Page 97 of A Sin So Pure

Her footsteps change from thuds on the stair-runner to clacks on kitchen tile.

She puts me down, and I’m surprisingly steady on my feet.

“Elenora, darling?”

Hands caress my face; thumbs brush over the plump apples of my cheeks.

“I need you to talk to me, baby. What happened?” My mother’s voice is soft but tense. Her hands try to pull my face to meet hers, but my neck is stiff. My gaze is rooted to the ground, where my black Mary Janes and white socks butt up against her knees. “Can you look at me, Nora?”

I blink, and I’m not looking at my shoes, but the blank eyes of my nanny staring up at me. I blink again and the world isback to patent leather, tile, and the fabric of my mother’s moss-green dress.

A door slams shut, and wet, heavy footsteps follow.

“What’s wrong?” My father’s voice rings in the room. “I came as fast as I could.”

My mother holds me, cradling my head to her chest.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to call the warehouse unless it’s an emergency. But I didn’t know what to do,” my mother whispers. “Her magic came in.”

“Is it not the same as?—”

“No,” my mother is quick to cut him off. “Go upstairs. You’ll see.”

My father curses under his breath. I don’t know how long it takes, but soon enough, he’s back in the kitchen.

“It’ll be fine,” he says to my mother. “Don’t tell anyone else. I’ll take care of the rest.”

My father’s rough hand strokes my cheek, much like my mother’s did moments ago. It’s still damp from being out in the storm, but it isn’t cold because the warm tickle of his magic spreads from his fingertips. It makes my shoulders un-scrunch and fall away from my ears.

Everything was so loud inside my head, but now it’s dulled.

“Nora? Darling, are you okay?”

I look up and into the green eyes of my mother, then to the soft reassuring smile of my father. Suddenly my cheeks are wet, and my father wipes them off.

“I didn’t mean to,” I squeak. “W—We were playing a game, and when I lost, I got mad and then?—”

“It’s okay, baby girl,” he says, and he repeats it to soothe my crying as I’m pulled into his tight embrace. “Take your time and tell me slow.”

“I was mad and then I felt weird. In my tummy. And then I touched her and—” The sob gets caught in my throat. “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” My father’s large hand strokes from the crown of my head to the nape of my neck. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

I don’t know how long we sit there, on the cold kitchen floor, with my father running his hand over my hair and hugging me. At some point we move to the couch, and I’m pulled into my mother’s lap.

They whisper comforts in my ear, trying to soothe me, but I can’t pull my stare from my hands.

I am unable to move, frozen with fear. My hands are sticky and red.

Why are they red?

The scene shifts, and I realize it’s not fear, but helplessness swelling within me.

A lash of leather slices my forearms. Straining against the iron cuffs around my wrists, I bite back a groan.

I can’t show my pain. I can’t let my shields fall. That’s the only way this ends.

But I can feel her magic in my head; it doesn’t hurt, but it’s strange. An entity that’s other sliding under my skull.

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