Sisters Three (Completed)

1. Morna (1/2)

Night at the mansion usually consisted of a brief goodnight visit with their parents, a bedtime story from Nurse, and blankets tucked in tight by the time the sun began its decent to the horizon. However, on this one night, Morna and her sisters had been given special permission to sit up in the nursery well past their bedtimes. Their parent's annual party was in full swing somewhere downstairs, adults dancing and talking and clinking glasses together while the candles blazed to try and keep the shadows at bay. Even way up in the nursery, the children could hear the murmur of the guests, and it sent shivers of excitement through their small bodies.

"Do you think they'll let us come down?" Brenna asked, her voice breathless and hitched. Though she was only dressed in a nightgown and her hair had been braided for the night, Morna could already see the burst of new energy that would take her sister straight into the dressing room to change if she were only invited to that grown-up world.

"Why would they invite us down? They'd be more likely to let Eros in from his kennel." This came from Adair, the eldest by a handful of years that gave her height, a womanly figure, and the complete dispassion of other's affairs that haunted the years between childhood and adulthood.

"Maybe that's true about you," Brenna remarked, flipping her thick brown braid over her shoulder and arranging it becomingly across her chest. "I'm sure Mama would let Morna and me down if we wanted."

Adair's face gave nothing away, though Morna knew that it was a low blow from Brenna.

"She doesn't mean that, Adair," Morna offered. "Mama isn't going to let any of us down."

Adair smiled as if it didn't matter, though her lips were tight and sharp. She still wore her morning clothes, and her pale hair piled in braids at the nape of her neck. Morna always marveled that she could exist in such an ordinary place as the nursery. She was clearly meant for the wide open and wild landscapes of her mother's native land. Morna knew Brenna was eternally jealous of that innate set of Adair's chin.

Brenna sighed, tired already of the conversation. "What are you going to do when we go to market day, Morna?" This was another low blow. Morna glanced at Adair, but their older sister moved off to the doorway that connected to a sitting room.

"You shouldn't talk of Mama's outings," Morna whispered. "Adair isn't allowed on them."

"I know," Brenna said. "But I shouldn't have to keep quiet just because Mama doesn't like her. If Adair stopped being so... other, than we wouldn't have this problem."

"She doesn't mean to be other," Morna said, though she wondered if that was true. Adair certainly made no attempts to hide her tribal ancestry-- speaking in the Northland's tongue when she knew Morna and Brenna's Mama would hear, and also that strange recurrence of the frost on her sheets in the morning...

"I don't want to talk about her anymore," Brenna said, bouncing to where a tray of food had been brought up to them from the party. Most of it had already gone cold, but Brenna picked at it anyway.

With Brenna occupied with the food, Morna made her way to the long windows that covered one wall of the nursery. They were framed in white curtains, and bore comfortable benches that were perpetually covered in toys and dolls and even a few rare books. Morna loved to curl up behind the curtains and peak out through the crack to see what her sisters did when they thought she wasn't looking. Now it was not as effective, since Brenna merely bit into a slice of beef while examining the tail of her braid. But Adair was leaning against the doorframe to the sitting room, whispering with someone. Morna didn't have to see him to know who it was. Adair didn't talk to anyone besides the servant boy, Silver. He was a few years younger than Adair, but already her height. He never really did much of the talking, at least that Morna could hear, but he always listened intently when her eldest sister spoke. Morna sometimes thought of him as Adair's shadow. He was never far away. A brooding presence that seemed to complete Adair.

Morna turned her attention to the dark glass, looking out across the lawn. The moon was full that night, lighting everything up almost as well as the sun could. A blue tinge sucked the distance and depth out of everything, rendering it almost like a drawing on paper. The lights from downstairs were garish slashes of orange across the grass, spilling onto the gravel paths that wound into the gardens.

Beyond the gardens lay the paddling pond. It was meant for taking guests out on small boats during the summer, but frigid winds made it unpleasant during winter. It lay unused and forgotten for three quarters of the year, but the gardeners made sure to keep the rushes and grass from growing tall around the edges. This afforded Morna a prime view of the glinting black surface, the moon reflected choppily in the wind-tossed waves.

Perhaps the gardeners should have let the rushes grow. Perhaps someone should have thought that having the nursery face the lake was not the best idea. At any rate, Morna felt a creeping feeling grow in her stomach. She gasped, recognizing it immediately, but before she could roll away from the window and the view of the obsidian water, it caught hold of her in an iron grasp. A tugging in her stomach, like a hook caught in her ribs, beckoned her. Her vision narrowed, everything but the pond disappearing from her view. It was too late to call for help, or even to think of anything more than the bewitching water. She stumbled to her feet, her eyes straining to keep contact with the pond until she backed up far enough that the curtains swung shut around the window. If the pulling feeling hadn't caught her so tightly, just losing eye contact with the water would have been enough. But now she felt the yank in the pit of her stomach sharply, and she was forced to follow it out of the room.

"Morna?" Brenna yelled, but Morna didn't even pause. She pattered down the hall and to the back staircase. The servants used it to bring up and down trays and linens, but Morna knew that it was the easiest way to bypass the adults downstairs and also get outside without having to find a key. The servant's door was left unlocked until the ones that lived in the village had returned home for the night. And with the party, that meant it would be unlocked for hours yet.

At the bottom of the stairs a narrow hallway split off into the various rooms that it took to run a household. The servant's door stood at the far end of the hall, passed the kitchen and pantry and silver-room. A few maids bustled back and forth, but they didn't look up as Morna plastered her back to one of the walls and began to slide quietly toward the front door.