Out

Havermouth, Five Years Before

Aislen was getting good at covering bruises, she thought as she inspected her make up in the mirror. There was only the slightest darkness on her eye, the slightest puffiness, to betray that she had been on the receiving end of her father’s backhand the night before.

It had been the first time, in her memory, that Patrick had hit her, and the shock of it, the betrayal of his refusal to listen to her side, had been worse than the blow had been. She had never known him to be so angry, waves of it rolling off of him as her control over the bubbles had shattered. She had been sent to her room without dinner and had stayed in there until she had heard both her parents leave in the morning although it made her late for school.

Heath had come for her after the game, she knew, having heard the doorbell the evening before, but her father had turned him away.

The Triquetra hadn’t arrived by the time she finished in the bathroom and was ready to go, and she stood by