This story is a spin-off from my other work, Baker and Jones. It follows one of the characters, Samantha Deveroux, as she works to rebuild her life following the ending of that series. Reading Baker and Jones is not necessarily required, but will certainly help in understanding the world, setting, and context.
-MsAppropriately
Chapter One
Samantha had always felt that those who were taken in towards conspiracy mindsets were overly ridiculous. There were many within the upper echelons of society who, when faced with any discomfort, swore up and down that there were covens of witches or whispering servants or conniving rivals conspiring to thwart them. The less pleasant would take it a step further, convincing themselves that it was the Kerish, or the Jews, or the colonists taking up action against them. The Mallet's revolt did little to dampen the circuitous rhetoric of such individuals, and Samantha had found them all intolerable to be around.
But, when her husband was made aware of her infidelity, when her divorce became the highest subject of scandal, when she found herself removed from the landed elite and she was forced to take up residence in the home of two women who'd rejected her in favor of one another... Samantha found herself trending towards conspiracy. It had all fallen apart with such speed and bravado it must be considered an act of divine judgment upon her, nothing else could account for such a casting down from grace.
She made awareness of this unfairness the cornerstone of nearly all conversations these days, allowing herself to spit and spiral and grumble to any who would hear her. It hardly took any time at all for her to exhaust her list of available conversation partners, and when her new and unexpected roommates, Annette Baker and Cordelia Jones, announced that their detective work would be taking them away to Kereland for an undetermined amount of time, she found her options pathetically slim.
So, Samantha finds herself in a position that has become frustratingly and pitiably familiar this past week: slumped over the bar counter of the Fleeting Faery, complaining to the increasingly impatient bartender, Bill.
"It's not as though I thought her less than me," Samantha complains, her chest pressing deep into the weary wood counter while her feet hook onto the rungs of the stool below.
"I'm sure you didn't," he shrugs.
"It's-, I-," she stammers, winding up to begin the next phase of her practiced rant. She takes another swig of her beer and says, "She always adored that sort of treatment. She was looking for directions and I could direct her. It made sense!"
Bill doesn't look up from the mug he has been cleaning the last three minutes. He simply replies, "As you say, my lady."
Samantha bristles at the term. She'd loved the honorific of "Lady." Now, she was simply "Miss" once more. Humiliating. "I'm sophisticated," she tells him, able to read his disinterest but unable to prevent herself from continuing. "I'm ambitious. I'm beautiful. And she-?" She released a frustrated groan. "I just don't understand it."
"We're not meant to understand everything," Bill offers as explanation.
"A proper theologian," she accuses, taking another draft of the beer that's grown warm between her palms. "Why isn't man to understand everything? I-I'm intelligent. I've fought and worked for an education. I've dined in the halls of power, Bill!" She sets the pint glass down, tapping it loudly to support her point. "Christ's sake, I deserve to know what has misguided her so!"
Bill rolls his eyes, placing his thoroughly cleaned glass on the counter. "You've been living with them. You could simply ask Annette."
"And suffer the embarrassment?" She scoffs and tries to disengage. Instead, she finds herself treading down a different path of her own woes. "I'm sure you're going to snip at me for saying this, but it is wretched to return to cooking and cleaning and taking care of-,"
A door opening across the room pulls her attention away from her words. In the Faery, most times it simply meant that another woman had arrived looking for the attentions of the assembled bar. But it was also always a possibility that a police officer would stroll inside instead, hoping to catch someone in the act of immodesty with another woman, and Samantha had learned to always keep her eyes on the door.
Upon seeing the newest patron of the space, Samantha would rather have witnessed a cop entering. Standing in the doorway, looking innocent, unassuming, and lost, with billowing black-and-white robes and a long veil over her hair, is a nun from the convent attached to St. Bartholomew's cathedral. She holds her hands at her stomach, fingers latticed together, and surveys the room with curious and surely condemning eyes.
"For fuck's sake," Samantha mutters, staring down into her glass to avoid the embarrassment of watching the Sister any longer.
Bill perks up, sensing the tension emerging from her arrival. "Anything I can help you with, Sister?"
The nun tosses him an appreciative glare, spared the awkwardness of trying to ingratiate herself into a room of new faces, and she strolls up to the counter. "Good evening, Mr..."
"Collins," the barkeep supplies. "You can just call me Bill."
"Sister Esther Levy," the nun chirps back, her voice sweet and sincere, "at your service."
"Quite late in the night for a Sister to be out and about, in a pub, no less," Bill observes, carefully sizing up her intentions. "I've never seen you at St. Bartholomew's."
"I've only just arrived this week," she answers back. Her voice has the unaffected and charitable eagerness of a woman who believes herself truly holy indeed. "Father Billings sent for a new Sister to fill the vacancy of Sister Elenore's retirement."
Samantha quickly grows weary of her innocence, peeling her eyes up to glare at Bill and sneer, "Just ask the clueless nun what she's doing here and let me get on with my misery, Bill."
To her frustration, the nun answers her directly. "I simply wish to acquaint myself with my new home."
Bill leans forward, furrowing his heavy brows and speaking quietly. "Are... are you aware of the Faery's reputation, Sister?"
"It's what brought me here," she chirps.
She says this like it was the happiest, most virtuous response she could make, and the attitude makes Samantha feel sick to her stomach. "Christ, a missionary. Allow me to spare you the trouble, Sister," she throws back a long drink, then spins around in her stool to face the rest of the bar, cautiously watching the nun to see what she would do.
"Repent, you vile fornicators!" Samantha preaches to the room, summoning the most ridiculous and self-righteous tone she could muster. "A self-appointed messenger of the vengeful God," she points at the nun, "has come to exhort you to righteousness and implore you to abandon your shameful desires for a woman's flesh! A pox upon the loins of ye who ignores her warnings!" The words ring out over the room, and slowly the patrons seem to gather that this warrants none of their attention. The quiet buzz of conversation returns as they continue on with their nights. Samantha turns over to the nun, scowling. "There, I have saved you from the trouble. You can leave now."
To her credit, the Sister watches her, undeterred. Her eyes flick up and down Samantha, scanning her watchfully, and she turns to face the counter once more. "Bill, might I have something to drink?"
Bill, seeing the nun stride over to Samantha and pull out the stool next to her, seems to anoint himself with the easy arithmetic of deciding someone else could be made to suffer Samantha's ramblings. He grabs another pint glass, pours a full cup from the barrel behind him, sets it on the table before her, and declares, "On the house, Revered Sister."
"Esther," she invites.
"As you say."
The Sister grabs the drink between both of her palms and pulls it close. She scoots up with her stool, resting her forearms onto the counter as she turns to look at Samantha once more. "Are you alright, miss? You seem troubled." Then, she lets out a polite pip of laughter. "Well, not seem, you actively boasted of your misery."
"Then add pride to my ledger and be gone, Sister," she sneers back.
"I'll be sure to keep tally. What ails you?"
"Bill, would you remov-," Samantha looks up to see Bill has relieved himself of her company and now resides at the far end of the counter, happily chatting up one of the other patrons. "Jesus," she sighs.
"Unfortunately," the nun smirks, "taking the Lord's name in such a way is a sin. I'll have to add it onto your record."
"Are you mocking me?"
"If only to lighten your mood."
Samantha scowls. "It's failing, crone."
"Alas," she takes a sip. "Another strike against you for rudeness."
