Evie

This kind of cruelty, I’ve never experienced it. No blow is worse than the razorblade she’s just taken to my very heart. I can’t believe this woman is my sister. It’s true I’d begun to suspect her of something like this, but witnessing her true nature now face to face, it’s even worse than I imagined.

“Don’t make that face at me,” she says, annoyed. “I knew you wouldn’t die from a little fall like that, like I knew the odds of them shooting anything vital this morning were slim. I only wanted to wound you a little, honest,” she says, and she pets my head condescendingly. “Really, I couldn’t bear it if you died, Evangeline. You’re just…” she snorts faintly with laughter, “so much fun to play with…”

I try to jerk away, but Yelena grips my hair and yanks me to her with overwhelming strength. Her mouth pressed against my ear, I can smell her perfume of lavender and honey in my nostrils as she whispers, “Just bear with Father a little longer, hm? You told me yourself Alex will propose before the month’s out. Then I’ll leave this awful house and take you with me as my lady in waiting. That way you can serve me forever, and we’ll always be together. Doesn’t that sound fun? Sister?”

“My gracious, what’s happened?!” Sara the scullery maid comes upon the scene and Yelena easily turns her cruel gesture into a hug, so anyone would believe she’s comforting me.

“Sister fell down the stairs! Please, you must help me get her up.”

It doesn’t hurt, I think as they help get me to my feet. It really doesn’t hurt anymore. Everything’s gone numb.

In a daze, I let them walk me to the kitchen and sit me down. The bruises Stepmother gave me are mostly under my clothes, but my head is bleeding from a cut on my scalp where she caught me with one of her kicks.

There’s a sudden flurry of activity. Yelena tells everyone I fell down the stairs, and instantly Mrs. Agate is upset, doubtless recalling the time the same fate befell my mother.

“Maddie, go fetch the master!”

“Yes, Mrs. Agate.”

“Sara, I need more light!”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

With clucks of concern Mrs. Agate moves my hair to view the cut. Then suddenly Yelena draws near with disinfectant and cotton balls. She starts to reach for me and I pull away, shaking with more emotions than I can name.

“Get away from me.”

“But, Sister—”

“Get away from me, Devil!”

“Evangeline!”

My father stands breathless in the doorway, and Yelena chooses this exact moment to sink to her knees and begin to wail.

“What on earth?”

I think my father will come to me, but instead he goes straight to my sister to help her off of the floor.

“I was only trying to help,” Yelena whimpers.

“Of course you were, my princess,” Father dries her tears. “But someone tell me what’s going on here!”

“Sister fell,” Yelena sniffs. “I saw her trip and fall right down the stairs. She was bleeding—I was so frightened! I wanted to help but—” she looks to me pitifully, her big gray eyes overflowing with tears.

She’s good, I think with a faint cough of disbelief. Even I might have fallen for her act, if I didn’t know any better. Then, she’s had a whole lifetime to perfect it.

“Evangeline,” Father’s voice recalls me to his presence. His face is severe, he wears a genuinely questioning expression. “What happened?”

He doesn’t want the truth, no. He wants me to tell him it’s not true. That all the suspicions I’ve been planting in him recently are all for nothing. After all, it’s too much to accept, isn’t it? That his own precious, favorite daughter is a homicidal maniac.

There’s no point in blaming Yelena. She’ll only cry and Father will take her side. Stepmother will appear and corroborate Yelena’s story, and in the end I’ll be accused of sowing dissension in the family once again, and find myself on the street for my troubles. And I can’t let myself become homeless, not now, with these injuries. Besides, Yelena’s words still ring clearly in my ears.

Go where, Evangeline? The whorehouse?

“I lost my footing,” I answer, and Father exhales a sharp breath of relief.

“You mustn’t be so careless, my child. Your own mother, on those very stairs, she—”

“I know,” I answer coldly, looking over his shoulder to where Yelena stands still crying, but with a wicked gleam in her eyes that only I can see. “I’ve just been reminded.”

 “It’s alright if Evangeline doesn’t want me to treat her, Father,” Yelena appears at the mayor’s side to hold his arm. “She’s had a shock, so I don’t blame her for being upset. Please, you mustn’t be angry with her, Father.”

“Why would I be angry with her?” he asks, and for a change I sense just a bit of harshness in his voice as he looks to his youngest daughter. Don’t tell me he actually suspects her? Perhaps, but not enough to do any more than this. Even so, there’s a part of him, just a tiny bit deep down, that I sense is on to her.

Well, that’s something, at least.

“You must rest in your room, Evangeline,” Father says, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, he reaches out a hand to stroke the top of my head. He touches my cut, though, and I wince away from the gesture. Coming away with blood on his hand, his face goes a little white. “Mrs. Agate, treat her injuries as best you can. I’ll send for the doctor; she may have a concussion.”

“Yes, Mr. Stuart.”

“Father, Papa,” Yelena is still tugging at his elbow. “I’m frightened.”

He allows Sara to wash the blood from his hand with a cloth before patting Yelena’s arm reassuringly. “You must lay down too, my princess, I’m sure it was a shock seeing your sister fall like that.”

“I don’t feel very steady. Will you walk me to my room, Papa?”

“Of course I will.”

Watching them go arm in arm, I think he really must not know. Like I once did, he wants to believe Yelena is innocent. If I can just convince him, prove her wickedness beyond a shadow of a doubt—will he take my side then, I wonder? Or are we already past that point?

It’s too soon to tell. For now I must tend to myself. Mrs. Agate has me undress right there in the kitchen; there are no men around so I don’t mind. Seeing the great swelling bruises all over my body the fat cook exclaims with horror and shock.

“You fell so hard, young miss! I never imagined you’d have such bruises. You must lie down at once. The doctor will check if anything’s broken.”

Still numb, I follow their instructions and return nearly naked to my bed where I find Gil’s coat waiting for me. Huddling under it, I stare across the room at my open closet while Mrs. Agate hangs my brown work dress between my one gray party dress and my shabby second hand suit of boy’s clothes. Below them, tucked away are my nearly worn through shoes, and behind that, hidden where no one can see, is Mother’s brooch, and I realize with a strange pang this is all I possess in the world.

Such a small room, such a small, uncomfortable bed. Even the servant’s rooms are better. Meanwhile upstairs my sister’s room is ten times this size, richly decorated with a closet overflowing with colorful dresses and jewels. Even now, I think, picturing those two upstairs, Yelena crying in her pillow while Father sits by her side, comforting her. Even now, she has everything.

So why? I ask myself as I pull Gil’s coat tighter around me, feeling something like a sob well up from the deepest part of my soul.

Why did she have to take my happiness too?