Ward of the White Worm

Henrietta slotted her last box onto the seat within the coach, using the same hand to push it far to the other side as her other hand clutched her umbrella. The rain had largely subsided into a mist-thin drizzle but she figured there was no reason to take any chances. She stood back from the coach and turned around to look back to the door. Servants were still scurrying about, loading up the last few bits of luggage on the other coach. Motzy came out from the door, holding a wicker basket as she dashed through the muddy drive-way to Henrietta.

The governess straightened up, moving the umbrella so that it would cover the elderly woman. “Motzy, I thought you were heading to Watshire?”

“Oh yes,” Motzy said, “but before all you trundle off to Stowell and then to the capital, I baked you all some treats to eat on your way up,” she handed the basket to Henrietta who had to do her best to steady the slight tremble in her arm from the weight and the heat that seeped through. “Please remember to eat well while in the capital, make sure you get Olli on her prayers, and watch over my lord please? When he is in th’ capital, he forgets himself a tad.”

“I do not believe it my place to tell his Lordship anything,” Henrietta said as she moved the wicker basket of food into the coach. “But I shall do my best to keep him well.”

Motzy gave her a smile, and with her wrinkles pulled there was a hint of a once beautiful face of warmth underneath now worn down by years and work. Then she added, “oh and being in Stowell, there is a chance you may meet my Charlotte!”

“Ah? Your daughter?”

“Yes, my eldest. She’s married to a man in the Finance Ministry,” she said. “Very nice young chap, but I never understand all his chatter! He accounts for each penny too. You’ll recognize Charlotte though. She got her father’s looks.”

Henrietta smiled, “well, I have not had the pleasure of seeing Mister Handler in person. Perhaps you could describe him?”

Motzy chuckled, her face now smiling more vaguely, secretively, “oh he was handsome once. Pale with hair the color of gold,” she said. “He’s about as craggy as a scathertree now.”

“Motzy!” Jane called from the doorway. “The plates! Do you have the keys to the plates?”

“Ah,” Motzy turned, “well, I better go help Jane finish locking up. Safe travels, Miss Marsh, may the Distant Gods keep a benevolent eye on you.” She wished earnestly, before going to the poor fretful Jane.

Olli appeared just as Jane and Motzy had vanished back into the manor. With her was Theodore, who was holding up his own umbrella with one hand and Olli’s hand in the other. Swathed in gentlemanly black, he looked somewhat akin to a starved crow as he walked down the steps with Olli to the coach. The softness of his face was hidden by the upturned collar of his heavy cloak and his hat. Olli herself was in a brown linen and wool dress, thickly wrapped up a shawl layered with wool with a stitched cotton cover to add a bit of decoration on it. She kept trying to scratch her stocking covered legs.

A ‘plip’ hit Henrietta’s umbrella, and then another one. The rain was returning. “Well, all is together is it not?” Theodore asked.

“Should we be setting out in this weather?” Henrietta asked, listening to the increased ‘plips’ of rain, she remembered how on the ride to the manor, the road had been nothing but dirt. She could not imagine the morass it would soon become.

“If we leave soon, we will be out of the forest before the path is a river,” Theodore replied. “So the sooner we leave, the better.”

Henrietta nodded, reaching down to take Olli’s free hand and with Thedore’s aid, helping the child into the coach. Henrietta then closed her umbrella quickly, ducking her head just as fast into the coach. As ungainly as it was, she used her right leg to brace herself on the step, both her hands now on the small iron bars on the sides of the door.

“Would you like help, Miss Marsh?” Theodore asked.

“Ah, no thank you my lord, your offer is gracious,” she said as she got herself into the confines of the coach. Despite the chill seeping into the coach from the cold air and rain, her face was burning and she nearly sat on the wicker basket.

“Olli, be a good child for Miss Marsh,” Theodore said. “I will see you both at the Inn.” He shut the door then, leaving the two alone within the confines of the coach.

It was a plush interior at least, surprisingly comfortable for transportation even if it was somewhat crowded by the few pieces of luggage that had not been lashed to the top of the coach. Olli sat across from her, looking out of the small window. “...There’s Mister Burke!” She said, pointing to a large shaggy black dog that meandered slowly past their coach, heading to Theodore’s. “He’s a grim, did you know?”

“Yes,” Henrietta said as she assumed the mantle of Governess Marsh again. “We do not say ‘did you know’, we say ‘are you aware’.”

“What’s different?”

“Familiarity,” Henrietta replied, raising her voice slightly over the sound of the steady light rain outside.

“What’s a grim?”

“You know of grims, but not what they are?” Henrietta questioned. Olli nodded, but refused to elaborate any further. Henrietta had come to recognize that when Olli would lean away with her hands in her lap, it would mean she was uninterested in answering questions and attempting to get her to do so would just lead to irritation for both of them. Since they would both be in the same coach together for the entire trip to Stowell, Henrietta decided to acquiesce to the child’s demand. “Grims are people who have been torn from the grace of the Distant Gods, and have been rebound by the desires of Others. In the Brynebourne they are called ‘Neighbors’. Since they treat humans as pets, when they release them they often are changed into animals, typically dogs. It takes time for a grim to remember how to regain a human form, I have heard.”

Olli’s eyes had widened, “why would they do that?” she whispered, before being jostled as the coach was finally on the move.

“No one can guess the whims of them, just as mortals have no right to guess the whims of the Distant Gods,” Henrietta explained patiently. “This is why you must never talk to strangers, or walk away from clear paths, or accept gifts from unknown sources.”

Olli’s eyes remained wide, and she was growing pale.

“Miss Olivia, have you eaten today?” Henrietta asked, realizing how early it was. She had her own cold breakfast brought up by Jane, but Olli had been with Motzy to pray in the little chapel of House Graef. She could not imagine Motzy would forget to feed Olli, but now seemed a good time to change the subject. She opened up the wicker basket and was embraced by the smell of bread and muffins, each carefully wrapped in paper.

“I want a muffin!” Olli declared.

“Say ‘May I please have a muffin, Miss Marsh’.”

Olli huffed, but still said, “may I please have a muffin, Miss Marsh?”

Henrietta, pleased, gave the girl a muffin while taking one for herself. Then she reached into her own box to pull out ‘Sally Stout’, the page she had left off at marked by a piece of lace. Sewing on uneven roads was ill-advised, and there was still plenty enough light to get some reading done. Olli had already been convinced it was a history book she read, so she had no fear of reading it in front of the child.