Read Online Aveline by Lizzy Ford - Free Book Online

imagining herself at a ball, dancing with Warner.
In her imagination, her deformities did not exist, everyone in her
family loved her, and she was happy.
    A pillow grazed her arm, floating from the
bed to dance with her. She snatched it out of the air with a giggle
and hugged it. How her deformities allowed her to use her mind to
move objects, to occasionally glimpse a person’s thoughts, and to
sense some events before they happened, she did not know. The
strange magic was difficult to control and impossible to predict,
except that it would always act up when she least wanted it to.
    Tiana danced with the pillow and barely kept
from tripping over her brush as it floated towards her, too. In
fact, every piece of furniture and every item she possessed hovered
in the air.
    Matilda’s sharp voice came from the
hallway.
    “Down!” Tiana ordered the inanimate objects
urgently, panicking at the idea of Matilda witnessing her sorcery.
Everything dropped back to its place, and she snatched the brush
from the floor. She had barely managed to return it to the vanity
and tossed the pillow back on the bed before her door opened.
    “You nearly exposed yourself!” Matilda
snapped and slammed the door. She marched to the drawer in Tiana’s
vanity where the white, powdery medicines were kept. Opening it,
she stared. “Have you touched them?” she demanded and whirled.
    “No,” Tiana replied, eyes on the floor. “The
vanity floated a little.”
    “Again?” Matilda snatched a bag from the
drawer.
    “I apologize, Matilda.”
    “You have no idea what it is like to live
with you, to fear you will cause us all to be burnt, because you
refuse to control this sinful sorcery!” Matilda shouted. “Do you
want me to be burned alive? To hear me scream alongside the rest of
the deformed freaks your father burns every Sunday?”
    Tiana shook her head.
    “Three incidents today, Tiana!” Matilda
withdrew a small knife from her silk purse. “It seems this is the
only cure to keep your ghoulish sorcery from happening. I did not
insist yesterday, because I did not wish you to be distraught for
today’s event. It was my misguided judgment, and for this, you
nearly exposed us all. I should have known better than to trust
you.”
    Tiana accepted the knife and sat on the
bed.
    “Three. Do it now.” Matilda planted her
hands on her hips and waited.
    Tiana drew a deep breath and pressed the
edge of the knife against her forearm. There was no longer a spot
devoid of scars on either forearm, so she randomly chose a few
inches of skin to punish. The sharp sting was accompanied by a line
of red blood.
    “Deeper,” Matilda ordered.
    Gritting her teeth, Tiana pressed harder on
the second cut.
    “Do you want to remain disfigured? How do
you expect to bleed out the sorcery if you do not cut deep enough?”
Matilda leaned forward and snatched Tiana’s wrist with one hand and
the knife with the other. She slashed Tiana’s arm, harder and
deeper than usual.
    Tiana gasped, and tears sprang into her
eyes.
    “I will cure you, Tiana, to stay in favor
with your father, even if I must first bleed every last ounce of
blood from your body. The clairvoyant who told me when I was six
that I would marry your father swore this would work, but you are
too weak to do it. Have you no love for your family? Do you want us
to be burnt at the stake?”
    “No, Matilda,” Tiana whispered, distraught
by the idea. She alternately admired and hated her strange ability.
At the moment, she felt the full shame of being deformed and
possessed by sorcery that alarmed even her brother.
    “Then behave like the daughter of your
father!” Matilda shoved the knife and powdery medication into her
purse. She left, slamming and locking the door behind her.
    Woozy from pain and the strain of venturing
outside her room, Tiana stood. She went to the private bathroom off
her bedroom and squeezed blood out of her wounds into the sink, as
Matilda had shown her many times. The more blood