Chapter 3: A Nanny

David Wilson liked his job as a used car sales-man. It was simple, like him. He got up in the morning, sold as many good cars as he could, came home, ate dinner with his wife and daughters, and went to bed. Note that they were good cars. David refused to be every other used car salesman; he only wanted to sell cars that he knew were right for the person buying them, so that he could lay his head on his pillow at night and know that he had helped people. He liked helping people.

But since his wife had passed, David decided that he was due some Karma, as he was now the person who could really use some help. His brother, Carl, had come down to help care for his daughters and set up the funeral arrangements, but he needed to return to Sacramento soon, which meant David would not have a baby sitter anymore. Prior to this, his wife had always walked the girls to school, and taken their youngest, Daisy, to daycare outside her workplace at the San Francisco outpost for the FBI. Because of his career, he was often up early in the mornings, and didn't have time to walk the girls to school, and his work place did not have a daycare where he could take Daisy. Thankfully, his wife, ever so smart and insightful, had mentioned in her will that it would be best, if she passed when she was young, that David should hire a Nanny until all the girls were at least teenagers. In fact she had left him the money to do so.

David decided that he still could really use some help, as he stared at resume after resume, hosted interview after interview, and still did not find anyone he felt he could trust the last reminders of his wife with. Sitting down on the chair behind his desk in his study on the first floor or the spacious Victorian home, he ran a hair through his wavy black locks and sighed. In the past two weeks he felt as though he had aged a hundred years, and an emptiness lay raw inside him. How did people even remarry after saying goodbye to the love of their life? He could barely look at his girls, especially Daisy, who looked more and more like her mother every day. It was as if a veil separated him from the rest of the world, unable to fully interact and engage with people as he once had. They could not feel his pain, nor feel how achingly hollow he was inside.

The dusty desk calendar read February 26th, the day she died. His Lory. But it was March, and time was forging onward, somehow without him.

A blond head popped into the door frame. "Daddy there's another one at the door," the child said.

Fern, his eldest daughter, was 10 years old and had inherited his easy-going manner and her mother's blond hair. She was the glue of the family, helping where she could the past couple of weeks, consoling Daisy, and making sandwiches for dinner for all of them when David was too preoccupied with funeral arrangements.

He sighed, "Go ahead and send her in I guess."

"Him."

"What?"

"It's a boy, Daddy."

David shrugged. If a woman could be a CEO, why couldn't a man be a nanny? "Send HIM in I guess then."

The blond head disappeared, and David could feel the cool draft of March wind whistle in from the entryway as the door opened and closed. He heard his daughter murmur directions, and the sound of leather-soled shoes on the wooden floor. The figure that greeted him was not one that David anticipated. He had expected an older gentleman who perhaps had once been a school teacher and now did this to pass the time. Instead a young man in his late twenties stood before him, impeccably dressed in a well-fitting suit, tall, slim, with longer black hair swept back and a piercing blue-eyed gaze. In his hand he held a black suitcase. Without invitation he sat across from David, his shoulders a bit stooped, perhaps from hours of reading.

"My name," the boy said as he clicked open his suitcase and produced a resume, "is Tod Fischer. I'm here to apply for the job as Nanny. I have already prepared my resume for you to view here."

David looked at the resume, eyes scanning and not really reading. This is not what he had in mind for a Nanny. How was he going to politely tell this man to go away so that he could find someone more motherly for his girls?

Looking up from the resume, their eyes met, and David felt strangely violated. There was no way he could hire this man. "I'm sorry but…" The young man sneezed, words tumbling out as he did so, words that David couldn't quite catch. "What was that?"

"Nothing," Tod said, his thin lips pressing to a smile that seemed foreign to his very nature.

Looking down at the resume again to gather his thoughts, David was immediately filled with a sense of calm. This man was perfect. Everything on the resume said so. He was perfect for the girls. He would hire him immediately.

"When can you start?" he found himself asking.

"I already have my trunk in the hall," Tod answered, standing and shuffling something of little importance into his pocket. "Which bedroom shall be mine?"

"The one at the end of the second-floor hallway. It has its own bathroom," David found his mouth answering again. "I'll draw up the paperwork and one of the girls will show you to your room." David stood and held out a hand, which Tod took in his own slender one and shook. "I'll introduce you to the girls."

He found Fern entertaining Daisy with some cartoons in the living room. "Fern, Daisy, this is your new nanny, Tod Fischer. He will be helping me take care of the household."

Fern gave her father a confused look, but Daisy simply giggled and said, "You dress funny."

"Fern, would you mind showing Mr. Fischer his room?"

Fern nodded wordlessly, as Tod lifted his trunk, happy he had used the lightening charm to make it easy to lift. "Aren't there three of you?" he asked, thinking of the middle daughter whom he had seen when picking about Mallory's mind.

"This is your room," Fern said motioning to the little room that had a twin bed and a dresser, done up in pale pink. "And if you're looking for Hyacinth, she's in her room. Are you really going to be our Nanny? I thought Daddy was looking for a lady for us."

"Yes," Tod answered, surveying the child. She didn't seem particularly bright. "I was the best qualified candidate."

"Oh ok." She stood by the door, watching him as he set his trunk down at the foot of the bed. He would take out the sneakoscope and his watchful orb when the girl was gone. He was going to have to lock that door or set a series of disillusionment charms to keep all the occupants of the house out of his room. It wouldn't do to have them sneak in and see his enchanted gadgets, or to see his owl sitting on the bed post. Thankfully he had sent her out into the evening before he came, and told her not to come back until the night.

For now everything would simply remain locked until he was alone. At the moment he should at least introduce himself to each family member, especially since he would be protecting them for the next several years. Turning back to the door, the eldest girl was still watching him with gentle curiosity.

"So where is your sister?"

"This way," she answered, and lead him to the room directly next to his. Poking his head into the door with was ajar, he saw the cluttered little room with dark purple walls full of posters of soccer players and people in white robes fighting. It struck him as odd that the pictures did not move in their frames.

"What do you want?"

A girl with untidy dark hair looked up at him from where she had been coloring in a book. She looked far more like her father than the other two girls, and had none of her mother's mirth and light.

"I'm Mr. Fischer, I'm going to be your Nanny."

She regarded him momentarily, and Tod found to his dismay that he could not read her.

"That's nice," she said with an attitude and went back to ignoring him for her coloring. The urge to slap her went through him, but he instead closed the door and sighed.

"Don't worry. She's just sad that mom is gone. She doesn't like weird people either."

"I'm qualify as weird?" Tod asked. He had been so sure he had acted impeccably. Sure he had to use the imperious curse on David, but other than that between his dress and his mannerisms, he thought he blended in quite well with no-maj's.

"Yeah," Fern cryptically answered, and turned to disappear down the stairs. Tod retreated to his room and shut the door. Sitting down on the bed and cradling his face in his hands a thought ran through him.

Maybe I should have just chosen the prison.