Le Début |Skulduggery Pleasant

Chapter 20: The Family Curse

Third Person's POV:

Valkyrie had climbed through her bedroom window to find her reflection sitting on the bed in the darkness, waiting for her.

"Are you ready to resume your life?" It had asked.

Valkyrie, who was finding it very disconcerting to hold a conversation with herself, merely nodded. The reflection went to the mirror and stepped through, then turned and waited. Stephanie touched the glass, and a day's worth of memory flooded into her mind. She watched the reflection change, the clothes Valkyrie was wearing appearing on it. And then it was nothing more than a reflected image in a mirror.

Valkyrie woke the next morning, not happy with what she had to do. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, she thought about calling on the reflection to imitate her again, then decided against it. The reflection gave her the creeps.

Realizing that she could not put it off any longer, Valkyrie trudged over to her aunt's house and knocked on the door. The sun was shining and the birds were singing and Stephanie forced a smile on her face, but it wasn't a smile that was returned when the door opened and Crystal looked out at her.

"What do you want?" Her cousin asked suspiciously.

"Just thought I'd call around," Valkyrie said brightly. "See how you all are."

"We're fine," Crystal said. "We've got a stupid car and a stupid boat. How's your house?"

"Crystal," She said, "I know you're probably angry about the inheritance and everything, but I don't know why I was left all that either."

"It's because you were sucking up to him." Crystal sneered. "If we'd known that all it took was just to be all smiles and have conversations with him, then we'd have done that stuff too."

"But I didn't know—"

"You cheated."

"I didn't cheat."

"You had an unfair advantage."

"How? How could I have even known he was going to die?"

"You knew," Crystal said. "You knew that sooner or later he was going to die, but you got in so early, the rest of us didn't stand a chance."

"Did you even like him?"

There was that sneer again. "You don't have to like someone to get something from them."

She resisted the urge to punch Crystal's smirking face long enough for Beryl to pass the doorway. She saw Valkyrie, and her eyes widened in surprise.

"Stephanie," She said, "what are you doing here?"

"She thought she'd call around," Crystal said, "to see how we are."

"Oh, that's very nice of you, dear."

Crystal took this opportunity to walk away without saying goodbye. Valkyrie focused on Beryl.

"You're not wearing the brooch Gordon left you?"

"That horrid thing? No, I am not, and I don't think I ever will. It doesn't even sparkle, for heaven's sake. People know something is cheap if it doesn't sparkle."

"That's a shame. It looked pretty, though, from where I was standing. It would have looked nice with one of your cardigans—"

"We saw you yesterday," Beryl interrupted.

"I'm sorry?"

"In a horrid yellow car, with that dreadful Skulduggery Pleasant and Belle Èclipse."