Anne:

I was ready to get into my bath, when that I heard Sophie give a great yelp. "Oww! I'm bleeding! I've cut my toe!"

And so she had. She'd been cutting her toenails, and snipped off a bit of her flesh into the bargain. When I got to her, she was dripping blood all over the floor. She being old as she is, her blood is thin and don't clot so good anymore, so she went on bleeding whiles I got the iodine and gauze for bandaging. I had to hunt out a spider's web to help it stop afore I could wrap it.

By that time, of course Minna and Erik and Amelié was all of them standing in the doorway crammed in against each other, their eyes grown as big as goose eggs.

"There isn't nobody dying here." I told them. "You done worse to yourself when you rolled down that hill back in March, Ame, and took all the skin off'n your hand. Go on, now—unless you wants to mop the floor for me." That cleared them out.

Just once, I'd like to have a day as was just plain ordinary—a day where all went as smooth as cream being poured out of a pitcher. I don't suppose as that'll happen in this world, though.

My bathwater was still warm when that I got back to it, and I had a fresh cake of scented soap to wash myself with. Lying back in the bath was a pleasure. In my sitting room above, I could hear my boy playing on his fiddle, something soft and sweet. Could be as it was of his own devising; he's starting, now, to make up his own tunes. I heard Truffle's claws go clicky-clacky as she crossed the floor, and Ame saying to Minna, "And then you takes your yarn over, like this—" as she showed Minna how to crochet. It would take a while, and a lot of repeating, but Minna would learn.

Sophie banged on the wall. "Good night!" she called, which was as well, for I was near to drifting off in the tub, and that wouldn't do. So I washed my hair out, drained the tub and wiped it good, cause if I didn't nobody else was going to, and took myself back upstairs.

Minna had already gone up. Amelié was putting away the yarns, and she bid me good night before she followed Minna. "Good night, my dears!" I called up to them.

"And now it's you and me, dearheart." I told my son. "Time to get yourself into your nightclothes."

He was working on a new block of wood. "But I don't want to go to bed yet, Mam," he said, as his pocket knife peeled a long curl off the block.

"What's this one going to be, love?" I knelt beside him.

"A horse." he answered.

"Ever think of making an ark, like Noah's, to keep all your animals it? But the wood and the knife'll still be there tomorrow. It's time for bed."

"Nooooo," he gave me in reply.

I leaned over, cupped my hand around his ear, and whispered to him, "Yessss, my heart Time for bed."

"But Mam, " and he put on his face as would shame an angel for innocence, and said the words as would get me: "I'm hungry."

That's one appeal as will always work. He knows it, and I knows he knows it, but unless he's just been rubbing his middle and saying his belly's so full it aches, I can't prove he isn't.

Anyhow, I can't bear to be around someone as is hungry, and not feed them. And that was how I wound up here, though, wasn't it? Because he was hungry…

"I better feed you then, hadn't I? How about some more broccoli?"

He pouts. "Guess you isn't that hungry, then…"

"My—my broccoli drawer in my stomach is all full up. It's my other drawers as is empty," he invents.

"Your other drawers. Like your cookies and milk drawers, maybe?"

Angel-face again. "Yes?" he asks, hopeful, like.

"What about a piece of the almond shortbread and a cup of milk?"

"Please, Maman!" He jumps up and gives me a hug. "You smells good, Mam."

"Thank you, love."

So it's back down to the kitchen with us, where I cut us some shortbread. For him, it's milk out of the mug from England what's shaped like a tree stump and has a rabbit in a waistcoat for a handle, and for me, it's linden tisane out of my everyday china.

After a sip and a bite, "Mam?" he asks me, sounding so timorous that I knows it's going to be one of those sorts of questions.

"Yes, dearheart?"

"I—I knows I'm ugly cause my Da was ugly, but why does folk have to be so—so—."

"So hurtful about it?"

He nods.

"Well—you know as how every story has a hero, right?"

He nods again.

"Everybody that lives is the hero of his own story, and outside of them and maybe their family, nobody else isn't really real to them...Do you understand?"

He shakes his head no.

"No. Then— Most folk don't think real hard or real deep about what comes out of their mouths, so what they says is gen'rally some damn fool thing. And when they look at a person, they don't think hard or deep about that person. Anything that stands out as marks that person as being different than they is, they seize on. And they make up all kind of nonsense in their heads about it. Like with me, now. I got a big bosom."

"You do? But Madame Rowse's is much bigger. She's got like a shelf in front—"

"That's enough about Madame Rowse's bosom!" It could be as I picked the wrong example, but I was started now. "Big for the rest of me, I mean, and that's what makes me different. Having a big bosom isn't a comfortable thing, cause if I don't wear a special made corset, I get back-aches something terrible. Folk look at me, and they look at my bosom, and they think as having a big bosom means I'm stupid, or that I'm—not a nice woman, or that I want to—to kiss them. They says hurtful things to me, too, about it, and sometimes they tries to do hurtful things, too."

"Like what?"

"Never you mind. Anyhow, being ugly'll mean less and less as you get older. Everybody gets ugly and funny-looking, if they only lives long enough. And here's a secret—."

"Yes, Mam?" He leans over, eager to hear it.

"Is Sophie ugly?"

"No! Sophie's beautiful! Like you is, Mam!"

"Is M'sieu Bertrand funny-looking?"

"No!"

"Somebody as didn't know them would look at Sophie and say: 'Look at that ugly old woman. She don't got all her teeth, and her skin looks like dried mud for all the cracks in it.'"

"No!" he says again.

"They'd look at M'sieu Bertrand and say, 'Look at that bandy-legged oldster. He's got a face like a sheep what's eaten a lemon.' It's cause we love them that they're beautiful. The people you love is beautiful. So, to me…"

I can feel the tears prickle at my eyes, as I lean over to take his face between my hands. "There isn't a finer looking nor handsomer boy in all the world. There isn't an angel in heaven as has a nicer face. I wouldn't have you be no different nor what you are, cause then you wouldn't be you—except that other folk wouldn't be so cruel to you, then."

"Don't cry, Mam. Please don't cry!" The next thing I know is, he's in my lap and we're both crying, him into my shoulder and me into his hair.

"Look at the two of us." I say, after a while. "Sad cause we're so happy. Aren't we a pair of sillies?"

He gulps and nods.

"Done with your snack, love?"

"Y-yes, Mam."

"That's good, cause I got something new for us to read tonight. Something long—and not a story, neither. Something real."

Almond Shortbread:

Packaged shortbread is uniformly unsatisfactory, even the expensive imported kind in the red plaid packages. It's like eating a small piece of sugared cement. Fresh shortbread, on the other hand, is wonderful—beautifully textured, with a delicate crumbliness to it.

1 ¾ cups unsifted, bleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup ground almonds

1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

½ lb unsalted butter (two sticks), softened. NOT melted. Let them sit on the counter for a couple of hours before you plan to make this.

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons powdered, or confectioner's sugar.

1 teaspoon almond extract

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the topping:

1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon ground almonds.

For the ground almonds: Grind 1 cup of skinless slivered almonds in a food processor with one teaspoon of sugar. Store the excess in an airtight container for the next time you make this. You will want to make this again.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 10 x 10 x 2 inch square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Combine the flour, ground almonds, cornstarch, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Stir thoroughly.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer, in a large bowl, for 3 minutes or until uniformly soft and creamy. Add the confectioner's sugar and beat for another minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula every now and then. Add the almond and vanilla extracts. On low speed, mix in the flour mixture, until they are only just combined.

Press the dough evenly into the prepared pan. Prick the dough with a fork in several places.

Combine the topping ingredients in a small bowl. Sprinkle evenly over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until the shortbread is uniformly tan in color. Remove to a rack. Cut into squares while still warm. Store in an airtight container, if there is any left to store.

This is a perfect dessert to serve to people who say they don't like dessert because it's too sweet. Wonderful with milk, coffee or tea.

A/N: Fourteen reviews this time!

Allegratree and Julia (awoman): Your points are well taken. I will go back and clean up the last chapter so that my treatment of Erik's thoughts are consistent with my prior style. Thank you.

Bella; Please do print them out! If you make them and enjoy them, let me know. I'd love to hear about it.

Nota Lone: Fun name! Yes, morphine was around. Glad you're enjoying the fic. Stick around—lots more to come.

Lucia: Another update! I'm not exactly small myself—but then I'm the one with all these recipes on hand, so who wouldn't have guessed that? I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Dawn: Thank you. I read a lot of phics—and after about the 180th time I encountered an OW character who was indistinguishable from the previous 179 girls, something snapped, and I sat down to begin this.

Woohoo! 100 reviews! (111 by the time of this writing) Thanks, Flamingices, and thanks to all the others who have gotten me here!

Sat-Isis: You know—if you're too smart, I'll have to keep changing what I planned to write, just to keep you guessing—but that scenario wasn't in the cards. Or—was it?

Sue Raven: He's not quite well enough—you'll see, next chapter!

Let me not neglect my other pals: Pickledishkiller, Chantal, Emily, and Erik For President.

Tell me, Erik for President, are you the X-men fan Misty Breyer shouted out to in a chapter of Phantom Companions?