Crown of Oblivion Deleted Scene!

Hey friends! If you read Crown of Oblivion and would like an extra peek into Astrid’s family life, the below scene is for you! On the Instagram Live Chat I did on January 5 with the wonderful folks from Beacon Book Box, I mentioned that I deleted a scene from the beginning of the prologue because I felt it was better to jump into the action quicker. But I do still like the homey feel of this scene, and I think it makes a nice intro to Astrid, as well as her father and brothers. And if you haven’t read Crown of Oblivion yet, no worries! Since this scene came at the beginning of the prologue, it contains no spoilers! So anyone can read this scene without peril.

Enjoy!

CROWN OF OBLIVION

(Scene deleted from the opening of the Prologue)

Four years ago

“Courage gets a few to the summit,” my father says, “but fear convinces most to choose the mud.” He and my brothers are still seated at the little square table where we just shared dinner. It’s dark in here—not because of the coming storm, either. It’s always dark in this one-room apartment with its windows that are too few and too small, and there’s always too little money to waste on electric lights. An oil lamp burns in the center of the table. I’m standing at the sink, trying to scrape a bit of burnt-on grease from the world’s oldest pan. The grease is winning.

 “I don’t have a fear of storms,” I say without turning around. Why does this topic come up every time bad weather is threatening? “I have anxiety. Anxiety and fear are not the same thing.”

“Fear is fear, no matter what name you give it,” my father says. The bit of blue sky that had been visible through the tiny rectangle of glass above the sink has gone dark with clouds. I reach up and pull down the shade. After another minute, I give up on the pan, fill it with a bit of warm water to soak, and spin around to face them. My older brother, Jayden, rolls his eyes at me and smirks, but my younger brother’s eyes go wide and he makes a nervous sound in his throat, something like a stifled laugh. Marlon is only seven years old, and can’t always tell when we’re playing, and I think he may be worried my feelings have been hurt. So I cross my arms and stamp my foot in a way that makes it clear I’m playing along.

“Well, I’m not sure how a healthy respect for storms is equivalent to choosing the mud,” I say.

Marlon beams and stamps a foot under the table. “Choosing the mud,” he echoes.

Repetition. It’s kind of his thing. Well, repetition and puzzles. The mimicry comes out when he’s happy or when he’s nervous. Right now, I’d say he’s a bit of both.

“Silly parrot,” I say, winking.

“Silly parrot,” he answers. Then he’s giggling and I’m giggling too, and scooping him out of his chair to dangle him over the sink as if I might drop him in, and our father is prodding me to do it, saying the boy needs a bath, and the tension is broken and my anxiety over the storm is gone, at least for now.

It’s for the best that the subject’s been changed. I wanted to add that I might have a lot of faults, but cowardice is not one of them. I wanted to add that no one could live the life I’m living without a healthy heaping of courage, thank you very much. But I know better than to talk back to my father, even when we’re just joking around. Besides, courage runs in our family, so it’s sort of his specialty, too. It’s certainly Jayden’s. And if my father thinks my worries about the coming storm are the biggest worries I have, I guess that’s all for the best. He’s been sick—so sick he’s in danger of losing his indenture at the foundry—so I don’t need to add to his concerns.

By the time I’ve gotten the pan clean and Jayden’s dried our few dishes and put them all away, Papa and Marlon have moved to the den, which is what we call the corner of this tiny apartment that’s opposite our father’s bed. Jayden and I plop down on a couch that doubles as a bed for Marlon. Before I became indentured to the palace it was my bed, and before that, it was Jayden’s. For a little while before that, when our mother was still alive and Marlon had just been born, we lived in an apartment one block away, one with a separate bedroom, and this couch was just a couch. But that only lasted six months. Once Mama died we came here, and within a year, Jayden and I were living in the palace.

 I miss this place. I miss the way it smells of fish oil burning in the lamp and cabbage boiling on the stove, even though those aren’t usually pleasant things to smell. When I open the drawer where our father still keeps our mother’s clothes, it smells of her lavender soap, even after seven years.

I would take this place over the palace any day.

But every visit ends eventually, usually when Papa’s coughing becomes so constant, there’s no point in talking anymore, and the only thing to do is to send him to bed and beg him to rest. His indenture at the foundry is draining the life from him, one cough at a time. I tuck Marlon into his makeshift bed and offer one more puzzle. “You throw me away again and again, but I come back every time. What am I?

“A boomerang?”

“Yes! But also a sister,” I say. I tug the blanket up over his shoulder and he giggles, but he also coughs a mimic of our father’s cough, and I tell him to keep it down, since the neighbors like to sleep, too.

Jayden and I walk back as the sun is setting, and he tells me scary stories about monsters that lurk beyond the city wall, and then jumps as if something has lunged from the shadows of the darkening streets. I play like I’m scared, but really, what could a monster do to us that’s any worse than what’s regularly done to us in the palace? Maybe that’s why it’s fun to pretend.

By the time it’s truly dark I’m back in the palace dormitory, and though I’ve lived here since I was barely older than Marlon, it doesn’t feel like home to me at all. Not tonight, especially. My father’s little pearl of wisdom about choosing the mud must have shamed me more than I care to admit, because I’m propped on the stone sill of one of the dormitory windows, while all the other girls are in bed. A tree branch rattles against the outside of the glass with every gust of wind. Not afraid, not afraid, not afraid, I whisper to myself.

(Page one of the prologue would start here.)