Pureheart by Cassandra Golds

I’m not here, I forget. I had forgotten until just now. I never think about it when I’m not here. I think I come here when I’m sleeping. Perhaps I’m sleeping now. Do you want to see him?’
    Gal nodded, and Deirdre took the glass bowl in her hand and offered it to him. ‘Take off the lid,’ she said.
    Gal did so and the moment he did they both saw something so beautiful, so important and so heartbreakingly sad that it seemed to explain everything, all at once – even questions they had never thought to ask. They both gazed at it for a moment, lost in wonder and love. Then they looked at each other, and knew, even then, even though they were only five, that this would be the most important moment in their lives.
    They could never have believed, at that moment, that it would be possible to forget what was in the box. And yet, they did, as soon as Mrs Dark appeared in the doorway.
    She must have known. She must have been able to tell. She must have been able to feel what was going on in the building, as if it were a part of her body, as if the building was her body, or perhaps, her mind. And she must have been waiting for this to happen.
    And yet now, she was truly, lividly angry.
    â€˜What is he doing here?’ she asked Deirdre, without taking her eyes off Gal.
    At such a moment another child might have dropped the box, but Deirdre was not that child. Instead she held it tightly to her chest, as if to put herself between it and her grandmother.
    â€˜Please, Grandmother, please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t be angry with Gal. He didn’t mean to come here. I didn’t either. I forgot it was here! Please don’t be angry.’
    â€˜I’m not angry,’ said Deirdre’s grandmother. But something about the way she said it made Deirdre’s stomach give with a sudden, sickening lurch. ‘Not –
angry
,’ she repeated. ‘I’m disappointed. Disappointed.’ She swayed a little as she stood and for a moment Deirdre thought she was going to fall. ‘Not in him,’ she went on. ‘I wouldn’t have expected any better. I’m disappointed in you, Deirdre.’ And she stared at her and Deirdre lowered her eyes, trying helplessly to escape the deep, searing reproach, but not succeeding. She felt utterly guilty, utterly condemned. ‘He will have to go. I cannot harbour such a child. His influence will ruin you.’
    â€˜Please . . .’ Deirdre tried to say, but she had no voice.
    Her grandmother turned to Gal.
    And Deirdre, in her despair, had a strange and wild series of thoughts. She is the biggest thing! There is nothing bigger! There is no one bigger to ask mercy from! she thought. And then, in a kind of final hopelessness, She is God!
    â€˜Because you have dared to come into this place without my permission, and because you looked inside my box –
my private box!
– you have lost my protection forever, and you will never set foot in Corbenic again. And you will never speak to Deirdre again, either. Your friendship ends now. You will stay the night here, but tomorrow morning I will take you back to the farm and you can move in with whoever will have you. You’ve had your chance. Now you’re no concern of mine.’
    She looked at him for a moment, waiting for his face to crumble, but it didn’t. He just stared back at her, never lowering his eyes, his expression unfathomable. She turned suddenly to Deirdre, as if to stop the power draining from her before it was too late, and Deirdre kept shaking her head in grief and terror and trying to say
no, no,
but still her grandmother said, ‘Because you brought him here and showed him what is in the box I will take him away from you and you will never leave Corbenic. You will be the guardian of this room, and what is in it, for the rest of your life. And although you will long for it, you will never have my total love again. Neither will you