Chapter 5: What Nan Wouldn't Say

I did not wake Ewan.

He slept on his stomach with one arm across the place where I had been.

I took the cup of cold tea off the nightstand, and I went into the bathroom and shut the door.

I had not looked at my own back in a year.

I had worn a shirt to bed every night, and Ewan had always dimmed the lamp before I changed.

I had thought it was kindness.

I pulled my shirt over my head, turned my back to the mirror, and looked over my shoulder.

Six long white lines ran from my left shoulder blade down to my hip.

They were old and thick and ridged, and they crossed each other.

My knees went weak, and I gripped the sink.

And then I remembered.

I was tied by the wrists to a pole in a stone yard.

It was raining.

Sixty wolves stood in a ring and watched, and none of them looked away.

A man in a black coat stood three feet in front of me with a leather lash in his hand and his face like iron.

"Say it," Garrick said. "Say you burned it."

"I didn't."

"Say it, Rowena."

"I didn't, Garrick, I swear on Jory."

The lash came down.

I could hear myself screaming, and I could hear a small boy somewhere screaming louder.

Two guards had him by the arms at the porch, and he was kicking at their shins.

"Let her go!" he yelled. "Father, let Mama go!"

Garrick did not turn his head.

I pressed both hands over my mouth.

I did not make a sound in the bathroom.

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