afterthought. Tressa shot me a withering look and took to fiddling with her petticoats impatiently.
We were both perched on the edge of my bed, waiting for Beatrix to emerge from the washing room with Evelyn. It was tedious waiting, but our situation was certainly more bearable than what the boys had to endure, crowded outside our chamber door with no clue as to what was going on at all.
“Honestly, I think you’re overreacting to the whole thing.” Tressa sighed, shifting into a better position. I rolled my eyes; here we went again. I decided to enforce my point once again before getting the lecture for the millionth time.
“Before you plead her innocence to me—”
Yet I too was interrupted mid-speech. Beatrix appeared from behind a door, arm around Evelyn, who seemed pale and slightly fragile but with a less angry red nose and quieter breathing.
She had changed into a loose-fitting gown and had swapped her terrified grimace for an uncertain, sheepish half-smile.
Tressa leapt up and threw her arms around her. Evelyn stumbled back, but patted her shoulders saying, ‘It’s all right, now, I’m fine! Dear Beatrix has explained everything to me and I’m perfectly fine. I might of…erm…overreacted.”
Dear Beatrix. Someone fetch me a bucket.
I gave Evelyn a wan smile when she looked my way, but did not embrace her. Instead, I led the way out into the hallway where Avery, Fred, and Lucas were waiting as they had been for the past few hours.
They had fetched their cards and were having a slow-paced game. When they saw me, they jumped to their feet.
“So is she all right?”
“I’m pretty sure, she is.” I waved my hand vaguely. “She’ll be out in a second, and then you can ask her for yourselves.”
Sure enough, within a moment, Beatrix, Tressa, and Evelyn appeared.
“What was wrong?” Lucas asked, refusing to join me in my campaign to all but ignore Beatrix’s existence. Clearly, he shared Tressa’s view that I was being childish.
“Evelyn has merely contracted a little bug that is quite common in many places, but has never made its way here,” Beatrix explained in her soft, patient, likeable voice. “She has a cold. Nothing dangerous whatsoever.”
Avery snorted. It was so typical of her to panic everyone like this, but still, relief was evident.
“How did it get in?” Lucas inquired, echoing her earlier musings.
“I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“Oh, great. Another mystery. It was getting so very boring with all this consistency,” I said, under my breath.
Beatrix frowned, not understanding.
I shut my mouth, instantly regretting the words and wishing I could take them back.
“I – I don’t understand, Penny. What do you mean?” She surveyed the others to try to find some sense from what I was saying.
I folded my arms, face stony.
“She’s been furious with you for the past week or so,” Avery enlightened her, smirking at my murderous glare.
“Why ever is that? You never told me something was wrong?” Beatrix approached me anxiously. I debated spilling my accumulated anger right there and then but decided against it, pursing my lips instead.
“To tell you the truth, we all felt rather put out by what you did,” Tressa explained, as collected and rational as ever. My face flushed a deep red, the same shade as my hair, loathing at how immature I came across in comparison. “Remember that one lesson where you removed all the special books because of Penny’s questions? You – well, made them disappear into thin air. Like He does.”
The silence that followed was so heavy it was almost suffocating. If a bobby pin from my hair was to have dropped to the carpet, it would have been deafening.
Her eyes widened, as if she’d completely forgotten about it. As if she was waiting for something, anything, to appear and undo what she had done. She bowed her head.
“I see. You’d better come with me.”
The mug was painfully warm. I adjusted it in my hands, thinking in the back of my mind that I should probably place it down on a side table until the cocoa inside was cool enough to drink. If I did that, though, I would break the eerie stillness that had settled. We were in the breakfast room again, sitting on our stools waiting whilst Beatrix composed herself outside on the balcony. We made no eye contact, no attempt at conversation, nor jokes. I had no idea what Beatrix was planning to reveal, only that it must take lot of courage to admit, as she had been sitting with her head in her hands outside for quite some time. My heart was still cold where she was concerned, but the promise of truth rivalled all petty emotions.
The only person who moved was Evelyn, coughing once in a while to remind us that she was sick, in case we’d dared to forget.
Beatrix came in after a few more minutes.
She sat down.
“You are all very, very clever. Wise beyond your years in many ways,” she began, her voice thick with emotion. “And yet, there are so many things that you do not know which others of your age must live with. This being said, with what you have, you are extremely observant, and you’ve picked up details which I hoped to hide from you for a good many more years.”
Beatrix waited for us to comment, but we said nothing, frozen in anticipation. My attention was on her one hundred percent, a feeling of subdued triumph that she was finally owning up. Part of me wanted to point out that observational skills had nothing to do with it, since even the dullest person would’ve seen a trick such as the one she’d betrayed, but I forced my mouth shut.
“I wasn’t thinking that day. It pains me greatly to see any of you punished in such a fashion, and Penny, sweetheart, I am sincerely sorry that I couldn’t stop what happened to you that night, and how I sharply spoke to you the next day. It was insensitive of me.”
I didn’t tell her it was all right, or even smile. I didn’t want an apology. What was done, was done. I wanted information.
“You all saw me make the books disappear. I can imagine how shocking that would have been for you! Having always assumed me completely ordinary, I understand why you chose to take deep offence that I hadn’t explained myself earlier. But let me make a few things clear…” She took a deep breath and we all leaned forward. “I am by no means anywhere close to having the same power as Madon. I can only do things that involve the upkeep of the estate such as cleaning, and preparing food.”
A little spark of hope flickered and died as Beatrix spoke those words. She couldn’t open the Boundary.
Her voice was clearer, more assured now, and the nervous crisscrossing and uncrossing of her legs had stopped as she continued. “I just want you all to know that I’m sorry. I love you all so dearly, as if you were my own children, and I never wanted to hurt any of you.”
With that, Beatrix’s voice faltered and a single tear leaked out of the corner of her wrinkled eye. I had a peculiar feeling that she was apologizing for slightly more than a lapse in cover and the removal of some books, and I was anxious to find out exactly what else she’d kept from us.
“So…how can you do those things? Why can’t we?” I asked, admittedly half won over by her tears.
“That’s not something I can say, I’m afraid.”
“Beatrix?”
“Yes, Penny?” She sighed, waiting for another unanswerable question.
“Who looked after us before you?”
It was a simple enough query, but Beatrix looked as if I’d asked permission for murder. “How many times do I have to tell you? If Madon ever hears you saying such things, he’ll punish you past sanity!”
“But he isn’t here.”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing,” Avery offered, to nods from the others. “I mean, we must have had proper parents at some point.”
“I don’t know!” Beatrix said, her voice rising, her frustration evident. She took a deep breath before continuing. “I really don’t know. I was asked to care for you, and so I did, as though you were my own children. You’d be surprised by how little I actually know compared to the Master, and so you’d all be better off not risking your skins by asking.”
“Did you ever have children of your own?” Tressa asked quietly, sensing something behind her tortured tone that I hadn’t picked up on.
Beatrix lowered her head, her hands starting to shake again.
“Yes,” she whispered, barely intelligible. “Once, a long time ago, I had a son. I had him before I was married, when I was only eighteen, and so customs meant I had to give him up to be raised by another family.”
“How tragic!” Evelyn gushed, and I could see a romantic story forming its way into her mind with a young Beatrix, handsome stranger, and illegitimate son struggling to stay together in the mysterious realm beyond the Boundary.
“It was. By the time I managed to track him down again to introduce myself, it was too late. He was all grown up. Sometimes I wonder if I had made more of an attempt to fix the situation, how different my life – all of our lives – would be today.”
There was an odd little thought working its way into my churning brain. It couldn’t possibly be correct, and yet it gave me the chills every time I mulled it over as if I had stumbled onto a very important morsel of information. A quick glance at my friends and their identical masks of pity confirmed that I was the only one with the notion, but it didn’t eliminate my idea.
Could it possibly be?
Beatrix got up and hugged each one of us in turn, murmuring apologies in our ears. When she reached me last of all, she breathed, “I hope we can once again be friends, Penny. I never meant to upset you.”
Her soft cheek was wet with uncontained sadness as it brushed my own, but she was gone too soon for me to voice my question. I decided I would follow her. I had to know. So, as everyone solemnly discussed the turn of events and sipped at their hot chocolate, I excused myself and slipped after Beatrix.
Down the grand staircase, and down the narrow passage leading to the kitchens. I followed her like a shadow as she unlocked the door to her retirement quarters without touching anything. Only when she flopped, exhausted, onto her armchair did I make my presence known.
“Beatrix?”
“Penny?”
“Your son,” I said, deciding to be direct. “What was his name?”
Her reaction was immediate. Recoiling as if I’d slapped her, jaw hanging in surprise, and lips moving wordlessly to try and find a decent response to my question. Eventually she just went still and stared at me. She knew I already had the answer, but to say it might have unimaginable consequences for us both. Certain she’d never admit it, but confident I had enough evidence, I turned to leave, just as she spoke.
“You don’t – I can’t – he’ll never…” A rattling sigh came somewhere between defeated and determined, then, “Madon. His name was Madon.”
8
Something in the air shifted then, just like a rip. I’d suspected it, of course, but hearing it admitted out loud was absolutely shocking. Never in a thousand years would such a notion have entered my mind before today, and I was still having a hard time processing what it meant. Beatrix just sat there trembling, emitting a feeling of dread so intense that it almost scared me into not asking more questions. If I’d been smarter, maybe I should have left it there. As it was, finally managing to crack a massive secret like this one only inspired me to push on.
“I can’t believe I just— He said that if I ever…I promised on my life that I’d—” She struggled to string her sentences together, trailing off into a senseless gabble as the finality of what she’d done came crashing down. “Penny…”
“But…if He…” I just shook my head, equally stunned out of speech.
“He’s going to murder us both for this, mark my words.” Beatrix spoke faintly, trying and failing to stand. “Whatever you do, don’t tell the others. We can’t have them in danger too.”
I collapsed into the chair opposite her. “You’re His mother…” I stuttered, not really listening. The whole room seemed to be spinning around me, pieces of furniture a blur of subdued color with no form or purpose. Maybe I was dreaming, hallucinating, sick…“B-But how come? He’s not human…you’re His servant…”
“Oh, Madon is human all right,” Beatrix corrected grimly, stronger now. Only her shaking hands betrayed the fear. “Only one of a very different kind.”
“Why do you put up with Him?” I interrogated. “I thought mothers were in charge of their children, not the other way around?”
“When I saw him again”—Beatrix clearly docked the capital H, saying ‘him’ in a less reverential way—“he was an adult, with his priorities already decided and motives for the future set in stone. My early life hadn’t been at all easy, and I was in desperate need of a purpose, so to speak. He was my son; I loved him, felt guilty about abandoning
him and could never go against him. He took advantage of that I suppose, and I agreed to help him.”
“What plans?” I probed with a new eagerness softening the alarm of the revelation.
“I can’t say,” she said with absolute certainty. “I’ve told you too much already, and I swore on my life that I would never divulge what happened outside of this estate. It is better you do not know anyway.”
I picked myself up off the chair, not entirely trusting my knees for support. My head felt heavy and overloaded with information to the point I visualized secrets pouring from my ears, and I almost wished that they would. How I would ever be able to face my friends again with an honest face?
“Why don’t you try to stop Him? You have power, and I could help you!” I implored desperately. “Together, with the others, we could overrule Him and pull down the Boundary!”
Beatrix shook her head in a defeated manner, as if she had given up long ago. I had to admit, she didn’t appear a fighter.
“On this land, Madon is invincible. There is nothing that can be done, and even if there was I would not wish for it. You are young and naive, Penny, and you assume that real life is a fairy tale when it is far from that. Maybe I didn’t stop him when I had the chance because I believed that you would all be safer here, sheltered from the perils of the true world.”
“He tortures us!” I shouted, not standing for her defense of Him.
“I know.”
There was a deep, infinite sorrow in her voice that brought tears to my own eyes, as I croaked, “But there has to be a way! Like you said, He is human.”
The grandfather clock on her mantelpiece chimed rhythmically, signaling with its inanimate punctuality the impending start of lessons before luncheon. Today, I guessed, our strict schedule might be a little bit off.
I was closer than I had ever been to cracking the shell of unspeakable truths surrounding our estate, and for the first time getting out seemed like it was a feat that could actually happen. I was agonizingly close, to the point I could nearly taste my first gasp of freedom.
Boundary Page 5
