By a Charm and a Curse(51)
My hand is still tangled up with Emma’s when my mother sees us.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Emma
Hell hath no fury like an angry Audrey Singer.
I have always passed the parent test with flying colors. Jules’s parents love me. Every one of my friends’ parents I’ve ever been introduced to likes quiet, well-mannered Emmaline King. I am respectful, polite, and nonthreateningly funny.
Audrey doesn’t even give me a chance.
“Get out.” On the surface, she’s calm. But anger simmers below it all, a mother bear with claws at the ready. If I had a pulse, it would be racing.
To her, I am only the Girl in the Box, the girl whose kisses and lies can trap someone in the curse, and I’m charming her only son, the child who is the only reason she came back to a job haunted by her former lover. I guess I can see why she doesn’t like me.
It only takes three long strides for Audrey to cross the Airstream. Her hands grip around my arm—so hot they feel like fire made solid—and she drags me away from Ben. I topple to the ground, my limbs clacking and thumping against every solid surface on the way.
“Get out, get out, get out!” Her voice goes from the angry yell of the righteous to a banshee scream. Hair flies from her neat braid, a halo of gold to frame her fury. And I won’t forget the icy gleam of hate in those blue eyes for the rest of my life.
“Mom!” Benjamin yells, scrambling to get between us.
Audrey’s hands—big hands calloused and lined from years of working toward making this carnival what it is—tighten around my upper arms as she shoves me toward the door. I’ve barely got my feet beneath me, and my legs are trembling as I back away, but she gets in another push, this one sending me crashing into the counter. Another hard thrust, and I’m almost to the door.
“I never want to see you in this home again,” Audrey says. Her palms strike me square in the chest, and the last shove sends me flying out the door of the Airstream. I hit the ground so hard that for a split second, I worry this cursed body of mine might crack. Audrey jumps to the ground, looming over me. Ben tumbles out of the trailer behind her, grasping her shoulders to pull her away, but Audrey isn’t going anywhere. “No one’s come looking for you, not your parents, not your friends. No one wants you, and no one loves you. How could anyone love a girl stupid enough to be tricked into the curse in the first place? Find a rube, pass on the curse, and get far away from here.”
“Mother!” Benjamin snaps, finally managing to pull her back.
Shame wells furiously within me. It starts up the shaking, hiccupping thing this body does when my human body would have been driven to tears.
Benjamin drags Audrey into the Airstream. The door slams with a metallic clang, and almost immediately I can hear mother and son yelling at each other.
“So she’s on a rampage.”
It’s then that I notice Sidney leaning against the pale aqua truck the Airstream is attached to. When I finally manage to drag this twitchy body off the ground and join him, I pretend to ignore the tears dripping off his chin. His red-rimmed eyes stare at the plump white clouds that scud across a sky so pale it seems colorless.
Another shudder runs through my chest. Another sob. Stupid as it sounds, I wish I could cry, because it would at least be some kind of release for all this self-loathing bubbling inside me.
He chuckles darkly, brushing tears off his cheeks. He lowers his gaze to the ground—hard brown stuff scattered with weeds in shades of yellow and a sickly green. “It’s not you, you know. I screwed her over something fierce.
“I don’t know why I did it, honestly,” he continues. The ground has become less interesting, and he’s moved his gaze to the scurrying laborers who have begun to open up the cook shack for the night. “We’d had a fight. Thinking back, I’m sure it was that the two of us were nervous. We’d just run away from home. When we got here, we told Nick—Leslie’s dad—that we were a couple, so that’s how they treated us. They found a trailer we could share, and it’s hard living in close quarters, especially when you’re still learning each other.”
He sighs at the memory. “A fight was inevitable, and when it came, it was a big one. I hadn’t met everyone in the carnival yet, and so when the girl came over to console me, I just thought she was being nice, maybe wanted to fool around. Maybe I wanted to fool around. It wasn’t that she was prettier than Audrey, just that she wasn’t angry at me like Audrey. I hadn’t been trusted with the knowledge of the charm and the curse yet, so I had no idea she was the Girl in the Box.” His hazel eyes are dotted with the small golden lights of the cook shack. Benjamin's and Audrey’s yelling still filters over to us. “It was a moment of weakness. She was pretty and I was young and stupid. It didn’t take long. And when Audrey found out…
“Look. I know that you’re not after Benjamin like that. And I would talk to her, but she doesn’t want me talking to her at all anymore. I just”—he gazes out across the field where the sun has begun its slow descent—“I only hope that even if she doesn’t want me anymore, that I can do something to get her to forgive me, at some point.”
We both watch in silence as preparations are being made for the carnival to spend the night. Gin walks by, leading her horse in some exercise, followed shortly by a heavily bandaged Whiskey with her horse. Lars barks out instructions, making sure all trailers are parked safely and giving directions to the nearest town to those who want to explore. People stroll around chatting, hopefully about happier topics than ours.