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“Not you,” Archer snapped, and I recoiled.
Archer wasn’t the warmest of men, but he’d never quite looked at me with such dismissive repulsion.
“Best you come with me, dear,” Frenella said, starting to pull me away. “We’ll go find Sissy.”
But I didn’t want to find my mum.
Apollo and I reached for each other, but Frenella placed a restraining hand on my arm, and Apollo seemed scared to take a step forward.
“Why can’t Harlow come?” Apollo asked his father.
“A girl has no place in men’s business,” Archer replied sternly.
“That’s not fair,” Apollo argued. “Where I go, Harlow goes.”
Archer may as well have had smoke billowing out his ears. “Grow up, Apollo. Taking your place at the head of Saint Benedict’s hierarchy will not be achieved withfairness.” He spat the word like it was something disgusting and glared at Frenella and me. “This is your doing. You’ve made him soft.”
Frenella held my shoulders tightly, like she was protecting me. “I gave him a childhood,” she told her husband.
Archer stormed over to Apollo and grabbed his arm roughly. “My son will not be the first of his line to serve another God. This ends now.”
“I’m not going without Harlow!” Apollo insisted.
Archer’s arm flew back across his body. Apollo and I both flinched.
Once.
Archer had hit him once.
But it had been enough to cement the obedience into him. Archer’s word was law. The consequences would not be pleasant.
Apollo ducked his head in submission and Archer dropped his arm.
“Good boy,” he said, pride and perhaps even love in his tone. He looked at his wife, who was glaring at him. “It’s for his own good. We send him there this soft and he won’t come home alive.”
Dread settled in the pit of my stomach as Apollo, and I looked at each other wide-eyed.
I wouldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen the hulking figures who graced our fathers’ doors in the dark of night. Sometimes they had what I hoped was red paint on them. Sometimes I saw a gun or a knife. They were mean men with hard eyes and scars, always scowling and always uncomfortable.
“Come on, dear,” Frenella said to me. “Your mum’s in the conservatory.”
Apollo and I gave each other one more longing glance before his parents separated us.
“Who’s Apollo meeting?” I asked Frenella as we walked away.
She fiddled with the pearls at her wrist absently. “Every God needs his Angels,” was her reply.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” she sighed, “that as much as you and I have our places set for us by the circumstances of our birth, Harlow... The men have expectations put on them as well.”
I nodded, but I didn’t really know what she meant. I think she could tell. She stopped to lean down closer to my level and smiled at me. It was one of those smiles that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You know how Archer and your father... Well, they keep their business to themselves?”
I nodded. “Yes. They don’t like talking about it.”
“No, they don’t. Not with us anyway.”
