The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [108]
The notebook was enchanted like the witch’s alphabet. “Thank you, Bethina,” I said. “Really. I’d like to be alone with this, if you don’t mind. To … er … think.”
She bobbed her head. “Yes, miss. And if I may … I just know you’re the kind of daughter Mr. Grayson’d hold his head up to have.”
Well, that made one of us.
The ladder creaked, and she was gone. I shut the hatch, agonizing while it rolled its slow way into place, and then opened the notebook and stared at the writing while I waited for my father’s memory to appear.
It didn’t take long for the silvery images to fade the real world around me, graying my vision like rain and fog through window glass.
My father wasn’t young in this memory, but his hair was still dark and he was sans spectacles. He sat thoughtfully in his armchair, tapping his fountain pen against his bottom lip. I did the same thing when I was stuck on a calculation or a persnickety mechanical problem.
After a moment, my father scribbled something in his notebook. Conspirators? Who? Why?
I’d stayed nearly motionless before, lest I disturb the enchantment and break up the reel of memory, but this time I spoke. My voice came out a papery whisper.
“Um … excuse me?”
My father continued to scribble, a lock of hair falling into his face. He hadn’t shaved and he wasn’t wearing a collar or a vest. Deep silver-gray crescents painted themselves under his eyes, and he scratched absently at the cleft in his chin.
“There isn’t a lick of sense in this,” he grumbled.
“Archibald,” I said, louder, when his image didn’t vanish. “Father?”
Memory-Archie’s head snapped up. “You can see me?”
“Of course,” I said, after a moment of silence at the shock of getting his attention. “I found your journal.”
“The witch’s alphabet?” Archie dropped his notebook and scrabbled for it. “Star and sun, do you have any idea how much danger you’ve put yourself in reading that thing?”
“I don’t know how to say this,” I began, deciding to keep on course even though his proclamations of danger threw me off balance. “But do you … do you know who I am?”
“Of course I do. You’re my daughter. Aoife.” My father rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll be honest—I’d hoped to never see you. But here you are.”
“I …” My voice hitched without my accord at his disappointment in putting eyes on me. “I’m sorry—no, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry. I need to know something.”
My father sighed, his silvery image fluttering like a hand had passed through the lantern projector’s light stream. “You want to know about the cursed queens. And why I didn’t take Tremaine’s infernal bargain.”
I felt my eyes go wide, but composed myself even though a thousand questions were fighting for space in my mind. I bit down on them. “Yes,” I said. “Tremaine says that I’m the cursebreaker, but … I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to break the curse.”
My father stood, tucking his notebook into the sagging breast pocket of his jacket. “You look like your mother,” he said. “I always imagined you’d take after me. Guess that’s why I’m not a fortune-teller.”
He did think about me. At least once. My stomach stopped flipping over. He did know who I was. I was still knotted up and terrified over my confrontation with Tremaine, but at that moment I could have sprouted clockwork wings and flown. “I have your eyes,” I murmured. “At least, that’s what Nerissa always says.”
“Aoife.” My father reached out, and his fingers brushed my shoulder and passed through me like a ghost in a beam of light. “You have to understand I didn’t give you up willingly. It was for—”
“For my own good?” The words ripped from me and I jabbed my finger into the memory’s face, all attempts to appear demure and well bred flying out the window at his words. “Do you have any idea what I’ve endured in the name of my own good? You made Conrad and me orphans, so please don’t think I’m stupid enough to believe that you were being altruistic.” I flung up