Page 109 of Queen of Nothing

My cry is hollow—and crushed immediately.

Mother has barrelled into me, wedged me between her frantic embrace and the edge of the car door.

Her arms might be thin, but they are strong, and I’m enveloped by them, crushed, and another hollow sound ribbons out from me.

“Door—” My voice croaks out the word with a wince. “The door—the door!”

Mother doesn’t hear me.

Or she doesn’t care.

She makes me suffer.

I grit my teeth against the pain, a grimace that’s hidden by her loose dark hair.

I endure it.

I wrap my arms around Mother’s slender frame. So thin compared to my own body.

I feel like a whale in her arms.

But she’s the one blubbering.

I feel it before I hear it.

The jolt of her chest, the tears on my cheek.

She utters a tangled mess of sounds, whines and guttural words I can’t make out.

And, after a moment, I shut my eyes.

I hold her tighter.

I melt into my mother’s arms.

My face twists against her shoulder.

The courtyard is not silent for our reunion. Murmurs ripple through the night air, the gardens are chirping with grasshoppers, and the sound of expensive dress shoes coming down on pavers is all around me.

Mother still doesn’t let me go.

And I don’t let her go, not for a long while of murmurs and movements, until all I can hear are the grasshoppers.

I relax my arms around Mother.

I soften the hug and, finally, open my eyes.

Right behind Mother is a dainty woman in creamy silk, whose skin is marble and eyes are glass.

Amelia Sinclair.

She hovers an arm’s reach from us, her watery gaze flicking between me and Mother, like she’s searching for a way in.

She wants to move for me, to pull me into her arms, too.

But Mother monopolises me.

Her arms are solid around me, and I don’t think I could get out of her hold if I tried. Slender, but strong.