Athenia's Choice (ON HOLD)

Athenia's Choice: Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

There was a calling for umbrellas when I woke up the next morning. Cordelia was still fast asleep, and I dressed as if there was a ban against sound in the room, for fear of waking her.

The children were even more incredulously badly behaved than yesterday. Susanna yanked her hair ribbons out, and I snatched them from the floor as she trampled on them. I could not conclude who was the worst little terror out of them, but they were all horrendously fussy. They wouldn’t sit on a chair with dust or eat slightly stale food.

Well, I had slept by a river near mud and gone without food at all! Ungrateful poncy-posh children! Even though my family were ‘posh’ compared to the Beaumonts standards, I did not dare complain like the Laytoff children did, for fear of father brewing up a storm, so I had learnt to grin ‘n’ bare it.

The thing I couldn’t grin ‘n’ bare was when Cordelia went missing. It was on a Saturday evening when it happened…

Charles, Cordelia, and I entered the rather quaint but crowded haberdashers to purchase some cheap thread to sew up the holey curtains in the front room. It was quite marvellous stepping into this glinting and glowing world, with sparkling beads, brooches, and buttons.

Charles and I walked around to a wall stacked to the tippy-top of the ceiling with rickety drawers positively brimming with thread, wool, ribbons, buttons, and gorgeous fabrics in all the colours of the rainbow. We found some dark blue thread easily, and Charles told me to inform the haberdasher we were ready for the required length to be cut off.

However, as I moved round, an enormous pile of rugs came crashing down on top of me, like a multi-coloured disaster. I screamed in uttermost terror, falling to the ground.

“Athenia,” Charles cried, rushing to my aid, forgetting my cover name.

I was groaning with a little too much exaggeration, but let me confirm having a pile of heavy rugs topple over you is not the most pleasant thing one can encounter. I felt so ashamed, as Charles pulled my rumpled skirts down for me, as if I was Cordelia’s age. The haberdasher started yelling at me, piling the rugs back up.

“I’m ever so sorry,” I responded meekly as he ranted, even though the rugs had fallen on me and I was not responsible for them to come cascading down.

“Let’s just get the thread and get out of here,” Charles muttered, somewhat mortified by the scene. We did so, and then I called for Cordelia, who must have strayed to examine the exquisite silks. Once, twice, thrice, I called. I began to become a little worried.

Charles sighed, looking around the shop in search for his sister, but it was hard because the shop was bursting with drawers and racks of everything imaginable: scissors, silks, and even shoes!

“Have you seen a young girl?” he questioned the haberdasher, who shrugged his shoulders. Something inside me began to panic with urgency. Charles grabbed my wrist and pulled me through the tinkling shop door into the main street.

“Cordelia, Cordelia, Cordy,” he yelled out, eyes constantly wondering from one direction to another, but his voice was drowned by the clattering hooves of horses drawing nearby carriages. My fears were worsening: Cordelia was indeed missing.

Charles told me to run home while he scoured the streets. I nodded, darting through crowds of people. I stepped in a dirty puddle many a time, splish-splashing specks of mud on some good lady’s finery.

“Sorry, sorry,” I gasped, pushing past some stumbling drunken sots. I hammered down the Beaumonts’ front door.

“Whatever’s the matter?” Ida asked, concerned, and I spilled everything out.

Once I had finished, she grabbed a handkerchief from her pocket and began dabbing at her eyes.

“Oh Ida,” I said compassionately, enveloping in her a big hug. She had to bend down a little for I was still quite short and stocky for my age.

“Someone’s taken her,” she whispered, shaking like a sack of salt.

“And we will find them, and have justice!” I replied determinedly. Ida bit her lip, and then cried:

“I just can’t help thinking anything bad happens when you’re around.” She looked down guiltily; I was glaring like a troll. It was like being whipped by a torch of truth. The painstakingly horrible truth.

“Am I not supposed to find that offensive?” I tried to snarl, but it came out more of a pleading whimper. I slammed the door on the way out of the house. Fire-sparks were whirling around me as my hot-headed temper got the better of me, stubbornly refusing to admit Ida was right. How dare she accuse me as if I was a witch at the Salem witch trials?

I realised that storming out of the house with no idea where Charles was wasn’t exactly the greatest idea. I waited outside for Charles, where he yelled at me (when he returned) for sitting idly against walls when Cordelia was missing. I decided not to argue my case. He had hardly paid any attention to me over the last few days, and I was rather hoping he would invite me to go somewhere with him again. Smacking into my head was a sudden brick of guilt; how could I think of such trivial things at a time like this?

When we were inside again, Charles paced the room.

“It’s to do with you, Athenia.” My name came out as an accusing hiss that pierced my heart, through poisonous lips that were so easily kissable. I smacked myself internally again.

“What do you mean?” I stammered.

“I should’ve told you sooner,” he muttered back.

“Just tell me,” I implored, quite impatiently, my panic from earlier flooding back.

“Oh, keep your hair on! Last week, two fellows came here wanting to take one Athenia Reynalds away, but they wouldn’t tell me where,” Charles recounted. My heart was beating faster. No, no, no. Mama couldn’t have gone against Father’s back, just so she could have what she’s always really yearned for.

Then it struck me, a cruel, twisted, mangled thought that grinned, outshining everything else: what if they had taken Cordelia, so I would rescue her, but initially be lured into their cunning, devious trap...?