Chapter Text
Kitty thinks about death every day. Not in a morbid way; not a desperate, wishing-for-instant-decimation kind of way; not even premonitory. It boils down to the simple fact that under her bubbly exterior Kitty is a hard realist, and each day she gains is a reminder of a day she lost.
See, Kitty’s been 16 going on 17 before, just not in the last few centuries. It’s not a part of her life she wants to relive — if she had her way, she’d choose to have woken up straight off the bat at 19, or skip further ahead into her twenties. Her first set of teen years were fraught with emotional vulnerability, and she prefers to shed that chrysalis as soon as she can. But the universe wants to give her a second chance, it seems, and it’s on Kitty to make sure it turns out better.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Still, a relief. At least she’s holding the reins this time. She’s seen — though not survived — worse things than a 500 year adolescence.
There’s an old saying about remarriage that you’ll end up trapped with all your spouses in the afterlife. The joke is that it’s Hell. For Kitty it’s bliss. She lives in a tiny four bedroom flat in London with the five other wives of her ex-husband, thankfully sans said ex-husband. There are three Catherines, of whom she’s the youngest. A rung above her on the threshold of adulthood is puppy-playful Cathy Parr. Ascending further there’s Catalina of Aragon, the original royal consort, now sandwiched in age and not yet over it; Anna of Cleves, whose dove-like temperament makes her a household hit; English rose Jane Seymour; and the infamous, indomitable Anne Boleyn, who makes a pretty spunky mother-figure after all.
Today Jane is confined to bed, complaining of fatigue and nausea. Every October she gets a little green around the anniversary of her death. Cathy and Anna are out at dance class, for Cathy to shake off the remnants of her own September bout of illness, and for Anna to practise looking at herself in a mirror for extended periods of time. Meanwhile, Catalina is having a bad day, and is therefore nowhere to be found.
Anne is the last of them. Kitty finds her in the kitchen, hair twisted up into a bun, poring over the bills. By the universe’s quirk, Anne is now the eldest, and has therefore claimed responsibility for household nitty-gritties like money. Turns out Anne is clever with numbers, and she can make them stretch and climb in ways that no one expected. As Kitty watches, Anne reaches up absently to rub the back of her neck, as if massaging a crick — except she continues down and around her throat, her fingers steady and sure against the pale skin.
‘Like arthritis,’ she says aloud, without looking up. ‘It aches in the cold.’
‘Mine does too.’
‘You’re such a copycat, you know that?’ Anne says, and makes a marking on the water bill. ‘Did you really have to get yourself beheaded?’
‘It wasn’t intentional.’ It’s taken a long time for Kitty to allow jokes at the expense of her trauma. Therapists are divided on how healthy this is. ‘Are you busy?’
Anne laughs. ‘Do I look busy? I’m managing your expenses, young lady. Did you know you went at least £25 over budget last month?’
‘I picked up some stuff for Cathy! She wasn’t feeling well.’
‘Do I look like I’m made of money?’
‘I thought that was what “mom” stood for — “made of money”.’
Kitty widens her eyes and hopes that Anne will laugh again and forget to deduct the excess from the next month’s allowance. Which she does. Easy peasy, Kitty can play them like a lute. They’re lucky she hasn’t got much of an agenda. ‘I’m bored,’ she says, pouting. ‘Do you know where Lina went?’
‘To mosey around the park, I think.’
‘When will Anna and Cath be back?’
‘Six.’
‘Who’s cooking dinner?’
‘You, if you don’t stop pestering me.’
‘As long as it’s not you.’
‘Katherine!’
‘I’m only kidding! Please don’t take away my dessert.’
Anne leans over to pinch Kitty’s cheek. There is quite literally no one on Earth that she would accept this from other than Anne. ‘I need to get rid of you somehow. I almost told you to go do your homework, except you don’t have any.’
‘Cathy could set me homework.’
‘Last Cathy heard, the Sun revolved around us,’ says Anne, and groans into her hands. ‘What am I doing? I can’t parent you. I’m only 25.’
‘More like 500 and 25.’
‘Kit, you’re going to be the death of me — the second death, which is not a good thing. Go amuse yourself until the others come home, and then you can bother them instead. I have an awful headache.’
Kitty may be a pest, but she’s not a sadist, so she leaves Anne to her papers. A sneaky peek tells her Jane is finally asleep; then she tries to occupy herself by reading.
It begins to rain, the sort of grey drizzle London has had since the 1500s. Tossing the book aside, Kitty stages a race between two raindrops and places her bets on the underdog, Larry, who starts off much smaller. She gives him a blessing under her breath, promises him her favours, and then waves them off. It’s a close fight, and with all the new raindrops threatening to join in, she almost loses track of her champion. By the time both Larry and Rhys get stuck halfway down the windowpane, Kitty finds she’s drifted off, and has been humming the theme to Fast and Furious for the past five minutes.
‘No.’ She cuts herself off. Singing holds memories she’s not in a place to deal with now. Even when she follows Catalina to Mass, she mouths the hymns instead. It feels like she’s cut off her tongue, but that would be less painful than the scalding shame that washes over her at the thought of Mannox, of Henry, of everyone else who’s wanted her and had her. She thinks of everywhere they’ve touched and feels defiled and defeated; she’s not going to sing those chaste words of purity when men have left their mark all over her. And really, it’s been all over her.
Kitty deserves this, for letting them do what they liked. She’d liked it too, the attention, the attraction. She isn’t going to make excuses and plead ignorance and pin the blame on someone else.
Let her feel like a soiled piece of clothing used one too many times. In Kitty’s opinion, she asked for it.
Six o’clock. Anne is banging pans in the kitchen — still in pain, from the sound of it. Aren’t Cathy and Anna supposed to be home by now?
Six o’clock. Someone is caressing the small of her back, gently. She springs off the window seat. It’s only the cushion. But the feather touch follows her around the room as she paces, runs to the mirror and pulls the vilest face she can muster.
‘I wish I were ugly,’ she whispers, half crying, ‘I wish I were clean.’
It would be too ungrateful to wish she were dead.
‘Pass the peas, Kitty. You’re really out of it.’
‘Say please,’ says Anne automatically, then laughs at herself. ‘Force of habit. Say what you will. Pass the peas, pet.’
‘The sugar, too.’
Cathy wrinkles her nose. ‘That’s disgusting!’
Catalina, heaping sugar onto her peas, now rounds on her. ‘Cath, get off my case! I’m not asking you to eat it.’
‘You’re turning me off my dinner.’
‘Keep your eyes to yourself then!’
Cathy has a tiny smile tugging on the left side of her lips, and Kitty knows she’s only tossing barbs for fun. But Catalina is in a foul temper, usually brought on by perceived neglect, and acting out worse than she usually does. Kitty can’t quite see how that would work, since they’ve all been cooped up together since she can remember. Maybe there are too many of them in the same house, all squabbling over each other.
Catalina glowers at her plate, and Anne, a little pale, only casts half a glance at Jane’s empty chair. It falls to Anna, the pacifist, to smooth things over.
‘The sugar’s supposed to bring the taste out better,’ she says hesitantly.
Cathy seems glad to have found a new target. ‘That looks more like a dessert. Even worse, she’s mashing them.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with mashed peas.’
‘No one will ever date you if you eat mashed peas. Even he said he thinks it’s disgusting.’
‘Who?’ says Kitty.
‘No one! And he did not,’ says Anna emphatically, turning back to Cathy, ‘say anything about peas, nor food, nor anything at all.’
Wiggling her eyebrows, Cathy says, ‘He would have if you’d asked.’
Anna scoffs so loudly that even Catalina looks up. Anne takes the bait, hook line and sinker. ‘Who would?’
There’s an awkward silence as Anna glares at Cathy, Cathy back at Anna, and Catalina returns to mauling her peas with her gaze.
At last, Anna grumbles, ‘The substitute dance instructor was nice to me today, and Cathy’s got it in her head that he likes me.’
‘He does!’ says Cathy immediately, and darts a look around the table, too quick for Anna to catch. ‘You weren’t even messing up. I was. And he kept going over to you instead.’
‘I was tripping over my feet!’
‘That was part of the dance move! He would’ve asked for your number if he had the chance. He had his eye on you the whole time.’
To Kitty it sounds like a horrific ordeal. She can, however, see what Cathy is trying: some misguided attempt at boosting Anna’s self-esteem. Kitty thinks it shouldn’t matter to Anna what some guy thinks of her; after all, that’s what always got her into trouble. But Cathy’s face is so pleading, and Anna does look half pleased, even if she’s staring Cathy down — Kitty doesn’t know if it’s really misguided, or if that’s her own trauma speaking. Maybe it’s nice to be noticed. Maybe it’s good for Anna.
‘That sounds great!’ she says, higher-pitched than she intended to.
The hope bleeding into Anna’s expression freezes at her tone.
‘I bet he was looking at you. He better have been. Go get ‘em, tiger.’
Cathy looks at Catalina in grateful surprise. ‘That’s what I told her!’
‘You guys are mental,’ says Anna, but Kitty sees the grin she turns away to hide. ‘He’s a sub teacher, anyway. I’ll never see him again.’
‘He’s a teacher,’ says Anne testily, ‘and shouldn’t be using his position to get into a relationship.’
This time everyone else looks up at once. Kitty in particular feels her head snap back. Her heart begins hammering the air from her lungs.
‘What do you mean?’ Cathy splutters finally, letting her spoon clatter onto her plate. ‘He’s only a substitute fitness instructor!’
‘That’s still a position of authority.’
‘He didn’t do anything!’
Anne doesn’t raise her eyes. ‘I’m only reminding you to be careful.’
‘We are!’
‘Really? Given everyone’s past experiences —’
Kitty barely has time to register that Cathy’s face has turned the exact shade of chalk. She jumps up, knocking over her chair, and pushes Anne’s hand aside as she runs to the bathroom.
That’s it for the peas tonight, then.