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Eighteen

PERINE WILDER

The next morning she awoke to misery like an anvil on her chest. Typically, when the world around her had felt like it could cave in at any moment, she’d find something to distract herself with. Peri had been known to, on many occasions, throw herself into projects until the rest of the world faded away.

Which, being that she had a rune on her back that she was desperate to be rid of, should have been the first thing she’d done when waking this morning.

Only, this time she found that she couldn’t. It turns out when your parents break your heart and force their will upon you, the only thing to do at first is sob until you vomit, which was the only force that could have pulled her from the comfort of her bed. She took a bath then to wash off yesterday’s events, only to devolve into a weeping disaster there too.

She'd spent so long holding onto hope, convincing herself that, when everything finally came to light, there would be a reasonable explanation for her family's actions.

Love was supposed to be simple, not twisted and filled with thorns.

Later, Zila dropped off a basket with an assortment of Peri’s favourite foods; which left her sitting in nothing but a towel and a notebook, eating only very thin slices of hard cheese as she made a list of things to try to break the rune on her back.

She felt ill. Her eyes were like raw, dry husks from hours spent sobbing. Every time she remembered her father throwing her annotated, prized textbooks into the fireplace she devolved into a snivelling mess, holding the bitemarks together and calling for Slang until her voice was no more than a rasp.

Perhaps it was an unhinged thing to do… but wouldn’t you know it? That was exactly how she was feeling. And anyway, when you’re left with only reckless choices, they fail to be choices anymore.

Only Slang never came.

Daylight faded into evening, and she curled up in the window seat staring out at the rapidly darkening sky. She wondered if this was to be her fate—to be abandoned here in the Holy Circle, alone with a family of questionable character.

A cloud of opalescent bats soared through the night sky, slowly absorbing silver moonbeams until they glowed like iridescent stars. She wondered if her professors had found her abrupt leaving tragic. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to sneak in a goodbye hug to Brenn before leaving. Somehow the loss of that stung worse than anything else.

She had the wild hope that Oleander would think of her from time to time. She’d grown to sort of like him, despite his many obvious flaws. For years now she’d often said that if he’d ever applied his brilliance to something other than pranks or awful bargains he would most definitely be an academic peer to her and Brenn.

Now that she’d worked with him, he’d proven her assumptions correct. He was alarmingly competent, observant, and kind. Then there were his notes for their project—they were clever and rivalled even Brenn’s in their attention to detail.

This would have been something she could have pointed out to him smugly, to finally have some stinging comment to needle him with for a change.

She watched the bats fly away out of eyesight, and she realised that the idea of never seeing Oleander again was… oddly painful.

The mischievous sparkle in his eye that had once so annoyed her, now filled her with longing to see it again. In the end, when he’d ceased trying always to provoke her, she’d found his presence comforting. That obnoxious demon had somehow burrowed under her skin, immovable as a crooked splinter. Gods below, how had she ever let that happen?

The next morning, despite the feeling of despair threatening to drown her, she decided to do something menially productive. Her parents had burnt so many of her books, but there were still other secret spots scattered throughout her bedroom they hadn’t discovered. Hidden hollows and nooks that required a fair amount of physical labour to access.

Thankfully, moving heavy furniture and rolling back thick rugs seemed to help burn off access anxiety, which in turn helped her think clearer and she found she still had a little hope tucked away in the crevices of her mind.

One of these books was sure to help her.

Slowly, she began collecting all of the recovered books still in her possession and carefully organising them into the last hidden compartment under a large chest in her closet

The pile, while small, was helped considerably by Zila who brought her any books the hellcat could pilfer. Then Peri moved the chest from her closet allowing her to access the largest hiding place she had. She spent the rest of the evening organising and hiding books and any other contraband inside it.

Over the following days she called Slang as often as she could, hoping desperately the great serpent spirit would eventually hear her and come make some awful bargain that would ultimately save her.

But if they heard her call, then they were vehemently ignoring her.

Slang’s silence was both terrifying and annoying in equal measure. Hadn’t she been told repeatedly to use these blasted bitemarks? Well, now she was trying to do just that and… all she got for it was silence. What use was it to make a dangerous bargain with a gigantic snake, when they can’t even be bothered to show up when she needed them most?

With each passing day, Peri grew more anxious, fearing that the rune on her back had somehow overridden her bargain with Slang. This should have come as a relief—no longer would she have to worry about finding that infernal earring.

It would be somebody else’s problem.

But if Slang no longer needed her, then who would come to save her?

For the sake of her health, she'd given up stress-eating cheese in favour of thinly sliced carrots. The carrots were nowhere near as comforting, but they did have the irritating habit of not making her feel lethargic after mass consumption.