I sat on the bank of the pond for hours.

The water washed around my ankles and I grew used to the icy temperature the longer I sat there. Every now and then, a frog would hop out of the pond and hop along the edge of the water before diving back in and disappearing from view. Birds tweeted in the trees and the leaves rustled in the wind. My arms stung from where the branches had cut through the fabric of my sleeves and marked my skin but I ignored it.

No one came out to find me.

Water soaked the very bottom of my dress, the hem just touching the water's edge. I watched the water slowly work its way further up the bottom of my dress the longer I sat there. The ground underneath me had become marsh-like because of the pond and I knew the back of my dress would be stained by the mud and grass. Goosebumps formed on my arms but I didn't move or make any attempt to return to the house. I didn't want to go back to the house.

Darkness fell with the sun starting to dip behind the trees. I glanced up and could see the pink clouds covering the sky, the darkness moving in behind it. Behind me, a branch snapped. I twisted around and stared in the direction of the snapped branch. My heart thumped in my chest at the thought of who could be walking towards me. Although we were outside of London, Grandfather always said that there were some strange characters who would wander around the trees.

I dug my fingers into my mud and stared into the trees, listening to the sound of other branches snapping and what sounded like someone stumbling through the trees. A shadow travelled across the grass and I grabbed a handful of mud intending to throw it at whoever emerged from the trees, although I didn't think it would be all that effective.

The shadow grew larger and I watched Uncle Matthew stumble through the trees, brushing his jacket off and huffing. I relaxed my hands and let the mud fall onto the ground. Before Uncle Matthew saw me staring, I turned back to the pond and looked down into the murky water. The anger bubbles started to rise up again; I didn't want to talk to him.

"You've chosen a good hiding spot," Uncle Matthew said. "I've been looking for ages."

"There's a reason it's called a hiding spot," I muttered.

"That's true." Uncle Matthew sat on the ground beside me, ignoring the mud. His hand brushed mine. "You're freezing."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. I'm not having you get sick."

Uncle Matthew removed his jacket, even though it would make him cold in the process, and draped it over my shoulder. Warmth enveloped me immediately but I tried not to show it and made no movement to pull the jacket down my arms. I swung my feet around in the pond, disturbing the water and sending small ripples across the pond. One of the frogs jumped out, it croaked at me before hopping back into the water.

"That was something, back at the house I mean," he said.

"If you've gone to give me a lecture, then you can go away.

"No lecture. I'm not the lecturing sort, that's more James and Christopher than me." He chuckled to himself. "I like to think I'm more of a listening person. Someone you can talk to if you want to."

"I don't want to talk."

"That's why I said if you want to."

"All I want is to be left on my own."

"You know I can't do that, Izzy. It's getting late and I doubt that even you can see in the dark. I'm out here because you've been out here for hours and we were getting worried."

"Right, of course, you were."

I rolled my eyes and looked down at my hands, picking at the mud that started to dry on my palms and under my nails. They don't care about me. If they did, they would have come after me hours ago and not when it started to get dark and everyone was due to return home. For all they knew, I could have been hurt in the middle of the woods and none of them would have been any the wiser until they came to look for several hours later. There was no care or worry, just self-preservation.

If I had listened to the voices in my head earlier that day and walked into the pond, they would have been too late to do anything. No one cared about me. They didn't care how I felt, just that I behaved a certain way and stayed the sweet girl they thought me to be. Father blamed me for something that hadn't been my fault and Mother didn't even try to defend me. He expected a bad report from Mrs Davidson and had been disappointed that he didn't get one.

Uncle Matthew hadn't come and found me because he was worried, he did it because no one else volunteered. If I went back to the house, I'd be yelled at. If I stayed out overnight, I'd be yelled at. Either way, I couldn't win in a world that felt like everyone was against me for one reason or another. I wished I could have stayed with Evelyn's family. They were nice.

"I can see why you like it out here," Uncle Matthew said, breaking the silence. "It's nice and quiet."

"That and the frogs don't yell at me or blame me for something I didn't do," I said.

He sighed. "That's not what happened, Izzy."

"Isn't it? Florence nudged my plate and I'm the one who got in trouble. Sounds about right to me. What was it Father said? 'You're supposed to have a brain in that head of yours'? That's a perfectly ordinary sentence to say to your daughter." I rolled my eyes.

"I agree that what your father said was too far but, as the older one, you should have moved Florence to stop anything from happening."

"So you think it was my fault too? Thank you, I feel so much better. I'm so glad you came out to tell me that."

I swivelled around and gathered up my stockings and boots from the edge of the pond, shrugging off Uncle Matthew's jacket. With everything bundled up in my arms, I stood up and walked away from the pond, in the opposite direction of the house. Behind me, I could hear Uncle Matthew scrambling to stand up, his footsteps echoing off the ground as he tried to keep up. The grass tickled my bare feet and I tried to ignore the cold sensation that hit my damp ankles whenever the wind blew.

All I wanted was to be left alone. I felt perfectly content with just being on my own for the rest of the evening and even spending the night outside if I had to. Every time I was with my family, those anger bubbles appeared again and I hated it. I hated feeling like I was teetering on the edge of a cliff and that any second I might tumble off the edge and fall into oblivion. When I had been with the Davidson's that feeling all but vanished and yet there it was, under the surface.

I returned to the edge of that cliff.

Uncle Matthew continued to follow me through the trees even though I had no idea where I was going or where I would end up. All I knew was that I couldn't go back to the house, not yet. My dress had mud splattered all up the bottom and the hemline was still soaked with water from where it had touched the edge of the pond. Mud covered the palms of my hands and had become stuck under my nails. The serves of my dress were rippled, the scratches on my arm still stung. I was a mess and I knew that wouldn't make the situation back home any better.

"Izzy! Where are you going?" Uncle Matthew called, his steps thundering behind me.

"Away from you!"

"How is that going to work if I'm following you?"

I spun around to face him. "Then stop following me! Can't you see I want to be left on my own?"

"Wanting to be left on your own and needing to be left on your own are two completely different things. Right now, I don't think you're in the right frame of mind to be left on your own no matter what you think. That, and you're only fourteen. What sort of Uncle would I be if I let you go wandering around at night?"

"What would you know about my frame of mind? This is the first time I've seen you in weeks!"

"We met with your aunt Kitty the other day, she told us what had been going on."

I rolled my eyes and huffed. "Right, so everyone just talks about me rather than to me? How is that supposed to make me feel any better?"

"I'm talking to you now, aren't I? Yet you seem more content with yelling at me, which is perfectly fine if that's something you feel like you need to do. You can scream, yell, cry, whatever it is you feel like you need to do, but don't shut me out. Don't shut any of us out because it won't do you any good. You have a lot of people who love you, Isabel, so let us help you."

I stared at him, his body barely visible in the darkness that had well and truly set in. How could he say that when it felt like everyone had turned their back on me in some way or another? I'd tried to talk to Uncle Christopher and he just said I had been behaving like a child which certainly didn't feel helpful to me. How could I trust what he said when no one had given me any reason to believe him?

"Why do I have a hard time believing you? I mean, Father looked disappointed when he received a good report on my behaviour from Mrs Davidson. He yelled at me for something I didn't do and half the time he can't even look at me. That doesn't feel like love to me."

"Your father has a lot going on right now with his mother and sister, you know that."

"And that excuses him, does it?"

"No, it doesn't, but it at least offers an explanation as I am sure you have for why you've been behaving the way you have been. Emotions are heightened for everyone at the moment, Izzy."

"So why does it feel like I'm the one being punished for it?" Goosebumps formed on my arms and my teeth started to chatter slightly.

"I promise you, you're not. We're just having a hard time understanding where the anger is coming from because you won't talk to us."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"There is nothing you're supposed to say. But you don't have to be so private about how you're feeling." He cleared his throat. "I would say we can talk about it now, but it's dark and you're freezing. Don't deny it, I can hear your teeth chattering from here."

"I can't go back there." I took a step back, a twig snapping underfoot.

"You have to. I'll make sure no one mentions what happened or even talks to you if you want. I won't let you spend the night out here alone. You can go home, have a wash and then go to bed if you want to."

My shoulders slumped. "Alright."

Uncle Matthew didn't say anything, but I heard him let out a breath of relief that I would be coming with you. I took a few steps forward and he draped his jacket over me again, but I didn't fight it off. Together, we headed back through the trees which turned out to be a lot harder to navigate at night than they had been during the day. Still, Uncle Matthew appeared to know where he was going so I stayed close and hoped we were heading in the right direction.

We reached the house about twenty minutes later, surprising given that I thought all the trees looked identical. My hands started to shake when we neared the house and I found myself hiding behind Uncle Matthew so I didn't have to look at anyone. The lights had all been turned on in the house and I caught the slight movement of a curtain in the parlour.

Before we went in, I put my shoes on so I wouldn't end up trailing mud into the house. Uncle Matthew opened the door and Mother and Father stood in the hallway, Mother grasping at a necklace around her throat. Father went to speak, but Uncle Matthew shook his head and gestured for me to go upstairs, which I happily obliged. I didn't look back.

Upstairs, I immediately headed into the washroom where I grabbed a cloth and ran it under the tap. I set to work cleaning the mud from my hands and feet, using a bar of lavender soap which I applied onto the cloth. Once all the mud had been moved, I moved into my bedroom. Closing the door, I stripped off my muddy dress and dropped it into the laundry basket along with my stockings.

I pulled on my nightdress and climbed into bed, my stomach growling in protest. I had barely eaten anything all day. Someone had put a warming-pan under the sheets and I welcomed the heat that had been created. After such a long day, it didn't take long for me to fall asleep.

~~~

A/N - We're back! Chapter Eighteen is here and I hope you enjoy it!

Questions! Do you think Izzy should listen to Matthew? Should she tell people how she's feeling?

Comment below!

First Published - September 7th, 2021