The Legacy

overbearing tormentor, a woman who she still sometimes imagined watching over her, criticising her. A woman who she still somehow felt a desperate need to please; a woman whose pain she couldn’t help sharing in her darker moments. To live without knowing Molly? Without knowing Ben? Terrifying.
    ‘She’s trying to sleep,’ Anna said, forcing her mind back to the present, as Peter threw Molly gently in the air.
    ‘Sleep’s for wimps,’ Peter retorted. ‘Anyway, I think she wants to play. Don’t you, Molly?’
    Molly produced a big smile which Peter pointed to triumphantly. ‘See?’ he grinned. ‘I told you.’
    Anna nodded and forced a smile. To tell Peter would risk ruining the day. Not to tell him would mean that she would be carrying a secret around with her. And secrets, Anna knew, were mini-betrayals. She had kept her escape secret from Sheila, leaving her vulnerable friend exposed to the wrath of Mrs Pincent and everyone else at Grange Hall, leaving her to be abducted by Richard Pincent, used to further his scientific ends. She had kept a secret before, for a woman she’d thought was her friend but who’d turned out to be a Catcher, who’d had her arrested and nearly had Molly destroyed in the process. Secrets were never good. They were supposed to protect people, but they never did. They always made things worse.
    ‘Peter,’ she said tentatively, ‘you got a letter this morning.’
    He looked at her for a second and immediately the joy left his eyes and they took on the steely look that made her nervous even though he never directed it at her. ‘Another letter?’ he said, his voice light and apparently unconcerned. ‘Well, you know what you can do with it.’
    ‘She’s going to keep writing,’ Anna said, her throat drying up as she spoke. ‘Couldn’t you –’
    ‘Couldn’t I what?’ Peter rounded on her. ‘Write back to the woman who made your life a living hell? Who tried to kill me? She’s evil, Anna. I want nothing to do with her.’
    Anna nodded. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But she’s your mother.’ She couldn’t explain to Peter how enormous that fact was to her. Her own mother had been a virtual stranger to her; she’d met her briefly, loved her, only to have her snatched away again. And now she was a mother herself and it made her feel both stronger and more vulnerable than she’d ever thought possible.
    Peter shook his head. ‘She isn’t my mother,’ he said tersely. ‘I have no mother.’ Then he sighed. ‘How are her letters even finding the Underground? That’s what I don’t get.’
    ‘One of the inmates . . .’ Anna said tentatively, not wanting to risk angering Peter further with her in-depth knowledge of Mrs Pincent’s previous letters. ‘An Underground supporter.’
    ‘What? They just give away the contact mechanism to Richard Pincent’s daughter?’ Peter asked sarcastically.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Anna said quietly.
    Peter digested this. ‘You want me to write back, don’t you?’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t know what hold that woman’s got over you, but you want me to write to her and tell her I forgive her. You want that twisted psychopath masquerading as a human being to have some peace before she falls apart and dies.’ His eyes were boring into Anna’s but she stayed silent. Then he shook his head. ‘Well, I won’t. I want her to die unhappy, Anna. I want her to die crying out in her misery because of what she’s done.’
    Anna stepped backwards. Her eyes were brimming with tears and she didn’t know why. She wasn’t crying for Mrs Pincent. She couldn’t be. Herself then? She didn’t know. She shook herself. It didn’t matter. Peter was right – Mrs Pincent was evil. She didn’t have a hold over her. Did she? ‘Fine, I’ll go and wake Ben,’ Anna said, wiping her hands on her apron.
    ‘You do that. And I’m going to check my messages. From people I actually want to write to,’ Peter muttered.
    As Anna left the room she could hear him switching on the computer and frowned involuntarily. Perhaps Mrs Pincent had some strange draw for her; perhaps she thought of her old House Matron from time to time. But Peter’s own weakness was a far more physical and constant presence in their life and far more time-consuming – it was his computer. The machine was their conduit to the outside world – to Jude, Peter’s half-brother, and the Underground. To Peter, the computer was his connection, his lifeline; to Anna it