Prologue
The girl stared frostily outside the window of the tower room. She hated the tower room to eternity. It always made her feel closed up, like in a prison, kept away from the outside world. The mocking turn of the key turning in the lock laughed at her. She wished she could throw a scuttle at the woman who was behind the door, on the other side, spitefully locking her in, but the girl knew it would not bode well.
She glanced at the suitcase, which was marked J.H. Her parents hadn’t even bothered with a middle name. She knew they didn’t need her. She scowled blackly at the old windmill in the distance she could see from the window. She hated the windmill too. Sometimes they’d take her there and shut her up in there, on the pain of being naughty.
The girl kicked the suitcase violently. It burst open and scattered her clothes across the gravelly, yet soft carpet. She didn’t care. She looked out of the tower room window again, at the bleak, cold landscape that shadowed the area at this time of the early morning.
Her parents would be coming for her at midday, to pack her off to school.
Up till then, she would have to stay locked inside, unbeknownst to them, at the mercy of her grandmother.
The girl had been locked up so many times she almost didn’t mind it. In fact, she didn’t even remember the first time she had been locked up. As far as she was concerned being locked up in the tower was far better than in the windmill.
The girl was terrified of the windmill. One rainy night her grandmother had dragged her there and shut her up, and didn’t come for her until the next day, when she was soaked to the bone with rainwater, shivering in a soppy little corner where the rain beat through the laths.
She knew that her parents would never believe her if she told her. Truth be told her parents scarcely ever came. They were always away, entertaining more in London, showing off, flouncing their riches day and night. The girl spent nearly all year at the boarding-school. When it was summer she’d come to the old mansion where her grandmother and the servants lived. She might catch a glimpse or so of her parents during that time, holding parties at the manse, but other than that her days of summer passed in grey gloom.
It started to rain lightly outside, a cold, slanting, shivery rain, that the girl knew was disapproving of her. The bleak sunlight shadowed over the manse weakly.
She could see her grandmother outside.
“I’ll take my time,” whispered the girl, unbeknownst to her.. “I’ll take my time! I’ve watched you climb over people like me and I’ll make you suffer one day.”
But even as she uttered those words, she knew it wasn’t true and she could never make her grandmother suffer for the wrongs she had done to her. It was impossible. The girl was weak, scared, vulnerable…she could never be anyone strong and fearless.
The grandmother went back inside as a carriage rolled up in front of the manse. Doubtless her parents weren’t coming again and her grandmother was going to take her to the boarding school.
The girl took a deep breath and put on her hat and gloves. By noon, I’ll be free. I hope.
