BURN

2: Embers and Ashes

There's been no news for several hours, now.

Callis looks, again, at the other two girls in the room with her. They both look uncomfortably back at her. 

Hours ago, there had been fifteen of them. Now, there was three.

When the news that the Queen was giving birth had broken, the fifteen hopefuls for the position of nursemaid had been herded into an antechamber and promptly abandoned. Presumably, they were to be chosen from once the child had actually been born, not that anyone had said that to them. Or much at all.

But yes, fifteen. 

Callis tries to count off what had happened to them.

Number One had gotten bored and announced, suddenly, that she didn't like babies much anyway, and she'd get better pay being a housekeeper. She'd left, and about half an hour later, they'd gotten the news that the child had been born. A princess. Healthy, they thought, apart from the fact that she seemed oddly warm. They worried she might have developed a fever.

Number Two and Three left the second they heard that. They weren't prepared to deal with a sickly child, apparently. Number Four followed them. 

No news. Number Five left, claiming she'd got another job lined up. The maids coming down from the royal suites carried whispers;"the Queen", "furious" and "dark hair", and Callis knew, then, that the girl looked just like her mother. Or, rather, how her mother used to look.

Numbers Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine left then. Callis didn't blame them, much. Being responsible for a child the Queen would probably resent wasn't the cushy job they'd expected. 

Hours went by. More rumours. The Queen was fighting with Prince Stefan, the Princess was still feverish, the doctor and the midwife were baffled, the Princess looked exactly like the Queen used to, no hint of Stefan at all--

Numbers Ten, Eleven, and Twelve slipped away. Trouble was brewing, it was obvious. They didn't want to be involved. The older maids and staff told them that when Vanessa was born, her father came triumphantly down to pick a nursemaid almost immediately. 

Something was wrong. Something is wrong.

Callis glances at the other girls. They're both younger than her. One can only be fifteen or sixteen, hands shoved in-between her knees, staring warily at the door. The other is skinny and slight, and Callis is sure she's one of the maids who cries when the housekeeper shouts at her.

Neither of them are equipped for what this job seems to be shaping up to be.

Is she?

Callis stares absently at the fire in the grate. They've had no news for hours, now. This job won't be easy. 

If there's a job at all.

The youngest girl voices her concerns.

"She's… she's not… um... well, they said she was feverish, and we haven't heard anything, so she’s not…?"

Callis gets the gist.

"I think we'd know if it had gone really wrong." She says, but she's not sure. Would they know? If Vanessa wasn't happy…

Well, there was no if about it. The girl looked like Vanessa used to, and she was probably sickly. She was doomed. 

Callis feels a pang of anxiety for the girl. Barely in the world for half a day, and already condemned…