Free Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman

left.
     
    Dear Catherine,  
       
    We are beside ourselves with worry and missing you terribly.  
     
    Rubbish, Cathy thought, but carried on reading.
     
    I know you must be afraid to come back, but I want you to know I understand this isn’t your fault. You were corrupted at a tender age by Miss Rainer. Ultimately, the blame lies with me for letting that evil woman into our household, and I will never forgive myself.  
    Her wicked scheme to put the most ridiculous ideas into your head and expose you to entirely unsuitable literature is what brought about this terrible situation we find ourselves in.  
     
    The words blurred. Miss Rainer. Every single day she wondered what had happened to her old governess. “Ridiculous ideas, Mother?” she muttered under her breath. “I suppose you would call human rights and women’s suffrage ridiculous.” Cathy looked up at the bookshelves, filled with “unsuitable literature”: science fiction, fantasy, volumes of political discourse and social history, feminist masterpieces and graphic novels. Pride of place, with a shelf all of their own, were the works of HG Wells, Jules Verne, the Dune novels, Asimov and all the others Miss Rainer had smuggled in and hidden under her pillow. Not the originals. They’d been ripped apart and burnt by her father. She could still feel his hand on her throat and smell the burning paper as he’d forced her to watch.
    Everything had changed that day. It was hard to believe it had been over four years ago; the memory of it was so fresh. She remembered the beating that had taken weeks to recover from fully, the hours alone, locked in her room, sobbing until the turn of the key in the lock made her wipe her eyes and sit up straight and be polite to whoever came in, be it her mother or the maid. She recalled the hours her mother had spent coaching her in the lead-up to her coming of age, the sleepless nights spent weighing up whether to play by the rules or risk everything on asking for the wrong boon.
    It had taken months to get to university. They’d had to say yes, it was the family tradition, but most good little Papaver children diligently requested whatever their parents had told them to.
    Cambridge was a stepping stone to freedom; it gave her the chance to get out of the family home, which was her first objective, and saved her from the stress of being launched onto the social scene in Aquae Sulis. Whilst she didn’t have the same freedom as all of the other students there, she had enough exposure to others in lectures and her tutorial partners to learn enough about Mundanus to know where to look for more information. Everyone had computers and it didn’t take much persuasion to convince her minder she needed one for the course. A fellow student bought a dongle for her and helped her get online in return for lunch, and that was the breakthrough she needed. It took a year in Cambridge to plan and execute her escape to Manchester and it had worked perfectly, until that bastard Shopkeeper had ruined it all by tipping off Lord Poppy.
    Cathy still had no idea what happened to Miss Rainer. After the night her father found the books hidden in her room all of her lessons stopped, but she’d learnt enough to know that she could never live the same life as her mother.
    She went back to the letter.
     
    Your absence has cast a shadow over our household and I am worried about how this is affecting Elizabeth.  
     
    Cathy snorted. Her younger sister was probably still gloating about her victory and was glad that her plain older sister wasn’t there to jeopardise her chances of a good marriage. Cathy would never forgive Elizabeth for what she did.
     
    Thomas hasn’t been the same since he learned of your disappearance and asks whether there has been any news every evening. He’s lost weight with worry. I beg you to consider your brother and his feelings, Catherine. I know how close you are.  
     
    It was a low blow and the guilt brought tears