Over the next few days, Wednesday was ordered to stay in bed as much as possible. Sitting in bed all day long left her grumpy as it made her joints stiffer than usual and every movement hurt. Her sisters ignored her occasional complaints, and she eventually stopped talking to them about her predicament altogether. Not that they spent much time up in the room with Wednesday, anyway. The doctor had said Wednesday was suffering from an unknown something-or-other that Wednesday didn’t even attempt to pronounce, and that he said a week or so of regular bed rest was all Wednesday needed to recover completely. She felt perfectly fine and after two days, her head didn’t even hurt anymore, but every time she tried to sneak downstairs or down the hall to get some fresh air in the gardens or run around in the house, one of the family caught her and shooed her to bed.
So after a week and a half,
she was bored out of her mind and her nerves frayed to the point of
snapping. Mother insisted on her still
doing lessons, and after hours of Wednesday struggling with break downs under
memorizing poems and literature, Mother had relented and given her an etiquette
book to study instead. Wednesday had
discovered that the etiquette book was excellent for fending off insomnia. Ten pages of reading about smelling salts and
fan tatting techniques and she was out cold.
Not only that, but after
her lessons, there was nothing to do.
This bored Wednesday so much she was almost tempted to do more
lessons. She reread all her novels seven
times, memorized the first five pages of each, recited hymns, and tried to play
games. Unfortunately, there was no one
to play the games with, as the room was vacant all day except for when her
sisters came to sleep, and she couldn’t find an interesting one to play by
herself. She tried drawing, but it was
hard for her lines to be neat when she was drawing over her lap and the poufy
covers. She’d even asked Father and
Mother for ideas in the rare snatches of time when they came up, but all Mother
had supplied was a pot of tea and a reminder to take her medicine and look at
the etiquette book, and Father had given her a copy of the Fontana extended
family tree and said memorizing it would be a good idea as they were going to
Grand-Aunt Anna Fontana’s birthday celebration on the twenty-sixth.
This particular day,
Wednesday was sitting in bed, twitching her foot to try and fight off the pins and[m1] needles
pricking the pad of her heels and toes, with the family tree in her lap, eyes
closed, trying to remember everyone.
“Grand-Aunt Anna Fontana,
currently 65. Married to Grand-Uncle Gordon Ebenezer. Their child is Aunt Reyna
Ebenezer. Married to Uncle Damien
Corell. Children: Anna Corell, Lance
Corell, Brielle Corell…er…” She fought
to remember the youngest one’s name.
Something that started with an L?
“Luka Corell,” she said suddenly.
“And Lance and Brielle are twins…? No, not twins. They’re…”
Her mind was foggy. The entire week and a half, the skies had
been getting progressively bluer in richer shades, and the air had been slowly
warming. That morning, it had rained
out, and amid the faint drip-drop of water tumbling off a swaying bare tree
branch outside the window, it was humid and sluggish and felt absolutely
nothing like winter. The window had been
shoved open for fresh air, yet the air inside the bedroom was fresher than the
ugly thickness of the rain-induced clamminess outside, but Wednesday, sitting
up against her pillow, was too lazy to get up to fold the glass panes to one
another and snap the latch.
The circulation of the air
was in slow motion, the sky outside sharply blue against the heady dampness
that clogged the room, and Wednesday longed for nothing more than to be outside,
sitting in the shade, taking tea and muffins with her family and admiring the
flowers and trees that were no doubt starting to flourish in the steadily
warming weather.
Wednesday let her head fall
back, and it hit the wall with a thunk that made her wince. For a moment the pain resonated through her
head, and she waited for it to pass, then sat up, putting the family tree
aside, and reached for her bottle of medicine.
The bureau had become a bit
cluttered over the past week and a half, since her family would come up and
leave pots of tea and coffee and hot chocolate and cups, but would never come
to take them back down. To her dismay, there
were no clean cups left, and each had a circle of grit at the bottom. She didn’t want to use a dirty cup for
medicine, and she frowned, irked.
Clutching the glass bottle
with the medicine in one hand, she leaned over to the other side of the bed,
where the dresser and the vanity were, three drawers; the top Wednesday’s, the
second Willow’s, and the bottom Winter’s.
Wednesday never kept much of anything in her drawer, as she stored all
her clothes in the pine wardrobe on the other side of the room, and so she
rarely looked in, only to see scraps of old drawings and reminders, old ink
bottles, pens that didn’t work, candles worn to the nub. She never had the heart to toss any of it,
and over the years the clutter had built up slightly. She tugged on the handle, keeping one hand on
the mirror so it wouldn’t fall, and pulled the drawer open to see if at one
point, by any chance, she had put a clean cup in there.
Among the little stacks of
corner-crinkled papers and bits of wax sat the black teacup, pristine and in
perfect condition, sitting primly on its little black saucer. She had forgotten about that, and she lifted
it out, smiling. The obsidian cup was
smooth and unchipped, and she remembered thoroughly washing it. The imprinted words on the bottom of the cup
were clearer than ever: It’s yours.
The memory of the unusual
hot chocolate party with the Shadow King on the swaying bridge was so strange
that she felt a foolish smile tugging at the corners of her lips. It had been wildly bizarre, and the more she thought
about it, the less she could believe it hadn’t been a creation of her frenzied
imagination. If she had been rational,
she wouldn’t have dared drink anything he offered her; she would have run away
on the bridge. But it had been real. A dream wouldn’t have been that sharp, no
matter how wild the idea of her experience had been.
Wednesday measured out the
amount of medicine, wrinkling her nose as the bittersweet smell of the thin,
syrupy amber liquid, and poured it into the black teacup. The translucent amber medicine, showing
through to the black underneath, was a little more than disconcerting. She closed her eyes before tipping the cup
over into her mouth, the cool glazed rim touching her lip.
She swallowed quickly. The
taste of bitter herbs covered her tongue and she rolled her tongue around her
mouth to get rid of the taste, then swung her legs out of bed to rinse the cup
out. No use in letting the medicine
stick to the nice cup. She could’ve
cleaned the other cups, too, but didn’t feel like going to get them….
Just as she stopped at the
bedroom’s bathroom door to turn the handle, something strange happened. The cup grew heavy in her hand, and she
glanced at it, alarmed. The thin coat of
medicine that was sticking to the cup was swirling, the amber color starting to
glow and make shimmery trails within itself, like oil. The transformation wasn’t solid; it was an
illusion that looked like liquid, filling the cup rapidly, and then one
shimmery amber drop fell to the ground.
It started to spread,
making a puddle. Wednesday stumbled back.
The one drop had quickly broadened out to create a thin, unreflective
pool three feet across. The edge of the
puddle was only a few inches away from the hem of Wednesday’s dress.
She stared, frozen with a
sort of fascinated terror. The heavy added weight of the illusion in the cup
still clutched in her hand vanished, and the shimmery illusion in the cup did
as well, leaving just the ordinary black cup, with the medicine still clinging
like maple syrup to the side. But the
gleaming amber pool on the floor was still there.
For a fleeting moment, all
Wednesday could think of was how hard it would be to clean up.
Then she remembered it was
an illusion.
Suddenly, words were
smoothly appearing on the surface of the pool, as if someone had used their
finger and drawn little letter paths through the illusive liquid, but the words
remained clear against the amber puddle.
You discovered it after all.
Wednesday almost dropped
the cup. Was there a ghost, writing on
the mirage? She was still frozen in place with utter curiosity that she
couldn’t resist.
She’d discovered
something. You discovered it after all. But what had she discovered?
“What did I discover?” she
whispered, unable to move her feet, or her gaze from the pool.
The words promptly sank and
melted into the puddle. Wednesday
flinched, thinking that something was going to rise up out of it; a spirit, or
a ghoul. Instead, more words were
appearing.
You discovered the way my teacup works.
I thought you would never remember it, I had to wait so long.
“Your teacup?” Wednesday
couldn’t get her mind around that. She
was talking to a puddle, which had just answered her question. What did
I discover? she had asked aloud, and it had just replied to her. In writing.
On a mirage puddle that had once been her medicine in a teacup. “Your teacup—I’m talking to a puddle, for
heaven’s sake—you’re the Shadow King? A
puddle? You’re a person, and also a
puddle?”
The words dissolved. New ones appeared. The handwriting was smooth, easy,
legible. If the King was writing this,
he seemed to be in no hurry. I am not a puddle, thank you. Using my cup, you can talk to me this
way…through this illusion. It is my way
of connecting to you…though, yes, the one who is writing this to you is indeed
me, the Shadow King.
“You can hear me?”
Wednesday whispered, terrified.
Not all the time. Only when you
use the cup this way. When you clean the cup, the connection is broken.
“I’ll keep it dry,
then,” Wednesday said shortly, all of a sudden irritated by the King’s
nonchalant choice of words and style. “Why would I want to talk to you?”
No reply. The words
dissolved.
Wednesday stepped away from
the pool. Her heart was thudding along
fast, and she was trembling slightly.
She stumbled a little bit as she maneuvered around the illusive puddle
and into the bathroom, where she thoroughly cleaned the teacup out, rubbing her
fingers in it to make sure not a single drop of amber medicine remained. The imprint on the bottom of the cup was
still there.
When she exited the
bathroom, the pool had disappeared, without any trace or sign that it had ever
been there. She poked a foot at the spot
it had been but felt nothing. The King’s
message about washing the cup clean had been true.
As she shakily sat down on
the bed, staring at the cup in her hands as a water droplet she had missed when
drying rolled down the smooth, glossed sides, she considered throwing it out
the window. In all the novels she read,
when a girl hated something given to her by a man, she would pitch it away as
far and as hard as she could and it would never be seen again. She rose, holding the handle of the dainty
black porcelain, and reached the window ledge.
Humid, sticky air seemed to cling to her skin as she looked uncertainly
at the expanse of still-cold landscape bathed in baby greens and silvery-brown
dirt. The cup and saucer made a soft clink as she set them down on the
windowsill, wondering if she could toss them.
That’s what a strong-willed main character would have done, as she hated
the connection.
But Wednesday couldn’t
bring herself to do it. As much as she
was afraid of the Shadow King, and as much as she didn’t like how every time
she used the cup he would talk to her using a mirage of a puddle, it was an
object of too much fascination for her to throw away. The cup was obviously magic, and it had been
granted to her by the unearthly king himself.
And what if she wanted to ask him about something again? (However
unlikely that seemed, Wednesday reasoned that there was always room for a
what-if.) Her technical, practical side
was telling her emotional side the logical thing to do, which would be to not
throw the cup away.
She reluctantly retreated
from the muggy-aired window back into the even more stifling room, brushing her
hair into a single waterfall over her shoulder.
This was by far the hottest day or winter they had had. Hopefully the air would become a tad drier by
the time Grand-Aunt Anna’s birthday came around. She couldn’t see a picture of Willow staying
still while they sat in a circle at the Corells’ (whose house she imagined as a
sort of modest townhouse) saying greetings in this weather.
After shoving the teacup
back into her drawer, Wednesday plunked down on the bed, feeling too tired and
dumb to do anything of use. The air in
the room was as sultry as it was outside, and she grabbed a stray ribbon from
the bedstand and messily tied up her hair up on her head to try and relieve the
heat that was trapped between her tumbling hair and her neck. There was nothing interesting to do, and she
played with the paper bearing the family tree before wearily returning her
attention to its contents.
“Jerry Fontana, father of
Lei’Anne and Desdemona Fontana…”
Wednesday recited the names
of as many family members she could grasp while her mind wandered in a sort of
partial doze, and she wasn’t even noticing who they were anymore. Her eyes glazed over as they stared
unseeingly at the family tree.
The teacup mirage could
have been just a clever trick of her own fancy, couldn’t it have been? After
all, there was no reason for the Shadow King to have wanted to contact her, and
there was no way she had been brazen enough to talk to him rudely. Maybe it had just been a strange
fantasy. The muddling heat was turning
her brain slowly to mush in her head, and there was a faint bitter taste on her
tongue that had been the medicine, still lingering on her palate.
Loud,
angry noises were coming from downstairs, voices filtering dimly through the
floor and into her room. She couldn’t
hear what they were saying; everything was too vague, but she heard the clear
exasperation coming through. Winter’s
voice joined in the din but quickly went silent. Willow was clearly the head of the argument,
and her yells rebounded off the walls, obviously screaming herself sick. There was a deeper voice of Father that also
died away after a few sentences, and then the crisp cool voice of Mother
sharply reprimanding Willow in a pause of silence. Then the shouts started up again, and
Mother’s voice disappeared from the fray.
Wednesday heard the entire exchange as if watching a film.
Footsteps
were marching up the stairs, getting louder as they reached the landing, not
being particularly careful about how loud they were. Wednesday’s first thought was an image of
Willow, cheeks flushed an angry pink, storming up to sulk.
There was a genteel knock
on the door. Wednesday felt so befuddled
she didn’t even realize that someone was knocking to come in before it opened
and Mother came in, regal and pretty.
Her lips were pressed tightly together to the point of being close to
white, and there was definite tension in her rigid posture. Still, she forced a
faint smile when she saw Wednesday slumped in bed, studying the family tree
with glazed eyes.
“How are you, darling?”
Mother asked, fluttering over in a sweep of white brocade and lace. Her shiny coffee ringlets curled upon her
movement, and Wednesday stared at them dreamily. Mother felt Wednesday’s forehead, which was
no doubt damp with the cold sweat of the illusion of the teacup and the sheer
drowsiness of the day. “Are you burning
up? No, you’re fine…you seem so
distracted today, dear. Is everything
all right?”
Wednesday mumbled a reply
of which she knew not. Mother raised her eyebrows and proceeded to sweep to the
windows, snap them closed, and hurry back to Wednesday’s bed. “You must be very hot, dear,” she said, “as you
can’t even think. How would you like to
take a walk with your mother? Ease your mind, hm?”
Wednesday felt drowsy, but of
those last few sentences, she had understood the words “walk” and “mother,” and
it shook her awake slightly. Walk? Taking a walk? Perhaps they would even be able to walk
through the gardens, which must have been dewy at this time, dripping with
silvery drops and sparkling in the hazy sunlight with its own kind of magic.
“Give me a moment,”
Wednesday said. Her voice came out soft
and timid, and she was irritated as her arms and legs felt ridiculously stiff
after sinking into the bedsheets. She
pushed herself out of bed, walked quietly to the vanity in the bathroom, and
started to pin up her hair properly.
Mother took a seat in the fat green armchair between Wednesday’s and
Winter’s beds, and ran her hands over her brow, looking weary.
Wednesday screwed up her
face as she examined herself. In the
mirror, she was as pale as ever, and her hair was twisted up clockwise instead
of counterclockwise, as Mother preferred it.
She twisted a loose strand around her finger, wishing it’d magically
float on top of her head, and finally tuck it behind her ear in hopes that
Mother wouldn’t notice.
“You are doing all right?” Mother said as Wednesday came out of the
bathroom and immediately flopped down onto her bed.
“No,” Wednesday said, and,
realizing that if she lied down she would mess her hair up again, she stumbled
to her feet. A small squiggly figure and
sparkles floated across her vision, and she blinked, touching a finger to her
temple. She felt sleepy and stupid, but her mind was so sharp her senses picked
up on the tiny, miniscule ridges of her finger pads over the smooth skin of her
face.
Mother steadied her, leaned
her against one of the grooved wooden poles of the four-poster bed—though the
hangings were sadly absent, as the bed was secondhand and the hangings had been
so moth-eaten she had asked Father to take them down—and she gave Wednesday a
pat and headed for the bathroom.
Wednesday wasn’t sure what exactly Mother was doing in there, and she
absently ran through her hair; her fingers came away with curly strands of
crinkly auburn draped over them, and she twisted them in her hands.
She only had to wait for
half a minute—enough time for her dreamy thoughts to clear and for her body to
start functioning. The Mother came out
of the bathroom, something in her hands, and she opened them to show Wednesday
a dried flower. She pinned it in Wednesday’s
hair with a smile, dusted some powder on Wednesday’s face, and paused as she
looked up and down at Wednesday’s dress.
Wednesday’s eyes flickered
down, to the faded azure color of her dress (which opposed her auburn hair
magnificently), to the slight tears that riddled the hem, and the worn
threadbare bits on the sleeves. Mother
clucked her tongue disapprovingly.
“Why didn’t you put on one
of the dresses, I have you?” she asked, a stern note in her voice.
“Sorry,” Wednesday
mumbled. “I’ve been in bed for over a
week…so I haven’t had much time to show off any of the pretty dresses you gave
me. It’s not like I’m attending a
party…”
Mother held Wednesday at
arm’s length and studied her critically.
Then, suddenly releasing her, tightly wound corkscrews coiling like
springs around her shoulders, Mother abruptly strode across the room,
indicating that Wednesday should follow.
The house, for the most
part, was vacant, Wednesday thought as she tailed Mother down the flight of
stairs and onto the main level. After
the sudden brouhaha of the argument she had heard from when she was upstairs,
now everything was eerily silent.
Wednesday wasn’t sure where they had gone—if Willow had stormed from the
house, or it she was in a different empty room taking her frustrations
out. Father was also missing from the
central room, but a mug of warm coffee was still on the table, steaming, with
condensation collecting on it. He
couldn’t have been gone long. It was
manifest to see where Winter had gone after a quick look around the room; there
was a scrap of paper on the table, with her graceful handwriting gliding over
it, bearing the words “out to play.”
“What exactly was that
argument about?” Wednesday asked Mother as they walked straight through the
main room and towards the front entrance to the gardens. “I heard it upstairs.”
Mother’s lips pursed. She didn’t say anything. Wednesday thought it
best to not pursue the subject.
They passed the main doors
to the outside. Wednesday blinked as
heavy, sticky air attacked her skin. The heat was a smoky dreariness that was a
depression in her soul, a pit scoped out by the stifling manner of the
climate. Each branch of the trees was
suspended in a glistening clear fluid like gel, which would roll in slow motion
in miniature baubles to the edge of each spidery limb, save for the drops
plopping in a pattern much was drumsticks falling upon a glockenspiel, and
would bend the branch as it dipped downward which would spring back up once the
silver droplet of gloss had slipped off.
Wednesday paused, fascinated, and watched these miniscule wonders moving
with their quiet purpose, so unlike her without any ideas of where she was
going or her lack of deliberateness. The
entire front lawn (which was currently a faded gold Bermuda grass, and would
green by late spring) was sparkling as if dipped in shards of glass. Trees, as weighed down as she with their
armfuls of dew, bent and occasionally shivered in their bare skin as they dripped
forth the condensative water. They sky
was heavy and pressed in, a rolling mass of pale gray. It wasn’t a harmful gray, but the mild
tendency of one who was merely shy but had a large presence that drew the
eye. Behind the smokiness was a weak sun
shimmering with the force of only a small lantern.
“Are we going to the
gardens?” Wednesday asked the stoic Mother, wondering what use this walk could
be without the pleasantries of the bare flower bushes and hearty pines and firs
nuzzling against her at all times, for even in this sticky weather the gardens
would be bliss.
“Yes,” Mother said after a
length pause. “Do not be hasty,
Wednesday, for arrival, as we have much to discuss and you have a great chance
of not enjoying it.”
Discuss? Discuss what?
Wednesday wondered, and pondered why she wouldn’t enjoy it, and strangely
enough, for a fleeting moment, she pictured herself talking to Mother about who
she wanted to marry. But then she tossed
the thought aside; of course Mother wouldn’t be thinking of an underage girl’s
marriage fancy while she was so hurriedly trying to secure a husband for
Winter, though it was more than unfortunate for Mother that she didn’t even
know who it was Winter fancied.
They passed by the front
gates, which Wednesday eyed apprehensively.
A week and a half ago, a somewhat rickety, rented carriage had been
parked out there, until she been bucked off the horse and the gentlemen had all
beat a hasty retreat. The gate was a bit
creaky, and had bits of rust freckling the edges, but was still a grand sign of
the house. The Fontanas called their
house a palace since Father was technically a minority king, but the house
wasn’t much of a palace, except the unusual bell tower planted on top of the
house. As houses went, theirs was a
large one, granted, but it wasn’t a real palace. Father tended to refer to it as a mansion
rather than a palace. To Wednesday,
“mansion” sounded plenty as exquisite and fancy as “palace,” so she simply
tried to no talk about the house at all.
For what Father called a mansion, the interior of the house was rather
sparse and had little furnishing. From
the outside, despite the whitewashed shells embedded in the left side and ivy
climbing up the irregularly shaped stones that made up the right wall, the house
looked almost sad and dreary, the windows usually plain and dark and the lawn
never trimmed correctly.
It hadn’t always been this
way. When mother stayed, before she had
taken up her busy political job that seemed to drain years from her youthful
figure, the gardens hadn’t been the only enjoyable place in the house besides
the kitchen. The wrought iron gate had
always been kept clean, the arbors and grass in the front lawn always neatly
clipped. At night the windows always
glowed with a mellow gold light, and the house seemed homier and less
traditional, less historical. After
Mother had left and afterwards spent so little time at home because of her job,
Father hadn’t taken care of the house, and now it seemed faded, a rusty
artifact exposed to the air. Wednesday
hoped that now that Mother was back, with the promise that she wouldn’t be
leaving for a while, that the house would once again be in order. Without Mother, the rigid, firm frame the
house leaned upon had slowly crumbled, molding and eroding. Now she was back and the iron frame could be
reinforced. At least, that she hoped.
She had been following
Mother with a sort of confused impression and plodding gait that one often sees
in spaced-out children, and it surprised her as she startled back to reality
and out of the past that they had arrived at the hedges and the arches with
encircling vines, which would blossom into foxglove and bleeding heart flowers
once it was the proper season. Mother
had come to a halt, hands on her hips, dress hem rustling as she slightly
shifted from foot to foot, as she frowned at the hedges.
“What exactly has your
father been up to?” she murmured. “No
trimming. No tending. No nurturing…” She tore her gaze away and forced a smile to
Wednesday. While Wednesday had known
that Mother wasn’t happy with the argument with Winter that Wednesday had heard
from upstairs, she was nevertheless rather surprised and even feeling a strange
tug of guilt seeing clear emotion in Mother’s eyes. Mother usually kept her temper hidden away,
stored somewhere deep inside her, and the girls had learned, during the
periodic times when Mother stayed as they had grown up, that Mother had no
fear, that she felt no pain, that she did not have that fountain of anger in a
person that everyone has, which bubbles and roils when a fire is lit underneath
the soul. Seeing penetrating emotion in
Mother’s face felt almost alien and detached to Wednesday, for it was something
she had grown up not knowing that Mother had that inside her, just like the
rest of them.
“What’s wrong, Mother?”
Wednesday whispered, clutching a hand in her skirts.
Mother’s smile dropped from
her the same as the dew had from the trees: gradually but very clearly. She looked away, and Wednesday almost
believed she saw a silvery tear forming on the pretty coffee lashes. Mother
didn’t respond. She took a controlled
breath and said, “Now, Wednesday, before we reach the stone arbors where we can
sit and talk, I’d like to ask you how well you have been getting along with
your sisters.”
This surprised Wednesday,
but she knew what the answer was supposed to be, and she politely replied. “We’ve been getting along very well, Mother.”
“Have Winter and Willow
been getting along?”
That was as far from the
truth as Wednesday could tell, seeing the arguments Willow and Winter had had
over breakfast made by Castil, and she knew that there had been a tense sort of
silence between them ever since. Tempers
had run high between the two, and they talked rather stiffly to one another
with the courteous, detached air strangers use with one another. ‘Getting along’ was on a different level of
family that the two girls had broken apart over.
“The feeling is mutual,”
Wednesday finally managed.
“I see,” said Mother, but
she didn’t really seem to see. The reply
had been perfunctory.
There was a moment where no
sound was heard. “And?” Wednesday prodded, unsure of what the response meant.
Mother leaned against an
arbor, shawl wrapped around her tightly, suddenly looking wearier than
Wednesday had ever seen her before.
“No, Mother, really, what’s
wrong?” Wednesday said. She had never
had to cope with this situation, to try and comfort other and ask what was the
matter, and the fact that it was Mother scared her the most. “What happened during that argument that has
made you so, so despondent?”
Mother glared at her and
Wednesday immediately knew that Mother wasn’t keen on the subject at that
moment. There wasn’t real anger in her
eyes, though. It was more like pain and
sorrow of a degree that burst from the inside and pressured until it broke
forth in a rushing torrent. That
was a pain that Wednesday had never experienced before in her life, and she
somehow doubted she would feel this pain in everyday action. It wasn’t an outer pain, one that caused her
stomach to hurt or her head to throb, or a mental pain, which clogged her brain
as she tried to think, but a spiritual pain, which damaged the most.
Wednesday swallowed. Mother’s gaze softened. She averted her eyes
and held out her hand. “Come,
Wednesday.”
Hesitantly, Wednesday took
Mother’s hand, clutching tightly and reveling in the experience of being close
to Mother. Mother led her past the
overgrown hedges and deeper into the garden.
Wednesday followed her blindly.
She was so close to Mother, so unlike she had ever been before. Mother had never paid much attention to any
of them, Wednesday least of all, and this new experience delighted her,
eclipsing the wondering of what had bothered Mother before.
Finally Mother paused, and
Wednesday, looked around, realized where they were. In front of them was a narrow corridor with
walls made of stiff hedges, dark and beckoning.
The depths were impenetrable. On either side of the thick, blocky
opening was a huge, solid hedge, closing the opening of the central garden maze
off from the rest of the gardens.
“Surely we aren’t going in
there, Mother?” Wednesday said, slightly inclined to disagree with stepping
into that scary place.
“Of course not,” Mother
said impatiently. “Really, my dear,
can’t you ever stay quiet and let your Mother pause for breath without spewing
questions?”
“Oh—” Wednesday blushed, hurt at Mother’s harsh
words. She went quiet. After a moment, Mother started up her stride
again, and Wednesday bustled after her.
Mother stopped with a very
purposeful finality at the edge of the gardens on the northeast side, just shy
of the fruit trees and instead halting at the rows of evergreens, all of them
dusted with white powder and semi-clear frost that had formed over the winter
and was now rapidly melting in the humid weather of the day. Wednesday was surprised that the frost hadn’t
completely melted already, but in this corner of the gardens it was a little
less hot, and the evergreens enjoyed the fractional shade of the leafless, bare
fruit trees that would sprout in spring, so she supposed they were just
lucky. Wednesday didn’t dare say a word
as Mother just stood there for a while, but eventually she started to grow
impatient and fidget. Mother didn’t do
anything. She simply looked, not at the
dark tree needles, not at the drops of dew soaking into the mulch, not at the
gauzy sky.
Right when Wednesday was
going to politely ask Mother if something was bothering her, and if she wanted
Wednesday to fetch a cup of tea, Mother spoke up.
“Wednesday,” she said
quietly, “I am quite sure that you often stay away from your sisters when they
aren’t hospitable to you.”
Hospitable? I suppose that’s the nice way to put it, Wednesday
thought dryly. She nodded.
“Then…” Mother tugged at the fringe of her
shawl. “I don’t suppose you like to
spend time around them?”
There was something about
her demeanor that Wednesday couldn’t quite place, but she knew it wasn’t
right. Mother was always forthright and cool,
and never timid or skirting around the edges of what she wanted to say, the way
she was doing now. Over the years of glimpses of Mother dealing with others,
Wednesday knew that one of the best ways to open Mother up was to talk or
provoke. Deliberately provoking Mother
was, granted, not a wise choice, Wednesday realized with a feeble smile, but
first of all, if it meant Mother breaking out of this vague mood, that was
worth it, and two, Wednesday was tired of waiting for Mother to say something.
Wednesday stripped off one
of her gloves and picked at the pine needles that were prickling her
shoulder. “Cut to the chase, Mother,”
she said curtly.
“Very well,” Mother said,
“but this is your first mistake.”
Mother saying this was very
bizarre, Wednesday couldn’t help thinking, as she had done nothing, and what
mistake could she possibly have made in one simple sentence’s time? Before she had gathered enough courage or
time to ask, however, mother spoke up again.
“Tell me, Wednesday,” she
said, keeping her gaze carefully blank, “are you progressing in that etiquette
book of yours that I have lent you?”
Wednesday’s breath left her
in a huff. She didn’t mean to snap, but
her temper got the better of her, for it really was a dreadfully steamy day,
and Mother had been secluded and strange, and this led her to believe that
there was something important to discuss rather than this. “Are you really
bringing that up now, Mother?” she demanded.
“You decided to take me out here, and walk me around, just so you could
ask how I’m doing with my etiquette?
Well, I must say, it’s been very effective—I
haven’t had trouble falling asleep anymore!”
Mother didn’t take the
bait. “Second mistake,” she said calmly,
in a flat voice. “But never mind
that. Onto something else—if you haven’t
been studying that ‘effective’ etiquette book, what exactly have you been doing
for the past week and a half?”
“Oh, talking to myself, of
course,” Wednesday said dryly, finding herself in a horrible mood all of a
sudden. “Wait, I forgot! I’m supposed to
be nice to my sisters, right? Of course, I was talking to them instead, because
they just adore spending time with me
in that stuffy room, trading insults, dueling with deceit.”
“It isn’t wise for a child
to insult her older siblings, dear,” Mother said, still maintaining her
composure, with not visible restraint that Wednesday could see. In a way, it disappointed her, and she
strived to prod Mother’s temper further.
Mother continued. “Why would a
viper call attention to her eggs when a mongoose is in the house?”
“How does that have
anything to do with what we’re talking about?” Wednesday said,
exasperated. Her glove was clenched in
her hand.
“Wednesday,” Mother said
with sudden uncharacteristic gentleness that she was caught off guard. She reached out and, very gently, touched a
finger to Wednesday’s elbow. It was then
Wednesday realized that she was trembling violently, and Mother’s touch soothed
her like a teaspoon of honey. “I don’t
mean to make you angry, darling,” she said.
“In fact, I’m trying to help you without being too obvious about
it. A touch of subtlety—”
Wednesday was already
overriding her. “Trying to help me?” she
echoed in disbelief. “What, by asking me
how I’m doing with my sisters, and how I’m using that sleepy etiquette book?
How exactly is that helpful, Mother? Or is your version of the word different
than mine?”
Mother smiled sadly. “Wednesday, I know that you’re excited to
marry. It’s easy to see in your
eyes. But I can’t outright train you to
be a perfect bride, not with having to help Winter. Granted, I don’t treat you equally, I’ll
admit it, but marriage is a serious thing.
I’m trying to give you hints, my little rose. That first mistake of yours—when you have a
husband, he might like to take his time, wander around, pay little attention to
what you’re giving him. Telling him to
‘cut to the chase’—” She made quotation
marks in the air with her fingers around the words—“isn’t the best thing to do. He’ll be angry with you, my dear.
“And then I asked you about
the etiquette book—to represent a given topic.
You diverted to topic, and if you do that to what your husband wants to
talk about, he won’t be in a good mood,” Mother continued as Wednesday stood
there, all anger gone, replaced by a sort of riddling shock and skepticism. “Lastly, even after he has provoked you
further and further, then when he asks you another question and you start to
take your anger out, especially if you take it out on your family…that strikes
a chord, dear.”
“I don’t have anyone else
to take it out on,” Wednesday said, all the temper draining out of her. She slumped against the fir, ignoring the
prickly spines digging into her arms.
She pushed back her hair and took a deep, shuddering breath, squeezing
the glove in her hand. Mother was watching
her carefully, and Wednesday wanted to avoid her gaze, instead focusing on the
worn lacy edging of her glove.
“I know, sweetheart.” Mother now had a faraway look in her
eyes. She didn’t say any more.
Mother made no more attempts to help Wednesday in her lady studies over the
next few days. Wednesday assumed this
meant she was on her own, and the day after and the day after the next she
immersed herself in her studies, reading the book willingly. She only fell asleep twice. She also hadn’t seen any real sign of Willow
or Winter. Father, in the times he came
to visit her, said Willow was shut up in the piano room, bitter and aggravated,
writing countless letters, though to whom he knew not. Winter was suddenly fussing over every aspect
of her own appearance, from a single strand of hair out of place to a piece of
lace tucked into the sleeve of her dress.
She occasionally stole upstairs to the room and took the mirror off the vanity,
then went back downstairs without a single glance at Wednesday. But Wednesday didn’t mind. She was often too sunken into her work to
notice these infrequent visits. While
the before heat and humidity faded away into[m2] a sharp
crisp freshness, and Willow and Winter began to venture outside without thick
cloaks or shawls, Wednesday stayed in the room under the rectangle of light
constantly beamed through the window glass, surrounded by files she had
borrowed from the library and books she’d reserved and the journals stuffed
with notes that Mother owned from when her
mother had taught her how to be a good wife. Wednesday was determined to learn to be the
best wife, in compensation for her health. Even after Mother and Father and the
doctor all told her she had no more need for bed rest, and that she was free to
move about, Wednesday no longer felt the yearn of freedom that she had before
that walk with Mother. She stubbornly
sat on her bedspread with notes scattered around her, bathed in the warm
fragment of sunlight, and only pausing from reading for meals or a drink.
Every time she took a swig
of her bitter medicine, she would recall the amber mirage, and would sit and
think about that, wondering if it had all been just a strange dream induced by
the fizzy heat of that day. Though it
nearly strangled her to wonder about reality, and how absurd it would have been
if it really was real, she never dared put her medicine in that special black
teacup again. It sat neglected in the
corner of her drawer, and every so often when she opened up the drawer to
search for a scrap of paper or a new quill, she would see it and abruptly snap
the drawer closed.
It wasn’t exactly that she
dreaded the Shadow King’s company. He
was plenty frightening, yes, and she always had this nagging feeling that if
she didn’t keep him entertained, he would kill her or something, but he was
just so kind. Whether or not he was
simply putting on a show and a fake face, as to that she was unknowing, but
kept herself ignorant, for she believed that if she knew he just thought her a
plaything, she would never be able to think about him in terms of humanity
again.
She had never before
thought of him in terms of humanity, until that night on the swaying, foggy
bridge, and she didn’t want to lose this new delightful view of him. Therefore she kept it tightly clasped in her
mind, being very careful as to where her mind traveled whenever her absent mind
drifted to thoughts of him in his silky puddle of a black cloak, his hood, the
mysterious silver pocketwatch that had been given to him and the amazing way he
could just—create things. He had been so
nice to her on the bridge, she could almost believe—if she closed her eyes—that
he might have been Castil, treating her kindly.
But then her thoughts would
also turn to remembrance of that unforgettable night when she had seen him and
Lady Aurelia in the gardens, where he had easily flirted with the idea of using
a girl so thoughtlessly, so inhumanely.
His topsy-turvy personality gave Wednesday headaches enough without her
usual deteriorative body.
He was just so hidden in
the umber of his kingdom and personality, and all of him shrouded in a sort of
secretive solemnity that gave him the unearthly god-like quality which made him
so revered. There were some times—like the spying in the garden—at which Wednesday
could see him, brimful of power and authority, cold and quiet and dark. But there were other times fragments of a
more copacetic figure would protrude through, and Wednesday could see him as a
person, not as an avenging, murky murderer as he was portrayed in books. Who was he, really?
And his face. Wednesday had
replayed every image of him she had in her head, like a slowed-down film, but
never had she seen his face. And while it frightened her that she had been
talking and drinking hot chocolate with someone whose face you couldn’t see,
for this was rather creepy (if one thought it through), she found the memory
oddly pleasant. As she couldn’t see his
face, she had thought of at least one hundred faces one of which he could
possibly have, from tawny eyes and dark hair to blonde curls with a straight
nose and blue eyes. She had also
fantasized about him having green eyes, but what with the uncommonness of green
in eye color, she decided that that thought might not be plausible. Not that
blonde curls were the picture of the Shadow King. There was a reason the word
‘shadow’ was placed, and not just because he was lord of the Shadow Kingdom.
And while she paused, she
would realize that she was thinking about him again, and would hurriedly keep
working and sorting through her etiquette files.
Winter continued to be cool
and vain, and showed no more signs of outbursts or magic. She would
occasionally sit by the porch with Mother, the two of them chattering away
animatedly as they sewed dresses and traded hats.
Willow’s ever-present
solecism didn’t change, and while she fared rather well for a girl through a
slap by a sister and an argument, her silences became more often heard and they
in themselves were sour and curdled the mood. Her rebellion was also ever
increasing, which made both Mother and Father nervous as Grand-Aunt Anna’s
birthday was rapidly approaching. Willow
didn’t seem to care. She would shut
herself up for hours and painstakingly write line after line of perfect
penmanship. Wednesday was never able to
steal a look at what she was writing, but once she glimpsed Willow burning a
sheaf of papers in the oven fire, before Willow gave her a measuring stare and
Wednesday scuttled off.
Father and Mother were
always together, and Father seemed less tired.
Mother seemed less tired, too, though she wasn’t all that tired before.
Mother was always moving, always going, always doing—well, something that kept
her occupied for hours, whether it was work or fun or relaxing. Often enough
Wednesday would see Father and Mother curled up together in the sitting room,
or together at the dining table giggling like children as they fed each other
bits of jelly, or snuggled up together in bed reading the same book. It was
cute, Wednesday thought, seeing her parents regress to childhood as they saw
each other and smiled, though at the same time she wished a little bit that
they would pay more attention to the definite tensions ringing between the
three sisters in the house, and less to each others’ fancies. But who
knew? Maybe that was what love did to a
person.
Days
passed and the biting cold peeled away like an outer skin, revealing a most
pleasant coolness underneath. Father and
Mother still reminded the girls to take cloaks out whenever they wanted a walk,
since it was still somewhat chilly, but mostly the girls didn’t heed their
advice and crept out to enjoy the fresh air.
Spring was only weeks now. In the times Wednesday pulled herself away
from the books, she would twirl around in the gardens, delighting when she saw
new flowers starting to slowly creep from their winter shells. She was always
alone in these solitary gardens frolics, but she didn’t mind as Winter and
Willow continued to be frosty towards one another. The two of them continued to bicker like an
old married couple while Mother and Father turned a blind eye, and Wednesday
didn’t care much for the arguments.
Sorting out a fight between Winter and Willow was like trying to dig
your way to the center of the planet with a shovel.
And so the time leisurely
passed by. Wednesday, when she wasn’t
studying up on etiquette—which she really should have reserved for Willow—or
having fun in the gardens, sat in the bedroom with the windows letting in fresh
cool air and wrote letters, formally the way all of Mother’s notes had taught
her, first to her close cousin Desdemona about really nothing in particular,
then one to each of her Corell cousins.
After all, they were going to their house, and she felt that it would be
rude not to have said anything to them except on the day of their arrival. Also, she thought privately, she wanted to
practice her penmanship after discovering a delightful sample of swirly script
in one of Mother’s books and deciding she liked this handwriting. She whiled away hours and entire days doing
nothing, writing, smiling out the window, studying and poring over large
volumes with glee, or sitting outside as the dew gathered on the tree leaves
and collected enough weight to drip off.
The day before they were
due to leave for the birthday party, a seriousness settled over the[TL3]
household. This seemed to drive Willow
crazy and she spent much of the day outside instead of packing, with Mother
yelling at her periodically to get inside and be a lady, et cetera, et
cetera. Wednesday didn’t blame Willow at
all because she herself felt exasperated as Winter was busily bustling up and
around, perfecting everything, badgering Wednesday about her appearance and
testing her to make sure she knew every rule about supper etiquette and
curtsying. This felt unfair as Wednesday
thought herself a better dancer and therefore curtsier than Winter, but the
girl just wouldn’t be hindered. Mother,
on the other hand, seemed to approve of Winter’s annoying behavior and invited
Winter up into her room, where the two of them sat in front of the vanity and
discussed how to best style their hair for the next day.
It was four in the
afternoon when Wednesday was in her room, trying to fit more books in her
suitcase. She heard the bell tower
chime, sending a slight tremor through the floor from the vibrating timbre, and
counted the four heavy dongs in her
head. She paused in her packing and cast
a glance out the open window that was letting in a brisk wind, and saw the
reason it was picking up was that clouds had obnubilated the view of the sun
that usually tempered the grouchy transition from winter to spring. From downstairs, her voice carrying outside
and up back into the window, Wednesday heard Mother yelling again for Willow to
come inside, and she grimaced once she looked around the girls’ room and saw
that Willow’s bed had only an empty suitcase resting upon the spread. Mother would have a cow. Wednesday stood up, wincing as her back, sore
from bending over her things, twinged.
She crossed the room, opened the drawers and wardrobe, and tossed a few
of Willow’s nicest dresses over the suitcases to make it look like she had
packed some. While she was rifling
through the three-chested drawers by Wednesday’s bed, she opened them rather
absently and heard the clear clink of what may have been breaking
porcelain. She peered into the drawers
and saw that her own drawer had made the noise, and she spotted the black
teacup overturned from its saucer, lying on its side among a gentle clutter of
papers and quills. Panic seized her
heart as she thought wildly that it had broken, but when she gingerly handled
it she realized the noise had only been it bumping against the side of the
drawer when it toppled. Wednesday sat back on her heels, relief washing over
her nervously thudding heart.
Maybe it was time to
contact the Shadow King again. She
wasn’t particularly fond of speaking with him, especially through a magic
teacup which seemed too far-fetched and silly for someone like herself, but she
had to admit the thought that she was special unlike any other girl—having the
ability to talk to the King at will!—was an inviting prospect.
Sighing, Wednesday walked
around her bed to the other side where the bureau with the bottle was. She hadn’t taken her medicine for the
afternoon yet anyway, and if she didn’t want to feel like a creaky old man by
bedtime, she had better take it. Her
fingers closed around the cool glass bottle and she blandly poured it into the
teacup, not really paying attention to the robotic movement, and drained the
bitter remedy in one large swallow. Then
she clasped the cup more tightly in her hand and waited.
Nothing was happening. Wednesday felt idiotic, standing for no
apparent reason, holding a dirty teacup.
“Fool,” she murmured to
herself. And it was true. Who was she to think that she actually had
had a connection in the first place? He could have just been playing with
her—and that was what it seemed, obviously, the thought a bit crossly. Oh,
raspberries. I don’t know what was up
with me and being all excited, but certainly there is nothing to be excited
about in a teacup glazed in med—
Then the teacup suddenly
felt weighted, and Wednesday almost jumped back. The amber mirage with the oil-on-water sheen
was gauzily filling the cup at rapid speed, before a drop fell over the side
and the amber pool spread into existence.
The weight in the teacup and the mirage inside it vanished, leaving only
the shimmery large puddle on the floor at her feet. This time Wednesday felt
calmer as she looked into it.
“Hello,” she said.
The words began to appear,
smooth as ever, graceful and swoopy. Greetings.
And here I was thinking you were not willing to converse with me. Wednesday could almost hear the hurt tone in
his words. She blushed slightly, feeling
heated.
“Well—I mean, wouldn’t you feel strange talking to a teacup
puddle?” she demanded. “I really
shouldn’t be talking to you, since—well, what if my sisters came in? And then
I—I would have a lot to explain,” she stammered, cursing herself for being so
caught off guard by the display of emotion.
Now she could almost hear
amusement. Sorry, my lady, I didn’t mean it like that. Your sisters would question you about this,
no?
“Well, of course,”
Wednesday said, flustered. “Winter would
faint. And Willow would badger me for
hours.”
Willow? The word was written
quickly. She could imagine sudden alarm.
“Yes, she’d the second
eldest,” said Wednesday casually, though inside she was eager to know more
about why the Shadow King had picked Willow’s name out of her words. “Why, do
you know her?” she asked, purposefully keeping her tone innocent in case he
could hear the exact sound of her voice.
No…of course not. The name just strikes me as unique.
“Mine isn’t unique enough?”
she said, rather dismayed.
I did not mean it like that. You
are twisting my words.
“And you are accusing me,” Wednesday said playfully. She suddenly felt as though it was much
easier to talk to him, especially through the teacup connection. There was no creepy looking-at-him-but-not-seeing-his-face,
no dread that he might kill her out of the blue if he saw fit. In fact, this way, it was almost as if she
were writing letters, but without the cramping of the hand and with a much
faster reply. A new sensation, she found it fun and interesting. Then again, maybe it wasn’t wise to tease the
Shadow King as such. Wednesday tried to
keep a smile from tugging the corners of her lips up, in case, by some strange
chance, that he could see her expression as well.
I already said I didn’t mean it like that! Stop being mean. His
words were childish and funny, and Wednesday couldn’t hold back a smile.
“I’m being mean? Perhaps it’s that my sight is acting up, but
you should see your writing from my end,” she said, walking around the
circumference of the elliptical pool.
It is incredible that someone with a personality of your caliber would
be teasing me so, his words said mournfully. He really was good at projecting voice into
his writing to her, Wednesday thought, or maybe he was somehow putting the
feelings into her head.
“Oh, so now it’s a
‘personality of my caliber,’ I see…” She
scowled at the puddle. “Are you saying
that I have no personality? And don’t say that I’m twisting you words again!”
But this time you really are.
Take a listen at what you just said and tell me truthfully that you
didn’t twist my words.
“I didn’t,” she
protested. “It was you who originally
said that ‘personality of my caliber’ statement. Honestly.
Stop acting so petulant and admit that you’re making fun of me, and the
only reason I can’t tell why is because I can’t hear the expression in your
voice.” She didn’t add that she could
hear expression plainly in his writing, but who was to say that he was faking
that?
He
started to write more—You’re the one
being petulant, but all we are bantering right now exactly what we said to each
other half a minute—but Wednesday heard footsteps loudly approaching up the
stairs, and she knew she had no more time.
“I have to go,” she
whispered, and waited for the puddle to dissipate. But then she remembered that she had to wash
the teacup clean before it disappeared, and panic overwhelmed her. She fled to the bathroom and frantically
washed the cup as fast as she could. She
was just shutting off the water and grabbing a towel to dry it when she heard
the door to the bedroom open with a click.
Pause. Wednesday wondered if whoever had entered the
room had seen the puddle, and fervently hoped not, because they would think
that she had spilled medicine all over the floor.
Then, “Wednesday?” It was Willow’s voice.
Wednesday poked her head
out of the bathroom, scared to see if she had made it in time. Willow was staring at the floor…but there was
only empty space there. Wednesday almost
sighed in relief. She sidled out,
casually holding the teacup by her side in an effort to inconspicuously keep
Willow from noticing it, and crossed the room.
“What is it, Willow?” Then she realized that Willow was probably
wondering why there were dresses strewn over the suitcase and hurriedly added,
“Oh—I put some dresses in your suitcase so Mother wouldn’t have a seizure if
she came up and here and you hadn’t, um, you know—packed yet.”
Willow didn’t say thank
you, which was a typical Willow thing to do.
She was still staring at the patch of ground where the puddle had
been. It occurred to Wednesday that
Willow might have caught a glimpse of it as she came in, but as it wasn’t there
anymore, that Willow had probably decided that it was just a trick of her
imagination. Even so, Willow was
curiously watching the floor as though the puddle would appear again in her
vision.
Wednesday shifted
uncomfortably. “Willow?”
Willow didn’t say
anything. Eyebrows arched regally, she
swept past Wednesday and to her suitcase.
Wednesday looked at her carefully, trying to keep her face blank.
After more than half a
minute of awkward silence, where Wednesday idled about while casting glances at
Willow, Willow finally spoke up.
“Wednesday, have you ever
had a time where you hallucinated?”
Well, that’s a very obvious question, Wednesday thought dryly of
her own health. She was about to tell
Willow this when Willow scoffed like she had realized it was a stupid
question.
“Never mind,” Willow
said. She started sorting through the
wardrobe. “Make sure Winter doesn’t come
up here, Wednesday. If she sees me not
done packing yet she will be utterly displeased, even more than Mother.
Sometimes I think Mother likes Winter best.
As if there should be a choice between her and me!” She stuck her nose up in the air. Wednesday paused by the door, keeping one eye
out for the telltale dainty footsteps of Winter, but all was calm
downstairs. Willow continued packing,
ever so often studying a dress and putting it aside or cramming it in her
suitcase.
“If you stuff them like
that, you’ll put wrinkles in them,” Wednesday said timidly. Willow ignored her, per usual.
Wednesday craned her neck
and peered out of the sliver of the window she could see. Sunlight was dreamily pouring in and lighting
up the faint particles of dust floating around in the bright gold cone. If she concentrated hard, she could see a bit
of the front walk and even a corner of a rosebush that might lead to the
gardens. She saw a flicker in the corner
of her vision, and realized it was golden-red, actually Winter returning from a
brief respite from her daily work of preening herself to perfection. Winter was a vain soul. Wednesday had never once heard Willow worry
about her looks, perhaps because she was the most beautiful of all, but Winter
was an entirely different story.
Soon she heard the front
door open and close, and footsteps increasing in volume as they
approached. Wednesday returned her
attention to Willow. “Winter’s coming,”
she said calmly.
Willow threw a jasmine
dress on her bed, where the air-catching silk ballooned in a bell shape before
the skirts settled down over her covers.
“Well, she has nothing to complain about me,” she said haughtily, “my suitcase is full to the brim with
dresses and whatnot.” She frowned over a
pair of satin slippers. “Do you think
we’ll have any time to possibly dance there?”
“I suppose it’s pos—” Wednesday was cut off as Willow went on in
regular Willow fashion and broke in, “I suppose I will bring them just in case;
it never hurts to be prepared. Some of
these Corell cousins are girls, correct? Well, they must have some kind of
interest in dancing. I especially like
the sound of that younger girl—what’s her name again?”
“You mean Brie—?” Wednesday
began, but once again Willow went on as if she weren’t there. Wednesday was distracted, however, by the
entrance of a rosy-cheeked Winter, who had appeared in the doorway with her
hands on her hips.
“Are you all ready to load
your suitcases?” she demanded. Her green
eyes fell upon Wednesday’s closed suitcase, which looked as though it couldn’t
hold even a penny more, and ended staring at Willow’s open one still on the
bedspread. “Willow! You aren’t done yet?
And how many dresses are you putting in there?
We will only be there for three days! Have you packed a whole weeks’
worth?”
“No, I haven’t,” Willow
said staunchly, pink flaring up on her porcelain face. “And you shouldn’t be talking, Winter, I bet
my cup of tea that you’ve at least three bags.”
“Well—who cares if I do?”
said Winter, blushing. She pushed Willow
away. “Let me see that.”
And so it was that
Wednesday watched, half bemused and half amused, as Winter starting going
through Willow’s pack, tsking and tossing out unnecessary things. It really was amazing how much Willow had
managed to fit in that one little suitcase of hers, Wednesday thought, in
comparison to her own, with just a few dresses, the now very-treasure etiquette
book, and her copy of the family tree.
Father had assured her that the Corells would be happy to provide
anything they required. “They are family,
after all,” he had told her. Wednesday
felt reassured that she needn’t pack to the extremes Willow had, as she watched
Winter lift out an intricate hairband with ornate silver swirls. Since she had studied the tree so much, she
knew that the Corell children were Anna, Lance, Brielle, and Luka, and that
Anna and Brielle would most likely have anything they needed. Though, reflecting back on it, she hadn’t
known much about their qualities or personalities, but that was to be
discovered by experience, she supposed.
People did read others differently.
She watched Winter throw out a large, gauzy dress which Mother had
obviously supplied Willow with. Willow
snatched it out of the air before the fine material fell to the floor.
“Honestly,” Winter snapped
at Willow, “You would think you were vacating the house with the amount of
things you brought. A hairbrush? For heaven’s sakes, Willow, don’t you think
that either Anna or Brielle would have one to spare?”
Wednesday held her
breath. She knew that Willow was
perfectly capable of too-innocently asking Winter who either Anna or Brielle
were, which would set Winter off like a firecracker. Thankfully, Willow stayed silent, obviously
fuming as she carefully lay the gauzy dress in an extra space on her bedspread.
“Go put your suitcase in
the carriage, Wednesday, stop ogling me,” Winter said sharply. Wednesday jumped, feeling guilty. She quickly grabbed her suitcase and started
to carefully take it down the flight of stairs while moving swiftly so she didn’t
have to hear Winter rant at Willow about her awful items of choice. That was torture enough in itself.
Downstairs was empty. Mother nor Father was out and about, and
Wednesday wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d seen them in the gardens while lugging
her briefcase to the large carriage already waiting by the roadside. Up close, she could see it was a fine
carriage, perhaps not as fine as the one Mother liked to ride in for large
events, but spacious and comfortable nevertheless. Still, she was rather irritated as she hauled
the suitcase into the back. Carriage
rides always made her feel ill, and it was just terrible when the horses were
hot and smelled slick and tired. Paired
with the promise of a warm day, Wednesday gloomily thought of how sweaty the
horses would be. Regular horses had a musky enough stink, but with the heat and
the exhaustion of pulling the family across the province, they would smell
positively malodorous. She groaned and pushed the thought away, firmly focusing
on better prospects.
She paused for a moment,
catching her breath after throwing her suitcase in, and then hurried back up to
the house, holding her skirts up so they wouldn’t drag. She could hear Winter chiding even from down
the stairs, she thought crossly. Loudly
clattering up the steps to announce her presence, Wednesday arrived in the
room, where Winter continued to toss objects out, though at a significantly
slower rate.
“Look at this,” Winter said
to Willow, and even Wednesday’s eyes widened as Winter tugged out a huge,
well-creased ballgown with huge swoops of silk and looping curls of taffeta,
pearls flattening enormous poofs of gauze.
Winter snorted. “I’ll bet my
buttons that Mother was the one who gave this to you.”
“Well—so what if she did?”
Willow said, annoyed as she snatched the gown back. Wednesday had no idea how that fit in her
compact leathery case, since it was approximately twice the size, but she
supposed that those wrinkles hadn’t appeared out of thin air. Willow certainly knew how to maximize space.
Wednesday quickly recovered
her poise and went to sit on her bed as Winter continued, complaining all the
while. Wednesday was started to get fed
up with the way Winter constantly whined and spewed her streams of criticism,
and she could tell that it was starting to slowly irritate Willow, too.
“And you shouldn’t have put
so many gowns in your case, anyhow,” Winter continued, while Wednesday burned
to throw something at her. “They’re all
full of lines—”
“Winter, oh, do stop,
please,” Wednesday said furiously, flopping back on her bed and clasping a
pillow to her chest.
Winter didn’t even look up
as she frowned, examining the remaining contents of Willow’s now much slimmer
traveling pack. “I suggest you go for a
quick walk in the gardens, Wednesday,” she said, though not unkindly, tossing
out another dress to Willow. Willow
caught it, looking disgruntled. “It’s
going to be the last time you see them for a few days, and I know how fond you
are of it. But take a shawl—you can
borrow mine,” Winter called quickly after Wednesday as Wednesday grabbed the
thin shawl from the wardrobe and wrapped it around her shoulders, and flounced
back downstairs. Her dress had a train
in the back composed of several long loose strips fluttering in the back over
her crinolines, and they dragged on the steps as she skittered down the half
spiral, one pale hand on the banister for support. She spotted a glimpse of Father’s shoulder in
the study and swept past quietly, not wanting to disturb him. Father looked too immersed in his paper to
notice her going by anyhow. She took a
cut through the main room and trailed through the grass to reach the garden,
the cloth dragging and picking up loose pieces of yellowed grass. She was too lazy to hitch her skirts up again. The roses were forming tiny compact buds no
larger than spice drops. Wednesday bent
to see one better. Her movement made her
hair slip over her shoulder and the plait got snagged in the spiky thorns of a
bare rosebush. She realized, with a
start, that this was the place she had met the Shadow King face-to-face. Her
mind flitted to the black teacup and she briefly thought about bringing it with
her. That stupid teacup just wouldn’t
leave her mind, she though grumpily, and yanked her hair free with a
penetrating glare at the evil bush.
The rosebush waved.
“It’s very well for them to invite us, but can’t they have the decency to pave
their roads?” Willow snapped irritably as the carriage bounced again and
finally stopped short as the horses slowed and took a quick break to catch
their breath.
“Honestly, I feel as though
I’m being baked in the fireplace,” Winter complained while still retaining a
dainty air, looking through her reticule for a fan and flapping it in an effort
to keep cool. The sheer fabric stirred
the heavy and air, and Wednesday leaned in closer to Winter so she could also
revel in the relief that the fan offered, however little protection it
was. Even Mother looked flushed. Father stoically sat in his calm way,
occasionally ruffling his hair and shedding his coat and layers until he was
only in sleeves and a waistcoat. None of
them had expected the day to warm so suddenly.
In truth, they were traveling south, as the Corells lived farther down
in ______ than Wednesday and her family did, but only for a quarter league’s
length and certainly not enough space for the cool air to become a
furnace.
Wednesday absently twined
the window curtain around the rod so the window could let in a bit of air, but
it wasn’t much help. She could see outside, though. The horses were panting. Even their strongest buck was looking worn,
and the sun gleamed off the sweat glazing all of their flanks. They had paused on the side of a country
road, where few other carriages passed, and Wednesday was feeling ill from the
long trip. She turned away from the
window. “How much longer?” she asked
weakly. “There’s quite a stirring in my
stomach that does not bode well with the rest of my system.”
“Hang on to your queasiness
for a moment, Wednesday dear,” Mother said, also removing her fan and fanning
quickly in a ladylike way, her usually porcelain pace pink from the heat. “Just another quarter mile.”
Wednesday leaned over, hugging
her stomach and trying to fight away the sick in her stomach. She’d been dealing with the urge to dry heave
within ten minutes of the beginning of their journey, and it had not been a pleasant
sensation and was equally unpleasant now.
She had held it in quietly as the scenery changed from the neat suburban
settings of her home to the gray slate of the city, melting into dwindling
roads and meandering paths that quickly began to sprout trees all around,
mottling the ground. The flat paved
streets of her home had been replaced by bumpy gravel that was unforgiving
terrain towards their carriage wheels, and it didn’t exactly help
Wednesday. Soon the dirt had given way
to pine needles and an evergreen canopy, and then after that short passage more
rough gravel. Grass began to spring up
like a strange wild weed; Wednesday had never seen so much open, untrimmed
grass in one place. The flatter land
draped into contour slopes that overlapped and created waves of varying green
shades in the distance.
“Really,” Willow went on,
flinging her hair over her shoulder and clearing it from her skin in an attempt
to cool off, “I’ve been bumping along this annoying road, absolutely helpless
while it tosses me up and down like I’m in a river gorge, and I thought the
country was supposed to be a nice place to unwind!” She gave dissatisfied huff and sat back. “When those horses start up again…someone
should tell them they smell terrible. I
feel as though I’m about to faint from the stench of horse sweat. It’s worse than swine.” She wrinkled her delicate nose.
Mother looked out the
window. The horses were still taking a
rest, and one of them nosed the crisp grass.
“They’re more than exhausted, dear,” she said, retreating from the
window. “It’s understandable.”
“And yet when I’m
exhausted, it doesn’t mean that I have to perspire,” Willow said, though not
snappishly. “And even if I did perspire,
it wouldn’t smell quite so horrendous, I’m sure.”
“They are horses,” Wednesday reminded her, though her stomach agreed with
Willow.
“Hush now, stop
complaining,” Father admonished. “We’re
almost there, and our hosts are gracious…most of them.” He sounded a little dour. Wednesday knew that he’d met the Corells
before, and she wondered who was the exception.
Father usually got along with most everybody, and it fascinated her, in
a sort of horrific way, that someone would be haughty enough to not be decent,
or at the very least polite, to Father.
The carriage driver smacked
the horses lightly with the whip, and the carriage grudgingly started moving
again with the chilling sound of wheels grinding against the large pieces of
uneven dirt. Wednesday shuddered,
resisting the ill feeling rising in her throat.
Father was looking at her, concerned, but both Willow and Winter were
too hot and tired to notice. Mother was
frowning slightly, but appeared to have spaced out entirely. Wednesday closed her eyes, but the feeling
just became worse, so she opened them again and looked determinedly at a fixed
point on the horizon over some of the more faraway hills as they trundled
along. At some point Winter put away her
fan, her arm probably sore, and the heat seemed to shimmer in the air like
silken material. In truth, it wasn’t
that hot, but the girls had all dressed for semi-cold weather and were steaming
in their thick dresses. Wednesday dearly
wished that she hadn’t worn her dress with the most ruffles, because each layer
trapped the heat in and made a cage of torridity around her legs. At home she would probably have hitched her
skirts up, not minding the fuss Mother would have made about showing her ankles
and knees, but so close to the Corells she didn’t dare. She knew very well, of course, that none of
her hosts were about to come up in front on the carriage and peep in for this
very reason, but it made her paranoid all the same and she decided against
it. Besides, if she had done that, being
stuck in the carriage with Mother would almost certainly mean that a lecture
would have ensued, and Wednesday knew her two sisters would not appreciate that
on such a hot and boring day.
Wednesday was lost in
thoughts on this matter when the carriage slowed again. She blinked out of her momentary stupor and
saw that Winter had dozed off in a light slumber, that Willow was slipping down
in her seat with a tight frown on her face as she picked at her stockings,
Mother had taken out her own fan and was briskly fanning herself, and Father
was staring at the wall, apparently lost in deep thought. Now they all awoke from their various states
of boredom and poked their heads out the windows. Wednesday craned her neck so she could see the
outside just as the carriage pulled up to the hilltop.
“Wow—” All the girls gasped together in
synchronization as the carriage came over the crest of the hill and paused for
a moment to let them take in the grand scenery. Mother stopped fanning herself
and smiled as she looked out of the window, excitement sparkling in her
eyes. Even Father took it in, his
eyebrows raised.
When Wednesday had been
told that the Corells lived in the country, she had pictured a sort of charming
cottage or farmhouse with a large grassy pasture and lots of trees and shade,
with maybe a few horses, sheep, or such and such, the sort of things that she’d
seen on her way here. She had not
imagined this amazing picturesque landscape below her.
The Corells’ house was a
huge house made of red brick on two sides with thick, graceful green ivy
swirling up on end and wrapping around the corner of the house. There was a wraparound porch of polished
white wood with a screened gazebo stretched over the entire length to offer
protection from the sun. On another side
was a wall made of seashells and fragments of glittering crystalline rock
mortared together, giving it an ocean-like and breezy quality. The back of the house was constructed from
wide wood planks the same creamy shade as the porch floorboards, and a
semicircular window of shining stained glass forming a picture of a white swan wading
peacefully in pure blue water let in glimmering streams of golden sunlight that
complemented the window tints. The house
was roofed with smooth, pretty tiles that scalloped over each other like large
scales. Windows were placed on the sides
of the house, which was surrounded by an orchard of maple trees, majestically
swooping weeping willows, and various other green-leafed
trees. Wednesday looked a little harder
and spotted some small, colorful blebs against the foliage, nestled in leaves,
and she realized that the Corells must have owned some fruit trees. The trees eventually gave way to bushes and
then to rather abstract rows of waving flowers in bright colors, and a long
path wound its way around the front of the house and through the trees. Round the bend of the house Wednesday spotted
an elevated patio with a faded veranda and a courtyard that appeared to be set
up with mullioned glass tables and elegant wooden chairs.
The entire house was set in
a valley created by three surrounding hills of faint green that made the house
appear insignificant, but even from above Wednesday could see the grandeur, the
detail, the rendering that made the country home more than a simple dwelling.
“I had no idea….” Winter’s voice trailed off as she took in the
landscape, absolutely astonished. Then a
slow smile started to spread across her flushed face. “This is brilliant!”
“I don’t know how a family
could get such architecture here out in the country,” Mother murmured to
Father. Father smirked, replying, “You
would be surprised what old Damien Corell can do.”
Willow was staring out the
window, her face alive with anticipation.
She rested her elbows on the windowsill and folded her arms,
delighted. “I decided when I grow up, my
house must look exactly like this,” she declared imperiously. Wednesday rolled her eyes inwardly, but she
was too fascinated by the beauty of the large house to be truly irritated with
Willow.
Even from inside the
carriage Wednesday heard the carriage driver chuckle lightly. He gently smacked the horses again, and they
started down the moderate slope of the hill, taking care to not gather speed. The wind cooled Wednesday’s face, and she
enjoyed the quick respite from the stifling heat that had oppressed them all
day. Willow even went so far as to even
whoop out loud, resulting in a loud noisy hushing from Mother. Father merely smiled. He caught Wednesday’s eye, and Wednesday
grinned at him. She could hardly wait;
what an amazing place to stay!
