A/N: NUu! Don't hurt me! Second chapter up and plot is moving at a snail's pace…it seems like this is always the problem for me -.—" but I have a surprise in store~, so bear with me! Again, cookies and kudos for the person who helps me with clichés…I think there's a distinct lack of them.
Disclaimer: I hate this book and its insane tonal shifts.
Chapter 2
Enter, Step-mother!
Lucie was sixteen when her father came home with a woman. She was surprised. She knew her father was courting a woman, but she didn't know who. "Who," Lucie exhaled slowly, holding the page of the book she was reading down. "Are," she said rising from her chair, closing the book as she did so. "You?" she deadpanned as she finally looked at her father and the woman.
This woman was no real looker. Dead, ash-blonde hair, make-up caked on to hide blemishes and pale, watery blue eyes. The extravagant black dress she wore didn't do anything to flatter her either. If anything, it just made the woman look even more…blegh. If Lucie was the epitome of life, love and recalling, the mystery woman was the example of a withered daisy.
"Erm," her father, Alexandre Manette, shifted nervously. "Darling, this is the woman I've been courting…The widow, Lady Morrigan." Lucie raised a delicate eyebrow. "Ehm…yes, well, I decided to bring her home today to let you two meet each other and to tell you that we're getting married." Manette shifted nervously from foot to foot while the Lady Morrigan continued to stare uninterestedly at Lucie. Lucie, facing her father, calmly blinked. "Eh…anyways," her father continued father feebly. "She has two splendid daughters and I'm sure you'll get along just fine."
Lucie continued to examine nothing in particular, apparently deep in thought. She could thinly veiled malevolence emanating from the woman in black. It frightened her, but she daren't let her father know. She watched in silence.
Soon enough, the two were married. The woman and her daughters moved into the villa and the once peaceful waters of Lucie and Manette's life was disrupted by the large, plunking stones that were Lady Morrigan and her two daughters, Therese and Aggrawater, both as ugly as the Furies of Hell and with a temper to match.
Then, tragedy struck the household yet again. Lucie's father was in a horse-riding accident. He died and left everything to her. Including the step-bit—I mean step-mother and step-sisters. Needless to say, they dressed her in rags and forced her to do all the cooking and cleaning, with the servants. Duh. But Lucie remembered her mother's words: "Be strong, little Lucie…" and held her head up against her revolting step-family.
A/N: Dear readers, instead of hearing me complain about a past school book (damn it to the confines of Hell), help me pick out music for viola, piano and voice (all separately, ofc) that follows the theme of at least one of the four seasons (no. no Vivaldi, please). I'll be on hiatus for a while, too, due to a lack of access to a computer, so updates will slow.