Ward of the White Worm

Sit up straight.

No slouching.

Say ‘thank you’ to everything offered, but only take it when given permission.

Do not ‘slurp’.

Do not laugh.

Do not speak.

These were the rules he proclaimed, and the rules she shrugged at. It was quickly becoming clear to Theodore that children were very confusing and prone to not being able to understand simple instructions unless repeated multiple times. It was also becoming clear to Olli that the last time Theodore had ever interacted with someone of her age was when he, himself, was that age.

Motzy of course tried her best to help. She had raised her own children and participates still in the rearing of her numerous grandchildren. But to her it was obvious Theodore had no head for children, and Olli had no head to listen to Theodore with. Olli, Motzy supposed, could be excused due to the pitiful past she had been subjected to, with a poorhouse as her prior home. But Theodore she felt had little excuse, but she kept that to herself and instead busied herself with repairing a few worn stitches in Theodore’s ever-fraying coat.

House Graef was not really a bustle of activity to prepare for its master’s trip out of the house. Certainly it would be several days if not two weeks that he, and Olli, would be gone. But the Earl of Brynebourne had never been known to travel in the many-servant splendour of say the Duke of Deerhart, or the Duchess of Wroth, or even his fellow Earl Bisby of Galeway. No the only thing that had truly changed was that there was an extra trunk packed with Olli’s clothes.

The liveried carriage was the main concern. It needed a new coat of paint and the coat of arms of Graef had to be redone as well. The specialists for both coat of arms painting and carriage painting lived in Paeth and took four days to reach the grand house due to some sort of issue in Paeth. It unfortunately meant that by the time they were to leave, the carriage still had a sharp scent of recently applied paint that had only recently dried.

But the appointed day to set off had arrived. At seven o’clock sharp, after a short breakfast meal (still within Frederick’s prescription for Olli now updated to include the decadence of a sliver of bacon and a lemon infused proprietary powder claimed to strengthen the blood), the duo along with Mister Burke and several footmen because as Motzy had suggested that the Greenes expected their guest to show up with some amount of pomp.

As disgusted as Theodore was by all the performative effort he was putting in for the Greenes, he still agreed. Olli, who did not understand just about anything of this situation besides Theodore’s distaste for it and that she was not allowed to put her elbows on the table, submitted to her fate of being pulled along and practically lifted up to get into the carriage. The trunks were lashed to the top, and at the four corners of the carriage on small ledges only a foot in length did four men in the rotting greens and decaying blacks of the Graef livery take their places.

The door was shut, and thus they were off. The team of four horses at the crack of a whip began to pull, the wheels squeaked, and then rattled.

Inside the confines it was relatively dark. Olli glanced over to Theodore who sat across from her, in a coat that seemed too big for his frame and his (in her opinion) silly tophat sitting beside him on a leather covered seat. His head was leaning against the window and his eyes looked half open, the light from the sun outside seemed to struggle to illuminate his face.

Olli herself looking outside to see trees going by, not at a rapid blur like in a car but still going by fast enough that if she tried to focus on any specific feature such as a flower or a person shaped rock leaning against a tree then it would quickly be out of sight. She looked back to Theodore, then remembered a number of their’s was missing. “Hey.”

Theodore did not stir.

“Hello?”

Theodore blinked and looked over at her. “Yes?”

“Where’s Mister Burke?” She asked. She waved her hands in vague directions inside the small compartment they were in, “he’s not here!”

“He’s outside,” Theodore replied softly as though he were just about to drift off to sleep.

“Outside?” Olli repeated, “on one of the thingies?”

“The what?”

“The thing the others are standing on!”

“Oh,” he stirred himself to sit up slightly, “no, he’s going ahead of us.”

Olli tipped her head to the side. She did not remember seeing a horse to ride or another carriage. “But why? How?”

“Even accounting for the Neighbors, the Scatherbone Forest is still home to many dangerous things. Wild beasts, lost souls, highwaymen, brigands, and other such concerns,” Theodore explained while turning his face down to his hat. His eyebrows rose slightly, “oh, I forgot a hat box.”

“What’s Mister Burke doing?” Olli asked, slightly irritated the other part of her question was not answered.

“Running ahead of us,” Theodore said. “To ward off or discourage anything that might come at us.” Olli tried to imagine the shivering Mister Burke running ahead of the carriage, likely sweating and apologizing to any bug he accidentally stepped on. She laughed a little to herself while Theodore picked up his hat and turned it over in his hands a few times before sighing and setting it down on the seat again. “Perhaps I should buy a new one in Paeth.”

“Are we almost there yet?” She asked.

“Not even close, we’ll need to stop at the Inn on the Moor to get a fresh change of horses, then we-”

“When’s that?”

“In another six hours, don’t interrupt me,” Theodore spoke curtly. “The change of horses will take thirty minutes, so we will have enough time for a cold luncheon and coffee before we continue to Paeth.”

“And then…?”

“Then we will eat again, spend the night, and leave at eight in the morning the next day to continue to Saint Grey-on-Ceald.” Theodore concluded. He looked at Olli and then frowned as he saw the face she was making. “What?”

“This is going to take forever!” Olli declared in deep despair, running her fingers over her face as she leaned back against her seat, ready to sink to the floor were in not for her thick bundle of clothes holding her on top of the seat still.

“Fear not, Olivia,” Theodore said as he reached down to one small trunk that was in the carriage with them. “I have brought something for you to stay entertained with.”

“What?”

Theodore pulled out four heavy books, thickly bound in rich reds and dull greens, and set them in her hands. They were so weighty that she had to struggle to move them to the seat beside her without dropping them onto the floor. “I would start with the ‘Fabulistic Instructions On Religion And Proper Moral Growth For Young Children and Troublesome Penitents’.”