Fiona Read online

  He nods. “Hard.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I deserved it. For that and for many other things.”

  I swallow, gathering my courage. “I’m also sorry that I kissed you. And then ran away. I didn’t explain—”

  “If this is one of those ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speeches,” he interjects, “I really don’t need to hear it. I’d rather just pretend it never happened.”

  “Okay,” I say, relieved. “That’s fine with me.”

  But now he looks disappointed, and I want to kick myself. I’m only hurting him worse by being here. I shift to move past him, giving up on my quest for allies.

  “Hey,” he says, and I stop. “What else did you come here to talk about?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Just say it, Fee.”

  I take a deep breath. “This might sound random, but . . . I’m curious: What do you think of Blair?” I ask.

  “What about her?” he asks, confused. Clearly he wasn’t expecting this topic of conversation.

  “Nothing,” I say quickly, moving past him toward the exit. “I’m just—it’s stupid, sorry.”

  “I think she does a very good job of pretending,” he says, stopping me when I’m almost out the door.

  I turn around, trying to hide the joy that I know has crept into my eyes. “You think she’s fake?” It’s only then that I realize I didn’t really expect him to agree with me, that I was practically convinced that I really was the only one who saw her differently.

  “I think everything about that girl is fake,” he says, his eyes serious as he watches me. “And I think you should stay away from her if you want to keep your job.”

  “But I haven’t done anything to her!” I cry, half out of anger and half out of joy, now that I’ve finally found someone who gets it. “She just seems to hate me for no reason.” It’s not quite the truth, but I can hardly bring up my piano sessions with Charlie.

  Gareth steps closer to me. “Just be careful, Fee,” he says.

  I’m so relieved that I find myself dangerously close to flinging my arms around him and sobbing. I’m not crazy, I’m not alone. Someone else sees underneath her meticulous mask, too.

  “I’ll be fine,” I promise.

  • • •

  Gareth is right. I need to stay away from Blair. She’s got something planned, and now that she’s shown me just how nasty she can be, now that she finally let that sweet-girl act slip, she’s even more of a threat.

  But as big as the castle is, it’s not big enough to hide me. She finds me in the library again that night.

  As soon as she pokes her head in the door, my heart stops. And then starts racing.

  She enters the room with a smile. One of those carefully practiced smiles. Why is she smiling at me? “Hey, Fee. Have you seen Poppy?” she asks. Her voice is high, bright, unconcerned.

  I stare at her. “Why are you talking to me?” I ask finally.

  She blinks, her mouth slightly open in confusion. “What do you mean?” she asks.

  I stand up from the window seat, trying to ignore how much my knees are shaking. “After what happened yesterday, you think you can just waltz in here and talk to me?”

  “What? What happened yesterday?” she asks, her brow furrowing in a very good facsimile of a mystified expression.

  “The fight,” I say, not fooled by her innocent act and not backing down.

  “What fight?” she asks. When I raise an eyebrow at her, she just shakes her head. “Fee, I’m sorry—I’m really sorry if I did something to offend you, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I stare at her, trying to see past this perfectly executed semblance of ignorance. “You really don’t remember?”

  She shakes her head slowly. “We didn’t have a fight, Fee. It’s been days since I’ve even seen you.” She pauses, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe you dreamed it?” She sounds almost concerned.

  I picture the fight again in my mind: the moment her polite veneer dropped, her disdain as she asked me if I thought Charlie even noticed me.

  Could I have dreamed it? It happened in the middle of the afternoon; I wasn’t sleeping. Unless I drifted off and didn’t realize it? I’ve been so tired lately.

  Or was it worse than a dream? Was the fight a delusion?

  My blood turns to ice at the thought, freezing me from the inside out. No. Of course not. I remember it perfectly. She’s just trying to confuse me so she can get away with everything.

  “Fine,” I say finally, lacking the energy or the focus to argue with her anymore. “Sorry. I’ll tell Poppy you were looking for her.”

  “Thanks,” she says, peering at me once more before turning for the door. As she turns, I think I catch a glimpse of a small smile gracing her lips.

  I stare at the door for a long moment after she leaves, trying to puzzle everything out. Why would she deny that the fight ever happened? To avoid more confrontation? Because she had gone too far and shown too much of her hand and wanted to pull back?

  One persistent memory nags at me: the odd comment she made at the end of our fight, about the truth being in the lily pads. That’s the sort of nonsense I could only expect from a dream, isn’t it? I’ve been catnapping on the window seat for days now. What if it really was a dream?

  No, I decide, brushing that thought away. I remember the thunder in her blue eyes, the dizziness I felt when I finally told her what I thought about her. I couldn’t have dreamed that. The lily pad comment was just another clever diversion to try to throw me off.

  But this all seems so convoluted, even for someone as fake as Blair. Why not just persuade Charlie to fire me? He would choose her over me if she forced a decision like that on him. Why does she need to go to all this trouble?

  Whatever the reason, I get the feeling she’s planning something bigger. Like she’s playing a long game, and I have to be ready for whatever’s coming.

  CHAPTER 21

  Charlie comes back just in time for Christmas. The castle grounds are covered in a generous layer of snow, and fires are lit around the castle, making the air swirl with the scent of burning wood and Christmas trees.

  Christmas was my mom’s favorite holiday. Every winter she would fill our apartment with cinnamon, nutmeg, carols, and Christmas stories. We would stay up eating shortbread and singing until midnight on Christmas Eve, when we would exchange presents: homemade cards and poems from me, shoes or clothes or something else that I needed from her. She had this way of making everything about that time of year, about our little family and our ordinary home, so special and magical.

  At Fintair Castle, most of the servants go home for the holiday. Only Mabel, Albert, and Gareth have stayed, and Albert tells me he has no family to go home to. “This place is my only home,” he tells me after I ask him about his plans. “Has been for fifty years now. I don’t plan to leave it anytime soon.”

  He goes to fetch Charlie from the train station the night before Christmas Eve, and I try to read a book in my room. But I can’t keep my eye off the clock, and when I see that they’ll be back soon, I creep downstairs to the kitchen, put the kettle on the stove for my nightly cup of tea, and pretend to be very interested in a cabinet of small knickknacks and photographs near the front door as I wait for the kettle to whistle.

  I hear Charlie arrive just as I’m peeking my head into the entry hall, and I watch from the shadows as he shrugs his coat off his broad shoulders and looks around the room at all the decorations that have been carefully and sumptuously hung up in his absence. Suddenly he turns toward where I’m standing, and I sink back into the shadows before he can see me.

  I’m not ready to face him yet.

  Both of us are surprised when Blair comes running from the opposite hall, straight into his arms. “You’re back!” she squeals as he hesitates a momen
t before wrapping his arms firmly around her, pressing her to him.

  Of course I’ve seen them together before, but never in a private, unguarded moment like this. And I can’t look away.

  “Poppy’s going to be so excited to see you,” Blair says, still holding him close. “She’s been going on and on about Christmas and how much fun it will be to spend it together.”

  I haven’t heard Poppy say anything like that, to me or to Blair.

  Charlie smiles, steps back out of her embrace, and places a hand gently on her stomach. “And how are you doing?” he asks. I can hear how soft and full of love his voice is. But is it love for Blair or for the baby she’s carrying?

  Blair places her hand over his as they both look down at her stomach. It’s still flat. How far along is she now? She’s been here two months, so probably at least three. Wouldn’t she have started showing by now, even if only a little bit? The sweater she wears is tight and unforgiving, and there’s no hint of a bump.

  The hazy form of the idea that she’s just faking all this has been floating around in my head for days. But now that I’ve actually let myself think it, clearly and with her flat belly right in front of me, it sounds ridiculous. It would be too elaborate, let alone virtually impossible. To pretend to go to regular doctor’s appointments, to spend all that time picking out patterns and toys for a nursery. No, there’s no way even someone as petty as Blair would do something so drastic. She’s skinny; she’s probably just not showing yet.

  “I’m fine,” Blair says. “I just can’t wait, you know? To feel it. Kicking or moving or . . . I just can’t wait to meet our baby.”

  He leans down and kisses her, and I have to turn and walk away, back to the boiling teakettle. I’ve seen enough. I take my tea and go upstairs.

  I lie awake all night. I’m restless, and I can’t tune out the whispers. Usually it seems as though the whispers come from the other side of the walls, but tonight it feels like someone’s in the room with me, mumbling nonsense into my ear. If I could only focus on it, if I could only understand . . .

  I can’t keep living like this. I’ll have to find some kind of sleeping pill, I decide. But I don’t know if there’s a sleeping pill strong enough to knock the image of Charlie kissing Blair out of my mind.

  • • •

  Morning comes, Christmas Eve, and Poppy hardly says a word all day. Despite the cozy cheer of the warm, decorated house, we’re all in a somber mood. It’s their first Christmas without Lily and Lord Harold, and I can plainly see the ache and fresh grief that it causes Charlie and Poppy.

  Poppy has a few papers to write over the holidays, so I spend some time with her on those to get her mind off her parents. But after a couple of hours of sitting next to her while she stares blankly at her computer, I suggest a movie marathon instead. We pass the rest of the day watching mindless romantic comedies and soapy period-piece dramas until she falls asleep.

  I take our empty popcorn bowls down the main staircase, yawning as I head toward the kitchen. When I pass by the sitting room, I see Charlie and Blair sitting on that cushy crimson couch in front of the gigantic Christmas tree. The overhead lights are off, and the little white lights on the tree glint through the glass ornaments, creating a soft glow. Orchestral Christmas music plays from the old record player in the corner near me.

  I freeze and tuck myself against the wall, peeking my head out to watch them. They are whispering intently, though I can’t make out what they’re saying above the music. Are they fighting? A butterfly of ridiculous hope flutters within me, then dies when I see her press her hand on top of his.

  And then he swings himself off the couch and falls to one knee, still holding her hand.

  I feel my mouth drop open, and I want so much to close my eyes, to pretend this isn’t happening, but I can’t help but watch as she hugs him tightly to her, her face a picture of triumph.

  I slip as silently as I can down the hall and fling myself into the library, closing the door with the quietest click I can manage. He’s going to marry her. Of course he’s marrying her. I knew he’d propose eventually, I did, but actually seeing it happen . . .

  She’ll have his baby, and they’ll be one happy little family, and then she’ll kick me out. I’ll move back to Texas and wait tables for the rest of my life, and I will never, ever see him again.

  I cover my mouth to muffle the wild sob that leaps out of it.

  I’m pacing the room frantically, hurrying from one side to the other. Don’t you realize what you’re doing? It’s my mother’s voice, soft but insistent in my head. I stop so suddenly that I nearly fall over. This is exactly what my mother used to do. She would rave and pace through the night, captured by some delusion.

  I press my hands to either side of my forehead, squeezing hard, as if I can push these thoughts right out of my mind. But the voice keeps coming.

  You’re turning into me. You always knew you would.

  What if I am turning into her? What if I have to live like my mother did at the end of her life, never knowing what was real and what was a delusion? She was so confused all the time. So scared. How can I live like that?

  It takes every ounce of strength for me to ignore that voice, to press down the horror that it brings with it. I force myself to take a deep breath. I’m just stressed out and upset, that’s all. Perfectly normal. And her voice in my head is just a reasonable manifestation of that.

  I settle myself down on the piano bench and focus all my emotion and confusion and turmoil onto the keys.

  Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake finale pours from my fingers, a melody of grief and regret filling the room.

  I hear him open the door behind me, but I don’t look up. My fingers keep flying over the keys, letting the swan breathe out her final breaths. The song is not as enchanting as it would be with a full orchestra, but the beauty of it still overwhelms me as it rushes from my fingertips. It still makes me want to weep. And with Charlie’s almost tangible presence at my back, all my emotions are heightened. Everything in me is as tense as a bowstring.

  I hear him step toward me slowly, until he’s standing right behind me. Until I can nearly feel the warmth of his skin on mine. I close my eyes and breathe deep. Rain and wood fire, his scent.

  A soft touch on my neck shocks my eyes open, and my fingers stutter on the keys. He runs the side of his finger slowly, sensuously up my neck and into my hair, then holds a long curl between two fingers and caresses it.

  I’ve stopped playing, and the only sound in the room is our heated breaths, shallow and fast. And then he lets go, and all I hear are his footsteps as he walks away from me. He’s gone, as if it were all a dream.

  I don’t move for the longest moment, trying to hold on to the memory of his hand in my hair, of his breath rising with mine. I couldn’t have imagined it.

  I should be angry. He just proposed to another girl, to the mother of his child, and then he came to me. He can’t toy with me like this. I’m not his to tease.

  I push myself up off the bench and hurry for the back door, my anger rising with every step. I’m not his, I tell myself. I’m not his.

  I’m still repeating those words in my head when I bang on the door to Gareth’s cottage. He opens it, his chest bare and his eyes muddled with interrupted sleep and confusion. I fling myself into his arms, my hands pulling his face close, and I capture his lips in a kiss.

  He’s stunned for a moment, motionless. Then he’s gently pushing me away and stepping out of my arms. “Fee,” he says, his voice pained. “What are you doing?”

  I open my mouth to answer him, but I can’t think of anything to say.

  “What happened?” he asks, crouching a bit so he can look into my eyes.

  “Nothing,” I lie. “Nothing, I’m sorry.” I’m backing away, reaching behind me for the door. “I’m sorry,” I say again, finding the handle and rushing outside.

>   What was I thinking? I was angry that Charlie was using me, so my perfect solution was to go and use Gareth? How on earth had I thought that was a good idea? Was I thinking at all? Alice was right, he deserves so much better than that.

  I’m going crazy. The thought stops me in my tracks before I’ve reached the back door of the castle.

  I gulp in a bracingly cold breath of fresh air and keep walking. I won’t think about my mother now. Won’t let myself remember how she’d grow increasingly irrational as she ramped up to each new breakdown. I can’t.

  I force myself to slow down, to move deliberately and methodically through the castle and up to my room. Once I’m there, I make myself go through my normal bedtime routine before I curl up in my sheets and do my best to go unconscious.

  CHAPTER 22

  Voices wake me up in the middle of the night. My eyes are startled open in the darkness. I hear murmuring on the other side of the wall right next to my head. The outside wall.

  These are different from the usual whispers, the garbled mess pouring forth in the same tone of voice every night. Tonight I hear two distinct voices, two women, like I did the night before the shopping trip.

  I still can’t make out any words, but from the inflections, the tones, I conclude that it’s an argument.

  I peel off the covers as quietly as possible, straining to hear. I place my bare feet on the cold wood floor and tiptoe over to the door, pressing my ear against the wall. The voices definitely aren’t coming from the hall. They are, like I thought, coming from outside. From right outside my wall, six stories up in the free air. Maybe there are people up on the roof?

  A floorboard creaks underneath my foot, and the voices stop for a moment. As if they heard me, as if I’ve startled them. And when the voices rise again, I can finally hear what each of them is saying, the lines they repeat over and over:

  “Go away, little bird.”

  “You’re not wanted here.”

  They chant it again and again until they’re nearly shouting.