bluebird {h.s. - au}

.03

My aunt, living in Clinton County, was the last person I expected my mother (my mother! of all people!) to send me to. The last time I had seen her she was half naked, swimming in a disgusting pool of water that looked more like a gross mixture of grass and hay than anything else. Mother had promptly suggested we skip the whole 'Auntie Ida visit', and I was none too quick to agree.

She was Father's sister, a humble beginning of frizzy blonde hair and a waist twenty times bigger than mothers, but I couldn't have helped but liked her. Something in her kind eyes and wrinkled and house that smelled like pumpkins and coffee drew me closer to her.

But she hadn't spoken to us in years.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

On the way to Roselands from Auntie Ida's (I had only been nine or ten), I had heard Mother and Father talking in hushed, angry tones. Father spoke first. "She's my sister. I have a right to see her."

Mother had countered angrily, as usual. "And that right doesn't include the fact that she is a abolitionist, does it?"

Father was silent for a moment, for in those days, words like abolitionist and freedom and slvaery flew around like leaves on an autumn day. "I'm well aware my sister is involved with some, persay, illegal activity involving slaves, dear, but-"

"No!" Mother had shrieked in a shrill tone. "Don't 'but' me. This is a do or die matter, Robert. We either win this or we don't."

I don't remember them ever talking of Auntie Ida again, which seemed strange and perhaps a little crooked even, considering that at eighteen I was sent to live with the aunt I never knew, never trusted. Never even talked to.

But there I was, eating a half soggy sandwich that Elliot, the kitchen slave, had sloppily thrown together in a mad dash to the train station. Betsy had given me a slobby kiss; Elliot the sandwich and Mother--

Well, Mother stood there as Mother always did. I kissed her cheek and she cluthced my hand. She never spoke my name, never said goodbye.

But, that was Mother for you.

Now, a good few days later, the train was finally pulling in to Iowa, in Clinton County. Betsy had announced that someone, or, at least, something (she told me in that hush hush tone adults occasionally use) would pick me up and deliver me to my aunts house. I was expecting a nice porter, perhaps even a carriage or a buggy.

But no one stood on the platform.

I was the only one let off at Clinton County. The conductor gave me a sympathetic look, glancing over my full traveling dress- complete with parasol, but I sniffed and marched, bags dragging behind me, to the edge of the platform and plopped down on the edge. I sneezed.

"Bless you," came a voice from behind me, startling the living daylights out of me. I whirled, hitting the boy in the chest with my parasol. He bent over in mock pain, holding his chest as he grinned up at me cheekily.

"What do you want?" I snapped, feeling very out of place, for the stupid, green eyed boy (well, more of man), was only wearing a white shirt and overalls. Compared to what the men had worn at Roselands, he was practically naked.

"I would very much," he began, mock bowing and obviously faking politeness. "To escort your royal highness, queen Elizabeth Marshall, to her royal highnesses abode, tucked away in the hills nearby." His voice was deep and raspy, dark and majestic. He had an accent from somewhere exotic, somewhere out of time and somewhere exciting.

"Well, suck to be you, boyo, but my aunt's coming to pick me up."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

I gulped, hoping I was not mistaken. "Y-yes."

He smiled, dimple popping. "And your aunt is Ida Marshall, correct?"

No, please no. 

"Never mind, I know she is anyway. And I also know," he continued, pointing at me and shaking his finger, "that I, your king, is here to pick you up."

No, dear God.

But my prayers to some foreign being were unheard as my nightmares became reality, for the cheeky, exotic, curly haired boy with the extreme rude manners lifted my bags up into a rickety old buggy and hopped up into the drivers seat. "Well?" He asked, and I finally knew what his accent was. British. "Aren't you coming?"

In Roselands, I always had people help me into buggies or carriages- no questions asked. But this was him we were talking about, and, as far as I was concerned, this was a freaking contest to see who was better than who. So I hiked up my skirts, placed one boot into the buggy, scrambled into the air-

And fell.

The boy sat there for a good ten minutes, laughing his arse off at my expense. I wanted to cry, wanted to go home, wanted to sleep and never wake up. But I was determined to make this work. For Mother, for Father. For everyone who said I couldn't do it, including that god-forsaken doofus up there laughing his head off. So I managed to get in without much of a problem, and he started driving.

We didn't speak- well, I didn't. He kept rambling on and on about the different people who lived in Clinton County, and I kept trying not to fall asleep as I listened to him. How boring this place sounded. At least at Roselands there was a weekly scandal to keep things going.

Finally he stopped the buggy in front of a little shack, surrounded by flowers and trees. "T-this is her house?" I managed to say, and the boy looked at me in surprise. "So! You do speak! And of course it is, what were you expecting?"

He jumped off and had the decency to help me down from the buggy. I snarkily grabbed two of my bags and he grabbed the other four, leading me to the house door. He put down the bags and knocked on the ragged, torn and scratched excuse for a covering leading to the shack. "Ida?" He called, in his lovely voice. Oh my gosh, I did not just think that. 

He shrugged. "She's not in here-"

"Harry!" Someone called, and we both turned to the side of a house where my aunt stood, dripping wet, and clothed only in a towel. I bearied my face in my hands, wanting to respect her privacy. And then Harry (as I realized the boy was called) actually laughed. He laughed.

"You've got a lot to learn," he managed to choke out, and Aunt Ida scolded him. "Oh, hush, you. Come here, Ella!" She cooed, and I managed to smile at my aunt. I bet she would help me into the buggy. "Your trip must've taken forever!"

I shrugged. "It was alright, ma'am."

"Oh, for heaven's sakes. Drop the ma'am, that was my great aunt's dog and she's dead!" She laughed- well, guffawed, and I laughed as well. it felt nice to laugh at something that was actually funny, not just for politenesses sake.

"Was Harry good to you?" She asked, and I saw him smile at me cheekily and drop a wink in my direction. Two can play this game, Harry, I thought, and smiled brightly at Auntie Ida.

"Yes, of course. He was an angel."