Chapter One : Fascinating

Anamaria handed Molly off to another girl, who took Molly up the servants' stairs to the rooms where she and Miss Tanith would be staying. Molly set their suitcases down and set about the routine work of arranging Miss Tanith's clothes in their proper places. She hurried up another flight of stairs with her own suitcase in hand to the servants' quarters, where a different girl -- how many servants did this Uncle Robert have? -- took it from her and set it on the bed farthest from the door. Molly took her comb from the inside pocket, undid her pigtails, brushed out her hair, and rebraided her pigtails with clumsy fingers.

Just as she put her comb back into her suitcase, the servant who had taken her upstairs reappeared and said roughly, "Suppertime! Why aren't you downstairs?"

Molly replied timidly, "I arrived with Miz Tanith just a moment ago, and I was just going to ask when supper was."

"Well, supper is now," said the older girl. "Now come on, you'll be late. At least your hair is decent."

Even the accents were different in the city, thought Molly as she followed the older girl down the servants' stairs. The older girl's words were harsher than Annabelle's soft drawl at home, harsher even than Miss Tanith's clipped voice, although Miss Tanith had been raised and lived out fully half her life in this city before she had retired to the Outlands.

Molly trailed behind the other girl into the eating room, where the other servants sat.

"All right," said the older girl. "This is Molly. She's come from the Outlands with Miss Tanith. So don't make fun of her or nut."

Molly puzzled over the last word before deciding that it must be nowt, or nothing. What a thick accent this girl had!

The girl turned to Molly, displaying a wholly unexpected soft side to her manner. "My name is Stephanie, thankya," said she. "You're Molly of the Outlands, no?"

Molly nodded.

"Oh, I see. The train, isn't it?" she said.

Molly nodded again.

"The train's the worst part," said Stephanie. "I been with Mister Robert almost my complement, and the train was the worst part, followed by the street."

"She came from the Outlands, you know," added the girl to Molly's left. "Seven years old. How old're you?"

"Ten, I think," said Molly. "Miss Tanith says so, anyhow."

Allow a pause in the story, Reader. Imagine what you would know as a drawling, vaguely English voice speaking the dialogue above. The tees are crisp, the aitches nearly absent, the ohs stretched into an aow sound -- in general, a slurring voice, an uneducated voice in all ways which stretches some sounds and chops others short.

"I see, I see," said the girl to the left. " 'ere, take the potatoes," and she passed Molly the potatoes. "Yoah too skinny, Molly. Be taken foar a skellington warking down the street."

Molly used the spoon and dug a scoop of potatoes, which she put on her plate. She glanced about and, seeing the other girls eating, began to eat.

The potatoes tasted familiar, like the ones Cook had made back home, with some butter mixed in it for taste. Molly asked Stephanie if she could have a second serving.

" 'Ere's the peas," said Stephanie, and Molly scooped out a spoonful, which she ate.

After supper, Stephanie led Molly back upstairs, where she and the other girls took turns washing in a bathtub - full of wash water. Some of the girls moaned on about the dirtiness of the water; Stephanie said that these were also visitors from out of town.

Washed, Stephanie took it upon herself to explain to Molly her duties while she was here.

"What did you do in the Outlands?" she asked.

"For Miss Tanith?" Molly said redundantly. For a moment she was swept up in a tide of memory -- Annabelle teaching her how to sew, the sunset over the plains and mountains, the servants' porch where she sat at Annabelle's feet, clumsily sewing patches onto her dresses. "Well, Annabelle was training me to be a seamstress."

"Annabelle?" asked Stephanie. "I knew an Annabelle, but it's common. Seamstress?"

"Yes," said Molly. "And then Miz Margaret took sick, and Miz Tanith being her mother, I was obliged to come with her."

"Miz Tanith's Margaret's aunt," said Stephanie. "What, she told you she was her mother?"

"Well, that's what I heard," said Molly defensively.

"No matter," said Stephanie. "Miz Tanith was like Margaret's mother, I 'eard, and so it's the same anyow." She eyed Molly's hair. "Mind if I braid your hair? I do it for all the girls."

"Yes," said Molly. Annabelle had taught her how to put her hair into pigtails just before Miss Margaret had taken sick, and Molly didn't think she had it quite right yet. Besides, it was easier to let Stephanie braid her hair.