The Shadow Sisters

[E1] Chapter 13 - Seventeen Years Ago

"Lizzy," Mother said.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I'll think about it, alright? If it really means that much to you, I'll do a dance."

She wandered away from their table, in an effort to escape them for a short while. She found a smaller one, out of view and unoccupied.

Once she sat at it, she poured herself a glass of the lemon water from a jug in the middle of the table and enjoyed the peace and quiet. It was rare for her to get moments alone anymore. She felt like she was just beginning to enjoy the experience when a scruffy boy wearing a scruffy overcoat sat down opposite her. He had long, messy hair, covering most of his face at the sides. He gazed out at the dance floor and rubbed at his face, as if he had something stubborn stuck to it.

"Can I help you?" Elizabeth enquired.

He snapped around and she saw his eyes.

Goodness, but they were the greenest eyes she'd ever seen in her life. They were proper green too, like the colour of grass in the bright sunlight. "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there," he said.

"That's alright. Most people don't."

The boy dug into his pocket. "I'll go find somewhere else to sit. Sorry about that."

Elizabeth suddenly had the dreadful realisation that she was being strikingly similar to her Mother. Her Father had warned her that it would happen one day. 'One day you'll be just as miserable as that old cow, Liz,' he'd confided during one of his many drunken rambles.

"No, no, it's fine. You can sit there if you want," she said.

He smiled broadly and settled back down into his chair. "Oh, thank goodness for that. I would've had to move closer to the middle and make small talk with people."

"Yuck. That would've been nasty."

"Not as nasty as if I'd have had to dance. I've never really seen the point of dancing, you know?"

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. You just randomly move your body along to bad music and pretend you're having fun. What's all that about?"

"I have no idea." Elizabeth smirked as she sipped her water.

The young man extended his hand. "It's Mark, by the way."

Elizabeth observed his palm for a moment. It was smooth, but his fingers bore calluses. Perhaps he was a musician. She offered her own and they shook. "Elizabeth," she said.

"So, Elizabeth, do you belong to one of the families?"

"Yes. Margaret is my Auntie on my Mother's side."

Mark squinted up in the general direction of the main table. "Ah, yes, Margaret. Lovely woman."

Rarely had she been described that way.

"What about you?" she said.

"Me? No, I'm related to neither."

"Then you're..."

"A friend of the groom," Mark finished. "We go way back."

"You're Bob's friend? But you're like fourteen."

"Fifteen, actually. And I'll have you know that I'm very mature for my age. Got loads of adult friends. And I mean, you're one to talk. You've gotta be like thirteen."

"I'm fourteen. Soon to be fifteen."

Ahead, Elizabeth saw some activity around the tables. Her Mother was up and about, like a stalking predator, asking questions, gazing around the room. Elizabeth sank lower in her seat in a futile effort to melt away.

Mark, who'd noticed the scene, said, "It's like being a prisoner, isn't it?"

"Well, that's a little bit dramatic."

"Is it though? First they tell you that you have to go to school everyday. After that's done, they tell you you have to go to work everyday, until you're too old for society to get any use out of you anymore, like a rung towel, squeezed for all it has. So you get a little bit of freedom for a while in whatever house you've managed to spend your life paying for. All for what? So you can die in a more expensive coffin than your friends?"

"You really have a unique way of looking at things." Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry, I just lose myself sometimes and get really angry about the way the world works."

"I think everyone gets like that sometimes."

He folded his arms. "What say we get out of here and go for some fresh air?"

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "I can't do that?"

"Why not?" he asked.

"My Mother would absolutely kill me, that's why. She already wants to kill me as is. Imagine her face when she finds out I've wandered off into the wilderness with some strange boy."

"Am I really that strange?" Mark grinned at the notion.

"Well, I've only just met you, so you're a stranger, at the very least."

Mark leaned into her. For a second, she thought he was going to do something else, but instead he said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"Do you always do what they say?"

Elizabeth chuckled.

"Have I said something funny?"

"Just that, my entire life I've been doing the exact opposite of what my Mother has wanted. She can vouch for me there."

"Then what's one more act of defiance?" His grin broadened and for a brief second, she thought she saw a golden glint within those big green eyes. It had to be in her imagination, hadn't it? "What could one walk hurt?"

Elizabeth gazed across the room and saw that her Mother had become much more animated. She'd grown bright red in the face, the way that she often did when entering one of her moods. Elizabeth already had lost the battle of playing the perfect daughter, so she may as well fully commit to the role where she had talent.

Certainly, she found it suffocating in this room, with all these people around.

"Fine," she said calmly. "But just for a little while."