2.
~ Ariadne was never bored when watching Olivia.
The child would be three in spring and was unlike any toddler anyone had ever seen.
She was quite and seemed to get along with only herself. Harold, reject by his step sister on numerous times, was forced to play by himself as best he could. The house was full of children, but the age gaps were too great for them. Phillipa had lost all interest in playing James. Instead, she took to reading a lot and talking about going away to school next year.
James, a few years younger than Phillipa haunted the servants hall. His mother now lived at the house, and he was starting to learn his place. He wasn't a family member as Arthur treated him. He was the son of a fallen woman who was a maid.
The divide becoming more clear as he started to understand he and Phillipa were different.
Harold's only delight came when Ariadne was home. He would curl in her lap and she would read to him from the Peter Rabbit books. He was interested in learning his ABC's but, most of all, he asked when his father would come home.
Olivia spoke only to herself. She had no cares for the others in the house other than what she needed from her mother.
She was intent on walking and demanding things for herself. She didn't seem to want or need affection the way Harold did.
Ariadne would wonder how it was that Arthur, who had none of his blood in Olivia, could have a walking talking version of himself in the child.
~ Another day in the hell Eames had relegated himself to.
It was night fall, his battalion had been lost and he was trying to wander through the quick sand of mud. In the distance he could hear gun fire. The indistinct fire of old rifles that the new recruits were reduced to use. He kept walking. He almost never ran these days, except into battle.
His commander had ordered a strike. The boys were all shaking in their boots as he gave a very stirring speech. Eames knew they would all die. He had been right. He had watched some poor boy run into some barbed wire and died From fear alone. Others were cut open my machine gun fire.
Their bodies looking little better than hamburger meat as the mud disguised the red of their blood.
Eames took out his last cigarette as he trudged back to base.
"Captain?" came a frightened voice.
Eames stopped and looked towards the voice.
The silent woods, mist and the faint smell of gasoline were all he perceived.
"Who's there?" Eames growled.
"Sir?" came the voice of one of his own country men.
"Come out." Eames snarled.
He heard something shift in the darkness and a youth climbed out of the bushes. He was covered head to toe in mud. His eyes wide with fright.
"Why were you hiding there, Private?" he snarled at the young man.
"The shelling, sir." he whimpered. "I can't take it anymore."
"So you hid?" Eames asked as he lit his cigarette.
He didn't scold the young man. Didn't accuse. He understood why the boy was afraid of death.
"Sir, I'm scared. I just want to go home." the young man said.
"There is no home." Eames bit back.
The youth looked back at him. Not understanding. Eames took a long drag and looked up at the stars.
He wasn't sure why, but the stars were so bright lately.
"Hell is empty, and the devils are here." he said at last. Remembering a line from the Tempest he thought too morbid as a younger man.
He looked at the youth.
"Do you believe that?" he asked as they started walking again.
"Sir?" the young man asked again.
"Do you think the demons of hell have escaped and come for us? Or, do you think all of us have willing marched into hell?" Eames asked.
"I just want to go home, sir. I can't take it anymore. The shelling, the trenches, I've lost all my friends." the young man whined.
Eames said nothing as they walked. The young man looking nervously about.
"Sir, aren't you worried we'll be attacked?" the youth asked.
"So what if we are? I've been attacked before." Eames barked. "I can't seem to die. I've been trying, but I can't seem to do it."
"Sir?" the youth asked.
"I may be dead already." Eames laughed. "I may have died that night."
"What night?"
"I've been looking for death on her orders, on hers and no one else's. I don't care anymore. If I die, I think she'll forgive me. That if I can find my way to heaven, I'll be with her and be happy." Eames said.
The youth was about to say something when Eames caught sight of something in the mist.
A figure, a woman in a forest green evening dress.
The dress was achingly familiar.
The figure was painful to see.
His heart leapt out and started beating again.
"Ariadne?" he whispered.
"Sir?"
Eames was gasping for air as he watched the figure in the mist turn and walk away.
The tick fog swallowing her whole
"Ariadne!" Eames shouted and ran towards her.
Eames never ran except into battle. Most days his walk wasn't exactly careful. But he stuck to paths that had been well worn by others. He never gave a thought to the mines that peppered the area this way.
But seeing her ghost, to know his love was in hell with him and all these devils, was too much to bare.
He was less than 50 yards away from the young man when he stepped on a mine, and it went off.
The force of the blast knocked the breath out of him and he could feel his hot blood escape his body.
He was on his back, his body broken and cold in the mud. The stars his only company, when Ariadne came back for him.
She was wearing the same forest green dress the first night he saw her. Her face young, her lips red from the slight hint of Olivia growing inside her.
"Ariadne." he panted as she leaned over him.
Her beautiful face inches from his.
"Watch... watch out for the mud... on your dress." he panted.
His leg hurt. He pushed aside the pain and tried to focus on her face.
"I'm ready." he whispered as she hovered over him. "Please, I'm ready."
She said nothing as her face turned white as a china dolls. Her skin starting to crack and her color fading.
"Ariadne?" he gasped in horror.
She said nothing as he face cracked even more and her hair fell out. Her body shriveling up before his eyes.
"Ariadne!" he screamed as she decayed and fell away beside him. "Please! I'm sorry! Please, take me home!
~ "Olivia." Ariadne called to her daughter as Harold played with one of the Peter Rabbit books.
The toddler looked to her mother, saw she wasn't very interesting and turned away.
"Olivia, it's almost bed time." she said at last.
Olivia scowled at her mother and looked too haughty to waste time with going to bed.
"No arguments." Ariadne said and took her daughter's hand.
the child only whined a little as her mother bathed her and dressed her for bed.
Since they returned to Blue Rivers, and with space no limited in the house, Olivia slept in the same bed as Ariadne. It was an arrangement that gave her mother comfort.
These days, even when she was surrounded by people, she always felt alone.
Olivia let herself be tucked in and Ariadne took the framed picture of Arthur off the night stand.
"Kiss daddy goodnight." she instructed.
Olivia, content with the belief Arthur could feel her love for him through the picture, gladly kissed the image of a man she would never know and smiled at her mother.
"Kiss mommy good night." Ariadne said and the little girl gave her first real giggle of the day and kissed her mother.
Harold would go to bed at 8 and there was still an hour before he had to be pulled away from his solitary play.
"When do you think my daddy will be home?" the little boy asked.
"I don't know, Harold." Ariadne said sadly.
"If he doesn't come home, will we have to live here?" he asked.
"No, we can live wherever we want." Ariadne told him.
"I don't want to live here." he told her.
"Why not?" Ariadne asked.
"There are no kids to play with and the old ladies here are mean and they smell funny."
Ariadne let out a laugh. She couldn't help it.
She couldn't be angry at Harold for Fredrick and how he lied to her. Harold was too sweet and too in need of affection.
"I agree, but don't tell them that." she said.
It felt good to laugh. Her body felt oddly lighter afterwards. Like she had taken some kind of medicine and was cured of some sickness.
She heard a rapid, harassed knocking on the door and Maura let herself in.
"Missus, oh missus!" the maid cried.
"What is it?" Ariadne said standing up.
"A telegram has come. Only... only Lady Juniper took it. It was addressed to you and I tried to take it to you. She pulled it out of my hand and she took it." the maid exclaimed.
"What?" Ariadne shouted and raced past the maid.
The slacks she wore all the time now made it easier to travers the great house, and she reached the grand hallway quickly.
Juniper and Lady Percy were standing there. Their eyes peering over the telegram.
"Is that for me?" Ariadne snapped at the two old women. "Maura said it was addressed to me."
Juniper looked up at Ariadne. Her face grey and shallow.
"I thought..." she whispered and looked ready to cry. "I thought it would be news from Charles. He wrote only to you this whole time." Juniper said.
Ariadne snatched her telegram from her hand and Eames' mother looked ready to cry.
Ariadne looked over he telegram from the war department.
In big bold type, were the sentences.

Mrs. Fredrick Hays
Blue Rivers Manor
Mrs. Hays,
Your husband, Fredrick Hays has been found alive.
He is being treated at a field hospital where he will be honorably discharged.

"Fredrick's alive." Ariadne whispered.
She looked at juniper and Lady Percy. Both women looking ready to cry from heartbreak.
"He's coming home." she told them.