Evie

After Yelena is crowned various people in the crowd who perhaps imagine they are being helpful begin pushing me her way to congratulate her. When I reach the front of the throng she is sitting on the edge of the well, breathless and rosy cheeked with delight. Alexander is bent in front of her, holding a corsage I suppose he wants to pin to her chest. Before I know what’s happening, I watch Yelena take my mother’s brooch off and lay it on the edge of the well. I feel something like a rush of ice water through my veins.

How could she be so careless? If she bumps the jewel even slightly, it will fall! I call to her but someone moves in front of me suddenly, and I get pushed back into the crowd again. Panic grips me; my heart is hammering fiercely in my breast. I call for Yelena desperately, and for the briefest moment, I think she glimpses me through the crowd.

At last I burst through to the scene—just as Yelena sets her hand down beside the brightly gleaming brooch, knocking it ever so slightly. It teeters a moment on the edge and my breath catches in my throat. Then to my horror it disappears from sight, tumbling into the open well.

I scream. All around me the world stops. Everyone is looking at me, not sure what to think. I scream again and rush Yelena in my fury, ripping at her hair. The flower crown falls over her eyes; she is screaming for help.

“Get it back!” I shriek at her, throttling her shoulders. “Go in there and get it back!”

Alarmed, Mr. Livingston makes an effort to separate us, but he’s not determined enough to stop me. Then I feel a pair of arms around my middle, and I’m vaguely aware of his bodyguard pulling me off of her.

“You did it on purpose!” I scream through my tears. “No one is that careless! No one is that thoughtless! Get it back!”

“What on earth?!” My father thunders as he strides forward.

“Yelena!” I cry desperately. “Yelena knocked Mother’s brooch—”

“Enough!” he shouts, and silences me with a brutal slap. I go numb. Not just my face, but my heart and mind as well. All my tears dry up, all the fight leaves me in a whoosh. The bodyguard senses this, and releases me to take a step back.

“Don’t be angry with her, Papa,” Yelena pleads, looking very pitiful, rather like a martyr in her torn dress and ruined flower crown. Her big gray eyes are filled with tears as she goes to him, tugging his sleeve gently. “Sister was only upset that I was crowned May Queen and not her, she just forgot herself for a minute, that’s all.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded. What nonsense is this? That I should covet such a thing as the May Queen title? She doesn’t actually think Father will believe—

“You were jealous of Yelena? Such inexcusable behavior, and for such a trivial reason?” Father is furious.

I ought to refute her, the thought enters my mind. I ought to correct the misunderstanding. But then, is there a point? Even if I tell him what happened, he won’t believe me. His prejudice is already so firmly established that no matter what I say, he’ll only find some way to spin it so Yelena is innocent and I am the villain, being petty and causing a scene.

“Apologize to your sister at once!”

I look up through the veil of my hair for the second time today to see my sister who’s come to stand in front of me. She reaches out a hand but I pull back sharply, teeth clenched so tightly I think they might break.

“Don’t touch me,” I hiss lowly.

“Haven’t you made a big enough scene on my special day?”

“Don’t talk to me. Traitor.”

Yelena leans in further, whispering so only I can hear:

“It was an accident, surely you know that? But if Papa finds out he’ll be furious. Please, you have to cover for me. Please, Evangeline.”

She pulls back and gives me another pitiful, hopeful smile. Even now I can’t tell whether it’s real or fake.

“I forgive you for attacking me, Sister,” Yelena says loudly so all can hear, hands clasped innocently in front of her breast. “So please, let’s not spoil this happy day any further.”

Someone tell me this isn’t happening. Yelena just dropped my most precious keepsake down the well and now she wants me to take the fall for her blunder in front of Father and the whole town?

I have nothing to say to this girl. Feeling heartsick and disgusted, I turn from her, deaf to my father’s cries, and start to walk away. A few steps, and the walk turns into a run.

I run with all of my might, heedless of the stares, ignoring everyone that tries to talk to me, running up the hill that leads to my family home, and past it to the forest that awaits me beyond. I run and I run, through the fields where I picked the wildflowers this morning that Yelena made me weave into her hair, halfway up the side of the mountain until at last I reach a mossy cave curtained by a trickling waterfall, and tuck myself up inside.

Sides heaving, chest screaming with pain, I take a minute to catch my breath. It’s cold and damp, but the moss is soft, and cushions me from the harsh stone. With my head sideways against my knees I notice a slug inching along, slowly disappearing beyond the edge of the cave.

Now I’m alone, I think, and something inside me shudders. The numbness breaks, and all the ugly emotion comes spilling out. Pain I’ve bourn my entire life and pushed down, the cruelty, the unfairness of it all, it all comes roaring to the surface. I cry for myself, and for my lost mother, feeling so sorry to her.

I didn’t realize it until now, how much that brooch had represented her in my memories. A beautiful treasure, priceless beyond description, a thing I owned, but did not deserve. A thing I should have given my life to keep safe. But instead, I…

“I’m sorry, Mother. You protected me, but I wasn’t strong enough to protect you…”

It’s a long time before my tears run out, but when they do, I think of Yelena. She saw me in that crowd—I’m sure our eyes met. She must have realized I was worried about the brooch. No one is that careless, I accused her, but maybe I’m wrong.

To Yelena, that brooch was just another jewel. She has dozens more, and with Alexander Livingston standing right in front of her, I’m sure she was overwhelmed and accidentally let her hand slip… She wouldn’t have, couldn’t have done that on purpose, not when she knew how much it meant to me.

Could she?

Time passes slowly in my damp hideaway. The sun begins to set. I leave my cave and return to the house. For a change I find the place nearly empty; everyone is still in town enjoying the festival. I take dinner at the kitchen table, leftover bread and cured bacon. Then I go to my room and dress myself in the boy’s clothes I’ve been known to wear from time to time, much to the dismay of my father. I tie a ribbon in a band around my head to keep the hair out of my eyes and sneak out the back door just as voices are heard coming up the footpath.

My family’s returning home. Father will look for me, but he won’t find me, not tonight. Not until I find her.

Wait for me, Mother, I think as I slip away into the shadow, taking only a dark lantern with me. I won’t leave you alone in that cold, wet place.

I’m coming to save you!