I perambulated back to my home. I walked inside and sauntered into the kitchen, where my mother was sitting at the table across from...

"Mayor Thatcher! What a pleasant surprise!" I gasped, immediately holding out my skirt and lowering myself in a polite curtsey.

Mayor Matthew Thatcher was 40, my mother's age. He had shaggy, curly dark hair and golden brown eyes. There was stubble coating his chin and around his mouth. He was a bit round-bodied, with jolly eyes. His kind face broke into a smile as I walked in.

"Ah, Miss Weatherbury! Good morning," he greeted warmly, stepping forward to shake my hand, "I was just asking your mother if she would like to spend the afternoon with me, simply in walking around the village."

"Good morning, Mayor Thatcher," I replied before turning to my mother, "mother, are you?" I asked.

"I would love to, but unfortunately, I have clothing requests to fill," Mother smiled regretfully.

"You should go; I can take care of them!"

"Oh, would you be so kind as to do that for me, Gracelynn?"

"Of course, Mother."

Mayor Thatcher's wife had died when she had taken a walk through the woods. She had lost her footing and tumbled down a slope into a river, where she had struck her head on a large stone, been knocked unconscious, ultimately drowned. It was no secret that he was looking for a new wife. He appeared to fancy my mother. I approved; Mayor Thatcher was a good man. It was his 25-year-old brother Adrian that I despised with all of my being. When their father had finally passed away, he left the mayor position to both Matthew and Adrian. But he assigned Matthew to the public appearances and announcements as mayor, while Adrian handled everything else. Adrian had been given more power because he was as bigoted as his father, who had thought Matthew's beliefs in total equality made him soft and unfit to be mayor. Upon receiving all this power, Adrian became even more condescending, arrogant, irreverent, ignorant, and emotionless than before. He was also the reason my sisters were dead.

Five years ago when I was 12, my eldest sister, Abigail, had captured his attention. He had been 20. He had confessed his intentions for her and had attempted to force himself on her. She shoved him away and fled. He lied and falsely accused her the next day of attempting to seduce him outside of marriage, even though he had told her no. She was burned to death that afternoon. She was 20.

My next sister, Evellynn, had insulted Adrian. He got her alone on a walk and attempted to court her. She blatantly refused, pushing him away and calling him a scoundrel and a whore out of fury for getting our sister killed. He had shoved her, hard, and she had fallen backward and impaled her neck on the iron spiked fence of his estate. She had died a week after Abigail. She had been 18.

A year after that, my father had died. He had been chopping trees for lumber, but something had gone wrong and he wound up burying the axe in his knee instead of the tree. He had all but severed his leg from the knee down. My mother had been unable to save him. The combination of severe blood loss and infection from a rusted axe killed him. I was 13.

My last sister, Angelica, died 2 years later. Adrian had been 5 years her senior. He went to my mother to claim her hand in marriage since she was of age. She refused him. That night, Adrian got drunk and got a hold of a gun. He showed up at our home late at night while my mother, Angelica, and I were sewing. He had broken down the door and demanded that my mother accept his proposal. She refused, so he pointed the gun at her, promising to kill her if she refused. My mother refused, so he pulled the trigger. Angelica had leaped in front of my mother and taken a bullet to the stomach, dying immediately. Adrian threatened to kill both my mother and me if we told. So we kept quiet, saying Angelica found the gun and accidentally shot herself because she did not know how to handle a gun. She had been 18.

But enough about Adrian. He did not deserve to occupy my mind so fully and so frequently.

"Thank you, Gracelynn. How very sweet of you. Mayor Thatcher and I-" my mother began.

"Please, Rebecca, call me Matthew," Mayor Thatcher interrupted as politely as he could.

"Matthew and I shall depart soon, I believe."

"Yes, and I reckon Adrian went upstairs."

My blood boiled at his name. I clenched my jaw but forced myself to smile.

"He is here?" I inquired stiffly.

"Yes. You should go find him and tell him I am leaving soon," Mayor Thatcher suggested.

I nodded and marched up the stairs to find the scum. I looked in my mother's room, then the extra bedroom, and then my bedroom. The vile rat was in my bedroom, looking through the photographs on top of my dresser. Adrian was taller and thinner than his brother, with his black hair cut close to his scalp except for the top of his head. His face was more angular and narrow, his eyes were darker brown, colder, and unfriendly, and his face had no stubble.

"What business do you have here?" I demanded coldly, glaring at him.

"Good morning, Gracelynn. I have been waiting for you to return," Adrian drawled, his cold, calculating eyes starting at my waist and ending at my face.

"That is Miss Weatherbury to you. Using my first name implies that there is an intimacy between us that does not and will never exist."

"Ah, but you would rather there be an intimacy between us."

"Do not speak as though you know of me or my interests. I would sooner cut off my own hands than touch you with them."

"You amuse me."

"You disgust me."

"My brother is taking your dear mother on a walk soon. I must ask you to join me on one as well."

"Fortunately for me, I am spared by filling requests for clothing this afternoon. So no, I will not join you."

"I must insist."

"The answer is no. I will not repeat myself."

"Gracelynn-"

"By the Olympian gods and goddesses, you will refer to me as Miss Weatherbury! There is no intimacy between us and there never will be! I will be doing the work for my mother, not walking with you! I would rather slit my own throat than be seen with you."

"Careful, Gracelynn. Lest you want to repeat what happened to lovely Abigail, Evellynn, and Angelica."

His words filled me with such rage that I began to quake. My fingernails bit painfully into the palms of my hands but I did not care. I could swear that my vision was going red and tears of fury and grief and pain pricked at the backs of my eyes. How DARE he threaten me in my own house.

"Get out of my room, Sir Thatcher," I spoke quietly, clenching my jaw tighter than any corset I had ever worn.

"I do not believe-" he began.

"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM! I WILL NOT TOLERATE MY SAFETY BEING THREATENED IN MY OWN HOME, MUCH LESS MY OWN BEDROOM! AND IN FRONT OF PHOTOS OF MY SISTERS WHOSE DEATHS YOU ARE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR!"

Adrian narrowed his eyes at me, but left the room without saying another word. I stood where I was for a few moments, my eyes squeezed shut, my body shaking with rage, my fingernails still digging into the palms of my hands. I attempted to steady my breathing, and tears continued to prick the back of my eyes. How DARE he speak of my sisters. He had no right whatsoever to say their names, to speak of them, to look at or touch their photos, to think of them. I sat down on my bed and slowly unclenched my fists. My fingernails came back bloody; I had dug them into my hands so ferociously that the skin had broken. That pain was rather comforting compared to the agonizing storm of agony in my heart. I clutched a pillow to my chest and buried my face into it, choking back sobs that threatened to escape my throat. Someone knocked on my door moments later, and I unfroze, rising and opening it after dabbing at my eyes. Mayor Thatcher stood in the doorway.

"M-Mayor Thatcher. Hello! Did you require something?" I cried, surprised.

"Gracelynn. Are you alright?" He queried, concerned.

"I am quite alright. Did you...require something?"

"Aye. I do. Adrian would rather enjoy your presence on his walk through town."

I opened my mouth to protest, but the mayor spoke once more before I could utter a sound.

"I am aware of how you feel about him, but if you do this just once, I shall do my best to talk him into leaving you be," he continued, "while I have no control over him, I know he is likely to listen to me if I were...persuasive."

I considered his bargain, unable to find a downside. And he had said 'persuasive' in a manner that suggested he may threaten Adrian.

"One walk. That is all he shall get from me." I insisted.

The mayor nodded in confirmation. I sighed and muttered a prayer to Artemis for protection. I prayed to Hestia for patience. I prayed to Athena and Ares for strength. There was no way in Elysia or Tartarus that this was going to go well.