Ward of the White Worm

Train rides were, in all honesty, very boring.

One sat in their seat and would stare out of a window at a blurring rush of shapes, like a smearing water color that was left out in the rain. There was no music to entertain, the books were dry things of religion, history, or the natural world. The Lady’s Own had some interesting stories, but they also used big words that would tire the eyes of any child. It was quite a tragedy of levels that Olli found difficult to put into elegant words besides the deep restlessness of true boredom.

She did not even have the comfort of adults to bother. Miss Marsh was completely focused on her book, having taken to speaking very little after they had come aboard the train. Mister Burke was still deep asleep and Olli did not want to wake him up, he looked like he had not slept in weeks.

Theodore…

Theodore had sat himself down away from a table and close to a corner, his head was bent down and although it looks like he was asleep, Olli had crept up close enough to him to see he was reading a book while occasionally glancing back at the letter. Whatever the letter contained she did not know, but each time he looked at it his face switched between worry and deep thought. So Olli thought it would be best to not bother him.

This had left her with nothing to do but stare out of the window, listless, bored, and eventually the sun had sunken past the horizon and left everything dark.

There was a metallic sliding noise, and she heard the deep cheery voice say, “alright now children, go be friends! But do not be loud.”

The two waking adults sat up in their seats, and Theodore rose to his feet after hiding the letter between book pages. “Hello Bernard,” Theodore greeted the burly man who stood behind the three children. “Giving your mother and wife a bit of quiet right now?”

“Hoho! Well, that may be part of it,” the large man admitted with a hearty laugh. “But I thought that your Olli might also enjoy some company closer to her own age.” He spotted Olli, and his twinkling eyes settled on her. His face was largely dominated by his beard, and she could just barely make out the appearance of what seemed to be glowing root-like marks under his skin. He then strolled right up to her, did a dramatic bow until his head was lower than hers, then took her hand in his own warm big one. “I have not properly introduced myself! I am Baron Bernard de Mausargille, but you may call me… Uncle Bernie.”

Olli, somewhat confused by the action of her hand being held, decided the appropriate response was to hold his hand which felt massive against hers and shake it. “Hello!”

Bernard blinked, surprised, then gave another hearty laugh. “A strong grip! Theo, this girl of yours is going to be a regular tussler, I can tell!”

“What did she do?” Theodore asked, somewhat concerned. His eyes settled on Olli with a frown forming on his face.

“She took my hand like a grown man and gave it a good vigorous shake! Straight backed, like all Graef!” He then bowed again, before taking his leave to go direct his children to Olli. Then he looked at the book his friend held. “Ah, ‘La conspiration de l'enfant ébouillanté’!”

“Actually, Bernard I want to talk…”

The de Mausargille siblings stood in front of Olli who felt suddenly rather warm as though a small fire was somewhere close to where the siblings stood. Rosa and Liliana were dressed alike in pink dresses with plain pinafores attached, although Rosa’s pinafore had rose patterns stitched on, and Liliana’s had lilies. Lucy stood with them, quiet and in a blue dress and a pinafore decorated only with faint droplet patterns sewn on.

Olli felt very plain in her own grey clothes and unadorned pinafore. There was not even a cute pattern on hers. She also had no idea of what to say to the other children. She could feel Lucy continually nervously glancing at her, while the other two stared directly at her.

It was Rosa who broke the silence.

“Have you ever heard of VAMPIRES?” She asked.

“What?”

“Vampires are monsters who drink blood,” Rosa explained, “they come out of people who don’t accept Pilgrimage and they hunt down people and drink their blood! We were just reading stories about them.”

“Mama says they aren’t appropriate,” Liliana added, “she says they’re too scary for us!”

“They are scary!” Lucy shivered.

“No they aren’t,” Rosa huffed. “You’re scared of everything!”

“I just… I just like my blood inside of me! You read them with that spooky voice,” Lucy whined softly, “please do not scare Olli with them. Wh-what would Uncle Theo say?”

“Uncle Theo would say that vampires aren’t scary,” Rosa put her hands on her hips and looked at Olli. “Do you think vampires are scary?”

“I don’t know…” Olli did not want to be swept up in the argument.

“Well, have you read any vampire stories?” Liliana asked. “You can’t know a lot of vampires unless you read some of the books.”

“Like Gutsgrave, that’s easy to read. It has pictures!”

“Children!” Bernard’s voice carried a stern but gentle warning from across the train carriage. Rosa and Liliana shrank down a little while glancing over at their father who had returned to quietly talking to Theodore. Olli took the moment to look to Miss Marsh, who had gone back to reading.

“Th… the ball,” Lucy said. “That lady, she was very mean.”

Liliana took a deep breath, “that mean lady! Mama said she’s extremely rude! She once sat down at Mama’s pew in church.”

“I don’t like her,” Rosa agreed, before getting close to Olli. She radiated warmth, although if from anger or from the layers of dress, Olli could not say. “If she’s mean to you again, then tell Uncle Theo! He’ll put her in his place! He can eat her.”

Olli’s eyes widened, “eat her!?”

“Yes,” Liliana agreed.

“Do not tell Olli nonsense,” Theodore warned. “My eyes may be bad, but I can hear you all quite well.”

“Morris fell,” Lucy muttered.

The three girls turned their attention to Lucy, who was shyly looking down at her feet with her hands held behind her back.

“Huh? When?” Rosa asked.

“During the ball, he ran away when Olli’s governess talked to him. After the ball, he was down the hall by himself and went to the verandah.” Lucy mumbled, moving her hands now to twiddle her fingers together while still looking down at her feet. “He was by himself so I asked him to be nice, and then he said he would not so… I pushed him.” Then she looked up at Olli. Her eyes were a blazing gold, like a burning fire that threatened to push past fragile glass. “He fell.”

“Lucy, you can’t do that,” Rosa whispered hurriedly. “You will get in trouble!”

“He deserved it. Rotten people deserve to fall,” Lucy muttered, more hurriedly, still staring at Olli who felt transfixed by Lucy’s gaze. “If anyone is mean to you again, I’ll… I’ll help you.”

“But don’t push people,” Liliana’s own voice was quiet and she kept checking back on the adults to make sure they were not listening.

Lucy did not reply, instead she continued to stare at Olli, before suddenly straightening up, blushing, and looking away.

Olli on her part felt something cold on the back of her neck. It was not quite fear, but something else that she could not quite name. She took a step forward to Lucy and hesitantly put a hand on her arm. Lucy glanced up at her with wide shy eyes, but now they were a gentle blue, Olli was no longer sure if they had actually been gold in the first place, maybe it was from a lamp?

Miss Marsh’s soft thumping step came up to the small gaggle of children. She looked down at them sternly, “well, children left on their own often come to mischief. We will have a lesson on the Epistles,” she announced to them.

“Oh, but we don’t do lessons when on the train!” Rosa said. “Papa!”

Bernard turned his head to his daughter’s cry, “why, Rosa! This would be a good time to learn. Miss Marsh has the right of it!”

Olli and the siblings deflated, despaired, and then submitted to following Miss Marsh to her chair to listen to her lessons.