A.N.: Fair warning, this one's a bit long! I was kind of having fun with it. This chapter also introduces eight-year-old Spencer Lockwood's home situation.
Machiavelli's Daughter
11
Mamma Knows Best
"You're not just a wife, now…you…you're a mother," Elijah said softly, and something like sorrow flitted across his face, as he watched Gyda and Zita, who sat giggling at the piano as they played. His only-surviving child; and the child neither of them would ever have dreamed would come into existence.
"I didn't know…what Kol may have told you," Giulia said softly, glancing at Elijah, sighing gently. Elijah held her eye.
"Only that your life is far more complicated than appearances may suggest," he said softly. "He did not mention your daughter."
"I didn't understand it before, not really…how could I?" Giulia murmured, watching the two girls - one four years old, the other, well over a thousand, both sharing the same undiluted joy of music, creation. She glanced at Elijah. "Since she was born, I've wondered how you held back. Didn't rip his head off… But your relationship is far more complicated than that."
Elijah frowned gently. "You told my siblings about Niklaus."
"I showed them the caves… Finn confirmed what they found there," Giulia said softly.
"Yes, Finn finally told me why Niklaus daggered him all those centuries ago," Elijah said, and guilt and shame made his voice heavy. "One can't help wonder how history may have unfolded…if only I had not lost Finn's trust to confide the truth in me. I let our family down."
"What Klaus has done to your family is not your fault," Giulia told him gently, taking his hand, hoping he heard her, really let it sink in. "You keep thinking like that, and your brother will only use it against you: He will convince you that it was your fault. What Klaus has done to each of you is only and utterly his doing; none of your choices justify what he has done to you." Elijah squeezed her hand tenderly, holding her eye. Something flickered across his face, sorrow and exhaustion and grief, and he leaned in to kiss her cheek.
"I may need you to keep reminding me of that," he said softly. They both knew the forceful personality his brother had; Klaus was a classic example of the Dark Tetrad personality, a pathological narcissist, a sadistic master-manipulator. He had spent a thousand years perfecting how to make his family believe they deserved everything he did to punish them.
Giulia smiled sadly. "Always."
"Where are the daggers?" Elijah asked, and Giulia glanced at him.
"Hidden away where naughty little boys can't play with them," Giulia assured him gently.
"Good," Elijah sighed heavily. He raised their linked hands, and tenderly kissed the back of her hand.
"I didn't tell you yet… Rebekah is awake," she said quietly, and Elijah glanced at her.
"I had wondered why she was not among us," he confessed. "You anticipated Niklaus would wake her."
"After the stunt you pulled? She's the only one he'd know to be capable of doing his bidding now," Giulia said quietly.
"Let's…find somewhere to talk," Elijah said, gently guiding her out of the room, to the garden. It smelled of sunshine and herbs, growing things. They wandered over to the wizened plum tree, and Giulia sank down onto the swing.
"What became of Stefan Salvatore?" Elijah asked, frowning. Giulia started, wondering just how much the Originals had to catch up on, that Elijah hadn't even heard what had happened immediately after he was daggered. Kol would know, to tell him; but that was Giulia's dysfunctional family drama. "He came to Alaric Saltzman's loft, begging for his brother's life."
"Klaus traded a pint of his blood for ten years of Stefan's freedom," Giulia said, and Elijah frowned gently at her. "Klaus's blood heals werewolf-bites, even in non-Original vampires." Elijah's eyebrows rose. "Damon healed, and Stefan has stuck to his word. But his ten years are up. He and Rebekah were in lust in Chicago in 1922."
"So Niklaus is using Rebekah as bait, to retain Stefan's services," Elijah sighed, shaking his head. "It would not be the first time it has been suggested Rebekah extend herself to benefit Niklaus."
"Your brother's looking for the pendant - your mother's pendant," Giulia said, glancing at him, and realisation suffused Elijah's handsome face. "According to Stefan, Klaus believes the sacrifice went awry…he's seeking answers…"
"Mother," Elijah murmured, and Giulia nodded.
"Could he contact her?" Giulia asked softly.
"He may attempt to; whether Mother answers is another matter entirely," Elijah said quietly, looking pensive and distracted.
"When he noticed Rebekah's pendant was missing, Klaus pulled the dagger from her heart and had a witch in Chicago try and track it using Rebekah's bond with it," Giulia said, sighing. "The witch pointed Klaus straight at Mystic Falls… Stefan and I had quite an unusual family-dinner the other night…he told me he thought Rose may know where the pendant is."
"Rose?" Elijah frowned at her. "She remains in Mystic Falls?"
"She renovated the Boarding House for me," Giulia said, smiling fondly.
"And why should Stefan believe Rose has the pendant?"
"He remembers Elena lost it when she was kidnapped by Rose and Trevor," Giulia told him, and Elijah made a thoughtful noise. "I reminded Stefan that you were there; you recognised the pendant… I'd rather not have Rose tangled up in Original nonsense again. She just barely scraped her way out of the last rumpus."
Elijah nodded slowly; it was he, of course, who had beheaded Rose's best-friend, Trevor. Five centuries, they had lived together, constantly on the move, fleeing the Originals. Trevor had broken his word to the Originals; but Elijah had honoured Rose's loyalty to Trevor.
"Why was your dinner with Stefan unusual?"
His question took Giulia by surprise, blinking at the tangent in their conversation. "It's the first dinner I think we've ever shared, and been more than civil," Giulia said thoughtfully. "Something's…shifted." After their dinner, Stefan had called her, actually called her, to talk; about Elena, yes, and whether she thought it a good idea to take Elena out for a meal, to talk everything over like she wanted… But Stefan had called Giulia, asking her advice: Apparently, he valued her perspective. That was new. "There's something…like respect there, now."
"Your relationship with Stefan was rather fraught, as I recall," Elijah said. Fraught: Giulia had blamed Stefan for his part in her father's murder. He had chosen to put her family at risk, fighting a war against Damon over Elena; Giulia's father had been collateral damage.
Stefan should have known better.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Giulia said, with an ironic little smile.
"Does Niklaus know?" Elijah asked. "About the coffins."
"That his family is no longer desiccating in them? Stefan didn't mention anything; but I doubt it. I imagine we'd have all heard about it by now if Klaus had found out," Giulia said, shrugging, leaning her weight to start swinging.
"Why would Niklaus believe something went wrong with the sacrifice?" Elijah asked. Giulia squinted at him in the sunlight.
"You saw him, afterward, didn't you?" she asked gently, and Elijah nodded. "Well, Stefan sometimes sent me videos of Klaus; he hasn't gotten any better. He…he's not what he hoped he'd be."
"He regrets it," Elijah said, gazing proudly at her. "You warned him he would." She smiled darkly. She had warned Klaus; just before she had thrown herself into the flames. Giulia cleared her throat, glancing away from Elijah, not wishing to dwell on her memories. She didn't want to play Chinese whispers with Elijah, and he had to have a thousand questions. But it wasn't the time to have a conversation yet, not with his siblings finally awake, not with all the uncertainty of Klaus's return.
"I'm only sorry I didn't give you more time with your family before Klaus showed up," Giulia said softly, glancing at Elijah.
"You gave me my family; everything else is irrelevant," Elijah said, waving a hand negligibly, in a way that so reminded Giulia of their time together - a decade ago, to her; days ago, to him. "We are united; that is all that matters. Plucking the wool from Rebekah's eyes about our mother's demise will be the death-knell for Niklaus."
"You won't kill him," Giulia said sadly. He arched an eyebrow, as if to say, Won't I?
"Because he is too strong?" he asked, smirking. "Or because he is my half-brother?"
"Because he doesn't deserve the absolution of death," Giulia said sadly. "And you are the better man…" She blushed, swallowing and glancing away. He was the better man in more ways than one. It was the better man they always yearned for… "Anyway… Klaus is nowhere near as strong as he was; Stefan told me they brawl, but Klaus lacks the mental dexterity for it. Rebekah cleaned the floor with him."
"I imagine she enjoyed that."
"I imagine you all will," Giulia said, maintaining eye-contact, and Elijah shrugged slightly, with that delicate quirk of his lips full of irony she remembered. It was all coming back.
"So you do not believe we should kill Klaus?" He asked it offhandedly, glancing over at her, as if her answer didn't really concern him one way or another; but she knew better. It mattered.
"I don't believe he's worthy of a swift death," Giulia said. "And you know it. So do the others… The surest way to break Niklaus Mikaelson is to destroy the power he has over you… It's time to upturn the status quo." Elijah watched her thoughtfully for a few moments, as she swung gently.
"The truth of Mother's murder has bonded us in a way we have neither dared nor desired to unite in centuries," Elijah told her quietly. He sighed, and moved behind her, gently clasping her waist, putting pressure on her lower-back, to help her swing. "Not since our earliest days after fleeing Marseilles."
"Lucrezia gave you the strength to stand up to him," Giulia guessed. Elijah's former lover, a Florentine noblewoman married to the Count of Marseilles, the woman each of the Originals had mistaken her for, had had the strength of character to ensure Marseilles remained a power in medieval Europe, and to corral, shelter and nurture the Original family, teaching them how to survive, how to hide in plain sight, re-teaching them how to live after all that had been taken from them. Giulia had researched Lucrezia for a school project, ten years ago: She hadn't realised she was studying her…lover's ex.
"Lucrezia was a great many things to each of us," Elijah said, after a pause that crackled with tension. "And Niklaus then was not what he has become… Knowing what we do now, I suppose to Niklaus she was a living reminder of the power of an educated woman; she was stern and compassionate, unyielding, and very like our mother… Niklaus always mistrusted and feared Lucrezia, I used to think because she was so much cleverer than him; she saw through him… Now I believe she was also a constant reminder to Niklaus of the mother he had murdered in cold blood. Of course he would have feared and despised her… Where is Rebekah?"
"I've not seen her out and about, but Stefan told me your brother acquired a gaudy ultra-modern eyesore out in the woods, overlooking the falls," Giulia told him. "I don't know if Klaus has returned from the National Park yet, whether he has regained enough presence of mind to find his way to town."
"He has truly shown no progression since the night of the sacrifice?" Elijah asked, shocked.
"I can show you video footage, if you'd like," Giulia said grimly. "Klaus cannot compel; he can't keep blood down. He heals far more slowly than a vampire; and close proximity to too many vampires triggers a violent shift, but he has never fully transitioned into a wolf… His dual-natures are constantly at war… He's been trying to create more like him, Elijah."
"It is not enough that he suffers, he wishes to inflict his monstrous state of being onto others?" Elijah gasped, for the first time looking truly unsettled. He shook his head, sighing heavily. "I should not be so shocked; after all, he spent a thousand years inflicting his rage and impotence on us."
"It's not working," Giulia told him. "In the early days, before the packs went underground, Stefan had to help Klaus track down werewolves. Klaus tried to create more like him - he tried humans, then werewolves, and kids who hadn't triggered the curse yet, like him when he was created a vampire… They never rose. Not one of them. Klaus is an anomaly; they wouldn't."
"He wanted to create an army…"
"And perhaps also to observe others struggling the same way he is; the better to understand how to conquer his own nature," Giulia said thoughtfully. "It's likelier he wanted the legion of subservient creatures as fodder against your father."
"He cannot create more like him," Elijah said softly, "and thanks to your intervention, the only ones who might have cared to protect him from Mikael now know the truth. We know why Mikael hunted him so savagely."
"We never really spoke about your father," Giulia said softly. "After a thousand years being hunted by him…how do you feel, now that you know the truth?"
Elijah sighed heavily, and abandoned the swing, to reach down and start unconsciously weeding the flowerbeds. Giulia waited patiently.
"Grief," he told her, finally, barely moving his lips. He raised eyes bright with unshed tears to her face. "I feel grief. Grief for the man whose children were manipulated to turn against him… He lost everything… Had it been myself in his place, the one woman in the world who had loved and accepted him, in spite of all his faults and fears, who buoyed his strength, the one person he cherished above himself…ripped so brutally from him…had it been Gyda brutalised and controlled and abused, wielded against me while her half-brother cowered behind her for a shield…"
Elijah's grief was palpable; he was truly devastated. Putting things into perspective, putting himself in his father's place, with the benefit of truth, context…he had to be suffering a maelstrom of emotions. Grief, regret. Sorrow, guilt.
"There is nothing I would not do for Zita," Giulia said quietly, but fiercely. Elijah glanced at her and nodded slowly. Swallowing, she asked quietly, "Elijah, why did you leave her?"
For a long time, Elijah didn't answer. But she had asked, as a mother, why Elijah, a father to one surviving child, had left Gyda desiccating for decades. Why hadn't he ripped Klaus's head off at the mere thought of him harming a hair on Gyda's head?
"No matter how long either of us is left to decay…Gyda is my only surviving child. She will always…live," Elijah told her, with a brief, heart-breaking smile. "Always. The silver dagger is the only thing in this world that can subdue her; and when it is removed, she shines. I have always known that Gyda will endure; each daggering is only temporary. I know I shall never truly lose my Gyda."
Giulia nodded slowly, and swung; Elijah continued to pluck weeds.
After a little while, Elijah said, "After a thousand years, I find that I can no longer blame Mikael… I do not condone what he has done throughout the centuries; he taught Niklaus that cruelty has no limit…but I appreciate it. I wish I had not been so fearful of him that I did not stop to ask why, after a thousand years, why Father still sought Niklaus' annihilation," Elijah said, a desperate note in his voice. "He knew of Mother and Rollo's relationship, accepted it; he knew Willem and Niklaus were not his sons by blood, but he raised them equally, with Rebekah and Henrik… Why should he care, decades later, that Niklaus was not of his bloodline? It never made sense…Niklaus had us all so wrapped up in him, and his wants and his needs, that none of us could see straight. We didn't see."
"It's not your fault," Giulia said gently; Elijah looked morose.
The back-door burst open and Zita appeared, wielding Giulia's phone. "Mamma! Your phone is singing!" She ran over, almost tripping over her own feet, making Elijah start, eyes widening in alarm; she puffed gently when she reached her mother, and handed Giulia the phone. Her alarm was going off, a reminder.
"Oh," she said, glancing at Zita. "It's my alarm. We're supposed to be heading to the Children's Library."
"For an activity?" Zita asked breathlessly, lighting up. Giulia nodded, and glanced at Elijah.
"You are welcome to join us," she said softly.
"You don't wish us to remain at the house?"
"I didn't free you from Klaus to keep you as my prisoners," Giulia said gently. Elijah quirked an eyebrow. "You've been talking to Isak."
"He has always needed a tight leash," Elijah said. "As soon as he sets eyes upon Niklaus, he will have an outlet for his rage. His behaviour will moderate itself; or Finn and I shall step in."
"Ah," Giulia smiled warmly. "Older brothers."
"He's a little too large to stuff in the laundry hamper, but you appreciate the sentiment," Elijah smirked. He sighed, straightening up. "An outing into town may do us some good."
"Just…please don't let anyone make a scene," Giulia said, sidling up to him, Zita holding her hand. "If we come across Rebekah, or your brother…"
Elijah laid his hand on her lower-back, comforting; he gestured her inside in front of him. "We will all be on our best behaviour. We'll leave Kol and Isak here with Lagertha, perhaps. There is no-one like my sister to instil the fear of the gods." Giulia laughed, and Elijah went to go and find his siblings.
Five minutes later, Elijah sat in the front seat of her car, with Gyda in the back between Zita, in her car-seat, and Finn, who had a stack of borrowed library-books in his lap, and the Mystic Falls Public Library card Zita had lent him $1 of her pocket-money to pay for.
"Well, this is new," Elijah said mildly, as they walked to the mall from the Park-and-Ride bus-stop, in all its understated glory. She was pleased to see an almost-constant stream of foot-traffic going in and out of the mall, which had provided some much-needed jobs to rejuvenate the area's economy.
"Mamma built it!" Zita chirped, skipping along holding Finn's hand while Gyda carried his books. Elijah glanced at Giulia, who smiled.
"Single-handedly," she said sombrely, and Elijah's lips twitched.
The Children's Library was its own entity, totally separate from the Public Library: With donations from Founders and various State grants promoting child-literacy and inclusivity, the Children's Library had been given premises in the new mall, one of the premises with street-access as well as internal through the mall. The window-displays were always creative and punchy, drawing the eye, enticing children to gawp; they looked like professional window-displays at the finest book-stores, with a real flair for colour and imagination. Inside was no different; a lot of money had been spent to make the library extraordinary.
There were colourful displays everywhere, including older kids' projects on display - either personal projects, or Science and Art projects from school, with the books they had used to create them. Zita zoomed straight to the poster-boards groaning with pictures of animals, science projects, and the display of 3D cookies - there was Rapunzel's tower, and a green dragon breathing fire, a ginger-biscuit Hobbit-house, and a treasure-chest overflowing with Haribo candies - created by the Home Economics students of Mystic Falls High. The current Home Ec teacher was a big fan of The Great British Bake-Off and set her students challenges every week, some of them fun, but most of them teaching the students life-skills like budgeting, time-management, nutrition and experimenting with flavours. Giulia read the poster-board display put together by the teacher and some of the kids whose projects were on display, while Zita clasped her hands to stop herself touching the cookies, enticing as they were.
Her little eyebrows drew together as she gazed at the display of kids' baking books arranged temptingly. Giulia checked in with the activities leader, and Finn wandered off to return his books; Gyda went digging through the shelves for new ones, a frown on her face, Elijah shadowing her, taking the books she pulled from the shelves and flicking through their bright pages.
"Hi, everyone!" the leader called, grinning; she had to be a college student, young and indefatigable. "I'm Candice, and I've got some fun stuff for you guys to do today. Are you guys ready to read?"
"Yeah!" a few of the little kids cheered.
"So, we're gonna introduce ourselves, first; you guys know who I am - will you tell me your names?" She went around the little kids, who were shy or brash and confident, or whose parent spoke for them. Zita tucked herself against Giulia's legs when all eyes fell on her, but lifted her tiny chin and said, "Zzzzz-Zita," elongating the first letter to reduce her lisp on it.
"It's very nice to meet you, Zita," Candice smiled kindly. "Now, if you all wanna take your seats, the next thing we're gonna do, is put down our names, because we're gonna need 'em where we can see them. If you know how to spell your name, that's great; if you don't, your grown-up can help you." Candice gestured to the U-shape of low tables and tiny chairs, where seven places had been set out with all the equipment they would need for the activities. There were sheets of coloured paper, braided friendship-bracelets in different patterns, a small bucket of bright beads, and a packet of alphabet beads, beside a yellow banana with the word Bananagrams printed on its side, and which clicked and clacked when Giulia set it aside.
"This chair is far too little for my tush," Giulia grimaced, tugging a chair behind Zita so she could observe over her shoulder. Zita laughed, and struggled to uncap a purple marker-pen, tongue between her teeth in concentration. The pen smelled of chemical grape; and was washable, thankfully.
"How do I put my name together?" Zita asked her, in a whisper. When Giulia played music with her, each movement was different chords 'put together'. Giulia took the pen gently from her daughter's tiny hand, and on a piece of paper she wrote 'Z I T A'.
"Let's see how we're doin'," Candice beamed, wandering around to look at their pieces of paper. "They look great, guys. So we all know what our names look like. Don't worry if you can't write them yet, we'll get you there. I've got an assignment for the grown-ups; there's a sheet of powder-blue card, with lines. If you could write your kid's name in full on the first line. On each line underneath, drop the first letter, like the example here."
"I should've given you a longer name," Giulia told Zita, who grinned, handing her the sheet of powder-blue card from the stack. She did as she was told by Candice, writing out 'Z I T A', 'I T A', 'T A', 'A' on descending lines.
"Now, kids, your job is to try and match the shapes on the next line. So - Kyle, you're gonna start with the K, and you're gonna ask your grown-up how they make the shape. Letters are just shapes; we learn how to make them just like you learned how to draw a flower or a spider. If you practice them, you can make every shape in the alphabet. And then, you can put different shapes together. So you can spell 'daisy' or even 'diplodocus' - that's a dinosaur, and there are books in this library full of different dinosaur names that you might think you'd never be able to read - but you can… When we put shapes together is how words were created. And when you've learned how to make all the shapes, you remember what they look like. And you can learn what the shapes sound like, too. So, Zita, your name starts with a Z. Who can tell me a word that starts with a Z?"
"Zebra!"
"Very good! So Z you know isn't just used in Zita's name, it also starts other words, like zoo and zombie! So you guys already know what letters sound like, even if you might not be able to write them yet. If you can remember the sound that shapes make, you can start to read, because reading is just the shapes making their sounds inside your head. How are we coming on with your shapes? I'll give you a couple more minutes - you can take all these things home with you, so don't worry if you don't finish them." Giulia helped Zita, who had her tongue between her teeth again in concentration, holding Zita's hand with their forefingers outstretched, tracing the shape of the letter Z. She gave Zita the pen, and smiled, rumpling her curls, sitting back to give Zita room to breathe as she set the nib of the pen onto the paper above the first empty line, painstakingly moving her pen one way, then the other, then again. The bends were curved rather than sharp, like a backward S, but there could be no argument what it was.
"It's not like yours," Zita said sorrowfully, settling back in her chair.
"I've got twenty-four years' practice on you, my little pampelmousse," Giulia smiled. "You did really well." A tiny smile from her daughter. "Come on, I'll bet you can do them again. You can just write the Zs first, if you want to work on the other letters when we get home." Letter by letter; Giulia had taught Zita her alphabet but Zita hadn't shown any interest in learning to write, not even her name; she was too interested in composing music on the piano. Music, she had a staggering memory for.
"Alright, how did we do? Those look great, guys. So you can take those home, and if you ask your grown-ups to write out other words you want to learn, you can start writing them, too… We're gonna move on to another activity now. In front of you, there is a Bananagrams game. Some of you grown-ups might know it if you have older kids, or play it yourself; it's a great game for kids struggling with spelling, it's also great as a memory game, trying to put together as many words as you can from the tiles you draw. If you're a Scrabble fan but it turns into a bloodbath when you play with your family, like it does at my house, Bananagrams isn't points-based: You build your own word-web. I am a huge fan of Bananagrams, I take it with me to college, it's a great stress-reliever, and we play a lot when I'm au-pairing. The kids I look after love trying to put together the most complicated words - we had loquacious the other night, which I thought was pretty good from a seven-year-old! We do a game where you're only allowed to use words you can define, so they spend a lot of time looking through a dictionary! So what you kids are gonna do with Bananagrams today, is we're gonna match our letters. I'd like you to rummage around and find all the letters in your name."
Giulia sat back and let Zita unzip the yellow banana-shaped bag, out of which tumbled small tiles. Glancing around, Giulia was bemused to see the other adults digging through the tiles while their kids rummaged in the pot for beads, fiddling with the bracelets, or else wandering off to play with the library's kid-proof tablets, playing association-games.
She had never been a mother before, had been playing it by ear since she first knew Zita was on the way.
But there were a few times when she sat back, reflected, and thought, I'm good at this. I've got a brilliant, sweet kid.
Zita was engaged, polite; she watched Candice up front whenever she spoke, asked Giulia for direction if she was stuck, but she did it. She worked independently, and she accomplished things herself. As with doing up her own shoe-buckles, once Zita had the confidence that she could do something, she was flying. Zita pulled out the letters of her name; and without prompting, she stuck her tongue out, scowled at the worksheet, and arranged the tiles in order.
"Now, you remember what I said about letters being shapes that make sounds? Grown-ups, this is a task for you; we're gonna try some word-association. We're gonna make a list of words that start with the same letters as are in your kids' names. Just a couple words for each letter. Then we're gonna build those words with tiles. So, Marissa, you could have…mammoth, and Minion! Zita, we know you share Z with zebras and zoos, so ask your grown-up if she knows any other words."
Zita looked at Giulia with such a characteristically Giulia-esque half-smirk on her face, as if she understood completely that few people in the world knew more words than her mother, and this girl had no idea, that Giulia started, raising her eyebrows.
"What other words borrowed my Z?" Zita asked.
Giulia smiled at the way she asked; Giulia wrote down Zorro and zigzag, and started digging around for the tiles.
"What's that?"
"Zorro? It's the Spanish name for a South American desert fox," Giulia told her, and Zita nodded.
"Zorro," she repeated, with a tiny smile. "It sounds nice. What about the other letters?" So Giulia filled them out: ivory and iguana; turtle and tomato; avocado and alpaca.
"What's ivory?" Zita asked.
"It's what they call elephant tusks," Giulia told her, mimicking the shape of the tusks. "In Lion King when all the birds are sitting on the elephant, they're sitting on its tusks. People used to make beautiful things out of the tusks, they called it ivory."
"Did the elephants give them the ivory?" Zita asked curiously, and Giulia stifled a wince. Zita had started asking questions; she wasn't just absorbing things, she was becoming curious, and was learning how to communicate her thoughts. Giulia was learning to be very careful what she said in front of her daughter: She was far too aware of what was going on around her.
"Sort of, humans took the ivory from them," Giulia said. "You know what this is, don't you - iguana. You and Spencer spent ages in the Reptile Village looking at the iguanas."
"Grandma Liz didn't like them. Spencer says there's some that can breathe underwater," Zita said, as if this was irrefutable truth. If it came from Spencer, it was. "He watched a docuntentary."
"A documentary," Giulia corrected gently, smiling. She knew; they had watched Blue Planet II together with Spencer for a science project he had to work on for school, on ecosystems. He had earned extra-credit in his presentation talking about the dangers of plastic in the oceans. At eight years old, he was already passionate about recycling; perhaps it had something to do with close proximity with the Green Queen, Caroline Forbes, who still chaired the Go Green campaign she had started their sophomore-year in high-school, and was doing her best to turn Mystic Falls into the first town in Virginia with zero-plastic schools. Now, Spencer was involved in the Mystic Falls Elementary Go Green programme that focused on recycling, cutting down on waste, litter-picking to learn about the woods and their immediate environment, and using the Edible Farmyard to learn about agriculture.
"Alright, it looks like you've all got a lot of ideas," Candice smiled. "An activity to do at home might be to fill out a sheet of paper with the other words, just as you have with your kids' names, to let them learn new letters. And just keep going! Even if it's just one new word from letter-association… So we've got one last activity planned before our time is up. Some of you I know have already seen the colourful beads and bracelets on the tables in front of you. You're going to make your own bracelet with your name on it! So, if you match up all the letters on your Bananagrams tiles with the letters on these beads…your grown-ups can help you put the bracelets together. You can use the colourful beads to decorate your bracelets any way you like! And there's extras so you can make more for your brothers and sisters or your friends."
Zita gasped delightedly, beaming, already tugging the buckets of beads toward her. "Careful," Giulia warned her, as one of the other kids sent their bucket of colourful beads all over the floor.
"Mamma…will you write your name, too? And Enzo, please," Zita asked, her tiny dimpled hands holding clean sheets of colourful card toward Giulia.
"Okay, but…my name's a nasty one to write," Giulia said. Grown adults couldn't wrap their minds around the Italian spelling of her name. She had seen umpteen variations of her name throughout her life; one professor had dogmatically referred to her as Julia in every single email in spite of her signature, as if she spelled her name differently as a personal affront to him.
"I want to learn it!" Zita protested, and Giulia wrote out her name. "What does it say?"
"It says G - I - U - L - I - A. It doesn't look how it should sound because it's Italian," Giulia told her.
"I have that one and that one," Zita said, pointing out the Is and the A in Giulia's name. She gasped when Giulia wrote out and sounded ou O. "Enzo has a Z too!"
The beading took more time than the other tasks combined; Candice helped tidy up, but left stragglers to complete them if they wanted. Giulia sat with Zita, putting together her bracelets, not wanting to rush her and wipe the delighted smile from her face, engaged in her task, for once, not something musical. One bracelet for Zita; one for Giulia; one for Enzo; even one for Caroline. Little Zita glanced over her shoulder and dimpled at Finn.
"I'll make one for you, Finn!" she declared, and had Giulia write his name out. She glanced over at Gyda and Elijah, grimacing guiltily for leaving them out. "Would you like one?"
"Yes, please!" Gyda beamed.
"I would love one," Elijah told her seriously, and Zita smiled, asking them how to write their names. Elijah wrote out his name with a navy-blue blueberry-scented marker; Gyda sniffed the strawberry red marker and coughed, rubbing her nose, grimacing violently and making Zita giggle softly. Zita then frowned, her head clasped in her hands as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders, as she looked at the letters, her lips mouthing their names.
"But - Mamma!" she started desperately, looking overwhelmed. "This has an 'I' in it and we say Zeeta. But Gyda says Guh-Gee-duh but there's a Yuh in her name not an 'I' like me. And…" She wrung her tiny dimpled hands, "and Elijah says Ee-l-eye-jah but it's an 'I' too. Why are they different?"
"Sometimes the words sound differently to the way they're spelled," Giulia said, aware that the I's in her name were pronounced ee, just like Zita's.
"That's why Finn is struggling to read English, and he's a grown-up," Elijah said kindly, with a warm smile at Zita, who looked defeated.
"It just takes practice," Finn told his little friend softly.
"And you already know the words are said differently to the way they're spelled," Giulia said coaxingly, giving Zita a comforting smile. "So when you read the words, you'll know to sound them out differently in your head."
Looking miserable, Zita slumped in her chair, mumbling, '"Kay."
"What colours are you going to choose for my bracelet?" Gyda asked enthusiastically, and Zita forgot her troubles about renegade I's, picking out pretty beads for Gyda's bracelet. Giulia received hers, made entirely of glittery black beads (Zita knew her mother well) - she had to step in and correct the order of letters in her name; but even adults couldn't put G - I - U correctly - and Gyda beamed as her father tied her multi-coloured bracelet around her wrist, the beads interspersed with flower-shaped ones and vibrant silver butterflies; Finn received his, full of green and yellow beads and a single golden bee.
"It's beautiful. Thank you," Elijah told Zita with apparent sincerity as Zita solemnly bequeathed on him a multi-coloured bracelet like Gyda's. He handed it to Giulia, who smiled warmly as he offered her his wrist; she neatly tied it around.
Giulia gathered up Zita's worksheets, making a mental-note to buy a set of Bananagrams tiles, if not for Zita, for herself. Seeing they were finished, Candice appeared, to collect the last of the equipment, including the beads. Zita looked crestfallen.
"I didn't make one for Grandma Liz or Caroline," she said anxiously.
"I think Aunt Caroline would love to make bracelets like this with you," Giulia said. "I will tell her what we've done today, and I'll bet Caroline goes out and buys beads for you to make her as many bracelets as you'd like."
"Do you think?"
"I know," Giulia said solemnly, and Zita glanced back at Candice, frowning thoughtfully, then nodded, accepting that their activity-time was over. As they gathered their things, Giulia told Elijah, "You don't have to wear it, you know."
"Your daughter made it for me: I'm never taking it off," Elijah told her solemnly, and Giulia smiled.
"Mamma! It's Spencer! Spencer's here!" Zita cried excitedly, and Giulia frowned, glancing over where Zita was gazing, her entire face lit up delightedly.
"Are you sure?" she asked, but she saw with her own eyes. There was Spencer. With his father's curls and vibrant blue eyes, he was almost a miniature of Mason; but there was a hint of Hayley in him, too, in his smile, in the shape of his eyes if not her hazel colouring. She frowned, lifting her nose to delicately scent the air; there was no trace of Hayley in the library. "Let's go and say hello." Zita darted off before she had finished speaking; she saw Spencer jump as Zita approached excitedly, never a good sign. And he was wearing his Avengers backpack, which hung heavily from his shoulders. He had a Band-Aid on his knee, and looked tired, shadows under his bright eyes.
"Hello, Spencer," Giulia smiled warmly, and Spencer gazed up uncertainly at her, guilt flashing across his face; the poor kid had absolutely no guile. "I thought Daddy was working today. Are you here with your mom?" Silently, his gaze on the floor, Spencer exhaled slowly, and finally shook his head. Giulia sighed softly. "Okay… Did Mom drop you off again?"
A silent, hesitant nod: He knew this would get his mother in trouble. Obviously, he hadn't thought Giulia would be here to catch him, eight years old, on his own downtown - even if he was in the Children's Library, not just hanging out by himself at the park in his neighbourhood. The backpack implied Spencer knew he would be spending the day out of the house; Giulia would bet he had a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich and some fruit and a water-bottle in there, with a couple books and maybe his baseball mitt. The essentials.
"Do you know where she went this time?" Giulia asked, wincing.
Spencer purse his lips, but eventually said, quietly, "Virginia Beach."
"Did she say when she'd be back?" Spencer shrugged. "Did she tell you to go to the Station when Daddy's shift ends?" He didn't have to answer; he gazed at the floor, and Giulia knew. Hayley rarely left Spencer at home alone; but she had left him downtown all day before, when she thought she could get away with it - or rather, when she didn't even think about the fact that it was wrong, just did it, and drove off. Giulia had thought she'd stopped doing it, ever since Spencer had been spending more time at her house.
"How did you know I was here?" Spencer asked, his voice thick, a combination of guilt and relief.
"Zita had her radar on; you know you're a little human homing-beacon for her," Giulia teased, and Spencer's lips twitched. He knew how much Zita adored him: And he was a good sport, who never let it show if she irritated him with her well-intentioned pestering. Giulia sighed. "I'm gonna go call your dad, okay?" Spencer's little shoulders knotted with tension. She cupped his chin tenderly, forcing him to look up. "You're not in trouble, you understand me?" His eyes were sad, downcast; she sighed and leaned in to give him a tender kiss, and gave him a cuddle. "Look after Zita for a few minutes? When I get back I want to see the books you've chosen." Finn frowned at Spencer; he knew the face, from Spencer's near-constant sleepovers at Giulia's house. Elijah looked mildly curious at the sight of Zita blatantly gushing over the older boy.
"Whose son is that?" he asked quietly, looking faintly amused by Zita's puppy-love.
"Mason Lockwood's," Giulia said grimly, glancing over her shoulder at the little boy. "Would you mind staying with them while I make a phone-call? I don't want him to overhear."
"Of course," Elijah frowned. "I didn't know Mason had a son."
"The spring after you were daggered. Do you remember Hayley?" Giulia asked, and Elijah frowned thoughtfully. His eyes widened imperceptibly, a tangible chill emanating from him.
"The werewolf. The other one, with Jules, who fled the library?" he said quietly, and Giulia bristled, going cold at the memory. "She was at the Boarding House the night of the sacrifice…"
"She left Spencer downtown to go to the beach - with her boyfriend," Giulia said scathingly. "I'll be back." And she pulled out her phone as she approached the exit, dialling Mason's number, regretting yet another call he had to take while on duty, about his son being neglected. At least it was summer, and Hayley had dumped him downtown; it wasn't a brittle February morning, and she hadn't picked him up from soccer, enjoying her time with her boyfriend too much to remember her son.
Giulia was just glad Caroline wasn't here with her this afternoon: Hayley's neglect of Spencer carved a very deep wound in Caroline, who would have made an amazing mother. Caroline, who never really hated anyone, had zero respect for Hayley, taking her family for granted the way she did.
There was a lot of it going around, though, Giulia thought, reflecting on Elena's reaction to her husband on their anniversary - or lack thereof.
And her stomach hurt from loneliness, Fabian flitting through her mind, her heart clenching at the reminder that Elijah was inside the library, keeping an eye on her daughter.
Giulia ducked back into the air-conditioned library, and slowed her approach, watching and listening, as Elijah and Finn talked to Spencer about the books he had chosen, books on fishing and African wildlife and mechanics. Zita was cuddled up in Gyda's lap, and they were chatting quietly, a pencil in Gyda's hand as she worked in a sketchbook Giulia had given her. Zita giggled richly, Gyda's lips twitched, and Elijah glanced over her shoulder to laugh in surprise at whatever Gyda had drawn. Spencer glanced up when he saw her coming, his expression guarded.
"I just spoke to your dad," she smiled gently. "I told him I needed a sous-chef for dinner tonight. You don't mind helping me, do you? I thought about making Zara's jambalaya. You're old enough to learn how to cook it." It was Spencer's favourite.
The recipe Giulia had coaxed out of its owner was a tried-and-true New Orleans jambalaya recipe; house-sharing, pooling their income to maintain the house, it was the first dish NOLA-native Zara had taught Tyler how to cook, the ultimate comfort-food - jambalaya and frozen banana daiquiris were Zara's signature dishes. The quirky, charismatic Zara was adamant that with the addition of banana as well as the lime-juice, the drink constituted two of their five-a-day fruit-intake. Forget the spiced dark and white rum that went into the drink!
Spencer remembered Zara's jambalaya; Giulia had made it often enough, it was ultimate comfort-food and Giulia made it at least once a fortnight, especially if Spencer was visiting. But Spencer had also vacationed in New Orleans with his dad, visiting his only cousin, Tyler. It was a boys' weekend: They had gone surfing on the Gulf Coast, and explored the bayou, eaten beignets and barbecue shrimp. Giulia had heard about the trip for weeks after. If Zita gushed about Spencer, Spencer was the same way about Tyler, who had been a senior in high-school when Spencer was born.
"Is my dad mad?" Spencer asked quietly, twisting his hands.
Giulia sighed, answering honestly, "Not at you. Come on. Do you have water in your backpack?"
"I finished it," Spencer said uncomfortably. Giulia glanced at the others, eyes lingering on Elijah. There was no time like the present.
"Let's go," she said, offering Spencer her hand. He took it, looking almost relieved. "I thought we could all go and get a drink at the café across the street. We've done enough thinking for the afternoon."
"That's for sure," Zita sighed from Gyda's lap. She brightened up, asking, "Am I allowed some books?"
"You can pick four; you're nearly at your limit on your account, you'll have to bring some back, soon," Giulia told her.
"Gyda can help! Gyda can help! We're looking for girl-books with adventures and science and no princesses."
"Good luck," Giulia said drily. As part of the board of the Children's Library, she had pushed to introduce as many books as possible that featured female characters that were not shoehorned into the role of mute sidekick or the trophy-princess. The trouble was, there just weren't that many children's books celebrating girls in all their varied shapes, sizes and interests.
She and Bonnie had done a lot of research into POC and mixed-race children's books, especially those that taught little children to love their natural hair; Penelope had a wild mane that was gorgeous because Bonnie looked after it. She wanted to teach Penelope to love her curls, embrace them, let them empower her. Bonnie and Sheila championed Black History Month at the Children's Library every year.
But Giulia had yet to find children's books that showed girl-scientists working on healthy instant-meals that could feed thousands in Africa, or aquanauts exploring the wonders of the oceans, or engineers designing hover-trains. Rosie the Riveter had been relegated back to her stove: It was all about Elsa, and her perfect blonde plait, and her long glittering icy train. Princesses, not presidents.
Giulia refused to show Zita Frozen, or Cinderella: She wanted the unconventional as her daughter's inspirations. Vanellope von Schweetz; Megara; Mulan; Nani and Lilo; Merida; Moana. She would rather have Zita obsess over the Bearded Lady's voice in The Greatest Showman, giggle at Lilo's use of voodoo and love of Elvis in Lilo & Stitch, admire Vanellope's buoyant tomboyish charm in Wreck-It Ralph, than have her believe a girl's place was to look pretty and wait for something to happen to her. The compromise with Caroline, who wanted to share all the classic Disney films with Zita, was the new live-action Beauty and the Beast: Giulia appreciated Belle's kind, compassionate nature, her strength of character, and her ability to see beyond appearances.
As Zita skipped ahead, holding Spencer's hand, Giulia and Gyda chatted about the dearth of female-aimed children's books that promoted girls as anything more than princesses or ballerinas. Gyda, who had been raised a devout feminist by strong-willed, charismatic women, and a father who had viewed them, if not his equals, then his superiors, was annoyed. She had been daggered in the early Eighties but little had truly changed; she had hoped to wake in a post-feminist society. She hadn't. They still had to fight tooth and nail to get what they wanted, whether it was professional respect, higher pay-grade, acknowledgement of their accomplishments, the right not to have their choice not to have children questioned, to not be called a 'slut' for their sexual freedom, or to be victim-blamed after sexual-assault.
The Gilbert doctor's office had been converted, once it had been rebuilt, into a café. It stocked the finest small-batch roasted, organic, Fair Trade coffee, and the immediate sensation on entering the airy room with its natural floorboards and clean white walls with unusual framed artwork was the scent of roasted coffee, tea leaves and chocolate. The scent was like walking into a wall of citrus, coffee, dark-chocolate and caramel, enveloped into its richness, lulled by the luxury. The café sold a limited selection of handmade pastries and cakes, but it was the coffees, the teas and the hot-chocolates that made it famous. Each hot drink was served with a complementary blueberry mini macaron or a chocolate Ashlyn had made in the kitchens; she had trained as a chocolatier after becoming obsessed with artisan chocolate, and that love had grown to incorporate coffee, finally appreciating Vera's centuries-long obsession with the ceremony of tea-drinking. She had experimented with ancient hot-chocolate recipes from the 1600s, to Giulia's delight; the 80% dark Ugandan blend hot-chocolate topped with real cream lightly whipped was Giulia's favourite, the true elixir of life. She was not a sweet or dessert fiend, but she did love dark chocolate.
The deluxe hot-chocolates; the richest, most beautiful espressos; and the hundred varieties of tea leaves and custom blends made Ashlyn's café truly standout. She was featured in food-blogs and magazines, and no-one went away from the place unhappy. She served espresso with thick cream on top, Italian-style, if you knew how to ask; Giulia adored her bicerin, which was an Italian drink of espresso, chocolate so thick it was almost ganache, and cream; Ashlyn's scones were famous around town, her homemade clotted cream legendary; and she had set herself up her first Mother's Day, producing the best English afternoon-tea in the state: The poor girl hadn't sat down for eighteen hours straight, but her smile had never faltered.
Ashlyn used all Elijah's recipes for her tiny bite-sized treats.
She had treated Giulia, during the soft-opening, to an afternoon-tea, with Jenna, Vera, Rose and Sheila. Jenna remembered each of the tiny treats as the ones Elijah had spent days creating for the bachelorette party Giulia had hosted for Jenna, Elijah's gift on her marriage to Ric, ten years ago.
Spencer pushed the door open, and held it open for them, smiling shyly at Gyda as she rumpled his curly hair, passing; Elijah took the door from him, encouraging him inside, and held it open for Giulia and Finn.
"Thank you," Giulia beamed at him. Her lips twitched, glancing at the entrance to the kitchen, and she darted around tiny bistro tables packed with people, around funky ottoman stools in moody jewel-tones, darted behind the counter, and took the tray of fresh semla buns from Ashlyn, who jumped at the sight of her, caught off-guard.
"Nice buns, Ash. I'm gonna take these," she said, grinning from ear to ear. "And you're gonna go to the counter."
"What? Why?" Ashlyn did as she was told, and Giulia put the semla buns under the glass display.
She slipped away, to the table Gyda had grabbed, Spencer helping Zita climb onto one of the ottoman stools, and Giulia watched Elijah approach the counter.
Ashlyn saw Elijah and burst into tears.
A.N.: So little Spencer is inspired by a baby version of Richard Madden (Robb Stark). For a reminder who Ashlyn is (if necessary), she is a witch, was raised by Elijah from infancy, with Vera and Cara Salvatore, and the direct descendent of Isak. She originally appeared in Drunken Binges, Funerals and Formals.
