Accepting Fate - (Slums to Riches, Book one)

Chapter 35

Every time she thought about the black mist Thomas and Patricia planted inside her, Angelique's skin crawled. Scrubbing her hands over the basin was not enough. She stropped, hung her wet clothes over the bath and turned on the shower. With a quick spell, her hair hung down to her behind, so she got in and scrubbed her skin until every inch prickled and glowed.

At least she no longer felt dirty inside like she did at the Harlows.

She had a variety of blouses, t-shirts, slacks, jeans, shorts, and tracksuits to choose from, all in various shades of blue. Some looked more like grey, so she chose a tracksuit pants, and a t-shirt in the dirty blue color. She spared a glance at her choice of shoes, but ran out of her room barefoot. 

When she reached the attic, she went straight to her father's diaries. As promised, the note was inside the cover, but she set it aside and read the first page instead. She could not place the language, but the words seemed familiar. By the third time she read it, she remembered the tune Cook hummed in the kitchen. When she applied it to the words, her mind went back to their time in Velunieve. Her mother used to sing the song while cooking or baking. 

She still did not know what to do with the song, but she set the diary back in the chest and picked up her father's note.

Her eyes darted over the written lines and then she snorted. "You definitely wrote this before we left. Nothing you can fit in that chest will fulfill my dreams."

Her three-year-old self wanted to become a pirate searching for hidden treasures. At the Harlows, she wanted a safe home for her family. Now she wished for a spell to cure troubled minds or reverse time.

"I'll take whatever you give, since it will remind me of you."

As per the instructions, she ran her fingers under the chest until they snagged on a lever. A hidden drawer popped open. Thankfully, it rolled on wheels. She did not want to know it's weight, since it too was made of gold, and not the plated kind.

Three smiling faces stared up at her from a portrait, but she did not remember posing for it. Her mother held her against her hip and her father tried to wrap them both in his arms. Seeing them together, she could understand why Jamie said she looked like her father, but her features had sharpened over the years.

"Cook!" she shouted.

Like before, the flutter of cloth preceded her appearance. "Oh. What have you found? Is that a hidden compartment in the chest?"

She hated when people stated the obvious, but she still answered. "Yes, Dad told me to look for it."

"And you only remembered now?"

"Oh, that's right. I haven't told you yet. He and my mother came to visit. It had something to do with his old watch and the mothers. Mom sent the watch here so he had access to the attic and the mothers granted his wish to come say goodbye. I was instructed not to mourn them, so I am not going to cry. Again."

"Ah, that explains the rain."

"I really need to learn to control that. Can you imagine the storms I'll conjure each time I lose my temper? Ugh. Anyway, there was a lot of shouting on my part, explaining from my mother, and a request from my father. Here, look at this."

Angelique handed Cook the diary and showed her the poem she found.

"What language is this?" Cook asked.

"None I've ever studied. I used the tune you sometime hum and applied it to the words. It's a song my mother once sung while she cooked."

"Yes. That is where I heard that tune. For so long it has been stuck in my head."