It’s not.
For all my belief that Frank wouldn’t purposely and physically hurt us, I still freeze on the spot when I see his pickup truck. He’s back. And, naturally, upon noticing the large vine outside my bedroom window that wasn’t there when he left, he had to go investigate.
I consider running. I could do that. He hasn’t seen me yet. I could run back to the forest and hide until . . .
Until when? I’m not going to disappear, give my siblings another sister they think is gone forever. I’m still not brave enough to make the first move. I wait until he sees me.
His face is . . . blank. No anger. No nothing.
Maybe I should run.
Frank doesn’t say anything. He goes inside, I follow. I already know where this is going.
I don’t look at Frank as I walk past him into the time-out room. I don’t want to see that blank mask again. I’d rather he yell. I’d rather he be disappointed.
He doesn’t say how long the time-out is going to be. He doesn’t say anything, or even wait for me to sit before he slams the door.
I shut my eyes tight and cover my ears with my hands, but it doesn’t matter. Light still pierces my eyelids. The layered, discordant humming still suffocates me.
I still cry.
I still stand there, a turn of a doorknob away from relief, and I don’t even try to get out. I just sob and wait for it to end.
I don’t know how long that takes. Time gets too distorted. When Frank finally, finally opens the door, he’s holding his morning newspaper, like he’s just on his way to breakfast.
“So,” he says. “I think you know that you have some explaining to do.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I . . .”
One of the more insidious parts of the time-out room is that it’s impossible to use your stay in it to come up with a believable lie. You can’t string enough coherent thoughts together for that. You usually start to forget why you’re in there in the first place. It takes several moments to pull my thoughts together.
“I was looking for them,” I say. “Jane. And Winnie. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about them being out in the forest alone and lost, so I went looking. I know—I know I shouldn’t have, I know you were looking for them, but . . . I couldn’t sleep.”
Frank nods thoughtfully. “Well. Okay.”
“. . . Okay?”
“Okay. Let’s have breakfast.” He nods again and walks away, leaving the door open.
It has to be a test. But I don’t know what the test is, much less the answer. I also know that I’m not staying in this room and waiting for him to change his mind.
I didn’t think my day could get much worse until I’m in the kitchen, with Frank and all of my siblings, and none of them are looking at me. The closest I get to acknowledgement at breakfast—and all day—is a little smile from Violet.
I spend that entire day alone. I try to talk to Brooke, our peacekeeper, but she glares at me and shakes her head. I back off.
I can’t blame them. I deserve at least some shunning, don’t I? For the drugging, if nothing else—and they don’t even know about that. On the bright side, it’s another day of chores. Those can distract me from the silent treatment I’m getting from my siblings.
The silent treatment from Frank might be worse. Time-out doesn’t seem like enough punishment for being found outside. There should be a lecture, an interrogation. Waiting to see what he’ll do next is killing me, but I also don’t want to remind him. I’m not eager for whatever he’s cooking up.
After dinner, Frank retreats to his rooms. My siblings stay in the living room to knit and read and put on a movie. I sit in my big chair and stare out to the forest. Maybe now’s when I run. Maybe I belong there more than I belong here. Claire would welcome me, wouldn’t she? Maybe . . .
“I found another word,” London says. I whip my head around, startled. She’s standing beside my chair, holding the dictionary open. Everyone’s watching us.
“Yeah?” I say. My voice cracks. “A magic one?”
London nods. “I found it looking for a word of the day.” She peeks at the page she has it open to. “Druid?”
“I think druids are more nature-based,” I say. “So I could be one. But I want a word that fits all of us.”
London nods solemnly. “Me too.”
There’s no discussion about it. We all have the same idea. We get ready for bed—change into PJs, brush our teeth—and convene in my room. I get the candle box down from the high shelf in the closet. Brooke puts the candles on the sill, and Olivia lights them.
We sit there together, looking out to the stars in silence, for a long time.
I don’t know if I’m forgiven. I don’t know if I deserve forgiveness, not yet. I know I want to earn it. I know that I’m not going to the forest tonight.
One by one, everyone falls asleep. Elle, Irene, and Olivia take over my bed. Brooke falls asleep leaning against the wall. London curls up in my desk chair. Violet falls asleep with their head in my lap.
Jane’s bed goes untouched, and I stay awake, gazing out that window.
“You want to go,” Violet whispers, surprising me. I thought they were asleep. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. No reason to lie about that anymore. “Really badly.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone if you did,” they offer.
I run my fingers across their hair, smiling. “Thanks. But you should never lie for me, not to our sisters, okay?”
“. . . So I could lie to Frank?”
I snort. “Yeah. Lie to him, if you can get away with it.” My smile falls. “If you think he already knows, though, don’t. That’s a test and you can’t fail it, not even for me.”
Violet considers that, then shakes their head. “That’s not fair.”
“What?”
“You can’t say I’m not allowed to protect you. You’d do it for me. I’d do it for you.”
“Of course I would. I’m your big sister.”
“And I’m your little sibling. Still family. So you don’t get to tell me I’m not allowed to protect you.” Violet shifts their head off my lap and lies down. They tug on my arm until I lie with them. “Get some sleep,” they say. “It’ll be better in the morning.”
I do try to sleep. I get comfortable, I close my eyes. It even works for a little while. I would have gotten something close to a full night’s sleep if the nightmare hadn’t come back.
It’s the version where my parents are in the front seat, unconscious. No matter how I shake them and cry, they don’t wake up. The car is sinking and the doors won’t open and they won’t wake up. Their heads are bloody, like they were hit. Something antlered swims past. The water rises, rises, rises, and I scream.
When I wake up, I’m shaking. Disoriented.
Somewhere outside, a voice that’s Jane and Winnie and Claire all at once calls my name.
13
It’s Monday. Despite everything, that means it’s test day. It’s raining again, so we can’t go outside. Frank has us all in the living room instead. He nodded at me pleasantly this morning, so I guess that’s a step in the right direction. There’s still a pit of foreboding in my stomach, though, because there’s just no way he’s letting me off that easy.
Violet’s up now. They stand in the middle of the living room with Elle acting as their model. With each wave of Violet’s hand, Elle’s clothes shift in style and color, and she twirls, showing off Violet’s creation.
I love watching Violet work. When I came to the lake house, I hated clothes. Even at nine, I was aware of how my fatness limited my clothing. Girls’ clothes didn’t fit me right. Neither did the adult clothes—and they didn’t really look right on a preteen, anyway. I wore T-shirts and sweatpants and a couple pairs of adult jeans that my mother hemmed, and that was it.
Then I met Violet.
They arrived at the lake house shy and uncertain, but given the freedom and encouragement to glamour themselves into anything th
ey wanted, they flourished. They experiment the most with clothes, favoring anything with huge sleeves they can flap like wings. They don’t often glamour their face other than hiding blemishes or, when they’re in an especially good mood, dusting glitter across their cheeks like freckles.
As Violet flourished, they brought the rest of us with them. They glamoured our clothes, seeking whatever made us feel the most like ourselves. They don’t shy away from our fatness—not their own, mine, Winnie’s, Brooke’s. It’s not an obstacle or even a challenge, it’s just another canvas, and it’s one they often love to put on display. Through Violet, I learned to love the way a tank top showed off my upper arms or revealed the full shape of my stomach.
“Wonderful, as always,” Frank says. “Show me something with her face.”
Violet hesitates. Theoretically, their glamours should allow them to make anything look like—well, anything—but they’ve always had an affinity for cloth. They’re great at glamouring their own body, but attempts to alter someone else’s have never worked right. It’s like the glamour struggles to keep up with the movements of the subject. If they stay perfectly still, you won’t notice, but even a turn of the head can send a new nose sliding out of place. Makeup is easier, but we all know that’s not exactly what Frank is asking for.
Violet tries it anyway. They pass a hand over Elle’s face. I’ve been the model enough times that I know exactly what it feels like. The cool mist of Violet’s magic is a comforting chill, like running through a sprinkler in summer.
I gasp, and so do several others. Olivia claps her little hands in wonder.
Elle’s freckles now glow like little stars. Her blond hair is shot through with silver, not like natural gray hair, but like tinsel from a Christmas tree. Her eyes have gone blacker than black, blacker than coal. She pulls aside the collar of her shirt and we see the little pearls studding her collarbone.
She looks like a girl someone dreamed up out of the mist, like if I blink, she’ll disappear. It’s a more fantastic look than Violet often goes for, and it’s stunning. We all rush in to compliment the work, leaving Violet blushing.
Frank frowns.
“I was hoping for something more transformative. Haven’t we been talking about elevating your glamours into disguising the very shape of someone, not just surface details?”
Violet’s face falls. “We have. I’ve been practicing, but it’s not—I’m not ready.”
“How long until you are? You’ve been here for almost three years. You’ve advanced, certainly. Your eye for detail has improved, and your glamours last longer than ever.” Frank flashes them that father-smile. “Do you remember when you first got here, for a glamour to hold, you had to concentrate on it the entire time? Now you’re able to make changes that are seemingly permanent. But why only to clothes? When will you outgrow fashion and be able to dedicate yourself to something truly challenging?”
My palms tingle and anxiety whispers through my arms and throat as if I’m the one being scolded. I avert my eyes from Violet. They wouldn’t want any of us to see if they cry.
Magic shouldn’t feel like a test.
“By our next test in two weeks, I need to see real progress. I don’t just want pretty colors and distracting lights. I want shapeshifting. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Violet whispers.
“Good.” Frank leans back in his chair and takes notes on his tablet while Violet scurries away, hiding in the back.
Next is Irene. Along with training to use her magic to track people, Frank has also had her practicing direct telepathic communication. She still can’t do full sentences, but she can get across words and pictures. In today’s test she successfully transmits pictures of pandas to Olivia while they’re both in the living room, and again of giraffes when Olivia’s by the stairs. But when Frank sends Olivia to the basement, nothing comes through at all.
It’s a pretty good showing, but Frank still isn’t satisfied. He sighs, tapping a lot of notes into his iPad, and moves on.
“Last but not least, we have Elle.”
Elle skips obediently to the center of the room. “Ready!” she chirps.
“And for your volunteer . . .” Frank scans our group.
That foreboding pit in my stomach deepens into pure dread when his eyes land on me.
“Derry,” he says. “Would you assist?”
This isn’t the first time he’s used a test as a punishment. Knowing I don’t have a choice, I stand next to Elle. She’s picking at her nails. I hear desperate whispering, and glance over to see Irene comforting London.
“It’s okay,” Irene whispers. “You know how Elle’s test works.”
But London looks at me with wide, worried eyes, as if she can sense this one is different. I smile and waggle my fingers at her in a wave. It does little to comfort her.
Frank brings Elle the knife.
Technically, Elle could choose to cut herself. Frank has told her as much. But she’s too scared of the pain. She’s told us, and I’m sure told herself, that cutting us barely counts anyway. Frank provides a sharp knife. Elle’s a fast healer. The pain is so short that we probably don’t actually feel that much of it. Elle’s certain that the majority of the pain is a psychological response, not a physiological one, and so it’s not her fault if we can’t control it.
She only tried to volunteer herself once. It was the only time I can remember Frank being truly angry at her. She’d wandered off during one of our rare trips outside. We were all in the backyard, meant to stay together, but Frank found Elle in the lake.
On her next test, he called Irene’s name. The more Elle protested and said she’d cut herself, the greater his anger. Irene had to make her do it. Elle cut her sister, crying the whole time.
She’s never argued with his choice since. Every once in a while, he’ll remind her that she can cut herself. She never does.
Elle takes the knife from Frank and takes a deep breath. The smile she aims my way is strained. “Ready?”
I hold out my arm and, because I know she hates it, I don’t break eye contact. It makes her falter. She has to steel herself before the slice.
It is a sharp knife, and it does cut cleanly, but I don’t care what Elle says. It hurts. I shudder, waiting for the itch of her magic.
“One moment.” Frank approaches and looms over us, examining my arm. Blood is dripping, warm across my skin. “Heal it, but then cut again. Deeper. It might be easier if you stab, actually. We know you can heal these little surface wounds, but what about something that truly requires you to stitch the flesh back together?” He gestures to the widest part of my forearm. “Maybe through there—nothing too major to hit. And stab to the side, we don’t want you hitting bone.”
Elle and I both gape at him in horror. Of course Frank has had Elle cut deeper, although usually when he wants to challenge her, he has her heal a multitude of smaller cuts. I’ve wondered what his limits would be. The most natural progression, to me, would lead to things like breaking bones to see if she can mend them, or cutting off a finger to see if she can stitch it back on, or, well, true stab wounds. What can Elle do with a punctured organ or slashed vein?
Those ideas always seemed too ridiculous. He would never put us at that much risk.
“Frank,” Elle says carefully. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I think it’s a good next step, but a stab like you’re talking about—it’s many more layers than I’m used to. Skin, fat, flesh, and what if I hit a vein or a tendon? I’d feel more confident if I had a chance to work on my speed first. Look.”
Elle holds my wrist in one hand, hovering the other over the still-bleeding cut in my arm. She counts out the seconds under her breath, and I count out the time between lightning and thunder.
When it’s done, she says, “Thirteen seconds.” She looks up at Frank, but doesn’t quite meet his eyes. She’s good at submission. “Pretty fast, if you ask me, but a deeper injury would take longer, and every second would count. If you think it makes
sense, I’d like to wait on attempting stab wounds until I’m under ten seconds for this type of cut.”
Frank takes a long time to answer, long enough that Elle’s hand on my wrist starts to tremble.
“It does make sense,” he says. “But you won’t get better if you don’t push yourself.” He walks to the kitchen island. “Derry, put your arm down here. That’ll make it easier.”
“No,” I say automatically.
His expression turns dark. “Yes. Don’t you want your sister to become a better, stronger alchemist? Put. Your arm. Here.”
It’s absolutely silent in the room. On shaking legs, I cross to the kitchen island. I lay my arm across the wooden surface.
“Elle?” Frank calls. She’s frozen in the middle of the living room. “Come here, please.”
“Y-yes. Of course.” She scurries to join us. The knife trembles in her hands. “Uhm—where, again—I don’t . . .” She takes a deep breath, steadies herself. “I don’t want to hit anything vital until I know I can handle a deep wound.”
“Naturally,” Frank says. He laughs. “We aren’t trying to kill Derry or anything. Just a little stab, right about here,” he says, pointing again to the thickest part of my forearm. “To the side. Not too close to the wrist.”
I make eye contact with Elle again. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
I’m not brave enough to watch. I squeeze my eyes shut.
Elle’s training has always been barreling down this path. One day, someone was going to get stabbed or have a bone broken. If I take the injury, that means someone else doesn’t have to. That makes it easier to bear, doesn’t it?
Not really. I scream when the stab comes.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispers. The knife clatters to the island. Blood is everywhere and it’s not stopping. “Oh, god—I’m sorry—” She grabs my arm, squeezes, putting pressure on the wound. I cry out and Elle keeps whispering I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. At least it doesn’t itch so much this time. Can’t feel it over the pain.
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