Hey, lit readers.
I have a story for you. It is set in a different world, the Luterian world, and is a part of a fantasy series. It is already complete.
I should say up front that this book is more involved, the characters more developed, the situation more elaborate, and it's longer than the Vanata books. Slower, more story-driven. Fantasy more than sci-fi.
I am so very proud of Bellie444 for winning the Lit Valentine's Day writing contest. Please go and check out her stories, they're wonderful. And I would like to say hello to a mutual friend.
This story is in the Non-con category for a reason. This chapter especially fits that description. Please don't read it if this bothers you.
Peace out,
-Harp
All characters are portrayed as over the age of eighteen.
The Five Clans of Luteri
Book I: Alveria
Chapter One
Two older women were all that were left from a busy staff of twelve at the Bonstram Orphanage. Emma didn't remember anywhere else. Once a busy place, the house was almost empty. The previous three orphans, whom she had been too young to remember, had found their way into adulthood and onto disaster almost simultaneous to orders to close the orphanage.
The funding for Bonstram Orphanage had dried up, a wealthy benefactor passing, and any new orphans were to be redirected to the Home for Wayward Foundlings in Dunston, eighteen miles northeast.
Only the misfire of a blind bureaucracy could explain why the final closing of the orphanage was delayed for one girl, but it was. Most people in the area had assumed the orphanage was already long closed, as far away as it was from town, from other houses, a squat unkept mansion looking abandoned already.
When she had first come here as a very young child, Emma didn't speak. Miss Stram had named her Emma and treated her like a simpleton until the girl seemed to learn. Emma had grown up in the empty halls, rooms full of ugly battered furniture covered with dusty cloth, the blocked fireplaces, only the occupied rooms heated in winter.
#
Emma was accustomed to the vacant silence, her light footsteps echoing through the rooms, most of the huge house unused. She had read every book, explored every corner in the place, knew the contents of the boxes still packed for removal and stacked carefully against the walls, now covered in a thick layer of dust. A woman came every week to clean indifferently, staying to the few rooms that were still being used, bringing fresh linens.
Whenever she could, Emma would slip out of the house and into the hills around, talking to herself as she walked, carrying a stick to beat back the tall grasses, collecting rocks and feathers she found. She knew better than to bring them into the house. Like most children, Emma had a small hiding place for things kept secret from others.
Miss Stram had educated Emma and been her caretaker since she could remember. The woman was a veteran raiser of foundlings and was a believer that a crooked body led to a crooked nature. She corrected her sole pupil's posture with relentless vigilance, the small switch she carried looped around her wrist always ready.
When Emma was disobedient—when she laughed too loudly, ran in the house, slouched, dropped things—Miss Stram would walk Emma by her arm to her office. Miss Stram did this regardless of where they were at the moment of the infraction, taking the stairs up, or the stairs down, through the same hall, her firm grip never wavering. She never spoke.
#
Today, Emma was nineteen or twenty. She didn't know which one it was for sure. Lord Montrose was to arrive today and Emma was nervous. The lord had been sent by the Board of Directors, Miss Stram having received a letter with details.
All that Emma had been told was that Lord Montrose was to help her to settle her into her new situation. She was to have a small salary from work that had been arranged for her, a domestic position in Pilet, a dusty, isolated town on flat land sixteen miles east. She was to care for two families with a total of five young children—never mind that she had never in her memory even seen a child.
The rain outside became briefly louder and then muffled again in the hall with the opening and closing of the front door as Emma hovered in the dining room. She heard voices and knew she would be expected to greet him.
Emma came in quietly, standing, her hands crossed in front of her, her posture straight. Lord Montrose was older, an aristocratic, severe face, closely trimmed mustache and dark hair, his face tight and without much expression. He was well dressed. He was removing his gloves, his hat, his wet coat, hanging it. He gave her a sharp, long, assessing glance. She curtseyed carefully.
"You are Emma," he observed.
"Yes, Lord Montrose."
"It's nice to meet you, Emma."
"Thank you, Lord Montrose."
#
Emma answered the questions Lord Montrose posed, and the ones she didn't know, Miss Stram answered. Miss Stram reported Emma had come to the orphanage alone when she was five or six. She had no relatives. Emma answered that she had no memory of living anywhere else. Emma played the piano, yes, entirely self-taught. Lord Montrose was pleasant if unsmiling. They would leave in the morning, he said, his carriage and driver arriving to take them.
Miss Stram had departed directly after the interview, her small box of belongings already neatly packed and shipped, going to her brother's in Stratfield. She would walk to the train. Emma had seen her to the door.
Shaking Emma's hand briskly once and biding her goodbye and good luck, Miss Stram's glance had been sharp on Emma's clothing, reaching to twitch her collar. It was not an affectionate gesture. The door had closed behind the woman with a firm click, Miss Stram already opening her umbrella against the deluge past the small porch.
Retreating upstairs to a place in front of the window in her simple room, Emma stood with her hands folded in front of her to watch Miss Stram's gray, straight-backed figure slowly fade into the grayer landscape behind her until she was out of sight, disappearing into Emma's past. Emma felt a twinge of sadness, unexpected tears she blinked against. She knew Miss Stram hated walking outside.
#
Emma startled awake when a knock came at her door. She had only gotten to sleep a couple of hours ago.
"The carriage is here. We are leaving shortly, Emma," she heard.
Lord Montrose's voice.
"Of course, Lord Montrose," she called. "I will be right there."
She looked. It was still raining, although now it was blustery, fat droplets on the window, the sound of wind. Emma rushed through her morning routine, the accommodations, combing and braiding her hair over her shoulder, taking the time it did. She put on her best white shirt, unstained, a long row of buttons, the scratchy skirts, her matching jacket over it. Shoes, buckling them quickly. She finally put her wool shawl over all of it, a little threadbare but the only warm thing she had.
Emma grabbed the small trunk by the door, already packed, opening it and setting it on the bed to put in the last things. It held everything she owned. When she reached the top of the stairs she was a little out of breath, Lord Montrose looking up at her.
A man, the driver, came and climbed the stairs to take her small trunk, not looking at her as he returned down the stairs, Emma following. Lord Montrose offered his arm, the driver holding an umbrella over their heads.
"Are you hungry, Emma?" Lord Montrose asked.
"Not at the moment, Lord," she replied.
"We will drive, then. Sherman, we will stop for lunch at the Covet Inn in Sacket."
