After Rebirth The Scums All Cry For Forgiveness novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Chair

At the welcome dinner her brother raises a chair over her head, and she steps aside and locks his arm in the air with one needle.

The Penhallow dining table sat twelve, and every seat was full.

My father Edmund sat at the head.

My mother sat at his right hand, smiling at me.

Four of my brothers filled the middle of the table, looking at their phones.

Leland sat across from me.

Delphine sat beside my mother with a clean white napkin in her lap.

Last time, I had come to this dinner so happy that I forgot to eat.

This time I knew the next three minutes by heart.

The maid set a pot of hot tea in front of Delphine.

Delphine reached for the sugar bowl, and then she looked at me.

It was a tiny look.

I moved my chair back one inch.

She tipped the whole pot over her own wrist.

"Ah!"

The scream cut through the room.

Boiling tea ran down her arm and across her lap.

"Sister, why did you push me?" Delphine cried. "I only said hello."

I had not touched her.

My mother jumped up and caught her hand.

"Oh, my poor girl. Look at this burn."

Leland was out of his chair before she had finished the sentence.

He walked around the table and stopped at my shoulder.

"Apologize to Delphine."

"I didn't touch her."

"Apologize."

"The pot was in front of her," I said. "She tipped it herself. Ask the maid."

The maid at the sideboard stared at the floor.

She had worked in this house for twelve years, and she knew what happened to people who spoke.

"Faye." My father's voice was heavy. "You've been home one hour. Do you want this family to hate you?"

"I want somebody to tell me how I pushed her from four chairs away."

I had been sitting with both hands in my lap.

Every person at that table could see it.

No one answered.

"Brother, it's all right," Delphine said, wiping her eyes. "Sister's been outside the family so long. She doesn't know how we do things."

"She'll learn," Leland said.

I had heard those two words before.

The last time, he had said them in the yard, with a stick.

I stood up and pushed my chair in.

"No," I said.

Leland's face went flat.

"What did you say?"

"I won't apologize for something I didn't do."

He turned and grabbed the nearest dining chair by its back.

It was heavy oak, the kind that takes two hands to move.

He lifted it over his head.

My mother gasped.

Nobody stopped him.

Last time, I had stood still and begged.

I had said, "Leland, please, you have to believe me."

The chair had come down on my shoulder, and my collarbone had cracked.

I had thought that was love, only rough.

I slid my right hand into my sleeve.

I took out one silver needle, thin as a hair, and held it between two fingers.

I stepped to the left.

The chair swung through the space where I had been.

Leland's arm swung after it with all his weight behind the chair, and I touched the needle to the inside of his elbow.

It went in.

His whole arm locked.

The chair stopped in the air, level with his shoulder, and hung there.

His fingers could not open.

His elbow could not bend.

"What?" Leland said.

The room went silent.

I looked at him from half a step away.

"I have a question for you," I said. "Which brother raises a chair at the sister he hasn't seen in twenty years?"

His jaw worked.

He tried to drop the chair, and his hand would not let go.

Sweat started on his forehead.

"Take it out," he said. "Take it out right now."

"I thought you wanted me to learn how the family does things."

My four brothers stared.

My mother stood with her hand over her mouth.

Delphine had stopped crying.

Her face had gone the color of the tablecloth.

"Faye." My father hit the table with his palm. "What did you do to him?"

"I put one needle in his elbow. My grandfather taught me where."

"Take it out!"

"I will," I said. "When Leland sets down the chair and says he was wrong."

My eldest brother looked at me with something that was not hatred yet.

It was fear, and it was new.

Then my father got up.

He did not look at Leland's locked arm or Delphine's red wrist.

He looked at me.

"I won't have a violent girl at my table on her first night," he said. "Leland, put the chair down."

"I can't," Leland said through his teeth.

"Then someone will pull it out of his hand."

He turned to my four brothers.

"And take her to the back room in the yard."

"Edmund," my mother whispered.

"She stays there until she apologizes to her sister."

Two of my brothers came around the table and took me by the arms.

They did not know yet that I still had five needles left.

I did not fight them.

I knew exactly which door they were taking me to, and I knew what was behind it.

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