HIM
As the last bits of winter finally melt into spring, it seems Limonskiy only gets more and more icy towards me. Though, to be fair, I'm not a fan of her either right now.
Tiny green buds bloom on the previously barren trees, and wild flowers spring up in clusters all over the estate. Overlapping bird calls can be heard at all hours, and almost every night we are serenaded to sleep by the pitter-patter of rain on the roof.
Tonight is no different, except that the pitter-patter is more of a downpour. Sheet after sheet of rain pounds against the small window of the mending room where Adah and I are slaving away. Mr. Stephens was on a rampage today, nitpicking every little thing, so now we sit in the mending room, polishing, mending, cleaning—making everything perfect. Everyone else has gone up to bed, and the clock ticks later and later as we struggle on.
Though we usually talk endlessly, we are both quiet now, exhaustion a heavy blanket over us. It is only because we are both quiet that we hear it.
A knock.
Lots of people come to the servants' entrance, but none so late, and none who would knock so lightly, as if afraid to be caught.
Without saying a word, Adah and I walk on silent feet towards the door, on high alert. I prepare for the worst—a drunk lost on his way home from the bar, an unruly solicitor, even a robber—but when we open the door, we are greeted by a woman, soaked to the bone with rain.
She flinches back from the light, from us. Her thin grey hair is plastered to her face, her small frame hunched against the onslaught of water. Adah and I react at the same time, putting our hands up, placating.
"Hello, it's awfully wet out there," Adah says, voice soft but choppy on the Anglorian words. "Would you like to come inside?"
The woman looks hesitant, but a particularly brutal wave of rain makes her run inside, pressing herself against the wall and sliding slowly down to the floor. Her breaths come in ragged pants, her body still hunched at an odd angle.
We quickly close the door, Adah rushing to her side.
"Are you alright?" The woman barely nods, seeming beyond speech. I cannot tell if she is crying or if the drops streaking down her face are rain.
I speak for the first time, very softly so as to not startle her. "There is a fire in the next room, and we can get you blankets," I say, watching her convulse with shivers.
"And something to eat," Adah adds, also noticing the thinness of her frame and the hollowness of her cheeks.
We manage to coax her to the servants' hall, but she refuses to remove any of her wet clothing, so we just put the blankets on over them. She seems torn, staring into the fire with an intense look on her face, only pausing to eye us suspiciously, like we might report her at any second. But when Adah comes in with a heaping plate of meat, cheese and other things she found in the larder, the woman bursts into tears.
"Oh my dear, it's alright." Adah soothes, slipping in between Slovakranian and Anglorian. I stand a bit awkwardly. I want to reach out, to comfort her like Adah is, but I do not know the source of this woman's sorrow. I don't want to scare her, so I hang back, cursing my large frame.
"You have to help us." The woman finally chokes out—practically hyperventilating. I worry that we are being too loud, that someone might hear, but I am more worried about what she said. Adah notices too.
"Us? Is there someone else out there?"
The woman shakes her head, blubbering. That's when she finally shifts from her hunched position, exposing a small baby wrapped in blankets and held to her chest to keep warm.
Adah gasps, both of us at a loss as the woman continues to sob.
Adah reaches forward, taking some of the wet blankets from around the woman and the baby and replacing them with fresh, warm ones. It's a miracle that the baby isn't crying, although that too could be a bad sign.
"Let me take it," Adah says gently, slipping her arms around the baby. The woman's arms seem stiff from the cold and she resists for a moment but gives in. When I hand her the plate, she starts eating immediately, and with such intensity I know she hasn't eaten in a while.
She visibly improves as the fire dries her and she gets some food in her stomach, but she never takes her eyes off her baby, sleeping soundly in Adah's arms.
"I lost my husband in the war," she says to no one in particular. War? That means she must not be from here.
"I came here for a better life—for us." Adah nods, both of us barely breathing as we listen. The woman's eyes well up with tears once again.
"But it is different here. So hard." Tears streak down her aged face. She looks to the baby. "My little Charlie."
Her shoulders slump, her hands shaking with packed dirt under her broken nails.
It's at the sound of his name that Charlie starts to stir, finally realizing that the arms that hold him do not belong to his mother. I barely have time to react, to spit out a warning, before the baby opens his little mouth and lets out a loud wail. We all scramble, his mother trying to calm him down and shush him, and Adah and I frantically looking around to make sure no one is here, though it is pointless, because a voice breaks through the din, and my stomach sinks.
"What on Earth is going on here?"