Ember Island by Kimberley Freeman

aside. “Cousin Matilda, I love you dearly, but you have been alone with him for many years, and you will allow me some time alone with him now. Pamela, come along.”
    Tilly stood back, shaking with unexpressed anger. Just as Grandpa said, Tilly had always been an angry little girl. He had taught her, through punishment as well as reward, that tempers disrupted society and girls especially, with their high voices and pink faces, ought not rage and shout.
    But her patience and self-control were all an illusion for Grandpa’s benefit. Countless times she had gone home and punched or screamed into her pillows after a disagreement with the postmistress or the greengrocer or the mother who let her child tear around and crush Tilly’s foot without a word of admonishment. No matter how hard she tried, she could not stop the fire from igniting in her belly. All she could do was clamp her mouth shut so the fire didn’t escape and burn those around her.
    Tilly sat on the long, embroidered sofa and waited. This sofa would be Pamela’s. Those paintings would be Pamela’s. That wallpaper would be Pamela’s. The drapes, which she had been regarding with such disdain . . . all of this would be Pamela’s, simply because she was married to Godfrey.
    Tilly’s father and Godfrey’s father had been brothers, but not friends. Tilly’s father had taken his wife and his young daughter to India, where he had caught typhoid and died. Tilly and her mother made the long journey home, her mother’s belly swelling with a pregnancy that eventually resulted in her death and the death of Tilly’s unborn sibling. Godfrey’s father might have taken Tilly in and raised her and Godfrey like siblings; but Godfrey’s mother refused. And so Grandpa had brought Tilly into his home, raised her as he might have raised a daughter, and unwittingly created petty jealousies where there should have been familial love.
    A little time passed—no more than fifteen minutes—and Tilly heard the door to Grandpa’s bedroom close and footsteps on thestairs. Godfrey and Pamela appeared, and Pamela had tears in her eyes. Tilly felt a pang. Could she have been wrong about Pamela?
    “The old man’s mind is addled,” Godfrey said gruffly. “He gave my wife a dressing-down.”
    Tilly stifled a laugh. “Oh, dear. He does get very tired. Don’t take it badly, Pamela,” she said, touching Pamela’s cool hand softly. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean it.”
    “Where is that tea?” Godfrey asked.
    “Give her a little longer. If we’d known you were coming Mrs. Granger might have made scones. The best she might muster on short notice is sandwiches.”
    “Yes, yes. You’ve made your point, Cousin. You’re annoyed that we didn’t call ahead.” Godfrey waved a dismissive hand. “You’ve made us feel sufficiently unwelcome so we will go.”
    Tilly immediately regretted not behaving more graciously. “No, no, I didn’t mean for you to—”
    “And perhaps one day soon, you will know how it feels to be unwelcome in this parlor,” Pamela said, with an arch of her fine eyebrows.
    And the fire blew hot, hot inside her. “Vulture,” she spat.
    Pamela put her handkerchief to her mouth in a gesture of shock. Godfrey merely smiled. Then he leaned in close and said, “Cuckoo.”
    In a few moments, they were gone. Mrs. Granger came in, a tray of watercress sandwiches in her hands. “Where are they?”
    “Getting back into their fine carriage and heading home,” Tilly said, her heart still thudding guiltily in her throat. “I offended them.”
    Mrs. Granger pursed her lips, but said nothing. She set down the tray and left Tilly alone in the parlor. Cuckoo. A bird that forces itself upon parents that aren’t its own, then starves the otherchicks in the nest through its endless demands. That was how Godfrey saw her.
    Well, it was nearly time to fly.
    •
     
    Tilly woke to the morning sun in her window. She had slept poorly the night before, and had opened the