Yvgenie by C.J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page A

where everything is—but with three of us in this one I assure you we rapidly wouldn't. There's always work, if you're at loose ends. You're getting to be a young woman, and this house being as much yours as ours, I'd think you'd start showing some initiative in taking care of it—dear, don't let that get on the floor.''
    ‘ I'm sorry! ’
    ‘ You have your father's temper. You sound exactly like him. ’
    ‘ Well, at least my father yells about things, he doesn't yell at people ! I wish you'd— ’
    ‘ Think what you're doing, dammit! God! ’
    They were yelling. And her mother was right, she had wished at her mother, like a fool.
    ‘ I'm sorry, ’ she said. ‘ I'm sorry, mother—god, you're driving me crazy! ’
    ‘ Maybe you'd better listen to advice! And don't swear, young miss! It's dangerous! ’
    ‘ I listen! I listen! But nobody ever listens to me! ’
    ‘ Just— ’ Her mother put a hand to her brow and shook her head. ‘ Just go outdoors for a while.''
    Her mother wanted her quiet, her mother wanted her to do as she was told before they got to wishing back and forth ill each other, and most of all her mother wanted her to be h a ppier than she had been in her life—surely her mother had nut meant her to hear that last. Her mother wanted her out of the kitchen now, this moment, her mother was trying not to think things that scared her—
    ‘ Get out! ’
    I lyana threw down the towel and fled the house as fast as her feet could carry her, not thinking, no, of anything but netting down the walk-up to the yard —
    She stopped against the garden fence and caught her breath.
    ‘ Ilyana ? ’ her father called out to her, from the stable.
    She did not want to talk to her father right now, she did not want to talk to anyone: she was still trembling from that exchange inside, even if her mother had not wanted it to happen—
    Only her mother thought it perfectly all right to wish at her and did not at all like it coming back, the same as her mother would cuff her ears when she had been too little to reason with and wish her No! so strongly she still felt the terr or of it.
    ‘ Ilyana ? ’ Her father had ducked through the stableyard f ence. He was going to ask her what had happened; and hug her and make her safe again, but she had no desire to draw him into the quarrel or start a fight between her parents. — Mustn't wish at your father, no, Ilyana , it's not nice, it's not fair, he doesn't know you're doing it, and he can't wish I b ack, Ilyana —
    Her father's arms came around her. Her father said, ‘ What's the matter, mouseling? God, you're shaking. ’
    ‘ I'm all right, ’ she said, ‘ I'm all right. It's just mother. ’
    ‘ What happened? ’
    It was impossible to talk about it. She waved an ineffectual hand and shook her head. Her father hugged her tighter, smoothed her hair, told her her mother loved her—and that made her heart ache. Probably it was true, only they hurt each other all the time, because her mother wanted her to do everything she wanted, and never wanted to listen to anyone else's reasons, refusing to regard anything she had to say as important, or in the least sensible.
    ‘ Poor mouseling. ’ Her father lifted her chin and wiped her eyes with his thumb. ‘ I'll talk to her. All right? ’
    ‘ She thinks I have no sense at all. She thinks I'm lazy. She thinks I don't try.''
    More tears, which a wish stopped. She did not want to upset her father. Nothing was his fault, and he had argued with her mother last night as much as he could. Her mother ran everyone's lives, except uncle Sasha's. Uncle Sasha had had the good sense to move out and build a house up on the hill while she was still a baby.
    And when her mother had had enough of her she had used to march her up the hill. Stay with your uncle, her mother would say. See if he puts up with you.
    Her mother might make her sweets and show her cooking and teach her the names of flowers: those were the good things. But