"No, no, no....you, we must not..." Robin awoke abruptly as the sounds of murmured protests wafted down from the bed above her own. Hazel was having the dreams again, it seemed. She bit her lip and wondered whether she should get Violet or if it was time that the three of them took the matter to Danielle.
She is the oldest of us, after all.
, she thought. But Hazel's sleepy protests rankled her to no end. No, Danielle was first-born of the Twelve, but she was first among the Three. She tried to understand what Hazel might be envisioning, but it was naught but steam on a mirror. And Violet never seemed to recall even that much of whatever they were going through.
Besides their best frocks and pair after pair of Andrew's well crafted shoes, that is.
Gingerly, she rolled from beneath her covers and slipped up the ladder to Hazel's bed. They had tried to keep to separate rooms at various times while growing up, but somehow the best arrangement had been a large antechamber with three distinct seating areas to reflect the differences between her and her closest sisters, and a smaller bedchamber that still had the sleeping areas perched one on the other like the traveling compartments on a train or large ship; although Violet's stuck out from beneath the others to give her a small space for her extra stock of books, filled journals, and writing supplies. Robin giggled to herself at the memory of one of their younger sisters comparing them to pirates when they unveiled the sleeping quarters to the rest of the group.
"Well, maybe we are," Robin had said, her bright blue eyes sparkling with merriment.
"Arr, sure'n we be just the girls to be pirates too, don't ya know?" Hazel had added, covering one green-brown pupil with a makeshift eye patch.
Violet had shook her curls and closed her pale lavender eyes, not saying a word. Robin had worried about her lack of imagination sometimes, but only until she and Hazel had spent an entire afternoon enraptured by the writings in one of Violet's ubiquitous journals.
Now it was Hazel she worried about, however. Hazel, and all of them, even Danielle. Robin had seen her being taken to task by Father that morning, and had marked the look she gave them when Mother questioned them about the dreams. "Have the dreams returned?" the Queen had asked, but Robin and the rest had deferred to Danielle's leadership and said nothing.
Truthfully, I have nothing to really tell. But Hazel...
"Hazel, Hazel," she whispered in a lingering singsong manner as she gently rocked her sister. "What is the matter? Please tell me what you see."
Hazel's eyes turned to her sister and she blinked through a coating of tears. She sniffed and planted both arms about Robin in a tight embrace. "I don't know what it was, but it seemed so...so...real. Like one of Violet's stories made flesh, but with all the naughty bits still intact."
"Hush, hush...it'll be okay. I think Father and Mother, especially Mother, knows it's beginning to happen again and they'll do something about it. Do you want to take what you remember to Danielle?"
"Oh no! She's only just started looking at the three of us as more than the little brats who played tricks on her...hiding her best combs and brushes...rearranging her book shelves...she'll think us little like Cecilia."
"Cecilia's of age, she's hardly 'little'", Robin reminded her sister.
