Sisters Three (Completed)

2. Brenna (2/2)

Adair helped Morna up and handed one of the fur coats to Brenna, who shrugged it on and wrapped it tightly around her front. It was damp, but warmer than a soaked nightgown. Morna's lips were already blue, and Brenna could only imagine hers looked the same. Adair, amazingly, looked the same as normal. Her skin as pale as milk, her lips a pale pink. Though her nightgown clung to her curves, she walked ahead of them as if she wore ermine. It rankled Brenna. Adair covered in pond scum carried herself with the poise of a queen from the Old Times, while Brenna spent untold hours in front of the mirror trying to master the perfect regal facial arrangement.

Adair caught Brenna staring at her and frowned. Brenna averted her eyes, instead looking toward the ballroom where the orange light still soaked the gravel. Now that she focused on it, she noticed that the carriages of her parent's guests were no longer parked in scattered lines. That wasn't surprising, given the late hour, but what was strange was that they were replaced with horses. No one waited with the beasts, and they wandered the lawn, cropping the grass as far as their tethers would let them. Brenna frowned. The gardener would have a fit when he saw the damage done to the lawn. Any respectable person would know to keep their horses on the gravel.

When they drew closer to the house, Brenna picked up on a strange noise. A sort of whistle under the wind, rising and dropping in a strange pattern. Her eyebrows drew together as she tried to puzzle it out as she followed her sisters towards the servant's door. It wasn't until they were nearly within touching distance of the white stones of the mansion when the noise grew louder. It was more a keen than a whistle. She threw out a hand to still her sisters and quiet their footsteps on the crunching gravel. The wind still swallowed most of the noise, but there was enough of it to identify now.

"Someone's crying," she mouthed to Adair. Before her sister could stop her, Brenna turned toward the ballroom, walking parallel to the wall and trailing her fingers along the stones to keep her in line. The clouds had thickened, strangling the moonlight into almost nothing.

The ceiling-to-floor windows of the ballroom were hidden behind drapes that let out light but made looking in difficult. Brenna passed by them until she found one with a chink between the drapes, affording a view of the polished oak panels and the dazzling chandelier, still lit beyond the time it was used to.

Brenna's mind took a moment to make sense of the jumble of people crowded into the ballroom, all dressed in a deep green uniform and flat cap. None were ladies and all looked broad and rough-hewn, like granite straight from the quarry. They were clustered in a tight group by the far wall, jostling and adjusting something. A few carried long sticks that she eventually realized were rifles. A cold chill ran down her spine at the sight of the dull metal and shiny stocks. The men carried them as comfortably as a limb. They were not strangers to the weapon.

The sound that Brenna first heard was now loud enough that she confirmed what she had suspected. It was a raspy sobbing, the kind that came with only the most terrible of news. Brenna's heart skipped though she could not imagine anything coming to her quiet mansion that would cause someone to make that noise. Was a maid in trouble with the law? She pushed up higher on her toes to get a better view just as the men parted in the middle.

Mama and Papa stood up against the wall, their hands behind their backs and their faces strangely white. Mama's mouth was open and Brenna realized with a shock that she was the one the noise was coming from. Her face glistened, lit by tears. Papa's mouth stretched thin under his moustache, and she recognized the face he had only worn once before, when the midwife had given him the news of their baby brother's death. Even Eros, their yellow lab, stood at the wall. His tail wagged uncertainly, looking from his master to the men who now lined up to one side of her parents.

"Brenna." Adair's voice was sharp, her hand pulling on Brenna's shoulder. Brenna pulled back, her eyes stuck to the scene unfolding before her. Adair didn't give much of a fight, and Brenna felt her and Morna's presence over her shoulders.

The men in the green uniforms discussed something for a moment and then leveled their guns, sighting down the barrels. A man in a slightly different uniform raised his hand. Mama sobbed, folding her hands in front of her as if she was praying. Papa closed his eyes. And then the man in green lowered his hand and the thunderous crack of gunshot rang across the ballroom and through the window as loud as if Brenna had stood right next to them. Papa went down immediately, his shirt and face covered in red spots. Eros slumped against his legs, his tail still. Mama was on her hands and knees, clutching at her chest and gasping for breath. One of the uniformed men reloaded his gun. A second gunshot, this one lonely and somehow worse, rang out and Mama fell forward.

Brenna stiffened, heart racing and her hands trembling on the window sill. Her joints suddenly felt like jellies, and she buckled as Adair and Morna gasped behind her. The men shouldered their guns while someone flipped her parents onto their backs and began to inspect them. Brenna felt a raw feeling in her stomach building at the sight. It burned in her throat, rising and rising until it burned her tongue and her mouth fell open to let it out. It would have been a mighty scream, worthy of any tragedy, but it was stopped by a rough hand across her lips and the sudden backward momentum she found herself under the influence of. For a moment she thought the uniformed men must have seen them through the curtains and come to finish the rest of the family, but then the hand released her and she spun around to see the comforting face of Nurse.

"Oh!" Brenna gasped, tears swimming in her eyes and her arms needing to wrap themselves around someone. She encompassed what she could of Nurse's sturdy waist, and Morna soon joined the little huddle. Adair stood to one side, her eyes downcast.

"Sh, keep quiet, girls," Nurse whispered, patting their hair. Her eyes kept stealing over to the window where the men were now exiting the ballroom.

"Who are these people?" Adair asked, ignoring the command.

Nurse glared and put a finger to her lips. It did nothing to stop Adair, who opened her mouth to say more. Nurse sighed heavily. "Your father earned no friendship with the officers," she said, her voice a rushed whisper. "The leaders of Allica aren't kind to those they dislike."

Adair's mouth compressed, but she didn't try to speak any longer. Satisfied that the girls would finally keep quiet, Nurse took Brenna and Morna's hands and pulled them away from the window and into the darkness. Out in the lawn there stood a small mule with a man at its harness. He bore a resemblance to Nurse, and a worried expression that made Brenna wish for her father's warm arms.

"Up there, Morna," Nurse said, and the man scooped Morna up to place her on the mule's bare back. Brenna was next, placed behind Morna and positioned so that she could hold the frayed rope that served as reins. Adair walked alongside with Nurse and the man, and they set off across the grass toward the front gate, avoiding the gravel.

Brenna tried not to think about the pit in her stomach, tried not to let her mind wander too far back to the house. She trained her mind on Papa saying 'tomorrow' as he closed the nursery door. He'd surely be there tomorrow, when they woke up. He was always there. She buried her face in Morna's back, and only let her tears fall when she felt her sister's gentle sobs.