Page 87 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
“Alys?”
I shudder and take a step into the doorway, to find my own back turned to me as I cook.
“How long does it take to go to the shops?” the other me says.
I don’t reply. I’m not Alys. Alys waits for me with a new name, outside the cave.
She turns, hands on hips, and I realize it’s not me. This girl wears fashions of many years past and is heavily pregnant beneath them. Her nose is a little wider, her hair a little straighter, but I know that face.
“Did you get the milk?” she says.
“Yes,” I lie.
Gran nods. No—not “Gran.” Not yet. She isn’t even “Mam.”
She’s just Elin Parry.
“He’ll be in a temper when he comes back.” She turns to the pot. “I’d make myself scarce if I were you.”
“I won’t leave you.” Another lie.
Elin laughs and puts her hands on her hips, just as I’ve seen her do a million times. “You’d be better off. You’re eighteen, Alys. Find someone nice, while you’re still pretty.”
“Pretty tends to get girls in trouble.”
“Pretty girls would say that.” She faces me again, rubbing her stomach. “Still, if it’s a girl, I hope she’ll be pretty.”
I could tell her it will be a boy who looks just like her, who’ll have two girls, one pretty, one not. I could tell her that one dayhewon’t come back, but it won’t change anything. This is just a memory, and there’s no use making it sadder than it already is.
I close the space between us and pull Elin into a tight hug. She responds immediately, seeing Alys, not Sabrina, because I’m not even a dream yet.
“Leave him,” I tell her. Beg her. “When I go to the woods, come with me. He’ll always be as he is, but I’ll always love you.”
She chuckles, pats my back. “We’re too old to build fairy castles in the woods, Alys.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. She twitches the curtains and glances out, then returns to the cooking with a scowl, where she will stay until she’s too tired to stand, and even past that.
“He’s at the gate, go on now,” she says. “I’ll keep food for you.”
I nod and leave in silence. I linger in the hall, but the door never opens.Henever comes home.
“Sabrina?”
I twitch at my name, feeling like a stranger to myself.
This could all be a trick, a pretty distraction, another trap. I’m wasting time in a memory, and yet I creep up to the sitting room doorway.
Mam sits in her chair with her sewing in her lap. Her head turns toward me, sleepy, smiling. She’s wearing her nightgown, and she holds out her hand.
“You’re taller than when I sent you off to school this morning.” Her brow furrows. “How is that?”
I shrug and toe the threshold. “They finally put me to the rack for being rude.”
“How kind, they helped you beat the family curse.” Mam wiggles her fingers. “Come tell me how badly I’ve darned these socks.”
I can’t resist, and I cross to her. Mam’s hand is warm in mine as I come to sit at her feet with my head resting on her knee.
I’d forgotten so much about her face: the constellation of freckles on her nose, the piercing blue of her eyes, how they’re just a little bit too far apart and give her the look of a curious doe. Her face will be consigned to oblivion someday—when I’m gone—glimpsed only in the pieces passed down to her descendants, if there ever are any. Her slim hands smooth my hair, and my eyes droop. I fight back. I’ll never have this chance again, to be here, with those I’ve lost and found. Those who love me dearly.
