The Doppelgänger of Dormond Street by Sue Harry

9. Mr Markel Gilmore

The school will be opening its doors soon. About time too as far as I am concerned. A thousand years ago, when Sally was young, we continued the tradition of teaching at Capitol House, for the benefit of all involved but things are very different now.  Sally may never want the Chief Matriarchy back and Vivian is a private woman. She loathes having her house descended upon by every Matriarch within a four mile radius. She spends little or no time with her children and can usually be found behind the closed door of her study with Holly. They will both benefit from the school.

I am ever so pleased that they found each other. His father was a great man and I had loved him dearly. And his lovely wife? Well, there were no words to describe how magnificent she was. The world was indeed a better place when she had been alive. To this day, the elders are still reeling with shock from the tragedy of both of their passing. First sweet Verity had left us, so young and vibrant at just one hundred and eighty two. She had given birth to Holly junior here in The Seven against the vehement wishes of Sally, her mother, and father, and ultimately it had caused her demise.

Why she wouldn't leave is still a bit of a mystery to us. She knew the dangers, even if at the time, we didn't. Her mother had not remained at home to give birth to her. The Dragons had whisked her away to their home, which was unbelievably off of the mainland, somewhere out at sea. She and Hodpin had joined us in The Seven six months later with Verity.

As the pregnancy progressed, Puregood and Hodpin became visibly distraught. If Hodpin drank, I would have thought he was a drunk, walking around town like a disheveled, overgrown, drowsy bear. Now I know why, but then, it all seemed quite peculiar. Verity loved solitude so her pregnancy was  surprise to her and to the whole town, and it filled her parents with absolute dread.

Matriarchs were famous not just for The Gift. Two other distinguishing characteristics of these women were the amount of children they had and the number of miscarriages they, and the women who worked for them suffered. It was the reason people feared them so much and the reason they surrounded themselves with so much life. A tiny life could not survive in the womb of a woman who drained life from everyone and everything around them, but over thousands of years they had found a solution. Company, a lot of it. They traipsed their husbands, children, and servants to Capitol House, not because they loved each other so much, but because hundreds of people together somehow interrupted the destructive power of the Gift in their own wombs.

Women who lived a solitary life usually did so because they didn't want children or feared for the lives of those around them, as the power of their abilities intensified. Verity had cared for none of these things. She just wanted to be alone, with Hollymore. She rarely Journeyed and if she did, she took him with her. No Matriarch who lived like this could even get pregnant. At least that is what we all believed. Until she got pregnant.

Verity went into labour on her seventh month and one could immediately see that something was wrong. Instead of giving birth at Capitol House, she remained in her lovely little house on the outskirts of the town. Sally shooed Matriarchs away without experiencing the slightest resistance from them. They wanted to help on the one hand, but on the other hand found her habits abnormal, and viewed her as having bad luck. Over the course of the week, as Verity struggled in pain, they would wander over with gifts of herbs, many of which Verity herself had cultivated for them, and food for the people helping her. On the fourth day, they called for me.

I had never helped in the birth of a Matriarchs child, so I was a bit surprised when Mr Fomonkov knocked on my door and asked me to come to the Somers home. Servants and merchants in the village often asked me to birth their children, especially when there were complications. Many of them would never ask a Matriarch to help. They didn't like the idea of The Gift in such close proximity to their young. I, on the other hand, was seen as a safe option and had been of great use to the townspeople over the years. Mr Harrington and I spent a lot of time researching and distilling medications that could be of use in a wide variety of applications. We had become quite famous for it, and travelled extensively to help wounded or sick people in The Seven and beyond.