Switched (12 page)

Instead, she had made the choice that taking care of me herself was more important than spending money. She had made a choice that my own mother never would have.

“So you like shitake mushrooms, right?” Rhys was saying. He had been pulling things out of the fridge, but I had been too lost in thought to notice. His arms were overflowing with vegetables.

“Uh, yeah, I love mushrooms.” I straightened up and tried see what all he had, but for the most part, it looked like things I enjoyed.

“Excellent.” Rhys grinned at me and dropped his armload of food into the kitchen sink. “I’m going to make you the best stir fry you’ve ever tasted.”

He went about chopping things up, and I offered to help him, but he insisted that he could handle it. The whole time, he talked amicably about his new motorcycle he’d gotten last week. I tried to keep up with it, but all I ever knew about motorcycles were that they went fast and I liked it.

“What are you making in here?” Finn came into the kitchen, sounding vaguely disgusted.

His hair was damp from a recent shower, and he smelled like the grass after a rain, only sweeter. He walked past me without even a glance in my direction and went over to where Rhys had thrown everything into a wok on the stove.

“Stir fry!” Rhys proclaimed.

“Really?” Finn leaned over his shoulder and peered down at the ingredients in the pan. Rhys moved to the side a little so Finn could reach in and grab something out of it. He sniffed it, then popped it into his mouth. “Well, it’s not terrible.”

“Stop my beating heart!” Rhys put his hand over his heart and feigned astonishment. “Has my food passed the test of the hardest food critic in the land?”

“No. I just said it wasn’t terrible.” Finn shook his head at Rhys’s dramatics and went to the fridge to get a bottle of water. “And I’m certain that Elora is a much harsher food critic than I’ll ever be.”

“That’s probably true, but she’s never let me cook for her,” Rhys admitted, shaking the wok to stir up the vegetables more.

“You really shouldn’t let him cook for you,” Finn advised, looking at me for the first time. “He gave me food poisoning once.”

“You cannot get food poisoning from an orange!” Rhys protested and looked back at him. “It’s just not possible! And even if you can, I
handed
you the orange. I didn’t even have a chance to contaminate it!”

“I don’t know.” Finn shrugged. A smile was creeping up, and I could tell he was amused by how much Rhys was getting worked up.

“You didn’t even eat the part I touched! You peeled it and threw the skin away!” Rhys sounded exasperated. He wasn’t paying attention to the wok as he struggled to convince us of his innocence, and a flame licked up from the food.

“Food’s on fire,” Finn nodded to the stove.

“Dammit!” Rhys got a glass of water and splashed it in the stir fry, and I was starting to question how good this was going to taste when he was done with it.

“See?” Finn looked at me, and I smiled. “Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m doing great,” I nodded.

“Good.” He stood next to me, looking as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. He just nodded and walked out of the kitchen.

When Rhys finished cooking, his food was only moderately edible, but I picked at it anyway. He pulled stools up to the island, explaining that he only ate in the dining room when it was absolutely required.

He soaked his food in some kind of sauce, but it didn’t smell at all appetizing. He downed his Mountain Dew with fervor, but I just sipped at my water.

“So what do you think?” Rhys nodded at the plate of food I was trying to eat.

“It’s pretty good,” I lied. He had obviously worked hard on it, and his blue eyes showed how proud he was of it, so I couldn’t let him down. To prove my point, I took a bite and smiled.

“Good. You guys are hard to cook for.” Rhys took a mouthful of his own food. “I don’t know how you can eat this plain, though.”

“I don’t know how you can eat it with sauce.” I wrinkled my nose at the smell of it.

“To each his own, I guess,” Rhys laughed lightly. When he looked down at his plate, his sandy hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it away.

“So… you know Finn pretty well?” I asked carefully, stabbing my fork into a mushroom.

Their banter earlier had left me curious. Finn seemed to genuinely enjoy Rhys, even if he didn’t approve of his cooking, and I had never seen Finn enjoy anybody. Patrick, he had kinda liked, but I think that had been more of a means of getting closer to me. He openly looked down on Matt, and while he respected and obeyed Elora, I couldn’t tell what his feelings were for her.  

“I guess.” Rhys shrugged like he hadn’t really thought about it. “He’s just around a lot.”

“Like how often?” I pressed as casually as I could.

“I don’t know.” He took a bite and thought for a minute. “It’s hard to say. Storks move around a lot.”

“Storks?”

“Yeah, trackers,” Rhys smiled sheepishly. “You know how you tell little kids that a stork brings the babies? Well, trackers bring the babies here. So we call them storks. Not to their faces, though.”

“I see.” I wondered what kind of nickname they had for people like me, but I didn’t think that now was the best time to ask. “So they move around a lot?”

“Well, yeah. They’re gone tracking a lot, and Finn is in pretty high demand because he’s so good at it,” Rhys explained. “And then when they come back, a lot of them stay with some of the more prestigious families. Finn’s been here off and on for like the past five years or so. But when he’s not here, somebody else usually is.”

“So he’s like a bodyguard?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Rhys nodded.

“But what do they need bodyguards for?” I thought back to the rod iron gate and security guards that had allowed our entrance into Förening in the first place. 

When I had looked around the entryway, I remembered seeing a fancy alarm system by the front door. This all seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a small community hidden in the bluffs. I wondered if this was all for the Vittra, but I didn’t want to ask.

“She’s the Queen. It’s just standard procedure,” Rhys answered evasively, and he purposely stared down at his plate. He tried to erase his anxiety before I noticed and forced a smile at me. “So how does it feel being a Princess?”

“Honestly? Not as awesome as I thought it would be,” I said, and he laughed heartily at that.

Rhys kinda straightened up the kitchen after we finished eating, but he explained the maid would be in tomorrow to take care of the rest of it. He gave me a brief tour of the house, showing me all the ridiculous antiquities that had been passed down from generation to generation.

One room only held pictures of previous Kings and Queens. When I asked where a picture of my father was, Rhys just shook his head and said he didn’t know anything about it.

Eventually, we parted ways. He cited some homework he had to get done, and he had to get to bed because he had school in the morning.

I wandered around the house a bit more, but I never saw either Finn or Elora. I played around with the stuff in my room, but I quickly tired of it. Feeling restless and bored, I tried to get some sleep, but I had slept too late in the afternoon.

I felt incredibly homesick. I longed for the familiar comfort of my regular sized house with all my ordinary things. If I were at home, Matt would be sitting in the living room, reading a book under the glow of the lamp light.

Right now, he was probably sitting in the kitchen, staring at the phone, or driving around. He had probably tracked down Patrick and threatened injury on him. Maggie was probably crying her eyes out, and I know Matt blamed himself for it.

My actual mother was somewhere in this house, or I assumed she was, anyway. She had abandoned me with a family that she knew nothing about except that they were rich, and she knew there was a risk that I could be killed. It happens sometimes. That’s what she said. When I came back, after all these years away from me, she hadn’t hugged me, or even been that happy to see me.

Everything felt way too big in this house. With all this vast space between everything, it felt like I was trapped on an island. I had thought that’s what I had wanted. To be my very own island, but here I was, and I felt nothing but isolated and confused.

I was sure that people weren’t telling me things. Every time I asked something, there were only half-answers and vague responses before they quickly changed the subject. For being set to inherit a kingdom of sorts, I was pretty low on the information rung.

10. Precognition

After sleeping fitfully, I got up and got ready for the day. I wandered around the house, but not intentionally. I had been trying to get to the kitchen, but I took a wrong turn somewhere and got lost. Rhys had given me some explanation of things the day before, but not enough apparently.

 The palace was divided into two massive wings, separated by the grand entryway. All of the official business took place in the South wing, where there were meeting rooms, a ball room, a massive dining hall, offices, the throne room, as well as staff quarters and the Queen’s bedroom.

The North wing had the more casual rooms in the house, like my room, guest bedrooms, a more casual living room, the kitchen, and the sitting parlor.

I stayed in the North wing, opening doors and investigating. As far as I could tell, this place had almost as many guest rooms as a Holiday Inn, and they were much fancier too. I eventually found Elora’s drawing parlor, but she wasn’t there, so it didn’t help me any.

I moved on and tried to open the door across the hall from her, but it wouldn’t budge. So far, this was the only door I’d found that had been locked, and I found it strange. Especially in this wing. I suppose in the North wing, locking up official business would make sense.

Fortunately, I knew a thing or two about lock-picking. In attempts to keep from being expelled, I had broken into school offices and stolen papers. I don’t recommend it, and in the end, it was usually ineffective.

I pulled a bobby pin from my hair and looked around. I didn’t see anyone, the same way I hadn’t seen anyone all day, and I set about breaking in. After a few unsuccessful twists in the lock, I felt something give, and I turned the knob.

The door pushed open slowly, and I peeked in, half-expecting to find the Royal Bathroom or something. When nobody screamed at me to get away, I pushed the door open wider and stepped inside. Unlike the other rooms, this one was completely dark.

Feeling along the wall, I finally found the light switch and flicked it on. The room reminded me of a large storeroom. It had no windows, and the walls were a dark brown. With a simple light in the ceiling, it held none of the grandeur the rest of the house had, and it had no furniture.

But it was filled to the brim with paintings. Not hanging on the wall. Just stacked and piled around in every available space. At first I assumed they must be leftovers from the King and Queen room, but from what I could see, none of them were portraits.

I picked up the one nearest to me, and it was lovely picture of a newborn baby, wrapped in a blue blanket. I set it aside and picked up another, which appeared to be Elora, looking much younger and even more beautiful, dressed in a gorgeous white gown. Despite the beauty of the picture, her eyes looked sad and remorseful.

Holding the picture at arm’s length so I could get a better look at it, I realized something. It had the same brush strokes, the same technique as the painting of the baby. I picked up another picture to compare, and it was the same too.

These were all painted by the same artist.

I thought back to the drawing room and the painting I had seen Elora working on. Something with dark smoke and chandeliers. I couldn’t be certain, but I would say these were hers. She had a room overflowing with paintings, just shoved aside and locked away. It didn’t make any sense.

I sifted through a few more of the paintings, growing even more bewildered, and then I saw one that stopped my heart cold. When I picked it up, I wasn’t surprised to see my hands were shaking.

It showed me, looking about the same as I was now, except dressed nicer. I wore a beautiful, flowing white gown, but there was a tear in the side of the dress, revealing a thin line of red blood. My hair had been pulled back, but it was starting to come loose, letting wild strands fall free.

In the painting, I laid on my belly on a marble balcony. The ground around me was covered in pieces of glass that shimmered like diamonds, but I didn’t seem to notice. My hand outstretched past the balcony, reaching into a dark oblivion.

But my face is what struck me the most. I looked absolutely horrified.

Once I got past that, I realized something more disturbing. This picture looked exactly like me. And I’d only been home for a day. There was no way Elora could’ve painted something this detailed within 24-hours of meeting me.

But how could she paint me with such accuracy if we’d never met?

“I should’ve known you’d be snooping,” Finn said from behind me, startling me so much I dropped the painting.

“I-I got lost,” I stammered and turned to look at him standing in the doorway.

“In a locked room?” He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest.

“No, I-” I started to formulate some kind of lame excuse, but decided against it. I picked up the picture, the one of me reaching for nothing, and held it up for him to see. “What’s this?”

“It appears to be a painting, and if you hadn’t gathered by the locked door, it’s also none of your business,” Finn said, but he didn’t sound that upset. At least not as upset as Elora would be if she found out I was in here, I’m sure.

“This is me.” I tapped the picture.

“Maybe,” he shook his head, as if he wasn’t convinced.

“No, I wasn’t asking. This is me,” I insisted. “What am I doing?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Finn sighed. “I didn’t paint it.”

“Did Elora?” I asked, and when he didn’t say anything, I took that as my answer. “Why would she paint this?
How
did she paint this? We’d never met before yesterday.”