❝ there was a difference between living and existing, and for the first time, phoebe felt like she was living. and wasn't that a marvellous thing?❞
[book 1]
in which a boy calls a girl irrelevant, but somehow manages to fall in love with her anyway...
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Phoebe May Walker had always liked the professor. She'd never seen him around very often, but any time she did he would always offer her hot chocolate, or tea, or coffee, or biscuits, or any number of things he seemed able to produce from scratch out of the depths of his office.
She'd always liked his house, too, with its sprawling hallways, hundreds of secret rooms, mysteriously locked doors, and constantly crackling fireplaces. The way it creaked at night, and the way fat droplets of rain would drum gently against the roof, sending her to sleep.
Phoebe even enjoyed the tough Saturdays, when she was forced into washing every piece of dirty clothing or linen in the house. Having her arms buried up to her elbows in suds and boiling water was a good distraction for her, even if she looked a bit like a boiled lobster afterwards. She'd scrubbed her arms red raw almost too many times to count.
It was almost cathartic, the way that the sheets would go in a bizarre cream colour, and come out a brilliant white, like the first snow of winter, before she soiled it with her footsteps.
Phoebe didn't remember a life any different to how it was now. After all, how could she? According to Mrs. Macready, she'd only lived in London for about two months when her mother decided she didn't want her anymore.
Sometimes, Phoebe wished she could ask her why. Why she abandoned her child with people she had a dubious family connection to, at best. Why Phoebe wasn't good enough. Why she didn't love her enough to stay. Perhaps it was for the best that Phoebe would never meet her. She had too many questions, she wouldn't know where to start. So many questions, and she was still afraid of the answers.
Professor Kirke and Mrs. Macready had never made her feel anything less than loved - well, maybe not Mrs. Macready, but certainly the professor. Phoebe rarely laughed, but if she did it was generally when the professor accidentally put a teabag into a mug of hot chocolate, or a marshmallow into her tea. She wouldn't ever admit it, but she loved the old man. Her most vibrant memory was of hot chocolate with the Professor, when he would tell her mythical fairy stories and the mug would warm her hands during the winter cold. The professor was far more vacant nowadays, but he still invited her in every now and then. Phoebe knew that those times were the only times she really, truly felt loved in return.
When she'd been younger, Mrs. Macready would always make her fudge for her birthday, and they would joke and sing and run around the gardens (or stroll, if the professor was with them). Phoebe knew her childhood had been somewhat idyllic, and she wouldn't have had it any other way.
Ivy, Margaret, and Betty, the other servants, had arrived later than Phoebe, but paid her no mind. They worked in the kitchen, while Phoebe worked alongside Mrs. Macready to do, well, everything else.
Her small family was bizarre, but they were her family nonetheless.
