Cinderella!John part 2
READ PART ONE HERE
Uncle Rossel and his son Jamie arrived by carriage two weeks later, a small entourage in tow. Rossel Moriarty was a hardened man, the girth of his beer-gut unmatched by his narrow face and short stature, making him look a cross between a bulldog and a spindle-legged cat. Jamie himself was all feline, large eyes and pale skin and a quiet, stalking demeanor.
John didn’t much like the look of them at all, but the 5th Baron of Newcastle greeted them warmly, shaking hands with his foul-faced brother-in-law. “Rossel, welcome to Newcastle. I hope your trip was fair and free of mishaps!”
Rossel smiled, and little John likened it to a picture of a crocodile he had seen in one of his father’s expensive encyclopedias. “Horrid journey, really. It rained for two days straight on the road and I had a horse break its leg while crossing over the foothills. Worthless creature. I slit its throat with a hunting knife and we had its meat for stew.”
Thomas swallowed and smiled tightly, even as Harriet gasped at his side and said, “That poor horse! How could you do such a thing?”
She shrunk back, however, when both Rossel and Jamie turned their dark gazes upon her intently. “Girls oughtn’t speak in a gentleman’s presence unless they’re spoken to first, right Father?” Their cousin Jamie sneered. Rossel was nodding, but before he could voice similar boorish sentiments Thomas placed a supportive hand on his daughter’s shoulders and quickly changed tack.
“And a welcome to little Jamie Moriarty, too. You’ve grown quite a bit since I last saw you, boy, but you’re still so skinny. We’ll have to put some meat on your bones before you leave us—Mrs. Turner’s cooking ought to do the trick.”
Jamie’s sneer only grew, if that were possible. He glared at his uncle and said, “My name is not Jamie, its just James.” And then, strangely, the boy smiled like he was charming the devil, eyes sharp and mischievous. “Thanks for the invite, Uncle Watson. I’m sure we’ll all grow quite fond of one another, don’t you?” His eyes slowly moved to rest on John as he finished, and John could only remember his sister’s warning: Changeling—it means faeries took the real Jamie away after he was born and left a nasty little faerie baby in his place. They’re mean things and lure people to their deaths.
John looked at his cousin and easily imagined a grotesque creature with sharp teeth and brandished claws, waiting to pounce on John and tear into his flesh. The small boy shivered, and was afraid.
That night, tossing and turning next to his sister, John dreamt of Jamie. In the dream, Jamie’s large eyes shined a beetle-black, and his fingertips grew, sharpening to a clawed point. His jaw opened wide, and hundreds of sharp crocodile teeth snapped John up and swallowed him whole.
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Over the course of the next few weeks, it became plainer and plainer that both Rossel and James Moriarty were cut from the same dark cloth, making a sport of cruelty and violence. James was constantly skulking about, and he was often found with his father’s pageboy—a large blond boy named Sebastian with a square jaw and a scar running across his nose. They whispered to each other in low tones, and always silenced whenever anyone drew near. Their conferences usually included Rossel, and upon their conclusion Sebastian would vanish, off on some nefarious quest. Nobody ever saw him leave, and nobody ever saw him return; he was like an apparition, appearing and disappearing without a sound.
James demanded to join the Watson children whenever they went out to play, but he was a poor and spiteful sport. He callously tripped Harriet, causing her to scrape her knees, and pushed John out of a tree for no reason at all. When faced with Watson tears, James would only look boredly apathetic and say, “Don’t play if you don’t like the game.” The servants were all skittish around him, and he treated them poorly, demanding their services at all hours. Not soon after he’d arrived, he forced John out of his bedroom, citing the soft goose-feather mattress in the guest chamber as the cause of his sleeplessness. “It doesn’t matter why, it only matters that I am uncomfortable and I am a guest and I want to sleep in this bed,” he’d stated pompously, standing in John’s doorway nigh-on three o’clock in the morning in his dressing gown, accompanied by a harried servant. He’d sauntered closer to the bed and smoothed his hand invitingly over the duvet. “But this bed is plenty big enough, Johnny-boy, we can both sleep in it.” He’d smiled his crocodile smile and in John’s mind his straight flat teeth sharpened to points and eyes turned black as pitch—
John was out the door before James could even get a leg up on the mattress. He hadn’t slept a wink in his own bed since.
Thomas also was having absolutely no luck getting through to his brother-in-law. The Baron of Newcastle looked more and more uncomfortable as Rossel spent his days drinking, gambling, harassing the commoners and slinking around the estate, criticizing and appraising it of all its marketable resources simultaneously. Eventually, as a last-ditch effort to bond with the horrible man, Thomas suggested a three-day hunting trip that would double as a tour of his lands, with only themselves and a few trusted retainers present.
“An excellent idea, and it’s about time,” Rossel guffed, throwing back another cupful of wine in an excess that was typical of their supper meal. He was ruddy-faced, slightly cross-eyed, and always meaner when he drank. “Though we will take my retainers, as each of them are skilled in the art of the hunt. Honestly, Tommy-boy, your staff are so incompetent and undisciplined. They are soft with freedoms and should all get a good sound whipping, to remind them where their loyalties are owed.”
Thomas looked vaguely horrified, and indeed the servants on the edges of the dining room echoed the sentiment clearly on their faces. “It’s Thomas, Rossel. And my staff are all highly trained and run my household wonderfully, so I’ll thank you to not insult them. Take dear Mrs. Turner for example, she’s been with me for years and there’s no finer cook in all of England, or so my belly says!”
Thomas was very good at that, diffusing what could be an argument between them with a bit of humor. It was only a shame that Rossel’s face got pinched afterwards, as if he’d like nothing better than to come to blows with Thomas and was rather indignant about the lost opportunity.
And so the details for the hunting trip were quickly planned out, and the servants all rushed around to prepare everything the two noblemen would need out in the forest. It seemed, in this brief window before the journey, that Rossel and Jamie were even more secretive. Rossel went into town twice as often as he did before, and Jamie seemed to walk around with a permanent smirk on his face. John didn’t catch more than the shadow of Sebastian as he slunk about the estate.
The whole thing ate at the smallest Watson. There was a deep-set wrongness that filled John’s belly at supper so he couldn’t eat, and plagued his mind at night so he couldn’t sleep. Who did Rossel keep meeting in town? Why did James look like a cat that had swallowed the family canary? And where did Sebastian disappear to every day? What did the three talk about when they were huddled together, whispering in low tones?
The night before Thomas and Rossel were to leave on their trip, something happened that finally tipped the scale from suspicion to realization of danger in young John’s mind. He’d been making his way to Harriet’s room, where he’d been sleeping since Jamie had usurped his bedroom, when a breeze had carried a murmur up through the second-story window.
“…won’t matter soon anyway. He’ll be gone and then they’ll all cry—oh, I can’t wait! I do so like it when Johnny cries.”
The soft, singsong voice of James Moriarty formed a ring around John’s heart and cinched it tight. Barely breathing, he crept towards the window and crouched low underneath it, not daring to look out and possibly give himself away.
“What of the girl?” The voice wasn’t Rossel’s—could it be Sebastian? John had never heard him speak before, so it could very well be.
“Who cares? Don’t be so boring, Sebby. I imagine she’ll be married off to whomever can stand her for more than five minutes. Ugh, they’re all so boring, boring …” He had very nearly sung the last sentence, his tonal inflections making it sound like he was reciting poetry instead of whispering frightening things in the dark. “I’d rather talk about murder, lovely murder … and the jowls of death, with its glist’ning marble teeth, close upon man in his final hour, as dust to bone to dust must return; the bells toll a mournful moan of angels! Oh, Sebby, it’s like music …”
John, feeling sick to his stomach, heard a snort. “You’re completely mad.”
James laughed a nasty, nasally laugh and said, “Oh, but haven’t you heard, Seb? I’m a changeling! A nasty little faerie creature who catches eavesdropping little boys and drowns them in the lake! You hear me, Johnny-boy? I’m going to eat. you. alive! Ha-ha-ha!"
John’s heart leapt into his throat. He knows! He scrambled away from the wall, knocking over a potted plant in the process, and ran straight for his Papa’s bedchamber.
He had to stop this madness, whatever the cost.