The Glass Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #2) - Gena Showalter Page 0,166
torture, and all that.
“Stay out here, okay?” Mom would say something that would hurt her feelings, and I’d say something to make her feel bad for asking me to do this, and she’d cry. I hated when she cried.
“Sure, sure,” she said, palms up in a gesture of innocence.
Like I was buying that hasty assurance. She planned to follow me and listen, no question. Girl was devious like that. “Promise me.”
“I can’t believe you’d doubt me.” A delicate hand fluttered over her heart. “That hurts, Alice. That really hurts.”
“First, major congrats. Your acting has improved tremendously,” I said with a round of applause. “Second, say the words or I’ll return to working on a tan I’ll never achieve.”
Grinning, she rose on her toes, stretched out her arms and slowly spun on one leg. The sun chose that moment to toss out an amber ray, creating the perfect spotlight for her perfect pirouette. “Okay, okay. I promise. Happy now?”
“Sublimely.” She might be devious, but she never broke a promise.
“Watch me pretend I know what that means.”
“It means—oh, never mind.” I was stalling, and I knew it. “I’m going.”
With all the enthusiasm of a firing squad candidate, I stood and turned toward our house, a two-story my dad had built in the prime of his construction days, with brown brick on the bottom and brown-and-white-striped wood on the top. Kind of boxy, amazingly average and absolutely, one hundred percent forgettable. But then, that’s what he’d been going for, he’d said.
My flip-flops clapped against the ground, creating a mantra inside my head. Don’t. Fail. Don’t. Fail. Finally I stood at the glass doors that led to our kitchen and spotted my mom, bustling from the sink to the stove and back again. I watched her, a bit sick to my stomach.
Don’t be a wuss. You can do this.
I pushed my way inside. Garlic, butter and tomato paste scented the air. “Hey,” I said, and hoped I hadn’t cringed.
Mom glanced up from the steaming strainer of noodles and smiled. “Hey, baby. Coming in for good, or just taking a break?”
“Break.” The forced incarceration at night drove me to spend as much time as possible outside during daylight hours, whether I burned to lobster-red or not.
“Well, your timing’s great. The spaghetti’s almost done.”
“Yeah, okay, good.” During the summer months, we ate dinner at five sharp. Winter, we switched it up to four. That way, no matter the season, we could be in our rooms and safe before sunset.
The walls were reinforced with some kind of steel, and the doors and locks were impenetrable. And yes, those things made our futuristic dungeon known as “the basement” overkill, but you try reasoning with a crazy person.
Just do it. Just say it. “So, um, yeah.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “Today’s my birthday.”
Her jaw dropped, her cheeks bleaching of color. “Oh...baby. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean... I should have remembered...I even made myself notes. Happy birthday,” she finished lamely. She looked around, as if hoping a present would somehow appear via the force of her will. “I feel terrible.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll do something to make this up to you, I swear.”
And so the negotiations have begun. I squared my shoulders. “Do you really mean that?”
“Of course.”
“Good, because Em has a recital tonight and I want to go.”
Though my mom radiated sadness, she was shaking her head even before I finished. “You know your dad will never agree.”
“So talk to him. Convince him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” A croak.
I loved this woman, I truly did, but, oh, she could frustrate me like no one else. “Because why?” I insisted. Even if she cried, I wasn’t dropping this. Better her tears than Em’s.
Mom pivoted, as graceful as Emma as she carried the strainer to the pot and dumped the contents inside. Steam rose and wafted around her, and for a moment, she looked as if she were part of a dream. “Emma knows the rules. She’ll understand.”
The way I’d had to understand, time and time again before I’d just given up? Anger sparked. “Why do you do this? Why do you always agree with him when you know he’s off-the-charts insane?”
“He’s not—”
“He is!” Like Em, I stomped my foot.
“Quiet,” she said, her tone admonishing. “He’s upstairs.”
Yeah, and I’d bet he was already drunk.
She added, “We’ve talked about this, honey. I believe your dad sees something the rest of us can’t. But before you cast stones at him or me, take a look at the Bible. Once upon