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I turn around and walk away.
To tell Gracelynn Langston that Stepdaddy Dearest has finally kicked the bucket.
CHAPTER THREE
ARSÈNE
Then
Like all cautionary tales, my story began in a big, sprawling mansion. With stained glass windows, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses.
Painted murals, hand-carved marble chess pieces, and grand curved staircases.
With an evil stepmother and a snotty stepsister.
The night that changed everything started out normally, as all disasters do.
Dad and Miranda drove into the city to see Chekhov’s The Seagull premiere in Calypso Hall Theater and left us behind. They did it often. Miranda enjoyed art, and Dad enjoyed Miranda. No one enjoyed us, though, so it was our job to entertain one another.
My stepsister, Gracelynn, and I flattened a cardboard box we’d stolen from the kitchen and took turns sitting on it, sliding down the stairway. We bumped into housekeepers as they rushed between rooms, carrying fluffy warm towels, ingredients for dinner, and dry-cleaned suits. They’d have crushed us like bugs if they could. But they couldn’t. We were Corbins. Entitled, privileged, and powerful. Scarsdale’s chosen ones. Destined to squash, not to be squashed.
We slid and we slid down the stairs until our asses were red under our designer garments. My spine felt like Jell-O from all the bumping against the stairs. Neither of us thought to stop. There weren’t many things to do in this castle. Video games were forbidden (“They make the mind lazy,” Dad said), toys were messy (“And you’re too old, anyway,” Miranda huffed), and we’d run out of homework to do.
Gracelynn was midair, gliding down the stairway, when the main door flew open. She bumped into my father. Her face pancaked against his shoes, and she let out a comic “Oomph.”
“What in the . . . Arsène!” my father thundered to the bottom of the stairway, sidestepping her. Fingernail streaks adorned his cheeks. “What is this mess?”
“We just—”
“Decided to get yourselves injured? Do you think I have the time to go to the ER with you?” he spit out. “Go to your room. Now.”
“Gracelynn.” My stepmother followed briskly, shutting the door behind her. I didn’t have to look at her fingernails to know they were caked with my father’s blood. When they fought, she always did this. Hurt him. “Go practice your ballet, darling. Daddy and I have grown-up things to discuss.”
Daddy.
He wasn’t her daddy.
Heck, he wasn’t even really my daddy.
Douglas Corbin was no fatherly creature.
Yet strangely enough, he didn’t hate Gracelynn, another man’s child, with the same passion he reserved for me.
“Sorry, Mom.”
“It’s okay, sweetie.”
Gracelynn stood up and dusted off her knees. She ran up the stairs, wrinkly cardboard tucked under her armpit. We shuffled down the darkened hall. We knew the score. Neither of us wanted a front-row seat to Dad and Miranda’s arguments.
All Dad and Miranda did was fight and make up. They didn’t want us present for either of those things. This was how the games of sliding stairways and tightrope started. Out of boredom because we were always so alone.
“Think they’ll punish us?” she asked me now.
I shrugged. “Don’t care.”
“Yeah . . . me either.” Gracelynn shoved her bony elbow in my ribs. “Hey, race you to my room?”
I shook my head. “I’ll catch up with you on the roof.”
She padded quickly across the golden marble, disappearing into her room.
Whenever they sent us to our rooms, we climbed the fire ladder and hung out on the roof. It was a way to pass the time, and we could talk about anything without the servants eavesdropping and snitching.
I walked into Gracelynn’s den, which looked like something Barbie herself had designed. She had a queen-size bed with a pink tulle canopy, a white carved fireplace, and upholstered recliners. Her ballet gear was scattered about.
Gracelynn loved ballet. I didn’t know why. Ballet clearly didn’t love her back. She made a crappy ballerina. Not because she wasn’t pretty—but because she was only pretty. She could barely move her feet and, ironically, lacked grace.
The window was open. The wind made the curtains dance. Even they danced better than Gracelynn.
I laced my sneakers before pulling my body out the window. I stomped my way up the rain-drenched iron ladder. I found Gracelynn leaning against one of the chimneys, ankles crossed, exhaling breath vapor like a dragon.
“Ready to tightrope it?” She grinned.
The ridge of the roof was edged so narrowly that we had to walk it one foot at a time. For our game, we walked the ridge, chimney to chimney, as fast as we could. We each had our turn. We timed one another, and sometimes—a lot of times—I suspected she was cheating, which was why I never, ever let her win.
“You timing me, or what?” Gracelynn lurched her chin toward me.
Nodding, I produced my stopwatch from my pocket. “Ready to eat dust again, sis?”
Gracelynn had a problem. Her problem was me. I was smarter than her, scoring higher on tests without even studying. I was more athletic than her—she was a mediocre dancer, while I was the second-best tennis player in my age group in the entire state.
