“Hey Nia?” Gwen held an arm up above them, simply to feel it in the air. Both girls watched it wobble as time went on, tracing unknowable secrets onto the slanted ceiling above.
“Yeah?”
“Where do you get your stories?”
“Hmm?” Nia blinked in sleepy bemusement. The attic was always warm, and the soft pattering of the rain on the slate tiles above them were lulling the girl to sleep. She sat up and turned to face Gwen.
“Your stories! You have so many of them, and you’re always telling new ones. Where do you get them?”
Nia screwed up her face in thought. The kids she told stories to in the park always asked her where she got her stories, but she had never really considered it seriously. Eventually, she flopped back down on the mattress.
“I dunno! They’re just sorta… there, you know? For when I need them.”
“Just like that?”
“Mhm! It’s not always the right story, though, so sometimes I have to change it.”
“Blurgh. I wish I could do that with my etiquette lessons. Miss Dilys says it’s always important to ‘act with perfect poise’ but the rules are always different depending on who she’s pretending to be!”
“Ugh. I know, right? Mom is always trying to teach me noble manners, but we’re not nobles! What’s the point?”
Both girls made mutual noises of disgust over propriety. Eventually, Gwen’s arm flopped to the bed.
“Wait, aren’t you going to be Empress? Why do you need to bother?”
“’Cause I need to be perfect and ladylike. ‘Cause anything I do will reflect on the Emperor.”
Nia blew a raspberry.
“You’ll be the Empress! If you want to, you can decide that everyone has to say hello by doing a cartwheel!”
“Ohhhh I want to see Miss Dilys try to do a cartwheel, with her face all- all frozen and proper”
Gwen tried to imitate the face, before collapsing in a fit of giggles with her friend
“And if- and if they don’t like it, you can tell them that the formal apology is- is a peasquawk call!”
Gwen set her face in a giggly approximation of her tutor’s stern demeanor.
“I’m terribly sorry Miss Emperor, please allow me to heurrrrrrrrah!”
At that, they collapsed, laughing, for a few minutes. When they had laughed themselves calm again, they had a competition to see who could hold their arms up the longest.
“Is anything she teaches you worth listening to?”
“Lord Lewys says it’s always important to listen to your tutors, your husband, and his advisors.”
Nia pulled a face.
“That sounds like a no. Do you learn anything fun?”
“I like embroidery!”
“Ugh. Embroidery is sooo boooring.”
Hurt, Gwen turned away from her friend.
“You sound like Owen.”
“Hey, take that back! I’m nothing like him.”
“He comes in here too, all ‘father says you have to entertain me’ and then tells me his mother makes better embroidery. You’re supposed to be the nice one.”
Instantly contrite, Nia threw her arms around her friend, nearly throwing them both off the bed.
“No no no I meant that doing embroidery is boring. Your embroideries are amazing! I wear your sewing every day! I just don’t have the patience for doing it. I’m sorry, I think you’re amazing for being able to do it.”
Gwen let the apology and hug soothe her hurt, and soon enough the two were giggling and talking again. They played imaginary games, taking themselves out of the quiet formality of the attic. They fought elves in Fairyland as Tiffany Aching[1] and Princess Cimorine[2], then overthrew the Queen of the Fairies. They were in the middle of leading the elves to fight Sauron[3] when there was a chime.
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They both looked at the little bell ringing in the corner of the attic. Gwen sighed, and Nia made a face.
“Time to go.”
Gwen stood and performed as elegant a curtsy as she could. She drew her manners on as armor and mask.
“Thank you for visiting me, you were most kind. I hope to have the pleasure of your company again soon.”
“I’ll be back when I can. You know how mom is.”
Gwen walked to the dumbwaiter and removed a covered dinner tray from the little space. She held the dumbwaiter door open for Nia.
“Safe journeys, until we meet again.”
Then, her composure broke, and Nia staggered back from the impact of a Gwen-shaped comet. She hugged the girl back and pretended not to see the girl’s tears.
“It’s going to be okay.”
Gwen nodded into her shoulder
“I’ll be back when I can. Four days, prob’ly.”
Gwen stepped back and put on as brave a face as she could manage. She tried to smile, and it was broken glass in Nia’s chest.
“Good luck, Api’Naga[4]! And when you come back, I’ll have a tapestry-map of Oz[5] for you to explore!”
Nia gave Gwen another quick hug, then climbed into the dumbwaiter with her friend’s help. Nia had no idea what to say to her, so she just gave a cocky salute and another heartfelt “I’ll see you soon.”
She smiled at Gwen as she worked the rope, all the way until she was out of sight.
The dumbwaiter was small and dark after the emptiness of the attic. While it was well furnished, Gwen was such a small girl for such a vast space.
Nia took extra care to be silent as she lowered the dumbwaiter past the door near Lord Lewys’ study. She could hear murmuring voices, which meant that his study door was open. She held her breath as the door slipped up above her.
The kitchen, by contrast, was a cacophony of voices, delicious smells wafting through the cracks around the door. Nia pulled herself down as quickly as she could, hopping out of the dumbwaiter and stumbling a little. She stashed the pastry leaves in the bucket for leftovers so she could take it out to the pigs later, and latched the dumbwaiter door.
Nia paused by the ladder up to the pantry. She checked herself over for anything she might get scolded for. She was short for her age, in a servants’ dress with faded yellow and blue patches inexpertly sewn across it. Her shoes were a little dusty, but she wiped them with a cleaning cloth.
As thoroughly prepared as an eight-year-old could be, Nia climbed up the ladder and opened the trapdoor. In the kitchen, Nia was greeted by the cook, Mrs. Nesta.
“Ah! Nia, you’re back. Just on time as usual. Bring that bottle to the table and pour the drinks, would you?”
“Yes Mrs. Nesta.” Nia gave her a shallow curtsy and carried the heavy bottle of wine to the upper servants’ dining room. She was glad it was a bottle of wine, and still sealed. Last time she had tried to carry the heavy water pitcher to the table, she had slopped water all over herself and the floor.
Nia shuddered at the memory of the scolding that had earned her. She pushed open the door to the upper servants’ dining room and looked around the room. The butler dismissed her with a glance but her mother offered Nia a small smile.
Strictly speaking, Nia should have been in the lower servants’ dining room with the other maids. She was technically a scullery maid, the lowest rank of servant. It was a job reserved for the youngest women, and Nia was the third youngest in the household.
Not counting Gwen, but nobody ever counted Gwen.
Nia poured the wine for the four place settings and curtsied to the butler, the highest-ranking servant in the room. Then, Nia threw her arms around her mother, who returned the embrace warmly.
The butler gave a pointed sniff. Nia disentangled herself from her mother and blushed hotly.
“Sorry Mr. Steffan.”
“If you are going to be in this room, at least observe some decorum. Your parentage offers you protections, but that will not last forever.”
Nia winced as she felt her mother grow stiff beside her. That had been a pointed insult.
“Yes Mr. Steffan.”
The butler sniffed again, seemingly satisfied, and settled back into a discussion with Nia’s mother. When the man turned to make a note of something they were discussing, she gave Nia a sympathetic smile.
Later that night, Nia lay awake on her straw mattress. Around her, she could hear the quiet susurration of seven other girls sleeping. She thought about parents. She thought about Gwen’s murdered royal parents. She wondered about the parents of the other girls around her. She knew some of them had parents among the servants, but they rarely talked to her. It always felt horribly unfair, and sometimes reduced her to tears, but the habits of servants were too well engrained. Despite being a servant, just like them, she got special treatment. She was happy to take her more frequent days off, she just wished that the others would meet her gaze. Or start up conversations.
Mostly, Nia wished that Lord Lewys was not her father.
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[1] The protagonist of The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett, who
challenges the Queen of the Fairies with a frying pan to get back her little brother.
[2] The no-nonsense protagonist of the Dealing with Dragons series by Patricia C. Wrede, who
vastly prefers dealing with the problems of her dragon over idiot princes.
[3] The antagonist of the Lord of the Rings series. I have absolutely no idea how the two might defeat him, but I bet Nia and Gwen had fun trying.
[4] On the Wings of a Dragon, by Cora Taylor features a girl
with no memories locked in a tower. Her only companion is a tiny dragon named Api’Naga, who among other things, tells her of the world outside.
[5] Oz is the fictional setting of The Wizard of Oz, by Frank L. Baum.