PART TWO

Chapter Seven - Annette

 

Annette isn’t sure what she expected it to smell like, but it sure isn’t this. If her arms weren’t currently preoccupied with the loathsome task of holding the poor creature’s legs in position, she’d be shutting her nostrils as tightly as possible and praying to die.

With a squelching, thumping slice, Patty Drayburh slams her knife down through the goat’s neck, severing its deceased head from its just-as-dead body. She doesn’t flinch at the splatter of blood that covers her smock, nor even at the few flecks which color her face. Annette shivers. 

“This one was called Rumpus, because of his mighty rump,”she tells Annette, as matter of fact. Her thick blade now takes to the task of slipping through the skin to prepare it for butchering.  She gives him an affectionate slap on the ass. “He was a naughty bastard. Ate up all my petunias.” 

With a careful adjustment, Annette securely grips both back hooves with her right hand, grabbing a cloth and covering her nose with her left. Mrs. Drayburh tosses her an unpitied, disaffected look before continuing on without hesitation. She appears happiest with her hands stained with the gore of the goat - comfortable with the offal and wretched duty of it. 

Four days in the Drayburh residence, and Annette has seen nary a break in Drayburh’s fixed scorn. She’s a harsh and blunt woman, both in attitude and appearance, and seems to regard dynamism of personality as a flaw to be pruned. She is painfully static. Her tone always hoists itself through conversation like a belt that’s too tight. 

Except when it comes to her goats. 

“You’ve got to get em’ when they’re asleep,” she says to Annette, as though the girl might soon take up butchering as a hobby. Her hands begin disrobing the flesh from the meat, skillfully and pragmatically slashing through the coarse fur. “Not a whack of fear in his meat. Fear ruins the taste.” 

Her bristling eyebrows lift at Annette, as though to confirm she’s listening intently. Annette is far beyond her own capacity to fake enthusiasm, and coughs wetly into her borrowed cloth. Patty directs her to change the angle she holds the goat - Rumpus - and begins a new series of skinning cuts. 

Annette envies Cordelia, no matter what she may be doing at present. Surely anything would be better than this. 

Four days, each of which unfurled new domestic horrors of the Drayburhs. Annette has taken to assigning each sunset a ‘horror-of-the-day,’ sorting through the gruesome behaviors of their two hosts as a way of coping. 

Night one, after Annette and Cordelia had come to find Old Billie Lane no longer functional and taken up residence with the Drayburhs, Annette had come to learn that Patty would eat a whole onion as part of her dinner, regardless of the meal. She does this without fail, without hesitation; just sinks her yellowing teeth deep into the layered flesh and bites hard, leaving a dribbling trail of onion juice on her cheeks. The sound is particularly tormentous. When asked about why she does this, Patty simply informed Annette that it’s good for the soul to taste something strong. 

On the second night, Annette felt there was close contention between Gerald Drayburh spitting his used, mushy chewing tobacco into a tin and then retrieving it back into his mouth once he found he had no more, and Patty subjecting the house to a performance, with her own arrhythmic piano accompaniment, of her favorite hymn, “Thou Judge of Quick and Dead.” Her shrieking soprano made Annette wish she might be quickly dead. 

The third night - oh, the great and glorious third night - she’d easily decided the winner. Patty was once more showing Annette her small herd of goats, a scant seven, and settled upon her favorite one, whom she’d named after her husband, Gerald. When greeting Gerald the goat, Patty stooped down and kissed him square on the mouth. Annette swears she saw a tongue involved. 

And for the fourth night, well, it won’t be hard for Annette to select the glee in Patty’s eyes as she inserts herself into the grotesque task of slaughtering Rumpus. She hopes sorely that nothing will dethrone it. The day is still young. 

It had been horrid to come home to the sudden reforestation of Old Billie Lane. She had been too exhausted at the time to appreciate what a devious miracle it was for a tree to be sprouting out through the center of the home, shattering through the roof and stretching out its wide canopy above it. There had been a brief argument between the two of them of whether or not to investigate, one in which Annette had come out victoriously demanding that they seek shelter to tend to Cordelia’s health. The Drayburhs had been closest. Patty was just arriving home at the same time as them, freshly back from a late visit to the bakery in town. 

Cordelia was furious the next morning to find that the tree was gone, vanished without a trace. In its place it left behind a gaping hole through the center of the home, like a mould waiting to be filled with molten metal. The roof caved in sections, the memory of roots shattered the floorboards. In a moment of frustration Cordelia blamed Annette’s over-worried concern for her health, only to walk it back upon seeing the sternly disapproving look on Annette’s face. Fifteen minutes later Cordelia properly apologized for the comment, and Annette forgave her, returning to survey the impressively destructive miracle at hand. In a night, the Coven had made their borrowed home unlivable.

And it was the Coven. They’d made sure Annette and Cordelia gave them proper credit, leaving behind a small icon of bone and twig in the direct center of the wound in the house, perfectly matching those left behind on the O’Darcy farm. Closer study warranted nothing of particular interest in the idols - the bones seemed old and wearied, most likely from a lamb and a few rodents. 

Two important observations remained in Annette’s mind after the few hours spent studying the scene. Firstly, that there was a surprising absence of debris left in place. If a tree had really sprung up from the ground and shattered through house and home, she’d expect there to be a torrent of twigs and splinters and leaves and boards strewn about as a testament to the disaster. But it was not so in Old Bille Lane. It rather looked as though the Coven likewise had the decency to clean up their mess afterwards. 

This, of course, led Cordelia to make two deductions regarding the first observation: the Coven remained onsite, or nearby, for the feat. To have performed the miracle and removed it so quickly would have required multiple hands acting quickly and deliberately. When Annette asked for clarification as to the second deduction, all her detective said was, “Oh. They like to keep a tidy home.” 

The second observation that seemed most pertinent to Annette revolved around the direction of damage. Cordelia agreed, and seemed quite pleased when Annette announced this even before she did, though she insisted that she had made a similar revelation upon arriving. The scene presented itself with a particular idea -  that an oak tree had suddenly and violently germinated underneath the house, then leapt up through the foundation, the floorboards, the second floor, and the roof, culminating in a wide canopy being cast forth above it all. Then, just as quickly, it vanished into the air. 

This would suggest an upward motion of assault. The polished hardwood floors ought to then display an upward thrust, bending up towards the sky where they did not break outright. The nails holding the planks down should be fighting to hold them down. Instead, the damage is remarkably flat, and at times even collapsing downwards to the soil. 

Or, as Cordelia surmised, “They tore apart the home and then produced a tree. Our grand oak is not guilty with regards to property damage. The coven is.” 

None of this improved the likelihood that Old Bille Lane would remain a viable option of habitation. It’d take weeks to undo what the Coven accomplished in an afternoon and evening. Beyond the splintered wood and exposed roof, water damage from the rain had wreaked havoc. Mold had begun to grow and fester by the next few days, and an all-consuming smell of despair flooded the senses upon entry. The furniture would not recover by any estimation, and the second floor was a hazard to attempt. Thus, the Drayburh residence a few hills over. 

“Rumpus was with Cristabelle, that tramp,” Patty gossips, leaning in towards Annette like the scandal could upset the King’s palace should it be overheard. Her hands remain bloodstained and wrinkled, and they continue their work despite the distraction. With far more indignation than expected, she hmpfhs, “He deserved better than her scampery.” 

Annette follows her gaze to the fenced pen outside the shed, letting her eyes take in the sight of the half-dozen living goats beyond. None of them muster a care in the world, tending instead to the chomped-down grass and the pools of muddy water. 

“You see, the whole while Cristabelle was playing doting wife to Rumpus,” Patty recounts salaciously, “she was laying it bare for Fitzpick. I still don’t know whose kid she birthed.” 

Annette watches the gray-brown goat, Cristabelle, mindlessly gnawing on the wooden fencepost closest to her, and wonders if she might be reduced to a similarly bleak fate if she remained in Patty’s company for too long. 

Mrs. Drayburh’s stained hand points at a young goat in the far corner, headbutting Gerald the goat. “That’s him. Matches, a firecracker son-of-a-bitch if I ever knew one.” She glances at Annette with a fervor in her eyes. “And I have.” 

Annette finds herself thinking of Cordelia to cope instead, trying not to read into whatever baffling story might have prompted that particular passion in Patty’s voice. Cordelia spent most of the four days they’ve been here out upon the town, engaging in the tedious, meticulous work of this stage in the investigation. Up until this point, she and Annette have been reacting to the Coven, following their moves and studying them without much context for why. If they had any hope of building a better understanding, they needed more narrative, context, and stories. 

So Cordelia was worming her way around Fieldston, talking to as many people as possible and writing down accounts of encounters with the Coven, whether they be factual or rumors. Annette knew that Cordelia hated this part of the work, but she was, quite unexpectedly, phenomenal at it. Her self-important detective was so purely that - a self-important detective - and people responded strongly to it. Speaking with her put, for ever a brief moment, a spotlight on a person’s life. They, too, could feel enmeshed in some grand conspiracy, some brooding mystery, and that their words might be the key that could solve the crisis and thus earn them proximitous credit. Cordelia made people feel important in this way, and Annette knew better than most how invigorating it was to capture her full attention. 

Fieldston possesses a mixture of responses to this, however. Some residents abjectly refused to speak with her for fear of drawing ire of the witches. Some could only barter in gossip and hard-to-believe stories. Others would candidly recount fantastical tales, with a dubious grasp on reality. It was slow, methodical work to catalogue what she learns. 

Less slow, perhaps, if she allowed Annette to join her in the task. 

From the morning after Old Billie Lane’s destruction, Cordelia’s distant attitude towards her has only widened its gap. She left early in the morning and returned late into the evening, weary and unwilling to discuss the case in front of the Drayburhs for fear of her insights leaking to the Coven by any means. She’d fully succumbed to the tunnel-visioned focus of investigation, hardly taking in anything that wasn’t related to it. It was all Annette could do to make sure her detective was eating, taking to baking fresh bread for her each night for her to hastily take with her in the mornings. Annette isn’t even sure she’s eating anything beyond that. 

And her attempts to have private time with Cordelia prove even more elusive. One of the decisive aggravations of the Drayburh residence is that there could be no conceivable explanation for why a master and servant could be sharing a bedroom with one another. Instead, Cordelia was given the honor of the guest bedroom, according to her status. Meanwhile, Annette had taken over Patty Drayburh’s bedroom, relegating Patty and her husband to share the room in between the two of theirs once more. Apparently they had long since stopped sharing a room. Patty Drayburh’s room contains the profoundly stale musk of an old woman, and Annette quickly grows to fear the possibility that the scent will merge with her own and become permanent. 

Without the ease-of-access of a shared bedroom, Annette takes to trying to sneak out of her room at night, feeling very much like a naughty child in the orphanage once more. It’d been some time since she’d felt the need for clandestine activity to simply be with another woman, and while that initially brings a transgressive delight, it quickly wears away with frustration. 

On the first night, Annette learns that Gerald Drayburh - the man, not the goat - sleepwalks. And not just briefly, he walks through most of his sleep. She opened the door to her borrowed room to find him staring at her door like a specter, mouth open and drooling, snoring without expression. He made a ghastly sound as he exhaled, almost as though his soul was leaving his body. Even with his twitching eyes closed he was terrifying, and it took great composure not to scream bloody murder. 

He’d likewise thwarted her efforts on the second night. On the third, she exited her room to find the hall lights lit and a glow coming from the living room. A creak in the floorboards alerted Patty Drayburh to her presence, and she ascended the stairs to inform Annette that her old bones wouldn’t let her sleep, and that she’d much appreciate company to share a cup of tea with. Unable to find a reasonable way to excuse herself from the chore, Annette sat with her for over an hour as Patty mumbled about her favorite homilies from Abbot Dewey in town. Annette fell asleep before she did, nodding off into the couch cushions. 

If Cordelia felt distant before, she feels inaccessible now. Annette finds herself wondering, for a moment, if she’d done something wrong, if she’d somehow changed the way Cordelia feels about her, about them. Had she crossed some invisible line, and, like a pirate unable to quit the lifestyle, Cordelia was returning out to sea in response, never to be seen again? 

So, Susie O’Hinnley becomes Annette’s primary company. Rather than waste away with the aging numbness of the Drayburh home, Annette takes to volunteering for chores with Susie, helping around the Cunninghill Estate and becoming a regular fixture. It is, in its own way, painfully reminiscent of her first days as a collar in Cordelia’s home a half-year ago. She cleans, she cooks, she folds laundry, and she wonders how much of the detective’s mind was truly available to her. 

Susie, for her part, takes to the company readily and immediately, and seems relieved to either have help or have someone to pass the tedious time with. Work that might’ve been wretchedly boring and time-consuming is now completed with relative ease and no shortage of laughter. The born-and-raised Kerishwoman slowly begins to feel like a sister to Annette. 

Her newfound sister talks incessantly about eloping with some handsome sailor on the coast, to such a degree that Annette wonders if she’s ever even met a sailor. Annette herself hadn’t known many, but generally views them as smelly and in desperate need of a bath. When she points this out to Susie, she almost respects her more when the woman’s face flushes and she informs Annette that a man hard at work doesn’t bother her in the slightest. 

By the third day, Annette feels close enough with Susie to timidly inform her that she’s twice-born. She’s more nervous about the disclosure than she’d expected to be. Back in Bellchester it’d become almost a source of pride for her, a status which Cordelia found inspiring and her closest friends treated with respect. She’d not known if Susie had ever met a woman like her before, and feared, for a tense moment, what her fellow collar might say. 

When Susie heard it, she’d needed clarification on what it meant, so Annette explained the process, how she had once been a young boy and then left it all behind to be a woman. Susie furrowed her brow for a second, eyes scouring up and down Annette as though trying to locate any remnant of masculinity and failing, then announced, “This is much preferable. You’ve made a horrid man. I would have mocked you ruthlessly for it.” And then gleefully she embraced Annette, and she knew all would be well between them. Susie quickly adjusted course back to gossiping about men, begging for more information about Annette’s encounters with the then Deacon Simon. 

If Cunninghill Estate had any reservations to gaining a new volunteer collar, they were quickly cast aside at the permission of Mrs. Cunninghill. The quiet woman hardly does anything but sit on a veranda overlooking Fieldston and drink her tea. She rarely interacts with anyone in the home, and according to Susie, has rarely, if ever, held a conversation with her. But when a brief objection was raised by one of the other staff in the home, Mrs. Cunninghill had stated that she quite liked Annette, nevermind that Annette had seldom interacted with her. Mr. Cunninghill was pleased to hear his wife voice an opinion, and Annette was easily adopted into the home. 

 A presence entering the doorway stirs Annette out of her disassociate stupor. She finds her heart leaping forth with hope Cordelia has come to save her from the wretched task of assisting the butchering of Rumpus, only to feel it stale in her chest when it is not the detective. 

“Mrs. Drayburh, a pleasure,” Susie bows her braided head sweetly. “Might Cunninghill Estate borrow the aid of Ms. Baker once more today?” 

Patty hesitates, staring at Rumpus, then Annette, then out towards the wanton Cristabelle, then back to Susie. She makes a noise of displeasure. “Haven’t they collars aplenty?” 

“It was specifically requested by Lord Cunninghill himself.” Susie’s eyes lock with Annette’s who uses her own to plead for a rescue. 

Patty hmpfhs once more. She crosses her arms over one another, never minding the blood on her arms or apron smearing. Then she shrugs and waves Annette away, picking up her knife in the same motion and returning to her task. Annette scurries away from Mrs. Drayburh and rushes into the house to change into fresh clothes and wash the specs of blood from her arms. It takes longer than expected, as each freckle on her pink-spotted arms might be interpreted as more blood to her panic. 

On the walk over to the Cunninghill home, she asks, “They asked for me directly?” 

Susie laughs her away. “I’ve grown lazy and fat off of your borrowed labor, lady. I’ll not have you wasting away working for the Drayburhs when you could waste away keeping me company instead.” 

“Ah, but I must waste away regardless?” 

“I could always leave you here.” 

Annette quickly stifles her protests, accepting Susie’s rescue without further contention. Given the choice between the two, it’s not hard to leave with Susie. She’d still rather be off with Cordelia, especially as the few days of not sharing a bed has left her feeling particularly in need, but it seems her detective is preoccupied for the day already. She’d left in a hurry this morning. 

It’s not until they’ve settled into the routine of normal work, today they’re scrubbing the floors of the kitchen, that Annette realizes just how in need she is. Mindlessly scrubbing, she finds herself unable to stop remembering Cordelia barging into Old Billie Lane and demanding Annette’s attention. Recalling the fervent look in Cordelia’s emerald eyes briefly causes her to halt scrubbing and Susie to inquire what the matter was. Annette brushed it off quickly and tended to the warm flush down her sternum. She makes a mental note to implore Cordelia to take a walk with her in the evening, nevermind what hour the detective returns. If the halls of the Drayburh residence were accidentally on patrol each evening, then perhaps the surrounding countryside will yield some nighttime privacy. 

Past lunchtime, Annette finds herself bringing Mrs. Cunninghill her afternoon tea - a lovely blend of jasmine which she drinks with only a splash of milk and spoonful of sugar. Mrs. Cunninghill rests in her sturdy chair on the veranda, her face expressionless and still as marble, unblemished save for the dark circles underneath her eyes that never seem to leave her. She always looks moments away from crying. 

Annette places the cup and saucer down onto a small table to the woman’s right, setting them carefully to avoid any noise and hoping it does not disturb her solitude. She’s about to leave just as stealthily when Mrs. Cunninghill’s soft, frail voice calls up to her. 

“It’s kind of you to help Susie,” she appreciates gently. “She’s been so down since her sister left us. I’m sure she appreciates the company.” 

Annette stands still for a breath, considering that Susie had never mentioned a sister before. She’d not noticed her fellow collar seem down for a moment since they’ve met - yet Mrs. Cunninghill almost sounds bereft of the fact. She inclines her head and neutrally replies, “I’m glad to be of help, ma’am.”

She is turning on her heels when Mrs. Cunninghill speaks again, head not moving from its vacant, outward gaze. “Ellis, if you’d like. You don’t have to,” she adds permissively.

Annette is struck by the strange familiarity. Unsure of it, she holds to her neutrality. “Is there anything else you need, ma’am?” 

Mrs. Cunninghill - Ellis - is silent for a breath. Then, almost as though forgetting and quickly remembering, says, “Nothing. Though, tell Madeline I am out here if she comes calling today.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” she affirms, not knowing who Madeline is, nor why anyone would need a reminder of where she was. The lady of the house is only ever in two places, as far as Annette is concerned; the dining table and the veranda. 

“Annette? Can I call you Annette? Is that alright?” 

“To your preference, ma’am.” 

Mrs. Cunninghill nods wearily. “Would you call me by my name? Could you be comfortable with that?” 

Annette is still for a moment. She’s not sure why the request finds her so cautious, nor why the role of servant has taken her so strongly. In Bellchester, she grew so far beyond the confines of a collar; yet here, she can’t seem to shrug it off. Choosing to re-don it for the sake of the investigation feels sealed to her in wax, unbreakable without consequence, as though, should she ever choose not to accept this role, she would never be able to force herself back into it. She would never be able to be content pretending it is who she is. 

Why did she allow herself to propose this idea to Cordelia? Why was she so insistent it was necessary for the cover? 

“Ellis,” she repeats without much conviction. 

Ellis closes her eyes and savors the sound, as though it were a lost music upon her ears, as though she feared tongues had forgotten how to form its syllables. When her eyes reopen and drift upwards towards Annette, she quite nearly smiles. Annette is struck by how tired her young face is. Scarcely older than thirty-five, Ellis’ face holds a sorrow that has been depressed into it by years beyond her age. 

“Thank you, Annette.” 

A weighty, strange moment passes between them. 

“Are… have you…” Ellis squeaks out, unsure of herself. “It’s quite the view, don’t you think?” 

Annette considers it for a moment. “It’s peaceful.” 

“It is,” she nods quickly. Her tone is hasty, flighty, like her voice is afraid of itself. Annette considers that she’s not seemed to have much practice speaking with anyone of late. She then considers again why she’s making the effort now. “I quite like it out here. There’s less birds anymore, and, and I miss waking up to the, well… it isn’t the same.” A timid breath. “Do you like it here?” 

“It’s a very impressive estate.” 

“Fieldston,” Ellis clarifies. “Algers mentioned that you are from Kereland - do you like it here?” 

“I… it’s not what I expected.” Annette quietly stifles an expression that almost rises to her face. For a moment, it almost seemed as though Ellis had an accent. A Kerish accent. She’d assumed the woman was from Emril like her husband, but there was something about the way she said ‘Kereland.’ The Emrish always place an extra syllable in the word, Ker-e-land, swinging between the two E’s before the landing. But the Kerish elide the second syllable, like Ker’land, quickly and with familiarity. That’s how Ellis pronounced it. 

“Welcome, all the same,” Mrs. Cunninghill smiles weakly. “In case no one has told you that yet. Kereland is a friendly place. Well, it’s supposed to be. Sometimes it can be difficult.” She says nothing more to explain her meaning, so Annette simply bobs her head in a polite acknowledgement. 

“Forgive me, I’m borrowing too much of your time. You’re busy, I’m sure,” Ellis shakes her head quickly, causing the soft, auburn crest of her hair to bounce with the movement, and adjusts her seating. “Thank you for the tea, Annette. And thank you for Susie. I worry about her. It’s good of you to keep her company. She doesn’t, well, it’s good of you.” 

And Annette leaves the veranda, curious about why the woman would break her silence just for her. 

 

– – – 

 

“It’s all from the Hunger,” Susie explains a few hours later as the two of them beat rugs with brooms to shake out the dust. “That’s why it’s like this.” The early afternoon bears a gentle heat and humidity as the soggy grass releases its water back into the air to evaporate.

“People always assumed I was an orphan in Emril because of the famine,” Annette answers back, partially enjoying the satisfying thwump! of the broom against the mat. She repeats it a few more times, coughing at the dust shaking off. 

“The Hunger,” Susie says as though correcting.

Annette nods. “They always said so many people fled the famine and came to Emril-,”

“Hunger,” she repeats, more insistent. 

“As I said.” 

Susie shakes her head sharply, holding her broom vertically like a walking pole and leaning against it. “The Emrish call it a famine. It wasn’t. There was plenty of food.” 

Annette pauses her work as well. “So then why did people starve?” 

“So you lot could eat.”

“I wasn’t-,”

“Right, of course, you weren’t around for it, Annie,” Susie waves away her protest. “You lot, broadly. People in Emril. We grow your food, you take it from us for a cheap penny, and we starve. Simple.” Before Annette could protest again, Susie launches off and continues. “You can live on a potato, so it’s what we ate. But then the Blight killed all the potatoes, and suddenly the only food left was what you had to sell to make rent.” She returns to wacking the rugs, with a little more passion now. “So you can make rent and starve, or eat your rent and get evicted, then starve.”

“That’s horrible.” 

“That’s the Hunger,” Susie shrugs. “It’s why a Kerishman will so much as kill an Emirshman who looks at him funny.” She puts on a gruff voice, swinging her broom with conviction and fury.

 “‘You’re looking at me all wrong, ye green-eating bastard!’” 

Thwump! 

“‘Look at his round belly, fat off our rent. I wonder if I’ll get candy if I hit it hard enough.’”

Thwump!

“‘Now he has the nerve to say he likes the fire-red of a Kerish woman’s hair. Well, if he likes it so much, why doesn’t he eat it instead!?’”

THWUMP!

She stops, heaving out a mildly embarrassed breath and wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. Annette watches her curiously, then stares off at the backhills of the Cunninghill estate, with its rolling green pastures for Algers Cunninghill’s grazing sheep. Somewhere in the distance, she hears the hup! hup! of a shepherd’s call, followed by his herding dogs’ excited barks. Algiers himself was out in those fields somewhere, fancying himself as a shepherd, too, but with more posh. 

“Sorry, Annie,” Susie breathes out. “It’s just what it is. Not saying you had anything to do with it, but I wanted you to understand, seeing as you're one of us an’ all.” She sets the broom down against the banister and lifts her palms to rest on her hips. “It’s not a famine, not the way we remember it. If you want ta’ make friends, you ought to call it by its name. The Hunger.” 

“I will,” Annette affirms. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” 

“Wasn’t you who did it,” she waves away Annette’s concern politely. “Forgive me getting all worked up.” 

“Forgiven.” Annette finds herself thinking about the conversation with Mrs. Cunninghill, and considers Susie with a little more intention, searching for the sadness or hurt in her face. “I didn’t know you had a sister.” 

Susie straightens slowly, tense as a board. Her hands drop to her sides, and her shoulders look as though they’ve suddenly taken up fifty pounds of weight. She swallows and waits for a breath. “Because I didn’t tell you.” 

“Mrs. Cunninghill mentioned it. I’m sorry for bringing it up.” 

“It’s alright, Annie.” A tight breath as she looks off at the hills and gray skies. Spring bears just as many clouds in Kereland as it does in Emril, that ever-present gray blanket upon the sky. “She’s… well, Charity is a wiley bastard.” 

“I was given the impression she had passed.” 

Susie looks taken aback. “Oh, she’s quite alive. She’s just not here anymore.” Seeing the confusion on Annette’s face, she explains, “My older sis, Charity, she wasn’t a good fit here. Doesn’t quite have the composure for domestic work. She’s off in a collarhouse in Doren, probably the only woman there.” 

“You sound like you miss her,” Annette says, noticing it in her voice. “I… it’s not easy going to a collarhouse. It’s hard to get to that point.” 

“We’re not the only ones put up with that decision. My father did it when I was really little, burned himself away working at a quarry up north. I don’t know if they even told us what illness took him,” she says tiredly. “My mother… she’s never quite been in her mind, you know. Isn’t all there, and never was. She’s sweet, but confused most of the time. Charity and me have mostly taken care of ourselves, especially after pa’s money stopped coming.” 

Annette isn’t sure what to say, but she finds herself closing the distance and wrapping Susie into a tight hug. The slightly-shorter girl folds into it quickly, giving up her usual energetic movement for a still, quiet acceptance of comfort. She breaks it off quicker than Annette expects, stepping back and hastily wiping an eye as though it never happened. 

“All of it’s why Fieldston is the way it is, more women than men and emptier than either can fill. A good portion of the men are off working, in collarhouses or otherwise, and sending back what money they can. The Blight is over, but sometimes the Hunger feels like it’ll never leave.” The brush of emotion that had colored her face slowly fades away. “It wasn’t more than a couple months ago that we all raised up some money for Mercy to prevent her husband from having to go away. He’s sweet, but a collarhouse wouldn’t be kind to him. He’s not built for it.” 

And there isn’t much more to say about the matter, so the two of them slowly return to the task before them, the heavy sound of the brooms making contact passing as the only sound between them. Annette finds herself wondering what her life would’ve been like had she not been sent away to Bellchester. She so easily could have been Susie, or her sister, or anyone else suffering under the weight of what happened. It might not have been easy, her life, but Annette suspects it could have been far worse in Kereland. 

Yet, she too lived her life in consequence of the Hunger. Her parents were probably stolen from her by it, either by death or by work - work which could often become indistinguishable from death. She’d not had parents, or siblings, any family outside of the orphanage; and how bitterly that had stung her all her life. Pullwater’s news of Annette’s living cousin falls sour on the knowledge she should have had more than just a cousin. 

In Bellchester, she’d had the sweet pleasure of meeting Cordelia’s mother; once, and briefly. Katherine Jones was an imposing woman, the kind that had captured the interest of a nobleman such that they’d born Cordelia from it. Watching the two of them interact was like something bordering the divine, getting to see mother and daughter cut from the same cloth yet starkly different. She’d, in a quick instant, seen a world of insight into her beloved detective. And while Katherine Jones had not greeted Annette as her daughter’s chosen love, Annette deeply wishes she could be introduced to her as such. And despite the pressures of the world, and the impossibility of the request, Annette so pitifully wishes she could bring Cordelia around to her own parents and declare their love, never mind the consequences that might result. 

But she had no living parents with which to celebrate the moment, and it would not be easy to declare she loves another woman. One of those two realities could be squarely blamed upon the Hunger, and she considers it with a feeling of remorse. Susie, just like her, had lost family to its consequences, but she’d lived her entire life in the scar of that feeling. Annette had more distance. 

“Well, this has all but ruined my happy disposition,” Susie sighs, interrupting Annette’s rumination. “And I’ve not the stomach to sit in this sorrow for much longer. Come, tell some funny story to pass the time. And then - it’s a holiday, you ought to come down to the pub with me and the rest.” 

“A holiday? Which one?” 

Susie’s mischievous smirk once again flirts with the corner of her mouth. “Who can tell? But whenever you need an excuse to drink in a pub, you can just pick one up and call it a holiday.” 

So Annette, figuring her detective would once again be out until late, decides to celebrate the holiday with Susie, enjoying the feeling of community that comes from the Kerish woman’s invitation. She finds herself looking forward to a stiff drink and to whatever rambunctious story Fanny Hornbeck would conjure up for their entertainment.