And in return, I was safe, hidden away in the Lavender Room, a cozy guest room done in a dozen shades of purple. I was given Mrs. Winter’s very own castoff gown to sleep in and was buried under a mountain of soft, sweet-smelling sheets when a strange tapping noise brought me out of the deepest sleep I’d had in years.
I sprang up from bed, dizzy and confused, and scrambled for the door. I’d overslept. I never overslept. It was my job to brew my father’s morning coffee to make sure he was… alert enough to work. We would be late for work. Why didn’t Mary wake me? Why didn’t Mum wake me? Mrs. Winter didn’t tolerate tardiness. And it was Tuesday, silver-polishing day. If we started late, we would be buffing forks all afternoon.
THWUMP.
My face bounced off of a wall and went sprawling across a delicately worked lavender floral rug.
I groaned, rubbing my nose where it had collided with the purple silk wallpaper. I’d run smack into a wall, right where the door would be in my tiny bedroom at home.
“Ow,” I muttered, thunking my head back onto the carpet.
The tapping sounded again, more insistent this time. From the hallway, I heard Mrs. Winter saying, “The usual response is to say, ‘Come in.’”
I rushed to the door, combing my fingers through my hair and slipping a pink shawl embroidered with warming charm runes around my shoulders.
I opened the door. Mrs. Winter wore a wry expression and one of her favorite morning gowns, peacock blue silk with lace trim. She was carrying a silver breakfast tray. In all my years at the house, I didn’t think I’d ever seen her actually carrying anything, except a lace fan or a fancy handbag.
Clearly irritated with my silent staring, Mrs. Winter said, “I can see our etiquette lessons will have to begin at the very beginning. As I mentioned, Lesson One, a lady does not leave her mouth hanging open as if she hopes to catch stray insects. Lesson Two, when someone arrives at your bedroom door with your breakfast, the polite response is to invite them in and say ‘thank you.’”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you whispering?” she asked, setting the tray on a little mahogany side table situated in front of the double doors leading to the balcony.
I frowned and whispered, “I’m not sure.”
Mrs. Winter’s lips quirked as she lifted the tray dome to reveal a small pot of tea, blueberry scones, a huge rasher of crispy bacon, coddled eggs, toast and a double portion of porridge. This was more food than I normally ate for breakfast in a week. My father, even with his hollow leg and love of Mum’s scones, couldn’t have put away this much food.
I hopped out of bed and dropped a curtsy, because I seemed to be physically incapable of not curtsying while in Mrs. Winter’s presence.
“No, no, your curtsy is all wrong, dear,” Mrs. Winter sighed, mimicking my quick bob. “That is the subservient pose of a housemaid. You have to carry yourself as someone who always been assured of her high-standing, of her self-worth. A little poise, please.”
I stared at her. I had no idea what it was like to move with poise. I barely, grasped how to move without tripping over my own feet.
Mrs. Winter sighed and demonstrated a much more dignified curtsy, dropping smoothly until it looked like she was almost kneeling and then rising without pushing her way back up. And then, to my total shock, she sang a little song that sounded like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
“Curtsy curtsy, ankles strong,
Your chin is up,
Your neck is long.”
There was no possible way for me to respond to this little performance that would not end in my being tossed out of the house for my blatant disrespect. And giggling.
“Please, sit.” Mrs. Winter gestured to the chair. “Eat it all,”
“I’ve never had much of an appetite, ma’am,” I said, sitting as delicately as I could while Mrs. Winter snapped a white linen napkin open over my lap.
“A side effect of the suppressors, I am sure.” She tutted, while slathering butter on my toast. “Your appetite will return as you indulge in a richer diet.”
Suddenly, I was struck with images from a fairy tale told to Snipe children, the evil step-mother force-feeding Hansel to fatten him up for the feast before he was rescued by the good, caring Guardian witch. I shuddered, but dutifully shoved a strip of bacon into my mouth.
I moaned and stuffed more bacon between my lips. I knew that Guild Guardian families enjoyed better food. I’d helped Mum prepare a good portion of those rich dishes since I was seven years old. But we’d never been allowed more than a testing taste. Oh, we’d had occasional special treats – peppermint candies at Yule and sponge cakes on my birthdays – but meals at home were always utilitarian, meant to fuel us for the work we had to do.
“Is this what food is supposed to taste like?” I asked. “We never had anything like this at home.”
Mrs. Winter smirked as she stirred honey into my porridge. “Well, I suspect that your senses have been stunted by your daily medication.”
I frowned, feeling a dull stab of resentment for my mother, and then feeling immediately guilty for it.
“The suppressors put you out of balance,” she said. “Your magical life source was bottled up, depriving you of a sort of essential nutrition. It’s as if one of your organs was not functioning. How is your skin supposed to glow with health and vitality when your liver has failed?”
“It wouldn’t?” I guessed.
“Exactly,” she said, crossing to the small wardrobe, where she’d deposited a few hand-me-down gowns the night before. She removed a rose poplin gown and a sunny yellow silk and held them against my shoulders, one after the other, which made my eating bacon considerably more difficult. I changed tactics and buttered a scone.
“The yellow will work for now, I think, but it’s not your color. And neither is the pink. It washes you pale, terribly. Plums, blues, a few carefully selected shades of green, they will bring out the lovely silver quality in your eyes, I think. We’ll know more when Madame DuPont brings her samples to your fitting.”
My eyebrows lifted and a bite of scone nearly fell out of my open mouth. Charming.
“Madame DuPont? Your personal dressmaker is going to make gowns for me?”
“My dear, I do not think you grasp my commitment to this… project of ours. I will do everything in my power to help you assimilate into the circles in which we tread. I have just as much to lose as you do. I do not want you to simply survive in the Guardian community; I want you to thrive. I think you have great potential. You will be afforded every opportunity and luxury available to any member of this household.”
“Can I see my mother?” I asked. “I’m sure I’d behave better if I saw my mother.”
“Not at the moment. Your mother and sister have been restricted to the kitchen. Ruth and Martha will be taking over the other rooms for now. Should you try to enter the kitchen, you will find wards in place to keep you out. You will behave yourself either way.”
Wards were complicated magic, a protective barrier formed from a combination of charm-work and potions that could prevent entry to or even hide the existence of rooms. For Mrs. Winter to have constructed one around the kitchen meant she was quite serious about keeping me away.
“I have keyed this particular ward to your magical signature, dear, so you are the only one affected. Your sister and mother can move about the house freely, but they know better than to try to speak to you against my wishes.”
“How did you key it to my magic, when I’ve only done magic once?”
“Your magic is a part of your very being, Sarah. As I’ve told you, it’s part of your skin, your bones, your hair. All you need is the tiniest bit of that magic, and you can do all sorts of spells affecting that person. Why do you think Guardians are so careful to do their barbering at home?”
“And how did you get a lock of my hair?” I glanced back at the bed where I’d slept. “Did you snip off my hair while I was sleeping?
Is that something that proper ladies do?”
“If they can get away with it, yes,” Mrs. Winter said coolly as she offered me a linen napkin and gestured to my lips. I scrubbed at my mouth with it, making her frown. “Though I will admit most proper ladies’ hair-pulling runs along the lines of cutting remarks and social blacklisting.”
“I thought the whole purpose of your taking me in was that I would be able to spend time with my family.”
“Yes, but we don’t want you to become confused, now do we, my dear?”
In a rare show of defiance, I muttered, “Oh, yes, confusion would be completely out of the question.”
Mrs. Winter’s hand whipped out like a snake, grasping my jaw between her vice-like fingers and yanking my face to eye-level with her. “Do not mistake my efforts to make you comfortable for weakness. I will not tolerate disrespect or ingratitude. I am vital to your survival, not the other way around. And yes, your splashy debut has the potential to give me a boost of popularity in my social circles, but so would the right dress. It would be very easy for you to become more trouble than you’re worth. You so much as make a less than respectful facial expression towards me again, and I will turn you over to Guild enforcement myself, and let them figure out how best to take you apart and study you. Is that understood?”
I shrunk back and ducked my head, all defiance drained out of my system. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And while we’re on the subject, we must change your manner of speaking.”
I frowned. If anything, “my manner of speaking” was quite polished in comparison to some of my peers. Mum wouldn’t allow us to drop consonants or use “ain’t” when we meant “isn’t.” Foul language resulted in soap in our mouths. And my reading had given me an extensive vocabulary, mocked by Mary’s friends as “putting on airs.”
“First, when you’re asking for permission, you say, ‘May I?’ not, ‘Can I?’” she said. “And you should reduce the number of contractions you use. It may take less time to say ‘I’d’ or ‘I’m’ but their use makes you sound coarse.”
“I am coarse.” I held up my hands to show her my work-roughened palms.
“Yes, well, that does not mean you have to sound coarse.”
“Curtsy rhymes. Contractions. Color schemes.” I shook my head. “I’ll – I will never be able to remember it all. I will never be able to pass myself off as one of you.”
She brushed her hands over her skirt and took a deep breath, a neutral smile sliding into place. “Now, now I will not have any more of this self-defeating talk in my home. This is Raven’s Rest. Sniveling self-doubt has no place here. We start with the outside and work our way in. We will take this lump of clay and create a great work of art. You will be a great beauty, celebrated and sought after for your charm and talent. Soon, you will begin your lessons on comportment, etiquette and basic magical theory.” She smiled blithely, a shallow expression that barely crinkled her face. “For future reference, my dear, whenever you can’t find a proper or polite response to something, you simply say, ‘How lovely’ until you can determine the best course of conversation.”
Keeping my expression as bland as possible, I parroted, “How lovely.”
“A little less sarcasm in your tone, if you please. And we will have you ready for Miss Castwell’s in just a few weeks.”
“Miss Castwell’s!” I exclaimed. “Miss Castwell’s Institute for the Magical Instruction of Young Ladies?”
Miss Castwell’s was not some fancy finishing school where a girl learned how to embroider cushions, pair the right wines for dinner parties and conduct social terrorism. Mrs. Winter was going to send me to one of the best magical schools in the world, where the students also happened to learn about embroidery and social terrorism. Sarah Smith had missed almost half of her days at the Warren school because of illness, but she would have access to the most talented teachers and the most diverse library available to young magical English ladies.
I would finally get a full education. I’d done well in school, for as long as we were allowed to attend. What I lacked in formal instruction, Mr. Winter had made up for with his selections from the library. Maybe there was some bright spot to this mess, after all.
Mrs. Winter replied dryly, “Well, we are certainly not sending you to Miss Castwell’s Institute of Carpentry. But no one in the know would actually use its full name. In fact, girls from proper families refer to it as ‘Miss Castwell’s’ or simply, ‘school,’ as if there is only one school to refer to, because it is the only school that matters. Remember these little details, and you will move about our world as if you were born to it,” she assured me. “With the right tools and just a touch of audacity, even you will begin to believe that you were. And the first of those tools is a new name. From this moment, you will be Cassandra Reed. That is the only name you will answer to.”
“I like it, I think. It’s certainly fancier than Sarah. But why did you choose ‘Reed?’” I asked, unable to recall any Reed family with a connection to the Brandywines.
Mrs. Winter gave a small smile. “Reed Warblers are a common variety of cuckoos.”
I gave an indelicate snort. She’d named me for a type of bird that shoved eggs out of other birds’ nests and swapped in their own, forcing the parents to raise substitute offspring.
“And when I develop that touch of audacity you mentioned, will I be allowed to see my family?”
Mrs. Winter sighed, “Your condition at the moment is very delicate, Sarah. You’re fortunate that we found you when we did. I do not think it would be beneficial for you to see your family. It would only confuse you. For now, your family has been instructed not to speak to you, even if you approach them.”
I took a deep breath and tried to keep the annoyance from my tone. “How lovely.”
Mrs. Winter cleared her throat. “And on that note, you must adjust to calling me something other than, ‘ma’am.’ I know that an increased familiarity between the two of us could result in some… discomfort for both. But it’s more important to convince my peers not only that you belong in their class, but that you are a member of my family. I do not believe we will be able to accomplish this if you’re calling me ‘ma’am’ in that spineless manner. You will call me ‘Aunt Aneira’ or if a mischievous, though self-destructive, urge should strike, ‘Auntie.’”
I stared at her, my mouth hanging open. Mrs. Winter raised her eyebrow and stared at my mouth. I closed it quickly, clacking my teeth together. She added, “Now, after your breakfast, you may sit in the garden for an hour to take some fresh air.”
I nodded slowly. “Yes, ma’am.” I caught myself and pronounced the familial endearment as if it were a foreign word. “Yes, Aunt Aneira.”
4
Eavesdroppers Rarely Hear Good News
After the ordeal of strapping me into the yellow gown, it took a lot of help from Mrs. Winter to get me down the stairs and through the rear garden door. It would have been easier to lower me out of a window with a rope. But I now understand why little Guardian girls never seemed to scamper around at play. They couldn’t move.
Mrs. Winter led me through the grounds my father carefully cultivated, when he was sharp enough to focus on giving the Winters little islands of color on their rolling lawns. While Mrs. Winter gave Papa a design to follow, she never troubled herself with anything less than her precious magical specimens. Rounded beds of tall elegant irises in every shade, a statue of Morgana surrounded by a pool of delicate periwinkle, mixed rosebushes arranged so that their reds, pinks, oranges and yellows resembled a summer sunrise. Every bloom was well cared for. Every blade of grass was carefully tended by my father’s hands, but he was nowhere to be found.
Mrs. Winter steered me to a smooth stone bench beneath an arbor of wisteria. She’d arranged a table stacked with books, my mother’s still-warm strawberry tarts and a jug of milk. It was not lost on me that she was, in effect, serving me, though I certainly didn’t think the gesture came from kindness. She wanted to keep Mar
y and Mum away from me, just like she had no doubt directed my father away from the garden while I was here. I noticed that she lingered, on the edge of my vision, pretending to inspect her prized fairy roses until I nibbled at one of the tarts.
Mrs. Winter helped me arrange my skirts on the bench and opened what looked like a children’s book in my lap. I frowned at the cartoonish rendering of a Guardian child manipulating a dancing tin soldier.
“A Magical Primer for Children?” I asked. “But you said that the sort of magic I performed showed an advanced talent.”
She poured a tall mug of milk and pressed it into my hand. “Untutored and advanced. You must learn to control your power before you try anything else that requires finesse. That means that you will begin at the beginning.”
I frowned at the book. It felt like an insult, but I read, as instructed. Something in the gardens caught Mrs. Winter’s attention, and she crossed to the ornamental pond, leaving me to my reading.
A few moments later, a sleek songbird with jewel-bright blue-green feathers landed at the end of my bench. It twittered sweetly, hopping toward me with its little head cocked, a bright, black eye on the tarts. I thought I detected a glimmer of hope in its look. My lips twitching, I broke off a piece of tart and dipped it in the milk.
“You’re in luck. I happen to be in a generous mood,” I said and I dropped the soggy mass at its feet. The bird didn’t shy away. In fact, it skittered across the polished stone surface, bold as you please, and pecked at the milky crumbs without so much as a thank you.
“You’re a very entitled little bird.”
I read through the primer, ignoring the brightly colored, childish illustrations of a young witch and her orange tabby cat skipping across a meadow. The bird stayed at the end of the bench, pacing back and forth, eyeing the tarts. I sipped the milk and picked at the buttery pastries.
I relaxed against the curve of the stone bench. I could not remember the last time I simply sat in the sun and enjoyed a book. Explanations of magical babies being the result of moonbeams shining through the windowpanes of deserving magical couples weren’t particularly interesting, but it was pleasant to just sit and do nothing. Even on my days off, I was so busy with chores at our own home that I rarely had time for leisure until after dark. The heat and light felt good on my skin, even through the material of the dress. The relatively warm early autumn wind feathered over my cheeks and I realized that I could breathe deeply for the first time in as long as I could remember.
Changeling (Sorcery and Society Book 1) Page 4