A/N: Thanks for the support you guys, you have no idea how happy it makes me! Off to the next one:
As the months turned into the first year, Misty learned how to live in the Goode house. She knew when to avoid Fiona, knew how to sneak food from the kitchen, so Delphine didn't see and she knew exactly how to make Cordelia smile on days, where a smile seemed to be the hardest thing.
It wasn't rare that Cordelia came home like she had that November day and Mrs. Goode always let Misty go to her first. It was also Misty, she send out after her daughter, when the fights resulted in Cordelia fleeing to the woods. They lived somewhat nearby, Misty had realized over time. Close enough that Cordelia could run out there and get lost. But she didn't get lost, when Misty was with her.
Today Misty had run into the greenhouse, because Mrs. Goode had thrown her out of Cordelia's room to have a private talk. Misty didn't listen, because Cordelia didn't want her to, but she knew it had something to do with her grades. Misty didn't understand. She thought Cordelia was the smartest girl she had ever met. Out of respect she had gone to her niche of home and planned to stay there, until she figured the fight was over.
It didn't take long before Fiona started calling for her.
"Misty! I know you're out there!"
Misty used the back entrance, so Fiona didn't see that she had unlocked the door to the greenhouse again. She liked being in there and she spent more time here than in the actual house. It was like being back in her swamp – but it was a swamp Cordelia could enter without being afraid.
Fiona stood on the porch with her arms crossed.
"There you are. I need you to go find Cordelia again. I'm sending you with Spalding. And tell her to stop doing that, will you?"
Misty nodded her head dutifully. "I'll try, Mrs. Goode."
"Good girl."
Spalding walked beside her in his usual silence. He was a strange fellow, but Misty didn't despise him the way Cordelia did. Cordelia found him creepy, she said, but Misty just thought he was a little odd. He seemed at bit sad too, always bowing his head to the Madame and taking orders from everyone. Misty couldn't imagine taking orders from anyone. When Fiona yelled at her and Cordelia, she would just peek to the side without listening, because Cordelia's body language always told her, when it was okay to leave. She stood still with her hands behind her back and her head bowed, when she listened and when the reprimand was over, she looked up and her shoulders relaxed. Misty would dart off then, ready to resume playing.
Now Misty wandered into the depths of the forest, while listening to the whispers of the trees, which welcomed her home. She was happy to be allowed to stay with Cordelia and she didn't feel like she could ever leave her now, but this was her home. The moist breeze teasing her hair into a mess was like a playful hand of a friend. The warmth of the ground was the nurturing warmth of the only mother she could truly remember. Misty crossed through the wild without fear, leaving the shadow of their butler to wait at the edge. He tripped on the tips of his feet, but he didn't follow her in. Misty let him be and hummed as she walked. She never understood his or any of the other's fright for the swamp.
It didn't take her long to find Cordelia. The girl wasn't particularly good at hiding. She sat not far from the path, on the threshold of where the forest began to consume the light of day. She never went as far into the dark as she had the day Misty found her.
Cordelia leaned against a large rock with her arms hugged around her body and trembling from the noises of the forest. She looked relieved, when she saw Misty.
"Your mama says you gotta stop runnin' out here." She dropped to the ground beside Cordelia and started examining her hands for cuts. Cordelia might be graceful like no other, but not when she ran.
"I'm okay Misty. I know I shouldn't do it, but I just couldn't… I'm sorry."
Misty shook her head to tell her to stop apologizing. She didn't mind the free trips home.
"Can we wait five minutes before we go?"
Misty nodded and lay back on the grass, recharging her energy with a hug from Mother Earth.
Five minutes later, she led Cordelia out by the hand and even as they reached the edge of the forest, Cordelia didn't let go. Misty liked holding her hand. It was soft, like only one of a city girl could be. Her own were roughened by nature and it made Cordelia's skin feel like silk in comparison. They walked like that, with Spalding behind then, shuffling the way he always did.
A boy Misty didn't know crossed their little parade and Misty felt Cordelia tense up beside her.
"Hey two-face, see you got a new pet", he yelled after them, as they passed. "Is she that hard to control, since the mute has to help you walk her?"
Misty turned and caught his mocking gaze. Cordelia pulled at her, but Misty ignored it, bared her teeth and snarled at the boy. His taunting expression abruptly changed into a less supercilious one. Misty wanted to jump at him and scratch that mean look off his face, and she might have, if Cordelia hadn't turned her back around.
"Don't, Misty, it won't do any good."
"What, does she have rabies or something?" The boy yelled, but Misty heard the jitter in his voice and she turned to snarl at him again.
"Misty stop it please. Go away Marvin! Misty, please." Misty stopped struggling and stood still. "He doesn't mean that, you're not-"
"He said mean thing 'bout you."
"Oh. Yes that, don't worry about it." Cordelia offered her a smile and tugged a strand of her hair behind her ear. When Spalding caught up to them – giving no sign that he planned to address the boy's bullying – Cordelia shot him a disgusted glance and pulled at Misty to get her walking. She followed.
O0O
Rumors spread like wildfire, but simple words of taunt spread even faster. Marvin started a trend that day and soon Misty became known as Cordelia's pet. Marvin wasn't the first kid Misty had snarled at. She did that often, when faced with people, who made Cordelia uncomfortable. And there were more than a few of those.
Misty didn't seem to mind. Once again she showed a complete disregard for anything anyone ever said about her – it was only when they insulted Cordelia that she lashed out and she did so with the ferocity of the feral child she was. Cordelia sometimes forgot, because she behaved more and more like a normal child under the roof of their house, but outside her inheritance from the forest became much clearer. A few times Cordelia even had to physically restrain her and beg at her to keep her from downright attacking bullies. She started avoiding places she knew others from her school would be, whenever they left the house. Misty preferred the forest anyway, so they snuck in there, whenever it was Spalding's turn to go with them. He wasn't one to tell on them.
The only problem was that her increasingly shy behavior made her more of a target at school.
"Mommy?" Cordelia asked at the table around Christmas. Misty was allowed to sit at the table now and she had mastered the knife and fork, but sometimes, when Fiona didn't see it, she picked the meat up with her hands instead. Now she put the fork down to look at Cordelia. Cordelia knew she sensed her nervous anticipation. They had developed a connection that allowed them a level of knowing each other no one else possessed. Not even Myrtle.
"Yes?"
"I was just thinking... After the holidays… Could I be homeschooled? I don't care much for my classmates. And then Misty could be in school with me?"
Fiona shook her head. "You can't just hide from the world, Cordelia. If you go to school at home, the whole world will go on without you. How do you expect you'll do later in life, taking over my company for instance, if you don't learn the basic social skills now?"
Cordelia's heart sank. All the arguments she had tried to form crumbled with that crease in her mom's forehead. She knew it meant that she had already lost. "I could still learn…" She said it while looking down at the table.
"I won't do it, Cordelia. You just need to toughen up and don't let them win. How about that Queenie, you talk to her, don't you?"
"Yes, sometimes…"
"So you'll talk to her. It'll all change, when you get older. Right now being foreign and special feels like a bad thing, but when you get older they will be all over you for it. Trust me. All the ways you feel different are your weapons to get back at them later in life. Delphine, fill me up here."
Delphine rushed to from the corner, ever as sour and filled Fiona's glass with wine. Afterwards, she retreated to the corner again. Despite her being mostly silent too, when Fiona was present, she didn't give off the same aura of lurking as Spalding did. Her constant displeased expression took up some space of its own and made it feel like she was there, even if she didn't make herself noticed otherwise. She was harder to ignore, which Cordelia almost liked about her, if she overlooked the constant expression of discontent.
"What about Misty?" She asked then, though she didn't count on the girl to be the heavy stone in the argument. The formality of the adoption had not changed the way Fiona treated her.
"Well what about her? You're teaching her, aren't you? You're good at that. Personally I can't fathom where you get all that patience from, but Lord knows you have it."
"You really think so? That I'm good at teaching her?" Her eyes flickered from her mom to Misty, who nodded eagerly.
"Well she's eating at the table, isn't she? I even heard her count something the other day. And I know this one", she gestured towards Delphine, "is relieved you're not making her do it. Now here's something you're good at, Cordelia. Own up to it."
Cordelia blushed at the rare compliment. Suddenly shy, she looked down at her half empty plate.
"Thanks mommy."
"Now eat up. We can't sit here all night."
They finished the meal in silence, but Cordelia didn't mind today, because her mom had told her she was good at something and she sat amidst the silence enjoying the blossoming of an idea. She knew her mom had plans for her future, had hopes that she would someday follow her footsteps, so she didn't dare speaking the idea out loud, but it stayed with her nonetheless. The idea of teaching.
O0O
Delphine sometimes took a turn by the black part of town, when Madame sent her out shopping. She didn't much like being here – all the bad vibes, all the bad memories haunted her – but she hoped to catch a glimpse of Borquita. More often that not she went home disappointed.
Today she stopped dead.
So did her heart for a moment.
From afar she watched her youngest daughter, graceful and pretty as she was, walking down the street. The sight in itself only caused her a minimum of pain – Borquita was still enslaved at Laveau's to pay their debt after all – but she was unable to ignore the other thing. The thing that was holding her hand.
Borquita abruptly stopped too, as she caught Delphine staring. Her hand slid out of the black one she was holding and her body language spoke of shock. She knew she was in trouble.
She turned to the negro by her side, told him something and then left him alone on the sidewalk as she crossed the street.
"Mother, what are you doing here?"
"What is this my eyes are seeing, Borquita? Why are you doing this to me?"
"Oh", she shot a quick glance over her shoulder as if afraid the poison in Delphine's words had dropped him already. "Mother, Mason is a good man. He works for Miss Laveau too. You'd like him, if you could just see past your prejudi-"
"Don't tell me what I can and cannot do, child! These are not good people. I will not have my blood mingle with them. Working for them is far more than enough."
Borquita shot out her chin and said: "It's not that bad working for Miss Laveau. And it is better than starving. We need some way to get our savings back, don't we?"
Delphine offered her a mocking laughter. "Just wait until she locks you in that box, you foolish girl."
Her daughter didn't answer and Delphine used the silence to shoot another glance at the man. He was tall. Lean, muscular body underneath his shirt, she could tell that much from this distance. He was wise enough to give them peace. Maybe, Delphine thought, maybe Borquita was right. She would like him. If only the skin containing his soul didn't betray his low-born inheritance. If she could peel it off him and he still stood just as tall, he might be of a good soul, but she couldn't know that for sure. And just the thought of him touching her daughter, touching her through her daughter… It was a vile thought.
"Have you consummated with him?"
First Borquita just looked shocked. Then she crossed her arms and put on that stubborn face, which had appeared on her face so often during her upbringing and on neither of her other children's.
"So what if I have?"
It was a blow to the chest. A hard one.
"You must end this. Instantly."
"No mother. I like him. Can't you see it from my perspective for once?"
"There is only one way to look at this, Borquita! You have to turn away from this thing!" Delphine started to feel a lump of panic rising in her throat and it only grew with her daughter's protests.
"He's not a thing, mother, he's Mason." Her rebellious face were fading and tears crawled into her voice now, but Delphine refused acknowledge them. "Please forgive me, mother, but I think I may love him."
The final blow. Delphine felt it like her heart crumbled at the sound of the words. She took a step back and shook her head as if the simple motion could erase the truth. "Then you are not my daughter anymore."
"Mother, please…"
But Delphine turned her back and started walking home. She forgot all about the groceries, but her broken heart left no room for Fiona's cruel words and threats. When she left the house the second time, she stayed far away from Laveau's territory.
