Things fairly exploded from that moment on. Not that any one thing moved all that fast, but rather it was because there were so many things happening at the same time. I think that day was when the idea that "teamwork is the best work" became part of our beings.
After the sergeant left, there was no doubt that Mama's family wouldn't be showing up to see her the next morning. They'd be much too busy being entertained by their several interrogations at The City jail. The net result of those was nothing really surprising to anyone who knew the family. Grandfather, when asked why Mama hadn't been seen by a physician since she was four, said that he'd seen no need. "It wasn't like she was dying." She was merely "a cripple who needed caring for." It seemed that he'd never once entertained that idea that Mama might have a mind at all, much less one of her own.
When they asked him why the family hadn't at least had her use the baths so as to get at least SOME healing effect from the spring water, his answer totally flabbergasted them. What he'd said was, "I don't believe in all that superstition. It's nothing but tomfoolery. We boarded that up years ago. When we need to bathe we shower with water from the aqueduct."
That was bad enough, but what he said next sealed his fate, and, incidentally entered the annals of The City as the most flagrant example of intolerant stupidity in its entire history. Up to that point, he might have gotten off with just a fine, even after what he'd just said. The thing is that the tribunal hadn't planned on asking any more questions. He volunteered it all by himself.
What he said was, "I learned a long time ago that with any business there's no use in throwing good money after bad. She should be grateful that I even bothered to give her a place to live. What I've spent on feeding and clothing her these 19 years has been enough that I could have started someone in a new, and productive, business rather than wasting it on her."
He was escorted back to his cell, and a certified transcript of the interrogation was forwarded to Duchess Henrietta with a "suggestion" that she drop what she was doing and read it immediately.
Upon hearing Captain Murray's words she was speechless for a full minute. No one had EVER barged in and essentially commanded her to interrupt her schedule. She was of a mind to flay the Captain for his presumption, but, unlike Grandfather, her mind kicked in instantly. Something major had to be going on. (Besides, yelling at your husband because you're irritated and he's not done anything wrong is counterproductive.)
She excused herself from the meeting she was presiding over and led the Captain to her private office, whereupon she extended her hand.
He placed the documents in her hand and assumed a "parade rest" position. That really got her attention. He was planning to wait while she read whatever it was he'd just handed her. He was nearly as busy as she was. Normally he begrudged even a five minute delay.
She sighed in exasperation. "We've been married for 23 years now. Don't you think that you could relax, at least when we're alone?"
Not moving a muscle he replied, "Actually, no I can't, not when I'm working Love. I try, but it just doesn't work."
Smiling down at her he whispered, "I'll make it up to you when we're alone tonight. I promise."
Henrietta blushed slightly, then schooled herself into a neutral, almost bland expression as she began reading. That lasted all of two minutes, changing to what one might call "the calm before the storm" as she read the charges and transcript.
When she'd finished reading she asked a single question, "Was he at all repentant?"
"Not at all Your Grace. As a matter of fact, he seemed to be rather proud of how he'd dealt with the 'situation' and how much money he'd saved."
"I see."
She turned to the appendix and spent several more minutes reading. "Is this a true and accurate listing of his holdings?"
"Yes Your Grace. We prevailed upon Robert Donetti to ah, expedite putting the information together for us. Once he knew why, he did all the work himself. He said that it wouldn't do for staff to be spreading rumors about a confidential matter still being dealt with by the court."
Both of them knew that there were other reasons. Robert adored children, all children. He was a secret contributor to the project that Paolo and Sara had by then begun that was intended to aid twins in The City. He could never had sat still and done nothing in a case as horrific as this, so he'd done what he could.
Henrietta's next question was of a more practical bent, "What of the rest of the family? How are/were they involved?"
"Her mother apparently tried several times to arrange a consultation with a physician. Each time, and all three of her older sibs agreed when interviewed separately, her father had flown into a rage and had essentially told her to quit wasting his time. Mei was as she was and that was that. The last time he'd threatened to divorce her if she brought it up again. At the time the sons were only 13. They never had the nerve to say anything to anyone about the matter. Even now that they're 24 they're still terrified of him. The older daughter Darci had a shaking fit every time we tried to talk to her about his temper."
A long, drawn-out sigh escaped from Henrietta's lips. One more abuser who had gone decades presenting a "proper" face to the community while terrorizing the family. She reached for pen, parchment, and her official seal. This case could be dealt with, though the ramifications would probably be years in declaring themselves.
"Bobby, as I see that both sons are employed, I'll leave dealing with them to you and Mr. Donetti. It's obvious that they're going to need treatment themselves more than punishment, though some sort of proper education concerning dealing with problems like this would be in order."
She tapped her cheek with the pen several times. "Ah. That might work. Let's turn Sara and Paolo loose on them. If anyone can bring them around those two could. Besides, they're nearly the same age. It should go down easier than if someone substantially older had charge of them. We can probably include this Darci in the group as well.
"I imagine you plan to have Sandy work with the mother?"
"Yes Your Grace. Unfortunately she's become quite the expert in dealing with abused women over the years she's been in your service."
"Right then. That leaves this Mei child. What should we do about her do you suppose?"
Bobby showed the Duchess his first genuine smile of the day. "I must say that the resolution to that situation has been well begun. I find it hard to believe, but it's true. Anyway, Blair Macklin's twins were born on the same day as Mei. They're getting on like peas in a pod, what with that and with all three of them being pregnant. Sebastian and Akane Fukui have taken her into their home.
"Officially it's because it will make it easier for Kaho to supervise her medical care."
He leaned toward Henrietta and whispered conspiratorily, "My personal suspicion is that she'll be a permanent resident. Besides the twins being so attached to her already, it turns out that Mei is absolutely fascinated by history. It's too early to tell for sure, but, what with her having nothing else to do but read for the past 14 years, she may know even more about it than Yoko does.
Henrietta leaned back in her chair, gazed at the ceiling, and whispered, "Well. Well, well. How very interesting. I wonder how she pulled this one off."
Captain Murray looked on quizzically. "Your Grace?"
Henrietta waved her hand. "Nothing Bobby. Just a stray thought. Put it down to my getting old and forgetful."
He looked at her intently. One doesn't glare at a Duchess, no matter how long you've known her, or even if you're married, so we'll keep calling the look "intent" and leave it at that. "Yeah. Right. As if you've forgotten ANYTHING of any import in the past 30 years."
Rather than answering, she pulled out another parchment and began writing. Once she finished that, she returned to the first one and completed it as well. Then, unexpectedly, seemingly as an afterthought, she took out a sheet of her best writing paper and started all over.
When she finished she handed each to the Captain. "Make the usual copies. Officially Brewster Witherspoon has been found guilty of tax evasion that has taken place over at least the past 10 years. He has been sentenced to 20 years with the road crews. All his assets are confiscated. We'll allocate enough to maintain his wife and three eldest children until they can be permanently placed in situations that won't lead to their destitution.
"I can't see punishing them for his sins.
"25% of his estate, once liquidated, will officially be added to the treasury as payment with interest and penalties for non-payment of taxes. We'll keep that set aside so we can use it in the future to help other victims without means of their own. The balance will be set aside in trust for Mei Witherspoon. I imagine that Robert's bank will be happy to serve as trustee."
She began to rub her hands together, and smiled up at the Captain. "As for the third document, it's my certification of approval of the Fuki family as Mei's guardians, all of them, except for Rebecca. A 15 year old guardian is stretching things too much.
"It wouldn't hurt if you were to hint that I'd be amenable to them adopting her if they like her as much as you think they will. She's past the usual age where one could consider that, but, seeing as how she is 'disabled', I think it would fly. Best of all, it would let her change her surname legally without having to explain why in court."
Livi and I were estatic. In the beginning, it had looked as if we were going to be born into a very difficult situation, to say the least. Now things were looking a great deal better.
I'm not going to bore you with the next eight years. Mama was indeed adopted by the Fukui family, and within two months I might add. It was a mutual feeling of "long lost family member is finally reunited." She never did become truly normal with regard to her health, but she did improve to where she could go out on carriage rides, go to concerts, and visit the libraries, which we think was her greatest pleasure.
Within a year and a half, she had become Grandma Fukui's personal secretary. Before that she served as the go-to person when one of the five of us babies needed extra milk. Hibiki and Yoko produced a goodly amount, but their twins kept draining them dry. It's strange when you stop and think about it, her being so frail and all, but Mama made twice as much milk as the others.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
As they described it to us later, (remember, we'd been born by then and were infants in mind as well as body) it sounded extremely odd, though all three of our Mamas swear that they thought nothing of it at the time. They'd sit in a circle with all five babies on their laps, trying to keep all of us fed, cleaned, and burped. If one was still hungry when one breast was depleted, that baby would be passed to whomever still had some milk to spare. Then the one who'd passed off that baby would pick up another to change/burp/pet or whatever.
While they were doing that they'd chat about how their days had gone, share any interesting gossip, and discuss clothes, the idiocy of men, and other women. You know, the usual. Discussions about work were for less private situations. I'm not sure why they felt that way, but they did, so that's how it went.
Come to think of it, I'm sure that their always dividing up the care of us is why none of us could keep straight who our birth mother was till we were about six or seven.
Once we'd all been weaned, Mama was able to devote herself full time to helping Akane, and to going to the libraries on days when she had a bit more energy. Since Mama's stamina wasn't all that good, she wanted to do things as quickly and efficiently as possible once she arrived, since she could never tell when her energy would run out.
When she discovered that Paolo and Sara had finished indexing and organizing the contents of the libraries from the Cathedral of Whispers and the Little Cathedral, she was thrilled. Right then and there she decided to memorize the indexes. ALL of them. That way when she was after something in particular she could go straight to whatever she needed.
Whenever she wasn't up to going out, and Akane or Yoko needed to know something, Mama told them exactly where to find whichever book or document they were looking for. Had her health been better she'd have been instantly offered full time employment in the libraries, her lack of formal education be damned.
(Ah Geez! Of course we never EVER called her 'Akane' out loud! When we were talking to or about her she was always 'Grandmother'. Besides Livi and I didn't learn that she wasn't our biological grandmother until several years later.)
Now quit interrupting me. Getting back to Mama and employment. Her health WASN'T better enough for working at the libraries, so that was that. Besides, Mama was rather shy, quite like Yoko when she wasn't trying to cover it up by pretending to be so worldly wise. In addition to helping Akane with her affairs, Mama spent however much time she could helping Hibiki survive as the stay-at-home mother for the six of us.
Hibiki still worked with Jason on helping people with styling twice a week, but mostly she reveled in taking care of us children. She paid no attention to which child had which birth mother. She considered all of us children hers, and mothered us all equally.
When she was able to be with us, Mama was of a like mind, but she couldn't do much of a physical nature. However, by the time we were all five, that didn't matter any more. It turned out that she was, and is, one of the best storytellers ever. Once she got going, even the most rambunctious of us would stop and listen.
(Yes, I admit it. That was Livi and I. Are you happy now?)
Ok. So, like I said before, let's skip to when we were eight. That was when we first found out that we weren't blood relatives of the rest of the family. We accidentally heard Grandmother talking to Mama. (Well, yes, we were spying on them, but hey, it sounds better the other way, right?) Grandma Akane was hugging Mama and Mama was doing likewise to Akane. Grandmother was saying, "It's been close to nine years now, and I still can't help but be grateful that you were given to us to adopt. One of these days I think I'll have to thank Lady Blue, if I ever see her again. It's been both too long and too short a time, if you take my meaning."
Mama lifted her head off of Grandma's chest, giggled a bit, then said, "Well, from what you told me about her, I can see why you'd say that. Frankly though, I'd love to meet her. She sounds a lot like Olive. Well, minus the imaginary playmate of course.
Mama got a somewhat worried look. "I thought that children quit talking to or about their imaginary playmates when they were younger. You'd think that with her other four siblings she'd have plenty of friends. I mean, they get along as well as any children I've heard of. I wish someone would explain to me why Olive still insists that she has a sister named Livia."
I was about to storm into the room and, I'm not sure what, but I was going to do something. Livi was just as real as the rest of us. My twin just happened to live with me in the same body instead of us being in two bodies like the others.
Before I could do anything, there was a flash of blue light and a woman even smaller than Aunt Hibiki and Aunt Yoko was standing in the room. Grandma Akane had rolled her eyes at the ceiling. Mama was staring at the little woman like she hoping that she was imagining things.
A moment later Grandmother managed a hoarse croak, "Mei dear. I'd sort of like to be able to breathe, and I surely don't want my ribs broken. I'm pleased of course to see that you've become so strong, but could you let go, at least a little?"
Well Mama let go and jumped back and started to apologize, but before she could say anything the little blue woman laughed. "You're always so interesting Akane. I think that even if there were a flood coming you'd find a way to turn what should be 'RUN!' into a whole paragraph.
"Maybe it has something to do with you being a scholar. I've noticed that most scholars can turn what should be a sentence into a paragraph and a paragraph into a page...or a chapter. Well, to be honest, it's not just scholars. There are a plethora of novelists that do the same thing...unfortunately."
Grandmother looked really really ticked off, uh, I mean 'offended'. But then she smiled and said very softly, "I've missed you too, in spite of your wretched sense of humor. I do wish you'd find time to visit more often."
The little lady smiled back then stretched out her arm and made as if she was pulling something. The next thing I knew we were walking into the room.
"Very good child. You just stand there and don't say anything for a while. I know it's a bit hard for you, but bear with it."
We could be polite when we needed to be, and we figured that we really needed to right then, seeing as how we'd been caught spying. (Well of course Grandmother and Mama figured it out. Mama may not be as smart as Grandmother, but she's not dumb either.)
We bowed to the lady and to Grandmother and to Mother and didn't say a single word. We were still hoping that we could escape, even though it seemed pretty much impossible.
The little lady turned to Mama. "I came here because you asked me to in a way, when you wished that someone would explain Olive's 'imaginary playmate'. Ordinarily I leave everyone to live their lives on their own and... AKANE! You quit rolling your eyes like that, right now!"
We turned to look at Grandmother, and she had an excessively innocent look on her face, just like we do when one of us children has managed to snitch cookies for all of us when nobody was watching.
The little lady huffed, then looked back at Mama. "As I was saying, ORDINARILY I don't interfere, but there really isn't anyone else who can answer your question besides me. So I will. Answer your question that is.
"Olive isn't talking about an imaginary playmate. She's talking about her twin sister Livia."
She smiled rather sadly at Mama. "This may be a bit hard for you, but you need to know if you're to understand the situation properly. We all know how sickly you were the first few months of your pregnancy. Originally you'd conceived twins, but, because of your health, you lost one of them early on. Normally that's not a major problem. The mother completes her pregnancy and has a single child.
"In your case, there was a complication. Your girls absolutely refused to be separated, no matter what. I won't go into all the details and negotiations, but what finally happened was that both your twins are now living in one body."
While she'd been talking the little lady has been pacing back and forth. It was only when she stopped that we noticed that she was about half a meter in the air.
"You've probably noticed that there are times when Olive sounds a bit different than usual or acts differently than what you'd normally expect. That's because at those times Livi, which is Olive's pet name for her sister, has taken over. Normally they decide what to do together, but they're like any other sisters. Sometimes they disagree and even fight with each other and that's why their behavior changes.
"They're a lot like Yoko and Hibiki. Olive is more outgoing and she's usually the one moving their body. Livi is more like Hibiki. She's a bit on the shy side and like to watch what's going on more than being all that active physically.
"I do need to warn you, as if you didn't already know, they're both definitely on the mischievous side."
Mama's mouth had been hanging open. I think she realized it all of a sudden cause it snapped shut like a mousetrap. She turned toward us with a really odd expression. Before we could try to figure it out, she ran over and hugged us, fortunately not as tightly as she'd hugged Grandmother.
Then she pushed herself back some. There were tears streaming down her face. Next she hugged us again. We'd sorta figured out by then that she wasn't mad at us. We'd already seen enough of life to know that sometimes when people are surprised they blame how they're feeling on someone else and get really angry, and we'd been afraid that something like that might happen.
Mama whispered to us, "What an amazing blessing. Before you were born I prayed every day that I'd live long enought for you to BE born at all. When you were, and everyone was so nice to you, I was so incredibly relieved. I was so ill afterwards that I really DID think I was going to die. At least I knew that my child would be loved and taken care of.
"And now here you are. I don't have just one healthy daughter. I have TWO! If I were able to, I think I'd be dancing around the room in midair like that lady there is."
Naturally as soon as Mama said it we turned to look at her, all four of us.
The little lady was indeed dancing across the room, in the air. When she noticed us all staring at her, she stopped and blushed. It was the first and only time we ever saw someone blush blue though.
Next she sorta floated down to the floor, very slowly like.
"Well, I'm glad that we got that sorted out. Now, if you don't mind a suggestion...?"
We all nodded, but nobody said anything. I think we were still kinda numb from what we'd just seen.
"Right then. It's rather rude to speak to twins and only use one of their names. Why not do this? Change what you call them. Since they're Olive and Livia, why don't you start calling them Olivia? It's made up of parts of both their names. If you do that, everyone will eventually do the same. You'd probably better explain their situation to Yoko and Hibiki, but maybe not anyone else."
She lifted her head a bit toward the ceiling and just stared for a while. Then she smiled and turned back to us. "You're probably the only set of twins who won't ever be at risk for developing Separation Sickness, since you'll never be apart from each other."
Then she gave us a look that we found out years later was a leer. "You're still going to have to agree on who you'll marry though, just like Hibiki and Yoko did."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, that shouldn't be a problem. They found Jason and reeled him in. I imagine that two imps like you shouldn't have any problem doing the same when the time comes."
She spun around in a circle, and then she wasn't there any more, except for her voice, "Toodles. Lots to do and not enough time. Just like your family. I'll see you later."
Mama was still holding us by our shoulders. She turned back to us, "Olivia? Do you like it? Will that do for when we need to speak to both of you?"
"Yes Mama." "Sounds good to me."
Mama fell right onto her backside, and Grandmother laid herself down on the floor. We found out later that it was so she wouldn't faint.
Livi and I had no idea what was going on at first but then...
"Oh my god!" "Both of us talked." "We've never done that before." "And our voices sound so different!"
Mama whispered, "You don't suppose that the little lady did something?"
Grandmother sat up, carefully, but she looked pretty much normal. "It's very likely. Lady Blue can do some rather unusual things."
She laughed, a short bark of a laugh. "Well, you already know that. I don't think anyone else can just appear out of nothing and dance around in the air."
She tilted her head up a bit and looked sorta toward the ceiling. "FIrst of all I need to thank you for giving my granddaughters their own, separate voices. Secondly I think I'll complain a bit about it too. I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect, strongly, that figuring out how and when and then training them so they don't use their new gift at the wrong time is going to be more than difficult.
Then she shook her fist at the air. "You seem to have quite a talent for stirring things up like that. You probably think it's funny, don't you? Your sense of humor has always seemed to me to be exceedlingly warped."
"I resemble that remark, and you're welcome. Bye now. This time for real."
After that Grandmother came over and we had a group hug, a nice long one. As she usually was, Grandmother was right. Learning how and when to use our separate voices was pretty hard, but as the years went by, we found it very useful too.
How? Maybe I'll tell you later. Right now Mama is going to tell all of us a story, and Cook has made hot chocolate too. Sorry, but story AND hot chocolate together are much more important than your curiosity. See ya!