Eavesdrop

I’ve decided to try to get a job during the break between semesters. It’s the holiday season, so a lot of people are hiring extra help in the big shops downtown. I’ll have to take the bus to get there, or the underground train, so I’ll have to factor in how much it will cost for me to get there and home into my earnings, but I think I can still make enough money to help contribute to the family income. My mom is cleaning more these days, getting other people’s homes ready for holiday parties, and Dad has gotten a few odd jobs helping move large items up flights of stairs, like Christmas trees and larger dining tables people will need in order to have their family’s over.

We won’t be having any sort of celebration, and that’s okay with me. I am just thankful that the three of us will be together. After spending most of a Saturday downtown, applying for various positions, I take the bus home and get out a few blocks from our apartment. As I walk home, I think about the holiday party we had last year and how much fun it had been. Our entire pack had attended, as well as some visitors from other packs. My father had been such a gracious host, making all feel welcome. Now, those days were long gone, and we didn’t even have a single decoration hanging in our apartment.

In the palace, we’d had a decorated tree in nearly every room. Boughs of cedar hung over the windows, decorated with red velvety bows and glass bulbs. Lights had hung from the roof of the palace, giving everyone in our pack something beautiful to look out their windows at each night. My mother had always loved to decorate for the holidays. I was sure that she was brokenhearted to miss out on it this year. I hoped that next year would bring more cheer, but for this holiday season, it was just a matter of surviving.

I walked into our building and took a flight of stairs down to the basement. There are three apartments down here in this dank, grimy place. I hardly ever see anyone else, though. The other two tenants are an elderly couple that rarely leaves their apartment and a young woman who only comes out at night--late at night--which makes me think she is entertaining men behind that closed door. I walk past it now and hear nothing. She is probably asleep.

Pausing to listen outside of our neighbor’s door has allowed me to pick up on the conversation my parents are having. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard to miss what they were talking about. I can’t remember the last time I heard either of them raise their voice. Both of them are loud now, the conviction with each word they shout at one another showing that they are both upset.

I don’t move as their words sink in. I can hardly believe what I am hearing. My father says, “It’s the only way, Charlotte. I don’t like it any better than you do, but we have no choice.”

“We always have a choice, Edward!” my mother shouts back at him. I can’t remember ever hearing her shout at my father, but she is now. “It isn’t safe!”

“It isn’t safe here!” my father says back, his voice just as stern as hers. “It’s less safe here by far. You know that, Charlotte!”

“But… what if they hurt her? What if that awful Kurt puts his hands on her?” I hear the worry in my mother’s voice and know she is talking about me.

“It is a housekeeping position, dear,” my father says, his tone softer now. “Nothing more.”

“I can’t trust him!” My mother will not be soothed. “How can you entrust our most precious possession, our own daughter, our flesh and blood, into the hands of your enemy?”

“Charlotte, darling, I have many enemies all of a sudden. I have to choose the one I find less dangerous, the only one that has offered to help, and hope that his intentions are sincere.”

“And what if they are not?” my mom asks, tears making her voice high-pitched and shaky. “What if harm befalls her?”

I hear the shriek of wood against concrete as I assume my father moves a chair aside to get closer to his wife. “I’ve told you, dear. It is not safe here, either. Keeping her here is not the answer.”

“But she wants to finish school. He will never let her do that!”

My father sighs so loudly, I hear it reverberate through the door. “I know her life will not be what we had hoped for for her. What she has hoped for for herself, Charlotte, but changes will have to be made. It is the only way we can guarantee her safety.”

“That’s not a guarantee of her safety! For all you know, he’ll harm her! He’ll… kill her!”

“He has made a vow to me that he will do nothing of the sort, and in exchange for her work, he will forgive our debts.”

“Debts?”  I think to myself. I had no idea that my father owes anyone anything, especially not the Kurts. The Alpha of the largest pack in the area, one of the largest packs in the world, Victor Kurts, was an imposing, brute of a man, someone that I had never met but had heard was a savage. I had gathered from my parents conversation that an arrangement had been made with him, that I was to go and be a maid in the Kurts Palace, and in exchange, whatever it was my father owed this man would be forgiven. He seemed to think that living here was dangerous, though I didn’t know why. For all I knew, no other packs had any idea where we were, and even if they did, it wasn’t as if my parents were a threat to anyone now. Since this town was shifter free, I hadn’t worried about any other packs attacking us. Perhaps I should’ve been concerned.

Now, the only thing I could do was interrupt the argument going on on the other side of the door. My mother is crying, and my father is trying to tell her it would be all right, but she doesn’t believe him, and neither do I. 

I don’t want to be a maid in the Kurts palace, and it has nothing to do with my pride, either. I don’t want to leave my parents. Even through the hardest parts of all of this, at least we’ve had one another. Now, we won’t even have that.

Realizing my father’s word has already been given and that it doesn’t matter what my mother or myself think, I push the door open.

Immediately, they both turn and look at me, tears in both of their eyes, my mother’s cheeks damp from crying, and they can tell by my expression that I have heard what they’ve been talking about.

“Aria,” my father says. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” I reply, trying to stay strong. I go to them, wrapping my arms around them both, and the three of us stand there for the longest time, crying together. I love my parents so much, more than anything, and I know that they love me. They wouldn’t want anything to ever harm me, and I can’t imagine what I would do if anything ever happened to them.

As much as I don’t want to go, I realize that my father would only do what he believes to be best for me. I have no knowledge of the situation, other than what I have just overheard. I am not in a position to decide what is best for me. I have to trust them, and neither of my parents has ever given me a reason not to believe what they say.

“I am so sorry, dear daughter,” my father says as he steps back, his cheeks damp now as well. “Mr. Kurts will send a car for you tomorrow afternoon. You will be allowed to write to us, so we will be able to keep in touch.”

I nodded, wiping at my cheeks. I wished I could call or text. That would be easier, but there had to be a reason why Mr. Kurts didn’t allow such forms of communication. 

“Oh, Aria!” My mother put her hands on both of my cheeks and began to cry again. I wanted to do something, to say something, to make her stop, to assure her that  everything was going to be all right, but since I didn’t know that for myself, I couldn’t say anything, just hold on to her.

My eyes went to my backpack hanging by the door. I’d managed to sell my textbooks back and make a few dollars. It was hanging there now, nearly empty, deflated and disappointing, much the way that my heart felt right now. Why had I even bothered to take a semester of courses if I would never be allowed to finish? I longed for the life I had been trying to make for myself--for us. But now… all of that was gone. Nothing but empty dreams.

“It will be okay,” I whisper to my mother. “It will be all right.”

She only squeezed me tighter, and I had to believe that I was telling her the truth, that everything would work out in the end, but I thought she was right to be scared for me. I was scared for myself. What if this Victor Kurts was as bad as I’d heard? What if he beat me? Or raped me? Or locked me in a dungeon for weeks at a time? 

I have to believe that that wouldn’t be the case and that I would be all right, but even as I told my mother not to worry, my heart is heavy with dread. Our apartment is small and dingy, but if I have to stay here with my parents for the rest of my life and never have another luxury or full belly, I’ll take it over going to the Kurts palace any day.

“It will all work out,” I hear my wolf, Ruby, whisper in the back of my mind. “Trust me.”

I don’t trust much of anyone these days, but I trust Ruby. I trust myself. “I’ll make it work,” I tell my mom, and I start to believe it, even if it’s the boldest lie I’ve ever told.