The World Walkers: Unknown World: Sophie: Listening to an Argument (part 3)
Part 1
Part 2
Father is someone I have trouble believing ever really cared about the three of us. Mother had grown to love him in the time they were married, which is something I’ve never really understood, although she says he was a different person back then. Even though he had married Mother in order to ensure an alliance between his family and hers she said he’d been kind to her in the beginning, and attentive, so she started to believe maybe he was beginning to have feelings for her too, until it all fell apart after they had my eldest sister. Then Mother had failed by giving him a daughter rather than the son he so desperately wanted. After three daughters he gave up hope, knowing that at least he would be able to marry us off to the ‘right’ people, and one of them was Oscar, who was, right at that moment, being one of the most annoying people I’d ever had the misfortune of meeting.
There was a moment of silence. “Oscar,” I said, looking at him, “I don’t particularly want to be here, but Father asked me to come as he owes your mother for something, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask what, so the last thing I need is for you to be making this more difficult that it needs to be. I’m certain that you would be able to cope with travelling the worlds, but this is about knowing what to do when the unexpected happens.”
“If.”
“No, when. The fact you corrected me tells me that you know nothing of what to expect when you step through the first door.” Oscar looked at me disdainfully. I realised then that I was about three years younger than him and that was part of the problem he was having. Smiling, I shook my head. “I’ve been travelling the worlds for a decade. I know exactly what to expect.”
“You can’t expect me to believe lies like that.”
“My father dumped me on Siaral when I was six and expected me to find my own way home. I did, eventually, after making the most of my freedom, because I knew when I came back I’d be guiding spoiled prats like you while they attempted to ‘find themselves’. You, unfortunately, are not my first and I’m sure you won’t be the last, so can we get on with this. Then I can move onto the next idiot who looks at me like I’m a child when I had my childhood torn away from me by someone who was supposed to be my parent.”
I’ll admit now that the tirade wasn’t normal, but I was so annoyed by that point, because he wasn’t the first. The argument Oscar had been having with his father was the same one I’d heard four times before from four different sons, who didn’t have any idea what the real Web was like. Reading books about the other worlds did help, in a limited fashion, because at least it meant they’d have some clue what world they’d been dumped on, although sometimes you get sent through time or to a different Web and then you were in trouble. As I stared at him I couldn’t help hoping I’d get really lucky and the door we stepped through would send us to two different places so I wouldn’t have to spend any more time with him.
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.