I step back into the shadows, staying out of sight. I want to see Ben, see how he’s changed, whether he’s in the same piece he was when he left for the army, but he can’t see me. Not yet. Not here.
There’s silence.
“You’re not glad to be back?”
“I’m not used to staying in one place.” His voice is gruffer, deeper. I hear frayed edges and torn cloth.
“You’ll be travelling round with the girl.”
“She isn’t a girl anymore, Dad.” There was a sigh and footsteps.
I move further back, listening, desperate to see.
Before I’d been too young; the three years’ difference between us an impassable chasm. Now the chasm was a different breed: I was royalty. Just not the heir to the throne.
“She isn’t. She’s been a woman for a while and you’ll need to take care of her.”
“And that’s my job.”
I hear the zip of a lighter and the deep sound of inhalation, and then I see him. Ben. He’s wearing fatigues, worn ones, and a black tank that’s tight. I can see the differences between Ben now and the Ben who went away.
My nails are dug into my palms and my chest aches. That hasn’t changed. Ben stands with his arms by his sides, one hand holding his cigarette.
“Job.” Leonard is maybe six inches smaller than Ben but still pokes him in the chest. “She’s your job. Nothing else.”
I see a coldness in Ben’s eyes that I hadn’t noticed before.
“How is she?”
I want to cry. The sixteen-year-old inside me is still very much alive and sobbing into her pillow.
“How do you think? An older version of the girl you left behind. You’ll see her soon enough.”
Ben looks to the skies. “I should’ve stayed away.”
His father smacks his arm lightly. “You’re wrong. You stayed away too long.”
I don’t know which one is correct. And neither does my heart.
Chapter Three
Sleep isn’t peaceful. It’s filled with dreams that make no sense, chopped up film reels of blurred images and events with no endings. Morning hits me with light that’s painful and I recognise the unwelcoming arms of an oncoming migraine.
My room isn’t in a tower, but it does have a balcony that overlooks a loch, the land between the building and the water rugged and wild. I asked for it to never be tended, to be left as it was meant, and my father upheld my request. No one goes to this side of the palace; it’s our private quarters and guests are kept away. Only a handful of friends stay in this part, such as Elise.
A desert has taken residence in my mouth and a light is flashing in the corner of my eye. Whatever I had planned for today will be lost as my head will be fogged and thick in another couple of hours.
Instead of trying to go back to sleep, because that will only worsen what is to come, I grab my dressing gown and wander onto the corridor towards my parents’ lounge. My mother, I know, has gone to Glasgow to visit the new wing of a hospital and a school. Lennox will be a law unto the unknown, and I imagine he has Elise in his bed.
I didn’t see them return from the ride. I didn’t look for them. After Ben walked away with his father, I retreated to my room and let my head walk down a lane that was usually blockaded and loaded with grenades.
The grenades exploded.
“Is that you, Blair?” My father’s voice sounds tired.
I head into their lounge and he’s not there. The room is tidy, cushions plumped and not discarded. Next to their lounge is a spare bedroom, used if one of them returns late or if my mother wants to read in bed and not disturb my father. I walk in, not expecting him to be in bed, but he is and he looks pale, a fragility I haven’t seen before is soaked into his skin.
“You don’t look well.”
