Free The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell

said again, feeling his eyebrows knit together. “The one I mended.”
    â€œWhy haven’t you been sleeping in the servant’s quarters?” she asked. “Or above the smithy? That would be the place for you.”
    He gaped at her. “This is my castle!”
    â€œNo, it’s not. I’m the heiress of this castle! May I remind you!”
    Sand blinked. Very well, technically it wasn’t his castle. But she was no more the heir of it than he. “No,” Sand said. “This castle belongs to your sister.”
    â€œShe’s not my real sister!” Perrotte screamed, face turning bright red, and a vein popping on her throat. Then she clutched her head. “Oh. Ow.”
    Sand was frozen. He didn’t know how to react to this Perrotte, to screaming Perrotte.
    He was reminded again of what it was like taking care of his little sisters. This would be a temper tantrum, then? And he should just ignore it?
    â€œI’m sorry,” Perrotte whispered, shamefaced.
    Sand shrugged, which wasn’t an acceptance of her apology.
    Perrotte took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I don’t quite have the control on my behavior that I should. And considering I have more than eight-and-thirty years now . . .”
    This startled Sand out of his frozen state. “What?”
    â€œWell, if it’s been twenty-five years since . . . and I was thirteen at the time . . . So I’m quite, quite old now. I really should know better.”
    Sand sighed, and stirred the stew again. He really should know better too. Perrotte had awakened from the dead—today. To find everyone she knew and loved gone, and twenty-five years in the past. More than that. She was probably closer to forty than eight-and-thirty.
    Even the people who still lived, like his own father, had changed, perhaps unrecognizably to Perrotte. And she had also discovered that she was trapped in this castle, this broken castle where nothing lived, nothing thrived, with a boy who apparently thought it was his own castle. . . .
    â€œOf course it’s your bed for the taking,” he said, feeling weary. He bit his lips, thinking about the smith’s quarters. He hadn’t even gone to look at them, but she was right, that’s where he belonged.
    â€œNo. No, no. I’m horrible. Your bed is the one you mended. You shall have it. I’ll go sleep in my old bed.”
    â€œIt’s not mended,” he pointed out.
    â€œHow bad can it be?”
    â€œBad enough. Take the bed. I’ll make do in the smith’s quarters, as you suggested.”
    â€œNo!” She stepped toward him. “I’m sorry, Sand. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think . . . I think sometimes, even though I hated everything my father’s wife did, and regarded her every word as poison she dripped from her tongue, sometimes I think I’m as heartless as she is. And I don’t wish to be. Please, Sand. Forgive me.” She reached for him.
    Awkward, uncertain, he gave her his hand. She squeezed his fingers.
    â€œThere, then,” she said, and let his fingers go. “ Do you forgive me?”
    â€œI—” He wanted to shrug, to hold back his forgiveness like a punishment. But this time, he did forgive her. So he nodded. “I do.”
    â€œCome with me, to look at my old room.”
    He banked the fire and lowered the stew pot toward the coals, then went with her to the keep.
    â€œLet’s just look,” she urged, entering a room he’d taken no particular notice of before.
    Sand had never tried to mend any of the things in these chambers. It looked like a whirlwind armed with sledgehammers had taken the room apart, and then picked up some daggers to finish the job. Sand regarded Perrotte’s face.
    â€œNone of these things are mine,” she said, poking into a broken clothes chest. “Someone