Even at my age, I don’t know much of the relationship between my parents and their families. Yule has always been just the five of us, but we usually see extended family over the rest of Yuletide. My mother has two brothers (one older, one younger) and they each have families of their own. The ages of us cousins are a bit skewed because my mother married young and her brothers somewhat late, Clarice the oldest by far and me the second oldest by a few years, and then the oldest of our cousins are boys; Joshua is actually on good terms with them, Robert and Duncan at the same school as him. Herbert, Isabel and Beatrice complete the set at ages eight, nine and three respectively. While I adore my little cousins, we don’t really see each other enough to be close, and they are brought up a lot more strictly, not much fun to play with no matter how I tempt them to misbehave.

On my father’s side, he has a younger brother who never married and yet has two children. As you can imagine, we only know of them so that we can insist we don’t know them. Just joking. I mean, it is something of a sore spot and not brought up in front of the rest of the family (on my mother’s or father’s side), but I’ve met them before and my parents didn’t seem to hold any sort of a grudge. Victor and Victoria, not the most original of names, but they have different mothers whom they live with. Oh and he’s ten and she’s two.

Grandparents are simple half-day trips. They are all quite strict and old-fashioned, so it’s something of a tense visit, but not to the point of unpleasant. Well, maybe a little. I can hold my tongue and pay my respects just fine. It’s not like I hate them, I just don’t feel much love from any of them and they’ve not exactly made an effort to show any.

Considering we only go a few times a year at most, I think my parents probably feel the same.

Anyway, with that overview done, the day after Yule we go visit my mother’s brothers. They take it in turns hosting every year and this year is Uncle Philip’s turn. Clarice is at the age where she sits with our mother and aunts and Joshua always goes off with the older boys, and I end up reading for whatever youngsters are around. I don’t mind, but they don’t let me hug them or pinch their cheeks and it’s very much emotionally distressing.

The next day, we visit my mother’s parents and muddle through the curtseys and bows and speaking only when spoken to and all that. When we get back home, preparations for Mōdraniht begin.

Mōdraniht is, translated literally, mother’s night. According to a couple of books I’ve read, it’s seen as a celebration of mothers for all the cooking they had to do on Yule. I don’t know how serious that is. Religiously speaking, it’s an evening spent venerating female faeries. There’s some in particular that are usually brought up: the Fates and the Graces. Both groups are a trio of “goddesses” (human-like faeries) and feature one who’s a young lady, an older one that’s motherly, and an old one. I’m sure every house has their favourites, but the Fates come up in books a lot, and we in particular offer to the Graces.

Again, I only know how we do it and it rarely comes up in stories. It seems like it’s not all that religious, more spiritual. Our offering is an incense and a prayer that we can continue being good people, and that’s the extent of the ritual.

The other side of it, I’m sure in commonfolk families the kids cook dinner and give mum a night off, right? Like mother’s day breakfast in Ellie’s world. We also do the cards, my siblings and I each writing a letter of thanks for our mother. My father adds a bouquet of pink roses on top.

And then it comes to remembrance. We have a minute’s silence for my mother’s grandmother and her aunt; my father’s side of the family hasn’t lost any women “close enough”, but his grandmother isn’t well, so I include a kind thought for her even though I’ve never had the chance to meet her (not that I can remember—apparently she visited when I was born).

Lastly, I keep my promise to Cyril and remember his mother: Aunt Cessy. Ten years ago, or is it eleven? Yes, it was before my sixth birthday, so eleven. Five years old and he lost his mother. It hurts to think about. The hugs he’s missed, the unwanted kisses on the forehead, the shoulder to cry into.

Aunt Cessy was my mother’s cousin. The pale blue eyes Cyril and I share were also shared by her, and from what he told me she looked fairly similar to my mother as well, acted similar too. She would always tell him how much he’d grown, how he was such a big boy, such a kind boy. While his father was quick to discipline him for being unruly, she would laugh and settle him down with a story she made up off the top of her head.

“When I remember how touching were those stories she spoke as naturally as breathed, it’s enough to make me doubt I can ever be a pebble to the mountain that was her talent,” he said to me the other day.

I’m sure a lot of it is nostalgia, five an easy age to impress, but I’m sure they were also brilliant stories in their own way.

Though I haven’t asked my mother yet, I’m starting to think she was close to Aunt Cessy. While my mother is kind, I don’t think she would have invited Cyril here for dance lessons if he was just a relative. It probably wasn’t the first invitation she sent to his father but the only one accepted. This year, it was me speaking directly to Cyril, so it wasn’t so much up to his father’s whim. I don’t say that in a bad way, but would you think your grumpy and unsociable son wants to go play with his female cousin?

Anyway, I’m getting off track.

Aunt Cessy.

Cyril has grown into a respectable man, hasn’t he? While he might look gloomy, might sometimes get engrossed in his work and show his frustration, he’s a good person at heart. It might be too early to say I love him, but I am sure I will come to love him as warmly as I do my sister and brother in time. He treats me well without unnecessary regard for my gender, a friend in the truest sense, willing to share with me his feelings. I hope to have the chance to show him I am willing to trust him with my feelings too. It’s scary to open up to other people, but I do trust him, even if he sometimes speaks without thinking or otherwise lacks tact.

Thank you, Aunt Cessy, for bringing him into this world and raising him with such love. After all this time, he still cares deeply for you and I can think of no better indicator that you were a wonderful mother to him in the short time you two had together.

I can’t promise I won’t ever upset him, or that we’ll always get on, but I promise that I will try to be there for him if he needs me. And even when he doesn’t need me, I’ll try to be there for him anyway.

Rest easy, okay? I might not be the most reliable, but my promises aren’t flimsy, and you have my most sincere promise.

Smiling to myself, amused at what I just thought of, I stick out a pinky.

Before I can even think the words, my vision is sprinkled with floating red lights. My eyes are very much closed. Heartbeat racing, I open one eye, and a room filled with pinpricks of those lights greets me. Like embers from a fire, they flutter about on an unseen breeze, drifting this way and that. Beautiful.

And I’m jerked back to that time with Evan, when I made a pinky promise with him and emerald green lights appeared. This is the same, but with red, right? A thousand ruby shards glittering in the air.

Like that time, no one says anything. They would, right? You don’t not say something if this happens. I glance either side and they’re just sitting there, eyes closed and heads bowed.

What on earth is it? Once I could put aside as a mild hallucination, but twice?

As suddenly as they appeared, they blink away, leaving behind a mild burn in my vision that disappears after a couple blinks of my own. Not giving me time to think now, my father clears his throat and announces the end of the silence.

I’m stuck in my stupor while everyone else moves on. It’s the incense next, a stick made of who-knows-what that has a pleasant if old smell. My mother sets it in front of the fireplace—strictly speaking, on the hearth in front of the fire.

“Matches, dear?” she asks my father.

He stills, and then his gaze scans the tables. “Ah, I knew I had forgotten something,” he mutters.

Though he turns to the maids at the doorway, my mother speaks up first. “Nora, won’t you? Your magic lessons went well if I remember correctly.”

Still half out of it, I instinctively say, “Yes, mummy,” and shuffle over to her, lowering myself to sit on the floor like she is. Fire magic isn’t great at making fires out of nothing, but starting fires is fine. Incense shouldn’t be hard to light.

I reach out, holding my finger and thumb either side of the stick like I’m about to pinch it, and I hesitate, and then I shake off that doubt. With a murmured word, the faeries respond and a small flame envelops the tip of the incense. But I’m too slow, my hand staying there just long enough for a jolt of pain to send my finger and thumb to my mouth.

My mother blows out the flame, and then calmly yet firmly says, “Water.”

The door clicks open and shut.

“Let me see,” she says to me, tugging at my wrist.

“It’s fine, just gave me a fright,” I mumble, letting her look.

She lightly tuts, not caring for the spit as she checks the skin; it’s sore, but not really more so when she pushes it. Once she’s satisfied that I’m not going to die, she lets go. I dip them in the icy water when Georgia returns with a cup, but otherwise that’s the end of my disruption.

That said, I haven’t disrupted much, lighting the incense the last part of Mōdraniht for us. Well, we do have to stay in the room for the hour it takes to burn down.

Yesterday and today being busy and it being fairly late, no one is all that chatty, Joshua even nodding off now and then, slumped against our mother on the couch. Bless him. Clarice and my mother read, and my father does a puzzle in a book (assorted puzzles, so maybe a crossword, maybe something else).

As for me, I’m thinking.

It occurred to me last time that the strange sight I saw was faeries. I didn’t know why they were all green, though. Then at Samhain, at the bonfire, I saw similar lights in all different colours, and tonight just the red ones again.

And my talent for fire magic, I used it just this morning and it wasn’t that good.

It’s related, right? Seeing the faeries and my talent being better. It also happened again when I made a promise. But I made a promise with Julian and it didn’t happen then, not at all. And I made the promise in my head and not to Cyril? I know faeries are magic and all, but reading my thoughts?

Ugh. Magic’s great, but at least Ellie’s world worked on simple enough physics. (Well, she didn’t do any quantum physics, but I’m sure that stuff is straight-forward once you know it.)

I’ll mull it over some more, yet I think I don’t know enough to really come to any kind of conclusion. Like, it’s not as simple as making a promise, and it probably has something to do with the princes liking me, but Cyril isn’t here? What, did he happen to think about me at the same time? I guess he might have—I did tell him I’d remember his mother tonight.

Well, whatever. I’ll just try and remember not to burn my scalp tomorrow morning after my bath.