Page 4 of A Lie so Pretty and Poisonous

Aurora,

You have had your fun to the detriment of Cora, but it is time for you both to return to Alwine Manor. There are too many crimes and uprisings, making it unsafe for a woman of your breeding and status. Additionally, Cora needs proper education, lessons, and to step into the life a young lady of her standing should be embracing. I have sent Terren to collect you both. I must warn you that the royal court of Edenalee has granted me custody of Cora on the grounds of noble preservation in times of great conflict. If you foolishly decide not to return, Cora will return without you. I have the means to keep Cora safe from the ongoing civil unrest and give her the life she deserves, even if you squandered your own. She will want for nothing.

I am generously giving you three days from the reading of this letter to get your affairs in order and say goodbye to whomever you need to, or to have time to part with Cora if you selfishly decide to keep living below your status.

If you do decide to stay where you are, I must impress upon you that you are not to contact me if and when your ‘happy life’ starts to crumble around you and you need help picking up the pieces, like the last couple of times. I will not be there.

~Mother

Blood rushed into my ears, and my stomach flipped. “No. No, no, no, no! This can’t be happening. I won’t let them take her from me.” Tears rolled down my warming cheeks. Greta’s eyes shone as she wrapped me up in a hug.

“I am so sorry you don’t have a mother who sees the amazing and capable woman you are. Cora is lucky to have you as her mom,” she said warmly, pulling back to look up at me. “Oh, I could slap that woman for doing this to you!”

I chuckled between sniffles. “Goddess, that would heal a piece of me to witness.”

Greta searched my tearful eyes. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know. My mother always gets what she wants. Cora cannot go back to that manor and endure what I did. She deserves better.”

My jaw clenched as I reread the letter, infuriated by my mother’s insinuation that I was not only unable to keep my daughter safe but that I couldn’t give her a good life. She believed that the key to a fulfilling existence was possessing the best things money can buy. Her time and affection were the two things she couldn’t squeeze from her purse, yet what I had needed most. Things I readily gave to my daughter.

The cold reality of the situation washed over me. “My mother is nothing if not persistent with unlimited resources and a quasi-friendship with a man who wants nothing more than for me to crash and burn, aiding her plight. I have settled on a platform of stability and safety only to have it swept out from underneath me the moment I begin to feel safe. The goddess Clotha is certainly weaving a fated path for me like I have personally offended her.”

Greta set her jaw, tipping her chin up. “Goddess of fate or not, I will help set you back on a path to a life you deserve. You get to choose which of the paths she has created for you. I’ll give you what coin I can spare, and you can take off to start anew.”

“Greta, I can’t ask that of you!”

She stared at me and narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t. And I am not offering; I’m telling. Take the money, and let’s get a plan in place. Choose this path.”

Greta had given Cora and me so much. Too much. I wanted to refuse, but I didn’t have the connections or coin that Greta did, and getting my daughter to safety required both. I had to swallow my pride. It was what Cora deserved.

“Alright,” I whispered and looked deep into her sky-blue eyes. “I will pay you back. I won’t do this unless you let me pay you back,” I demanded.

Greta flicked her hand at me. “Yes, yes. Fine.”

“We have three days,” I continued, “but I refuse to do anything that will put you or Cora in danger. We must be strategic.”

“Strategy is what women do best.” A sly smile formed, deepening the lines on her face. “Leave it to me. I’ll get you both safely away from that man, and I won’t even need three days to do it.” Greta loved to problem-solve and piss off men. The fact that she was about to do both made her practically giddy.

I was not as confident, but I had successfully eluded my mother once, and I could do it again. My voice had only ever been disregarded, no matter how much I fought to use it. I wouldn’t let Cora fall victim to the same fate. Maybe my conviction was truly desperation or delusion, but I would need both to get through what was about to unfold: An upheaval of our status quo and blind faith in Clotha that we were destined for more than being submissive, to both my mother and the men she would seek to marry us off to.

Olinbury was aflutter with activity, readying for the Festival of Reaping. The festival took place across the lands, celebrating the turning of the season and giving thanks to Lugh, the god of harvest, for providing another season of crops. Harvests had been dwindling year after year, and scarcity had become one of the driving factors of the tensing fervor of crimes and violence. Disappearances of nobles and commoners alike were becoming more frequent with each passing year. My father was among the victims who were never found.

Devotions and prayers to our pantheon of gods and goddesses, which had always bolstered the lives of the people of Edenalee, had not yielded favorable results for many seasons. Rumors spread that we had been abandoned by our deities, creating fear and chaos, and lighting the fuse to the societal bomb on the cusp of exploding. Our priests tried to temper fears, preaching that the citizens of Edenalee should pray, devote, worship, and sacrifice more to appease our deities. It was hard for those who didn’t have much left to surrender more.

Still, the people in villages across all Edenalee held onto hope, needing something to celebrate in times of strife, when slivers of joy were needed the most. People traveled from all over Edenalee to join in the village festival, and we had an increase in activity in our shop, much to the delight of Greta.

She left me to tend to the apothecary with a spark in her eye, claiming she had to put the wheels of her plan into motion—a plan she had yet to share with me. An hour after her hasty departure, Greta returned to the apothecary as I finished helping a woman find the herbal tonic to cure her son’s foot infection from stepping on a nail.

“Have a nice evening.” I smiled too widely at the patron to hide my nervous demeanor as she exited the shop.

Greta hurried to the front door and locked it behind the customer. “I need you to listen to my plan thoroughly before shutting any part of it down.”

Oh, I am going to hate this. I crossed my arms. “I’m listening.”

She ran her thumb over the smooth surface of the amethyst pendant around her neck. “Remember my new herb vendor, Alec? I just returned from seeing him at his wares stand at the festival.”

How could I forget the man whom Greta tried to match me with the moment he set foot into the apothecary? Something I shut down swiftly. The thought of allowing a man to tear down the wall I had meticulously built around my heart made my stomach curdle.