How are we supposed to recognize our moms?
Ira had viewed the message shortly after she sent it, but it had gone unanswered. Nellie assumed he was just busy with all his princely meetings, but the week came and went with nothing. The same message was sent to Penny, and that was so far unread. She expected as much.
Nellie returned her phone to Mrs. Adams for it to be locked away again. She headed out to the medium greenhouse to start her work helping Lilac with the keeping. She found a middle-aged couple that looked like they belonged behind the pharmacy desk at the corner store. She inched closer, looking for Lilac, but saw no sight of her.
“Hi,” Nellie greeted, awkwardly lifting her hand in a half-wave. The pair tensed with the man putting his arm around his wife’s shoulder. Nellie could see Lilac’s pixie nose in the woman’s face and the man had the same shade of blond hair. “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Maebry… Lilac’s parents. I forgot you were coming this week.”
“So has Lilac,” Mr. Maebry said sniffily. His wife shushed him. “She must’ve! She brings us in here, and hasn’t returned.” He stared suspiciously at a shrub nearby. “She just said there are dangerous things in here….”
“I think only if she plays with them,” Nellie mused. She winced at the Maebrys expressions. “That’s a vanilla bush next to you. See, let me show you.”
She knelt next to the bush, searching among the leaves for a pod. She dragged her wrist over her forehead to stop the sweat from dripping into her eyes. It was sweltering outside and the greenhouse made it much worse.
“Oh, what happened to your arm,” Mrs. Maebry asked, peeking down at her. Her already fair skin paled. “Nothing in here… right?”
Nellie glanced at the stitches on her bare shoulder, briefly wondering if she would’ve worn a tank top if she remembered Lilac’s parents were coming that day. With the heat, probably.
“It was an animal,” Nellie said. And hastily added, “But not here. I was in Michigan. And I'm better. These are supposed to be out already, but Mrs. Adams didn’t have time yesterday or this morning. Ah, here’s one! See? This’ll turn dark and die, and then you harvest the beans out to make vanilla.”
The Maebrys did not look impressed. They were still anxiously looking around for signs of Lilac. She soon appeared from behind a flowering tree dragging Ava by the arm and beamed ecstatically.
“Mom! Dad! Look!” She pulled Ava along. “This is the little witch I told you about! A real witch!” Lilac glanced at Nellie. “Oh, good morning, Nellie. Cute tanktop.” She yanked on Ava’s arm. “Tell them about being a witch. Please!”
“Umm… I’m just learning…” Ava looked at Nellie for help, but Nellie shrugged, completely unsure what she was supposed to do.
“Oh, Ava,” Nellie said, it coming to her. She scrambled to her feet. “Is your mom here?”
“Not until tonight,” Ava said. She removed her glasses as they fogged up. “Oh! Would you guys like to eat with us? My mom is a fully fledged witch. She can talk about it way better than I can.”
Lilac looked ready to float away at the idea of getting a talking from an adult witch. Her parents looked slightly disturbed and shellshocked, but they were trying to give Lilac pleased smiles.
Nellie and Ava–against her will–helped Lilac tend to the greenhouse. Ava stuck by Nellie, constantly needing to remove her glasses due to the humidity. Nellie snuck glances at the Maebrys, smirking as Lilac’s parents grew more and more at ease as Lilac rattled on and on about different plants, what she used them for, and other facts. They’d tense from time to time, and Nellie imagined Lilac was dreamily speaking of poisons or corrosives.
She and Ava were able to sneak out during a mini-lecture on plants that crossed the regular and magical boundary, Lilac summing it up to the potioneer themself being regular or magical.
“You really should have those removed,” Ava said, pointing to Nellie’s stitches. “Itzel got hers out two days ago.”
“Actually, yeah, now that you’ve reminded me, I'm going to go see Mrs. Adams right now,” Nellie said. They set off for the mansion. “What time’s your mom coming in?”
“Five-ish? Do you want to eat dinner with us too?”
“Can’t,” Nellie said. “Morgan insists we spend time together tonight. I think he’s feeling left out. I’ve gone on both field trips, and he hasn’t gone on any.”
“Neither have I,” Ava said, eyeing Nellie’s shoulder, “but that’s fine by me.”
They were nearly at Mrs. Adams’s office when the door was thrown open. The ancient, stout woman hobbled into the hall on her cane. Her sharp eyes fell upon them.
“Ah, Miss Herle, what timing,” Mrs. Adams said, not sounding at all pleased. “Inside, if you would. Excuse us, Miss Wagner.”
Nellie looked at Ava, bewildered, as Mrs. Adams ushered her into the office. Ava gave a small wave, looking apprehensive. The door shut.
“Sit, Miss Herle,” Mrs. Adams ordered. She immediately sat as Mrs. Adams lowered herself into her own chair. “I was told you need to check your phone messages.”
“Huh?”
“Your phone, Miss Herle,” she said impatiently. She placed Nellie’s cell phone on her desk, and slid it forward. “You’re to check your phone.”
There was no sense of anxiety or sadness on Mrs. Adams’s face. She looked irritated. Whatever message Nellie was supposed to be checking was not an emergency. Nathalie, Ash, and all the rest of her extended family had nothing terrible befall them. As stern as Mrs. Adams was, she would’ve shown some humanity.
Nellie curiously took up her phone. She could feel Mrs. Adams’s eyes on her head as she looked at the screen. There was a single text message, but it wasn’t from Ira.
“Penny? Really?”
She opened it:
Your guess is as good as any. Don’t worry if Ira ignores this question. He doesn’t know either. He thinks he’ll just know Elsie when he sees her. It’s cute. Really stupid. But cute.
Nellie glanced up at Mrs. Adams. She cleared her throat. “Is it all right if I write back? I know the weekly—.”
“Just answer it, Miss Herle,” Mrs. Adams said stiffly. “I don’t need another barrage of phone calls from that girl.”
She hastily wrote:
What if he’s right? I don’t remember Brue. What if I can’t find her because of that?
“Mrs. Adams,” Nellie asked timidly. “Do you think you could take my stitches out while I wait for Penny’s reply?”
Mrs. Adams gave a deep sigh. She searched through a drawer on her desk, coming up with a small, flat leather case. Inside were two different sizes of nail clippers, tiny scissors, tweezers, a metal file, and some sort of stick with one pointed end and one curved end.
“Lean forward, Miss Herle,” Mrs. Adams instructed. “I’m not about to hobble around the desk for something so simple.”
“Is that some kind of manicure set?”
“A nail grooming set, correct. Lean a bit father. There you are; don’t move. These scissors are very sharp.”
She fought the urge to watch with her peripherals, fearing that watching would make her flinch. She watched her open message instead, her heart pumping at the appearance of three dots pulsating under her massage. Penny was already writing back, and the answer was going to be a paragraph going by how long the dots were pulsating away.
“There you go,” Mrs. Adams said, packing away her nail kit. “If that is all–.”
“Wait,” Nellie said hastily. “Penny’s writing back. Just another minute.”
Mrs. Adams narrowed her eyes. “When you reply to her this time, remind her that you’ll be without your phone until next week,” she said coolly. “I don’t need that child badgering me over her messages not being replied to quick enough.”
Nellie opened her mouth to agree, but lost her words as Penny’s response came through:
I never met my mother. So Ira’s wrong.
There wasn’t anything Nellie could say to that. She wanted to ask what Penny was talking about. Silas told her that Penny’s mother–Keena Fox–was a friend of his and her father’s; said Penny trained at his compound, and she saw Hodge boarded there herself.
“Miss Herle,” Mrs. Adams said in a tone that told Nellie she had already tried to get her attention. “I do have a lot of work to do.”
“Sorry,” Nellie murmured. She quickly typed that her phone time for the week was up and she’d check in next week before handing her phone back. “She shouldn’t bother you.”
“I appreciate that,” Mrs. Adams said. She gestured towards the door. “If you would.”
---
The dragon notes were sprawled across Morgan’s bed. He added a large globe to the pictures and notes, and was busy sticking pins in it while Nellie read aloud different locations. She held up the image of the Welsh flag, frowning.
“Wales, clearly,” Morgan said. “Next.”
“Do you think Ira already knows his mother,” Nellie asked. “When he was staring at this, I thought he was just jetlagged, but what if it’s because it means something personal?”
“You think his highness knows which dragon is his mother and hasn’t told you,” Morgan asked. “That doesn’t sound like him, as much as I hate admitting that.”
“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” Nellie muttered. She continued to look at the Welsh flag. “It must mean something though, right?”
Morgan set down a small, red pin he’d poised ready to mark the next location. He sighed in irritation.
“It could be as simple as his ancestor hiding in Wales after his rebellion against the Tudors failed,” Morgan said. He rolled his eyes at her blank expression. “Honestly? And you’re supposed to be English.”
“You know I'm not,” Nellie said. “I’m half at best.”
“After the Tudors invaded and killed King Richard, there were two rebellions with a lost prince–King Richard’s nephews the Tudors tried claiming her murdered–leading the charge. Both failed, of course, but it showed the princes had reached adulthood. The younger even had a wife and a son when he surrendered himself for execution. And that wife was Welsh.” Morgan grabbed a stack of notes and forced them into Nellie’s hands. “They’ve been doing genetic testing on the families in that area for years, and found some lines of female descendants. Nothing too straight and true. But, a couple of years ago, his highness was on their radar. Here you had a boy called York with a mother that was a Plantagenet. They assumed he’d be related through his mother’s side; another of the female lineage.”
“And they found a direct, male line through his father…” She straightened the papers. “What exactly does that mean?”
“His majesty has all legal right to challenge the current monarch to the throne,” Morgan said. “Of course, with modern times as they are, that’d never happen. But you know the old scholars are eyeing those ancient laws and gossiping to each other.” He picked up a pin. “It’s better for the Realm if the King has nothing to do with modern, commonplace politics anyway. Next.”
Nellie read off a few more locations. Morgan was probably right that Ira had fixated on the Welsh flag for some strange family ties, but she also thought that could be a connection to his mother. The two reasons did not have to be separate, and maybe Ira was not yet certain that his mother was that specific dragon, so decided to keep quiet until he was sure.
“Penny never met her mother,” Nellie said offhandedly.
“Uh… okay? And?”
“And she seems confident that she’ll still find her,” Nellie said. She shrugged. “It was just reassuring to know.”
“We’ll find your mother,” Morgan said adamantly. “We’ll track down your father, find your mother, turn her back, and then the three of you can live down the road. We can see each other every day if we wanted. And take weekend family trips.”
“Wait. Move?” Nellie set down her paper sporting a whippy green dragon.
“Of course,” Morgan said, as if it was obvious. “Once your parents are back, there’s no reason for you to stay in the middle of nowhere Tennessee with your aunt. Lisbon is wonderful. You’ll love it.”
“But….”
“What,” Morgan asked suspiciously. “It’s not like you like it there.” He scoffed. “Of course you wouldn’t. You don’t belong there.”
“I doubt I belong in Lisbon,” Nellie said heatedly. She shoved the papers off her lap, and slid off the bed. “I’m going for a walk. I can’t keep staring at all this print.”
It had never crossed her mind what would change if she found Brue; if she found Rhys. She was curious about them, wanted to know them, and felt as if she was supposed to find them being their only child.
It was certainly true she had fantasized about her father returning into her life, taking her out to Disney or Universal just the two of them, but at the end of each fantasy he returned her home to Nathalie, and usually vanished again without a trace until the next time she felt down about having no father.
“Fighting with Morgan?”
Nellie startled. She’d been walking in an absentminded huff and it took her a second to realize she was stomping by the cozy library. It took her another moment to realize that Arden was leaning against the wall on the other side of a large vase, clearly trying to ambush people coming from the library.
“Maybe it’s not Morgan,” Nellie said.
“Of course it’s Morgan,” Arden said. “Want to vent? I’m stuck here anyhow.”
“No, thanks though,” Nellie said. She watched Arden curiously as he inched lower on the wall, his shaggy head pressed against it so he could peek between it and the vase. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for Fin,” Arden said, lowering his voice.
“To…?”
“Tackle him. He told me no way I could sneak up on him with his dad being in the Order of Ferblanc. Told him that made no sense, so I'm going to prove it.” He shot Nellie a look from under his hair. “Can you go away or hide? You’ll give me away.”
She scurried around to hide next to Arden. She was curious how this would go. Arden was right in his thinking that Fin’s father’s training had nothing to do with him, but Fin was no joke on his own.
“My mom’s supposed to come tomorrow,” Arden said after a pause.
“Really? You hadn’t mentioned it,” Nellie said.
“Didn’t know until thirty minutes ago,” Arden said. “Guess she said something this morning.”
Nellie suspected that was why Mrs. Adams seemed to have a shorter fuse today. She decided not to share that.
“What’s up with you and Morgan?”
“It’s… complicated,” Nellie muttered, tinting red.
“I hear ya,” Arden said, nodded solemnly. “We all got family complications. We’d be with our families otherwise. Only difference with you is that you brought your family along.”
Arden’s statement was nice, but it wasn’t completely true. Calix, Ava, and Brody at the very least had normal family lives as far as she could tell. She suspected the same of Arch, although he never mentioned his family or much about his personal life outside of the compound. Fin came from a broken home, but his parents got along well and he had a great relationship with them both. Itzel was a mystery, mostly because of the language barrier, but she was always glad when she received letters.
“Ssh, Fin’s coming,” Arden hissed.
It turned out to be a good idea that she stayed to watch, because Arden charged through the vase–now looking very rare and expensive–in order to accomplish his mission. Nellie lunged forward in time to catch it as Arden tried getting Fin in a headlock.
Nellie waited until Fin and Arden had moved down the hall—Arden still failing to pin the much stronger, stockier, and older boy—before putting the vase back on its pedestal. She briskly left in case the boys backtracked and did knock the vase over. She did not want to be around if that happened. Mrs. Adams would skin them.
She found herself passing Silas’s office after wandering for a few minutes. She gave a hesitant knock, and stuck her head in when told to enter.
Silas set his reading glasses aside as she slunk in. He smiled warmly and gestured for her to sit.
“Didn’t take Ava’s dinner invite, I see,” Silas said. “Don’t like Italian?”
“Indifferent to it, actually, but that wasn’t why,” Nellie said. “I was hanging out with Morgan.”
“You’ve been doing an excellent job of keeping him out of trouble,” Silas said. “I was sure we’d have complaints at least once a day. Though, some credit goes to Itzel too. It’s nice for her to have someone around that can understand her, and she does seem keener to learn English at long last.” He laughed lightly. “I’m rambling. What is it you need, Nellie?”
She did not know how to explain the anger and panic that boiled up in her chest when Morgan talked about the future. She should want to find her parents, live with them, and she should definitely want to do that as far away from Lynchburg as possible.
“I spoke with Nathalie today,” Silas said. Nellie inched to the edge of her seat. “I offered to fly her up, but she wasn’t sure how to make that work between adjuncting and… What do you call your wild friend again?”
“Ash….”
“She was worried about leaving Ash,” Silas said. His eyes twinkled as he smirked. “Never said it, refused to call him by his name, but you got the sense. I think she’s much more attached to him than she’ll ever admit.”
Nellie’s chest ached. She could feel a sob building up, and gulped to force it down. She bit her lip as it started to shake.
“Perenelle,” Silas said softly, tapping the desk to gain her attention. “We decided tomorrow afternoon that you two can have a video chat here in my office. I know you must be getting extra homesick with everyone getting visitors, and since Nathalie couldn’t come, we figured this was the next best thing.” He leaned back in his chair with a wide, Santa Claus smile. “You can see Ash this way too. I bet he’d love it.”
She wiped her blue eyes as they finally spilt over. She grinned. “Thanks, Silas. That sounds awesome.”
---------------------------
I've been dying to have my own vanilla bush (and cinnamon tree) for a couple of years now, so Nellie gets to take care of one for me. I removed Rumi's stitches with scissors from an old nail grooming set that has since lost everything else. We never use/d them, so they're still extremely sharp and nicely small and pointy to get into the loops.
I was going to do a Penny Spoilers to go with the Ira Spoilers (the docu was titled Ira/Penny originally) but haven't gotten to it yet. The big spoiler was going to be that she doesn't know her mom, but unlike Ira's big spoiler, hers popped up in Nellie's story sooner.
The Lost Princes Project technically is still ongoing because they haven't found a male line, but there's so much intersting stuff with the two princes, the rebellions, the possibility of the older living to be an old man after his rebellion failed, and even theories that the younger wasn't really publically executed (I'm leaning more that he was, but the theories are still very interesting). Richard III was the last English/British monarch though. Everyone else was a foreigner with some type of distant relation so they coul claim blood rights. It just brings up interesting questions if there was a true, English heir out there. (It'd mean zilch, honestly, but still intersting.)
Morgan's motives are revealed! Lol, he wants his cousin to live nearby. It occured to me that I hadn't had Nellie spend any time with Arden yet, so why not have her run into him before meeting up with Silas. I was going to have Silas and her talk longer, but I think after somewhat crying in front of him the talk would've been more of the small variety to try to get rid of any awkwardness, so just ended it there. I was going to try having her ask about the Penny's mom thing (he wouldn't say anything) or mention Arden's mom's visit (circle back to the homesickness) but it wasn't playing out.
