by Eden Reign
“Are you considering the governess position?” Manda asked as she rubbed the hard bar of lye soap over her arms.
Caty looked up from the fireplace. A well-worn book lay open in front of her, but she closed it and put it aside. “I heard the employer was a firemage from one of the High Families. Even so, I don’t like the sound of it.”
“A firemage ‘fallen into a less exalted life,’ according to Hurley.” Manda’s hands paused in her hair where she worked to make a lather.
“It sounds like Hurley’s sugar-coating a poor situation.” Caty began to braid her thick tresses. “Too bad. I’ve been thinking you should try for a position. You’ve been here at Peachtree too long. Mrs. Hurley uses you ridiculously, and you need to get away from her. But this new governess position doesn’t seem like a peach you’d want to pluck.”
“Would Hurley even allow me to take a position?” Manda asked, balking at imagined hindrances on the road to possible freedom. “Though she dislikes me so, perhaps she’d be happy to be rid of me.” She asked the question that had been nagging at her mind when she’d earlier considered leaving. “But how could I leave you all here?”
Caty’s hands paused in the middle of her braid. “Manda, you can’t leave your adventures waiting until you’ve seen everyone else’s journeys through. Who’s the youngest girl here? Are you going to wait until she’s grown to start making your own way? By then, Mrs. Hurley will have forty more orphans.”
Manda stared at her friend, recognizing the truth in her words. Truth hurt, sometimes. She returned her fingers to her hair and finished lathering the suds through the dark curls. “Who is the fullmage, the one with the governess position? You say he’s from a High Family?”
“Well, when I went to take Mrs. Hurley her chocolate this evening, I asked her. She said the new position is offered by Master Coal.”
Manda dropped her arms with a splash into the tub. “Henry Coal, of Coalhaven Plantation? Mercy!” Manda had heard he was a vehement defender of fullmage privileges, a leader of the Brotherhood. If he ever found out I’m a halfmage…
“No, Henry Coal was killed at the war’s end. It’s his son who is hiring a governess.”
Manda swallowed. “You mean—Major Jackson Coal, the Leveler rebel?” She’d heard of him, most particularly of his stormy split with his Brotherhood father before the start of the War of the Rebellion.
“The Levelers have all been pardoned, even most of the officers. But can you imagine working for a Leveler? I’d never feel safe. What if he planned treasons right in the house while you were there? And you know what’s worse, Manda?”
“What?”
“You heard Hurley. The child has special needs. The one the governess is to look after.”
Manda’s eyebrows arched. “Yes, I heard. But what does that mean?”
Caty rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Manda, you’re such an innocent! It means it’s probably a halfbreed. Given that the master is hiring the governess in this hushed-up way, with secret communications to Hurley, not even showing his face to look at the candidates himself, I can’t imagine it could be anything else.”
Chills ran down Manda’s spine. The way Caty had said halfbreed with so much hatred stunned and paralyzed her.
Caty blinked at her. “What’s the matter?”
Manda shook her head. “A halfmage? Surely not. It’s too dangerous. No fullmage would harbor a halfmage child, especially not a Leveler who was just given amnesty after his rebellion. The Brotherhood will be watching his every move, hoping to find fault with him.”
Caty shrugged. She picked up the book she’d been reading and banked the coals in the fireplace. “I don’t know. Everyone says this Jackson Coal is a reckless and dangerous man. With a temper to boot! And the halfmage segregation laws are changing; that was part of the resolution of the war. So I don’t think it could be anything else—the child must be a halfmage. Truly, Manda, you couldn’t pay me enough to take that job, and I don’t envy whoever gets picked for it either. You know if no one applies, Hurley will coerce someone. She prides herself on filling every position offered.” She shuddered. “I hear Master Coal’s an absolute fright.”
Manda stared at the banked fire long after Caty had gone to bed. She sank into the water, submerging her head, feeling the lathered soap float from her curls like so much chaff in the wind. She stood, curling her fingers around the rag she used to dry herself. If Caty was any indication, no one would apply for this job. That meant if she applied, she’d be certain to get it. A halfmage child? A Leveler rebel? Were either of them really so awful?
Caty’s derisive words, instead of pushing Manda away from the idea, encouraged her. A child, a halfmage child, could use Manda’s unique help. And anything would be better than scrubbing pots and ironing sheets at Peachtree Orphanage for years on end. Anything.
Manda’s stomach twisted as she approached the schoolroom after lunch the next day. Enid had taken Manda’s dishwashing shift in the pantry, and Manda had tamed her curls and straightened her work-worn dimity dress, hanging her apron on the peg behind the pantry door.
Manda surveyed the room from the doorway. The teachers sat on chairs under the windows. The small girls fidgeted in their desks, their eyes wide. The oldest, those who could apply for the position, stood in a line along the wall.
Mrs. Hurley stood on the opposite side of the room, pacing. Not a single candidate had yet applied for the position, and it was clear from Hurley’s bright cheeks and sparking eyes that she was annoyed. Hurley would hate to disappoint a Master of a High Family, but legally, she could not force girls into positions against their wills.
Mrs. Hurley turned her attention to the older girls along the wall. “Girls, this position is grander than we first thought. Instead of working on a piddling farm outside of Chalton, the governess will go to live at Coalhaven Plantation itself! I received word from the Master yesterday evening. Surely one of you will step up to this offer? Think!”
Not a single girl even twitched. They all kept their gazes down, their hands resolutely folded together in front of them.
Hurley snorted. “Will you make me appoint someone then?” The vicious lilt in her voice flayed Manda’s nerves. The other girls flinched.
Manda frowned. Hurley was threatening to break the law, the old witch. All to save her unblemished record of always filling the position. Anger flushed Manda’s cheeks.
“No, ma’am.” Manda stepped into the room and dropped a quick curtsey. “I’ve come to apply for the position of governess at Coalhaven.”
Indrawn breaths sounded throughout the room. The girls on the wall glanced hopefully from Manda to Mrs. Hurley and back again. Manda gave them a reassuring smile.
Silence settled over the gathering, highlighting the sharp clicks of Mrs. Hurley's best boots as she tread the floorboards toward Manda. She stopped when she was within spitting distance; her steel-gray eyes snapped like newly-pounded metal fresh from the blacksmith. “Manda Rivers,” she said softly, a smirk twisting her mouth. “Well, well.” She crossed her arms as if in challenge.
Flustered, Manda filled the quiet with words, as she often did. “I am good with children, Mrs. Hurley; you know how much I’ve done to transition the younger children to their lives here as orphans. And you’re aware—” she glanced around the room, hoping to keep her secret from the larger crowd, but knowing Mrs. Hurley needed this nudge, if only because Hurley would hate to agree to anything she, Manda Rivers, proposed, “—of my past and its particular alignment with this position. You cannot deny that I am qualified.”
Mrs. Hurley walked to the front of the room, her expression thoughtful. “Yours is an interesting application, Miss Rivers. The child does have special needs.”
“The halfbreed child,” someone murmured from the back of the room.
Manda’s jaw tightened. She refused to back away from the door, standing her ground.
“Yes,” Mrs. Hurley pursed her lips. “A halfbreed child, likely the man’s bas
tard. Such a child should never have been born.”
“Such a child needs love and attention, the same as every child!” Manda cried, stepping forward. “Such a child deserves someone who can love and care for him, who can be a mother to him since he has lost his own, who can help him find his way in this world. How can you deny any child these very necessary things? If you do, you doom him to become the monster you fear that he will one day turn out to be! It isn’t halfmage magic that creates monsters, it’s neglect and abuse and lack of love.” Manda swallowed, fearing she’d gone too far.
But Mrs. Hurley said nothing. No trace of a smile softened her face, no sign of weakening lit her gaze. She appraised Manda, her eyes narrowed. Manda had nearly given up hope of gaining the position when Mrs. Hurley’s lips cracked open, and her voice cut the silence. “Well. I think this a very suitable match. Miss Rivers, the half-nutskin, will look after the halfbreed bastard child. Yes. It will do. You have won your case. Master Coal’s hired carriage will collect his new governess at two of the clock. You will be in that carriage, and I truly hope that you will never darken these doors again, Manda Rivers.”
Hurley turned for the exit, brushing by Manda on her way out. Her footsteps faded along the passageway outside.
A clap sounded, and then another, until Manda was the center of a large group of applauding girls. The older ones surrounded her.
“Manda, thank you so very much! I was so frightened to go live at Coalhaven with a former Leveler,” one said.
Another shuddered. “To think of teaching a halfbreed. Manda, while I thank you, I pity you. Please, be careful. They can injure people with their rogue magic.”
Caty grabbed Manda in a quick hug. “Oh, I’ll miss you, Manda. You’re so brave. You’ll write to us, won’t you?”
The teachers even lined up to shake Manda’s hand. Miss Fernn was the last of the group to offer her congratulations. After a moment of hesitation, she wrapped Manda in a hug before pulling back, misty-eyed. “Of course it should be you, Manda,” she said tremulously. “You’re the only one of us equipped to deal with a truly difficult child.”
The smile on Manda’s face grew increasingly fixed and fake as each person spoke their thoughts. How they would despise her if they knew the truth.
Manda Rivers, the halfbreed half-nutskin.
Manda Rivers, the daughter of a banished fullmage mother and a mundane father, not even wed in the eyes of the law.
How they would cast the stones if they found out. So her pasted smile grew wider and brighter with every hug and handshake, and Manda grew angrier and sadder with every comment about the halfbreed she was going to teach.
When she turned at last for her room to pack her things, her neck ached with tension and furious tears burned her eyes. She loved the orphanage girls, but she despised how blind they were, how easily swayed by the opinions of others, how they feared what they did not know or understand.
She turned the knob of the dormitory room when Caty’s breathy voice called after her. “Manda!” The younger girl hurried down the hall toward her, Miss Fernn trailing behind her.
Manda paused, waiting. She wanted to get away, to leave them all. She had only a little time to ready herself for the carriage. “I need to pack,” she said too brightly, hoping to stall further conversation about her skills with difficult children—with halfbreeds. She feared that Miss Fernn suspected what she’d done with Frances Lily’s broken leg. “I must be ready when the carriage arrives.”
Caty stopped in front of Manda. “I know, but I asked Miss Fernn, and we wanted to give you this. To make a start.” She dropped a small bag into Manda’s hand.
Manda opened it. A few fullmarks were wrapped inside. Her eyes widened. “Oh, Caty, Miss Fernn, that’s not—”
“Hush,” Miss Fernn said. “You’ll have a wealthy master, but this will be your very own; something to get you started. You don’t know what you might need as a governess for a High Family, for society events and such. You might need hoops, new dresses, corsets, that sort of thing. But don’t tell Hurley we gave you money. She would have kittens.”
Manda couldn’t repress a grin. “She’ll never find out from me. Thank you both. Truly.” Her eyes filled with grateful tears. Though their remarks about halfbreeds still stung, her friends’ generosity touched her heart.
“Coalhaven Plantation!” Caty said as she wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. “What an adventure, Manda!”
“Is it a great distance away?” Manda wondered if she would ever come back to visit.
“Oh, not really. I hear it’s about two hours by carriage, and faster if you ride, but you’ll not be able to leave, what with your duties,” Caty said with a teary laugh. “You’ll make new friends. Coalhaven grows indigo, and not just any indigo. Magical grade, which makes your new master very rich. No doubt he has more than enough funds to buy as many girls as he likes. I wonder how much he paid for you.”
Manda shrugged to hide a shiver. “Everyone’s finances have changed since the war, even fullmages’.” The idea of working for a man willing to pay money for a person as a commodity chilled her, though it was no different from the situation she had endured for seven years at the orphanage. She sighed. At least this would be different.
When the others had gone, Manda packed her few possessions in the same carpetbag she’d brought to the orphanage as a girl of eleven. She’d entered the door, trailing in the footsteps of her stepfather, her fingers pinching the bag’s handle in a death-grip. Mrs. Hurley hadn’t been kind that day, either. She had her stepfather’s casual mention of her halfmage status to thank for that, and Manda’s obviously darker Nanu skin.
Manda picked up a small daguerreotype of her mother in a cheap wood frame. It had rested on her shelf every night for the last seven years. Gently, she kissed it. “I’ve a new life now, Mother,” she murmured as she placed the picture carefully in the bag, wrapped in her only handkerchief. “I’m going to go make a difference in someone’s life. If you think of me, send me the Good Waters.” The common Nanu blessing spilled from Manda’s full heart.
By two of the clock, though, all tears were gone, and the only emotions Manda could gather as she stepped into the hired carriage with her carpet bag, waving goodbye to Caty and Enid and the other girls, was an exotic sense of excitement and adventure and, perhaps, a tinge of foreboding.
Chapter 5
Jackson
The village of Blue Hill sat on the banks of the Ash River, north of Savana. Jackson rode—to make good time and because he assumed that Lige’s son would prefer the freedom of horseback to the confines of a carriage. Lige had been a rider of the first order.
The small valley was carpeted in vivid green grass, fresh shoots springing up due to the warmer conditions of the past week. Behind the village and into the hills beyond, the empty fields stretched over the land. In a matter of weeks, those plantations would fill those fields with seedling indigo and tobacco and cotton.
Jackson’s brow wrinkled as he considered the situation at Coalhaven. He’d be lucky if he could organize his affairs in time for the planting there, given the upheaval his father’s death had caused among staff and croppers alike. Letters of resignation had arrived from Coalhaven’s overseer, butler, and cook this morning. The Brotherhood loyalists had not wished to work for a “Leveler rebel.” The airmage housemaid, Abigail Windham, had stayed on, as well as the groundskeeper and the stable-master. All the rest had gone. Jackson sighed. He hoped the new staff he had hired were as good as they’d seemed. Fortunately the war’s end had left a glut of qualified candidates seeking work. The man-of-all-work, Mr. Stone, had been a particular find. Jackson resolved to promote him to the position of butler.
The riverbank was lined with small cottages. Mrs. Tailor’s letter had reported that hers was the second cottage on the right, on the main road near the greengrocer’s stall.
Jackson steered his gelding down the hill toward the main road. Blue Hill was almost entirely mundane. The
mundanes of Arcana preferred to live in their own communities. And why wouldn’t they? Jackson thought wearily. Given how poorly most fullmages treated mundanes, and given how few rights the Articles of Arcana accorded those without magic, it wasn’t any wonder they chose to live apart from the oppressive and powerful fullmages if they could.
The offspring of the rare union between mage and mundane could not exist fully in either world, and most halfmages were forced to hide their talents and blend with mundane society. A mundane town had been the logical place for Lige to hide his halfmage son. But—and this was a large exception—if Grey did use magic, it could cause a stir in this place where no one else had any elemental power. A big stir. The boy was not safe in Blue Hill.
Jackson urged Beau into a trot. The cottage in question was painted white and had a neglected kitchen garden around the side.
Jackson hitched his horse to the nearest post and stepped to the door of the cottage. He felt outsized. The place was tiny; the low-hanging porch eaves barely cleared his head.
The door flew open before he’d even knocked twice.
“You aren’t my papa.”
Jackson froze, his knocking hand still in the air. The boy was the spitting image of his father at the same age, but for the color of his eyes. Unruly brown curls tumbled around a sharp little face with snapping grey-blue eyes, wide-set and large. He had Lige’s slender, tall build, too, looking as though he’d been pulled from both ends. He wore a ratty pair of trousers two inches too short, a linen shirt that had seen better days, and a vest with pockets that bulged and squirmed.
“That’s true,” Jackson said. “I’m not.”
“I’m not going with you, no matter what she says.” A frog peeped from the boy’s vest pocket before leaping out and hopping across the painted, chipped porch boards for freedom.