Midnight Wonders

5.1.2. The Lambs in the Nursery

There were twenty-four children—lambs—in the nursery. Every time Cora came into the room, and every time she left, she counted their little fluffy heads, one by one. Her ladies helped, of course, making sure the children were all tucked in, blankets up to their chins. It had taken Cora a while to remember all their names; there were twenty-four of them, after all, and they all looked the same. The cards on their cribs helped, and so did the fact that they all had different-colored and different-patterned blankets.

But she tried not to remember their names too hard. After all, knowing them by name was an extra level of intimacy. An extra level she did not need, especially knowing she was going to leave.

The pot of potion Magnus and Symphora had concocted had run out after a while, and now Cora was to make a new batch. Her ladies had helped her carry water to the concocting room; the water came from a place Cora had only been a few times, known as the Reserve, where there was a large pool, nearly a lake, of clean water. Though she supposed she hadn't only been a few times, if she counted the times she couldn't remember.

It took three trips to and from the Reserve and ten buckets of water to fill the cauldron. (She was suddenly very grateful for running water.) It took a half hour for the cauldron to boil, and Cora had to enlist the help of Tulla to light the fire. Then she'd spun the shelf around and plucked one of each lamb part off it to place into the cauldron. She tried not to look too closely at them before they sunk into the bubbling water.

Then to the spice cabinet it was. Cora didn't know any of the spices; she hadn't cooked anything in what, four years? And she wasn't sure, from the labels, that these spices even existed outside. She didn't even want to try pronouncing some of the names. Lavinia took over the spices and had Cora sit and sit the pot. Tulla and Opellia stayed outside the concocting room to tend to the babies in case they woke.

"Lavinia," Cora said, sighing as she stirred the pot. "Is there a concoction I can make that will bring back my memories?"

Lavinia was plucking basil leaves from their stems and dropping them into the pot. She looked up at Cora. "I don't know it, if there is."

Cora sighed again. Working with the children, she couldn't help but think of when she, too, had been a child. Had she been brought up in the nursery as well? Raised on lamb soup like this? Had she thought of the other children as her siblings? Did she have siblings?

She remembered what Mercurius had said about Luc. He wasn't her brother? But who else could he be? Why would he live seven years a lie with her?

"Lavinia," Cora said again. "Why did I leave?"

"Leave?" Lavinia echoed.

"Under-The-Green-Hill. If I'm from here, why did I leave?"

Lavinia shrugged. "Symphora?"

Cora was silent for a moment. "Is she my mother?"

"No," said Lavinia, and Cora felt an odd wave of relief that she instantly felt guilty for. "Stepmother."

"Oh." Cora began to stir the soup in the other direction. The heat from the fire was starting to make her sweat. "She's not doing very well to combat the stereotype."

"What?"

"Never mind." There was another stretch of silence. "So I just disliked my stepmother so much that I had to run away from home?" Cora didn't remember her younger self, but based on how she was now, that seemed a bit uncharacteristic. Even now, she didn't exactly hate Symphora. She hated being here, hated being unable to leave, and she wouldn't mind if she never had to see Symphora again. But hate was a strong thing, a horrible, corrosive feeling. She didn't feel hate. She just felt...frustration.