16
Q,
How are you, my beloved? Is New York just glorious? Is it everything you have ever dreamed of? I hope it is, far more than I have hoped for anything else in a very long time. I hope you have shacked up with a wild-haired, tattooed artist type in Bushwick, where you have to flicker the lights before entering a room in order to scare the roaches away. Isn’t that what the dream was? To be down and out and far, far away from Beauchamp?
Please do not worry about me this autumn. I am settling in to my new life at Oxford just fine – all those extra hours in Grandpa’s study over the years have prepared me well for the workload! I apologise for the lack of summer we shared this year – the stress of my impending university studies made me just a tiny bit fragile. A few weeks by the coast has done wonders for my state of mind.
Send me the most outrageously touristy trinket you can find!
Love, hugs
Sienna
My beautiful Sienna,
New York is just magical. But, no, there are no roaches in my apartment. Maybe they realised a Prescott was moving in and decided to make a hasty retreat.
I am still finding my footing here – it is so much larger than my memory led me to believe. I shall never again complain about the size of Beauchamp! At least we have never been lost there on the way for lunch.
I so dearly hope you are doing well.
Love,
Your Q
Quinn, Oxford in the autumn is more glorious than you could ever imagine.
It is sublime.
I am spending my days surrounded by golden leaves and slight, misty rain.
Are the New York autumns as beautiful as our childhoods spent there? I am so glad you followed your heart to Brooklyn. You are a fantastic photographer, Q. You simply must pursue it. I will be forced to severely punish you if you do not win some fabulous artsy prize for your work!
I am so looking forward to Christmas at Beauchamp with the family. Please tell me you will be there! I simply will not be able to enjoy Christmas without you.
Sienna xxx
I would not miss Christmas at Beauchamp with you! Not for all the apple pie and pizza in New York City!
I’ve been working hard to collect some beautiful snaps for your scrapbook this year. I just know you will adore it!
Have a hot chocolate for me? I so miss England.
Quinn xx
Huxley – I am missing you so.
Are you looking after Asher for me? Is he being just terrible this year?
Make sure you both prepare for your exams!
Will see you at Christmas,
Quinn xxx
Dear Quinn,
I’m sure you can imagine the surprise I felt when I received your email. I apologise for taking my time in getting back to you. I am sorry to hear about the difficulties Sienna experienced over the summer, although I am not sure how much I can do to rectify the situation. Like the rest of your family, Sienna is a strong character and I am sure she will do just fine as time goes on.
As I am sure you are aware, I have a longstanding professional relationship with your family and I cannot do anything that will jeopardise the trust. I can, however, provide you with information that is not considered confidential, although this does not cover all of your requests.
In saying that, I have attached the documents you requested. I trust that these provide you with the necessary information to assist you in your endeavour.
Kind regards,
Matthew Knight
Knights and Associates
17
I am living a lie.
I am not in New York.
I returned home with my father to our house in Sussex, and I have remained here ever since.
Only my parents and Harper know the truth.
I do not trust any other Prescotts with this secret of mine. Not even my dear Asher.
It took me six weeks to even tell Harper.
I was not sure I could burden her fragile self with my revelation.
I continually underestimate her strength.
My parents were stunned at my rapid change of heart. I expected yelling, threats of a discontinued trust fund. I expected to be told that I must take up my place at Cambridge; that I must continue with the plan to read politics, be trained in the family business.
Instead, my mother brought me a mug of hot chocolate to my bedroom, complete with mini marshmallows, just like she used to do when Asher and I were young. I support you, she told me. I support you in any decision you ever make, she told me.
This is the first autumn I have spent in Sussex since I was ten. At eleven, like all Prescott children, I was packed off to boarding school in Berkshire. Harper joined me the following year. It was wonderful to have my baby cousin there with us. We missed Sienna so, for she was at a different school, deeper in the leafy green English countryside.
I expected to spend my days alone, isolated, nothing to do but make shapes with my shadows. I am shocked when my mother invites me to join her in the garden, to help her tidy the shrubs.
Mother invites me to lunches with her friends, to events at the community centre.
She rides horses with me for hours every week.
It is magical to spend so much time with my mother.
It is unnerving to spend so much time with my mother.
I am not aware of the proper decorum for spending so much time with one’s mother.
I fear she is trying to groom me to attend university next autumn.
For that is the Prescott way.
18
One thing I had never done, much to the surprise of my friends at school, was to keep my mobile phone switched on at night. Not even on silent beside the bed, kept on vibrate. It always seemed like such a hideous thing to do. I always believed that there were more traditional ways to contact me should an emergency situation arise.
But after a particularly stressful night of failed photo developing, I fell asleep with the phone still in my hand. A sign of sheer exhaustion, if ever there was one.
I woke the next morning to the vibration in my hand. Eyes still blurry, I fumbled with the screen to unlock it and held it to my ear.
“Quinn, I need your help.”
And that was all I needed to hear.
Without any explanation, I grabbed my Mother’s car keys from their usual resting spot in the hallway and ran to the car. The fact that I had never driven on a motorway before did not seem important to me. I was focused on the end goal.
As I sped along the bumpy tarmac, my thoughts flew back to my childhood, when we would take the long way home from Beauchamp, my Father creating weird games on the drive to keep me and Asher amused. We would frequently complain about how long it was taking to get home, but we both secretly loved it. My Mother would sometimes let her stern facade drizzle away and join in with us, singing along to the radio or thumping Asher whenever a yellow car passed us. Okay, it was maybe me hitting Asher. My parents would merely roll their eyes.
Back then, we were still a happy family. I was far too young to understand what was going on behind the scenes at Prescott Incorporated. The idea of a mean, bullying patriarch seemed like insanity to me.
Instead, we just focused on fun. On family. On seeing who could hold their breath for the longest in the backseat before my Mother started to hyperventilate, panic, and scream at my Father to drive to the nearest hospital. Once she did that, we would erupt into fits of giggles, apologies, assurances that we wouldn’t do it again. But, of course, we always did. Anything to hear my Mother speak for longer than ten minutes.
Those were the best days of my life. I lived for those car journeys.
They ended when Asher was sent to Eton. We no longer took the long route home. Just straight down the motorways and back to Sussex, in silence. No more games or singing. Life was serious business.
A little over an hour later, and I start to recognise the streets surrounding me. I have not been down these streets for many, many years. Something happened to stop my Father and aunt Delilah from gathering in their own respective houses. I do not know what.
I finally make my way through the myriad of one way streets and cul-de-sacs and pull up in front of a house that made up so many of my magical childhood memories. Aunt Delilah’s house. Quinn and Harper’s house.
Not wanting to arouse suspicion, I forgo the front door. If my memory serves me, the tree in the back garden has branches strong and high enough to practically carry me into Quinn’s bathroom. I can get where I need to go from there.
One thing I did not account for, however, was my muscles forgetting how to properly scale a tree.
What I had planned as a stealth mission – up the tree, through the bathroom, crawl down the hallway – ended in catastrophe when I fell from the branch I was precariously balancing on. I landed with a thump in Delilah’s rose bushes.
A shriek came from the kitchen.
It took her less than ten seconds to run out into the garden.
“Quinn, goodness, what are you doing?”
“Hello, Aunt Delilah,” I say breezily, trying to act as though I haven’t just tried to break into her fortress. “Is Harper home?”
She eyes me suspiciously. “Yes, she’s in her bedroom.”
“Great, thanks.”
I brush off the dirt from the back of my jeans and start towards the house. It takes every ounce of strength remaining in my legs to refrain from limping. I had forgotten how much falling from a tree hurts.
“For future reference, we do have a front door,” Delilah calls after me. “Please use it.”
I race up the stairs to Harper’s bedroom, where I find her lying on the bed. Her pillows are thick with mascara that has been cried onto them. It is a pitiful sight.
“Harp, I’m here.”
My limited experience in dealing with seriously depressed people tells me that I should not speak loudly, or quickly, or aggressively. So I’m practically whispering at her. I can’t imagine that is doing much good, either.
“I know,” she says sadly. “I heard you fall.”
I settle onto the end of her bed, forcing her to pull her legs closer towards her. The foetal position. I have seen my Mother do it many times. And then Sienna. It is upsetting to see Harper now assume it for comfort.
“Well, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
She sniffs loudly and props herself up on her elbows. “Oh, just everything,” she sighs. “Everything is just dreadful, Q. And I know I’m not supposed to be depressed because we’re rich and we’re lucky and we’re not living in some Ethiopian slum, but I’m so just fucking sad. All the time.”
“It’s okay to feel like that,” I tell her honestly. “Just because Grandpa is a one man manual in corruption and embezzling, it doesn’t mean that you have to be forever smiling and happy.”
Harper looks up at me. Her eyes are vacant. It breaks my heart to see her look so empty.
“I don’t like feeling like this,” she whispers. “I am so ashamed of myself.”
At this, I feel my horrible temper coming back. “No, you are not allowed to feel shame right now. There is nothing wrong with being depressed. And don’t you dare ever let anyone tell you any differently.”
At this, she dives down the bed and pulls me into a hug. “Please don’t let them send me away. I’m begging you. Don’t let them.”
“I won’t,” I promise.
19
My Mother arrives several hours later, at the request of Aunt Delilah, to collect her car. At the insistence of Delilah, she agrees to stay for dinner. We both simply must stay for dinner. I do not know if I am prepared for the fireworks.
Delilah seems to have picked up on her youngest daughter’s mood and has relieved her of table setting duties for the night. Instead, Harper stays in bed, covers pulled over her head, and her pet labrador held hostage for intermittent cuddles.
I so desperately want to be able to help Harper.
I do not know what to do.
So, I do what Prescotts always do. I bury my head and ignore the problem.
I settle down at the kitchen table – my mother and Aunt Delilah sitting at opposite ends – and prepare myself for what is sure to be a gruelling mealtime.
“Wine, Emily?” Delilah doesn’t wait for an answer before she fills up my Mother’s glass. I guess she won’t be driving home tonight.
Although I can’t imagine it will be shame if she does wrap herself and a tonne of metal around a lamppost.
“Oh, I shouldn’t really, but, well, fill her up!”
Delilah settles down at her seat, heaping boiled potatoes onto her plate. “I’m sure you can imagine I got quite a fright this morning when I saw you land face first in my garden, Quinn.”
“Yes, what on earth were you thinking?” My Mother is speaking to me. She does not look as angry as I perhaps hoped she would. Instead, she is confused.
I know this will require intelligence. I cannot let them take Harper away. I can’t let them know that my baby cousin is upstairs in the throes of a breakdown.
“I thought I would come and see Harper.” I am a big fan of the lie of omission.
Delilah and my Mother give me the same suspicious look. “I don’t understand how you knew she wouldn’t be at school,” Delilah says.
“Lucky guess,” I shrug.
I can see in their faces that they do not believe me.
I am a Prescott – I should be better at lying than this.
Maybe I am not worthy of my heritage, after all.
“Well, I have to say I am glad you came anyway,” Delilah says, ignoring my obvious anxiety. “It will do Harper some good to spend some more time with you.” At this, she turns to my Mother. “And, of course, any excuse to have a nice dinner with you, Em.”
My mouth falls open. I cannot believe what I am hearing. My mother and Delilah loathe one another; I can only imagine this ridiculous pretence is for my benefit.
“Yes, it has been a while,” Mother nods. “It is such a shame Harper can’t join us this evening.”
The colour drains from Delilah’s face as she squirms in her seat. “Honestly, Harper is not doing too well at the moment. All the stress of the summer and Sienna has really gotten to her.”
My Mother nods gently. It is comforting. It is bizarre to see. “I can’t imagine her exam results have helped matters, either.”
“What about her exam results?” I ask with my eyes wide. “What happened in Harper’s AS Levels?”
“Oh, Quinn, she didn’t want anyone to know,” my Mother says delicately.
“But you know? How do you know?”
Delilah places her hand on top of mine, in a bizarre attempt to calm me down, reassure me. “Harper failed her AS Levels. She was offered the option to retake them this year, but has refused. I think the stress of everything that happened last year just proved to be too much.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I huff.
“Quinn!” That’s more like it – my mother berating me.
“No, no, it’s quite alright,” Delilah continues, flustered. “Quinn is just telling the truth. What happened with Sienna was just dreadful, and it hasn’t been easy on any of us.”
“Then why let it happen?”
I have reached the limit. I cannot help myself. The words are flying out of my stupid mouth before I have the chance to stop them.
My Mother glares at me. Delilah’s expression remains unchanged. “I had to think of my daughter’s future,” she insists. It is a line they’ve thrown at us continuously for over a year.
“I don’t think it’s done Sienna any good,” I tell her. “And it certainly hasn’t done wonders for Harper’s emotional state.”
Delilah drains her glass and twiddles the stem between her finger and thumb.
“Dessert?” My Mother asks.
That is how I know it is time to let matters lie. For tonight at least.
The spare bedroom at Delilah and Broderick’s home is always poised and ready for whatever guest may drop in on them. Unlike her brother and sister, Delilah does not employ a housekeeper, instead taking great pride in plumping every pillow in her house using her own two hands. It is the most work she has done in her life.
Every nook and cranny in Delilah’s home has been filled lovingly by her eye for interior design. At least, that’s what everyone has always told her. Whereas my home in minimal, filled with only the sleekest furniture and the tightest edges, and Aunt Vivian’s home has a rustic, hippy vibe to it, Delilah’s looks like a jumble sale threw up on it.
My Mother does not hesitate to accept the guest room at Delilah’s request, and even manages to throw in a sincere sounding “it looks absolutely lovely in here” when Delilah turns the lights on for her. I valiantly agree to sleep on the sofa in the living room, insisting that staying in Sienna’s room without her would be too weird. Like the remarkable little housewife she is, Delilah lays out blankets, pillows and nightclothes while I take a shower.
Her hospitality is draining.
Eventually, the kitchen lights go out, indicating that my mother and Delilah have drunk their livers into submission and it is time for action.
Taking care of the bottom step on the staircase – which has a wonderful tendency to groan underneath the slightest of weights – I fly up to Harper’s room, where she remains in the same position she has been in all day.
I pull back the covers and lay beside her. Just like we used to do when we were younger, when the three of us girls would take refuge from Asher and Huxley’s ambushes.
“Thank you,” Harper whispers. “You really are the best.”
I can’t say anything to that. If she knew what I was planning, she would hate me as much as I hate the rest of them.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I shouldn’t be probing her, but I have to know why she doesn’t trust me. If she doesn’t trust me, it will ruin everything.
“I told you I was ashamed,” she whimpers. “Please don’t make me talk anymore.”
I want to continue, but I manage to bite my tongue. For now, I need to leave her. She will come to me in her own time. Hopefully.
20
Two weeks after our impromptu sleepover at Aunt Delilah’s house, my Mother and I remain silent in one another’s company. I doubt she has forgiven me for stealing her car. I can say that with certainty, as I have not forgiven her for the ludicrous happy family act her and Aunt Delilah put on over dinner. My entire family has lost their sense. I cannot wait to be rid of them.
I decide that I need to speak with Sienna, face to face, far away from Grandpa’s iron grip on her. The ease with which my entire family can erase her pain and suffering from their concerns worries me. Little by little, they are diminishing her sorrow.
Sienna may have been vulnerable enough for Grandpa to get to her, subsequently becoming his little shadow, but I cannot allow them to weasel their way into Harper’s mind. I cannot allow her to be manipulated by them the way her sister has been.
I walk in on my mother in the living room, where she is absorbed in a trashy book. I clear my throat loudly to draw her attention towards me. “Can I borrow the car?”
Her eyebrows rise. “Of course not. Definitely not after what you did at poor Delilah’s house.”
“Poor Delilah? You hate the woman!”
“Do not blindly trust everything you have been led to believe, Quinn.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I can feel a migraine coming on. Or a homicidal rampage. Either one will do.
“Your aunt and I have long been friends,” my Mother says, her voice weary. “And, like all friends, we occasionally disagree with one another or have a minor falling out.”
“This is ridiculous,” I snap. “And I’m taking the bloody car, whether you like it or not.”
“Quinn, I wish you could see that you are taking on forces larger than yourself. This will not end well for you, my dear.”
I storm out of the house without listening to another word of my mother’s nonsense.
I cannot believe my mother is trying to create a relationship with Delilah in her mind. The adults in my family continue to think their children aren’t to be trusted and were, instead, born to be moulded, manipulated, and controlled. It has reached a pivotal moment for me. I can no longer trust a word they say to me.
I must forge ahead with my plan.
I cannot let them stop me.
I make it all the way to Oxford before realising that I haven’t got the slightest idea of where I’m supposed to be heading. I do not know what college Sienna is at, or where she is living. For a few minutes as I sit in a traffic jam, I begin to doubt my own knowledge, and start to question whether Sienna is even at Oxford, or if it’s Cambridge instead she headed to.
No, that’s ridiculous.
I was supposed to go to Cambridge.
It was always Quinn, Cambridge; Sienna, Oxford.
But that doesn’t help me right now, as I sit in what is technically a stolen car in a city I have no knowledge of. I suppose I could storm into one of the university’s larger buildings and demand that someone tell me where to find my cousin, finally use the prestige of my surname to get something that benefits me.
As I pull into the nearest car park, I begin to doubt myself. What am I even going to talk to Sienna about? How can I possibly put more stress upon her shoulders? She has only been free from the shackles of the hospital for a little over a month, and all of a sudden I’m going to steamroller in and demand that she takes care of her younger sister? It is ridiculous of me to assume that she will even be okay with me, given my frequent emails to her insisting how wonderfully New York is treating me.
I truly am an awful person.
If I was any sort of decent relative, I would be doing my best to take care of both of them.
But I am sane enough to realise that my quest for revenge, for payback, for making things right has completely clouded my judgement.
Gone is the sensitive but stubborn girl who would spend hours comforting her younger brother and protecting him from the verbal assaults of her grandfather. No longer am I the girl who would do anything to protect her family, to keep them safe from harm.
Instead, I am hell bent on destroying my family. Determined to weaken the power Grandpa has. It has warped my sense of what is right and wrong.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I actually deserve the badge of honour that comes with being a Prescott. For over a year, I have done nothing but scheme, and lie, and prepare to annihilate.
In a twisted way, if Grandpa knew what I was cooking up, he would actually be quite proud of me.
Eventually, tired of looking like an idiot, bored of tearing shreds of my psyche apart, I decide to call my Mother.
“I need you to find Sienna’s Oxford address for me,” I tell her as soon as she answers.
“Quinn, what? Where are you?”
“I am sitting in a car park in Oxford, trying to find Sienna. So could you be a lamb and text me her address, please.”
Several awkward moments of silence follow. And then, finally... “I can’t do that, Quinn.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, I’m not going to break her out or anything. I just want to talk to her, see how she’s doing.”
“I think you should come home, Quinn. You won’t be able to find Sienna by sitting in a car park in Oxford city centre.”
“Which is why I called you.” I am losing patience with her. I have no idea why my stupid family insist on making everything so fucking difficult.
“Quinn, just come home.”
“No.” I have lost patience. I am shouting at her. It is the least she deserves.
“Oh, for crying out loud, Quinn. Sienna is not at Oxford. She is staying with your grandparents at Beauchamp. I cannot understand why you insist upon ruining absolutely everything.”
She ends the call without waiting for my response.
Sienna at Beauchamp? That can’t be real.
She sent me an email last month talking about how wonderful her life is at Oxford. How Grandpa’s strict rules prepared her for university.
Why would Sienna lie to me?
After everything, how could she lie to anyone?
But then. How could I expect anything less?
We are Prescotts.
We are expert liars.
We are bred to deceive.
21
Three hours after Sienna gave birth, Grandpa’s lawyer, Matthew Knight, arrived at Beauchamp. With him, all the necessary paperwork to allow an adoption to take place. Grandpa insisted that adoption would be best for everyone involved in the situation – Sienna, the baby, the family. As always, no one dared to question him. The Prescotts just blindly went along with it, our silence all the confirmation that Sienna needed to sign away the rights to her daughter.
“I’m not allowed to name her,” she whispered to me that night as I brushed her hair back into a braid. “Apparently, it is ideal to not get too attached to her. It makes the adoption process easier.”
For a month, I stayed by Sienna’s side, fetching her fresh clothes or iced water whenever she seemed too exhausted to move. I hugged her close as she cried, wiped away her tears and told her that she was loved, she was delightful, that we all supported her decision.
Not a single one of us supported her decision.
When Sienna was not in the room, the rest of us cousins would gather and despair at what was happening.
None of us could believe that Sienna, beautiful, intelligent Sienna had even managed to find herself pregnant in the first place.
Of all the Prescott grandchildren, it was Sienna who was expected to be the most undeniably successful. The golden child with a clear path to glory. If there was a Prescott who was expected to sully the good name, it would be me. Or Huxley, if he ever found a way to tell everyone the truth. That Sienna fell from grace so spectacularly would not put her in good standing for a long, long time.
“Why is she just going along with this?” Huxley was taking the news harder than the rest of us. He was the next grandchild with a huge secret; if Grandpa was taking Sienna’s secret this badly, there was no knowing how he would deal with Huxley’s.
But we knew how hard it was for her.
We knew not to say anything.
Us speaking out about how hard we were finding it would be disrespectful, in bad taste, considering how difficult it was for her.
To know that she could hold her daughter only once before signing away her life.
To know that she would not know her name, or school, or favourite colour.
To know that she would live a lie for the rest of her life.
It is impossible to know how to deal with that.
So we stayed strong. We stayed quiet. We patted her on the shoulder and delivered her textbooks to the suite at Beauchamp. We ran through maths problems with her, tested her knowledge on historical battles, challenged her recite the names of every 20th century prime minister.
What we were not aware of was what Sienna did when we left her to wallow in her own company in the evenings.
We did not know that she spent her nights weeping, crying, hating herself. We could not see her slicing the insides of her thighs with razor blades. We would not feel the blood dripping onto the cream carpets, and a distraught Sienna frantically rearranging the furniture in her bedroom at three, four, five in the morning in a bid to disguise the blood stains.
Sienna remained strong, resilient, proud in public. A true Prescott.
We allowed her to despise herself in private. True cowards.
We are not worthy of the love she has for us.
22
It is agreed with my mother that I will not confront Sienna about her university lie. As my mother pointed out to me over dinner, not unkindly, I am also lying to her. No good can come from a dramatic confrontation, she said. I reluctantly agreed with her.
Instead, I busy myself with the preparations for our village’s Harvest Festival. I pack up boxes of tinned goods for the elderly. I carve pumpkins with the children at the village hall. I bake dozens upon dozens of cupcakes, biscuits. They do not taste as good as the baked goods at Beauchamp. All the hours spent in the kitchen at Beauchamp and I never once learned how to properly bake a cake.
The children in the village treat me as a novelty. I am magical and marvellous and mystical.
Like all children of our standing, they have high expectations placed upon their delicate little shoulders.
And yet, here is one of their own. Older, and not following the rules.
An inspiration? Or a warning?
“You’re so pretty,” an overly enthusiastic little girl named Megan tells me. “Do you like being pretty?”
I ignore her. She cannot see the darkness of my soul. If she could, she would be running a million miles in the opposite direction. She would not dare to call such a hideous creature pretty.
I come to adore the time I spend with the children, with my mother’s friends, with the pensioners. They make me feel good and whole for the first time in my life. But I resent them. Their perfection and wholesomeness does nothing but highlight the bleakness of my nature.
23
Two weeks after Bonfire Night, Mother comes into my room several hours after dinner. I must complete my scrapbooks, she tells me.
It is almost time to return to Beauchamp.
“You should bring some of those cakes and biscuits the children loved at Halloween,” she says.
I nod. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Quinn, I’m really struggling. I can’t cope. I really can’t do this
- Harper
I gather up my mountains of photographs, my marker pens and settle down on the floor of my bedroom. The Prescotts have always adored my Christmas scrapbooks. The Prescotts will be blown away by this year’s offerings.
It is time for the plan to be put fully into action.
It is time for the revolution.
24
Dear Quinn,
Further to our telephone conversation yesterday, I am delighted to confirm that the appropriate arrangements have been made. I will attend in audience to your grandparents’ estate in Buckinghamshire on December 26th, as requested.
It is great to hear that a change of heart has taken place. I will bring the necessary paperwork with us on Boxing Day.
Have a safe flight home from New York.
Best wishes,
Matthew Knight
Knights and Associates
I
am
a
genius.