“Why do you even want her back, Elain?” Viola asked, crossing her arms, refusing to budge.
I watched the scene unfold with an odd mixture of dread and premonition. Somehow, this felt inevitable.
Elain pushed past Viola, leaving her fumbling for balance, and stormed over to my spot by the fire. “Enough of this moping,” she sneered, her brown eyes crinkling with disgust. “We have a house to run. I can’t do it alone.”
Maybe it was the aching emptiness inside my gut, or perhaps I’d just had enough, because I snapped, “I’m not going anywhere with you. Chop your own damn wood.”
I didn’t have time to react. She bent down and slapped me across the face. My cheek stung, and Viola roared loud enough for John to come racing in from the side door. Flour stained his hands—he’d been baking. “Vi … what’s going on?” he stammered, his gaze flitting between the three of us.
Slamming the front door behind her, Viola marched over to Elain, hair askew, wide-eyed, and pointing a damning finger. “This bitch hit our girl!”
Elain let out a sharp bark, “She’s not yours.”
John turned to Elain, the end of his squashed nose reddening. “She’s every bit ours, just as we’re hers. And if you ever hit her again, I’ll get you exiled from this village,” he said, his chest swelling with emotion.
I thought that might be the end of it. John had more standing and power and she knew it, but it seemed losing my father had caused her to forget herself. Elain was unmasked. “You wouldn’t dare,” she drawled. Facing me, she continued. “We’re meant to live together. That was Hal’s wish.” Her eyes shuttered as if the idea pained her. “If you don’t come back with me, I’ll go before the elders. Nowhere in his will did it say you could leave me alone with the upkeep of the cabin. Carry on this way, and I’ll see you disinherited.”
“You hideous old toad!” Viola shouted, her eyes bulging.
Elain had played her hand, and by the feline smugness lighting up her face, she knew she’d won. Elain peered down her nose at me. “Tell me, Serena, who do you think the council of elders will side with? A girl too lazy to help out around the house or a grieving widow?”
“Get out,” Viola snarled at her back.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll go,” I said, resigned. ‘I’ll only end up causing trouble for you both.’
John looked crestfallen and Viola’s face went slack. “You haven’t. You won’t.”
“Don’t worry on our account, girl—we’re tougher than we look,” John said, placing a reassuring arm on his wife’s shoulder.
Elain snorted.
“Get out of my house.” John took a step toward her, and for the first time it gave Elain pause. “Fine. I’ll wait outside.” She glared down at me. “Five minutes, or I go to the elders and lodge a complaint.”
She left in a rush, perhaps more concerned by John’s thunderous expression than she let on.
As soon as she’d closed the front door, Viola confronted me. “You can’t go with that woman.”
I sighed and rose from the couch, letting the blankets that had covered me fall. “It’s no good. Those aren’t idle threats, and you two can’t care for me forever.”
“Nonsense! You can stay here for as long as you like.” Viola puffed up, tears in her eyes.
“And depend on you for everything? I’m not a child, and I don’t want your lives ruined by this—”
“That wouldn’t happen—”
“Maybe, maybe not. I can’t take that risk.”
Before my courage could fail, I hugged Viola and then it was John’s turn. I whispered into his ear, “If you don’t hear from me in a week, come check on me.”
I pulled back, and although grim-faced, he nodded. Relief enveloped me—he’d understood that I couldn’t ask Viola. If she knew how worried I was, she’d never let me leave. I said goodbye, squared my shoulders, and walked out.
I just hoped John wouldn’t need to come to the cabin, and that my fears about what Elain might do now were unfounded.
“Get up!” Elain shouted while pounding on my bedroom door.
There was no need. I’d been awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, letting the apathy wash me away into a stupor.
I’d arrived back home almost a week ago, and the second I’d stepped through the door, Elain had thrust a long list of chores under my nose. There was everything from weeding the vegetable patch to re-painting the house. Since I no longer had to make peace for Father’s sake, I’d resolved to fight back.
When I’d asked what household duties she’d be performing, she’d shrugged and told me as the elder, she wasn’t expected to work as hard. I quickly earned myself another slap, arguing that she was only twelve years older than me. She must’ve seen my hands curling, itching to return the favor, because she’d grinned like a cat that got the mouse and threatened to go to the elders with tales of lazy stepchildren. Warning me not to play games I didn’t understand, she’d set me to scrubbing floors. With sweat pouring down my face, I tried to think of a way out of my predicament. I considered just leaving, but I couldn’t rely on the elders to side with me. The village council amounted to five men and only one woman. And as someone with gangly limbs, sharp awkward lines, and the grace of a boar, I couldn’t hope to replicate the way Elain’s soft golden hair, ample cleavage, and doe eyes influenced men’s hearts.
So now, every day began by wondering what fresh hell she’d conjured up for the day.
Today it was chopping wood until she’d decided we had enough. By noon, my hands had blistered and bled in spots. Losing patience, unable to bear the pain, I walked back into the house, rummaged around for some cheese, and poured myself a glass of water.
I leaned against the kitchen counter and savored the peace and quiet—Elain had gone into the village for market day.
Scanning the ground floor of the cabin, grief pressed in on me. Beneath me were dark floorboards that creaked constantly, and opposite was the hearth. A staircase and a rickety dining table took pride of place in the middle of the room. And as you entered from the front, an L-shaped kitchen lay to the right. Nothing fancy—just a few cupboards, a stone sink, and a woodstove tucked up against the wall. The bones of the room were still there. It even smelled of the same pine residue, and yet … everything was different.
Once upon a time, my mother’s rocking chair had sat beside the couch, while the potted herbs she’d tended dotted every surface. Now, thirteen years later, my father’s winter coat, his boots of reindeer hide, and the warm, acrid smell of his piped tobacco had also gone.
Breathing became difficult and my knees almost gave way. To distract myself, I went looking for a salve to soothe my hands. I found a tin in a kitchen cupboard and rubbed the salve’s waxy substance into my sore palms before tossing it back in the drawer.
I stole back upstairs and sat, reaching under the bed sheets for my father’s jumper, the only piece of him I’d been able to salvage. Elain wasn’t just at the market to buy food and find “a few luxuries,” as she called it. She was selling his possessions and hadn’t bothered to tell me. Gus had arrived with the wagon this morning. I saw them piling his belongings into the back, and I’d run downstairs to snag the first thing I could find.
Now, I put it to my face and breathed in smoke and pine—his scent. The smell of the forge and the forest he loved to roam in. Despite my attempts to forestall it, a small whimper escaped me. It quickly turned into a sob.
My stepmother’s voice cracked like a whip. “Where are you? Why aren’t you outside chopping wood?”
I flinched. Rushing to stash the jumper under the mattress, I looked out the window to check on Gus. He was already driving the horse back to the village. A small comfort.
Wiping my eyes and sucking in a steadying breath, I walked to the door and down the stairs as slowly as I dared. She was waiting for me on the bottom step. “What were you doing up there?” Elain asked, her nostrils flaring as if to sniff out a lie.