Book 2 Ch 33: Melissa

The only way one could keep secrets from their servants is if their servants were simply dolls whose only purpose was to cook and clean.

• Lady Arbessa

Melissa awoke before dawn, as always. She opened the curtains of her room and stood looking out into the gray for a few minutes before she got dressed. She’d accumulated a rather odd wardrobe for a woman. She still had her old maid dresses, but now she had two sets of butler suits as well. Alongside those were three dresses she never got to wear. She idly felt the fabric of one of them, it was a simple lavender dress with flowers sewn along the hem. She sighed and adjusted her black coat before walking out into the hall.

She walked towards Solomon’s quarters before remembering he wasn’t there and instead made her way to the kitchen where Claire was working. She could smell cooking bacon and toasting bread. She entered the room and watched idly as the portly woman managed a half dozen different things all at once. Claire didn’t work the way other cooks she’d met did. She wasn’t full of vinegar and manic energy. Instead she moved constantly, but calmly. Her every action economical and relaxed, never panicking or rushing.

“Morning dear,” she said as she noticed Melissa. “Grab what you’d like! It’s first come first serve while the master’s away.”

“Thanks Claire,” she said, grabbing a piece of toast and placing some egg and bacon atop it before walking outside from the kitchen exit and leaning against the stone wall of the manor to eat. This would be the only peace she’d have for the better part of the day and she’d made it a ritual to take her time and enjoy it.

Once breakfast was done she did a walkthrough of the manor. The ballroom restoration was nearly complete and the garden had been seeded. The guest rooms needed to be cleaned and aired out, and the fireplaces would all need to be cleaned out soon. She made note of all of this and assigned the maids as needed.

That done she went to the library where she found the lockbox and ledger. She opened it, removing a small row of gold coins and noting it in the ledger before locking it. She went to the ballroom where she saw Barnabus and Bart hard at work with the finishing touches.

“Good morning,” said the carpenter with a friendly nod, hiding his hand as she approached.

“Morning,” said his brother, not looking up from his work until he got a soft hit upside the head from Barnabus. He turned his full attention to her. “Ma’am.”

She held out a small leather pouch that jingled toward Barnabus.

“This is to cover your prosthetic. Please take some time today to go into town and get things started.”

Barnabus stared at the gold for a moment.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t wait until Lord Morrow returns?” he asked.

“He gave me explicit instructions to make sure that you received it once you provided an invoice. Take it,” she said, giving the pouch a shake.

He reached out and took it, carefully sliding it into his coat pocket as if it was glass rather than leather and gold.

Bart nodded. “That’s just like our peculiar lord. I told you he wouldn’t want you to wait.”

Barnabus gave him another slight smack on the back of his head.

“Don’t call him peculiar.”

“I thought I just couldn’t call him a freak?”

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Barnabus sighed. “They mean the same thing.”

“But peculiar doesn’t sound as bad.”

Melissa hid a smile as she left them to continue their debate. Bart was far from the only one to talk about the strangeness of their lord. It was a frequent topic of gossip among the maids. They spoke of his odd disappearances, his tendency to lock doors for hours at a time, his insistence on thanking everyone for any little thing, and his strange manner.

When they’d first come to Moonfallow, none of them had served the youngest Morrow. They’d heard that he was bookish and odd. Felicity, who’d heard more about him from her uncle, mentioned that he’d told her that he was also fair, though could often be aloof. So far all of these descriptors had proven true, though some were weighed more heavily than others. The things that they hadn’t expected were his generosity and understanding. While there were frequent complaints about how he kept the library locked when people needed to clean or wanted to retrieve books, they were always tempered by the fact that he had set aside a section of the library for the staff to utilize in the first place.

There were other things they all knew about their master, but they were unspoken. Their lord who was ill suited for holding anything but a pen had killed trained guards, rescued Felicity by tracking the former mayor through the woods, and survived multiple assassination attempts. He was certainly more hale than when they’d first arrived, he’d gone from getting winded riding in the carriage all day to being able to walk the grounds multiple times a day without issue. Still, they all knew that what he’d done stretched credulity. That combined with him burying things in the garden in the middle of the night and other similar reports of strange behaviour meant that they all knew there was more going on. Still, they didn’t speak it, and didn't question it. He was simply their strange, but generous Lord Morrow.

Melissa herself had seen even more than the others. Every once in a while she’d glimpse his shadow and notice that it had tremendous antlers, or see things packed amongst his belongings that made no sense. He hid things well, for a noble, but it was impossible to truly keep secrets from one's staff.

She had even more reasons than the other servants to say nothing though. She’d never expected to be made a valet. Her ambitions had been to learn a trade, but being a valet at her age and as a woman was unheard of. With how he’d protected her at the Morrow Estate she now had another reason to protect her Lord. When her mother had made her leave for this estate she’d resented her. The woman had always done her best to keep her away from the elder Morrows. Now that she’d seen what some of them were capable of she found herself far more grateful to her.

Melissa passed the rest of the day as she usually did. She helped to clean and manage what everyone else was doing while maintaining notes for Solomon about what was happening in his absence as he requested. At the end of the day she found herself in the library looking through the dozens of books she and the others had collected and placed on the shelf he’d set aside for them. They were primarily romances, with a few adventure stories that Bart and Regis favored.

She was idly running her fingers along book spines when she stopped. It was suddenly very cold. She buttoned her jacket and took a step away from the shelf. She’d felt that draft a few times. The other servants had complained about it as well. Barnabus and Bart had searched for the source many times, but hadn’t had any luck finding anything.

She wandered away from the shelf she was looking at, and moved around to inspect all of the work Barnabus had done on the shelves. They looked good, though looking closely one could tell a slight difference in the color of wood for those that had needed to be completely replaced.

She circled around until she reached the suit of armor and glanced at it curiously. In spite of the fact that it hadn’t moved there didn’t seem to be any dust on it. She ran a finger along it and found it clean. She peeled open the visor. She was a bit too short to see inside so she stuck her finger into it, seeing if she’d need to have one of the maids give it a polish.

She felt a kind of shock and jumped back.

The suit of armor shuddered and took a step forward.

Melissa watched with her mouth agape as it turned around and knelt in front of the gap between the bookshelves it had just been in. It placed a gauntlet flat on the ground and pushed.

The floor compressed where his gauntlet was and the wall tilted back as a small staircase revealed itself heading into pitch blackness. The armor stood back up and stepped to the side, bowing and gesturing with its arms to the secret passageway.

She stared into the dark for a few moments, then walked back to the suit of armor, reaching inside its helmet until she felt another shock. She watched as the wall sealed back up and the armor took its place back where it had just been standing.

“I think I’ll skip having anyone give it polish for now,” she said, quickly walking out of the room, the chill of it seeming to follow her until she made it back to her room.