Summery: Aine didn't know she had a great-great-aunt Ainsel or that anyone in her family was dumb rich, let alone willing to give that fortune away to some bookworm kid she'd never met. There were stipulations, sure, and a manor with acres of woodland in Ireland to take care of, but she didn't think that would bother her too much. She could focus on writing her stories, planning a trip across Europe, and finishing her hoard of novels. Maybe add to the collection.
At least, she didn't think those stipulations would be a bother until a purple teifling covered in blood showed up, asking for room and board. And, well, she couldn't turn away people asking for a bed. Aunt Ainsel had been very specific about that in her will.
Aine has a bad feeling she won't get to finish her hoard of novels.
Rowanbirch Manor looms ahead at the end of a tree-lined road. Shadows darken the interior of the old car, blinks of light fleeting from the heaviness of the rowan trees with their scarlet berries and the narrow juts of the ashen birch along the narrow road of stony dirt. Aine, watching a thrush flutter over head from one rowan tree to another in search of food, can't wait for summer to see the white flowers blooms. The birch, silver and downy alike, are taller than the rowans, fine branches reaching eternally for the sun, leaves half-bare in the October chill. Plenty of tiny seed birds hop around, grabbing for food to fill their bellies. It leaves a story that, once, this place was a peat or a bog, heavy with water. Or maybe it rained a lot and, thanks to the birch being here first, it allowed the rowan to move in, to fill in the spaces the birches left behind, creating this tangle of woods.
When they pull out of the woods into the center of the estate it's a shock to go from near shadow to midday sun. Her driver turns to pull the car around the medium-high labyrinth that looks to be carefully sculpted rose hedges. A straight path cuts down the center for convenience of guests. In the center of the shortcut is a fountain with a stone washerwoman pouring forever spilling water from her pot, stone clothes scattered around her. Aine turns in her seat, gazing at the stone washerwoman. There is a seriousness on her gray brow, her eyes appearing sad despite lack of depth, hair piled on her head messily with a few stone strands carefully etched around her cheeks. Her skirts are wet from the splash of water, forearms soaked, sleeves pushed up to her elbows to escape the worst of the backsplash.
The driver pulls the car to a stop, silencing the engine with a turn of his wrist. He gets out to go to the back of the car, popping the trunk. The man, older and thin, graying hair combed neatly over, suit finely pressed, pulls her carry-on from the trunk. Aine exits the car, closing the door with an echo she might never get used to. The nearby village is a twenty minute car ride, an hour by bike, far enough away to never hear them and to always feel alone.
Which suited her fine, if Aine was honest. She had plenty of friends to text and call, visits to arrange, journeys to plan. Plenty of podcasts, audiobooks, e-books, and physical books to finish. A book to complete. And she wanted to get to know this place without interruptions first.
"Mrs. Leigh." The driver calls, already at the steps.
Aine startles, realizes she'd been looking at the washerwoman. Or, more accurately, she had been staring. Aine turns away from the washerwoman, following the driver. It feels like someone is staring at her back and she fights the urge to see if the stone woman has turned to gaze at her, turned to declare Aine's impending death and show that the stone clothes are hers.
"What were you saying, Mr. Pennyworth?"
Aine had bit her tongue at the name of the man when he had introduced himself, knowing he'd probably put up with plenty of Batman jokes. Double the normal amount because his first name also happened to be Alfred.
"Your great-great-aunt, Ms. Ainsel, wanted me to make sure you met the staff before making any adjustments to the estate." He explains, opening the heavy oak door, stepping aside to allowed Aine to enter. "I thought the dining room would be the better option out of anywhere else for the introductions to go. The study hasn't been touched yet and we thought you would want to go through everything yourself."
"Thanks."
Whatever else she has planned to say dies on her tongue. The entry foyer was large, with a carpet of questionable age laid out to cover a floor of either midnight marble or extremely good imitation, walls a heavy beige-brown to make it feel even bigger . A giant staircase precursors the second floor, branching into two separate wings. Three separate tapestries that likely should have been in a museum hung on the walls, depicting Arthurian legends, hanging from antique gold bars with a large acorn mold knob on either end. She recognized the search for the Holy Grail on her left, the Lady of the Lake holding up Excalibur to King Arthur before her on the staircase wall, and the Fall of Camelot and death of King Arthur on her right. There are two doors of dark cherry oak on either side of the Holy Grail tapestry, leading to different parts of the manor (to where, she suddenly wanted to know), and one beside the tapestry of King Arthur's death.
Mr. Pennyworth is heading for that door, opening it and stepping aside. She continues to stare at the raven haired figure of Nimue holding Excalibur aloft to a youthful, golden haired King Arthur, face upturned in exalting hope to him as he leans over the boat, reaching for the hilt, eyes dark and turned to Nimue with…
Aine turns to follow Mr. Pennyworth, suddenly wishing she could have met Ainsel. She thinks they might have gotten along well if the rest of the manor looks like this.
"How big is this place, exactly? Like, the house. Not the grounds."
"Between four and five acres." He says, calm enough to knock the breath out of Aine. She does the math in her head, blinking in shock at his back.
"That's, like, two football fields! What the hell am I supposed to do with all this room?"
She can't see him smile but she can hear him. The hallway they are in is narrow and dark, lit only by a few wall sconces of the modern, electrical kind. They quickly come upon a door.
"Ms. Ainsel opened a bed and breakfast. She closed it about a decade ago due to lack of visitors. However, there is so much money in and coming into the estate from stocks and family fortunes left behind that you never need to do anything with it. You can buy a home in the city and leave this place to be managed by the staff, if you wanted." Mr. Pennyworth turns to her, expression serious. "However, it is explicitly stated in her will that-"
Aine bulldozes over him, just a little embarrassed by her rudeness. "The manor never be sold. It is to stay within family, preferably the immediate kind."
Mr. Pennyworth blinks at her, a light film of surprise over his eyes. Aine nods to the door. "I have no intention of selling this place or giving it to anyone else. Not without getting to know the people or the place first. That'll be the deciding factor."
He gives a single nod. "Very well. I hope you find this place to be a new home to you, Ms. Leigh."
"Please, Mr. Pennyworth." Aine says, "Call me Aine. If you called Aunt Ainsel by her first name, you can with me."
"Very well, then please refer to me as Alfred."
"Sure." She straightens her spine, nods to the door. "Now let's get this show on the road, Alfred. I wanna unpack my stuff."
Aine learns that the staff at Rowanbirch Manor is small and that all five take their jobs very seriously. There are two maids, Catherine "Kitty" Bennet and Mina Harkness. Kitty was in Ireland on the recommendation of her eldest sister to help improve her work ethic before college. Mina's husband John was off working on a brochure for Castle Dracula in an attempt to pick revenue back up, and they have lived in Ireland since they'd married. Alfred was apparently the butler as well as driver. Then there was Will Parry, the groundskeeper and gardener, saving up to go to medical school, and had a large tabby cat following him everywhere. And the cook was… he didn't talk much and had a heavy German accent. He always seemed very constipated, but when asked he said his named was Victor Franklin. Aine believes he means well and Alfred assured if anyone acted out of line they could be fired without severance pay.
Aine thought that excessive when they were all really nice but she hadn't lived with these people.
So far her only complaint was that none of them had any right to put away her belongings without asking her first. It was rude and she felt violated. The only saving grace was that the maids left her boxed up clothes and books alone, allowing her to put them away where she deemed fit. They sat in the center of the room in a pyramid, awaiting her attention.
The walls where a cool red-brown, stamped with a cream vector circles. Against the left wall was a vanity with a mirror and plush chair, makeup, brushes, and perfumes put away. Her jewelry was organized in a miniature jewelry wardrobe. A few feet from the vanity was the bookcase she had insisted travel with her, empty and awaiting its treasure trove of adventures, both read and waiting to be discovered. Her movies and shows and video games had been moved to the entertainment room, which was fine so long as Kitty and Mina didn't put them away.
A large cherrywood wardrobe with a mirror fixed to its door was positioned next to the bathroom, containing her dresses, button down shirts, and blouses. The chest of drawers and dresser on the other side of the wardrobe made of the same wood were empty until she filled them with her clothes. Above them is another tapestry, and she would bet her soul it was handwoven, each detail of the Cattle Raid of Cooley brilliantly planned out from Queen Medb mounted on a bull, spear aimed at her ex-husband Conchobar mac Nessa the King of Ulster, the battlefield wide and expansive with men and women alike fighting, bulls and cows scattered in the background. Aine knew the bull the Queen sat upon was, without doubt, the King of Ulster's prize stud bull.
The unadulterated pleasure weaved into Queen Medb's face made Aine a little gleeful herself, proud of the woman's achievement. And the king's pure fear was also fun to see.
She turns away, dropping her carry-on bag at the bottom of the giant, four-poster bed. It sunk into the duvet a good inch or two but she didn't notice, curious to pull aside the long, heavy curtains taking up the entire right wall. After some tugging, she realizes the curtains are too heavy to pull aside and looks for a lever or something to move them, knowing for a fact that there has to be some way to get them to move.
She finds a switch nestled between the tapestry and wall. She flicks it and a deep grind rumbles under her feet. Then the clinking of metal rings as, above her, the curtains are pulled aside. The bottom, barely brushing the floor, sway and follow, sunlight spilling into the room from floor to ceiling windows barred in a trellis style. A single door opens onto a stone balcony and she jiggles the handle. It opens wide and she walks out, looking across the few acres of land following another hedge labyrinth styled like the one out front, this time with a fairy knelt in the center, large wings spread wide, looking to be gazing into the pool of water. From somewhere to the stone fairy's side out of Aine's eyesight the water flowed out, never allowing the figure to see her perfect reflection. The grounds past the hedge labyrinth were carefully curated into three sections with plenty of space to prohibit possible cross pollination. One section grew herbs and spices, another held vegetables and fruits. Far to the left was a grouping of trees that were ripe with apples, figs, pears, lemons, and other sweets.
Aine leans over the stone balcony to see how far from the ground she is and is startled to find Will, his cat twining his ankles, soaking up the sun and staring out to the woods. She blinks at him.
"Was wondering when you'd figure out how to work that." He calls in his Oxford accent. She near jumps out of her skin, and she ducks back out of his eyesight. She hears him laugh. "Don't worry, Ms. Aine. When I first came here it took me ages to figure this place out. And I've seen crazier."
Aine swallows, brushes back her dark brown hair, and steps back up to the balcony, looking down into his laughing eyes. "Are there other surprises here?"
"It's a lot bigger on the inside than people tend to give it credit for. You're goin'ta want to find Ms. Ainsel's map. She made it as a little girl, according to Pennyworth. Might need some updating since she owned Rowanbirch, though."
"I thought we couldn't adjust the estate?"
He grins. "Adjustments aren't the same as adding on. Adding electricity, running water. Adjusting the grounds like cutting down trees aren't allowed though. This place is a conservation, you could say. Used to be nothing but trees. Before Ms. Ainsel's grandad came in, anyway. Didn't get far before he croaked."
Aine listens, interested in the history she was sorely lacking. Alfred hadn't been forthcoming and neither had the man who'd come to administer Aunt Ainsel's will.
"So, if I wanted to add a pool, I couldn't?"
"You don't need to." Will stands, stretching his arms to the sky. He smiles at her. "Ms. Ainsel put one in when they got fashionable. Hardly used it so probably needs a cleaning. We'd have to get someone in for that."
"That's fine." Aine looks around the balcony, really wishing there was a way to just walk down it. "Does my yearly budget allow me to "adjust" this balcony so there's a staircase?"
"Probably."
Will pauses in what he's going to say next when a little device on his belt loop buzzes. He grabs it and Aine realizes its a pager. She had never seen one in her life, having thought they'd gone out of date when the flip phone became a thing.
"Kitty says lunch is ready. If you give me five minutes I can show you to the dining room again."
Aine is about to agree. She should agree. However, she'd been stuck in several planes for hours on end, then in a car for long time on top of that. She needed to be outside.
"Can we move lunch outside? I'm sick of being inside."
Will nods, pulls out his phone to type up a message and send it off. Aine finds it absolutely fascinating to watch. He looks back to her. "Give me five. I'll be there soon."
Aine agrees and goes back inside, closing the door after her. She leaves the curtains open to let in the light, turning off the lamps to keep from wasting electricity. She waits for him by busying herself opening up her book boxes, organizing her series back together, deciding which shelf to put everything on and whether they belonged on the front or back row. She's put all her comics and manga on the back row of the first and second shelf by order of favorite series instead of complete collection when Will knocks on her open door. She brushes her hands against her jeans, though she knew there was no dust, and follows him through the place.
It's a delight to be back outside, even more to see a little iron wrought table with matching chair set-up with a grilled cheese, potato soup, and apple juice. Kitty and Mina stand to the side with Victor, hands clasped loosely in front of their black skirts. Victor stands ramrod straight, half-glaring at the table set up, hands behind his back.
"Freshly squeezed," Victor says from where he stands, eyes straying to the apple trees. "Ms. Ainsel insisted."
"Thank you." Aine sits, nervousness rising in her with how these people watched her. "You, uh, you don't have to stand here? I don't want to interrupt whatever you were doing."
Kitty and Mina curtsy, thank her, and return to the manor, their muted conversation floating back but indecipherable. Will and his cat wander off into the hedge labyrinth, visible but ever moving forward, away from her. Victor stands there a while longer, staring at the apple trees. He does not move until she takes a bite of the grilled cheese. When she sets the sandwich down to reach for the apple juice he finally looks at her, nods once, and turns on heel to march back into the manor.
A built up ball of stress releases when Victor disappears, leaving her to eat in peace, and she demolishes her meal. It's a shock, seeing as she had eaten on the plane rides and carried snacks to tide her over at the layover between her flight from Heathrow Airport to Kerry Airport. Though, she reminded herself, flying has never been my favorite thing. It's stressful.
Aine has barely finished her soup, lifting the bowl to her mouth to tip the last of the buttery liquid in, that Victor is coming back out. He marches across the stonework patio, expression pinched in eternal consternation, and stops at her elbow. Aine freezes with the bowl halfway to the table, a cold wash down her back telling her he had to have been watching to know she'd finished.
"Uhm…" Aine carefully sets down the bowl on the plate, turning a little to look up at Victor. "You didn't have to… uh… come so quickly."
He bows his head deferentially, though there is a brief twist to his mouth that says he doesn't want to defer to her. It smarts a little but she was new here. She doesn't know how long Aunt Ainsel had employed him as her cook, but she doesn't doubt that the old woman had been close to him with how distanced to Aine he acted. He lifts his head, eyes a sad blue, mouth pressed into a blank line. Nothing said how he felt except those miserable eyes.
"Ms. Ainsel was very adamant we be prompt, Miss."
"You don't have to with me." Aine tells him, stacking her dishes. "I like pulling my own weight, so don't be surprised if you find me in the kitchen, cooking food."
His hands, resting placidly at his side, clench. "I must insist that I be the one to cook your meals, Miss. It won't do to have you getting yourself dirty. And I would be out of job if you took over my duties."
"You won't be out of job." Aine assures, moving to stand. She goes to grab the dishes and Victor near snatches them from the table. "Victor—"
"Forgive me, Ms. Aine, but I insist you keep out of the kitchen." There is an underbite to his words and Aine recoils just a little. She misses Will's large tabby pushing through a hedge, staring at Victor with large shale green eyes, a warning within them. "I was hired to cook for the Rowanbirch Estate and must insist I be allowed to do my job. If you are ever hungry, please do not hesitate to call for me."
He gives a shallow bow from his waist and turns, quickly making for the interior of the house. Aine watches him go, ice cold from the way he'd reacted. She drops her arms when she realizes they were raised, poised to lift her dirty dishes. A deep mrp draws her attention and she glances behind her to see Will's cat stride up, sitting and wrapping her tail around her front paws. She looks at Aine with an intelligence not even the smartest house cat had. It makes a shiver go up her spine.
"You're very pretty, y'know." Aine tells the cat, watching her yawn and stretch. She shifts to lick a paw and clean her ears. Aine crouches down to be closer to the cat's eye level. "I've never seen a pelt like yours. I can only call it a tabby pelt. I don't know what else I could call it."
She mews, once, and rises, moving to twine around Aine's legs. Aine goes still, something about this ringing as wrong, wrong, wrong and she presses her hands flat to her knees. Some deeply ingrained part of her is saying she can't touch Will's cat. Only Will can touch her.
Aine slowly rises from her crouch. The tabby continues to twine around her, purring, distracting Aine.
Distracting her from her hurt.
Oh.
"You are a very smart cat." Aine tells her. "Thank you."
She purrs a little longer, passes between her legs as though the Arc de Triomphe. She turns, gives Aine a single, long look, then a disappears back into the hedge. Will, Aine can just barely see, is at the trees, picking fruits. She should tell someone she doesn't like pears before they feature in a meal. At least there weren't peaches.
The Manor ends up being exactly what Aine has always needed. She doesn't see the staff often except during meals, usually on the back lawn, near the fairy fountain. She organizes her room and puts in an order to have her mattress switched out with a harder one. She plays her video games, watches movies.
She spends days exploring the woods, backpack stuffed with a blanket, a few sandwiches, a canteen of water, and a book. She sleeps under the leaves of many different rowan trees, discovers a small stream where several silver birch saplings grow. Aine discovers the birds, if you don't move long enough, will make you into a perch. She's woken up with several starlings on her person more than once, staining her shirt with the red berries (and god, the hurt on Mina's face when she'd come back like that— never again.). She always comes back at dusk, satisfied with her finds.
Alfred takes her into town when asked, and she looks through storefronts, wandering into and out of bookstores that smell of love and tales carefully crafted to entertain even the oldest of adventurers. Buys a few new journals to capture her time in the woods, the ideas the whispering leaves and cackling branches summon forth. Alfred goes off to do other things when they come into Pooketon, left to his own devices when she assures him every time that she doesn't need him to follow her.
She buys the two of them chocolate croissants one day and they sit at a table when lunch rolls around, talking about her childhood in America, about his time in the army. The next morning she has a trio of hot croissants with her breakfast. When she asks Alfred he feigns ignorance and she dares not ask Victor, worried about upsetting him again. She buys herself another chocolate croissant and has Kitty leave it in the kitchen with a bow and a Thank you for the fresh croissants note.
Aine might never know whether Victor liked the gift or if he was angry, but she still has a fresh croissant every morning, usually filled with chocolate or baked cinnamon apples.
One day in the woods Aine finds a small cliff, where a river with a rocky, uneven bank runs rests on the bottom, slow and leisurely but undoubtedly wild and dangerous after the winter snow thaws in spring. In her journal she marks the river as being to the west of the estate, making a crude drawing of the river, putting a tiny red star beside it to warn of a sudden drop to it. It's not until she returns that evening to watch an episode of Outlander that she realizes how alike the location of Claire's first encounter with Captain Asshole is to the one she found. But the shooting for Outlander was in Scotland, not Ireland.
She returns to the river the following day, and finds that they are very similar but the cliff face is too steep to climb up or down, even after following in either direction a good ways. She finds a decrepit stone bridge overgrown with ivy and vines that day and spends half of her afternoon trying to draw it with her dismal skills, tongue peeking between teeth. She picks her way over the crumbling bridge to run through the more densely populated trees, mostly ash, laughing and grinning.
When the sleepy sun turns the area gray, she heads back to the manor. She gets there shortly after dark and Mina gently berates her for getting lost.
"I wasn't lost!" Aine protests, and pulls out her journal, showing her growing map. "I've been trying to draw it up."
Mina stares at the pages upon pages of careful artwork, poor compared to most people but still understandable. Then she asks, tone uneven, "Have you not gone through Ms. Ainsel's study yet, Ms. Aine?"
"Not yet. The guy who came to see me about the will and estate and other stuff said Aunt Ainsel had everything ready for when she died. There's nothing important there."
Mina gives a breathless sigh. Then says, "Ms. Ainsel's maps of the entire estate are in her study. I must warn you, it is a mess, but I doubt they'll be hard to find. She was a cartographer in her youth before coming into possession of Rowanbirch Manor."
"Oh, uh, thanks?" Mina gives a curtsy and leaves the dining room Aine had to eat in since it was dark outside. She flips through her notes and maps, working her way through the schnitzel, spaetzle, and mashed potatoes with lemonade (American lemonade, not Sprite). Her fork and knife echoed in the huge room, the shift of turning pages eerie. It was times like this she missed having company and wondered whether it would be okay to get a dog or a cat of her own. It was too early to plan for any friends or family to visit, especially with winter only a month or so away.
When she finishes, Victor once again enters the room. He asks how her meal was and she swear to him on how good it was. He leaves with a bow and she is left in the dining room, alone and quiet. She slowly pushes back her chair, rising. She pushes her chair back in, gathers up her journal, and leaves.
She goes to her room to change out of her hiking boots into her house slippers and grabs the key to Aunt Ainsel's study, heading to the fourth floor.
Like the rest of the manor besides the dining room, ballroom, and bedrooms, the hallways were beige-brown, seeming to go on forever. The floors past the first are stone, laid with long rugs of Middle Eastern patterns. High above, usually accented by sunlight and eerie in candle or lamp light, dentil molding help accentuate the age of the home. She thought a home almost old enough to be a precursor to modern Ireland wouldn't have such a thing. When Alfred was asked, just in passing, he'd been delighted at her question and able to tell her that one of the earlier Leigh's, during British occupation, had decided to try and ingratiate themselves by adding it in. It was why there were the tapestries about King Arthur and why so many of the rooms were so Empirical England. She seemed to have been given the one room inspired by everything but English rule.
Aine thinks about that as she finds her way to Aunt Ainsel's study, situated near the deceased woman's bedroom. Aine looks at the door that once was her Aunt Ainsel's room, locked now until Alfred saw fit to unlock it (something about a mourning period and the need to be polite). It wasn't anything special, like every other bedroom door in the place, and she wonders what made it special enough to lock.
When her dad died, they didn't lock his door and leave it alone for an indefinite amount of time. Her mother had come back from Canada to help arrange his burial, sign papers, and come September had shipped Aine and her sister Fenna off to a boarding school to keep from dealing with them. During the summer, they lived with their grandfather on his farm in Georgia. Their mother sent money for birthdays and holidays, but never saw them. Fenna had gone to California to get as far away from their mother as possible and Aine had stayed on the farm until the lawyer came about Aunt Ainsel.
Aine turns away from the door, pulling the key from her pocket to unlock the study doors. They slide open with zero resistance. She reaches for the light switch to her left, illuminating literally the biggest hoarding mess of the millenia.
It was true Aine loved books. Read them day in and day out when she wasn't more interested in exploring or games. She wrote short stories and was aiming to compile enough to publish a book, maybe two one day. But this? This was chaos. Books were crammed onto bookshelves that covered three of the four walls. A pair of low bookshelves were partly-blocking the windows, aided in their mission but tombs as thick as her neck and thin as her pinky dumbed on top. The desk was a storm of papers, maps, and opened books. She didn't dare attempt to count the bookmarks scattered on the floor, stuck into books in haphazard places, peeking under the desk, wiggling where they had been speared by the closed drawers.
Aine's skin itched.
"What the fuck."
Aine takes a step into the room, jumps back with a startled squeak when something crinkles under her foot. She looks down and finds a bible. She bends to pick it up. She smooths out the page she had crinkled and closes it with a snap. She gives the room a look over and sighs in despair. She was finding nothing in this.
Aine sets the bible on the desk before she exits, turning the light off on her way out. She'd find Kitty or Mina, preferably both. She was cleaning that study before she did anything else.
The following morning, the three women entered Aunt Ainsel's study with boxes, brooms, dust bins, and a mop and bucket. Aine wore her ugliest shirt and worst shorts, barefoot, and had encouraged the women to dress similarly. Will and Victor helped them get the boxes of books outside to air out and move the short bookcases to let the sun in fully, moving them to her bedroom where they'd get better use without ruining her need for light.
After that, they empty the desk and organize the papers and maps, dumping every wayward bookmark from paper towel to actual bookmark into the trash. They once again call on Will and Victor to remove the desk and remaining bookshelves, leaving them in the sun, Aine thinking the desk in particular could use a good sanding and new coat of paint upon getting a proper look at it.
"Alright," she puts her hands on her hips, feeling invigorated. "Now we go sweep, mop, and organize those books!"
She doesn't miss Mina's delighted whisper to Kitty, "I didn't think she'd ever take an interest in Ms. Ainsel's study!" She does miss Kitty's response.
The rest of the day is spent organizing Aunt Ainsel's books after a quick clean of the room, going so far as to wash the walls after realizing there were dust outlines from where the bookshelves had spent their lifetime. There's a small lunch break made of sandwiches and water, everyone sat on the lawn to enjoy the warm autumn day (even Alfred joined them), before getting back to work. In the evening time, the wall has dried and they get the shelves and desk moved back in, desk pressed to the windows since it was low enough to let in full sunlight. Aine sends everyone off to have dinner, promising to have hers later on, and Mina stays behind to help her put the books away, spines facing out in order of genre then alphabetically.
Mina tells her story of Aunt Ainsel as they work, explaining how she'd only known the older woman for five years before she had died. In that time, Mina had learned she had a scathing wit sharp as a vampire's fang, a love of the stars and what they might hold beyond them, and took her tea sweet as a Georgia peach by the bean nighe fountain.
"Ben yah?" Aine pauses in putting Aunt Ainsel's notes on the bird life away, nose wrinkling at the word.
"Bean nighe." Mina corrects. "The fountain out front is a washerwoman banshee."
"I knew she was a banshee." Aine explains. "I didn't know she had a name."
"Plenty of them do. Like the faerie in the back is a nixie."
The two finish putting the books away in comfortable silence, Aine chewing on that new information. She could make a story about a bean nighe, maybe one about the washerwoman out front. How she turned to stone washing the clothes of the damned when one was her mortal husband. Or it would be the bean nighe's sister-
Mina holds out two maps to Aine, stopping her mid-thought and step. Aine stares at them, uncomprehending until Mina speaks. "These are the maps I told you about. Ms. Ainsel made one for the manor and one for the grounds. I found them while organizing the star maps."
She takes them, smile lighting up her face. "Thank you!"
And, because she has been sorely lacking any physical affection since leaving her grandfather, she throws her arms around Mina. The maid takes a bracing step back but returns the hug heartily, laughing sweetly.
They part ways at the second floor after eating dinner together so Mina could go to her room in the West Wing where the servant quarters were and Aine to her bedroom in the East Wing. She turns on her bedroom lights and closes the curtains before striping out of her clothes, a small struggle due to the sweat that makes them stick. In the big bathroom the size of her old bedroom, Aine starts the claw footed bathtub with relish, digging out her favorite bubble bath scented to remind her of sun ripe peaches and wild strawberries. As her water begins to foam up, she goes around gathering her night clothes and putting the dirty clothes in the hamper.
Aine removes her dad's necklace from her neck to place on the sink edge before climbing into the tub. The level rises quickly from her hips to just under her breast and she leans back, sighing at the heat working down into her bones. She closes her eyes, focusing on the chilly bubbles lapping at her exposes skin, the roar of the water faucet, the way her muscles release in pleasure. When the bubbles tickle her neck she uses her right big toe to turn the water off, then sinks down to wet her hair. She comes back up feeling like the Little Mermaid's cousin, pushing her hair out of her face and settling back in the tub.
At some point, she dozes off. The mix of the scent of home the bubble bath brings, along with the hot water working at her muscles, and her exhaustion from so much heavy lifting, eventually puts her to sleep, happily nestled in her cocoon of safety.
Until a random bell goes off in the house, sending her springing up in her bath, spraying water everywhere. She stumbles out of the tub, nearly slipping until she grabbed the edge and placed a foot on the soaked rug. She snatches up a towel as the ringing bell continues, wiping off bubbles and water. She uncorks the tub and pulls on her bathrobe, finding her slippers just outside the door to slip her pruning feet into.
Embittered she'd been pulled out of her relaxation (though glad to not get hypothermia), she scuries out of her room and down to the entry hall to find out what the hell is going on.
Alfred, somehow fully dressed in his butler attire with a sleeping cap on Alfred why, is already there. When she appears at the stairs, he nods once.
"Wonderful, you can greet them."
"Greet who?" Aine demands. "Who ever is here this late needs to go home."
Alfred gives a secretive smile and holds out an arm in an invitation for her to go ahead of him. She pulls her wet mass of curls from the collar of her robe so water would stop dripping down her back. Then she stomps past him, down the stairs to the door, Alfred obediently at her elbow. She unlocks the front door with a bit of cursing and pissy muttering, then wrenches it open.
"It is nine at night what the hell could you possible— what the fuck."
A tall purple man stumbles over the threshold, right into her. She barely grabs him around the waist in time, bracing her feet on the carpet to the best of her ability. He makes a grunt of pain when she shifts to better her foot, squeaking, "Alfred!?"
"I'll take him." He says, coming forward to pull the man from Aine. Her entire front was soaked in blood and–oh Jesus H. Christ dancing on a ritz cracker, there was a giant hole in the man's chest, soaking his shirt and pants, getting ready to stain Aunt Ainsel's rug. "I'll get him to the kitchen. Go get Victor, if you would Ms. Aine."
"Y-yeah!"
Shell-shocked, Aine turns and runs for the stairs, taking them two at a time and nearly tripping. She is halfway to the West Wing when the others meet her, dressed in various states for bed. Victor catches her around the forearms, eyes wide behind his reading glasses.
"Miss what happened?"
"My god that's a lot of blood!" Kitty wails in terror.
Will steps ahead, pushing Kitty into Mina's arms to comfort the younger woman. "It's not hers!"
"M-man! Purple!" Aine manages, still trying to comprehend what the fuck is happening.
"Oh my." Mina states, in a disconnected manner. "I didn't think it would be so soon! We thought it would be in the first week and when it wasn't we assumed…"
"None of that now." Victor barks, glaring down at a trembling Aine. "Where is Alfred."
"He, he took the man to the kitchen. Told me to get you."
"Ah. He thinks I can fix him." Victor clucks his tongue. "If he's too far gone, the only place he will be going is the afterlife like intended."
Victor keeps a firm hold on Aine's arm and waist, leading her back downstairs and into the kitchen. Alfred is restraining the man to the island, demanding in a tightly controlled voice to calm down and that help would arrive soon.
"He's a demon!" Kitty shrieks.
"I highly doubt that." Will scoffs as Victor forces Aine down into a seat.
She had never been in the kitchen before. It was surprisingly plain with wood paneled walls and a linoleum floor. The counters were a pale granite, as was the large island Alfred and Will were trying to force the man down onto.
She notices with a strange clarity he has twin horns curling back from his forehead with gold and silver trinkets and gems and other jewels dripping from them, tangling in his purple-black hair. His eyes are solid red, a stark contrast to the pearl-white fangs he was baring at Alfred and Will. Along the side of his face sprouting from under his collar is a peacock feather tattoo and Aine would bet anything there are many more under the shirt, hiding scars unlike the ones across the front of his chest. Victor hits him in the head with a frying pan and Mina covers Kitty's eyes. The blood hunter tiefling goes limp on the table, ragged breathing the only thing telling he was alive.
Aine's hunched shoulders drop in disbelief as she says, voice hitting a pitch she didn't know could be heard by anyone other than dogs,
"Mollymauk Tealeaf?"