The Warlock (The Cave Chronicles #1)

3: A Word Too Far

The April sun sliced through the dark curtains and hit Penny square in the face. She scrunched her eyes and wrinkled her nose, which was a bad idea because her face was still swollen. After an inspection the day before, she saw that she was sporting two black eyes, a swollen lip, and bruising around the neck. She didn't know what Reverend Joseph had done with Courtney, but Penny hoped that she had been severely punished.

It was a Saturday, which meant a work day for Penny. She washed and put on a long black dress with a billowing hem, and went downstairs for breakfast.

The kitchen was cloaked in a red gingham light as the sun from outside shone through the curtains. It highlighted the range and made the room look warm and cosy. The Sloan residence screamed 'country'; it was the type of place that belonged to people who had only known comfort their whole lives; a cottage that disenchanted city-dwellers would dream about whilst they sat holed up in one bedroom flats on the South Circular. Penny pottered around it quietly so as not to wake her parents, and put the oats on the boil.

Staring into space, fiddling with her sleeves and tracing circles on the table with her thumbs did nothing to take her mind off of what had happened yesterday. She had physical reminders of it anyway, and each time she moved it came crashing back to her that she could have been fatally injured. If it wasn't for Peter McDonald, she dreaded to think where she would be right now.

Courtney's rampage wasn't the only thing that was bothering Penny, however. She was annoyed with Reverend Joseph and couldn't believe all that he had said about her. Possessed by a demon, was she? Even worse, he had passed on his crazy ideas to all the other Lockview kids, which answered a lot of questions; they had always been so horrible to Penny, even before she had started to wear black. It also sounded as though her parents had fallen for the lie, if what they had said to the Ludingtons was anything to go by. Did she really have no friends? The thought filled her with anger more than anything – why should Courtney Cowell be so popular, and she, Penny, completely alone?

Not hungry anymore, she turned off the cooker and poured the oats down the sink.

"What are you doing?"

Penny started and whipped around. Mrs Sloan stood by the doorway, pink dressing gown tied tightly around her skinny body. She had a stern look on her face, and her arms were folded tightly. Penny didn't say anything; her mother had already seen her throwing the food away, there was no point in lying about it.

Mrs Sloan let out a haggard sigh, marched over to the sink, snatched he pot from Penny's grasp and slammed it onto the counter.

"Why are you wasting our food, Penelope? Don't you know that there are people starving all over? Can't you remember what it was like in the orphanage?"

"...I was three. Years. Old."

"I will tell you then, how your father and I found you eating what could only be described as gruel!"

"Why is it so noisy in here? What's going on?"

Mr Sloan stumbled into the kitchen, his eyes bloodshot and baggy with sleep.

"Nothing," said Penny. "I was just about to leave."

Mrs Sloan grabbed Penny's wrist, preventing her from moving.