NOVEL WEB Chapter 11: Soot Stained Sheet
Hannah was happy that she was still being placed with Neila to go about doing work. Though Eda had said she'd done that so Hannah would have someone with experience at the house whilst she was still new, the fox had a feeling that being put with a maid that wasn’t upset by her presence would help discourage those who were upset from saying or doing anything about it. Anna was really the only member of staff that came to mind, though from breakfast this morning it was still clear some weren’t comfortable with her stance here.
“Be careful not to stir up too much soot or coal dust in here especially,” Neila said as the pair worked to both stoke the fire in the room. “The carpets in here are really hard to get soot out of for some reason, so make sure the sheet is all good.”
Hannah nodded in acknowledgment as she made sure the sheet they set out over the carpet was truly covering it. Admittedly Hannah knew how to properly stoke a fire without stirring up soot and dust thanks to a good number of beatings, but she still appreciated the advice. Not many humans were willing to help a slave in doing things properly, or at least that was Hannah’s experience. Most of the humans she had worked for eagerly waited for an opportunity to punish her for not having done something properly. Neila was truly kind to her.
“Can I ask a question?” the human asked, turning to look at Hannah. The fox nodded, a little surprised it had taken this long for Neila to work up the courage to ask anything. “What was it like where you lived before?”
That wasn’t the kind of question Hannah had been expecting. At least not this soon, she had figured that it would mostly be about her not human features and knowledge. In truth, the vixen did her best not to think about her home anymore. The feelings of longing and heartache were often too much for her to handle… There was however, a part of her accepted that she would never see her home again and that she needed to let it go.
“It was nice,” Hannah finally said after a minute. “I lived in a small village. Not small enough that you knew everyone, but enough that you knew most.”
“Village? So you had buildings?” Neila looked surprised.
“Of course there were buildings. Plenty of homes, shops and such. I worked at the schoolhouse next to the library with three other teachers. It was a rather small school.”
“You had a library?” Hannah nodded. “Wait, so did most of you know how to read?”
Hannah was getting a little confused now. She had told everyone that she was a teacher last night. That she taught reading and even owned books. Why was this suddenly all surprising to Neila? Shouldn’t it be common sense? “Most people did. Books were a lot of people's main pastime. Though our library was on the small side. My fiancée and I would go up to the city once a month or so and buy some books from there because there was a large selection.”
“Cities?! You had actual cities?”
“Yes.” The fox just got more confused the longer this conversation went on. “Why is this surprising?”
“I was taught you all live in wild packs and just roamed the wilds and attacked one another.”
The fox’s eyes went wide. Was that really what humans of the empire were taught about kin? That they were just wild savages? She felt angry disgust rise up inside her. She had almost forgotten what anger felt like. Of course that would be what humans thought of kin. If they were nothing but savages slavery wouldn’t seem so bad.
“Humans…” the fox quietly said with a very slight but still animalistic growl in her voice. She couldn’t remember the last time she actually growled. Regardless, she went back to work having nothing else she could kindly say about this revelation. Neila stayed quiet seeing that Hannah was clearly not happy at the moment.
It wasn’t until they were almost done that Neila spoke up again. “Fiancé?” she asked suddenly as if she suddenly remembered that Hannah had said that.
Hannah’s movements paused as memories flooded her mind. Gray hair, soft ears, wagging shaggy tail… “Don’t… Please…”
There was a long pause that lasted all the way till stoking the fire in the next room. Once deep into the process Neila asked, “How long have you been a slave?”
“I was taken a little over seven years ago now.”
“Seven years…” Neila repeated quietly. “Wouldn’t you have been a teen?”
Hannah paused her stoking and gave Neila a strange look. “I was twenty-three when it happened.”
“Twenty-three?! You’re thirty?!” The burnette stopped her work and openly stared at the fox.
“Yes. I did say I was a schoolteacher and engaged. I couldn’t have done all that and still been a teen.”
“What the hell are you two going on about,” Anna said, stepping into the room. A scowl was already on her face even before her eyes landed on Hannah. “Are you not done yet?”
“We’re almost done, but Hannah’s thirty!” Neila blurted out clearly not able to hold it in.
“What?” The maid’s eyes looked over the fox with scrutiny. “You can be punished for lying like that, fox,” the blonde said, crossing her arms.
“I am thirty though. I actually turn thirty-one in two months.” Both the humans just stared at her in disbelief. Hannah knew she looked young, which her height didn’t help with, but she didn’t think she looked that young for her actual age to be a shock.
“Whatever you say, I’m going to tell Ms. Eda that you’re obviously lying to us. So you better hurry up and finish or your punishment will be worse,” Anna said as she hurried out of the room before Hannah could say anything.
Hannah just stared at the open door not sure what to make of this. She wasn’t lying about her age. Why would she even lie about her age? It’s not like she could retire as a slave or anything like that. Still she felt a sting in her heart at the thought of punishment. It most certainly wouldn’t be the first time she was punished for telling the truth.
“And I thought the lady looked young for her age.”
The words broke the fox out of those slowly spiraling thoughts of punishment. She thought of her Mistress and felt inside her that she would never punish Hannah for telling the truth. She had only ever been kind. It took a little longer for Hannah to realize what Neila had said. “How old is Mistress?”
“Mistress?”
Hannah managed to only blush a tiny bit. “Lady Hayward asked me to call her Mistress instead of lady.”
“Oh, alright,” Neila said, clearly thinking no more of it. “Lady Hayward is thirty-one.”
“Really?” the fox had assumed she was probably in her early to mid twenties, not that she really had put much thought into that. She just hadn’t assumed Rayne would have been older than her, though it wasn’t by much at all.
The other maid laughed lightly. “Really. I had thought she was younger too, but not as young as I thought you were.”
The conversation fell out again as the two worked to finish the room, but as they were done, Neila spoke again, “Now we can go ahead and have a quick cup of tea before getting to setting up the library.”
“There's a library?” Hannah asked with wide eyes. She had already seen a number of bookshelves in the manor, but was there really an entire library somewhere in here? Sure she had heard about rich people having them but she had honestly thought it was an exaggerator. Like calling your bookshelf at home your personal library.
Neila nodded and sighed. “There is and it's always such a pain to clean. There are so many shelves that need to be dusted constantly, and I absolutely hate having to climb up those ladders. The one on the second floor really scares me.” She shivered at the thought.
“There's a second floor to the library?” Now Hannah was shocked. The library in her village didn’t even have a second floor. Neila just nodded and Hannah started to feel a little excited. She was going to be allowed in a library again, though she probably wasn’t allowed to really touch any of the books other than to clean. “What I wouldn’t give to read again.”
Neila looked up at Hannah. “Oh we’re allowed to read books from the library.” Hannah’s eyes went wide as she stared at Neila. “Did no one tell you this?” The vixen shook her head. “We just have to write when and what book we’re taking out in a ledger. We used to have a librarian that would come in and take care of things every week, but he got caught stealing some of the expensive books. Mr. Williams takes care of it when he has time.”
Hannah just continued to stare as Neila finished up the work. She could read books again. She had an entire library to pick from too. She felt her tail start to wag at the thought and excitedly went back to work. The quicker they got it done the faster she could get to the library. She thought about asking to skip tea but thought better of it. Neila was all too happy to take lost of short breaks throughout the day, and Hannah couldn’t blame her. Back at the bakery the only breaks she had were sleep. Now she could take breaks and have a cup of tea at the same time. It was like she was living in a dream world.
The pair quickly finished and started to make their way out of the room only to be stopped by the youngest Hayward child walking in. “My lord,” Niela said, giving a quick curtsy that Hannah followed.
Kaden stood in the doorway and looked at the two maids, though his eyes lingered on Hannah far longer than Neila. Hannah felt her ears flatten against her head under his stare and a tightness grew in her chest. With the looks and anger he had sent her way earlier and what Rayne had told her last night, Hannah didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“What are you doing here?” Kaden asked, turning to Neila, though his eyes didn’t leave Hannah.
“We were tending to the fire. We had just finished and were about to leave, my lord. Sorry to intrude.” The nervousness in Neila’s voice was clear to all. Hannah wasn’t sure if it was because she also wasn’t fond of Kaden or if Neila wasn’t used to interacting with the family. For all Hannah knew this could be Neila’s first time ever speaking to a member of the family.
By the grace of the goddess, Kaden’s gaze left Hannah and went to Neila. “Then be off already.” Though he said this, the young lord made no move to step out of the only door to the room.
There were a few seconds of awkwardness where Kaden clearly expected them to leave but wouldn’t step aside. Finally Neila bravely spoke up. “You are standing in the doorway, my lord.”
Kaden groaned and rolled his eyes before stepping aside to let them out. Both of them quickly rushed for the door with heads down. Neila went first and Hannah went to follow, only to be stopped by Kaden stepping in her way again. There was a tense moment where Hannah’s eyes went up and met his. It felt like her heart might stop with all the things she could see in his gray eyes. She knew the look of someone who thought nothing of her but disgust. A look that clearly told her he didn’t see her as a person but an object. Even then the worst part was hints of lust in his eyes that wandered over her body that made her feel sick to her stomach.
All of a sudden Hannah’s mind could only think about her mistress and how they spent the last two nights. The feeling of Rayne’s hands on her ears. The gentle affectionate touch of someone who actually thought of her as another person.
“You might be smart,” the soon to be man said with an impressive amount of disdain, “but you’re still just an animal. Remember that fox.”
Hannah didn’t reply, not that Kaden even wanted one because he just pushed past her. Of course he gave her a shove as he did and Hannah felt her claw reflexively come out. She had long ago learned to keep her claws in as a slave and this was the first time in a while they had acted out of reflex. Hannah didn’t give it much thought as she rushed out of the room, what she did give thought was that she heard him mutter, “You’ll be mine,” as she left.
“What was that about?” Neila asked as the pair scurried down the hall.
“I’m smarter than him,” Hannah said blatantly. “And I don’t think he likes it.” Neila looked at Hannah with wide-eyes before snorting out a rather loud laugh through her nose. The sound of it made Hannah giggle.
“You shouldn’t say such things,” the other maid said with a giggle of her own. “Even if it is true.” That made her laugh again.
Hannah found herself joining on the laugh, and tried to hide it behind her hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed openly. It felt so good to laugh again and to have someone to laugh with.
Neila took a glance at Hannah laughing and did a double take at the hand covering Hannah’s laughing mouth. “Are those claws?”
The fox paused her laughing and noticed that her claws were still out. “Sorry,” she said and quickly retracted them.
“Ah!” Neila yelped with a squeamish look on her face. “They move? Does that hurt?”
“No,” Hannah said, a little confused. “Why would it hurt?” She flexed her hand a few times making them extend and retract.
Neila shivered as she watched. Though she clearly didn’t like it, the other maid couldn’t look away. “Why do you have claws? Do all foxes have claws?”
“All kin have claws, not just foxes.”
Neila raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ve never seen a beastkin with claws.”
“Humans normally file or cut them off,” the fox said quietly. She could see Neila’s expression fall. Neila was kind, but like Mistress she wasn’t well versed on kin. “You haven’t met many kin before have you, Neila?” Hannah naturally called the other maid by her name without any honorifics even though she most certainly should use them.
The burnette looked away and blushed. “N-no, not really. A few families had slaves where I grew up but I wasn’t really allowed to talk to them… You're the first I’ve really talked to.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I think my mom would lose her mind if she knew I was talking to a beastkin like any other person.”
“Does your mom not like kin?” Hannah regretted asking that as it came out her mouth.
“She—” Neila cut herself off and blushed even harder. She shook her head shyly. Hannah didn’t know what to say in response so she just stayed quiet. “Oh fiddlesticks,” Neila said looking around them. “I got distracted and walked us to the library.” She sighed. “I really wanted some tea…”
The excitement Hannah had felt a little while ago came back as she looked up at the set of double doors before them. She pushed that excitement down a little. “Do you want to go back and have a break first?” Hannah asked. She was more than used to long continuous work, but she could understand that for the paid staff work was a lot more lenient.
The human shook her head. “No, we might as well get it down with.” She sighed again and walked forward pushing open the door.
Hannah followed behind, feeling her tail give a gentle wag in anticipation and the library did not disappoint. It was a large room, far larger than any of the other rooms Hannah had cleaned up until this point, and nearly every surface was covered in books. Then Hannah looked up. The room was in fact two stories tall. A metal spiral staircase led up to the second floor that consisted of a large, thick, and ornate balcony that circled the whole room. Both floors were also so tall that there were ladders on rails so people could reach the higher shelves. The fox had to admit that she could see the second floor ladder being scary.
From the center of the ceiling hung a massive chandelier lit with magical lights that danced across the crystal structure. That wasn’t the only light in the room as there was a massive fireplace on one of the walls. Chairs and settees littered the room, all with fluffy looking pillows and some even had blankets. There were also a few small tables and even a desk.
This was Hannah’s heaven.
The other maid sighed and just walked in as if the room wasn’t that impressive and it slightly offended the fox. Hannah wasn’t going to say anything though. “Alright, let's tend to the fire and start cleaning,” she said walking towards the fire.
Hannah looked around again as she followed. “I… I don’t know if we will be able to clean the whole library before dinner,” she said quietly. This wasn’t the kind of job you only gave to two people. At least no unless it wasn’t expected to be finished for at least two days.
Neila laughed. “Oh, no. We just need to tidy up and clean a little around the fire and settee there.” She pointed to the one closest to the fire. “Lord Hamish likes to spend his time after dinner sitting on that settee reading. At least on most nights when there aren't other things going on.” She started to set out the sheet in front of the fire. Neila then paused for a second and looked back to see Hannah still looking around at all of the books. “If we do it fast enough we can have time to look for a book if you want, and still have time to sit before dinner.”
The vixen felt her tail start to wag far harder than it had when she had just heard that she could read a book. When had she suddenly become comfortable wagging her tail openly again? Admittedly it was hidden under a dress but it was probably still painfully obvious. “I would really like that.”
