I should have known she wouldn’t have been waiting for me. While I wanted her to sweat, to worry and ponder, she hadn’t. But she’d left me wondering where she was and worrying that something had gone wrong. I didn’t like challenges and that’s exactly what Trixie was. I didn’t like the unpredictable and now I was working to Ruby’s plan with no idea what I was supposed to do or what the outcome was supposed to be. A breeze blew against the windows of the foyer, opening the front door with a whistle that played like the song of a siren and told me Trixie had left the house. With a sigh and a groan, I did up the buttons of my jacket and went in search of the annoying challenge I’d been given responsibility for, and prepared to step into the role of educator.
I found her in the gardens, rounding the fountain as water sprayed up from the mouth of a dragon. She was humming quietly, shivering from the cold, but refusing to take refuge in the warmth because this was the only place she was safe outside in the dark. She was different when she was on her own. She wasn’t the immature young girl I’d thought she was when she’d intentionally antagonised me and tried to provoke a reaction from me in the front seat of The Plough. It was why I had put her in the back for the final leg of our journey to take her home. I couldn’t be around her. She did something to me. She threw me off balance, skewed my kilter and swayed my equilibrium. I didn’t like to feel out of control and when I was with her it was like I’d never possessed any. I stood and watched her for a while, as she caressed the stone structure of the fountain, picked at stray leaves that hung from the bushes surrounding her and every now and then, she glanced up at the sky to look at the stars.
I had my first lesson plan.
“Trixie,” I called, stepping into the circular area where I’d watched her pace for far too long but not long enough.
“Ah, the master has returned.” She stopped walking and looked at me, folding her arms across her chest with a shiver. “Did you know we were related?”
“Yes,” I croaked, and cleared my throat, reaching into my pocket for my phone before trying again. “Yes.”
I punched out a quick text and shoved my phone back into my pocket. If I had to wait—if the order I’d placed didn’t arrive in the next sixty seconds, there would be trouble. I was angry, frustrated, pent-up, and I wanted to punish.
Unfortunately, Trixie Ashford wasn’t on the menu.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t my place to.”
Trixie rolled her eyes and it was both annoyingly defiant and ridiculously cute. I shook my head.
“You know, that’s all I’ve heard my entire life.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“So what do you want? Why did you send me outside to wait patiently like a dog?”
“I didn’t. You could have left.”
“No, I couldn’t. I know my place, Elias. You might think that because I went to a state school and didn’t receive the same upbringing you did—one rich with honesty and filled with stories of the past—that I’m stupid, but I'm not. I’m not a child, I’m not ignorant, and I’m not blind to the fact that I’ve been kept in the dark my entire life.”
“You haven’t.” I shook my head again and answered with complete honesty. “You’ve been kept in the light.”
I looked at my watch. Sixty seconds were up. Just as I was about to send another message to another servant with a much less reasonable request, footsteps scurried up the path behind me and I turned in time to accept what I’d ordered. I didn’t thank her; I would have had she not taken so long, but now she could return sans gratitude from me.
“Thank you,” Trixie called out as the servant turned and headed back to the house.
“Don’t. Don’t step into something I’m dealing with.”
“Don’t speak unless spoken to, don’t act without permission or direction, don’t meddle in the business of men…I’ve got it, but there’s no need to be rude because she didn’t meet the deadline you set without telling her.”
“Interesting.” I’d give her that—she’d earned it. “Follow me.”
“Why?”
“Just do as you’re told.”
I passed Trixie and headed further into the garden, at home around the scent of night-bloomers and familiar with the dew that settled on the grass when night descended. Trixie was not; she was experiencing everything like it was the first time and it was a wonder to watch. I led her out into a meadow and laid the blanket I’d ordered out on the ground.
“Sit down,” I ordered, refusing to sit until she did.
When she was on the blanket with her legs crossed, her sheer black dress riding up to the middle of her thighs, I looked away, unbuttoned my jacket and slipped it off.
“Here,” I said, placing it over her shoulders. She muttered a shy thank you that seemed so out of character and slid her arms into the holes. “I’m not a monster.”
That was a lie. I was a monster; the worst kind of monster because I had an explanation for every sin, a story behind every action I took that would excuse me from judgement.
“I know.”
She believed those two words. I could sense in her voice and in the way her eyes met mine as I joined her on the ground, that she wasn’t just assuming. She knew I did bad things, she knew I enjoyed them, and yet she still didn’t believe I was a monster.
“So our grandmother said I’m to teach you a few things.”
“Did she?”
Her attitude had faded. She no longer came across as impatient and demanding. She’d morphed into the kind of woman I’d seen a hundred times; one who would follow the pattern of conversation a man laid out for her. She was sophisticated and respectful, sitting straight and shifting to a new position so her dress settled back where it was designed to sit and even on the ground on an old blanket kept in the kitchens or something, she looked like the most well-raised lady I’d ever seen.
“She did. But I want you to answer a question for me first.”
“Why?”
“I believe I answered three for you, so you owe me three questions.”
Trixie shrugged. “Okay. Try me and see what happens.”
“What’s wrong?”
I’d never been the curious type. I didn’t often care to dig beyond the surface of a person; I took what I saw at face-value and I had very little concern for what was beneath and why. The easiest coping mechanism in this world was to shut off and detach. Only I couldn’t do that now. Trixie seemed unhappy and I wanted to know why; if I could change it, I would.
“I’m tired.”
“There’s something else.”
“I’m tired. I’m hungry because you interrupted dinner. I’m wondering why I’m here since you don’t want to talk to me and wouldn’t tell me anything in the tank, so why would you now?”
“I brought some food. Well, the girl did. I thought you’d be hungry. And I didn’t not want to talk to you, I was just doing my job.”
“Like you are now?”
“Yes.”
“And I need to process the fact that we’re cousins.”
“We…” I trailed off. I wouldn’t detonate that bomb. It wasn’t allowed. It was forbidden and I wouldn’t break the rule. “Yes.”
“Okay. So I answered your question. Why am I here?”
“Ruby wants me to provide you with an education.”
Trixie nodded, accepting the apple I handed her from the paper bag the maid had given me.
“Okay, so educate me.”
“Finish your food first, I don’t want you to choke.”
Trixie coughed, swallowing her mouthful down before it was ready. I looked away, praying to the heavens for some relief from this suffocation. Trixie said nothing; she continued to sit with good posture, avoiding eye contact, and we ate in silence. When we were done, I looked up at the stars, reminding myself of where the lesson was going to begin. When I looked back at Trixie she was looking at the sky too, with a small smile on her full glistening lips.
“Lay on your back.”
“Excuse me?”
She looked at me then, with the same look of want in her eyes. I hadn’t noticed the violet flecks before now, when the full moon shone down on the meadow and illuminated them. They matched the amulet settled on her bosom; the same colour that Ruby wore like a trademark; the same colour as the GRIT crest. Trixie’s eyes were filled with a violet want that was almost cosmic.
“Lay on your back. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She said nothing. That was something she didn’t believe, and it was a wise choice. She didn’t argue; she laid back and flinched when I laid next her and the tops of our arms touched. It felt electric, like the world beyond the meadow wasn’t dangerous, locked in a war no one would win, drowning in the conflict we were trying to end.
Elias was dangerous. That I knew for sure. I knew nothing about him, but I wanted to know everything. I wanted everything but I had a feeling he’d offer me nothing. Crumbs. Scraps. Encrypted messages I was supposed to try to decipher in order to understand him because, bottom line, he didn’t want to be understood. Ruby had given him permission to let me in, yet he chose to keep me at a distance and I couldn’t work out why. This was my family too. He was in my home, on my estate, calling the shots and I had no choice over it. I needed to know the truth; I needed to know what it was Trace had warned be about, and that meant being careful. Being wary of Elias. Forbidding my reaction to him, the tethers that seemed to wrap around me and connect directly like him, like I was a marionette there to be manipulated. I couldn’t let him blind me. I couldn’t let him make me weak.
“So…” I said, ignoring the spark of energy that rippled through me when he touched me. “What are you supposed to teach me?”
Elias was silent and when I looked at him, he was unmoving. He just stared up at the stars, silent and pensive, stoic yet screaming on the inside. I could hear his soul crying out; I just couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say.
“It isn’t a lesson we can have in a conversation.”
“So why are we here?”
A lesson. I needed a lesson. I had hoped there was a story about my parents somewhere—that I was finally going to be told the truth, but I was out of luck. I’d assumed there would be a family business I’d known nothing about—that I’d find out that we didn’t pay our taxes to the government who had as good as abandoned us. I thought maybe we were shady, but none of those things required a lesson more than a discussion. More than me listening and discovering and finally understanding my existence. I’d waited twenty-five years for this and I knew I wasn’t going to get it.
“Do something for me.”
“Depends what it is.”
Elias blinked, slipping out of his catatonic state to take a deep breath, before he fell back into it and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Stop watching me and look at the stars.”
I didn’t want to. I’d seen the stars a hundred times from inside my apartment, where I felt safe and secure. The stars couldn’t save me…I had a feeling Elias wouldn’t either, but he fascinated me. I’d rather die at the hands of something that dazzled me, instead of looking at things a million miles away with a million different possible universes and as many lives I could have led had I not been in London.
“Okay.”
I relented, hungry for information and compliant in order to receive it. My gaze lingered on the man next to me as I turned my head and finally looked at the twinkling orbs of energy above.
“What do you see?” Elias asked.
“Stars.”
He chuckled. God, I wanted to hear it again. I wanted it to be the soundtrack to my life because it filled me with hope. Excited hope. Hopeful anticipation. Anxiety. It made me feel nervous, like I was in danger and I had no choice but to rely on the man who had trapped me without my permission.
“What about them?”
I shrugged. “Some are small, some are big. Some shine more than others do. Every single one of them are about the same distance from this city I wish I was.”
“You don’t like it here?”
“Do you?”
He did. I knew he did. He wasn’t afraid. He hadn’t been afraid when we stood in the forest surrounded by people who could—and would—have killed us. He liked it here. Like Seb, Elias loved the city. I wanted to know why.
“It’s not all that magical out there,” he said, pointing off in the distance somewhere, where the outside world thrived. “There’s still crime. There are still bad people and good people, and they threaten each other. There’s still pain and hunger and poverty. At least in here we don’t pretend to cover it up. We don’t conform to strict laws intended to hide who we really are.”
“And what’s that?” I asked. “Who are we?”
“Animals.”
I grimaced. Reaper portrayed the same thing. In all his pieces he placed an animal besides the human, so close it was difficult to distinguish between the two.
“You know,” he continued, perhaps more to himself than to me. It felt like a confirmation, like he was reminding himself of what he believed as he asked me to believe the same. “We came from animals. We evolved into what we are today—we aren’t supposed to be…this.”
“No?”
“No.” He shook his head. “People listen to science to find reason. They read the Bible to find hope. They take what they need from a time they won't ever truly know about in order to give them a reason for their pain and hope for recovery.”
“It’s an interesting theory.”
“So you disagree? You think we were intended to sin? That what we’ve become is the best form of humanity? That evolution didn’t go wrong somewhere and turn us into monsters?”
I shrugged, the top of my arm brushing his. I shivered. “That’s not what I mean. Why does it have to be one or the other? Why does it have to be intervention or evolution? They’re things that are out of our control. What if it’s choice? Isn’t that the thing that makes us most human? Our right to make choices and the conscience to know what’s best?”
“I don’t think you’ll ever understand this world, Trixie Ashford.”
“Maybe I would if you stopped talking in riddles and just gave it to me.”
“I can give it to you.” He stopped and took a breath through his nose. I watched his throat as he swallowed. “But ultimately, as you so wisely suggested, it’s your choice what you believe. I was trying to give you something to hold onto when your instincts tell you to run and reject the people who raised you. I was trying to prepare you to believe in what you know, in how you feel beyond conscious thought, and what you’ve been raised to perceive. If you’d rather I didn’t offer you a blanket to cushion the fall, that’s your choice.” I felt cold from his tone, rejected although I’d offered him nothing to rebuff. He didn’t believe in free thought. It made me doubt the softness I thought I’d seen in him. “Look at the stars.”
I was. I’d sought them out when I’d felt him push me away, just when I thought he was giving me something to hold onto. That was my fault. I should have listened. I shouldn’t have argued. Now we were back to square one with me looking at balls of light in the sky.
“Just know that we all see the same stars. We all look at the same moon and we all raise our faces to the same sun. Just remember that. You can't escape, Trixie. I wish you could, so I wouldn’t have to let you in as much as I do. So when it gets too much, when you want to run and there’s nowhere for you to go, look at the stars and know that someone beyond the walls is looking up at them at exactly the same time.”
I’d want to run. Whatever it was Elias would teach me, it would make me want to flee.
“Okay, I’ll look at the stars. So what do I need to run from?”
Elias sighed and sat up, placing his palms on the ground behind him for support. I sat up too, my fingers itching to touch him. I resisted, although I wanted to. I felt like his body was a magnet, pulling me closer and telling me I did
n’t have a choice.
There was always a choice.
“I’m not your friend,” was all he said. Was he convincing me or himself? “I’m your cousin and I’m your teacher. I have a job to do and while I have that responsibility, you’ll be under my guard. Accept it, use it and don’t push the boundaries. Don’t get attached because the minute you know everything I’ve decided you’re allowed to know, you’re on your own. You think we have all this power to make decisions and choose one thing or another…” He sighed. “Well, you’ll find out soon enough. When the lessons are done you’ll be left to make the choice you so desperately rely on making so you can reward yourself with acceptance.”
He stood up and extended his hand. Just like Trace did. I wasn’t allowed to refuse but I didn’t want to touch him. I had a feeling I was already attached and…I hadn’t chosen that. I couldn’t choose to detach, no matter how much I wanted to. I placed my hand in his and he pulled me to my feet. As soon as I was standing, Elias let go of me and turned to head back to the house. I followed him quickly, taking careful steps so I didn’t fall. It was so dark out here, almost void of all light as the moon disappeared behind the trees in the distance and people inside the house began retiring for the night.
“You can't sense your steps?” Elias asked, slowing down a little so I could keep up.
“No. Last time I checked I wasn’t psychic.”
He chuckled again and it caught the breeze, whispering through my hair and covering me in goosebumps.
“You don’t have to be psychic to know what’s coming.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was one of my first lessons in military school. You should always know what lies three steps ahead. You should be able to navigate in the darkness. It’s the only way you’ll guarantee survival.”
Elias (GRIT Sector 1) Page 9