Chapter 32
The months that followed were the best since leaving the castle.
Algernon traveled often for business, leaving Mother, Comfort, and Cynthia to fill the house with music, chatter, and endless company.
They entertained half the village with tea parties and cotillions, while I filled my quieter hours with occasional translating jobs for local merchants.
The money hardly mattered. I simply wanted something to keep my mind busy while everyone else pursued hobbies I didn’t share.
On rare occasions, I braved the parties to find Comfort and Cynthia reigning over the dance floor, ribbons twirling and skirts spinning while they were the center of attention. When Algernon was home, he and Mother would lead the opening set, admired by all for their grace.
I stayed to the side, clapping politely, helping our housekeeper refill trays, or chatting with some of the merchants I did translating for.
I rarely got asked to dance, and if anyone ever did so, I always declined.
My only partners had been Father and Curtis, and the thought of someone else’s hand at my waist was like salt in a wound I still couldn’t close.
Besides, I had the sneaking suspicion that all who asked were prompted to do so by Comfort.
One evening, I made the mistake of coming downstairs barefaced, too tired to bother with cosmetics.
I curled up with a book in the corner of one of the sitting rooms until a young boy stumbled past. He glanced at me then gasped as if he’d seen a monster from some fairy tale.
His little feet pattered away, leaving me with my open book and a jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
He hadn’t meant to be cruel. Children rarely do. But it still stung.
There were other moments too. When I didn’t have heavy makeup on to conceal the scars, adults sometimes avoided my gaze, or strangers would stare out of the corners of their eyes as though they thought I wouldn’t notice them looking.
Still determined to force myself into public despite my scars, I resolved to remember to apply my cosmetics daily, something I had finally learned to do for myself.
I had to get them specially ordered; the powders and creams were expensive, imported from places far away, but Algernon always managed to procure them on his travels.
It became part of our routine each time he traveled.
He brought back jewelry for Mother, history books for Cynthia, the latest fashion for Comfort, and for me, the bottles that let me pass through the world without making children cry.
How the guilt of it dug at me. The dependence on artificial means to make myself beautiful, the cost to my family, the fact that I couldn’t bear my own face in a mirror…
all of those things ate away at me, and yet I wore the cosmetics anyway.
I had to, even though every brushstroke felt like cheating, every dab of powder a reminder that I wasn’t strong enough to love my scars as they were.
But then—maybe that was the point. Makeup wasn’t supposed to erase me or make me someone new.
It was just paint, just color, just tools.
And if tools could help me build the kind of girl who looked in the mirror and smiled instead of flinched, wasn’t that worth something?
Maybe strength didn’t always mean standing barefaced and unbothered.
Maybe strength was finding what gave me courage, even if it came in tiny glass bottles and tins.
It wasn’t the makeup that made me beautiful; it was the way it reminded me I still could be myself, and the confidence was what made me beautiful.
Day by day, it gave me the boost I needed to step forward and be myself again.
Life found a rhythm. We didn’t have the old game nights or Father’s stories anymore, but we developed new traditions.
Evening walks became a habit, and near the end of each route we always passed by the Fairy Godmother Tree close to our house.
Algernon always encouraged us girls to stop and reach our hands into the trunk’s hole.
It was a tradition he had developed with Cynthia when she was young, visiting the tree with her each week while they talked about her mother.
Invariably on these trips, we found something inside for each of us: a new book, a hair ribbon, or a bracelet.
Cynthia loved it, and the way her eyes lit up convinced me she thought the fairies had tucked each gift there themselves.
Algernon would say that fairies were formed from the souls of the people we’d loved and lost, and that Cynthia’s mother and our father were probably nearby, watching over us, slipping trinkets into the tree to let us know we would always be remembered.
I knew it was Algernon, of course, and would shoot him a wink while thanking the tree.
Childishly, Cynthia clung to the idea of her departed mother sending her little gifts from beyond, but I couldn’t fault her for wanting to believe.
Remembering how I’d scoffed when Comfort first told me the story of the tree made me burn with shame.
We might all be too old for fairies, but we were never too old for hope.
A few months into their marriage, Algernon came home from one of his trips with more than stories and gifts. He came home sick.
At first it was only sniffles and complaints of aches and chills. But within days it turned into insurmountable fatigue and a racking cough that shook his whole frame.
“Was there something going around where you were?” Cynthia asked, pressing her palm anxiously to her father’s burning forehead.
He nodded weakly. “Yes, but most people didn’t get it this bad. I’m just a weak, feeble old man now.”
“You’re not weak or feeble,” Cynthia said firmly, smoothing cool cloths over his forehead.
“I’ll send Truly for the physician,” Mother said, her voice calm but her hand tight on Algernon’s arm.
“In the morning,” he insisted. “No fuss. It isn’t that bad.” His words crumbled into another spasm of coughing.
“Are you sure, Dad?” Cynthia’s eyes brimmed with worry. “We could fetch him right now.”
“No,” Algernon said, shaking his head. “I’m just getting old. My body doesn’t fight off infection like it used to.” He tried to waggle a finger at us, his old humor peeking through. “Appreciate your youth while you still have it.”
Mother chuckled, though her smile was strained. “You aren’t that old.”
“Yes, only half your hairs are silver,” Comfort teased.
Algernon gasped in mock horror. “Say it isn’t so!”
Cynthia giggled. “Just get better soon, Dad.”
He struck a hand to his chest like a knight swearing an oath. “I wouldn’t dare not recover. I’ve got four beautiful ladies depending on me.” Then the cough came again, harsher this time, rattling his frame until Mother’s smile vanished entirely.
“Algernon,” she said softly, her voice edged with fear. “We really should send for the physician. You aren’t well.”
He waved her off weakly. “Don’t worry, dear. It’s just a cough. With a few days’ rest, I’ll be right as rain.”
But the cough didn’t sound like rain. It sounded like thunder rolling in from far away, persistent and dangerous.