Page 14 of A Beautifully Crafted Lie

“I promised Father we wouldn’t be gone long.”

“Just a little longer,” she begs, her bottom lip growing heavy.

I raise my brow, waiting for her to comply with my request, our usual dance. She may still be a little giddy from the tea, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve stayed longer than we should. Risked more than we should. It’s getting late.

“Fine,” she huffs, hooking her arm with mine. We barely take ten full strides before we find Prince Odhran reclining lazily against the large willow tree in the centre of the square, picking his nails with the black blade he held when I saw him earlier. My steps pause for a brief moment, but I straighten and lead my sister straight past him with renewed annoyance.

“Isn’t he handsome?” Laoise practically swoons at my side. I don’t need to ask who she’s referring to. Her entire body curls in his direction as she stares after him. I sense his growing smirk. Self-satisfied asshole.

“Laoise, no! Men like him are never good for anyone’s health.”

She giggles as if I’m being funny, but I’m dead serious.

EIGHT

BRYNDIS ASHGLO

During Samhain, when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, draw your deceased loved one near by creating an altar of their keepsakes in your home or where they were put to rest.

The Legends of The Forgotten, by Tibor Harper

The manor is alive with servants dusting and rearranging furniture, filling crystal vases with freshly cut calla lilies and sheep’s bit from the greenhouse, and braiding juniper around the curved handrail of the staircase to our left. Surfaces are being polished, and windows are being washed. At the centre of the orchestrated chaos stands my stepmother, Dharlah, with her arms folded across her chest. Her lady’s maid remains faithfully at her side with a silver tray balancing delicately in the palm of her hand.

“Mother? Why is everyone still working so late?” Laoise asks, passing me. I didn’t notice that my feet stopped moving, my eyes fixed on the painting in front of me. One depicting my family. So new I can almost smell the paint over the sweet scent of the lilies. It’s mounted on the wall straight ahead and contains everyone in my immediate family. My father, his shoulders squared, wearing his favourite olive-green and mustard-yellow coat, his moustache styled in two symmetrical curls at the corners of his mouth. The frown lines on his brow are done so perfectly that I almost feel the judgement in his harsh brown eyes. My stepmother with her flawless porcelain skin and strawberry blonde hair, so serene she seems angelic, sits quietly in front of my father while he rests his hands on her shoulders. Her smile is bright, but it isn’t reflected in her eyes. Then there are all the children they’ve sired together. Idoniya, the smallest, her skin is rosier in the portrait than it was when I saw her last. Her eyes are large and as rich as honey as she sits on her mother’s lap. Laoise wears her favourite white dress and yellow shawl, beaming the same smile her mother does, only hers is reflected in the faint narrowing of her eyes. I… am not included.

A dull ache makes me press my hand to my stomach. It isn’t a surprise, but it hurts all the same, like a blade hammered through my sternum. Families celebrate Samhain by honouring their dead, erecting memorials and sharing memories. It’s a tradition my family doesn’t uphold. Why would they? They seem delighted by the lack of my mother’s presence. We don’t have a single portrait to remember her by. We don’t set an extra plate at the dinner table or ever mention her name. My mother’s memory has practically been wiped from this world as though she never existed. Will I suffer the same fate when I die?

“You are part of your mother, young one, a reminder of her existence. You only need to ask; is that a good thing or not.”

“Oh, my darling girl!” Dharlah smiles at Laoise, spinning around with remarkable grace. Her strawberry blonde curls bounce softly from their pinned-up position. She doesn’t spill a drop of tea from the porcelain cup pinched delicately between her two fingers. “Your father has announced that we are to host a ball in honour of the two princes paying us a visit.” She sets her cup on the silver tray held at her side before taking Laoise’s hands, gloved and bandaged. What was I thinking? The gloves don’t hide the bandage at all. “There’s a rumour that they’re here in search of a bride. It will strengthen our ties with the royal family and…” Dharlah looks down at Laoise’s injured hand and the glove stretching to its limits.

“It will take much more than a ceremonious fucking to mend what’s broken,” the creature growls, but I don’t look for its shadows. I look at my stepmother and the way her mouth strains to keep its smile in place the moment her eyes meet mine.

Laoise shrieks in excitement, and I do nothing but watch her jump, clapping. The injury to her hand seems long forgotten.

“I’ll need a new dress!” Laoise’s eyes widen, and all traces of excitement drain from her face, replaced by panic instead. “I have nothing to wear. Nothing suitable for meeting a prince!”

“The seamstress will be here within the hour. I’ve already sent for her.” Her mother touches her cheek, an act I can barely stand to watch. I was a child when Dharlah became the new lady of this house, yet she’s never shown me a single ounce of affection.

“Perhaps she will wear a red ribbon around her neck and be presented like the show pony she is.”

“Stop it!” I hiss, forgetting to keep my response non-verbal. Luckily for me, I’m unnoticed.

“Do you not tire of these meaningless games, young one? Do you not crave purpose beyond being sold for political advantage?”

“What I crave is for my mind to be my own. What I crave is to be normal. What I crave is peace!” I head up the stairs toward my bedroom. Closing the door behind me, I remove the small glass vial of bitter nightshade from a concealed pocket in my skirt. My chest constricts, my breathing rushed; I feel no relief. I’m suffocating, as if grief could strangle me.

“Don’t you dare silence me!”

“Or what?” I challenge.

“You need me as much as I need you,” it growls.

Removing the small cork, I wet the tip of my index finger. The taste is bitter in my mouth, numbing my tongue instantly and tingling down my throat as I swallow. I take another drop to enjoy the numbness of feeling nothing. It’s as close to heaven as I’ll ever be.

“I strongly doubt that,” I say, but there’s no one to answer.

I need to find a new patch of nightshade. This is my final vial, and it won’t last forever. If anyone was paying attention downstairs, I would have been seen talking to myself like a lunatic. I would have given my stepmother something to use against me, a reason to be locked away. I would have been damned just like they damned my mother.