Sisters Three (Completed)

4. Brenna (1/2)

Even after three days in the Grand House, Brenna felt like she'd never grow tired of the sense of awe that it evoked with every new room discovered. Aunt Perta and Aunt Nora largely used only the east wing, where the women's sitting room and parlor were located. The west wing contained the grand rooms where balls and state dinners and other such grand affairs had once been hosted. Anyone with any sense of style would choose the grand rooms as their living space, but anyone with common sense would chose the smaller, more easily heated and cooled rooms, of the east wing.

Brenna, though she valued warmth and the closer access of the kitchen, almost wished for freezing her toes off if it meant eating breakfast at the impossibly long and darkly mahogany formal dining table in the maroon papered room. A crystal chandelier hung from a ceiling painted in the faded cherubic style of a past time. The chairs were cushioned in velvet and carved with designs that could take hours to full appreciate. Of course, now most of it was covered in white sheets, and Brenna had had to dig them out. She started to make a habit of starting her day with finding a new room and pulling the sheets from the furniture to admire what wealth had not been sold to pay for the upkeep of the house. Just from looking around, she could tell the rooms had once been much fuller than they were now. They seemed lonely and empty, like a woman with no jewels at a ball.

The main reason for her wandering in the abandoned wing was Morna's illness. On the road her younger sister had seemed to develop some sort of stomach pain and had steadily declined from there. Now she was laid up in their bedroom, staring out the window and sweating though the room was never above a slight toastiness. Brenna found it intolerable to hang at her bedside, reading whatever dry book their aunts had in the surprisingly dull library. So that morning she'd slipped Morna the book and a warm roll in case her stomach settled, and set off for her daily adventure.

Once the Grand House had bustled with servants. It was, after all, the remnants of the summer palace of the King of Ittal until his peaceful removal by the newly founded people's government. Brenna neither cared for, nor really knew much about her great-uncle's fall from grace, though she knew it reminded her too much of her father's end in Allica. So she politely retreated to her own thoughts when Aunt Perta began to tell the tales of Great Uncle Roma's political mistakes that led to the people's government. The Grand House now was just a drafty, leaking home that was slowly being gutted of its belongings as Aunt Perta and Aunt Nora found it harder and harder to stretch their inheritances to cover its upkeep.

So now the house had only a cook, two maids, a butler, and a hall boy who was made to do all the work no one else wanted to. When parties were held, some villagers might be hired in, but for the most part the servant's hallways stood empty and quiet. Brenna had gone her second day without spotting a single one. Which meant they weren't wandering about in the west wing, and which also meant that Brenna walked through the rooms with the certainty of a bygone queen, pulling off dust-sheets and pocketing whatever small trinkets she fancied.

The rooms at the start of the west wing had all been picked through by her on her first two days in the Grand House. She'd not had much time on the first, but by the next day she'd grown terribly bored and spent hours wandering from room to room. Now she marched down the hall past the doors she knew held the dining room, sitting room, two offices, an empty library, some sort of elaborate broom cupboard, a gun-room, and two gaming rooms, until she saw the end of the hall and stairs that lead up to the second hall. She marked that far later, instead turning toward a double-door of paneled oak. The knobs were long and curled on the ends, made of a burnished bronze and cold to the touch. Dust coated the tops of them, and Brenna had to wipe her fingers on her skirt. It left a gray streak on the black velvet of the gown Aunt Nora had bought her on the trip to the Grand House.

The door didn't come open very easily, but at least it wasn't locked. The hinges only conspired to make Brenna work for the secrets they hid, and she had to put her shoulder to the paneling and shove forward a few times before the door slowly ground open. The smell of age met her nostrils, a bit like mold and a bit like dust. She stepped into the room, not closing the door behind her just in case she couldn't get it open again.

The room was mostly empty. A fireplace at one end spilled dropped bird's nests and a bit of water damage to the floorboards, and a chandelier hung haphazardly from an unstable binding on a rafter. Only one wall bore windows, though they were heavily curtained and more than likely shuttered as well. Opposite the windows were strange looking shapes hidden by dust-sheets. They were taller than she, rectangular in shape. A few lay longwise, coming up to her knees.

Brenna ran her hand along the edge of the nearest rectangle until she found the edge and yanked it off. It came down with a heap of brown dust and she had to hop out of the way or risk ruining her clothes. As she coughed and waved her hand in front of her face to clear the air, she peered at what had been hidden underneath. It was made of glass, she could see that, and contained some sort of items on little shelves within. The blocked windows of the opposite wall made it too hard to pierce the shadowy depths, and what little light spilled in from the hallway was eaten before it reached the middle of the room.

Sighing in frustration, Brenna stomped to the windows and swept back the curtains. Behind them the glass was surprisingly clean, considering the dust in the rest of the room. The shutters beyond the glass looked a bit rotten, but when Brenna unhooked the locks on the window and shoved it upward it went smoothly enough. She then unhooked the shutters and pushed on them, but these did not budge. She tried for a few minutes, and after her breath began to come in little gasps, she kicked the wall angrily and spun to look back at the glass case. It was still too dark to see what lay within. The shutters simply had to be opened, or else her curiosity would have to wait until she could come back with a candle.

She hadn't wanted to break the shutters, but now she was reaching the end of her options. They were on the side of the Grand House, away from any eyes that might happen to see them. And even if someone did see it, the wood was rotten enough it could look like they'd fallen off on their own. So Brenna hiked up her skirts, climbed onto the window sill, grabbed the edge of the window, and slammed the bottom of her foot onto the shutters. They shook and groaned, but only let down a torrent of flaking mildew. She kicked again, this time pulling herself up a bit to get more momentum behind her foot.

A great cracking sound preceded her foot smashing through to open air. The shutters slammed open, smacking against the brick siding of the house and hanging crazily on their hinges. Brenna's hands slipped as her foot swung out, and her rump connected soundly with the window sill. Teetering for a moment, she struggled to regain her balance, but ended up on the ground. Her skirts pooled over her head, her stockings ripped from the jagged wood, and her head smarting from a sharp blow with the floorboards. But the room was filled with sunlight now.

Forcing down her layers of petticoats and velvet skirt, Brenna pushed herself into a sitting position and nursed her aching knee. A quick glance at it showed beaded blood on multiple cuts that decorated her pale skin. She frowned at them, smudging the blood with her hand and then climbing to her feet.