Chapter 9: Frost and Stone

The wind played with her hair as she walked toward her home. She knew she had a stupid grin on her face. She could only imagine what Pwyll felt in the park, but if it was just half of what had gone on in her, she had to admire his strength. He was a better person than Riordan, no matter that Riordan was the head Deacon of the Chapel and the principal of the school. He as much as tried to rape her. Siobhan tried to remember what happened, but she only brought up fuzzy pictures of what had occurred between her trashing her room and Pwyll calling her in the park.

She couldn't remember what she had done earlier, but she remembered every word that Pwyll told her about his father? What would it be like to live with that? Not easy she was sure. She still trusted Pwyll over Riordan any day. It didn't matter what he'd done. She knew he was a good person. He'd always been there for her. Sometime life just sucked, but it sucked less with Pwyll around.

She stood at the door and tried to get the courage to go in, but the door flew open. Her mother dragged her inside and wrapped her in a hug. Siobhan put her arms around her and thought about Pwyll's mother. She made sure to hug her ma back.

"Where have you been?" her mother asked.

"Mostly wandering around thinking," Siobhan said, "I'm sorry I worried you."

"Everything we do is because we love you," her mother said. There was a plaintive note in her voice that suggested that loving Siobhan was especially difficult. She was performing for someone. If they'd been alone, there would have been lectures even before the hug was finished. Her mother's embrace was a sweet trap and Siobhan fell for it every time. She looked around for the audience and saw Mr. Riordan in the living room drinking tea with his right hand while his left hand sat bandaged carefully, in full view on his knee. She could only see her father in profile, but there was a tension in his body that suggested he was holding back some strong emotion, probably shame. Her parents were all about shame, theirs, hers, the church's.

"Come in and sit down," Mr. Riordan said. Siobhan had little choice, her mother pushed her toward the living room. Siobhan reluctantly sat in her grandmother's chair. It was the only thing from Ireland in the house; that and a rock from her apparently witch aunt. She felt a chill from the rock in her pocket and resisted putting her hand on it to see if it would send chill or warmth. The chair was the most uncomfortable thing she'd ever tried to sit in. It was too low to the ground, and the seat was at an odd angle that meant she had to brace her legs to keep from sliding out of it onto the floor. The back was lumpy with a big carving in the centre of it that meant you couldn't lean against the back. Horsehair poked through the worn fabric to make her itch. No matter how many layers she wore it always found her skin.

She was all too familiar with the chair. It was the place she had to sit while being corrected. Siobhan had perfected the art of sitting and looking normal, if not comfortable. The goal was to try to sit in a way that made the least contact with the chair. She imagined hovering over the thing. She faced Mr. Riordan. She didn't smile, but she wasn't swearing at him, or sucking the energy from him like a crazy Irish vampire. That would have to do.

"You removed the dye from your hair," Mr. Riordan said, "that is a start. It is unfortunate that you cut your hair. A woman's hair is her honour." Siobhan thought of all the times she had been told that cutting her hair was a sin. That was odd as most of the women in the church had shorter hair than she had now, but she was the Pastor's Daughter, a rare and dangerous creature. She was supposed to somehow live by all those stupid rules that men found in the Bible for women. Nobody bothered about the rules for the men, but they would break the rules anyways.

"I have told your parents that I won't press charges, this time," Mr. Riordan held up his hand, the bandaged one, "but there must be consequences for your actions. I had to argue strongly to convince the Deacon to not simply terminate our relationship with your father." He gave Siobhan a look that made her think of him hissing in her ear that he controlled her father's future. She wasn't sure that it would work or she'd have tried to suck him dry and risk her parents immediately trying to stone her as a witch.

Somewhere between Pwyll's home and here, the power had left her. Now, she was just a teenager with a stone in her coat pocket. She couldn't call up those expressions that had given her control over Riordan and even Pwyll. Even if she did manage it, her mother would do worse than stoning her.