“When did you even apply to university?”
Finally, I meet her eyes. “I sent my application in the summer and received the reply a few weeks ago. They’ve invited me to join the next class. Ma, this is huge for me.” I’m hoping the excitement in my tone will lift the corners of her mouth, but it doesn’t.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d be upset. Besides, I didn’t want to say anything until we were safe from the Reaping.”
“After all the work I’ve done to make sure I won’t lose you, I’m going to lose you anyway.”
I take a step toward her. “You did all that work to keep usfree. That means giving me the freedom to choose.”
Her eyes are pleading as she closes the distance between us and puts her hand on my cheek. “Couldn’t you be happy here? Continue your path as a surgeon’s apprentice for Mr. Meeks?”
With a groan, I skirt around her and head for my door. I hear Mother’s footsteps fall behind me as I enter the hall and descend the stairs. “I don’t want to be an apprentice forever. I want to be a full surgeon. Do you think Sableton has room for another one? No. Mr. Meeks will be surgeon here until he dies, and his son will be surgeon after him.”
“Well, that’s not a bad idea, Evelyn,” Mother says as I reach the platform at the bottom of the stairs. “You could take the Meeks’ example and do the same with me. You could learn my craft. You could help me run the apothecary.”
Irritation courses through me. She’s never stopped trying to convince me tolearn her craft. I round on her. “Ma, we’ve had this discussion a million times. I don’t want to brew silly potions and make up stories from tea leaves. I don’t want to lay my hands on people until their made-up ailments dissolve from their imaginations.”
Mother’s face falls, and I know my words were too cutting. “Is that what you think I do all day? Fool around and take people’s money for nothing? How do you explain the things I know? The miracles people experience after working with me?”
I release a sigh and continue down the hall, past the parlor and the door that leads to the public shop that is Mother’s apothecary. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…there’s a rational explanation for everything. I’m sure what you dohelpspeople. Just not in the wayI want to help people.”
“But you have so much potential. I can feel it in you.”
I enter the kitchen, where I take a seat at the thick wooden table, reaching for what remains of this morning’s loaf of bread. “Mr. Meeks says I have potential too. Real potential. He says I have a steady hand and the right disposition for surgery. When I graduate from university, I’ll have the skills I need to make a difference in the world. I can do more than just make people feel better. I cansave lives.”
“Someday you’ll realize you have the power to save lives already inside you.”
A wave of anger sends heat to my cheeks. “You mean, like you?”
Tense silence grows between us, and a flash of guilt crosses Mother’s face. “You’ll never forgive me for what happened with your sister, will you? It kills me that your sister suffered for my mistake, but I promise you, I would have taken her to Mr. Meeks before things got too far.”
Again, I know my words were too harsh, but it’s the truth. Amelie nearly died four years ago, not because of some mistake, but because of Mother’s entire belief system. Mother may help people in her own way, but she doesn’t save lives. Pretending she can only hurts the people who actually need medical intervention.
I avert my gaze to avoid the hurt look on her face, instead taking in the jars of herbs lining the shelves spanning each wall, strands of drying plants hanging from the ceiling, tinctures and potions brewing on the countertops in glass jars. The sight makes my muscles tense. It’s chaotic and messy and none of it isme. I crave the order and neatness of a sterile surgery room, not the messy kitchen behind an apothecary. I let out a heavy sigh. “Ma, you know I forgive you. Amelie forgives you. But the fact remains that Sableton isn’t where I belong. Eisleigh isn’t where I belong.”
“You’ll never be happy on the mainland. There’s no magic there, no—”
“I don’t believe in magic. You know this.”
Mother’s lips flicker into a sad smile, and her tone becomes wistful. “You used to believe in magic. You used to help me make draughts and potions. You used to sit at my side all day and read the tea leaves of the shop patrons. Don’t you remember what it was like back then? Amelie would play the piano and sing while you and I would lay our hands on the sick and cleanse their energy. You were so powerful then.”
I shake my head. “I was a child. A little girl who confused her imagination for magic and thought she gave offerings to the fae because they were friends with the humans. I know better now.”
“If you don’t believe in magic, how do you explain the fae?”
“The fae aren’t magic. They’re creatures like any other. Everything they do can be explained with science.”
“Science doesn’t explain everything,” Mother says. “Sometimes you have to follow your heart.”
With gritted teeth, I force a smile. “Lucky for me, both science and my heart are telling me to go to the mainland. That’s my choice. You won’t change my mind.”
We hold each other’s gaze, and I try my best to maintain my composure, even as Mother’s eyes fill with tears. The bell rings from inside the shop. A male voice calls out, a patron entering the apothecary, but Mother makes no move to greet him. She looks like she wants to say more to me, to find the right words that will convince me to stay with her.Nothing will convince me. Nothing.
Finally, Mother averts her gaze and peeks out the window that looks into the shop. “Mr. Anderson is here for his tincture,” she whispers.
I take the opportunity to shove a piece of bread in my mouth, but after the argument with my mother, its taste is bitter.
