Emilie did not raise her gaze as they entered the library. She even kept her head bowed when she heard Sister Agatha closing the doors behind her, leaving her alone with the parents she had not seen in nearly twenty years.
“Well,” her mother’s cold, severe voice rang loudly in the large space of the library. “Are ye just goin’ to stand there starin’ at the cobbles? Or, are ye goin’ to greet yer maither and yer faither?”
Dutifully, Emilie raised her gaze.
Prior to that moment, she would have claimed that she hardly even remembered what her parents looked like. But the second her eyes landed on them, it all came rushing back to her.
Her parents were sitting in two high-backed reading chairs, two of the best ones in the library. Her father’s gaze was as cruel as she remembered. And her mother’s face was just as pinched, her mouth pressed firmly into a taut line as if she had just sucked on something sour.
There were tells of the time, though. Gray streaks in her father’s otherwise dark hair, and new wrinkles at the corners of her mother’s eyes and mouth.
“Maither. Faither,” Emilie said as demurely as she could muster.
I cannae let them make me forget who I’ve spent seventeen years tryin’ to become.
“Ye look well,” her father surmised, his eyes sweeping over her from head to boots.
If Emilie wasn’t mistaken, though, there was an air of distaste about him. As if he found something about his daughter’s appearance incredibly lacking.
“I am well.”
Emilie’s words were simple, filled with little to no inflection. She did not know how to interact with them.
Her parents were strangers to her now.
There was a long pause, the awkwardness of it falling over Emilie like a thick wool blanket. It was suffocating, causing her to shift from foot to foot as she waited for one of them to speak next.
“Is that all ye have to say to yer parents?” her mother finally hissed, her eyes narrowing as she stared at Emilie. “After all these years?”
Frustration bubbled up within her, a sensation that Emilie was unfamiliar with. Her brows knit together.
“I’m nae certain what else there is to say,” she quipped back, more venom in her tone than she had intended. “I’ve nae seen ye in so long. Ye’ve never visited, and ye made it clear when ye left me that I was an unwanted burden. I daenae ken why ye’re here. So I daenae ken what to say.”
She winced when the words were done falling from her mouth. She hadn’t meant to be that harsh with them. And the moment she saw the darkening of her father’s eyes and the way her mother turned up her nose, she knew that she had made a mistake.
“Is it nae possible that yer parents missed ye?” her father bit back, gaze narrowed on his daughter.
Remember yer vows. Ye cannae get angry. Ye must remain chaste, ye must….
“It doesnae matter why we’re here,” her mother said, her voice cutting through Emilie’s spiraling thoughts. “What does matter is that we’ll be takin’ ye home with us. Ye’re leavin’ the abbey.”
It took Emilie a moment, her mind running in circles as she tried to make sense of what her mother had just said. The moment she could think clearly, however, dread began to spool low in her belly.
“I cannae be leavin’,” she argued, shaking her head as if doing so could rewind time to when her mother had not yet spoken. “Caledon Abbey is me home.”
“It is nae yer home,” her father corrected, his tone as cold as ice. “It has merely been where ye were livin’. But now, ye’ll be livin’ somewhere else. We’ve found ye a husband, and ye’re due to marry him in a few days.”
“A husband?” Emilie could not stop the shriek that escaped her.
She took several steps back, shrinking away from her parents and their cruel, unseemly words.
“I cannae take a husband,” she stammered. “What about me vows?”
“Ye have nae taken any vows,” her mother hurled the words at her. “Ye are a novice nun. Or are ye so daft that ye daenae ken what that means?”
“I’m nae daft,” Emilie fired back.
There was some part of her that knew she shouldn’t be arguing with them. It went against one of her primary tenets to obey. But she couldn’t help it.