Ruling with a New Frame novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Slow Child

I had drunk worse things in my life, and I had smiled while I drank them.

"Thank you, Joanna," I said, in my smallest voice.

I took a sip of the milk and let it sit behind my teeth.

Joanna watched my throat.

It moved, and she nodded.

"All of it, sweetheart."

I swallowed again, and again, until the glass was half empty.

Then I let it slip from my fingers and spill down the front of my nightgown.

"Oh!" I said. "I'm so sorry!"

Joanna's smile went tight.

"Never mind. Clumsy girl. I'll get a cloth."

The moment her heels clicked away down the hall, I spat the mouthful into my hand.

I pushed it into a jam jar from the housekeeper's pantry and poured the rest of the glass in after it.

Then I hid the jar under my bed.

The doctor came at two o'clock, the heavy man in tweed.

He was there to certify me.

I knew it before he spoke, because Marguerite and Joanna sat on either side of the sitting-room sofa.

My father had been summoned too, and stood by the window with his arms folded and a bruised look about the eyes.

"Linnet," said the doctor in a soothing voice. "Do you know what day it is?"

I let my mouth hang open a little.

I let my eyes drift to the window and back.

"Tuesday," I said slowly. "Or... Friday?"

"She often loses the thread," said Joanna sadly.

"What is two and two?"

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