The Pass Phrase 7

Little stood in a parlour, waiting next to a trunk that was apparently hers now. It was full of clothes and paraphernalia that she hadn’t had time to look through yet. On the other side of a glass door, Mrs. Winters was talking with a tremulously elderly woman in all black clothing, with tiny glasses and tightly curled white hair.

She couldn’t hear them, even though they were very close. The instant the door had shut, their voices had completely cut off.

‘Magic,’ she thought, not for the first time. ‘I think that’s one of the things this finishing school teaches, if not the main thing. Are all noble girls taught magic?’

The idea had never even occurred to her before.

She heard whispers.

Little turned her head. Three girls were watching her from another doorway. She managed a smile.

One of them grinned back, showing perfect white teeth.

She ducked her head again, feeling optimistic. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad.

…no.

The pit in her stomach was back.

‘When they realize I’m not one of them, they’re not going to be friendly.’

This whole episode had her blindsided. What was going on? Was she fired? What was going to happen to her belongings at the house? Would anyone tell her sister where she was?

Little was dying to know. She wanted to go back.

She knew better than to voice an objection or demand answers.

‘I am not going to mention my sister to that witch. If she doesn’t already know, I’m not going to be the one to tell her.’

She clung to that chance. Mr. Pine had been honest when he’d sneered that no one cared about people like her. It would honestly be surprising if Mrs. Winters knew about the familial connections among her staff.

‘No one touch Sissie,’ Little prayed. ‘I’ll get through this however it ends. But leave her alone.’

The office door clicked as it opened. She glanced back and saw that the other girls had disappeared.

“Well, then.” The elderly lady examined Little. “Miss Nova, you will be under my care. I am Headmistress Evine. Please follow me. Your luggage will be brought to you shortly.”

“Goodbye,” Mrs. Winters said. Her eyes glinted in the semidarkness.

Little hesitated for a moment. “Goodbye, Mrs. Winters,” she said. She didn’t want to be here but- “Thank you for helping me.”

That was more for the benefit of the school mistress, Little decided. She ducked her head and followed. She didn’t want to look like an uncivilized, ungrateful little brat. Not when she was in an entirely unfamiliar place, with strangers.

Headmistress Evine led her down a hall and then up a flight of stairs. “For the night, you’ll have a room to yourself,” she said. Little would have missed it if she wasn’t paying attention. “You weren’t expected, after all. In the morning I shall reconsider bedding arrangements. For now, you have the attic room.”

The lowest status room in the house, Little knew. “Yes, headmistress,” she said.

“Wake up is at 6:00,” Headmistress Evine continued. “There will be a knock on your door. Be dressed and in the breakfast room at 6:30. The first class is deportment, at 7:00. The rest of your schedule will be explained after that.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Little didn’t know if she could sleep in that late in the day. But she could wait in her room until she heard a knock.

‘My room,’ she marveled at the thought. ‘I’ve never had my own room before.’

She didn’t care that it was an undesirable location, in the hottest part of the house. Privacy? That was a luxury.

When they reached the room, the headmistress stopped and gave Little an examination. “Your nails are too short,” she said, dropping the offending hand. “At least it seems you clean them.”

If she was meant to answer that, she didn’t have a chance to. Two men came up the stairs, huffing and puffing with her luggage. The headmistress unlocked the door with a brass key and then stepped aside to let them pass. “Leave it by the window,” she directed. “That’s fine. You’re dismissed. Nova, I will see you in the morning.”

Little managed a curtesy. The pained expression on the Headmistress’s face instantly told her it was a mistake.

‘...because I did it like a servant,’ she realized. ‘I don’t know how young ladies do it. I need to pay attention and copy someone.’

When the door closed behind her and she was alone, Little sunk down onto the bed and looked around. How could this be her life? She looked at the little rug, the raised bed frame, at the beaded hem of the borrowed dress.

Self doubt crept in.

‘I’m not being tricked,’ she told herself, ‘I’m not manipulated. Just because I’m enjoying luxuries doesn’t mean that they’re buying me.’

Still. Some part of her was burning with desire. She wanted this, she wanted more.

‘I don’t care,’ she thought, carefully removing the expensive gown. ‘I don’t care if all these rich girls hate me. If it was true… if I could become so strong that they’d have to respect me anyway, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad life.’

She crawled under the sheets and went promptly to sleep.

.

As she had thought, Little was awake before any knock. She paced a little. It was not easy to see in the weak light, but she investigated the contents of her trunk. What dress would be suitable? She didn’t know. There were some books- was she meant to bring anything with her to breakfast?

Anxiety crept up, but she forced it down.

‘This isn’t life or death.’ The thought calmed her. ‘What are they going to do to me? It couldn’t be as hard as the labor I do in the skullery. And it won’t actually be dangerous.’

When she thought about it like that… The stakes were fairly low, at least in terms of messing up here.

‘If I get punished or laughed at for making mistakes, it won’t matter in the long run.’

She handled the situation by picking the dress that she wanted to wear the most. It was white, a ludicrous luxury that made her laugh when she saw it. It didn’t have the sheer sleeves of the orange dress but it was cut in the same style of billowing sleeves that tucked in neatly at the wrist.

When the knock arrived, she was already dressed. She opened the door and startled the servant on the other side. “I don’t know where breakfast is,” Little said, practical and confident. “Show me, please.”

The girl blinked rapidly and then dipped into a deep curtsy. “Of course, Miss. This way, please.”

She was, Little thought, better than she’d expected at pretending to be someone who mattered.