The Sherlock Witch

A Boy No More

Rubbing her hands together to warm them, Rosie was standing by the fireplace, still smiling. Impossible for her to gain her seriousness. Abhi was here and the joy was so intense she could fly.

When she first came to Berkley Manor with her Grandmother, the huge castle seemed frighting and weird. She had never seen such building in her hometown in America. Back in New Orleans, the maids' houses were mere shacks of wood while the masters were living in huge colonial Mansions. But castles? Her younger self had her mouth opened wide when she arrived there. Her Grandmother had to tell her to shut it.

The blue-eyed Young Master had her age. Grinning widely at her, he tried to grab her hand so she could play with him but his father, the giant man with the ginger moustache, grabbed him by the collar. The rudeness and the mean grey eyes of the Old Master constantly on her made Rosie stay away from the Young Master a whole year.

She spent the first year at Berkley Castle helping her Grandmother clean the house and getting along with the white maids who all thought she was cute and smart. The summer in that new country was hot but not like in New Orleans. The only two black women in the Castle would laugh at the complaints of the white maids, all of them turning red by the sun's grace. Rosie thought that England was cold and plain and she missed her home and the smells and the people and her family. At night, she would silently cry, cuddled next to her grandmother's chest, unable to forget her mother's smile and missing her touch.

On the Young Master's seventh birthday, his father thew a huge party. All of the town's rich white people, dressed in weird dresses and coats, with hats that had stuffed animals on it, rushed to the doors to see and speak to Master Berkley. Rosie realized then that her new Master was of higher status than the ones her grandmother and her mom used to serve in New Orleans.  

All the guests brought huge gifts for the Young Master, and the table was so crowded with boxes that the maids had to fill an entire room upstairs to put them in. Dressed elegantly from head to toe, he was gleaming of joy. In a moment of pure innocence, he asked his father once again if he could take the black girl with the blue ribbon to play with him outside. The look his father gave him made him run to his mother's skirt right away. During the rest of the evening, he spent it eyeing Rosie who was serving the hors-d'oeuvres, everyone asking him what was wrong. The guests' children tried to play with him but he ran upstairs eventually, crying. That night, Rosie heard the Old Master beat his son with a belt. His screams and cries could be heard in all the castle's walls.

The very next week, the Old Master made Rosie's grandmother welcome and be in charge of the new family of servants. Coming from one of the Crown's colonies, the new servants were basically a couple and their son. Rosie could not resist smiling at the boy who had the same brown skin color as her. Slim and tall, he had long black hair and was older than her. The first time she saw him, while her grandmother was explaining the ways of the house to his parents, he kept winking at her to make her smile. It was pretty hard to resist such a cute face after all, especially with her permanent blue ribbon tied to her hair and her green eyes. 

They started playing together whenever they could, while helping clean the house. Abhishek's parents were from India, a very poor country according to him. The Old Master had brought them there as a favor to his friend who couldn't keep them any longer, his mother being ill and having to go back to America. But Abhishek's father had an exceptional mind for business and counting. Such brilliant mind could easily benefit Berkley Manor, for the Old Master was not very good at keeping his money right. 

Abhishek was to serve the Old Master, along with his father who trained him in counting and managing money. His mother Priya, a beautiful women with hair that touched the floor, would always comb Rosie's hair while sharing stories of her country with Rosie's grandmother. She soon became the House Cook, being naturally gifted. She told Rosie once that her previous masters, back in India, were ugly and arrogant British ladies who never complained about her food. So she knew the way to win her new mistress's heart and stomach, which she did. Rosie and Abhishek would laugh hysterically, watching Priya and Jocasta make the food of their homelands, imitating the white British guests they would often see. Two foreign ladies in a strange land, making a home of their own.