Excerpt from Transgressions

It is taking me longer than anticipated to finish the 3rd volume in The Apprentice Series. In the meantime, here is a short (non-spoiler) excerpt for Eva. She knows who she is.

At Helena’s gesture, Lilian obediently follows her mother out to the kitchen walkway. Casting a critical eye over the herb garden, Lilian is pleased to note the plants are full and flourishing in the dry-season heat due to the carefully constructed irrigation ditches.

As Lilian pauses to survey the precious herbs, a flash of sparkling green flits through the overgrown ornamental trees beyond the kitchen hedge. “Maman, how is it that thing lives? Is Katleen feeding it?”

“Gloribelle eats leaves, berries, and bark,” Helena says, opening the kitchen door. “As a gardener, she is unreliable, but at least a few of the shrubs are getting a form of pruning.”

The ornamental gardens that wrap around the south and eastern sides of the ancient house have long run wild. Even before their ruin, Lilian's sire refused the funds necessary to maintain them, even while he lived in a splendid penthouse in one of the great spires of Pinnacle City on Socraide Prime.

“Gloribelle? She named that thing?” Lilian’s eyes widen in shock.

A month gone, Lilian found Katleen precariously perched on a tree limb as she attempted to rescue a baby tree-wombat mewling in distress. Fairly certain the pup had been abandoned and would not survive a month, Lilian agreed to let the sparkly rodent stay in the garden. Unlike their burrowing kin, tree-wombats do not like herbs.

“Katleen needs a pet,” Helena remarks absently as Lilian follows her into the kitchen.

“Pet! It is a rodent,” Lilian exclaims, pulling juice and cold green tea from the foodkeeper. Even with the exertion of training and the distraction of the sparkling wombat, Lilian’s stomach remains knotted with tension.

“It is difficult to catch, let alone kill.” Helena places hard-cooked eggs and fruit on the table.

Sipping her juice, Lilian thinks about Helena’s words. Lilian knows Katleen is lonely. A pet would do much to ease the young girl’s isolation. Even if they had the funds to feed and care for a cat or dog, which they do not, it would be at risk from those who torment them. Lilian inwardly shudders at the notion of what those who despise them might do to a helpless pet.

Filling her now-empty glass with green tea and selecting a cluster of grapes, Lilian agrees, “Very well, Maman. Katleen does enjoy that which sparkles, and there is no question that when it is in heat, that thing will be a walking pyrotechnic.”

“Lilian, fortify yourself for the day.” Helena frowns at Lilian’s small handful of fruit.

This day. There is only this day. “Not this day, Maman, It will not settle well.”