Ring. Sister. Piano (Book 4 of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Twenty: The Sun

He didn't follow her after that. Ellini clamped down on every thought and every glance that strayed in his direction, as though she was stamping on the fingers of someone hanging off the edge of a cliff.

But she stamped down on that image too, and wandered on in silence.

Her meeting with Manda was also marked by silence – on Manda's part, at least. She was in the University Church, leaning on a broom, which was more for emphasis than for sweeping. She used it to prod and point at the workmen which were sawing and hammering under the church's charred roof. Dozens of them were on ladders and platforms up in the rafters, occasionally dropping pipe-ash or sawdust, which drifted down like the endless snow.

The entire visit was a trial to Ellini, but having to go through her apologies in this place was worst of all. It was hard to be back here, in the knowledge that she had started the fire which had reduced this place to ruins. It was harder still when she thought about how she had felt the last time she'd been under this roof – the pain, the betrayal, the sopping red dress.

She was remembering all this while she apologized – she had no idea what she was actually saying – so it wasn't a surprise when Manda, after hearing her repeat the word 'inconsiderate' for the fourth or fifth time, got impatient and cut straight to the heart of the matter.

"Did you ever think it might be especially difficult for me to think you were dead? When I'd already lost-?"

"Yes," said Ellini. "I mean, no. I didn't think at all, I'm afraid, but I can see that now."

"Oh," said Manda, laughing bitterly. "Well done – full marks – first prize! She can see it now!"

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't tell me you were alive because you thought I'd tell Jack, yes?"

"I suppose so."

"You were right," said Manda, with a haughty sniff. "I would have told him. But then I have a grain of compassion in my heart."

"More than a grain," said Ellini, half to herself.

This concession seemed to annoy Manda even more. "You have no idea the trouble you caused!"

"You can tell me, if you like."

"I wouldn't know where to begin!"

"Then perhaps we should just agree that I was very inconsiderate, and that I'm very sorry."

"I'll only agree to half of that," said Manda, turning back to her work.

For a moment, there was no sound but the busy swishing of her broom. The bristles screeched over the tiles, and for some reason, that screeching seemed like more of a reproach than Manda's actual words.

Ellini wondered why it had to be like this. She had been wondering all morning, while she shifted and shuffled and tapped her feet against the floor of the coach. Yes, she had hurt lots of people by letting them think she was dead. But worse things had been done to her, and she'd never received the slightest apology for them. 

She had pointed this out to Matthi, but Matthi had been inscrutable this morning. She had just tilted her head, making her lop-sided smile even more lop-sided. 

"Yeah, but you don't wanna be like the people 'oo 'urt you. You'd rather die than be like them." 

Ellini had glanced out of the window at the frozen rooftops – the inviting shadows of the chimney-stacks. "I'm not so sure of that right now..." 

"I'm sure of it," Matthi countered. "Like I say, none of us can 'elp the way we're made." 

She supposed Matthi was right. There would be less pain in her life if she was like the people who'd wronged her – if she just bustled through life taking what she wanted, never pausing to look back at the wreckage she'd left behind – but something would be missing too.