Chapter 9

Trigger Warning: poem referencing self-harm

By the time he reached his room, Edmund wasn’t angry at all. He was an orphan, would always be an orphan, and was going to leave the mansion. Everything made sense again. He grabbed up his poetry notebook from his desk, chose meter and scheme, and began to write.

Edmund stared at the poem. There. That wasn’t too bad. It was a good thing his humours were balanced, or else the poem might have been overly emotional.

He wrote a few more, equally dispassionate and pragmatic about himself and his life, when there was a knock on his door. When he didn’t answer, the door opened.

“I have come to help the Young Master dress for dinner,” Ung said, squeezing inside and moving to the closet.

“I’m not hungry,” Edmund said, turning back to his poetry.

“Forgive my boldness,” Ung rumbled, opening the closet door and pulling out a massive nightshirt, “but Matron has made it quite clear that she expects the Young Master to eat his dinner in the dining hall at six on the clock every evening.”

“I’m not hungry,” Edmund repeated. “Express my apologies, or whatever you do, because I’m not going to dinner.”

Ung didn’t move. “A good soldier follows orders.”

“I’m not a soldier,” Edmund said, “and I won’t listen to her orders. I’m not hungry, I’m not eating, and that’s final.”

“As the Young Master wishes,” Ung lumbered to the door and pulled out a large key. “Matron was quite emphatic that this was for the Young Master’s own good.”

The door closed behind Ung and the loud click of the lock echoed through the room.

Edmund jumped off the floor and pulled on the door-handle only to hear it rattle in defiant stubbornness.

A good locksmith knows that the function of locks is primarily psychological. There is nothing that a lock can do that a well-handled lock-pick or heavy book can’t undo, and usually without much effort. What is far more effective is the effect on the human mind when they believe that locks are impassible barriers. Then, a thin metal latch is more than enough.

It had been enough for Edmund. The lock on the front door of the orphanage was a bent nail with a thin strap of leather. It was more for keeping the door closed in harsh winds than preventing anyone from sneaking out, but for Edmund it might as well have been the rock of Gibraltar. When Mrs. Mapleberry locked the front door, she expected it to stay closed.

However, as all existential revelations are wont to do, Edmund saw things differently now. Upon hearing the lock rattle in his door, his blood and bile surged in his body, his thoughts not ones of acquiescence.

He wasn’t going to allow this woman to lock him in his room or control his life any more, adopted mother or not. She had forced him into a role he didn’t understand and he wasn’t going to accept it. He was going to escape this world of absent expectations, hateful cousins, and arbitrary rules.

His brain boiling in choloric bile, Edmund did what in later years would cause countries to tremble and monarchies to crumble. He did what struck terror into the hearts of any and all who dared cross his path or resist his will.

Edmund began to think.

He started with the door: he didn’t have a key, so there was no easy exit that way. How far of a fall was it to the grounds outside? Perhaps he could weave some sort of rope from his bed-sheets and climb out the window? That had a certain story-tale flair to it. Edmund tried to open one of the rain- and soot-soaked windows only to find it locked as well.

The two ways out were both locked, but walking through hallways was easier than climbing down walls, so it was probably best to focus on the door. How to open a locked door? With a key. He didn’t have a key, but…

Edmund peeked through the keyhole. Sure enough, his vision was blocked by the thick key still sticking in the lock from the other side. Obviously, Ung had never read any mystery books. Grabbing a pen and piece of paper from his desk, Edmund slipped the paper under the crack in the door and pushed the heavy iron key out of the lock with the pen.

There was a thud on the other side of the door. Edmund carefully pulled the paper back into the room, only to hear the key scrape and pull off the paper. A moment of scrabbling with the pen confirmed Edmund’s fears; the crack of the door was too thin for the thick key to fit through. Whoever had built Moulde Hall had obviously learned from the classics.

No escape through the door, nor the windows. Could there be any secret doors? He had already accidentally discovered a secret passageway in the halls, and where there was one secret door there were probably more. Edmund crawled about his room, inspecting every edge, panel, trim, floorboard, and underside he could see. When he found nothing, he tried again, only slower.

Nothing.

Edmund ran to the Bathroom. The dark gargoyles and grotesques stared down from the walls and ceilings, glaring at him while the storm raged outside. Closing his mind to their harrowing stares, Edmund ran his hands along the thick brass pipes, fingered the levers and wheels, and tapped the porcelain tiles.

Nothing.

The only other door was the closet. Shoving aside the thick hanging jackets and dress shirts, Edmund patted his hand on the thin wooden walls. Behind the trousers, under the shoes, around the cravats, ties, and scarves; Edmund’s hands ran all over the closet, searching for that elusive catch, handle, or knob that would set him free from Matron’s clutches.

Nothing.

Edmund sat down on the floor, his brain working furiously. The door was solid, the floors thick, and the ceiling too far to reach. Think. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the door…How would a Moulde make their escape?

After almost an hour of thought, he took a deep breath. He may have learned a lot about Mouldes in the past few days, but he had been Edmund for longer than that. Besides, he didn’t want to be a Moulde anymore. How would an Edmund make his escape?

Edmund lifted his head to stare at the door. If the door was the only way in or out, and the lock was keeping the door closed, then there was only one solution. He’d have to open the lock.

Locks were simple machines, designed to stay closed unless opened with a key. He didn’t have a key, but what did that matter? If the rich could be poor, and families be enemies, then why should a lock retain its purpose?

There were only two options. Either Edmund had to break or otherwise alter the lock so it opened without a key, or he had to fool the lock into thinking Edmund had a key.

Breaking the lock had its own problems. Edmund was young and not gifted with strength of body, nor would he ever become so during his long life. Other methods of altering the lock would require tools, time, and expertise; none of which he had. Just to be sure, he looked around his room once more for any materials that he could makeshift into a hammer, but there was nothing.

One option down, he had no other choice but to fool the lock somehow. It should be easy, he rationalized, as the lock had no higher brain functions as humans did.

All the same, Edmund had never really thought about the insides of a door-lock before. How did keys work? He needed to know more, and luckily, he had a lock right in front of him that he could study.

Edmund stared at the keyhole. He pictured a key in his mind. He sat, and thought, and waited for inspiration.

Locks. Keys. Holes. Keyholes. Click. Turn. Twist. Clatter. Iron. Dangle. Bolt. Teeth.

Edmund blinked. Keys had teeth, and — according to the books he had read on the subject — dentists used curved metal tools to inspect their patient’s teeth. Could he make one of those tools to inspect the inside of the lock?

Looking around the room, Edmund grabbed the thin brass candle-snuffer from his desk. He turned it over in his hands, studying the shape, design, and metal of the tool, practicing over and over in his mind until he was confident he knew what to do.

Gripping the bell as hard as he could, he worked it back and forth, twisting and pulling until it popped free from the handle. Now he had a curved brass bell in one hand, and a thin metal rod with a small curve on one end in the other.

Kneeling in front of the lock, he pushed the curved end into the keyhole and prodded around. He could feel the contours of the lock’s inside, but not very well. Whenever he twisted or pulled, there was something in the way. He needed more leverage.

A flash of insight, gifted to him from his memory of a book on simple physics, caused him to pull the tool free from the lock and bend it in the middle. Using the door-handle, he twisted it around on itself until the snuffer handle looked a little like the pins Mrs. Mapleberry stuck in her hair from time to time. The thin handle was now doubled back on itself, the two ends next to each other.

Edmund gave an experimental squeeze. The two ends tapped each other and sprang back when he released. Perfect.

He stuck the two ends of the metal tool into the keyhole, stopping when he felt the tool flex. He pushed again and it flexed some more. He pushed further still and the rod relaxed again with a small click.

Carefully, he slid the tool around the keyhole, feeling the contours of the inner lock with the two prongs. As the tool curved and flexed, he pictured lock’s insides and the shape of the key that would fit the strange angles. What sort of key would open this lock? When he was finished, he stared at the key in his mind’s eye. It looked simple enough.

Edmund was about to pull the tool back out of the lock when a curious thought struck him. Could he fool the lock with the tool? He gave the metal an experimental push, and he felt the levers twist inside the lock. Yes, he probably could.

He moved the tool about, trying to press on the inner workings in just the right way. Several times he felt the lock click back into place, and he started over, picking the pieces of the lock apart. Before long he had the brass candle-snuffer bell pressed against the wall magnifying the sounds of the lock as he worked.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Edmund felt the bent-key twist under his hands. A loud click echoed through his room. His hand shaking, he pulled the tool out from the lock, and twisted the knob.

The door swung open.

For a moment, Edmund stared at the wall across the hall from his door. Then, he reached down, replaced the fallen key in the door, and pulled the unlocked door closed.

It was still early, yet. His cousins, Ung, Matron; they were probably all still awake. If he was going to escape and return to the orphanage, he would need to wait until everyone was asleep.

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In spite of the countless arguments among historians regarding Edmund’s character, there has never been any significant or substantiated argument over the idea that Edmund was patient. He spent his time listening to the storm as it shook the mansion with thick black rain and raucous thunder until some time after the mansion struck eleven.

When Edmund judged the time to be a few minutes before midnight, he decided he had waited long enough. He locked his door behind him before creeping though the dark hallways of Moulde Hall, making his way to the foyer and freedom. With each step he reminded himself that orphans running away from their parents was a common thing. He’d return to the orphanage, and they’d all be happy to see him.

Well, maybe not happy, but they’d at least notice he was back.

Well, probably not; and Mrs. Mapleberry would certainly be disappointed, but the alternative was too terrible. He had to go back to where everything made sense.

The faintest moonlight peered through the dark clouds and dusty windows to light the Foyer. A single shaft of speckled light illuminated the clock’s ivory trim.

As Edmund stood there, studying its twisted shape, The clock struck midnight. The clock chime was deep and sorrowful, followed immediately by the deep echoing tone that seeped through the walls of Moulde Hall, shivering deep in Edmund’s spine.

Had it only been two nights ago that he had been so lost and alone, huddled on one of the couches? He looked at the statues that framed the Foyer. He remembered thinking in his half-woken state that they were parents come to the orphanage, judging him, measuring him against their expectations. He looked at the doors and remembered how small they had made him feel.

Everything was bigger here. The iron fence was higher, the yard was larger, there were more trees, more rooms, and more space in-between. Even the lightning was brighter and the thunder louder.

Did he really want to go back? How could he possibly stay?

At the orphanage they forgot he was there. Here, they remembered but didn’t care. At the orphanage he would have to deal with Mrs. Mapleberry, who had been so eager to see him leave. Here, everyone was equally eager, if not insistent. At the orphanage, there were rules, and duties, and obligations. Here, there were…well, here there were rules too, but no one was willing to tell him what they were. He just had to know.

Edmund pushed on the door. It opened with a loud creak, barely masked by the raging storm. The sheets of rain were falling hard, the thick drops causing bits of the gravel drive to pop into the air when they hit.

In the middle of the road, with an ivory skull-shaped pipe stuck in her mouth, sat Matron.

She sat on a wrought-iron chair next to a circular table set for tea. The black tea-kettle sat next to two bone-white tea-cups, spitting steam into the air that mingled with the smoke that leaked from her mouth. Her umbrella was open and set inside a strange hand-shaped mount in the middle of the table, keeping everything dry.

An empty chair sat across from her.

Even in the dark, with the black rain falling in sheets, her glittering eyes glowed from the shadows. With a small puff of smoke, she plucked the bone-white pipe from her mouth.

“Leaving, are we?” she asked, as though this was a perfectly natural time for a chat.

Edmund had no words; he didn’t even try to think of anything to say. Instead, he stepped to the edge of the rain, staying as dry as possible while he stared at Matron through the storm.

After a moment she replaced the skull-pipe between her teeth and beckoned with a single finger. Edmund considered running down the path, but there was something in her eyes that made him jump through the rain and stand under her umbrella, brushing the spatters of soot and water off his clothes.

“Tell me, boy,” Matron said after a long pause of loud rapping of the rain on the umbrella like dice on a carpet, “what do you think of my home?”

Mrs. Mapleberry, a true Englishwoman, had very firm opinions on Lying. She felt that manners and politeness superseded all moral obligations when dealing with others; that the truth was nowhere near as important as avoiding awkward social situations. The Mouldes, as Edmund later found out, also had clear opinions on the truth; that it was for the lazy and unimaginative.

In later years, the Truth became a mark of respect and esteem among the Founding Families, as to overcome adversity while remaining truthful was the upper-class equivalent of wading through a street-brawl using only your teeth. It is not known when this shift of viewpoint occurred, but there is not much clear evidence that it did not occur when Edmund answered Matron’s question.

“I hate it,” he said.

Something glittered in Matron’s eye as a crack of lightning flashed over the distant skyline of Brackenburg. The rain continued to pour.

“Fine.”

Edmund blinked.

“You know where the gate is,” she said, as motionless as a gargoyle. “I shouldn’t like to think that anyone could say I keep my guests from leaving when they have a mind to, and you’ve obviously got a mind to. If you don’t think you can handle yourself here, you may leave.”

Edmund nodded before his ears had finished listening — Matron’s tone would not allow anything but complete acceptance — and he turned to leave.

Then he stopped.

Scholars have poured over this cessation of movement for ages, analyzing Edmund’s history, character, phrenological records, and astrological influences; and they are still no closer to understanding why he did not leave. Perhaps his desire to leave was just the frustrated ranting of a wounded child, and he would have turned back at the gates. Maybe the thoughts of the same weevils, rafters, and the clock made him try once more. Perhaps he couldn’t stand the idea of never knowing exactly what it was that she knew and he didn’t. Maybe he noticed a bit of hope in Matron’s eyes. Maybe he didn’t want to get wet in the rain.

In later years, when Edmund looked back on his life, he liked to think that something vaguely knight-shaped in him took a stand.

“No,” he said, turning back.

Matron’s eyebrows raised in mild surprise. “No?” She repeated, slowly blowing a plume of bluish smoke into the night. “Not many say no to me, boy.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, with a voice as steady as he could muster, “and I’m not leaving until I do. There are six of your relatives here, only Googoltha really makes it seven, and they all hate me, and they hate each other, but not nearly as much as they hate you, and families aren’t supposed to hate each other because why else would they be families? I thought you would be my mother, but you’re old enough to be my grandmother, and you never talk to me like mothers are supposed to, and everyone expects me to do something but I have no idea what, and there’s nothing good to read. Everyone wants your money, or your title, or the mansion, but you don’t want them to get anything, and I’m supposed to get all your money when you die, but everyone else doesn’t want me to get anything, because they want to be rich, but you’re not rich, you don’t have any money, I found that out by reading your books, and Pinsnip told me that no one pays attention to the Mouldes anymore even though they’re one of the Founding Families who everyone’s supposed to pay attention to and how can you be rich and important if you’re not rich and important and I don’t know why I’m getting something when you don’t want anyone else to get anything! I don’t understand any of it!”

Edmund stopped to catch his breath. His heart was beating hard, and that meant that in his chest, stomach, and head, his blood and bile were rushing through his veins, making him angry and afraid. For the first time in his life, that knowledge wasn’t comforting.

Matron reached out with a spindly hand and delicately took an empty teacup and saucer from next to the steaming teapot. With a quick jerk of her head, she pointed at the second cup that sat on the tray.

Edmund picked up the heavy pot and poured what he hoped was the right amount of tea into Matron’s cup. Her eyes didn’t leave his. When he had finished pouring for Matron, he poured for himself and put the heavy tea-pot back on the table. The job done, he picked up his cup and sat down.

For a moment they stared at each other, Matron as still as a statue, Edmund desperately trying to juggle the boiling hot teacup, while the rain fell harder still. A flash of lightning lit up Matron’s face, giving it a corpse-like pallor for a moment before the harsh shadows returned.

Matron took a sip of her tea. “Always drink your tea when it’s boiling, my boy. It makes your stomach strong.” She smirked as she set the teacup on her saucer, replacing the pipe in her mouth.

Edmund brought the bubbling black liquid to his lips. It was thick, strong, and painfully bitter. He choked it down, feeling the hot liquid sear his throat as it sank into his stomach.

He coughed once and looked back at Matron. She looked back at him.

“Well?” She broke the silence with her crackling voice. “Don’t waste my time, boy. I don’t have that much longer to live. What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Edmund said without thinking, fingering his cup.

“Don’t we all,” She shook her head. “I won’t tell you everything; it is a bad habit. Don’t tell anybody anything unless you have to. Knowledge is power, my boy, and you don’t make your enemies stronger.”

“Am I your enemy?” Edmund asked, suddenly unsure if he should continue to drink the molten tea Matron had so casually offered him.

“That’s not up to me, I think,” she said, cocking an eyebrow as she tapped her pipe gently against her cup. “We could be, some day, but right now it wouldn’t benefit either of us to have another front to fight on. It’s good you’re suspicious, though; it shows you’re learning.”

“Am I?” Edmund frowned. “Mothers are not supposed to be enemies to their children. You adopted me. If you want to be my mother, you should act like one.”

“Should I?” Matron stared down her long hooked nose with sharp beady eyes. Her jet-black nose hairs quivered with her fierce breath.

Then, she smiled. Somehow, even with everything he had experienced since entering Moulde Hall, Matron’s smile was the most terrifying thing Edmund had ever seen.

“Very well,” Matron settled back into her chair, taking another sip of tea. “I suppose if you’ve got the stones to stand up to me, you’ll need the brains to back them up. Pay attention, now, I will only say this once.”

Matron took a deep sip of her pipe and blew a dark cloud into the rain.

“I am old. The Moulde family is older. Each of the nine Founding Families is very old, and very powerful. Not because we are rich or because we are important, but because we are old. We built this city. We’ve raised Kings and toppled nations. With the right letter or whisper in the right place at the right time, the Nine Founding Families guide the British Empire like shepherds. Or at least…” Her sharp eyes began to mist over as she stared off into the rain, “That was how it used to be. We don’t anymore.”

“Because we’re poor?” Edmund asked.

Matron’s eyebrows snapped together. “Watch your mouth, boy. No matter how little money we have, the Moulde Family will never be poor.” She put her pipe back into her mouth, and took a deep pull. “No. The Moulde Family has fallen from grace. It is only because our heights were so high and our fall so long that I was able to stop things from getting worse. When my father —”

Matron paused, and shook her head. “When you are important, people listen to you. They don’t listen to the Mouldes anymore.”

“Pinsnip said we’re criminals.” Criminals were certainly people it made good sense to not pay attention to.

“Ha!” Matron spat into the rain, a sizzling bullet of brown. “Do you know what we did that made us criminals? A masterstroke. The Founding Families dragged the Mouldes and the Rotledges together and told them enough was enough; either end the feud and make reparations or get kicked out of Brackenburg for good.”

“And then they signed the Great Agreement.” Edmund filled in from what he had read in the study.

“Not yet!” Matron laughed a cruel laugh. “That ultimatum started another argument all together. Can you guess what it was?”

She was testing him, Edmund knew. He thought for a moment.

“What would be acceptable reparations?” he answered.

“Precisely. What could the Mouldes give the Rotledges? What did the Rotledges have that the Mouldes wanted in the first place? It took two years of arguments, demands, more fighting, more chaos. Only now,” she leaned forward, her eyes gleaming in the night, “the other Founding Families were involved.”

“That sounds worse,” Edmund admitted.

“It was, There’s a reason no one likes to talk about those two years. But then, Patron Falderdahl Moulde made an offer. Do you know what it was?” She pulled at her pipe while Edmund shook his head. “In exchange for a substantial sum of money and property from the Rotledges, the Mouldes would hand over a small fraction of their own, in addition to any remaining coal the Mouldes could mine from Haggard Hill.”

“Wasn’t the coal mine what started the whole Blood Feud?”

“That, and a stupid marriage; but yes, it’s always been about the coal under Haggard Hill. The Rotledges agreed immediately and the contract was signed in less than a week. And then,” Matron cackled, “the Rotledges sent their surveyors to poke around. Do you know what they found? The coal was gone. The vein was dry, the coal long since sold off.”

“And that’s why we’re criminals?” Edmund wasn’t sure he understood the connection. What crime had been committed?

“Not legally,” Matron shrugged, “but the idea that one of their high-born peers would ever lie so blatantly was so scandalous that we were punished in the worst way possible.”

“We were called criminals?”

“Worse,” Matron bared her teeth. “We were thought of as criminals. There is no greater punishment for the upper-class than such commonalities being believed. We might have weathered it if we were as rich as we used to be, but…” her voice trailed off into the pattering rain.

“Where did the money go?” Edmund asked. He knew it had vanished but he hadn’t been able to figure out where.

“Patron Plinkerton was the start of it,” Matron muttered, “and after him came Patron Rotchild, Matron Isaybel, Finnyman, Victrola…Grunder…”

“Who were they?” Edmund asked.

“They were fools!” Matron’s eyes snapped back into focus. “Patron after Matron who pissed away our fortune and prestige in service to their own egos!” She paused, sipping at her pipe. When she spoke again, her voice was measured. “Half of the city still runs on the Plinkerton Engine, and Victrola gave Brackenburg the two best hospitals in the country; but for every genius invention or investment, for every fortune built from our noblesse oblige, there were seven outright failures. Some squandered money, some were dangerous, all of them wasted the time and respect of our…peers.”

Edmund considered this while Matron took another sip of tea. The mansion’s windows rattled like bones as the rain continued to fall.

“You don’t sound like you like the Moulde family very much,” he said. “I thought families were supposed to love each other.”

Matron didn’t respond.

“Am I wrong?”

“What do you mean, ’love?’” Matron asked, slowly. “What does that word mean?”

Edmund opened his mouth and then closed it. Even at age eight he was wise enough to know he hadn’t read nearly enough poetry to answer that question satisfactorily.

“Old hunters love their prey,” Matron said after a moment longer, “and old sailors love the sea. If you live long enough, you’ll love anything, whether you like it or not, as long as it’s what makes you you.” She turned to Edmund. “I’ve lived a very long time.”

“Then why did they come to visit? If they don’t like you, why don’t they just leave you alone?”

“The lure of fortune and esteem is a powerful one,” Matron’s eyes gleamed, smoke leaking through her teeth. “Enough to brave the old dragon’s den. They all think they’re smart enough to convince me, clever enough to trick me, or interesting enough to charm me — hah! Most of the time, thankfully, it’s all done with letters. We’re not the nobility, after all; social calls are a last resort.”

“Why don’t they like you? And why do they all want the estate?”

Matron began to cough wildly. Edmund considered patting her hard on the back, when he realized she was laughing.

“That’s a lot of question, boy,” she shook her head as she calmed down, “and I’m not sure even I know all those answers.” She paused as she pulled at her pipe, and blew a wispy smoke ring. It floated gently through the air before escaping the safety of the umbrella and being torn apart by the black rain. “The truth is, you don’t need to know. When a bullet finds your heart, it doesn’t help to know the heart of the man who fired it.”

“I’d still like to know.”

Matron sighed in resignation. She hoisted herself out of her chair, the popping of bones echoing through the din of the storm for a few moments before she walked to the edge of the umbrella, pipe and cup of tea still in her hands.

“My relatives — the last tattered vestiges of a once mighty family — are greedy short-sighted fools. They have egos bigger than this house and they make even bigger mistakes once they have what they think they want. They bicker and squabble like wild dogs fighting for the last scrap of bone, because they think that is what makes a monarch.”

“Is that why they hate you?” Edmund asked again. “Because they think you have money when they don’t?”

“They hate me because I’m not giving it to them.” Matron sipped her tea. “They never had to work for a day in their lives, having everything handed to them by servants and lick-spittles. Now they want me to just hand them the estate, well… not one of them is going to get a piece of it!”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t deserve it!” Matron’s foot stamped on the ground. “Fighting over bones instead of heading over the hill and bringing down an elephant! Mouldes built the world for over twenty generations, and now look at us!”

Matron’s mouth snapped shut, like she had said something wrong, and her pipe flew to her lips. She cleared her throat and spat into the storm, smoke trailing after like a silvery comet.

“We can be better.”

Edmund thought for a moment. They could be better? Bringing down an elephant? At first none of it made sense, but as he looked at Matron staring off into the fading expanses of time, he didn’t see the gnarled vicious old vulture he had seen before. Instead, he saw a woman who was simply old, tired, and expansively disappointed.

She was ashamed, too.

The realization was like a flash of lightning. Even with all the lace and tea and black clothing, this woman in front of him was ashamed! She was ashamed of her family. She was ashamed of herself. She knew, deep in her bones, that the Moulde Family wasn’t what it could be. She expected more.

Just like Edmund had expected more of himself.

Asking why Matron adopted him had been the wrong question; why would anyone adopt a child? The romantic Mrs. Mapleberry had said it was to find someone to love. Some of the older kids at the orphanage had said it was because it was fashionable. Now Edmund had another idea; couldn’t it also be a second chance?

In later years, long after Grimms, the Battle of Harmingsdown, Matron’s death, Edmund’s marriage, and the ensuing legal battles; Edmund would come to understand that chances were not things that could be counted out like playing cards. At the time, however, the poet in his soul saw that while Matron had been his chance to leave the orphanage, Edmund had been her chance to save her family.

For years he had been passed over by prospective parents as being “just not quite right.” Even the strangest children rarely stayed in orphanages for longer than two years, these days. Edmund had lasted eight. Then, one day, an old woman came out of nowhere and gave him a name.

Perhaps she studied the other children carefully before selecting Edmund, or it might have been luck, but in the end it didn’t matter; Matron had adopted him because she hoped her family would be better with him in it.

At that instant, Edmund forgot about becoming an orphan again. He knew deep in his bones that he would not let himself be found wanting. If his cousins didn’t care about him, if they didn’t think he was notable, if they didn’t see him as worth anything, then he was going see to it they soon did.

It was his family, now, and he was going to make it better.

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