Chapter 1 – Home Again

Valentina woke to the creaking of the wooden floorboards beneath the bare feet of her sisters, who were already getting ready. The mattress she had shared with Adeline when Cecily had lived here felt strangely familiar and softer than her hard bed in Bridgewater, but also more confining.

“Ah, back in the bosom of the family,” Vyxara mocked in her head. “In the rather narrow bosom of the family, if you’ll forgive me for saying so. Now I understand better why you were so relieved to finally have a room to yourself in Bridgewater. Your nightly relaxation ritual is probably rather difficult here.”

Valentina suppressed a smile. In the past, she would certainly have turned bright red at such hints, but those days were over. “Shut up,” was all she could think as she watched her sister Adeline get dressed for the day.

The smell of chamomile smoke drifted into the bedroom. Their mother believed that burning herbs was healthy and would combat evil influences. She must have been up for hours already. In the past, Valentina had always been one of the first to get up to help with the milking. Now twelve-year-old Mabel had taken over this task. She could see her younger sister was already fully dressed, tying her long dark hair into a practical bun and squeezing it under a small hood.

The room had changed in her absence. Where her few books had once stood, there were now various sewing projects in different stages of completion. The wall above her old bed was decorated with dried flowers in what seemed like a desperate attempt by the two girls to add some beauty to the sparse room.

A thump announced Thomas even before his beaming curly head appeared in the doorway. “Val!” cried the two-year-old, rushing towards her bed. She caught him deftly and pulled him close.

“And what are you up to, my little one,” she murmured into his soft hair. The warm toddler smell awakened a surprisingly strong wave of affection in her.

“How touching,” Vyxara commented dryly. “It really is the perfect idiocy of country life. All that’s missing is the chirping of the birds and a ray of sunshine over a bright rainbow.”

As if the demon had conjured it up, a rooster cawed its morning crow outside. Thomas giggled and imitated the sound as he slid around on her bed.

“Valentina?” Adeline had laced up her shoes and looked at her uncertainly. “Are you coming? Mother must have breakfast ready.”

The smell of frying bacon now reached them more clearly. Valentina’s stomach growled. She had become accustomed to the rich, if not always very tasty, meals at Bridgewater. Here there would only be bread, butter, eggs and, if they were lucky, a bit bacon.

“Of course,” she said and swung her legs out of bed. Thomas clung to her neck. “Just let me get dressed real quick.”

She reached for the simple brown dress she had packed for her visit home. The expensive velvet red dress with the ornate embroidery, a gift from Innogen, remained carefully folded in her traveling bag. Palewood was not the place for it.

“You still smell a little of the fine perfume Innogen put on you for the duke’s banquet,” Vyxara remarked, amused, as Valentina dressed. “How… inappropriate for a peasant’s daughter.”

“Now you almost sound like Faustus,” she thought to Vyxara and quickly combed her long brown hair. In Bridgewater she liked to wear it braided, but here a simple plait would do.

“You’re right,” she heard Vyxara say thoughtfully in her mind, “I won’t tease you about it anymore.”

“Val!” Thomas whined impatiently and plucked at her dress. “Hungry!”

“In a minute, little one.” She lifted him up and placed him on her hip and by all the flames of the Martyr, he had gotten really heavy.

Every step here brought back memories for Valentina: this is where she used to run as a child when she could smell breakfast, there was that nasty floorboard that made a telltale sound when you tried to sneak into the kitchen at night.

“Nostalgia can be dangerous, little Weaver,” Vyxara warned. “It tempts us to romanticize the past and forget the present…”

Valentina tuned out what the demon was telling her as they entered the kitchen. The familiar sight of her mother at the stove, steam rising from a large pot, the worn table with the polished wooden benches and everything felt exactly as it used to and that was just to nice to give much for Vyxara’s bickering.

Then she noticed the subtle differences: a new scar on little Mabel’s hand, the deeper worry lines around her mother’s mouth, the new patches on the sleeves of Adeline’s best dress. She had never been so aware of her family’s poverty as she was now, after a year in Bridgewater.

“Here you are at last,” said her mother with a warm smile that couldn’t quite hide the tiredness in her eyes. “Sit down, Valentina. You must be hungry after the long journey yesterday.”

Thomas struggled in her arms, wanting to go to their mother. Valentina gently set him down and watched as he tottered on unsteady legs towards the kitchen door. For a moment, their eyes met with her mother’s and they smiled at each other. The sounds and smells of the awakening farm came through the open window. The mooing of the two cows wanting to be milked, the distant crowing of the roosters in the surrounding farms and that unique smell of nature everywhere, very different from the city.

“How pastoral,” mocked Vyxara. “Should we perhaps sing a merry folk song together?”

Valentina didn’t answer the demon and followed her little brother into the kitchen. But Vyxara’s gentle mockery resonated with her despite herself. She had never been more aware of the contrast between her two lives, between the humble but warm home of her childhood and the grandiose, dangerous opportunities that had opened up to her in Bridgewater.

Colm stormed into the kitchen before Valentina could even sit down properly. His cheeks were flushed from his morning walk to the neighbor’s stables.

“Val! You absolutely have to meet Ashen!” he announced breathlessly. “She’s the best horse in the world and I’m going to marry her!”

“You can’t marry horses,” Mabel corrected precociously as she placed bowls of steaming porridge on the table. “That’s stupid.”

“Not stupid at all!” protested Colm. “Ashen is much smarter than most people!”

“He’s probably not entirely wrong,” Vyxara commented with amusement.

“Sit down, Colm,” her mother commanded. “Breakfast is ready.”

Valentina watched as her family gathered around the worn wooden table. The simple wooden bowls were polished, the coarse bread and scambled eggs smelled tempting. Her mother had even added a slice of bacon for everyone as a special gesture for Valentina’s homecoming.

“Tell us about the nobles!” urged Adeline as she helped Thomas to hold his spoon properly. “What are they like? Do they really all have castles?”

Valentina smiled. “Not all of them. My friend Crispin, for example, his family is noble, but they live in a manor house. But my friend Innogen’s father is the Marquess of Timberpine and they have a castle. It’s called Timberpine Keep. Innogen grew up there.”

“But they’re rich, aren’t they?”

“Rich enough,” said Valentina cautiously. “But there are big differences even in nobility. The Duke of Duskenshire, where I’ll stay over the summer, he has a real palace, I heard.”

Adeline’s eyes lit up. “Really? And that’s where you’re going after your visit here?”

“Yes. The Duke invited me because I won his competition.”

“You have to write me everything about how nice it is there!” Adeline demanded. “I want a description of every single room!”

“Oh yes, little Weaver,” Vyxara scoffed. “Especially the duke’s chambers. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunity to study the ceiling of his bedchamber.” Valentina blushed slightly.

“Are there evil nobles too?” Colm bubbled between mouthfuls of porridge.

“Colm! Don’t speak with your mouth full,” her mother admonished.

Valentina thought of Faustus. “Yes, there are those too.”

She noticed her mother looking at her attentively. The way Valentina tore her bread into small, even pieces, sat upright, ate bite by bite. She used to eat a little bit more like Colm a year ago, if she was honest.

“Thomas likes his new shirt,” babbled little Mabel proudly. “I made extra fine stitches so that it doesn’t scratch so much.”

“You’ve done a very nice job, that’s a great seam,” Valentina praised and looked at the indeed amazingly even seam.

“What’s the food like in Bridgewater?” Adeline asked curiously again.

“Different,” said Valentina diplomatically. “There’s more of it, but not necessarily better.” She bit into the fresh, still warm bread. “There’s no bread this good in the whole city. Here it’s made with love.”

Her mother smiled in flattery, but Valentina could see that she had noticed her daughter’s change in table manners.

“And the clothes?” Adeline probed further. “Do they really wear such beautiful clothes as in the stories?”

“Sometimes even more beautiful ones,” said Valentina, thinking of the magnificent dresses she had seen at the Duke’s banquet. “But fancy dresses is not everything there is in life, Adeline.”

She saw her mother nod appreciatively. In the past, Valentina might have lost herself in descriptions of splendor. But she understood the importance of restraint and she didn’t want to awaken a longing in Adeline that would probably never be fulfilled.

“But who says it has to be an unfulfilled longing?” Vyxara murmured inside her. “If you succeed, if your dreams come true, then you can give your family everything they want as well.”

Thomas squealed happily and splashed his spoon into the porridge. A few splashes landed on the table.

“Thomas!” little Mabel warned sternly and wiped the porridge away. “Don’t do that!”

“After breakfast, I’ll show you the fields,” said her father, who had been listening quietly until now. “You should see how things are going.”