He takes my hand sometimes, rubs my shoulder encouragingly. Once, he stood behind me as I worked at a bench in the old apothecary and wrapped long arms around me, fingers splayed over my waist with a possessiveness that thrilled me. I woke up from that dream with my heart racing in a different, forbidden way.
Tonight, I dream of home. Once again I am in the apothecary, mixing a cure. These are the dreams I love and hate the most: love because I’m back where I belong, and doing what I love; hate because they are just dreams, as lost to me as my father. Tonight the man stands over me, nodding and smiling his encouragement, as my hands reach to add a pinch of this, a sprinkle of that to my remedy. He calls the recipe out to me and I obey him, doing as he says, and I sense his pleasure in it. I’m dressed in my favourite blue tunic, the pockets of my apron heavy with ingredients, and I’m concentrating fiercely. I know that this mixture is the most important thing I will ever make. It will heal my mother; it will bring my brother back to me. This is the potion to change everything. And I can do it. Only I can do it.
The man says something and I look up in time to see a flash of white as he turns away. I look back at my potion to see it bubbling over, ruined, and now the man is shaking his head at me, his frustration so evident that I can almost taste it. Then the banging starts; the Council are at the door, calling me a witch, a traitor, screaming that they know I’ve been making poison, that they’ll hang me. Burn me for it. I see torchlight flickering in the windows; the glass starts to bubble and melt under the heat. Hundreds of fists bang on the apothecary door, calling for my death, and the man says nothing, his back to me, shoulders drooping in disappointment.
Of course when I wake the banging isn’t a lynch mob, but my mother. The fire still burns steadily. I can’t have been asleep for more than a couple of hours, and I sit up, breathless, still half caught in the nightmare, watching the shadows play around the room like children dancing. My hands are shaking, my fingers still curved as though around a spoon.
The banging changes, becoming deliberate, and it sends a chill down my spine. Like the opening music of a performance, she beats in time, one-two-three, one-two-three. And like a play, she has her opening lines, and it’s those I wait for in the dark.
“Wake up, little one,” my mother says in a parody of affection. “Rise and shine, my daughter, my sweetling, my baby girl.”
“Stop it,” I whisper, covering my ears with my hands. I don’t know if she ever remembers what she says and does when she’s like this. I hope not, please, I hope not.
“Errin,” my mother coos from behind the locked door. “Can you hear me, my dear, my darling? I’m lonely, Errin. I miss your father. Oh, how I miss him! And Lief. Do you remember your brother? Your beautiful, clever brother. Was a mother ever so blessed to have two such bright, brilliant children? Won’t you open the door, my child? Won’t you sit and let me hold you, let us cry together for our lost boys?”
I feel my lip tremble, fresh tears prickling in my eyes.
“I can hear you, my beautiful girl.” She scratches at the door. “I can smell you. Listen, my daughter, the Sleeping Prince is coming. He’s going to come here with his army. I don’t want him to take you too; I don’t want him to take both of my babies from me. Come to me, child, let me protect you. Come to your mother, Errin.”
I hear the faint sound of pawing against the door and swallow.
“You don’t have to be alone, little one.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” I whisper, the words spilling out unwanted, barely audible even to me, but the beast hears them.
“Then open the door, Errin. Open the door.”
The tears make tracks down my cheeks as I stand, kicking the blankets away and making the wooden floor squeak.
“Good girl.” There’s a smile in her voice. “That’s my good girl. Come to me.”
When the sound of me pouring myself a cup of water reaches her, I stop being her good