I never really knew my parents, even though we lived in the same house well into my childhood. Looking back on them now, it's amazing to see what an impact they had on my life in the most surprising and ironic way. Things could have been so different if they had genuinely cared about their children and tried to raise them as if they were people and not exotic pets.
But that's not who my parents were. They were rich, charming, sophisticated, and interesting. They didn't really need or want my sister and I; we were just around to complete the family unit. We were just extensions of their manicured lives.
Momma was pretty and foreign, with her big blue eyes and her pretty red curls. But she wasn't much else. Papa had met her when he was visiting the southern lands and fell captive to her beauty and wit. He took her back to our land after copious promises of extravagant wealth and a life in a high-up social sphere. Momma had been poor, and she wanted nothing more in the world than to be wealthy and affluent and looked up to, or so I heard from the servants. I never really interacted with her in person. Mostly I saw her when she was entertaining guests at our old mansion. That and sometimes at breakfast. She wore black a lot, which never seemed to fit her and occasionally navy, which never fit her either. Once, when I was alone in the nursery, I drew a picture of a gown especially designed for her. She looked at it and said "Gerdie that's very cute and all, but can you make it?"
"Make it?" I stuttered, haplessly.
"Yes, of course, dear. Can you acquire the fabric and measurements, cut all the pieces properly, and sew it together to create something real?"
"I-I… no."
"Then darling," she said with her pinched, little smile, "you must know that something like this couldn't possibly interest someone. It's just an idea on a page. It's not going to make a profit. Why don't you learn something charming like medicine or trading etiquette? Your father would be absolutely beside himself if he knew that you were going to be the first female merchant in Isdæll."
She chuckled at the joke and excused herself off to the gardens or her study.
I wasn't sure if I hated her or if I was merely annoyed by her. On retrospect I feel it was much closer to loathing than I would have liked to admit.
But I must have loved her a little bit, too, or I wouldn't have set out so passionately on learning how to make dresses, how to prove her wrong. How to make her stuff all of those ugly, belittling words up her pretty little smirk of a mouth.
I made my first dress when I was ten. One of Momma's friends had given me some silk fabric, I think because Momma had told them laughingly about me bringing her the drawing. I never knew if it was pity that provoked it or merely another cruel joke – I suppose I assumed the latter – but I was determined not to let her get the best of me. I stole scissors and strings and needles from anyone and everyone. I convinced Papa to buy me a sewing book for my birthday. It took me months and many bloodied, pricked fingers to sew the dress up. But I did in the end. Momma was out at a party that night. I stayed up until I couldn't keep my eyes shut waiting for her to come back.
She never did.
I cried for a long time after I heard the news. Cried for all the dismissal and the hate and the wanting. Wanting her to just notice I was even alive. Me, her own daughter. It seemed like hours before I finally up and wiped my tears away and never cried another one over her.
It was later that I found out she hadn't died because of a sudden cold – which I also learned never killed a soul – but rather by a jealous former lover, who was incensed that she could leave him for the man she was with now – who was not my father. He had waited outside and knifed her just as she was stepping out to get into the carriage. The royal battalion finally found him and had him publically executed.
I never knew how Papa reacted when he heard. It seemed like he didn't react at all, just went on living the same way he always did. Traveling practically every day of his life, bringing back pretty goods to "oo" and "ah" over before he sold them. Life went on just fine for Papa, it seemed.
I suppose that's an unfair judgment on my part. I barely knew my father either, perhaps even less than my mother. He was good-looking and pleasant, I recall, and charming in a much more shrewd and subdued way than Mother had been. He knew how to flatter and cajole, how to be silent so as to look mysterious, and how to ask the right questions to make you drop your superstitions and concerns and slap money into the palms of his hand. I always thought Papa was amiable, but I never thought he was honest.
When I was fifteen, Papa married a woman named Veda. Veda was clever and a widow with a daughter of her own a year younger than my older sister Laurel. Her face was stern and she didn't smile, but she didn't ridicule, either, like Momma did. She also knew how to dress, choosing fashionable whites and blacks that went with her dark brown hair and eyes, as well as the occasional use of placid yellows, rich blues, and pale salmons. She wasn't pretty in the way Momma was, but she was more composed and sophisticated. She brought an air of intelligence to the room and dry wit. She knew wine and cheese and the best and most fashionable woodwork and what styles would be popular and what books people were reading.
I never quite understood what made her marry Papa; it seemed she could have done a lot better. Perhaps she found it a shrewd choice; perhaps she thought he was going places. If she had, it was quite a struck of misfortune, for Papa died of a heart attack somewhere in the South when he was off on business.
So that left the four of us: Veda, Laurel, Penta, and me.
Laurel was older than me by about three years. She was very pretty and very tall, with wavy strawberry-blonde hair and her lovely blue-green eyes. We had never spent time together growing up. Laurel was a gifted athlete and pianist, and she was always at tennis lessons or studying music under Master so-and-so. Whatever she did, she was hailed at it.
Penta was similar. Though not overwhelmingly attractive, Penta had inherited her mother's sharp mind as well as a talent for dance and singing. She had also studied under highly sought-after dance teachers and vocal coaches, to great acclaim as well.
So it was no surprise that Penta and Laurel got along. Or perhaps it was a great surprise. I don't know, perhaps it wasn't either. Laurel would often play the piano while Penta sang, and with Laurel's looks and Penta's voice, they made a very appealing combination, which proved to be mutually beneficial instead of merely competitive. So they were always together, and I was alone.
I was not quite pretty. I suppose I was too young or too young looking to quite be pretty yet. My hair was an auburn color, and my eyes a pale green. There was nothing wrong with the way I looked, but next to Laurel, I just didn't have it, the spark, the mad flame of beauty. It was the same in all other respects, too. I sang well, but Penta's voice was throatier and trained. I played the piano passably, but I didn't have Laurel's graceful long fingers or her gusto. I danced when I felt like it, but Penta's long slender legs made her move like silk ribbons in a summer breeze. I felt ordinary, common.
I felt unnoticeable.
So I sewed and eventually picked up cooking.
Sewing wasn't a natural strength to me. It took me long hours in my room reading two or three books at a time, trying to figure out what they all made. It took jabbing my fingers 'til they became scabby, coarse little things and wanting to scream and burn every stitch of fabric I owned. It took Veda's criticism and difficult to please demeanor as well as her impeccable taste in clothing. Eventually I managed to do something with the hobby, and soon enough I was making dresses, good dresses. Not the tacky dresses with too many frills and unseemly necklines and too much skin in the wrong places, but classy dresses. The kind of dresses you wanted to dress in. The kind of dresses that made people feel desirable and soft.
I didn't discover cooking until after we lost the mansion.
I remember the day Veda sat us down very clearly. It was a grey day outside, in mid-autumn. The sun hadn't been out for days, and I felt restless with pent up energy. Veda called us three into the living room and bade us sit down. She was wearing an exquisite caramel colored dress with a small gold stud near the bosom – I remembered because it was far too nice of a gown to be wearing with no special occasion to celebrate.
I sat down in the blue velvet chair as Laurel and Penta sat on the gold sofa.
"Girls, I have rather unfortunate news for all of us." Veda stood where we could all see her with a letter in her hand. "It seems that my late husband, Laurel and Gerda's father," as if we didn't all know "has turned out to be… well… not quite the man I thought he was. I have a letter here in my hands that details some rather unfavorable actions on his part, such as some apparent embezzlement as well as dishonest representation of some of the goods he was selling."
Laurel's eyes widened and Veda moved to hand her the letter. She read it cautiously as Penta looked over her shoulder. "As such, it seems that we have racked up quite a considerable debt in repaying those cheated out of their money, and I'm afraid it's been such a sum that the royal treasury has decided to take possession of our home and some of our valuables and furniture to pay it off."
We all gasped, but I wasn't sure what startled us more: the loss of our home or the apathy in her voice.
"Well, it was either that or spend an appropriate time in prison as penance for our dear patriarch's sin," Veda replied frostily, dipping her body into a nearby seat like a swan descending onto water.
We all stared at her silently.
"The good thing is," Veda continued, "we don't have to sell all our belongings. It seems that we can all keep several pieces of furniture, a couple of curtains, our jewelry, and our clothes. But things are going to be tight, ladies. We're going to have to share and be on our best behavior. I prepared a list of furniture I would like to take with me. Laurel, you and Gerda are going to have to share a dresser-"
"Oh, but Stepmother-"
"Don't 'oh, but stepmother' me, Laurel. Honestly, it isn't really like Gerda is going to be that much of a bother. She doesn't hardly use a dresser, let alone need it for much."
That stung, but it was true.
"Penta, I'm afraid you and I will have to share a dresser for the time being. It's unfavorable, but such is life." As always, Veda was brisk and unemotional with tragedy.
Penta nodded sagely.
"Are you all quite clear on what is going on? I will be giving out further instruction on what we will need to pack for the wagons and the carriages throughout this week. That is all I have to say; you are dismissed."
No one moved.
"Um, Stepmother?" I asked quietly.
"What is it, Gerda?"
"Um, where will we be moving to? That is, where will we live now?"
Veda looked at me for a few moments then looked down at the letter. "I'm afraid I don't know quite yet, Gerda. But tomorrow I am going to go into town to find an acceptable location to take up residence. You may all be assured that by the end of the week, you will be moving into someplace satisfactory. Now if that is all, you must excuse me for I have other business to attend to."
With that she stood up and swept calmly out of the room.
I suppose I had never been more amazed by my stepmother before. Her unnerving sense of calm, her amazing poise and eloquence, her confidence and her efficiency – she was almost more machine than human, almost too coordinated and undisturbed to be real.
I looked to Laurel and Penta, both still seated on the sofa. They looked more serious and intent than I had event seen them before. Finally, Penta got up.
"Well, what's done is done," Penta exclaimed in that soft voice of hers.
"Is that all you can say?" Laurel looked fierce. "This is my home! I've lived in this house since the day I was born! And now you and your mother are just giving it away?"
Penta and I both stared at Laurel, stunned by her sudden vehemence.
"So you think Mother and I planned all this?" Penta's voice was ice cold.
Laurel didn't speak.
"If your father hadn't been such a lying, scheming cheat, Mother and I would be warm and content back at our house, the house I lived in since I was born and had to give up to live here." Penta's cheeks glowed with anger I had never before thought her capable of.
Laurel cast her gaze downwards. "I'm sorry, Penta. I shouldn't have said that."
"No, you shouldn't. Now excuse me, I'll be in my room, packing my belongings."
Penta stood up stiffly and walked out one of the side doors into the hallway.
Laurel and I sat still, a rare moment between us. The clock ticked on emotionlessly; time stopped for no man and no tragedy. I looked at Laurel. Her face was pale, but composed and lovely. She pulled her hair back with a sigh.
"You know… I don't even know why I'm so upset. I'm not really going to miss this place and its large, empty rooms and the cupboards and cupboards of fine china that no one uses. And the rugs. The rugs are awful. So gaudy and so…"
It was then that I realized she was crying.
"And… and the worst part of it is that it never even felt like home. With all the lessons and Papa being gone all the time and Mama, well, Mama being what she was… it… it just never was home. But I wanted it to be home so bad! But… it wasn't! It was just this place! And I never wanted to admit that I was just as homeless as those beggars on the street but-" Her voice broke out into sobs.
I watched her from the chair, unable to move or comfort her. She was just this fragile, sweet things, all bottled up inside, all alone and afraid. And I felt so powerless, so pathetic. I felt like I ought to just shrivel up and die.
She stood up abruptly and ran out of the room.
I felt my own tears start to prick and then sear my eyes. Laurel was right: it had never been home. It had just been pretty grey stone walls and a pretty garden and pretty dark brown wood floors and walls and ceilings and pretty glass chandeliers and pretty (or in Laurel's opinion, ugly) red and gold carpet and pretty crystal glasses…
It had been pretty everything, but not home. Just some place, some pretty place. And now that we were leaving, the illusion was over. We would miss what we had never had, but wanted, what we had seen other children in the streets have. We would miss the lies we told ourselves to feel better. But we wouldn't miss our parents and the place they brought us up, because that's all it was. A place – without memories, without security, without love.
When we moved out the next week, it felt like we had already forgotten it.
Author's note: The biggest thing that bothers me about this chapter is her mentioning cooking when that won't come in for several chapters - however it's hard to take it out because the mention of cooking helps the paragraphs transition smoother than if I decided to completely cut it out. I also worry about setting the chapter up in wealth when Gerda A) doesn't know how to read (she just looks at the pictures in the books) and B) the whole rest of the story Gerda is lower class (middle-class at best). It just feels a bit weird. Some questions for you: what do you make of Gerda from the first chapter? What characters stand out to you? What kind of vibe/tone/feel do you expect for the rest of the story?
