Dear Lord, please give me the strength to-
"Alright, now after lunch is geography for everyone. Bee is on the capitols of-"
Fuck this.
"Tracy, I can't do this anymore. Look at them, do they look like they're having any fun at all?" Anthony gestured to the children, most of whom had finished pushing their lunch around their plates.
"The point isn't fun, the point is to prepare them for the next school year. And after that, college or careers." The butler- Shadwell- sounded like he was reciting from a pitch or something.
"That's- you know what, Captain Fell is off to Vienna. He left me in charge of his children. And I have decided that this afternoon, we're going out."
"We're what?" Anathema dropped her fork.
"You heard me! Out," Anthony marched to the door and started tugging on his boots. "Let's go. Line up in pairs."
After that day, the original study regimen was never returned to. Anthony crumpled up that page in his notebook and tossed it. The first afternoon was tour day. They walked into town, and the children showed Anthony the train station, the post office, the market, the church, rows and rows of quaint little houses, and the school, which was closed for the summer. When the sun started to touch the tips of the trees on the horizon, they headed back home. Warlock, whose little legs got tired, clung to Adam's back, a little miffed because Wensley was already clinging to Mr. Crowley. The children had an appetite that night at dinner and dropped off to sleep rather quickly.
This parenting shit was easy, Anthony thought. Just tire them out and there are zero problems at bedtime.
He kicked himself later, when nightmares (Ana stubbornly called them 'visions'), bed-wetting (Warlock), and botched, noisy attempts to sneak out (Bee) kept him up later. Keeping track of them was going to give him grey hairs. Turned out it was awfully hard to count children when they kept fucking moving around. Warlock tended to hang out right next to him, following behind him like a duckling or clinging to his pant legs. This sometimes put the boy out of Anthony's line of sight, leading to many near-heart attacks over the next few weeks. And boy, if you let them, these children could argue. It was almost impressive. It was hard to get all seven to agree on an activity for the day.
Despite the hiccups, the group managed. Anthony settled the activity argument by drawing straws, numbers one through seven on the ends, and that was the order of who chose during the week. There was grumbling, but everyone got their turn to decide.
On the first free day, Adam got to pick what to do after a morning of study. He wanted to take the train out to the mountains. Anthony tucked a few pieces of his newest sewing project into a bag along with the envelope Tracy gave him with money for their tickets. The children enjoyed running around the wide-open space. Anthony and Bee mostly basked in the sunshine. Anthony got a little bit of sewing done, then tucked it back away, yawning. He managed a short nap, confident that no one would get mortally injured while he dozed, and was pleased to be proven right.
The next day, Brian wanted to learn how to make peanut brittle. So the afternoon was spent in the kitchen, probably giving Tracy another grey hair.
For Wensley's birthday, they studied only subjects that he chose. Turned out that he was a big fan of poetry, and most of the morning was spent reading aloud from books off of all different shelves, from all different years, some of which made Anthony choked up and others which made him smile. When they got bored of reading, the children tried their hand at their own poems. Warlock's didn't rhyme, or even make much sense, but his siblings clapped for him anyway. Wensley had a talent for haikus. Ana's sounded suspiciously like a spell, but Anthony didn't say anything about that.
Bee wanted to find the telegram delivery boy on her day. Anthony said that did not count, and they might be arrested for stalking. So instead, she chose painting. Adam was chosen to model since it was hard to hold his attention with painting. He stood in the middle of the room with sheets draped around him. Some of his siblings drew him like 'an old-timey dude in a toga' and others drew him as a ghost.
Unfortunately for Anthony, when the children figured out he had never learned how to ride a bike, they ganged up on him and Warlock used his turn to choose, "We wanna teach you the bike!" It was Warlock's turn. Whatever he wanted to do that afternoon was what they would do. All afternoon. An old bike with a basket attached to the front was pulled out of the shed by Shadwell, and Anthony got intimately acquainted with the driveway several times.
"Regretting your decision yet?" Tracy asked him, holding the back of his neck so he didn't flinch away as she pressed the disinfectant-soaked cotton ball to his scraped nose.
"Not entirely," Anthony grimaced at the sting. "Getting to make their own choices is- ow- it's good for them. Children need- ow!- they need a little free reign."
Former quiet hours got louder and louder. The children ran down the stairs or slid down the banister- as they should, Anthony thought. Even while studying, where the children used to be quiet as mice, they started to work together in pairs of groups or three and ask each other questions. Lots of the subjects they studied were out of Anthony's realm, so he was glad the older ones could help each other and the younger ones.
In the mornings he usually sat with Warlock and Wensley to keep the two youngest on track. The longer time went on, the more Warlock's stubborn side started to show. Anthony had to start getting creative with ways to convince him to keep at his studies.
"If you don't finish up this page," Anthony said, late one morning as the rest of the children were turning in the minimum amount of work they had to do, "I won't show you all what I've been working on for you."
Above all, the children were curious. Warlock flew through the rest of the problems and slammed the paper down on the top of the stack.
"Show us? Show us, please? What is it?"
Seven outfits made of sturdy black material were pulled out of a dresser drawer in Anthony's room. The remains of the curtains were still shuffled off in the corner, but he would clean those up later. For now, he watched the children gasp over their new play clothes. Turned out Pepper wasn't feeling the skirt, but it was no matter because she and Adam were about the same size and he was amenable to swapping sometimes. Ana adored the ruffled sleeves Anthony had added to her dress. They all wanted to try their new things on immediately.
"The best part is," Anthony said, fixing the buttons on Warlock's shirt (he'd tried to do them himself, but had been one off the entire time), "you don't have to worry about staining them or even ruining them because that's the whole point. They're play clothes."
"Did you make anything for yourself?" Ana asked.
"No. I've got some clothes already that I don't mind putting more wear and tear in."
"I want to learn how to make these," Ana swished her skirt. "And I want to make one for you."
Anthony did not feel like crying, thank you very much.
Without needing to worry about grass stains and such, the activities suggested for their afternoons suddenly became a lot messier. Kickball. Frog catching while standing knee-deep in the river and climbing pine trees and coming down covered in sticky sap. Bee wanted to teach her younger siblings to fish and to do that, they had to catch the bait first. They spent a night digging around in the mud for worms.
"Do you regret it now?" Tracy asked as Anthony gritted his teeth. With one last sharp tug, the fishing hook came out of his arm.
"No," Anthony said stubbornly. "Besides, it's my own hook that got stuck in my arm. I just need more practice." Because underneath it all, Anthony was an optimist. (He did not, however, get much better at fishing.)
Bedtime was one of the few rules that Anthony still enforced. Well, most of the time. Ana expressed the wish to learn how to chart the stars, so they spent a night out on the lawn looking up at the sky. Ana had a few books open and a candle out, but the rest of them were content just to listen to Anthony recount the stories behind the constellations he could spot.
Anthony had been proud of the lack of property damage while Captain Fell was away. That is, until Bee found a weak spot in the attic. By stepping on it. Her foot went through the floor (ceiling? Floor-ceiling) and scared Tracy out of her wits. She called for Anthony, who hadn't yet realized one of the children had managed to slip out of the library undetected because he was trying to explain multiplication to Wensley.
"Oh my God- Bee?! Why- right, questions later." He hauled himself up the creaky ladder into the dusty attic as fast as he could and helped pull the girl up.
"I'm sorry," she said miserably. "Father's going to be so disappointed, he's bringing the Baroness with him and there's a hole in the ceiling now..."
"We can worry about that when we've got you patched up. Why were you up here anyway?" Anthony asked, brushing dust off his sleeves.
"It's... I only wanted to see some of Mother's things."
"And they're all up here?"
Bee nodded. "Since Warlock was born. When... well, it makes Father sad to see them."
"What sorts of things?" Brian popped up from the trap door.
"Hey, obviously the floor isn't in the best shape, so get back down there!" Anthony scowled. "Bee and I will bring some things down. The last thing we need is more holes in the ceiling. We'll need Shadwell to help us with this, by the way."
He ended up clambering back down the ladder with an arm full of songbooks and picture frames. Tracy bandaged the scrapes on Bee's leg, and the children gathered around to look at the stuff their sister had requested from the attic.
The first photo had been taken from far away. Two figures stood on the beach, flying kites.
"Is that your mother and father?" Anthony asked, squinting at the figures.
"Yeah. That's even before Bee was born," Pepper said.
"That means it's ancient," Adam said.
Bee glared and punched her brother's shoulder. Then she moved that photo aside to reveal a more formal portrait. "And this is her."
The woman was beautiful. She had lots of long dark hair, soft dark eyes, and a nose similar to Bee's and Pepper's.
The next was a family portrait. Mrs. Fell was holding a small baby, and Captain Fell had a young toddler in one arm, clinging to his side.
"Is that me?" Warlock pointed to the baby.
"No, that's Wensley," Brian said. "And that's me. And there's Ana 'n' Adam 'n' Pepper 'n' Bee, all around them."
"Where am I?" Warlock asked, genuinely upset.
"You weren't born yet. You weren't born for a few more years," Pepper explained.
"The rest of you were here without me?"
"That's just how it works. You're the youngest, you came last."
Warlock's bottom lip started to tremble. Sensing a meltdown, Anthony pulled him into his lap. "You were still waiting your turn," he said. "But your mother loved you even then. Even when you were just an idea. I can tell."
"Really?"
"Of course."
"She was really nice," Brian nodded. "I don't remember a lot because she died when I was little, but I don't remember her ever, ever being mean."
"Of course she was nice," Bee said, sounding a little sullen. "I wish we could have her picture up."
"How about you put this one in your room? Somewhere safe, where it won't get knocked over," Anthony handed her the portrait.
"Really? But Father-"
"Is in Vienna. And shouldn't deny a child their mother."
"He missed her a lot," Ana said. Her glasses were a little foggy. "I'd never seen him cry before then."
"Yeah, but now he acts like she never existed. Like we just dropped out of the sky," Bee snapped, holding onto the photo tighter. "And it isn't fair."
No one had anything to say to that.
The portrait found a new home on the dresser in Bee and Pepper's room. The kite-flying photo was set up in the library, where everyone could see it each morning.
Shadwell helped them patch the hole in the ceiling. It looked good as new.
Anthony was woken far too early on a Sunday morning by someone shaking his shoulder impatiently.
"Whaddsssgonon?" he tried to ask a question, barely mumbling the right sounds.
"Get up Mr. Crowley, it's important," Ana insisted.
"What? Somethin' going on?" Anthony pushed himself up, wincing when the sunlight hit his face.
"We need someone to fill out the bassline."
"That what? What time is it? Isn't Sunday supposed to be the godforsaken day of rest?"
"Bee dusted off the piano. We need someone on the bassline. Mother's song books-"
"You got up early to sing?"
"Yes. Keep up. No one else can hit the notes that low. Adam can barely reach tenor, we need someone on the low notes or Bee says it sounds all wrong."
Anthony sighed. "Give me ten minutes."
And that's how he was forcefully roped into joining a choir.
"Alright, it's your day to pick, Brian."
"What are we going to cook today?" Bee asked.
"Hey, who says all my choices revolve around food?" Brian scowled.
"Peanut brittle, gelatin-"
"Shut up."
"Quit teasing each other and let your brother pick," Anthony scolded, with no real heat behind it.
"I want to go pick plums," Brian admitted. "And that also involves tree-climbing, so it's not all food."
Tracy supplied them with baskets, promising to find all sorts of plum recipes. The black play clothes- many articles of which had already been mended one or two times- were put on, and the eight of them were off. This time, Anthony has a black skirt on to match with the others. The stitches weren't in very uniform sizes and the hemline was a little uneven, signs of an inexperienced maker, but he wore it with utmost pride. They had to travel downriver and across, so they decided to use the old canoe that had been fixed up earlier that month for fishing purposes. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and Bee picked a song to sing so they wouldn't get bored rowing.
Anthony took a moment to appreciate the perfect weather and the kids getting along (for the time being). He'd been busier than ever these past few weeks and sustained more injuries than usual, but he'd also laughed and smiled a lot more.
"This has been the best summer ever," Brian declared when they docked near the orchard. "And I never want it to end."
"Me neither," agreed his siblings.
"Me neither," Anthony agreed, glad he'd taken this job.