Page 6 of A Curse of Salt

I didn’t miss the city the way my sisters did. Didn’t miss the cold nights and tight dresses and the smell of manure that edged the cobblestones. The dancing, perhaps, but not the endless hours of empty conversation, not the flushed cheeks and creeping hands of over-eager suitors. I was only fourteen when we’d left Bray, but that had never stopped them.

Here in Northbay, I was free to lose myself among the pages of my novels, to walk the bluffs that arched alongside the ocean and let the wind sweep my problems behind me. I didn’t love the cottage, for it wasn’t our home, but I had books, and the sea. That had always been enough for me.

Footsteps descended the stairs and I glanced up to see Aberdeen enter the kitchen, silk skirts brushing over the worn floorboards. Her long hair was pulled taut in its usual braid, but her eyes were weary, her cheeks wan.

‘What’s for dinner?’

I tried to fix her with a hard stare. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

She sighed. ‘Better you don’t know.’

I let my knife fall into the sink with a clatter and drew myself up to my full height. I was tall, but Aberdeen was taller. I scowled.

‘Lie to Felicie,’ I said. ‘We both know this world’s darker than she can bear. But don’t lie to me.’

‘As if you need another reason to be better than me,’ Aberdeen muttered.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’ Her hard eyes pierced my indignation. ‘Don’t pretend you know half the things Father’s done to protect you, too.’

I faltered. My sister had never worn the word love well. She draped herself in clothes we could no longer afford and kept her emotions buried somewhere beneath. I’d never dared ask for more than Aberdeen gave, not when it had cost her childhood to become the mother none of us ever had. But I wasn’t a child any more. I didn’t need protecting.

I gritted my teeth, torn between my waning anger and hurt at the spite that pinched her words.

‘Just tell me the truth,’ I said, wondering how many secrets that silver tongue guarded.

Aberdeen’s eyes narrowed. ‘There’s a reason we fester in this godsforsaken village, Aurelia,’ she said harshly. I flinched at her use of my full name – the name my mother had given me. The one only Aberdeen used to scold me. ‘You never wondered why Father cast us out to the brink of the world?’

I hesitated. ‘It’s right on the trade route between Bray and Prynn. And the sea air . . .’ Father had always said the city smog would be the death of Felicie, that her lungs needed to breathe. But the seaside was no place for anyone any more. With pirates honing in on the last dregs of wealth clinging to the weather-beaten coasts and scouring the Channel between our continent and the wastelands to the west, it would’ve been foolish to think we’d be safe for long.

Why were we here?

‘We’re right at the edge of the world,’ Aberdeen remarked. ‘Nobody asks questions here because nobody wants to know what their neighbours are running from. What could chase them so close to the brink of danger.’

I folded my arms across my chest, suppressing a shiver. ‘Bray was on the water, too,’ I tried to argue. ‘Northbay is no more dangerous—’

‘Try telling that to Father’s crew.’

‘So what’re you saying?’ I snapped. ‘That we’re hiding here?’

‘It’s what we’re hiding.’ Aberdeen raised her brows. ‘Who.’

My mind whirled. ‘You mean Felicie?’

I glanced through the windows again as our sister picked her way back towards the cottage, taking Aberdeen’s silence as confirmation. But it still explained nothing. What was so special about Felicie that Father had fled cities to shield her? From pirates and the gods only knew who else . . .

‘Why?’ I asked. What other lies have you kept buried all these years? It felt as though the boards beneath my feet were being ripped away, one by one, exposing a pit of lies beneath.

‘Don’t ask me,’ Aberdeen said shortly. She retreated to the doorway, silhouetted by the sombre hues of the sinking sun. ‘I wasn’t the one who decided you couldn’t handle the truth.’

3

The door creaked as I nudged it open and peered inside. Father sat propped up in his bed, sheaves of parchment spread across his lap, lit by the flickering glow of a candle. The smell of him, of ink and cotton and wood, was so familiar, so comforting, I almost forgot my anger at the door.

Wrinkled hands skimmed across his papers, stilling when I entered. He glanced up, a warm smile falling short of his cornflower eyes.

‘How’re you feeling, child?’

---