Page 4 of House of Roots and Ruin
My heart quickened. My first real adventure!
I stood up quickly and my knee bumped against the edge of the vanity, jarring the taper candle. I caught it before it could clatter over, spilling its foul wax upon the marble tabletop. Every year, Annaleigh gave me a case of candles for my birthday. She had them made up especially for me, claiming I’d been fond of the scent as a child. It was a horrid mix of sea salt and sage, and as much as I detested it now, Camille made sure the candles were used, claiming them to be too extravagant of a gift to be stored away and forgotten.
“I should write her back at once,” I decided, turning to the little desk near the fireplace. I sat down, pulling out a sheet of parchment and my inkwell. A silver octopus, the Thaumas sigil, wrapped its arms around the container. My stationery was nowhere near as fine as either of the letters I’d received. Camille bought my supply from a shopkeeper in Astrea, made from thepulp of harvested kelp. It was grainy, with irregular blots of fibers, and had a slight tinge of green. It had always been more than suitable for my purposes—letters to my sisters, silly doodles for the twins or Artie—but I paused now, tracing the bumpy surface and wondering if I ought to find something nicer for my reply.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Hanna asked, busying herself with the tea cart. “You know your sister is going to have an opinion about that. About all of that.”
“I’m sure she’ll have many,” I said, setting pen to paper with a decisive flourish. The paper wasn’t important. The message was. “She usually does.”
Hanna brought a cup of cinnamon tea and leaned against the back of my chair, reading over my shoulder. I could feel her eyes on my neck like a physical weight. “Well?” she prompted.
“Well…” As I signed my name, the nib of my pen scratched the page, sounding deeply important. “I’m eighteen next week. An adult. Camille doesn’t get to decide absolutely everything in my life for me anymore. If these people—these kind and respectable people—want to invite me to their home, if they want to pay me to paint, then I’m all for it. I can’t live at my sister’s house forever.”
“It’s your home too,” Hanna reminded me. “It always has been.”
“Not exactly. Not since it became Camille’s. I don’t even recall what it was like before it was hers,” I admitted, though Hanna knew all that.
Most nights she’d tell me about my childhood, from the time before I could remember. We’d sit on the love seat, drinking tea, while she spun another story. I was her only charge atHighmoor—Marina, Elodie, and Artie had their own nursemaid, a much younger woman named Callabeth. Camille had confided to me once, after the twins were born, that she didn’t want them growing fond of Hanna, already so old and frail, and marring their childhood having to mourn her.
Looking back at our youth, it made sense, wanting to shield your children from the pain that had marked you. I was also more than happy to keep Hanna all to myself.
“Just think of how nice it will be without me here for a while,” I said with a false brightness. Whatwouldshe do to occupy her time? Camille had kept her on because of loyalty. Since my return to Highmoor, Hanna had only ever looked after me. Mercy and Honor had declared themselves too grown to need fussing over. I wondered if Hanna was hurt I’d leapt into this commission without talking it through with her. “You can kick up your feet and finally get around to that sampler you’ve been talking about.”
Hanna loved to sew, and her needlework had always been a source of pride for her, though I often kept her too busy to ever work on it.
“I’ll be back in no time,” I promised. “It’s not like it will be goodbye forever.”
She sniffed and turned back to the cart. “I suppose not. Now that your letter is all done, shall I tell you about the time Annaleigh snuck an army of sea turtles into the bathtub downstairs?”
“Sea turtles in the bathtub?” I echoed, following her over to my sitting area. I’d heard this story a dozen times before but always pretended as though it were the first. “Why on earth would she do a thing like that?”
“I think that’s everything, Mrs. Bennett,” Camille said, scanning her long list of supplies. Her fingers ticked over the last items, satisfied. My sister treated every rare shopping trip off Salten as if we were going on a yearlong expedition through jungles unknown.
“Oh, actually,” I said, looking over my small stack of items. “If you have any more of the large sketchbooks”—I pantomimed the size I was after—“I’d love to get another of those. And a pack of charcoal pencils, too, please.”
Camille nodded toward the shopkeeper. “Once you’ve tallied it all, Mr. Stammish will arrange for everything to be taken to our boat.”
With a quick bob of her head, Mrs. Bennett began a list of her own, writing up my sister’s invoice. Roland Stammish, Camille’s valet, stepped forward and soon they were deep in discussion about how to best pack all the boxes for transport to the marina.
“I’m famished,” I said, turning to Camille hopefully.
She studied a display of wooden toys in the shop window.When she picked up a little sailboat, I knew she was thinking of Artie. She hated leaving the children at home, but the twins had bickered all through breakfast. Elodie finally sought to end the argument by hurling a scone at her sister, but she’d missed the mark, striking a silver pitcher and splattering cream all across the table. Camille’s fury had been sudden and swift.
“Camille?” I prompted. “Lunch?”
“What?” she asked, drawing her attention away from the toy boat. “No, not today, I think. We ought to be heading back. Roland will be wanting to—”
“Please?” I begged, spinning a colorful disk. Small dolphin figurines leapt out of painted waves. “It’s been ages since we’ve had a meal together, just the two of us. We never do anything together.”
“We’re together here. Right now,” she pointed out. She replaced the boat back into the display and brushed her fingers.
My lips twisted, on the verge of pouting. I’d planned out exactly how to do this and she wasn’t going along as I’d envisioned. “There’s that tavern down the road. William says you always go there when you come to Astrea.”
“Well, yes,” she allowed. “They have a very good chowder.”
“That sounds wonderful. All this shopping has left me so hungry. Aren’t you?”
She glanced at the sparkling silver watch encircling her wrist. William had given it to her for an engagement gift before they were married, promising to always honor and respect the time she needed to run her domain. I suspected the only reason she’d wed him was that he was the only suitor to never challenge her authority. Her sigh wafted out like a slow leak. “I suppose we dohave the time. Mr. Stammish,” she said, raising her voice. “My sister and I will be at lunch. You’ll let us know when you’re ready to leave.”
