Winter came, and with it there was snow and festivals that my sisters and stepmother would always prepare months in advance for, but still, Anna stayed in bed. She refused to eat, or rather, seemed unable to on her own. She had been moved to my stepmother’s room so she could look out the window, my stepmother and Celia often taking turns sleeping beside her in case she needed help.
Because Anna was unwilling, or seemingly unable to do much of anything, even less on her own.
She was wasting away, and we were unable to do anything to help her, her spirit complete shattered from her meeting with the prince.
At the insistence of my stepmother, I agreed to stay with my cousin over the holidays, though I very much didn’t want to. I did badly want to see my cousin’s son, Alan, but the others in the household I would be just fine without seeing right now when I was especially stressed out.
After my stepmother had a long conversation with the baker’s mother, it was agreed that Mildred would travel will me so I could introduce her to Alan, who I very much thought would get along very well with my cousin’s son and who he would be very happy to become acquainted with.
Everyone was cautiously optimistic, but I had very good faith that it would be a good match-
If my cousin Alan and Mildred could handle Alan’s mother, that is.
I was exhausted from ensuring all my orders were taken care of so I could spend the holiday with my cousin, but I wasn’t able to sleep at all, not while we made the journey to where I had been raised, where I lived with my mother.
My poor mother.
My stomach tightened at the memory of her, losing her. I had always been so close to her, sitting with her while she worked, working with her in the extensive gardens.
As a man, I recognized that she was fragile. I knew it when I was a child, but I didn’t see it as a weakness, just that she wasn’t in very good health and couldn’t take much stress, and how little it took before she would retreat to bed for days much like my Anna was now.
The parallels, I realized, were what was causing me such significant stress.
My sisters had always been emotional and dramatic, with moods that swung violently and were almost entirely controlled by circumstance around them, but usually they sprung back up after they had been torn down...but Anna’s inability to recover reminded me to much of my mother’s decline, and it brought up all the bad memories of my boyhood.
Our house, a stately manor, had been build specifically for my mother by her father, a prince from a distant kingdom that had an affair with a maid that resulted in my mother. My mother had been moved here to our kingdom to be far removed from her father’s heirs and his wife, and while she had been given everything she wished as a girl, when her father died shortly before she turned sixteen, she was cut off and had to marry to sustain her household.
She had been engaged to a man when her father was alive, but when he died, she had been instead passed to the man’s cousin, my father, a merchant.
Of course, the passing of my mother only happened after her fiance had his fill, which had resulted in my birth.
But my mother did what she had to in order to keep her home, the only thing left from her father, and so she struggled my entire life to do just that. She became a seamstress like her mother became after my mother was born, she kept our home tidy and well decorated. We had a good staff – small – but kind and understanding. Patient. Over the years their numbers shrunk until it was just mother and myself when father was gone, but the staff lived in town and would visit and help when mother was in a blue mood.
Mostly though, my childhood was happy.
I adored my mother, and our home was safe and beautiful.
When my mother passed after a particularly long period of depression, having wasted away despite my best efforts, my father remarried and I had been worried that my new stepmother would destroy my home.
But Marge was not the sort. She was a little stern, but she kept much of the house the same – the furniture was changed, as were the rugs, but the hand painting work in particular my mother had done on the wall was kept, and she allowed me to keep my mother’s work room with all her designs and fabrics the same.
For a while, I was…
Guilty over how happy I was.
I loved my mother all the way to the marrow of my bones, but I had been her caretaker for so long – and it had been worth it, because I loved her – but when she passed, I no longer had to be anyone’s caretaker. Marge was capable. I helped with my sisters of course, but it was nothing like caring for my mother.
Every time Marge changed something little I would struggle and retreat to where my mother was buried just within eyesight of the home, but I recovered quickly when I realized that the changes were practical.
The same could not be said for my cousin’s wife.
My cousin, who was my actual father, had a wife – my actual stepmother – who was not a kind woman. I didn’t know how else to describe her, but there it was.
I don’t know what I had been hoping when my cousin bought my mother’s home and moved in with his new family, but a complete renovation had not been it. Gone were the hand painted touches around the house, the stained glass windows in the kitchen, the curtains my mother had hand embroidered.
My childhood home was gone, and that was never something I had entirely gotten over.
What made it worse was the fact that the rare occurrences I visited, my cousin’s wife seemed determined to give a thorough run down of every little thing she had changed since I last visit, and each was like a knife in the heart.
So I tried to limit my time with my cousin’s family, which was a pity because I very much loved and respected my half brother, Alan.
Though my blood father I could go without speaking to again.
But life wasn’t easy like that, and sometime you had to push through for the benefit of others, and this time, it was for the benefit of Alan and Mildred, I hoped, so put aside my own grief and focused on making the introduction and doing what I could to fan any embers between them.
There was a party going on when I arrived with Mildred, as was often the case when I visited. My stepmother I think liked to make sure I knew that my arrival was not an occasion make room in her busy schedule for – I was acknowledged when I arrived, but only briefly before she returned to her wanted guests.
But this worked for my benefit.
While she rushed back off to resume a conversation, I brought Mildred up to my cousin’s quarters, where he was resting in his study from yet another illness, Alan having always been a very sickly boy. It went as I hoped it would, and Alan and Mildred got along very well, but tonight, on the first night, I didn’t want to push it, so I escorted her to her room before I returned to sit with my cousin.
We talked briefly about Mildred, but I could tell there was something else he wished to discuss, so I followed him out onto his balcony.
Winter always put everything in the gardens to sleep, but since our home was sold, there wasn’t much left to sleep, all the vegetables and flowers having been removed for polished lawns. The only thing that remained the same was my mother’s grave, which I knew was only left alone because there was a massive fountain placed over it, an expensive fountain that was gifted to me by my mother’s brother, as if a stone sobbing maiden would help soften the blow of losing her.
But my mother’s half brother was…
Very into his fountains.
“There was a figure at the fountain a few weeks ago – a woman.” Alan said as he wrapped his coat around himself tightly, frowning as he looked out to where my mother’s fountain was covered in snow.
I frowned. “A local girl my mother dressed, perhaps?” I mumbled as I leaned against the railing, staring out at all the white.
“I doubt it – the woman was...otherworldly.” Alan struggled.
My frown deepened as I slowly lowered my chin, looking to him then. “How so?”
“It’s hard to explain – I only saw her out of the corner of my eyes, but she was like…” He sighed, frustrated, “It was like she was made entirely out of mist and gold.” He said with a shiver.
The winter air had not bothered me, but his words sent a cold chill through me.
My eyes narrowed to slits. “A fairy?” I drawled.
He gave a little nod, looking unsure, probably because he knew of my bitterness at being passed over by the fae that blessed all their Godchildren. “Perhaps your fairy godmother?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, because I would not say anything negative out loud about the fae.
But I would not say any kind words either.
I knew I had a fairy godmother, because the guarded over families, and my mother’s father had one, so she should have had the same, as I.
But I guess being the bastard child of a prince meant that this fairy in particular did not visit you, because I was never given my blessing.
I straightened my coat, sighing through my nose. “Let’s not speak of them further. It is of no concern to me what the fae do with the dead.” I said shortly, blinking hard as I stared out at the lonely fountain.
God, how I hated it.
I would have much preferred one with birds, my mother’s favorite, rather than a constant reminder of how miserable my mother had been.
The window behind us opened and my uncle came out with a tight look and a glass of wine in each hand, Alan turning from the balcony to return. I pretended not to hear my cousin scold his son about being out in the cold, having already been brutally addressed when I had tried to intervene between them before – my father and his actual heir – but when Alan wished me goodnight, I inclined my head and turned back to the fountain.
A part of me wished to see the fairy there.
Another part of me loathed the very thought of the sight.
I heard the window close behind me and I intended to stay a while longer and enjoy the winter night, but I was taken aback to see my cousin remained, oddly.
We did not talk much.
I don’t think he knew how to treat me, his bastard son. I don’t think he was a bad man, which is why I knew he struggled with his treatment of me over the years, and yet...he did nothing to rectify it.
Not really, anyway.
He awkwardly handed me one of the wine glasses and came to stand at the railing, complaining briefly about the cold.
“I know your intentions in bringing the little peasant girl, Elliot.” My cousin said then, lowly, and I turned to give him a blank stare. He didn’t not return my gaze.
He was looking at my mother’s fountain instead.
“I do not object- I trust your judgment – but I worry...she might not be strong enough for my wife.” He hesitated. “I would hate for your relationship with her to be strained further over this.”
“It is my hope that your son is strong enough to take on his mother, not Mildred,” I said then, my cousin snorting as he took a sip, “But you needn’t worry. Regardless of how things turn out with Mildred and Alan, my relationship with your wife can not deteriorate any further.” I said coolly, looking out as my cousin looked to me.
And then there was silence.
We enjoyed the night for a few long minutes, probably the most time I had spent with him in my entire life.
“I wanted to...express my condolences over the prince’s actions against your sister, Anna. I heard what had happened.”
Of course he had.
Everyone in the kingdom had.
“She is only the latest in a long line of hearts he has broken and scandals he has left in his wake. What a truly awful brat he is.” My cousin said before he took another sip, “The only reason he has been allowed to get away with his shit behavior is because your kingdom adored his mother.”
“The queen was much beloved, yes.” I said vaguely. She had died the same year my own mother had, that was as much as I remembered of her.
“his father is still very respected though, so no one will address the prince’s behavior...especially considering he isn’t the kingdom’s heir.”
“No, his half brother is their father’s heir,” I said shortly, blinking because I did not miss the parallels between the prince and myself. “That can always cause issue when the first born is passed over for the new wife’s child-”
“-He’s also very good looking, that always helps,” My cousin went on, ignoring my words. “Devilishly handsome.”
“Just devilish, I think.” I took a sip. “He is well over do for a proper dressing down.”
My cousin turned to stare at me for a long minute, considering me before he said “If someone really wanted to get even with him, the time to do it would be during his birthday ball.” I frowned at that, taking a sip as I eyed him. “Given how everyone goes there to get a drunk as possible, all it would really take is a sober mind, some determination and...perhaps a creative and well timed outfit change.” He said vaguely, tapping a finger against the railing. He seemed to hesitate before he added “A woman’s honor is everything and can ruin her entire prospects, Elliot, and someone that sullies such a thing...deserves punishment, if only just one in a small but memorable way.”
I stared at him, but he refused to meet my gaze then.
Instead he took a sip of his wine, looking out to my mother’s fountain before he said in a cherry tone “You know, you really are a fantastic tailor, Elliot. You deserve far more recognition than you get.”
“Thank you.” I said quietly as he patted my shoulder in passing to the balcony doors.
I stayed out in the cold as I finished my wine, chewing on my cousin’s words.
And how typical that was of my cousin, to put something like that in my head.
Because once it took seed, it was impossible to shake.
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