Page 38 of Kill the Beast
“But—”
There was a crash of glassware from somewhere inside the house. Lyssa startled, reaching instinctively for her pistol with one hand, and in that moment Brandy finally tore free of her grip and bolted through the front door, nearly knocking Mrs. Jensen over. Alderic caught the woman before she fell, apologizing profusely, as Lyssa ran in after the bullmastiff.
“Brandy!” she called. She could hear a maid muttering to herself in the kitchen about canted countertops, but there was no sign of the dog. “Brandy, come back here!”
She checked the parlor to see if he had snuck in to roll on the rug or something, and the sight of it made her throat tighten. The walls had been freshly papered, but the furniture was largely the same. The bank had taken all of it, along with the house, though that still hadn’t been enough to cover her father’s debts. He had fled Ibyrnika to escape the rest, leaving his children behind.
“What are you doing in here?” Mrs. Jensen huffed as she burst into the parlor, her cheeks flushed and her hair escaping its pins, Alderic on her heels.
“Looking for the dog,” Lyssa said, her voice sounding distracted and far away as she ran her hand along the back of one of the chairs, her fingers finding the scratches she had dug into the wood with a penknife one rainy afternoon when she was bored. It was clear now that Brandy was not in here, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave just yet. Her roaming gaze snagged on the piano angled beside the large picture window, where her mother had practiced every single day, Lyssa and Eddie sprawled out on the floor at her feet, their games accompanied by faltering scales and discordant compositions. Some of Lyssa’s most colorful swears were ones she had first heard during her mother’s piano sessions.
There was a weak little laugh from upstairs, and a child’s voice said, “Where didyoucome from?”
Mrs. Jensen blanched and started out of the room. “If that animal hurts my daughter, I swear I will—”
“I’ll go get him,” Lyssa said, hurrying past her and down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time. Behind her, Alderic was talking rapidly in an attempt to smooth things over. So much for nobody calling the authorities.
The door to Lyssa’s old room was ajar; she pushed it open and peered inside. The walls were no longer the pale pink she had hated, and the curtains were heavy brocade instead of gauzy lace, but it smelled like her mother’s bedroom had in those last, horrible months—the astringent smell of a sickroom. The child tucked into the bed was painfully frail, with brittle hair plastered to her sweaty forehead and eyes bright with fever. But her smile was even brighter as she ran a fragile-looking hand over Brandy’s ear. He had leapt up onto the bed and was curled up beside her.
Lyssa approached the bed and smiled at the girl. “I’m sorry he barged in like that,” she said gently, reaching out to grab Brandy’s collar. He whined at her, his eyes big and worried; he knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t want to leave. “He used to sleep here when he was a puppy, and he doesn’t understand that it belongs to someone else now.”
The little girl’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Yep.” Lyssa looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Jensen and Alderic, hovering in the doorway. Mrs. Jensen’s face had softened a little, and Alderic looked confused. “Your mother wants you to get some rest now, though, okay?”
“Okay.” The little girl wrapped her arms around Brandy’s neck, giggling when he snuffled her cheek with his nose. “Bye,” she said as he reluctantly jumped down from the bed and followed Lyssa out into the hall.
“I’ll come check on you in a minute, sweetheart,” Mrs. Jensen said, before closing the door.
“I’m sorry,” Lyssa told her as they went back downstairs. “I reallyam. It’s like I said, he doesn’t understand that this isn’t home anymore.”
“It seems he’s not the only one,” Mrs. Jensen said, though there wasn’t any anger in it. “There’s nothing wrong with my tree, is there?”
“No,” Lyssa said sheepishly, looking at her boots.
“And is that why you come here sometimes to stare at the house? You used to live here?”
Lyssa’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Yes.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at Alderic, didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes. “I didn’t realize anyone had noticed me.”
“The bank told us it was a… sad situation, when we bought it.”
“It was,” she said stiffly. Brandy whined, as though he remembered being thrown out into the cold, and she reached down to scratch his ears.
“I am sorry for your misfortune,” Mrs. Jensen said, and although she did look sorry, her voice was stern. “But this is our house now, and we have misfortunes of our own, as you can see. I don’t know what you had hoped to accomplish by coming here, but you need to leave. Now.”
“I understand,” Lyssa said. She used to seethe with hatred for the people who had taken her house, her life, but she wasn’t a child anymore. She knew her father was the only one to blame for their family’s downfall and all of the horrors that followed. Mrs. Jensen wasn’t responsible for Lyssa’s situation then, and she didn’t owe Lyssa anything now. As she had said, she had more important things to worry about. Lyssa would simply have to find another botanical item that held some significance to her.
“I’ll pay you,” Alderic said, already withdrawing a stack of bank notes from his pocket and pushing it into the woman’s hands. “For your time, and your trouble, and our intrusion upon the sickroom. All we need is a tree branch, and then we will be on our way, and you shall never see us again.”
Mrs. Jensen stared at the wad of money, her expression downright incredulous. “One branch is worth this much to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lyssa clenched and unclenched her fingers, resisting the urge to rub her hands over her face in frustration.Lady Bright, woman, why do you care? Just take the money and let us into your yard!But Mrs. Jensen was looking at her expectantly.
She heaved a sigh. “Because this is where I was happiest, as a child,” she said, still avoiding Alderic’s eyes. “I… want to keep a piece of that with me.”
