So glad to still have some readers. I know the chapters are looooooooong, although this one is pretty short, so those who are sticking with it are WONDERFUL.



Chapter 6: Every Aster in Hand

“So, what will you give me?”

“No, it’s a trade, Uncle.”

“So, what will you trade me?”

Cassandra paused outside the door to the nursery, listening to the serious business that was occurring inside. The twins were dealing with their favorite uncle, and while she could be sure he was happy to put up with their schemes, Cassandra could never really be certain he wasn’t actively participating.

“Baby for baby, or no deal.”

“That’s no good. I like my baby.”

“Wait!” That was Genevieve, talking too loudly and too quickly. “We’ll throw in all his clothes.”

“I have clothes.”

“Not big enough, Uncle,” Sophia resumed her role as trader. “All his clothes, and some toys, and… Buttermelon.”

Their pony? Cassandra peeked into the nursery, trying to figure out what exactly was going on, and spotted her girls seated on the miniature wicker chairs at their tea table. Leave it to the Branxton twins to cut deals over water-tea and invisible biscuits.

“How about I take both babies?”

“But what do we get?” Genevieve splashed her cup down into its tiny pink saucer in outrage. “That isn’t a trade.”

“You get… to not have a baby anymore.”

“I think Mum would notice,” Sophia informed Genevieve conversationally, slipping into twin-mode as if no one else was there.

“I think she’s going to notice anyway,” Genevieve sighed. “They aren’t the same size.”

“Or hair color.”

“Or baby. Not really. She’d notice.” They nodded at each other in agreement before turning back to their uncle in unison.

“No deal, Uncle.”

“Well, that’s a creepy sort of parlor trick,” Alec pushed out of the comically small chair with some difficulty as Cassandra finally entered the room. He grinned at her in welcome, completely unabashed at being caught mid-tea party.

Cassandra twitched her skirt around the door frame. “Just tell me I didn’t hear you bargaining away your brother, girls. And Alec… really.” Her honey-colored hair swung around her face as she shook her head. It was terrible the way he encouraged them.

“Dad-deeeeeeeeeee,” the tow-headed boy burst through the door and flung himself at Alec, who swept Colby up into his arms and tossed him toward the ceiling. It was a move Cassandra knew would never fly if Anjelica was there.

“See? Here’s my baby now.”

***

If you ask most child psychologists, both in the Wizarding and Muggle worlds, you’ll find that Lainey and I had stunted childhoods. Both of us were raised almost entirely separately from other children, and although we had staggeringly different relationships with our mothers, we both spent far too much time in their respective companies.

The difference in how we grew up depended on that mother relationship. Lainey was friends with her mother, best friends, and she trusted in unconditional love. I was a disappointing doll, and I learned only to trust in Alec.

Meeting Lainey changed my life, as I’ve previously enumerated and as will become more and more clear as our history unfolds, but she wasn’t my first friend. And bringing her home to meet my first friend should have gone differently than it did.

***

“And here you are,” Lucille Cooper paused in her passage through the foyer, eyeing Cassie and completely ignoring the girl behind her. Lucille reached to touch Cassie’s hair in a gesture that almost seemed maternal before she continued straightening and putting the girl to rights. A stray hair here, an upturned collar there.

“Mother, this is…” Lucille cut her off with a slight flip of her hand, more a tilt of the wrist than an actual gesture.

“Not now, Cassandra. Mother has a headache.” Mother often had a headache. Cassie stepped out of her way, back to where Anj waited for her, and Lucille drifted from the room as if she had already forgotten why she’d paused.

Well. Cassie gave their trunks a dubious eye before abandoning them in the foyer for someone to bring up later. For now, she was more interested in introducing Anj to her room. And maybe to her brother, although she was surprised he hadn’t been there to welcome her home.

He was probably mad. Cassie’s letters had been full of Anj since school began, and although Alec’s responses had been inquisitive and chattering, Cassie secretly worried that he was jealous. It would be perfectly reasonable for him to be jealous, considering she’d gone and found herself a new best friend.

“That’s your mom?” Anj hopped up the spiraling staircase in Cassie’s wake.

“Yes.” And judging by Anj’s relationship with her own mother, Cassie could only imagine what the other girl thought about Lucille Cooper. Maybe some secret part of her wished that her friend would say something to justify Cassie’s vague feeling that her mother didn’t seem to like her very much.

“Hmm.” Noncommittal response from one Anjelica Lainey.

“So this is my room,” Cassie shoved open the door with her hip, revealing the summer sun spilling through broad windows across the white matelassé bedspread and ivory-colored dressing table and padded stool. To Cassie’s eye, the room seemed eggshell fragile after the hard-lived furniture at Hogwarts, each piece glowing with an internal significance. The girl who lived in this room was perfect. Cassie felt separate from that girl.

“It’s… pretty,” Anj said helpfully, but her hand went to her forehead as if the room was too bright to look at directly. “Can’t believe everything is so clean. And white. How’d you keep it so white?”

“Don’t do anything in here, really,” Cassie spun in a quick circle in the middle of the room. If she’d ever left anything out, it would be put away almost immediately, so there was no purpose in trying to see if anything had changed in the months she’d been gone. The window was open, which was unusual, and the pillows on the window seat were stacked on the floor.

Oh.

“Wait a second,” Cassie stomped to the window seat and threw up the lid.

Crouched inside, amidst her treasures and dead asleep, was Alec. He’d obviously crawled in here to surprise her and had fallen asleep while waiting. Much as Cassie wanted to be upset about him being in her room, the little puzzled frown on his face only reminded her that he’d been alone all year, with only occasional visits from Brennan to keep him company. “That’s my brother,” she whispered.

Anj peered over her shoulder in interest. “Even Harry Potter got a cupboard, Cass. This is just pathetic.”

Their voices woke Alec, who yawned and rubbed his face before spotting the two girls. He held out a grubby fist clutching the crumpled stems of star-like asters scrounged from some garden, and he smiled sleepily. “Can we play now?”