Werewolf fairytales

Reassuring the princess

*Paisley*

I’m feeling wildly self-conscious as I walk out of the kitchen ahead of the devilishly handsome Mr. Theodon. In fact, my skin prickles all over at the idea that he’s just behind me.

Which is ridiculous. Absurd.

He’s a majordomo, for goodness’ sake. A butler. My mother would turn in her grave at the very idea that I’m noticing a butler’s profile, let alone his voice.

True, he’s the most handsome butler I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t bundle his hair into a little bag the way our family butler, Quirbles, did. Instead, it’s pulled back from his face in a way that emphasizes his brow. His eyebrows form peaks over his eyes.

And those eyes… they’re fierce and proud, like an eagle. Not like a butler. Nothing like a butler.

It’s not just me who sees it either. Back in the kitchen, they all instinctively acted as if he were a gentleman rather than a butler. Fascinating.

My mind returns to the baby. I’m almost certain that Jonas merely has a very bad case of colic. I’ve seen it several times while accompanying my uncle on his rounds, and once in the village itself. But the worrisome question is whether the baby might have something called intussusception, if I remember the name right. That’s when the bowels are all going the wrong way, and no matter what anyone does, the baby dies.

I start walking a little faster. There’s no point in mentioning this possibility to the princess since it would terrify her for no good reason. If it is intussusception, there’s nothing to be done. But I’m fairly sure that my uncle told me that intussusception is always accompanied by a very slow pulse. Jonas’s pulse seemed quite normal, and in any case, Lily hasn’t reported seeing any blood in his stool… another telltale sign.

I start ticking off in my mind all the things I have to do: reassure Jonas’s mother, first of all. Then give Jonas a warm bath, with a little massage of his tummy. I have some balsam in my bag that I can rub on it.

My uncle believed that massage does no good, but at least it doesn’t hurt, not the way that spirits do, or copious amounts of castor oil. My uncle always said that some baby’s bowels just aren’t ready to digest properly.

“Nothing to do but wait,” I say aloud, remembering my uncle’s brusque advice to new mothers.

“What did you say?” Mr. Theodon says from behind me.

Even his voice is bewitching, with its smoky foreign tone.

I don’t turn around but just keep marching up the stairs. “I trust I am going in the right direction for the nursery?”

“It’s just above the portrait gallery where I was walking Jonas, so we have another flight to go.”

My legs are starting to ache. Becoming a nursemaid at Pomeroy Castle will definitely make me stronger.

“How did you learn French?” comes that voice from behind me.

My foot hesitates on the step, then I say quickly, “My aunt was French.” That isn’t true, and I quite dislike telling lies. I’m from thoroughly English stock, whose only claim to exoticism is the red hair that crops up now and again.

“Your aunt was French?”

“Yes,” I say firmly.

“But your mother wasn’t French?”

I feel panic, but manage to keep my invention aloft. “My aunt is on my father’s side, that is, she was raised in a French convent, then joined him in England sometime later.”

“How unusual,” Mr. Theodon says after a short pause. “I was under the impression that convents generally raised young she-wolves of rank. Not that I mean to imply that your family has come down in the world, Miss Paisley.”

“Oh, we have,” I say madly. “Terribly far down. I have to find a position, you see. Because we’ve… because we’re so far down.”

“How far?” Mr. Theodon asks, with interest.

I stop, as much to catch my breath as to glare at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you do sound a bit like a heroine in a melodrama,” he points out, stepping in front of me to push open the door.

“You shouldn’t mock our hardship. It’s been heartbreaking for my family!” I snap, feeling a surge of virtuous anger before remembering that the family in question doesn’t exist.

He looks down at me, and I see something in his eyes that makes me blink. “You must feel neither fish nor fowl.”

I swallow. What I feel is something no young she-wolf should be feeling. “Precisely,” I say. “Fowl, fish, who knows what I am?”

“You are Jonas’s nursemaid,” he says, with a lightning smile as he holds open the door.

I walk through, thinking about what he just said: I’ve secured a position in the castle.

And now that I have a position, I’m not a ranked she-wolf anymore. It feels rather peculiar. My father never employed many servants, but of course there were some. I grew up with Quirbles and a servant to answer the door, the kitchen staff, the upstairs maid and the downstairs maid, and a boy to do all the rest. And now I’ve joined their ranks. I’m one of them, rather than their mistress.

When we reach the nursery door, I instinctively wait for Mr. Theodon to open it for me, but instead he pushes it open and precedes me. I blink at his broad back for a moment before realizing that the butler always precedes a nursemaid.

“Ella,” he’s saying, “the new nursemaid is very sensible. She knew that Jonas needed water, and she boiled it before giving it to him.”

I step out from behind him. Jonas’s mother sits in a chair, the baby clasped in her arms. The princess has the same battered, terrified expression that I’ve seen on other mothers’ faces when my uncle paid his visits. Instinctively, I go over to her and kneel next to the chair. “Jonas will live,” I say as forcefully as I can. “He will not die.”

“Of course he will not,” Her Highness says. But her eyes are haunted.

“This is Miss Paisley,” Mr. Theodon says. “Jonas’s new nursemaid.”

The princess seems not to hear him. She looks up, and asks, “Theo, who is this person, and where did she come from?”

“This is your new nursemaid, from Manchester,” Mr. Theodon says, without a second’s hesitation, though he’s never asked me where I live. “Miss Paisley came with the highest references from esteemed doctors. I know she looks young, but her charges have been special cases, not ordinary infants.”

The princess looks sideways at me, still kneeling by her chair. “Sick babies,” she breathes. “You deal with sick babies.” A tear runs down her cheek. “Do you know what’s the matter with my son?”

“He has colic,” I say. “I’m almost certain that it’s just colic. I can’t give him a miracle medicine, because there isn’t any. And my… that is, the esteemed doctors with whom I worked in Manchester… feel strongly that colic is simply something that a baby must outgrow.”

The princess looks down at her son. “Are you sure? The doctor who was here said that Jonas was too hot to have colic. He does seem to get a fever now and then. And then he screams so much after nursing that it seems he can hardly breathe. If you even touch his belly after he drinks, he cries and cries.”

“He has a very bad case. But it’s still just colic. He will outgrow it.” I assure her.

“And doctors are on their way from Manchester who will confirm everything she says,” Mr. Theodon states.

I feel a tingle of alarm. My uncle is rather unorthodox in his ideas, and I have the impression that Manchester doctors are likely to be far more interested in doling out medicines. My uncle is of the firm conviction that medicines do more harm than good in most cases, no matter what the disease might be.

“But my milk,” the princess says. Then she blinks and looks at Mr. Theodon. “Shoo.” He disappears through the door in a flash.

It’s all a bit odd. I was very fond of our family butler, as was my father. But I would never say shoo to Quirbles. It simply wouldn’t be appropriate, and I might offend him.

“I’m poisoning Jonas, aren’t I?” the princess says. “It’s my milk that’s the problem. I’m killing my own baby.” Another tear rolls down her cheek.

I get up; my knees have started to hurt. “No, you are not poisoning your child. He needs your milk, and in fact, you are doing an excellent thing by nursing him yourself. You have a flair for the dramatic, Your Highness.”

“Actually, I don’t,” the princess says wearily, tipping her head to rest it against the back of her chair. “I’m very sensible, in my normal state. But it’s just been so awful since he was born. Not that I mean he is awful,” she adds.

I bend over and take the baby from her. “This child needs you to rest. Your milk will give out if you don’t sleep.”

“My milk… Whenever I feed him, he screams so it breaks my heart. The sound goes through the whole castle. Moments like this, when he’s just sleeping and not crying, are so precious. Besides, I’m afraid that I’ll come back and…”

“As long as we give him enough water, he will not die,” I say firmly. “He’ll be thin, but he’ll survive. And it will get better.”

At that very moment, Jonas’s eyes pop open. He looks at me blurrily, and then lets out a bellow. Despite myself, I flinch.

“Is that the first time you’ve heard it?” the princess asks wearily, rising from her chair and holding out her arms.

“He has a fine voice,” I say. “No, you sit down. You feed him, then I’ll show you how to massage his tummy afterwards, which might help with his pain.”