Fiddling with my bracelet, slightly embarrassed. The coolness of the crescent moon pendant soothing me.
The longer I was with the Caspers the more I realized how many basic childhood things I’d missed out on growing up. I wasn’t old, but I didn’t have the same memories a normal child should have. Mine was more about surviving the next day than having fun.
Not living life but earning it.
Licking the last of the salt off his fingers, Finn’s face turns mischievous. “Know what the best part of Dad leaving is?”
I shake my head begrudgingly. His demeanor impish as I waited.
“Lil’ sis, you are in for one hell of a treat,” he says. “Caspers are known for throwing the best parties.”
His eyes widening, as they sparkle in memory.
Swallowing, I finish off the food. Guess I knew now why the shift in music. He was mad at Abram, but he could also throw a party while he was away.
Knowing Finn, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be disappointed.
thirty-one
Rory
Iheaddownthestairs, deciding to go to the conservatory tonight.
For some reason, I’d felt on edge all day and needed to calm down. It felt like sometimes that room was the only spot that worked. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about it.
Sometimes I wondered if it was magical.
“Where are you off to?” I hear Lorna say. Her too-thin legs uncrossing from where she sat on the couch in the dark. A glass of white wine on the armrest.
She and I have become masters at avoiding the other. The only place we couldn’t seem to get away with it was at dinner. Abram insisting everyone be there,together.
It was strange that she was engaging me in conversation when she never did in the past. I was instantly on alert.
Getting up, she downs the last of her drink and walks toward me.
“Wanted to check out the sauna.”
Her mouth twitches, eyeing how my hand tightens its grip on the spine of the book. She shakes her head, a staleness within her features.
“Stop lying,” she demands.
“I’m not,” I hiss out.
I could still head in that direction. I’d have to take a left instead of right down the hallway, so I wasn’t lying.
“You are. Know how I know?” I jerk my head back when she pokes at the bridge of my nose with her fingernail. “Your mother used to crinkle her nose like that whenever she lied too.”
Affronted, I look at her. My gut twists into a knot. Palms turning clammy at the mention of Lillian. Lorna sees none of that.
Piercing me with her joyless gaze, smirking.
“You try so hard to be everything she isn’t, don’t you?” she says, grabbing at a strand of my hair.
My breath hitches. How did she know—
“Or at least you did. Just because a duck molts its old feathers doesn’t mean it suddenly turned into a swan,” she muses, dropping it.
I resist the urge to smack her as my nostrils flare.