The Fearsome Name of Riddle

Cousins

1966

"Tosia is Enoch’s sister?" Victoria frowned as she watched Evan Rosier jump at Tosia’s arm as she got him the drink he had been asking for. "And how is she related to Ivan?" 

"They're cousins, first cousins," Abraxas said, an amused look on his face as he lounged in his armchair. 

Victoria raised an eyebrow. Ivan was also their cousin, if much more distantly. Third cousins, as Victoria understood it, there was kinship but to call him family felt a little odd. 

“Don't be judgemental, you've never cared before.” He took a sip of his whiskey glass. “Pandora has all of her fingers and toes, I think the distance between us is far enough, Father certainly thought so.”

Accepting that she knew very little about her sister in law, Victoria shrugged off her brother's comments and went back to watching her son. She liked to try and see Obsidian in the black curls of his hair, clinging to any small similarity because then he was still with her and her beautiful boy wasn't another reminder of her failed love. 

"Do you think Pandora will get bored?" Abraxas asked, bringing his sister's attention back to him. "Cygnus's girls are just so much older, do you think she should be around more girls?" 

"She'll be fine." Victoria shrugged, glancing over to Pandora who was offering Octavian an empty teapot, her cousin simply frowning at her. "Pandora is strong willed, and she'll make friends at school. I wouldn't worry too much." 

“Did you suffer much?” Abraxas asked, tapping his fingers lightly on the crystal glass. 

“I had Walburga, always,” Victoria said, running her finger around the rim of her wine glass and making it hum softly. “And we were all just lumped in together, like that.”

“Hm,” Abraxas hummed with a nod. “I suppose so.”

#####

"It's a potion," Pandora said as Octavian failed to take the little white teapot from her. 

She had placed flower petals and a sprinkle of dirt inside it, stirring it diligently with a stick when her cousins had arrived. Noticed by just her mother and her aunt who had frowned in confusion but had not questioned the little witch about it. 

"So?" Octavian said haughtily, a grimace on his face as he eyed the sloshing ceramic pot. 

"I'll make it poison if you don't take it" Pandora frowned and shoved the tea pot into her cousin's chest, getting the water inside all over his shirt. 

"Ah!" Octavian jumped up, the cold liquid shocking him as it hit his skin. "What is that?" 

Evan laughed as he spotted the wet patch spreading down Octavian’s front. He pointed to make sure Pandora noticed too. "Octavian wet himself." 

"No, it's what's in there." Octavian threw his hand towards the teapot that was still being pushed towards him, knocking it from Pandora’s hands. "I didn't wet myself." 

"Looks like you did." Evan shrugged, a smirk on his face as Octavian became more irritated. 

"No, I didn't." Octavian glared at him, dark eyes ablaze and trying to brush the water from his clothes. 

"But it looks like you did," Evan teased, placing his hands on his knees as he leant forward and shook his head from side to side. 

"I did not!" Octavian yelled, launching himself at Evan as hard as he could. 

Evan fell back with force of it and landed on his back with a thud. Octavian began to thump small, tight fists down onto the Rosier boy’s arms. The impacts stung and the five year old began to scream nearly immediately, his face turning red as angry tears fell from his eyes.