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No one noticed when she walked out in the middle of the night. Some of the dogs barked a little when they heard a noise, but when they smelled her, they came, got their heads scratched, and she shooed them away, clutching the little bag she had with her, trying not to cry.
Today had been the final straw. Once and for all. She’d been forced into a stupid, itchy dress, and had Ivy, stupid, annoying, ditsy Ivy, laugh at her, and make her walk up and down, like a model on a runway, being held at gunpoint.
Well, not quite at gunpoint. But being in the dress shop had felt like it. She had been scared to say anything, point out a single thing, complain at all, in case it made her curse act up, in case the shop burned down, or the dresses were all stained, or the seams all suddenly fell apart on every single dress. She would have to write apology letter after apology letter, if that happened, and endure the disapproving glare of whomever the ROCC sent to collect her dues on being alive.
She could see her future quite clearly now. With two and a half years to live, her life would be made a living horror by Ivy. She was already talking about scheduling her haircuts, making her more ladylike. As if Morrigan were going to live long enough to end up wherever Ivy had to get a successful politician husband, and hang around all day, wasting money, and being generally unpleasant to everyone.
She had no clue why her father was so intent on remarrying, except for the stock reasons her tutor had given her, about companionship, and her mother not being replaced, and she really needed to work on her subjunctives in Grommish.
Well, she knew a bit of it. Ivy was pretty, and vapid, and never argued with him, or caused him problems. Morrigan didn’t remember what her mother was like, and neither her father, nor her grandmother would even mention her. She could count on one hand the amount of times that she’d even heard a reference to her, and that counted when she had badgered and pleaded to get the tiniest scrap of information about the woman.
Ivy would make the end of Morrigan’s life a living hell. Not that it had been particularly nice at the beginning, or middle, but something reckless was bubbling up in her, fighting at her to get out, and before she had known it, her things were being tossed in a bag, and she was leaving through the back gate, away from Jackalfax, even if she had no idea where she was going past that.
She sniffed, reaching the treeline and disappearing inside it. It wasn’t like anyone would miss her anyway. They would probably celebrate, or wonder if she had been so bad that Eventide had come early, only for her.
A twig snapped behind her, but when she whipped around to see what it was, there was nothing except the long, tall shadows of the trees, and the moonlight sneaking down through the canopy.
It wasn’t much light to work with but her eyes had adjusted surprisingly easily, viewing the world in shades of greys and purples. She could hear foxes screaming somewhere, probably over in the town proper, and the sound of animals padding around the forest floor as she kept walking, and started to realise that running away from home was possibly a bad idea.
What was she thinking? Even if they didn’t want her back, where was she supposed to go? She had no money, no assets, she was a child, and thus couldn’t work. And people knew who she was, since her father was the Chancellor and she was a cursed child. She’d ended up in more than a few newspaper articles in her time.
Defeat began to sink into her bones, and she dropped onto a half-rotten log, abandoning her bag, and let herself cry. She would go back. She had to. She would endure Ivy’s snapping, and her grandmother’s belligerence, and her father’s general refusal to acknowledge her unless forced, and Cook’s waspish remarks, and the maids and footmen muttering about her even though she could fully hear them, and she would endure it. Until Eventide. When she wouldn’t have to endure anything anymore.
Another twig snapped behind her, and the sound of a foot hitting fallen pine needles and moss could be heard, but there was nothing there when she looked, so she returned to wallowing in self-pity, and digging the soft bits of wood out of the log with her fingernails, until the light in front of her, as poor as it was was interrupted by something.
She looked up. And up. And up.
And screamed.
“Whoa,” the man said. The strange man she’d met in the woods in the middle of the night. His hands were up like a surrender, but Morrigan was scrambling to her feet already, her fists clenched. She remembered to untuck her thumb from her fists. She’d read once in a book that it was very easy to dislocate your thumb if you punched like that.
“Get back,” she said. “Now,” her heartbeat roared in her ears, but he took a step back, hands still up.
“No harm, no harm,” he said.
“Why were you following me?” her voice was higher and reedier than she wanted to be. She cleared it, trying to make it deeper, “In the middle of the night? In the woods?”
“Ah, yeah. It sounds pretty back when you word it like that, doesn’t it?” he scratched his ear. “Why aren’t you at home and in bed?”
“I’m- none of your business,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. No one wants me there anyway.”
His face softened, “I’m sorry, Morrigan.”
“How do you know my name?” her hackles were fully raised by now. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to fight him, since he was double her height, but if he got any closer, she might try to bite him at least. It might surprise him, and give her time to get away.
And go where? An annoying voice in her head asked. She told it to kindly shut up.
“I uh- I’m not doing this the best way, am I?” he asked. “I’m Jupiter North, of Nevermoor.”
She blinked, “Never heard of it.”
“No, you wouldn’t have would you,” he preened. “Republic geography lessons are atrocious, aren’t they? You don’t learn a single thing about the Free State, including that it exists in the first place.”
“Who are you?”
“I just told you, I’m Jupiter North.”
“But I don’t know who you are,” she said. “That name means nothing to me. You could be anyone.”
“I could,” he agreed. “You’ll have to take my word on it, I suppose,” he patted his pockets, as if he was going to be able to pull out definitive paperwork that she should trust him.
“No offence, but I’m not really inclined to do so.”
“Fair enough,” he straightened. “You’ll be going back to Crow Manor then?”
She felt her iron spine dissolve. “I suppose so.”
“Are they really so bad?” he asked, gentle and kind. He hadn’t come any closer, staying a few metres away, but Morrigan felt like he was right next to her. The sort of adult she was supposed to tell if she had a problem. She’d never had an adult like that before, since she had been the only problem, pretty much.
“They- I don’t like Ivy,” she said. “I thought I could put up with it until Eventide, I was used to it, I guess, but then she comes along, and she just gets her nails into everything. I can feel my heartbeat go up whenever she comes into a room. She’s going to make it just… a lot worse, I suppose.”
“What happens at Eventide?”
She looked at him strangely, “I’m on the Cursed Children’s register. I’m going to die.”
“Do you want to?”
“No,” she said. “I’m resigned to it. I’m cursed. But no, of course I don’t want to die. What sort of question even is that?”
“Responsive,” he said. “What do you mean you’re going to die? Are you ill?”
“Well mine was rhetorical, and no, not in- I’m not terminally ill, I don’t have a disease but I was born at midnight on Eventide, and that means that I’m going to die at midnight, next Eventide. It happens to all cursed children.”
“Since when?”
She blinked, “I uh- I guess forever? From the start of the Republic, at least. There’s three others on the register, but I get blamed for everything that goes wrong in Great Wolfacre, or at least in Jackalfax. I swear, I never mean for these things to happen, but they do.”
“Of course they do,” he said. “That’s life. Bad things happen. That’s not your curse, that’s people refusing to take responsibility.”
She didn’t say it, but she privately agreed with him. A good amount of the apology letters she had to write could probably be attributed to the recipient being a complete idiot, rather than her having anything to do with it. How was it her fault that Georgie Mackintosh smashed his face in outside Crow Manor? He’d set up a bunch of jumps for his bike, made out of cardboard and wood, and they’d collapsed. Hardly anything she did.
“I don’t want to go back there,” she found herself saying. “But I don’t have a choice.”
“Maybe you do,” he said. “Do you want to see the Free State, Morrigan Crow? Do you want to live?”
“I don’t know where that is?”
“East of here,” he said. “Across the Harrow Strait normally, but I know a shortcut.”
“Why should I trust you?” she asked. “I just met you.”
“I can’t give you a reason for that, I’m afraid. You’ll have to come up with one on your own. Coming?”
This was stupid. This was the stupidest thing she had ever considered, and she couldn’t believe that she was going to do it but… she wasn’t going back into that house anyway. She didn’t have to see any of the Crows, or soon-to-be Crows ever again.
And she didn’t know anything about the Free State, but she wanted to now.
This was stupid though. She’d met a stranger in the woods at night, and she was agreeing to go with him? Why? Because he said her curse probably didn’t have anything to do with the bad things that went on in Jackalfax? Because he didn’t hate her for being born on Eventide, didn’t hate Morrigan Crow because she was Morrigan Crow?
Oh, she was doing this, wasn’t she.
“Yes,” she said. “Fine, yes.”
He blinked, “You don’t have any self-preservation instincts, do you?”
“Probably not.”
“Right,” he said. “Develop some, at some point. Might be a good idea. I’m parked… this way,” he walked a metre ahead of her, through the trees. And for some insane reason, she followed him the whole way, holding nothing except the bag she’d taken from Crow Manor. She had a couple of pieces of clothes inside, and Emmet, which was good since it meant she didn’t need to go back there. She had everything she could need now anyway.