Will and Testament // Sequel to the Rosie Grey series

Chapter Twenty-Four

My trip to the kitchen for ice ended up being successful, but I don't think it made any difference to the state of my ankle. All I could think about was the conversation I overheard from Mother and Father that night.

The way Father mentioned the idea of a boarding school so casually made me think that he might have been thinking about it for a little while. I wouldn't put it past him seeing as everything I did somehow managed to annoy him and he couldn't even meet my eyes anymore. Still, they had discussed boarding school for me a few years before, especially after Miss Reid mentioned it due to her belief that it would have served me better than my current school. They both refused.

I suppose time can change opinions.

That night, I barely slept. Whether it was my ankle hurting or the thoughts created by Father's comment I didn't know, but sleep evaded me for the entire night. I don't think I managed to sleep for even a second and my eyes were still wide open when the sun started to creep in through the curtains and floorboards started to creak just outside with the movement of Helen and Mary.

I stifled a yawn and pushed back the blankets, exposing my ankle so I could examine it to see how much of a difference the ice had made. My ankle didn't look like it had become any smaller overnight and the purple bruising was more prominent against my pale skin. If I didn't know any better, I would say it looked worse than when I had taken the ice off; there were even small indents from where my boots had pressed into it.

Slowly, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and put my left foot onto the floor before gingerly lowering my right foot down beside it. Pain spread up my leg like a wave, reaching my knee and then flowing back down to start all over again. I fell sideways, grabbing onto my nightstand so I didn't hit the floor and alert everyone.

After a few seconds, the pain faded but I didn't try to put all of my weight on my right ankle again. Instead, I hobbled around the room on my toes which wasn't all that practical but stopped me from falling over. For a fleeting second, I considered telling Father what had happened but then I remembered what I had overheard and the idea quickly disappeared from my mind. That would be a sure-fire way of being sent off to boarding school.

I dressed quickly and then put my boots on, tying the laces as loosely as possible so they didn't cut into my ankle; it didn't work. It would be much harder to hide the limp from Mother and Father since I couldn't put any weight on my leg at all, but I didn't have much choice since Mrs Smith had yet to arrive with a breakfast tray. So it was to be a family breakfast.

Downstairs, I try to act as normal as possible, but that was remarkably hard to do given the constant surge of pain. No one seemed to notice, Father didn't even look up from his newspaper, so I slid into my chair with no comments.

"Good morning," Mother said, smiling at me. I tried to return the smile, but the pain had reached an unbearable level. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, just tired."

"You look like you barely slept last night. Perhaps you should go back to bed."

"I can't, I have the debate preparation to do. I doubt I'll be able to do anything tomorrow if we're moving out, which I still think is strange."

"You're not going to get too much work done if you're dead on your feet." She paused. "And regardless of whether or not you think there is something strange going on, we will still be leaving tomorrow."

"I never said we weren't. I just don't understand why everyone was so willing to accept something that odd. You were the ones who went storming into Uncle Christopher's office asking about fake wills and yet now you seem to have accepted it as fact."