The Magician's Lie by Greer Macallister

allows it. If Ray hurt you, if he’s done something wrong, then I will have to tell Victor. Victor will have to tell Silas. Silas will have to respond, and I think you know Ray won’t be the one he’ll punish. We will all suffer instead. Our family. Is that what you want? You want us out on the street with nowhere to go?”
    â€œOf course not,” I said in a whisper, feeling the hot sting of tears under my lashes.
    â€œSo you were mistaken. Weren’t you?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    She said, “I’m so sorry, Ada. Once upon a time, I was stronger than this.”
    I was afraid to breathe, let alone to speak, so I simply continued to cry, clutching the dish in my hand as if it could give me some kind of solace. Her eyes were dry, but I could see her knuckles turn white as she clutched her own dish, her head bent and staring down into the sink in front of us.
    â€œYou’re old enough to hear it. I was ready to lose my whole world for your father,” she said quietly. “He wasn’t ready to lose his for me. He didn’t love his wife. Everyone knew that. Her parents offered him so much money to stay that he couldn’t refuse. He didn’t refuse. He didn’t love me enough. I worshipped him, but in the end, he was weak. And it didn’t matter how strong I was, if he wasn’t.”
    â€œVictor was strong enough. He loved you enough. He was strong enough to run away with you.”
    Grimly, she said, “By then, neither of us had all that much to lose.”
    I watched her wipe away a tear, and I realized I would never see her quite the same way again.
    â€œNow we have even less,” she said. “And I can’t lose what little we do have. I can’t.”
    My powerful, beautiful mother, my songbird, my cello. She was only an ordinary woman, and one who felt herself at the mercy of the world. She was right. She wasn’t strong enough.
    â€œNo more of this,” she said, dunking the dish in her hand under the surface of the water. She swished it from side to side and scrubbed at it even though it was already clean, then handed it to me to dry and return to the cabinet.
    And that was all.
    ***
    That night, I lay awake, castigating myself for my error, over and over. Maybe if I’d gone about it differently. Maybe if I’d come right out and said it, told her about what he’d done to me in the barn months before and what he’d done to the horse and himself that day, maybe then she would have to take my side. If I’d done it right, maybe I could have made it all come out differently. Come out better.
    But I knew that she was right. Ray was his father’s pride and his mother’s pet. There was no chance they would take a word against him seriously. I was the troublemaker, the upstart, the bastard girl. I’d botched the confession to my mother, and if I tried to bring it up again, I knew she wouldn’t listen. Now I was the girl who cried wolf, even though there really was a wolf, and I had every reason to think the wolf wasn’t yet done with me.
    Those poor dogs. That poor horse. That horrid, whispering voice when he’d said I hope you know I’ll never let you leave , and later, If you tell them, I’ll kill you . I realized then how foolish I’d been to stay this long. It could be fatal to stay longer.
    My mother had told me she couldn’t save me. If I wanted to escape—to live—I would have to save myself.
    Rising silently, moving through the dark on practiced, careful feet, I fetched the valise my mother had bought me for ballet school. From my bureau, I took two plain dresses; from the kitchen, a half loaf of bread. I paused before I left, thinking of writing a note for her, telling her not to worry about me and that I’d left by choice, but I was too afraid. It would take time, and even if I left a note, there was no guarantee she’d see it. I heard creaks and snaps