Monday, April 10, 1922
Kathryn's bedroom,
2:54PM
Breath in.
Hold.
Breathe out.
Kathryn counted each beat, measuring her breathing the way Madam Dubois had taught her to as she wound down from her afternoon practice. While she did, she leaned to her left, reaching for her toes. The little girl was as methodical with her hamstring stretches as she was with everything else she partook in. Once expectations had been set, she didn't need constant oversight to get them done. She had never suffered the ill effects of failing to properly wind down, but in the classes that she shared with the others, Kathryn had seen firsthand the pain that could quickly creep into someone should they fail to work their muscles correctly.
She leaned to the left, inhaling deeply again.
It was one of the quieter days inside the castle. Both her mother and Mr. Maddox were gone to settle things with the new house. Benji was the natural first choice to 'keep an eye on her', but he had business with their uncle that took precedence over watching a little girl who wasn't likely to get up to much anyway.
Aunt Edith had gone out for the afternoon, too, for a playdate of some sort for Adira and Evander. Had no one said anything, Kathryn might only have noticed her mother's absence, but even then, she wouldn't think she needed to be watched. Her plans were already set. Ballet for an hour starting at 2, then a walk in the garden promptly at three for exactly half an hour. Winding down with a book until 4:30 then a shower. Julia promised to be back by 5, in time for them to listen to some radio before dinner.
Kathryn was content to be on her own, but everyone else was of a different opinion. With no one else available, Morgan had been drafted for babysitting duty.
She hardly noticed as the smooth and delicate melodies of Debussy's Clair de Lune filled the room. Kate couldn't say where Morgan had got off to or whether she'd remained throughout the lesson. Her mind was singular in nature, focused only on the task that was now coming to an end.
Pulling her legs together, Kate positioned them for a butterfly stretch.
She heard some shuffling out in the family parlour but ignored it as she inhaled again.
There's nothing left but
SILENCE
She hadn't been asked or even told so much as she had been informed.
Morgan had plans – vague ones at best, but plans nonetheless. Her journal had been glued to her hand for months now, and her quill had seen more action lately than it ever had in class or on homework. She'd finally gotten the hang of all of the writing too, which felt like something worth noting.
Watching Kate from the doorway, Morgan felt highly chaotic by comparison. The girl was always so reserved, so careful, so precise – everything that Morgan wasn't, and somehow everything that came naturally to her without any apparent effort.
At some point during the practice she'd drifted inside, settling into a chair near the door with her journal open on her lap. The classical music helped. It was the kind that softened the edges of a room, made it easy to sink into your own head and stay there longer than you probably should.
She'd been trying to write about the baby. About what it meant, about how she felt, and kept finding that she didn't have the right words yet, or maybe she had too many of them and couldn't untangle which ones were true. It was easier when she was angry about something. Anger had words. This was something quieter and harder to name, sitting somewhere in the space between excited and terrified and a grief she hadn't fully figured out how to hold yet.
Dear mum, at the top of the page, the way it always started. The rest was slower going today.
She looked up. Kate was stretching now, moving through each position with the same focused precision she brought to everything – the kind that made it clear she didn't need reminding, didn't need checking on, had probably mapped out the rest of her afternoon down to the minute. Morgan had known her only a few months and already that much was obvious.
What was also obvious, though Morgan hadn't put words to it even in the journal, was that Kate wore her composure the way Morgan wore her recklessness – like armor. Like something that had been necessary long enough that it stopped feeling like a choice.
She didn't linger on that thought. She looked back down at her journal and pressed her quill to the page again.
2:55
Kathryn rose quietly from her stretching mat. She crouched and carefully rolled it, tying the cloth band to hold it in place with deft and precise finger work. She then tapped it against the ground to even out both ends, leaving them perfectly flat. The practised motion took her no time despite the meticulous manner in which she worked. When she was done, she crossed the room to replace it in her closet.
2:56
The little girl moved over to the mirror, instinctively scowling at the fine strands of blonde hair that had come loose during her practice. She would address them in a moment. For now, Kathryn slipped out of her leotard and into a dress appropriate for her stroll through the garden. It was a light cotton day dress in a soft lavender colour with short flutter sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. This one had buttons at the front, shortening her work, and soon, she was before the mirror again.
Next, she pulled on her stark-white socks, folding them at exactly half a centimetre above her ankles; they were scallop-trimmed.
Worn feet slipped into her polished, black Mary Janes that she clasped closed.
The white cardigan was the last to go on, slipping seamlessly onto her shoulders.
2:58
A quick slip of the navy ribbon and her locks fell loose. Kathryn ran the brush along her hair exactly 15 times – a milder routine than the one for bed – before tying it all together again into its usual bun at the back of her head. The navy ribbon was replaced then with one of lavender.
3:00
Blue eyes glanced briefly at the mahogany clock above her worktable to confirm the time as she stepped away from the mirror.
It was time for her walk.
Kathryn walked by her new sister sitting in the chair, looking only long enough to ensure she wasn't abusing the furniture with bad practices. Satisfied she wouldn't be made late for her walk by having to broom the girl out of her chair for acting like she'd been raised by animals, Kate walked through the door that led back into the family's main parlour.
From there, she followed the corridor, able to find the garden with her eyes shut.
Morgan hadn’t meant to watch.
It started as a glance while Kate rose from her mat with the same deliberate fashion she’d brought to every other movement in the last hour. Hell, not just then – the entire time she’d known the girl. The mat was rolled, tied, and tapped, and Morgan found her quill had stopped without her even noticing.
She watched everything while she still held her quill, as if she was going to begin writing again at any moment. The dress, the socks folded perfectly even on both sides, the shoes, the cardigan. The perfect way Kate brushed her hair – Morgan hadn’t thought to count, but she would be surprised if the girl hadn’t. The ribbon matched the dress perfectly.
Once Kate walked past Morgan, she looked at the clock. It was three on the dot. The younger girl had given her the briefest glance – not unfriendly, not warm, just the particular look of someone taking inventory. Perhaps making sure everything was in its right place before moving on. Morgan wasn’t sure if she’d passed or simply hadn’t failed, and she found that she couldn’t quite decide how she felt about that unknown.
She blinked, watching her go.
After a moment, she closed her journal and rose from her seat. There was nothing left for her in this pristine room. She turned in the same direction as her new little sister had, following after her mostly out of curiosity. Was everything that she did so precise and perfect?
For Morgan, who was always full of chaos, the quiet calmness that surrounded Kate was fascinating.
The bright sun caused her to squint as she stepped outside, blinking the sudden light away. Kate was already moving through the garden with total purpose, like she had every path memorized and every minute accounted for. Morgan followed at a distance, hands loose at her sides, her journal and quill clutched in her left, no destination in particular in mind.
Kate had a route; Morgan had directions her feet were going.
She was just doing her job. That’s all this was.
Kathryn paused at the entrance to the garden, as she always did.
She liked to wait until the moment she arrived to choose the route she would take. It was her own means of adding a bit of 'controlled spontaneity' to what was otherwise a rigid routine. It kept the walks enjoyable, providing an air of mystery that was suitable for her delicate sensibilities. As a general rule, the little girl didn't like surprises. Anything that might cause her heart to flutter, her blood to run cold, her hairs to stand on end, or her breathing to shallow—anything that might provoke the equilibrium she carefully maintained was to be shunned.
Walking by the peonies instead of the oleanders for an afternoon was a refreshing deviation without sending her entire system into a frenzy.
Kathryn paused only long enough to consider the path that led to the centre of the gardens, oblivious to the company that trailed her. Perhaps not oblivious. Morgan wasn't doing much to mask her footsteps after all.
'Indifferent' was a better word.
The foxgloves and clematis were starting to bloom. She'd been meaning to have a look, and that afternoon seemed as good a time as any. Her course set in her mind, she stalked forward with her gloved hands clasped loosely behind her back. The path she took would take her by the roses. They were among her favourites and always a treat to linger by. Once, she'd found a robin just beneath the brush. Barely decomposed, it couldn't have been dead longer than that morning. Her mother had been the only one to display any interest in her find.
With some luck, she might find another. Julia was less inclined to entertain dead things as she entered the final stages of preparation for the baby, but Kathryn liked to think that if anyone would care about her finds, it would still be here.
The trail of ants caught her attention.
If there was one thing she'd learned, it was that where there were ants, there was likely to be something of interest. She followed them deeper, losing sight of the flowers for the sake of maintaining visual on the tiny insects. Her shoes crunched softly against the white gravel as she moved, announcing her presence in the silence of the garden.
There was a stirring inside her chest, subtle but tingling with each step she took. Anticipation built as she imagined what she might find and what her mother would teach her to do with it.
There's nothing left but
SILENCE
The garden was bigger than Morgan had expected. She had only been to the castle a couple of times, and most of the time she stayed near Benji. As she realized the size of it, she was not surprised. Anything smaller would honestly look silly next to such a large piece of architecture.
She followed at a distance, her hands loose at her sides, watching Kate move through it with the kind of certainty that suggested she had walked this exact path a hundred times before. Perhaps she had. That seemed like something the younger girl would do: memorize a garden, have a preferred route and a reason for it.
Morgan had no route, and no preference. She just followed.
When Kate paused at the entrance, Morgan slowed too, hanging back without fully stopping. She watched the younger girl consider something, though Morgan couldn’t tell what, and then set off again with total purpose.
Morgan trained after her through the roses, past the foxgloves that were just beginning to open. It was nice enough, she thought. She really wasn’t much of a flowers type of person. Her idea of nature was more along the lines of the Black Lake at dusk, or overturning rocks to see what lived underneath.
Then Kate turned.
Away from the path and away from the flowers, but toward something Morgan couldn’t immediately identify. She slowed further, watching more intently now. The younger girl’s attention had fixed on something low to the ground, something small and unplanned.
Morgan stopped completely.
She didn’t get any closer. But she watched. Properly. For the first time since they’d come outside.
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