forgotten

[mute_pen]

It's past dark, but when you need the outhouse, you need the outhouse.

Isabel picks her way across the yard of her father's house in the moonlight, hoping to sneak back into bed without waking him.

Comments

[pythbox]

"Shhhh," says the Baron.

[mute_pen]

"Please," breathes Etty.

[pythbox]

"Shhhh, my swan."

[mute_pen]

She is not a good enough actress to be his swan according to plan right now.

She hugs herself and bows her head and weeps.

[pythbox]

The Baron... does not let that stop him.

He is gentle, but he is not kind. He doesn't seem to expect that she get anything out of it. When he is finished, he kisses her and calls her his swan again and goes to sleep, ignoring her completely.

[mute_pen]

Etty lies still for a minute, paralyzed, and then she gets up and she grabs her dress from where it's crumpled on the floor and she clutches it to her chest and she runs, out the door, down the hall, down the stairs -

She slips.

She falls.

She tumbles and she lands and something breaks and she chokes out a sob.

[pythbox]

Nothing at all happens for at least an hour.

[mute_pen]

Her legs are bruised but not broken. Etty lets herself be a crumpled whimpering heap for fifteen minutes and then she drags herself to her feet by her good arm and steps more carefully to the door.

[growcrooked]

The main doors won't open; the nearest side door is far enough that by the time she finds it, Nona is not far behind.

[mute_pen]

Etty looks at Nona, and opens the door, and goes out into the orchard, and finds a tree to sit under and curl up and go on with her crying.

[growcrooked]

Nona follows her out and curls up next to her.

[mute_pen]

This might take a while.

[growcrooked]

That's okay. They have time.

[mute_pen]

Does Nona want to sit there for the next hour listening to Etty sobbing and pretty much ignoring her?

[growcrooked]

Sure.

[mute_pen]

Then after this hour she will be rewarded with dubious eye contact.

[growcrooked]

She doesn't really know what to do.

But, well, here she is.

[mute_pen]

"It'll be worse if I don't go next time," whispers Etty. "Won't it."

[growcrooked]

"Yeah, probably," says Nona.

[mute_pen]

"I don't know if I can go, even so."

[growcrooked]

"I know," says Nona.

[mute_pen]

"He was pretending such civility. I thought I could put him off. I couldn't."

[growcrooked]

"He does that."

[mute_pen]

"Does he really think on some level that I - that we - that -" She can't finish the sentence.

[growcrooked]

"I don't think he cares. About anything. He just wants us to play along, and if we don't, he makes us."