Bleeding Bird

XIII

Dinner, Helen decided, was quite fascinating. Her Auntie was constantly hosting events which important leaders and rulers and dictators and politicians and public service members attended. They were not asked to speak or give some sort of seminar. They were simply here to observe the house, rest in the comfort of the safest place on earth, and talk. Talk.

Helen nearly grinned when she noticed it—the pattern. Auntie Jude would prompt arguments between her guests. She would incite little discussions here and there, and ask tricky questions. She really just encouraged discussion.

As she glanced down the table at the different people gathered here this evening, she was surprised to see the kid from earlier—Etran. The kid with the chicken broth. He was sitting beside a man with a shiny bald head and a charisma leaking from his every pore. Perhaps charisma was the wrong word. Arrogance is a better one.

She got a better look at the kid now. He wasn't exactly thin. He was a little stockier and had a round face and a blond cowlick. Squarish roundish glasses rested over his nose. He leaned forward on his elbows, occasionally talking as the adults around him paused. He seemed to have left his jar of broth somewhere else, and was now spinning a class of fizzy alcohol.

When dinner ended, Etran and the man beside him were some of the last to bid them goodnight. Apparently her Auntie had a tradition that each visitor had to come say goodbye, and if dinner was agreed to be over as a group, she would stand and everyone would line up, saying goodbye one by one. This was one of those nights.

"Thank you for dinner, Mistress Taft," the bald man said, taking her Auntie's hands between his own.

"I hope it was inciteful," she said, arching a brow.

"Well, it was a business dinner," he shrugged, and Helen saw that slick arrogance in him rage again.

"This is Mr. Warren," Auntie Jude said, "and his son, Etran. They designed the dumbwaiter system on the ground. Mr. Warren is also teaching one of my guests about architecture."

Mr. Warrens continued, and Etran nodded. "We met earlier," he admitted.

"Excellent," Auntie Jude said. And they were gone.

Seven o'clock in the morning came all too early for Helen. Especially since it came at six thirty, when she rose to prepare for her "lessons." She wasn't sure what to wear so she found a simple brown dress with soft blue sleeves. She tide the string belt tightly around her waist, but it could only do so much to hold down her pudge. Drawing her hair into a loose pony tail, she left her room and slipped down the hall, careful to wear her mask in the doorways.

Thankfully, at six forty-five in the morning, there was much already in the works. The cooks were up, the maids were up, the butler was up. She supposed the gamekeepers were up, but didn't dare stop by Donna and Lillian's room to check. They hadn't known her long enough to know she wasn't a morning person, but it felt like they should and they would question her as to why she was up this early of her own accord.

I'm going to then doctor, I'm going to the doctor, she mentally chanted. But this practice did little to help fuel her words when she slipped into the grand grate room with the wall of windows. It was deeply dark outside still. Rain pelted against the windows, and she could just see the shadows of birds dodging this way and that. Her first thought was in direction of her father. Was he well? Did he miss her? How was he faring?

She had been gone a number of days now since she'd been traveling several days before actually reaching her Auntie's estate. She supposed she should write him, but did not even know what to say. So much had changed in a matter of hours. Helen was both speechless and overwhelmed by words. She assumed it wouldn't hurt to wait a little longer.