Story 4 - What of This?

(Music fades in)

Welcome. Cassandra’s Tales and Truths is an anthology series that utilizes the wisdom of the Delphic Maxims. In this episode, the fourth episode, Cassandra seems fit to remind someone, perhaps all of us, to treasure a hard-won and harder to see resource. But it is still a critical one, regardless of the details. And yet, certain impulses seem to attack at it. The desire for… Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. We aren’t quite there yet. 

So, governess, guard friendship.

(Beep. Music fades in)

From her desk, Maeve could see the vast fields of her employers’ estate through the window. The greenery was beautiful, true, but that was all that there was to see. Though she had frequently tried, squinting her eyes and focusing on faint lines in the distance, all she ever saw were more trees. Now, she wasn’t told she could not go out there, that she could never explore the estate’s perimeter for herself, but there wouldn’t be much of a point to it. The mother of her charge explained this with little more than a shrug, which was disconcerting. Maeve had a deep infatuation with the world; it was why she had left her town in the only manner that a woman of her status could, as a governess--or a woman with a good nature and the skills necessary to tend to a child of the upper-most classes. It was a hard-earned title but the sweet taste of opportunity on her lips promised to be worth the trials and tribulations.

But her employer, Lady Brila, had been right. There was no use in going out there. It was much too long of a walk and laying eyes on another estate that bore such a strong resemblance to the estate that Maeve now called home was hardly a reward at all. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

It was a brutal realization for Maeve: this knowledge that her grand escape had only led her to a new cage, a new type of isolation with more space but less company. The mansion was so unsettlingly quiet, Maeve would constantly think, particularly when the lord and lady of the estate were travelling and utilizing the freedom attached to their status. That was almost all of the time, she soon realized. They lived their lives in devotion to picturesque and almost absurd luxury. Maeve could never hope for a respite like that, and one child by himself could not chase the silence away. Not that he was so inclined to do her any such favors. Unlike many of the children she had seen over the years, he had long since found his own ways to amuse himself, ways that did not include her. Perhaps deliberately excluded her. 

Nothing of this life had been what she had imagined. Despite never considering herself a creative person, Maeve had conjured an entire reality completely irreconcilable with the one she was living in, where her only company was the memories of the places she had left.

“How naive I was,” Maeve started to write, but then she stopped herself.

No, no, no, she said to herself. That’s no way to start a letter. It was jarring and abrupt, and it wasn’t the sort of self-abasement that could be considered endearing. To recognize one’s naivety is to have moved past it and to be at the sort of state where one can stand above and look down upon it with a sense of pity. Once you reach that point, you should not be asking for validation. You should, as Maeve thought, be brushing that indiscretion back into the closet never to return. Once you’ve achieved a certain amount of distance from your youthful follies, you should be maximizing it, until it is little less than a distant memory and completely removed from who you currently are. If you haven’t reached that state, then, well, you’re just as naive as you’ve always been potentially. It has just found new ways to manifest itself. Because who would ever want to co-exist with the memory of their worst moments?

Maeve couldn’t be sure if any of her thoughts made sense. All she knew was her discontentment with this attempt at writing a long delayed letter. And so--though she loathed wasting paper--she crumpled it up in her hand and tossed it aside.

She hadn’t even addressed the previous letter, she realized. 

“Dearest Jeulie,” she wrote. 

Those words felt natural, better suited to the task, but they were also inevitable and followed up with silence. Maeve sighed. Nervous fingers reached up and grabbed a strand of her hair, curling it around one of her fingers. It was a nervous habit that had proved effortless to hide, considering the natural curl in her brown hair was just the right length and at just the right angle to hide this most obvious manifestation of her stress. 

She should have sent a letter by now, right? She had been well settled into the Kapney Estate for quite some time. Months, in fact. And with a charge as peaceful as the one she had, there had been much time for letters. But the presence of time did not guarantee the words, and she was ashamed to admit that she had lost the ability to communicate with the friend she had held above all others. Perhaps she had never had such knowledge in the first place as it had always come as easy to her as breathing had: a natural impulse that one could not help but take for granted. But when it stopped, when the air had been sucked from one’s lungs and the knowledge became overwhelmingly relevant, all one can do is panic, scrambling for some shred of that impulse lest everything come to an end. 

Or so it seemed. Maeve could try and hold her breath, just to test the theory, but in time, her body would reject her efforts. In distress, impulse would seize control and protect her. There would be none of that here.

Once again, she was hardly making sense, and in her mental ramblings, the page before her remained vacant. She started weighing different and random options in her mind, allowing it to run free to whatever corners of her consciousness might have a small gem or shiny rock worth valuing. 

The Kapney Estate, itself, would make an interesting start. It was her new home, and it was far grander than anything she had ever seen. But there was not a lot of substance in that. It was a stretched version of the places surrounding her and Jeulie in their childhood. All the mansion turned out to be--really--was more wood and plaster than what they had previously known, and the estate was more grass and trees than their neighborhood park. It was mostly oak trees, in fact: those trees that lined the town perimeter.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

So no, it wasn’t so different and novel. It was just a repackaging of the familiar, and how could anyone be interested in that.

Her employers were wealthy, certainly, and when it came to her wages, they were generous, but they were not creative in the slightest. That would have been a fun thing to add, perhaps, but it seemed wrong to do anything that could vaguely seem like dangling her good fortune mockingly in her friend’s face. But if that was the line of thought she was inclined to go down, she could offer brief reports on the other servants of the household, of which there were… hardly any. The lord and lady were never around, and so the staffing could be light. A boy and his governess weren’t inclined to need much support, and the lord and lady would rather their house be as undisturbed as possible. They didn’t explicitly say they would rather keep it empty, but they needed some place to stash the one child they must have for inheritance purposes. However, it was implied when Lady Brila was trying to explain to the new governess why Maeve only had and would only ever have one charge when it was a bit more fashionable to have two children. And two children only.

“It was more manageable,” the Lady said. “Less stress, less mess, less…”

She trailed off. There wasn’t much else to add and no need to explain herself to a servant, particularly when what she had already said was enough to convey this point. This estate (and so much of their life) was largely for show, Maeve gathered, and to preserve it, it was better to have as few individuals as possible making demands on it.

Maeve, herself, was not sure how sound that logic was. Jeulie might know. She was more familiar with building materials and their limitations, having chosen that art to be the thing she devoted her life to, and the bizarre machinations of the wealthy had been something that fascinated them both. It would be a way to start the conversation, but Maeve found herself hesitating still. It was a hard thing to lead with. 

Then there was her charge, the young Geralt, who was supposed to be the center of her life now, but what could she say about a child that was hardly in her presence? By his own choice?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Instinctively, Maeve’s breath caught in her throat. It had been a while since laying eyes on her charge. She should give him more thought, regardless of his preference. In the distance, she thought she could hear the rapid tapping of a small child’s run. At that, she sighed. Per the rules of the household, the young boy was not to run indoors. Maeve liked to believe it was a matter of safety, as the mansion had not been designed with the chaos of a child in mind. There were any number of hazards that could be waiting to catch and shatter such delicate beings. And yet, Maeve knew it was not about that. 

Rules were rules, she knew. Whether or not she liked her duty, Maeve was prepared to see it through. She rose to her feet, pulling her shawl closer around herself.

“This place has no heart,” Maeve briefly thought. “Geralt is not allowed to supply it.”

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

That might have made a good point to include in her letter, she noted, but it couldn’t be how she led her letter. Jeulie would worry about the dark cave of misery Maeve now found herself in. And this was a dark cave of misery, even by Maeve’s standards, but as it turned out, there wasn’t much to worry about in a space like that. While unfortunate, it was bearable.

But that was not a way to start a letter. There was still that problem, of course.

“Geralt,” Maeve called in the great hallway. “What are you up to now?”

He did not answer right away, or he offered something that could not be called an answer. There was a whisper, a murmur, and what sounded like a door shutting. 

“Geralt,” Maeve said again as she approached the source of the noise. “Answer when you are spoken to.”

“I tried, Miss,” he said sweetly, stepping into her view. “I didn’t realize how softly I was talking.”

“Well, you seemed to figure it out,” she said with a sigh. 

She did not mean to be so cold to him. There was no need for that and every reason to better watch her tongue. She and a couple servants were all the boy had. Most of the empty rooms weren’t even available to him. They had been boarded up, and unless some grand occasion came along with many guests who needed a show, they would remain that way. Maeve knew this was a prison for him, and she could only be amazed that he was not more defiant. He had many reasons to be rebellious, but the only sort he could muster was his isolation. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

For the first time, this state of affairs raised some suspicion in her. Why would he further his isolation? She was all he had in the absence of siblings or any neighboring children. The estates around them were largely uninhabited as well. There were servants entrusted with their maintenance, but those estates had been built for status, not for living, and it showed. There were no other children for Geralt to befriend. There was really no one. He only had her, and she had not insisted on being his companion when he had pushed her away. In hindsight, that was likely the wrong thing to do.

Maeve consciously tried to relax and soften her expression. Unfortunately, she looked like her mother, and so her face was composed of sharp and harsh lines. There was only so much she could do. “I’m sorry for being cross with you,” she said. “Even for a moment.”

Then she bent down. “Why don’t we play a game?” she offered with a bit of a hum.

Geralt paled a bit and shook his head. “No ma’am.”

“Why not?”

He did not answer. He did not have much of an answer to give her. 

She sighed and looked down. She understood now. The boy didn’t like her much. No one had spoken to her about her predecessor, but now Maeve wondered if that was not really at the heart of the issue. She could be a good playmate to him, but would he rather play with a ghost, the ghost of a living but far away person? Would he rather that than her?

“Geralt,” Maeve started, thinking aloud. “I worry we got off to a bad start. I worry that I did something to hurt or offend you and don’t know to apologize. Is that why you don’t wish to play with me?”

He said nothing. Certainly, he could not answer her question. Geralt had the ability to put physical ailments to words but not much else. The boy was hardly seven, and while he was advanced for his age, there were still limits to his ability, particularly when his parents had done nothing to teach him. Maeve had not meant for that to be a trap, but it was, and it did not hurt her cause.

Geralt twisted his lips but said nothing. At that, Maeve wasn’t sure how to respond. She, herself, was an only child, and her training hadn’t prepared her for the more practical side of child-rearing. But Jeulie would have known, Maeve suddenly realized. Jeulie was the oldest of ten. 

Maeve mustered a smile. “I won’t press you,” she said. “But I do have to keep an eye on you, alright?”

He offered a small smile, sensing he was going to be free, and began to pull away, back into whatever corner of the manor he had been playing in. His eagerness only concerned Maeve more, but she was able to bite back her dismay with a great deal of force.

(Music fades out and new music fades in) 

She rose to her feet and retreated back to her room and back to the unstarted letter. Her resolve to include a plea for help melted with every step. Was it inappropriate to ask for advice, essentially asking for a favor, when this letter had been so long coming? Maeve knew she should have sent a message by now. There had been time for dozens of letters. Instead, Maeve had only sent a quick note that she had arrived safely and nothing more. She owed her friend more than that, certainly, but how would it look to break this long and unearned silence with a plea for help? 

By the time Maeve returned to her desk, she had decided she could not include that in this letter. She would in the next one, in the one she sent out in the coming days. But that meant writing two letters, and Maeve could hardly compose one. 

“I have missed you greatly,” Maeve wrote.

That felt right. That was the truth, after all. Jeulie and her were closer than sisters; they were tied together at the soul. Being apart meant a painful pulling at the chest and much misery. Maeve thought of her often, dreamt of her even. But speaking to her--in the absence of anything shared and contemporary--was hard. 

Maeve fled their town the moment that she could, but Jeulie was content staying. And now, Maeve had to wonder if this difference was strong enough to sever their relationship. She hoped not. But if not, then why could she not write a letter. She’d written a fair number of them. She regularly and frequently reported to her employers with her pupil’s progress and wrote similar reports to her former headmistress, so that the old woman could trust that endorsing Maeve’s abilities was right and justified. She had given her parents much assurance that she was fine and safe in the care of herself in this fortress her employers had. But to Jeulie, she had sent nothing. 

Perhaps if she had other friends--perhaps if she had been more social as a child--she would have more experience composing a letter to a faraway friend. It was a nice thought, but Maeve had to wonder if that would really help. There was no friend like Jeulie, no one who had seen her through every high and low as Jeulie had. Jeulie had been her main source of encouragement in her studies. Jeulie had been the one to chase her fears and insecurities away. Jeulie’s shoulder was the one she frequently cried on.

For the first time in her life, Maeve was without her friend, and she could not do something as simple as writing a letter. This separation was far worse than she had feared it would be.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Geralt’s laughter filled the manor. It was loud, forceful, and uncontrolled: the embodiment of unbridled childhood joy. It should have been a welcomed sound, but instead, it chilled Maeve’s blood. What on Earth could the boy have found so funny? She’d heard that unexplained and unprompted laughter was a sign of mental distress. It was mentioned in any number of her textbooks, but those remarks had seemed inappropriate and woefully out of date: the sort of absurd speculations carried over from a time that deeply resented children and all that they were. 

But perhaps, Maeve now thought, there was some wisdom to it after all. This was just so unexpected and unprompted that she could not help but panic.

She took to the hallway again. “Geralt,” she called out, mindful of her tone and trying to do so as gently as she could manage it. But her voice was that of her grandmother’s: well meaning but a bit on the shrill side, having clung to an unforgiving pitch. The boy suddenly went quiet and mumbled a bit. Maeve heard what sounded like a door closing, but that sound seemingly announced the boy’s appearance.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

He stood before her, cheeks flushed from his laughter but face solemn. There was no greeting this time; he was just waiting for her to say something. His silence was also disconcerting, but she could not let that get to her. She had to keep his situation in mind, that she could give him the kindness and compassion he was owed. 

“May I ask what is so funny?”

He shrugged. “You may ask, but it is my secret.”

A secret? What secrets could a child have? She was about to ask, but then she remembered Jeulie and all the secrets shared between them. 

“Perhaps you could tell me your secret? I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

He shook his head faintly, so faintly that Maeve could easily convince herself that he had, in fact, done nothing at all. “My dear boy,” she lamented. “Can’t you tell me what you are up to?”

Geralt gave her a blank stare and nothing more. It was not so much intentional on his part but the product of his uncertainty. 

That uncertainty was a small thread to grab onto. “Well, what game are you playing? Maeve asked. 

The boy shook his head.

“If it doesn’t have a name, you could come up with one. We could come up with one together. Just tell me how it is played.”

He shrugged his shoulders. When he lowered them, they seemed to drop like a dead weight. She almost asked him again if anything was wrong, but that was the sort of question he never answered. He did not like it, and it would only cause him to pull away from her more. 

Jeulie should have gone into this line of work, Maeve thought, she had the heart for it and the wisdom. She had told Maeve that it was the will which mattered most, and Maeve had that in spades. But maybe she was only saying that to be nice, to be friendly, to be Maeve’s backbone. That was the role Jeulie had taken on at Maeve’s unspoken behest, and she wore it well, like she was born for it. And maybe she was. Maybe they were born to be tied together. But once again, if it were an impulse so natural, then a good letter to her should have come easily as breathing did. 

“Do you miss your parents?” Maeve asked. “I could send for them.”

She expected a blank stare. After all, this child didn’t know what it was to have parents, having been left alone for so long. But he surprised her with a passionate shaking of his head. It was as if he was trying to summon up the winds required to blow that idea away. Maybe he had accepted they wouldn’t come unless the governess quit. And even then it would only be because they wouldn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

Why did she even ask then? Maeve chastised herself. 

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she could hear Jeulie say to her. It was such a frequent refrain. It was ingrained in Jeulie’s vocabulary in response to a habit her friend could not seem to shake. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

It started with their childhood games, played against Jeulie’s younger siblings who constantly seemed to win despite the disadvantage of their age and size. Maeve would always blame herself for the defeat. Rightfully so, she thought. She lacked the coordination and concentration of that family, which made her the weakest link in this small team. 

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jeulie would say reassuringly. Because to her it wasn’t about winning, it was about enjoying this time with her friend and siblings. 

Maeve loved that time, and she remembered adoring that game too, though she was terrible at it. An idea flashed in her mind. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

“I know,” she said. “I have a game I want to show you.”

The color drained from Geralt’s face as Maeve pushed past him to the small corridor he had been playing in. 

“No ma’am. There’s no need,” he begged.

But Maeve hardly heard him. Her mind was made up, and once she was set in her ways, she was hard to steer. 

The corridor was a small hallway along the outer perimeter of the manor with large floor to ceiling windows overlooking the vast greenery of the estate. It was a marvelous view, meant to be enjoyed. And so a small couch and side table were set out. The table had a small cabinet attached to it. As Maeve got closer, the door popped open a small bit.

Geralt’s breath caught, which punctuated the movement and ensured Maeve saw it. However, that in and of itself was not much of a concern. Cabinets can be well made or shoddy, and with so much of the estate out of the lord and lady’s sight and mind, there were bound to be shoddy things that did not do their job as intended. Maeve reached for it to shut it again, but as she got closer, she saw movement from within the cabinet. 

Her heart sank. She was frightened, though she could not imagine what was in there. It wasn’t all that small of a cabinet, but it wasn’t huge either: tall enough to hold three or four rows and deep enough for the same. It’s width was a bit less, giving it a more traditional shape for an end table. There certainly wasn’t enough space for an adult to fit, that was clear. So was it a large rat perhaps? Or not a large one. Maeve was not fond of rats regardless of the size. And that was something that would need to be reported to her employers, potentially something the rest of the sparse staff would be blamed for despite the overwhelming odds against them when it came to maintaining the estate. 

Maeve did not know what to do anymore. With that thought, her resolve had come apart. It always comes apart with any bit of stress or probing. Still, that was a bridge she had not gotten to yet. First, she had to see what it was she had been dealing with. 

As she began to open the door, Geralt caught her hand by the wrist, but he was a small boy. Though she felt him trying to steer away from the cabinet, she could not be deterred by someone so small. He said something, but she wasn’t paying enough attention to hear it. 

She pulled the door open and saw another child: a small boy. He was Geralt’s age and the spitting image of the cook who also had to work as a maid and tend to the indoor plants. She was doing the work of three people, staying at the estate from early in the morning to late at night. She hardly had any time to talk to Maeve, so of course Maeve didn not know she had a child. Not until she was staring at the boy in the face. 

She could hear Lady Brila’s admonishment in her ear that staff were not permitted visitors of any sort to the estate, no family members and certainly no children. There was a certain venom in her voice when she said children, like it had been an issue before or like it was a particularly sore and unwelcome subject for her. That was in line with so much she had learned about her employers in such a short span of time. And yet, it hardly felt relevant in their absence. 

The boy emerged from his hiding place, downtrodden and sorrowful. He knew he had been caught and expected nothing good to come from it. Geralt expected much the same and ran up to the boy, embracing him as tightly as possible. Though she’d never seen it before, it felt like a familiar sight to Maeve perhaps because Maeve had been on the other side of it so many. 

She knelt down before the boys. “Hello,” she said to the cook’s son. “And what is your name?”

Geralt would not let him answer. “He’s my friend,” he cried.

Maeve chuckled calmy. “I can see that plain as day. It’s why I want to meet him.”

She extended her hand as adults do when meeting each other, and the young boy played the game. He took it and replied, “Bertin.”

“Well, Bertin, it is wonderful to meet you.”

Geralt watched Maeve with a great deal of suspicion, but he was too young to fully understand what it was he was seeing. To an adult, however, the cocktail of relief and pity would have been clear. The poor child had suffered so much from his parent’s push for perfection, but he had found some way around it. 

“Geralt,” Maeve whispered. “Don’t you remember? I can keep a secret.”

She winked at him with a small smirk, and though he could not fully trust her, he would admit that they had taken a first step.

“Now,” she said. “I will leave the two of you to play. I have a friend too, you know. But she is very far away, and I must write a letter to her. Back to your game.”

With a wave of her hand, she dismissed them, freeing them to make similar memories to the ones she cherished. As she watched their nonsensical game, Maeve realized that she could not remember the rules of the game she and Jeulie would play, but it hadn’t mattered. So little mattered, truthfully.  A sense of clarity took hold, and she left the boys to their game.

“Dear Jeulie,” the letter finally said after Maeve’s brief labor.

“I miss you. Truly and utterly miss you. Forgive my silence as no letter has felt worthy of being sent to you. But it was never about worth, was it, between us? It was something more. It was that we both cherished each other and our bond. I cherish that still. Always and truly. My dear, my heart, my sister, and my friend, I have never stopped yearning for joy that came from us being in each other’s company. 

“I’m so lonely, I will admit, though I say that not to guilt you into writing. But any letter from you would mean the world to me. Anything composed of your voice would bring me comfort.

“To our imperfect but still beautiful friendship.”

(Beep. New music starts)

Cassandra’s Tales and Truths is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. Transcripts can be found at oracleofdusk.online. That’s one word. Oracleofdusk.online. Thanks!