Chapter 8

Date: 12/14/1852 Town: Thornwell In which Letha gets used to being married.

Early in the morning, Aristeo returned to her bed and slid under the covers. They lay on opposite edges of the bed, both pretending to sleep just so that they wouldn’t have to speak. Letha could hear a maid or two shuffling around outside of the bedroom door, and slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. Aristeo followed, and they took a long moment to stare at each other.

Her hair was a tangled mess in the morning. His was an unkempt mop, flowing over his face and shoulders. He didn’t look like he’d slept at all… she felt like she’d slept for the first time in years. After the moment of silence passed, they each began to preen their hair and get it away from their eyes. Letha fixed her chemise back into position, and went to the mirror to check her appearance.

She had expected to look like a corpse on the day after her wedding. This had been her expectation since she was very little. She was surprised to see a sparkle in the green eyes that looked back at her, a somber sort of ember in her expression. Likely determination to rise above her punishment. She found a brush in her nightstand to tame her inky curls, and sat beside her husband as she worked away at the daily tangles.

Aristeo didn’t speak. After his hair was in order - she felt a pang of jealousy at how easy it was for him - he rose and began dressing himself for the day. She watched him for a minute, as he slid on his trousers and picked through puffy shirts, before he turned to glance at her and she promptly looked away. She began dressing herself, pulling at the strings of a corset as much as she could bear before glancing at Aristeo to see if he would help. He met her gaze, but seemed more confused than anything.

“Pull at the strings in the back, would you?” Letha muttered.

He obliged, but not without his own quiet objections. “Shouldn’t a maid be helping you with this?”

“I don’t know them. I know you.” Letha sucked in her breath uncomfortably as he pulled, “And I enjoy looking proper.”

“I can’t see why, it hardly works.”

Letha stepped backward onto his foot, and he yanked back harshly on the strings of her corset before tying it up. Her waist was small enough now that she was sure Aristeo’s fingers would touch if he put his hands around it. A bead of sweat ran between her shoulder blades at the thought of his hands there. She had lied about wanting to look proper; she hated it, if only because she’d gotten so used to not breathing over the years… but she had to take propriety into account wherever she could afford to. It was the only way to retain the elders’ favor after all she’d done.

Without another glance at her husband, she chose a dress and struggled her way into it, refusing to ask for help this time even if it would make the affair go faster. Or, at least that was the plan, until she realized she wouldn’t be able to reach the buttons in the back. She strained for a minute or two, but the world wasn’t kind enough to suddenly give her man’s sleeves on her dress, and she became nervous of splitting a seam. Before she could suffer the indignity of asking, suddenly there were cold fingers on the back of her dress, pulling the back together and buttoning them up to the nape of her neck.

She turned and glanced up at Aristeo, giving him a questioning look. His fingers were still hovering near her, as if he was unsure if there was anything else to be done. And then they fell to his sides, and he looked away pointedly. “Watching you was pathetic.”

“Of course.” She huffed quietly, turning away to concentrate on pinning her hair up, “I know you’d never help another person out of kindness.”

“Not a Regis.” He replied, almost as if he was grateful for her going along with his claim. “And definitely not you.”

His tone made her curious, for just a moment, but she set the contemplations aside and busied herself looking around for her crow pin. Her heart stopped for a moment when she thought she might have lost it, but it crew softly and she quickly retrieved it from the bedside table.

“Where did you get that thing?” Aristeo muttered from behind her.

“Does it matter?” She replied, clipping it to the side of her head so that it accented the pearls she’d adorned her bun with.

Aristeo hesitated; she could tell he didn’t want to betray too much interested in her. “My kid brother is the only person I know who likes animal bones.”

“Well, not everyone can love the human skeleton quite as much as you do.” She replied shortly, giving him a casual shrug.

His nose wrinkled, “You had that during our trial, too, didn’t you?”

“Am I not allowed to wear something with meaning?”

“It’s ugly.”

“You’re ugly.”

His mouth opened to retort, but there wasn’t much to say against such a childish remark. She walked past him, adjusting her pin as it gurgled softly in appreciation of being near her. “Speaking of your kid brother, is he going to visit us?”

“I’d imagine so, he and his… friend… spend most of their time bothering me, if they can.” He grimaced, “I’ve got a word or two for that little b*****d, for his behavior at the wedding.”

“The wedding?” She turned to him then, arching a brow.

“Yes, the wedding. The mice. Like I said, Gilligan is the only person I know who can create risen animals. And those mice were definitely not alive.”

“Well, that much was obvious.” They had scurried out of Aristeo’s suit when he fell, and their bare bones had seemed to glitter in the candlelight.

Those mice had polished bones.

“I bet you Marionette’s brother put him up to it. Elliott is always pulling practical jokes like that - worse, sometimes, Octavius almost lost a hand to him once.”

She nodded, no longer particularly listening to him as he continued to rant. There had to be some way to use Elliott or Gilligan in her plan. From what she’d heard about them, they were as crafty as Letha herself. Even if they had no interest in convincing Severin to let her into the barracks, she was sure she could find some way to convince them. They were eleven, after all - she doubted it would be particularly difficult.

She made a mental note to visit Aristeo’s parents, and play nice until she could meet Gilligan. Perhaps she could make some sort of excuse about properly getting to know her in-laws. She would definitely have to buy some sweets on the way, only an amateur would try to make deals with a child without those. Or perhaps, if she waited longer, she could fix up one of the stray cats around town for Gilligan to play with…

“Are you listening to me?” Aristeo muttered suddenly, pulling her out of her thoughts.

“No.” She replied honestly, but with a layer of charming sarcasm to hide the fact that he had spooked her. “You’re not the center of the universe, you know.”

Aristeo’s eyes narrowed, but she felt a wall of principle stop him from trying to fight her accusation. He replied with only a small huff, before turning to leave the room, “Think of some excuse to get the maids away during breakfast. We need to… get our story straight about last night.”

“Of course.”

She was somber as she replied to that; as much as it annoyed her for him to slip out of their banter, there was the business of pretending they had any chances of conceiving children together. That was serious business. As he closed to door behind him, she sighed softly and wrung her hands before moving to check the mirror again. She didn’t want to dignify him with painting her face, but despite herself she quickly pinched her cheeks to give them some color before hurrying out after him.

Author's Note

This chapter is only about half-finished.