A/N: Well. Been back at college for almost a month and finally got around to posting a new chapter. Sorry, guys.
For the lair of a reclusive family entangled in the dark arts, the Addams manor was surprisingly straight-forward. Its layout seemed much the same as many others he'd been in, and so Lucas made his way through the halls easily. The tapestries in his room- the guest room, he mentally corrected himself –seemed to be part of a set. More gore-spattered scenes hung on the walls beyond. Padding down the corridor barefoot, he paused to examine one. To his surprise, several of the tiny woven warriors appeared to be women.
A pale face with large brown eyes filled his mind, and surprise gave way to a tenuous understanding.
Several heavy wooden doors on both sides of the hall stood closed. The more he saw of this family, the less disturbing them seemed in his best interest. Besides, he was a guest. Asking entry to closed rooms uninvited would be rude. One door in particular also seemed to be making very feminine moaning sounds; he passed by it as quickly as possible. A set of large portraits near the staircase provided a welcome distraction.
Two were group portraits, with at least seven people in each. Despite the figures' unusually dark clothing and physical deformities, what caught his interest were the paintings immediately beside the staircase. Two of them, in ornate gold frames, each nearly as tall as he was.
One showed a man about his father's age, rather short and heavyset, with swarthy skin and a small black moustache. A statuesque woman in a tight dress who looked oddly familiar stood beside the man, fixing the viewer with an intense gaze. This, he supposed, was a portrait of the current Count and Countess of Schwartzwald.
The other portrait was slightly larger and depicted three people instead of two. One was a young boy sitting in front of a bookshelf, the spitting image of the Count, wearing a striped shirt and a scowl. Near his chair stood another child, this one with a wooden horse and wearing a romper suit that showed him to be much younger. But the third figure was immediately recognizable. She was a bit younger, with long, wavy hair and a purple satin gown, but it was clearly Wednesday. If her face hadn't made that obvious, the ornate dagger in her hand did.
Lucas stepped closer to examine the painting's details- but stopped. Faint singing from outside floated in through the window, in spite of the thick curtains. He walked to the window and peered out.
The source of the music was a shock, to say the least. Wednesday stood in a corner of the kitchen garden, bent over a dusty-looking plant. As she worked, her voice- lovely if strangely forceful –floated out across the estate. Lucas was briefly reminded of home. Lauren always sang as she tended her rose garden, pruning the bushes with delicate golden shears. The royal greenhouses often echoed with her high, sweet voice. Granted, it could grate on one's nerves at six o'clock in the morning.
The familiarity was odd. This maiden was a witch, the child of a reclusive noble. Surely sorceresses did nothing so ordinary as singing while they tended a garden. And yet, there she was. As he watched, she stood and placed something in a sack on the ground, only to turn and accidentally knock said bag over with her foot. No sooner had she knelt to gather up spilled leaves and roots, then the underbrush at the edge of the forest rustled and-
"Oh my lawd!"
A flat voice screeched in his ear. The prince jumped. A second later, someone slapped the back of his head.
"Well, bless my soul! If it ain't the governor's son himself! Mamie, fetch some sweet tea and mint juleps!" said the small, wizened old woman who danced into view. She held out her tattered brown skirts and dropped a curtsy, knees creaking almost louder than the floorboards. Batting her eyelashes. She smiled. Lucas noticed that the patches on her clothing outnumbered her teeth.
The crone leered up at him. "Admiring the garden, sonny?" she asked. He cringed at the rotting-meat stench of her breath.
"Erm…yes?" he said.
"Because if I didn't know any better, I'd say it wasn't the hemlock you cared about." There was a twinkle in her eye Lucas wasn't sure he liked.
"Madam, I assure you, I was merely-"
But he was abruptly silenced when the woman grabbed his arm and yanked him, with surprising strength, to her side. Her rheumy eyes seemed to bore into his. "Don't think I don't know what blossom's caught your fancy," she cackled.
Lucas swallowed hard. "My intentions- that is, I'm betrothed- not to speak ill of your…" he took a guess, "granddaughter. But Princess Amanda of-"
"My granddaughter?" She let him go, shoving him away so hard that he collided with the windowsill. A gale of rasping laughter burst from her shriveled mouth. "My granddaughter? What do you want with her? The girl's crazy as a loon, a total prude, no fun at all. Plus bitter as Kanye at the VMAs."
The metaphor made no sense, but he ignored it. "Then who…?"
"Delilah." She winked.
"Delilah," Lucas said flatly.
"Yep."
"The horse."
"Know any other Delilahs around here?"
After a moment's pause, he decided not to press the issue. The more he saw of the House Addams, the more he suspected madness was their norm.
"So," he said, backing towards the stairs, "your horse has many suitors?"
Her bushy eyebrows knitted in a frown. "You been sitting in the sun too long, boy."
"What?"
"If you're going a-courting outside, tell her to bring me some belladonna berries."
Lucas blinked. "The lady or the horse?"
With another toothless grin, the old woman hobbled over to the prince and slapped him on the back. "Go get 'er, lover-boy!" she crowed, and started down the hall once more.
"What just happened?" he whispered to no-one in particular. The paintings merely gazed down at him- not that he'd expected an answer. Not really. Though, by now, he doubted anything in the Addams manor could surprise him. He turned and descended the stairs.
After passing a great fish mounted on the wall with what looked like a human leg in its mouth, the stuffed head of some strange deer, and a painting of a cameleopard in a man's suit, he no longer doubted his capacity for surprise. What was this family, that magic was not the strangest sight under their roof?
The kitchen seemed reassuringly normal- though normal and unusual were rapidly becoming muddled in his mind. The same large fireplace as the palace kitchen he'd run into and out of as a child stealing tea cakes. The same iron spit for roasting meat. The same copper pots and pans, trays of rising bread, fruit drying on a wooden rack, herbs hanging from the ceiling. A large table with chairs, though all considerably more scarred than those at home. One particular chair he passed was blackened as if it had been fired from a cannon. Recalling Wednesday and what he knew of her youngest brother- the painting had implied at least one more –Lucas once again revised his definition of "normal." If feeding guests caterpillars was part of the usual Addams childhood…
He followed the sound of singing through a side door (ignoring the dead snake nailed to it and outside. The garden was a profusion of midsummer green. Though plants were a mystery to him, he thought there were just as many weeds as desirable things. Wednesday's song, however, soon distracted him from botanical observations.
"He made harp-pins of her fingers fair,
Hey hey ho and a bonny-o,
And made harp-strings of her golden hair,
The stream flows so bonny-o.
He made a harp of her breastbone-"
Suddenly, she fell silent. Lucas peered around a tall, flowering shrub and saw her kneeling on the ground, half-full sack at her feet. On her hand perched a crow, its feathers stark against her pale skin.
"Hey hey ho and a bonny-o," she continued. The crow cawed, and a few moments later Lucas realized its calls were in time with the music. Could this be like Lauren and her songbirds? The twittering, blue things always flocked to her.
Sure enough, another crow joined the first, and another. A hawk glided into the garden and settled on Wednesday's right shoulder. The left was soon occupied by a huge eagle owl.
Four badgers, a polecat, two vultures, and at least a dozen spiders later, the scene no longer reminded him of Lauren. Lucas turned to go back to the house, vague thoughts of breakfast filling his mind. So it was only to be expected that he didn't notice the horse in the way until he ran into it.
Delilah regarded him coolly. She didn't move.
"Shoo," the prince whispered. Nothing.
"Shoo!" he tried again, a bit louder and with helpful hand gestures toward the stable.
Snort.
"…go home?"
Whinny.
"No, shh! Shh! I'm going back to the house!"
Delilah stared a him for a moment, then over his shoulder at Wednesday. Who, he dimly registered, had switched to a song about a woman running her husband through with his own sword. Delilah put her head down against his chest, snorted again, and started walking forward.
Lucas tried digging his heels in, then grabbing onto a tree branch. All it got him was muddy feet and a fistful of leaves. The horse was a moving glacier, and he had no choice but to move or be mown over. Little by little, he found himself forced into the open, down the garden path, towards the viscountess and her woodland menagerie. When he was practically on top of her, Delilah abruptly stopped and neighed loudly. Wednesday looked up.
Her eyes narrowed. "Oh. It's you."
"Blame the horse, milady," he said. "I was on my way back inside."
"Where I suppose you expect to be waited upon hand and foot?"
"What-"
"We're not accustomed to pampered princelings here," she continued briskly, brushing soil off her apron.
"I actually-" he began, but was again cut off.
"And, of course, a house of such dissolution cannot-" Delilah's tail whipped out and struck her in the face.
Wednesday spluttered; the horse nickered pointedly at her. To Lucas' surprise, her moon-white cheeks turned pink.
After staring at the ground for a moment, she quietly said, "I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry," he said. "I was wrong to ask such a prying question."
Silence. When he looked up, her brown eyes were wide. "You apologized?"
"Yes," he said hesitantly, "because I was rude. And wrong. It's a thing that is commonly done. When you do something wrong." From the corner of his vision, he noticed Delilah rolling her eyes.
"Not in my experience," she replied, and gathered up her burlap bag. "I should also apologize, milord. I was wrong to snap at you, and wrong to take you for the kind of fool I must usually suffer."
"Lucas."
Wednesday paused in releasing a few spiders back into the forest. "Beg pardon?"
"Call me Lucas," he said, a bit shyly. "No-one ever does."
"Then to what do I owe the privilege?" she asked. The last of the animals- the eagle owl –took wing and was soon lost above the trees. Lucas looked at her, really looked for the first time. Heavy-lidded eyes, thin lips, a small mole on her forehead, gown drab and wrinkled, hands dirty, feet bare (he noticed, with some alarm, an extra toe on one foot). And in a moment of clarity, he realized that she was beautiful.
"You are the first honest maiden I have ever met. I'd prefer to be honest in return," he said carefully. "And honestly, I'm just Lucas."
She stared down the path to the house. "More likely the first maiden you've met who was permitted to be honest," she replied, but there was something of a smile in her eyes. "Are you implying, then, that there shall never be a lie between us?"
Lucas followed her, jogging to catch up. "I believe I am."
Then, wonder of wonders, she actually laughed. "We'll see if you can manage such a feat…Lucas."
A/N: "Cameleopard" is an archaic term for a giraffe. Because apparently they look like a cross between a camel and a leopard. Go figure.
