Chapter One
The world had ended only a few weeks ago, and Heloise MacAskill was expected to live on as though nothing had happened. She was expected toforgive.
The rain poured down, turning her chestnut locks black with moisture. The sky was dark, and she knew the rain would soon turn into a full-blown storm, yet she didn’t want to go back inside. Her eyes were wet, filled with tears masked by the downpour. She stood there, allowing the water to cover her like an icy cold blanket, hoping that perhaps the creatures of the faerie myths she loved as a child would take pity on her and come to take her away.
“Ellie?”
Nay. Dinnae interrupt me, nae now, nae yet.She ignored her brother calling for her by her childhood nickname.Let me be here a moment longer, where none of this is real.
“Ellie!? Can ye hear me? Can ye please look at me? Yer giving me a right fright standing there like ye are.”
“I’m fine, Van,” she said, the lie sounding hollow even as she spoke the words. How could she be fine? How could anything ever be fine again?
She sighed deeply, turning away from the enveloping rain to face her brother. At only ten and four, Evander was a tall, gangly boy, already much taller than Ellie. They looked alike—dark hair and sharp features they’d taken from their mother. Evander, though, had large grey eyes, where Heloise’s were green.
I see Father’s eyes every time I look at Van. Does he ken that?
It was a knife through the heart when she looked into the poor boy’s eyes, but she forced herself to smile at him anyway. None of this was his fault. No, the blame was squarely on the shoulders of their mother.
“I mean it, Van. I’m fine,” she repeated as Van continued to look at her as if she had grown an extra head. “Grand, even.”
He didn’t look remotely convinced. He folded his arms and said, “Then ye’ll come inside and away from this awful place? We hae guests ye ken.”
Ellie nodded, she knew there were visitors at the keep, but she barely cared. Besides, the kirkyard wasn’tawful. Since the funeral, since her father was taken from her and left her alone in a cold, empty world, the kirkyard was the only place that gave her any warmth. Evander didn’t seem able to feel it as she did, and for that, she pitied him.
Because it was expected of her, and she did not want to cause Van any more distress, she followed her brother back along the winding path that led to a castle that had once been her home. Of course, she still lived there, but it no longer felt like the warm home she longed for with her father gone. She glanced at her brother. The boy was expected to be a Laird now.
He isnae ready. Mother needs to get over her own pain and see that. He needs her to help him.
Ellie loved Evander. She wanted to see him succeed as laird, yet despite how much she adored him, she couldn’t stay in the empty, broken shell of her family home. She had to come up with a plan. She could travel to Edinburgh, perhaps change her name and accent and find work as a governess or in a seamstress shop. She wasn’t half bad with a needle. She could change her appearance and blend in with the common folk. She could be far away from the pain of home. She was not needed. She smiled at her own ingenuity. Yes, she would do quite well on her own. Perhaps if she was able to squirrel away some provisions, she could be ready to leave in less than a fortnight. She had some coin stashed away in her trunks. She allowed a small smile through her pain; perhaps all was not lost. A future was revealing itself in her imaginings. Though she followed Evander, it was only a matter of time until Ellie escaped for good.
* * *
“And where haveyebeen that ye come storming in here like a drowned rat?” shouted Lady Sara MacAskill. Ellie fought the urge to cover her ears as she and Van entered the room. Mother’s voice had lost all of its calm and sweetness since Father’s death. Her grief had overwhelmed her entirely.Or her guilt,Ellie thought.“It’s a good thing ye were wearing black. God only kens what ye’d be showing to the public if ye’d not been in yer mourning dress.”
It’s a good thing I’m wearing black, is it? A good thing that I’m in mourning?
That hadn’t been what her mother meant, of course. Ellie knew she was being unfair. Ellie had promised Evander that she’d be gentler with their mother, even if it meant accepting unjust shouting and compliments given with the back of her hand. After all, the two women had been close once. Before her father had fallen upon his own sword, Ellie had loved her mother above all other women.
Oh, the official story had been illness, but the family knew the truth. The man had been tired of life, too much to even care about what it would do to his children if he escaped it.
“Mother, she was visiting Father,” Evander said quietly. He was a sweet boy, too gentle for the world into which he’d been born. He was trying to make peace, to make his mother give his sister a moment to breathe. Ellie loved him for trying.
Oh, it was the wrong thing to say, but he tried.
“Visitingyourfather?” Lady MacAskill shrieked. Her green eyes–Heloise’sgreen eyes—stared directly at her daughter, and Ellie could see pure fury. “Ye went to the kirkyard? Again? I thought I forbid it!”
“I’m a grown woman, Mother,” Ellie explained, trying to keep calm for the sake of Evander. Ellie was trying, but her mother was stoking her anger. “Ye cannae keep me from me Father.”
“Ye spend all yer time at that grave,” Lady MacAskill accused. “In th’ rain no less. Look at ye; ye look like a sopped moppet.”
Before Ellie could think not to take her mother’s bait, she snapped back. “Well, I wouldnae have to visit his grave if it wasnae—”
Ellie opened her mouth to try to apologize, but she found she couldn’t, not now that she was inside. The reason she spent so much time in the rain, though nobody else seemed to understand it, was simple. The ice-cold torrent was the only thing strong enough to temper the raging fire inside her.
“If it wasnaewhat,Heloise?” her mother demanded. “Say it.”
“Perhaps if me father had a wife who respected or cared about him at all, he wouldnae have done what he did,” Ellie said in a whispered snarl. “Perhaps I’d still have a living father if ye—” She stopped herself, but it was too late. Her mother blanched, and Evander looked terribly upset.
