Chapter 12: What Bernice Knew

My mother sat on my bunk with her canvas bag in her lap and looked at my left wrist.

"Take it off," she said.

"Mom."

"I saw you rub it at Christmas three years ago."

"I saw you rub it every Christmas after that. Take it off, Lara."

I unclasped the cuff and laid it on the blanket.

The crescent was dim now, a thin silver line, but it was there.

Bernice did not touch it.

"I thought so," she said. "I hoped I was wrong."

"You know what it is?"

"I wore one for nine years."

I stared at her.

She turned her own left wrist up under the lamp.

The skin there was smooth and pale, and she ran her thumb across it anyway.

"Your father was my fated mate," she said. "The moon put it on me at nineteen."

"He claimed me that month because the bond said he should. Nobody asked me."

"I never knew that."

"I never told you. He ran our house by his rules, and I was one of them."

"I loved him and disliked everything he did, and the bond would not let me leave for nine years."

She folded her hands.

"When he died I grieved the bond for a year, and the man for a day."

I sat down beside her.

"Is that why I never told Luca?"

"You tell me."

"I wanted him to choose me," I said slowly. "Not the moon."

"If he picked me without knowing, then it would be a thing he did. It would be mine."

"I'm not angry about that," Bernice said. "I'm afraid for you."

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