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“One, two, three!” The girls and I stand just outside of the atelier, baskets of wet fabric at our heels. Wired lines waiting to hold them. I could easily dry the collection of sheets with an air spell but I never really liked to. The mundane day-to-day tasks were nothing daunting and it kept the muscles moving and the mind sharp, and, unfortunately, no air spell could ever replace the rich earthy scent that clung to the fabric after they were pulled from the line.
The duties pile quickly when there are 6 people living under one roof. They are even more daunting when 75% of the home’s residents are restless preteen girls. But there is never a short supply of hands. The girls always carry their weight. It’s a part of their choirs, and a great way to keep them both disciplined and in a routine. Magic was an aid, not a short cut. And sometimes you had to do the boring things before the fun began.
Tetia laughs as one of the sheets flutters right over Richeh. The small girl simply stands there as the others begin to giggle.
Richeh raises her hands like a ghost and chases after Tetia. The two circle me while Agott and Coco laugh boisterously. Just as Richeh makes her second pass I grab her round the waist and pull her into me. My smile is so wide it hurts my cheeks. “I’ve got her!” The girls pile in close and wrestle to remove the fabric from the other. Richeh’s head pops free, her cheeks red from laughter and there is a gleam in her eye. I smile and pluck the fabric away, checking quickly for stains before throwing it over the line.
“Alright, just a few more and we’ll be done.”
Just as the last is clipped into place, Qifrey’s head pops out of the upper window. Even yards away he does not yell, but I hear him clearly all the same. “My love?” The girls skid to a stop, Tetia first and then Richeh barrels into her from behind, followed by Coco and then Agott. They trip into me and I have to plant my feet firmly into the ground to keep from falling. “Yes?”
“Have you finished?” He calls. I call back with a ‘yes’ and nod my head. I can see the way his hair is frayed, the wild strands reflecting his current state. That spell must really be giving him trouble. He’d been working on it over the past month, something for Beldaruit that I did not fully understand but it wasn’t my place to.
“Could you come look at this when you have time?”
“I’ll come now!” I say, picking up the wicker baskets and stacking them. I hold them to my hip as I look at the girls. “Go play, you’re done for today. No lessons this afternoon either.” The girls cheer and dart out into the field. “Do not get those dresses dirty! I just got the stains out!” My reprimand is only half threatening, they’ll stain them again they always do. I just pray it is grass and not ink that blots the fabric this time.
“Take your time, please.” Qifrey calls before he ducks back into the house, pulling the wooden shutters closed behind him.
With the girl’s laughter in the distance, I trapeze back inside. I duck under potted plants and handmade macrame that my children insisted on hanging everywhere. Qifrey found them quite charming, I think they are as well when they're not whacking me in the face every 15 steps.
I leave the baskets in the washroom and switch quickly out of my dirtied covers. Once presentably clean I shuffle to the work room. It’s Qifrey’s personal space, off limits to the children. While I was unofficially welcome, I refused to enter it without invitation. That is my husband’s domain. Where he works, where he can escape, and where he can focus. No matter how close we are, he has a right to keep some things separate.
I knock gently on the door but get no response. When nothing comes of the second knock I slowly push it open. The hinges squeak and the door, swollen from spring rains, groans as I close it shut behind me. Qifrey is hunched over his work table, head in his hands. He isn’t wearing any part of his atelier clothes, just loose pants and an equally loose shirt. It practically engulfs him.
The room is dark, the only window remains closed and the candle light around the room shadows him heavily. I inch up behind him and gently place my hand on his upper back. “Qifrey?” he mumbles something and he reaches out, palm open. I place my hand in his and he squeezes it.
“I cannot decipher this.” He says, defeated. There is a complex spell drawn on oversized parchment. Many of the baselines are familiar to me, elements, directions, strength. But there are some that I do not recognize. My education is not as vast as my husband’s. I was grounded in the mundane material my parents knew and it was only emphasized by a middle class teacher they could barely afford. Some things would always escape me, but that never bothered me.
“What do you need me to do?” I ask. He didn't often need my help, not in the traditional sense at least. He had Olruggio to look over his spells for him, and he and Beldaruit for complex counsel so my aid never lay within the editing of spellwork. Sometimes he just wanted to talk out a hypothesis, or ramble about an idea. Sometimes he would simply work through lessons with me as the student.
“Sit, please.” And sometimes he just needed me to watch him. To be in the room. “Talk to me, about the girls, about how the day is, the market, anything. It helps me think.” He reaches for his pen.
I smile softly, there is a plush high back chair that sits across from his work table. I fall into it, pulling pillows from behind me and placing them in my lap. He re-dips his pen, and brushes the wet ink from his hands onto a spare rag.
“Well,” I start, “the girls were very helpful with the chores this morning. Not a single complaint was made. They’re off playing now but I think we need to start rationing the ink, those four go through it like candy."
Qifrey smiles absently, “they are learning and we are not in short supply.”
I hear the patter of their shoes on the roof, their small voices dancing on the breeze. I didn’t like them going alone but make no move to correct it. Qifrey took them stargazing up there frequently enough and I didn't want to be to overbearing.
I ignore his comment, I’ll still be rationing the ink anyways. If not to save our pocketbooks but to save my sanity and all the stains I have to clean. I wrack my brain for more tales. “I went into the market yesterday while you were away and I discovered Josephine had her baby—“
“And, how is she doing?” He glances at me. His gaze darts to my stomach before moving back to his work.
“She had a girl, finally. The poor woman was overrun, she’s quite darling. All pudgy feet and round cheeks.”
Qifrey hums, “I’m sure she is quite adorable.” He is erasing a line from the right side of the sigil. His hands are smudged black again. The tail of his shirt is sticking out and I fight to not correct it.
“Tetia and Richeh somehow managed to stain a set of my dining cloths. I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to work those out. Oh!” Qifrey glances at me from the corner of his eye, but continues working.
“You remember Louise? The—“
“Young man down in the village, who some how managed to marry a widow twice his age.” I nod my head and wave my hand excitedly in front of me, “yes, yes, him! Well, the old woman he married, Grace I think her name was, we never actually met her, passed. And I was talking to Margret—“
“The seamstress at the end of the lane?”
"Yes her—and will you stop that, let me finish.” His eyes twinkle, “Anyways! He’s already after another one!”
“Oh my,” Qifrey muses.
“I know! She’s much younger I think, closer to his age. Margret said she has a little one and her husband passed tragically, fell from a roof while he was retiling.”
Qifrey wipes his hands again and adjusts his glasses, “seems like a lot is happening in town.” There’s an amusement to his tone that tells me he’s loving every second of this. He moves to the other side of the table, directly across from me. The large circular expanse of the wood divides work. He’s working intently.
“Oh, and Uriel tried to swindle me out of a few extra dollars.”
“Again?”
“Yep,” I pop the ‘p’ before leaning back into the cavernous chair, crossing one leg over the other. The man is relentless, harmless, at the root of it all, but annoying nonetheless.
“I’ll have to speak to him,” there’s a mischievous smile on his face.
“You will not.”
“He’s trying to take money from my wife unfairly, I think it warrants a conversation.”
“And what are you going to do? Bully him into giving me a fair price for apples.”
“I have my ways,” he says, he regards me over his glasses and I roll my eyes and laugh. “I’m sure you do.”
The conversation lulls for a moment and I simply watch him work. I’ve done this a thousand times before and I'll happily do it a thousand times again. There is something in the way he moves that is both haunting and mesmerizing. It’s confident. And despite not knowing the solution to his problem, he carries himself like he knows he will soon. His top is cut low in the front, and falls open every time he leans across the table. I have the perfect view. He starts to hum and I know that my job was a success, he can focus now without using my talking as white noise. He doesn’t kick me out though and I settle into the cushions to continue watching him.
There’s a silence that falls between us that I find comforting. But you know when children play, and suddenly there is a stillness? There is no sound, no movement. There is no whisper of secrets or echo of feet. A mother knows that quietness in a house full of children when it is not late at night or early morning is the opposite of peace. It is an omen.
Qifrey and I did not register that silence.
Qifrey looks content as he pulls himself back, hands on his hips as he nods toward the spell. “I think that will—“, There is a sudden lurch in my stomach, I feel it before anything else happens. Before the world speeds up and slows down at the same time when I hear a sickening thud outside followed by a stomach curdling scream.
“Coco,” We both assume. Qifrey and I are up before either of us can think. I knew they shouldn’t have been on that roof, I knew I should have stayed outside with them. I knew—
The wind snaps at my face when we bolt out of the house, I nearly fall over Qifrey in our haste. He almost eats the grass. We’re both moving too quickly to keep properly balanced. I look around desperately, where were they? The field is empty, no sign of anything other than a few stray cranes fluttering in the grass.
Qifrey registers what is happening before I do and he’s calling my name as he rushes the corner. I’m close on his heels.
It isn’t Coco who fell from the roof, it was Richeh. My heart lurches when I see her. She is laying awkwardly on the cobblestone, curled around herself and shaking. I can see the other girls standing on the roof, a piece of parchment held tightly in Coco’s hands.
Richeh has a set of wings attached to her back, made out of what? Paper? Fabric? I don’’t know and, quite frankly, don’'t care.
I dive for her while Qifrey commands the trio from their post. He helps them down and I see the tremble in their legs as they stand a few feet away. There’s ink dripping from the pen in Tetia’s hand, dropping on the cobblestone in slow steady fall.
“Richeh,” my voice is calm and I force the quiver in my lip to stop. “Richeh, honey, can you hear me?” She groans as I move her hair from her face. She’s alive, thank god. And I don’t see any blood seeping from her head. “Where are you hurt?”
She doesn’t say anything but nods towards her chest. I shuffle to the side, not wanting to move her and accidentally cause more damage. “Your chest?”
“N-no…” she whispers. Okay, good. No head, no chest.
“S-she tried her c-catch herself,” Coco stampers out, Qifrey brushes at her skirts. Turning her from side to side as he checks her for injuries. When he’s done he tells them to stay put and moves to me.
“Is it your hands, Richeh?” Qifrey asks. She nods.
“Okay, I’m going to need you to sit up, can you do that?” She shakes her head no.
“Is it because your back hurts?” I ask. She shakes it no again.
I take my own liberties and reach beneath her, maneuvering her into a cradle. She tries to curl into my chest but I won’t let her. She holds her wrist close, I can see blood dripping down her arm. I look up at Qifrey. His nostrils flare in a rush of frustration and he reaches for it.
“Richeh,” I use one hand to smooth her hair away and then brush her cheek with the tips of my fingers, cleaning the debris that stick to her skin. She has scraps across each one, and a gash on her temple. It’s already stopped bleeding. “Let Papa see your hand,” she whimpers and pushes away from him.
Qifrey doesn’t ask for permission and tucks into her, pulling her hand from her chest. She cries out and my heart wrenches but we need to see the damage. There’s a split down her palm, blood pooling in the gash and one of her fingers is bent awkwardly. Nothing is protruding and nothing is missing and I can only take that as a relief. It’s still a grizzly sight, and she’ll need stitches.
“The girls, Qifrey,” I whisper to him. His head contorts and he gives sharp instructions, “Inside, all of you, to your rooms!” When none of them move he adds, “Now!” They all scramble, tripping over their skirts as they rush inside. There’s a trail of ink that follows them.
“Qifrey…”
“Out of all the things I tell them not to do, they go behind my back and do it anyway.” He’s muttering, frustrated. The wings Richeh had are paper, made of spare parchment left around the house. I recognize the sigil from Silver Eve, the parade performers used it to flit across the crowd and the girls were starry-eyed at it. They were clearly trying to replicate it.
“I need you to stand, Richeh.” Qifrey says firmly. He moves her up and on her feet, she’s wobbly but sound. I don’t realize I’m shaking until she’s no longer in my arms. He’s trying to assess if anything else is wrong. He walks her towards the door, and I raise to follow. When we duck inside, I hear the girls scurry from the hall window and a click as a bedroom door shuts. We take Richeh to our room.
I run a finger across Richeh’s forehead and down her jaw. She’s asleep now, eyes peacefully closed and her hands resting on her chest. One is wrapped securely in a set of bandages.
Sinocia smiles, “she’ll be just fine. A little tired from the adrenaline, but her fear would have definitely outweighed the pain.” Qifrey says his thanks but I don’t look up. “Have her drink this twice a day,” she hands him a blue tonic, “it’ll keep the infection out and the pain down. She should be fine in a few weeks, the stitches will dissolve on their own.”
“Thank you, again,” he says, “let me walk you out.”
“It was nice seeing you again,” she says to me, “even if the circumstances were less than ideal.”
“We’ll have to get together again soon, thank you Sinocia.”
“Of course,” and when the two pass the doorway and move down the hall I pause, “you can come out now.”
Three heads poke around the corner. I regard them, watching to see what they’ll do. Tetia cracks first.
“W-we’re sorry!” She wails. Fat wet tears roll down her cheeks, and she struggles to wipe them away. Coco’s lip is trembling and Agott refuses to look at me but I can see the sheen in her eyes.
“Come here,” I say, holding open one arm. Tetia barrels into my side clinging to my gown. Coco is pressed against her. Agott stands further away but I lift my arm and cradle her cheek. I thumb away the few tears she lets slip. “Your sister is okay.”
They’re a blubbering mess and it’s enough for me to know that it was all an accident.
“W-we wanted to make those wings, and we should have waited for Master Qifrey to show us but we thought we could do it ourselves and well-l,” Tetia’s explanation is lost in the fabric of my top. I pat the back of her head.
“Have we learned our lesson?” Qifrey’s voice floats into the room and I feel the girls stiffen. His disappointment is worse than any form of punishment.
“Y-yes,” Agott chokes out, “we’re sorry.”
"What have I told you all about learning spells that you don't understand."
"To ask for help first." Coco says.
"And why is that, to make sure it-?"
"Isn't dangerous."
"Correct." Qifrey says. He kneels in front of them, pressing a hand to Coco's cheek and the Agott's. He looks between the two, "I tell you this because I don't want you to get hurt. Luckily, Richeh will make a full recovery. She'll be fine soon, but I'm sure you all heard that already." Both girls warm with embarrassment. "You won't do this again, right?"
"Yes, sir..." they all chorus. I smile, empathetic.
“I don’t think I ever want to learn to fly.” Everyone turns as Richeh’s quiet words fill the space. The girls gasp and they’re piling on top of her before I can stop them.
“Richeh!”
“You’re okay! We’re sorry!”
“Thank goodness, if you left I don’t know what I would do!”
I bite the back of my knuckle to keep from snickering. They’re crowding her, cheeks against cheeks as they nuzzle close. Richeh winces, but the healthy color has returned to her cheeks, “ow.”
“Sorry, sorry!”
“Girls, give her some space. Please.”
“Sorry, Master Qifrey!”
I stand as the girls leave. They are still offering more apologies as Qifrey corrals them out. "Everyone off to bed, it is quite late and we all need to rest." Richeh gives them a sleepy smile. I lean down and press a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll be right out there if you need us okay?’ Neither Qifrey nor I are going to get much sleep tonight. The adrenaline has left us both wound tight.
“Okay, mama. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”