Page 120 of Prince of Masks
The tightness in my chest loosens.
Still, I grimace at my own stupidity, my close call, the narrowly avoided bruise to bloom on my flesh.
“I want to hear Hecate,” Grandmother decides. “Page sixty-one.”
I am not as familiar with the old study book as she apparently is, and I have to count out the pages since they are not marked.
When I find the heading, I read the passage of Hecate all the way through.
The cane meets my shin and my arm and my shoulder whenever I stumble over words of poor handwriting.
But she doesn’t stop me.
And I read until dinner is announced. We eat in silence, then return to the parlour—and I read more.
22
The days with Grandmother Ethel are tedious and gruelling.
Each morning, I am up before the sun. I am sent to the kitchen to peel potatoes, a lot of them, then carry out buckets of scraps for the chickens when the sun is kissing the sky.
I shovel the mess out of the barn, hose down the walkway, then hose myself off before I am back inside for a quick bath of ice-cold water.
Then I meet Grandmother outside.
We tend to the garden.
I pull the weeds, and all I have to show for the labour are red, torn hands, because I’m denied gloves, just as I’m denied warm bathwater.
Privileges, she calls them.
Grandmother sits on her wrought iron chair, and she watches me.
Sometimes, the servants bring tea for her.
Not me. Never me.
Other times, she has simple sandwiches. She tosses the crust to the moss of the garden, for the birds.
I am not given breakfast.
By the time the sun is directly above me, through murky clouds and the mist of winter rain, and I am frozen to the bone, I am allowed a few moments to change into fresh clothes.
Noon means a walk to the village.
Might sound charming, a stroll through quiet winding streets, narrow and green with vines and moss, but it would only be lovely if Grandmother fell down a drain.
She’s forced me into boots with needle-thin heels as long as the distance between my thumb and index finger. On cobblestone roads.
Chin high, I don’t look down. If I do, I will be caned. So I stare ahead, smile when she speaks, incline my head when she remarks on the buildings and tells me their histories.
We are passing the brook when my stomach rumbles under the layers of a sweater and a coat.
I am caned for it.
The strike comes hard, right on the spine.
“A lady doesn’t growl,” Grandmother says, and I wonder how much trouble I’ll get in if I knock her out and bury her under the rosebushes.
