18 ~ December 1921

Their first winter together began, in that year that had seen so many changes.

Isha was jogging in the early snow whilst it was still dark.

It was very lightly snowing, and the quiet house seemed even more calm that way. Isha could only hear the sound of the snow below her steps. It was a quick morning jogging, only a few minutes facing the weather freely, heartily.

And sometimes she could see her outside, that odd woman who came around for a walk from time to time. Isha was circling the domain, then the gardens, and then entered the long field that stretched away into the landscape.

From the small dirt path here she could still see some stars along with the patches of snow falling around the area.

Isha stopped and looked around. It was really the earliest of dawn, but she saw her.

The aged woman was a little further, standing and waiting alone, looking also at the beautiful sky.

She was odd, and an early bird as well. Isha never managed to chat with this friendly figure, since she was behaving like a ghost and soon vanish if she were to get closer. Probably she lived or work in the nearby domain, and was too shy or not allowed to meet her.

Notwithstanding, in these peaceful and quiet moment they shared, there was something nice about her.

Isha waved at her a kind hello from a respectful distance. The shady woman was probably then looking at her back, and replied with a kind waving as well, silently. Isha smiled, seeing that shadowy figure waving slowly a greeting back at her, from under the snow.

Isha resumed her jogging, turning back and heading for the house on top of the hill. She left the odd ghost behind. She knew she wouldn’t catch her, as she had tried to engage conversation countless times prior without success. Still she liked her for how polite she continued to be, and how she also seemed to enjoy quiet morning walks in this pretty scenery. The weather didn’t matter to her.

Whether she was real or not, Isha had learnt to accept her being there, and even to appreciate her presence a little.

As she was reaching the house, the wind came out stronger. She briefly looked behind her shoulder, but the elusive person was already gone.

~

Isha had grown accustomed to the other elusive presence of Esther. She was like the fourth member of their small family living here, except that she could never be seen around.

Every few days or so, there were some news or enquiries to share about her in the daily talks as if they were receiving cards and letters from her.

Rose was writing everything down with a real interest in every talk or story about Esther, or coming from Blue more likely.

Blue was just as eager and happy to share everything she had learnt and discovered from a wonderful journey very far away, each time it happened.

And in a way, it was true. It was wonderful journeys through mysterious lands that Blue seemed to experience. Each time she was returning with new memories from her travel, and from Esther’s past or whereabouts to share.

What had been obviously ludicrous in the beginning quickly became a thrilling way of life for all of them. There was a real passion from Blue, linking two worlds together, and for Rose discovering and participating in the creation of their magical tales.

They had so much passion to share, Isha ended up roped in in a matter of short time, and sharing some of the excitement too.

Sharing their aloof happiness and meanderings was also a part of happiness Isha was getting willingly accustomed to. They were so cheerful about it all, it was a little surreal to Isha. Even though at these times of gentle madness or unbound imagination, instead of feeling uneasy or worried about them, she could feel her heartbeat rising in interest and sharing the thrills.

Before she knew it, she was sharing a seat with them, excited to hear what was new in Blue’s odd tale, and how Esther was doing.

Isha’s position in the family also had grown in a way, evolving little by little toward a family member by the two sisters. It was gradual but clear. When she realised that they were accepting her in such a way, on a sudden afternoon, she was a little shocked to realise how much closer they had brought her to them.

The maid had become one of them in these moments among others, because of some shared amusement and fun regarding these queer tales. Or rather, simply because it was them?

Isha was still working as usual with good diligence, but the boundaries Blue had wished to put down between them went gradually down before she realised it suddenly.

Actually so suddenly that Isha was surprise one afternoon to realise how further back they already were.

It happened when Rose simply brought her a change of clothes inside the bathroom while she was still having her bath. Rose was putting the new denim on a chair for her, and then picking up the older clothes for the laundry later. Isha had naturally thanked her for this without much shame or thinking, as if that situation had been the most normal of things. Isha felt the shame after Rose had left with a mere nod. It hadn’t been anything special to her either at that moment clearly.

Once the surprise and shame were flushed from her cheeks, Isha was wondering what she could or have chosen to do instead?

Isha didn’t think about it enough, and an hour later she was sitting by the fire while drying, wrapped in her towels wide as linen, absentminded. Blue was sitting behind, combing her hair as it slowly dried, slightly envious of the blond shades.

Isha realising what her situation was only too late, yet again, was suddenly flushed in even more embarrassment.

Where had her good behaviour gone? She had painfully learnt as a child to be respectful of her employers, and now was flustered realising how far she had fallen.

But Blue was humming something while caring for her hair, with some clear enjoyment of doing so.

That life was now to sweet and nice, she could never want to let it go now...

If Blue and Rose had definitely adopted her one informally as one of their own, Isha couldn’t help but feel slightly the same way, and thus wishing and behaving more and more like a member of their family.

If anything she felt it as an additional pressure to work well and good without failing, because this was still on frail and cold contractual ground. She didn’t want to waste that chance she enjoyed more and more the benefits of.

And if she admitted to them more and more openly there were still a few secrets from her past she wanted to keep on a while longer, she shared also more of her story along the days.

There was one thing especially she still felt too uncertain to admit to them, but most other things were fine and gradually opened.

On the quiet mornings, during the few minutes she spent facing the cold, the occasional snow and the last whispers of the night, she was also remembering that. The past, and that thing she still felt stuck in her throat too deep to share just yet.

She had already admitted in some ways that she had nowhere else to be in the world... If it weren’t for them, she would be nothing, with nowhere to go. She would have done her best to survive and scrap by in other jobs and far less nice accommodation. Now she had a steady situation, a kind of foster family, a warm household, and even some pleasures in her life... Gains beyond her wildest dreams in the past.

She even now had a new name to prove to herself and everyone she had a new life. A life which she loved.

~

Two funny changes occurred along with the coming of winter. The first one being that Blue’s work, while being quite poorly paid, brought more reliable income than their strangers shop.

Rose stated it openly after computing the numbers, and Blue couldn’t help but laugh about the result.

The second one, which was kind of obvious, was that Rose had been recently buying far more books that she was selling. The gigantic and mostly barren library of the manor was gradually being filled.

She had begun looking into all sorts of fields that could loosely assist with Esther’s whereabouts, and a Bible wasn’t enough.

Since the sisters were helping a little more often Isha with the housework lately, and that working in team could be far more efficient for everyone, Isha found herself granted with more time to herself lately.

She still used some of it to simply go on walks in the vicinity, or jogging around; but she also began indulging in the pleasures of reading books along with them.

She liked mostly the ones that were straight talking about history.

Quite any part of history from the world was good to read about. Europe’s ever war faring countries since the dawn of recorded history. India and Arabia across different times. Persia and Khorasan as the centre of Asia since Alexandros and before. If she had loosely known they were many different countries in Africa, now she had some ideas of the different history to Mali, Kush and Ethiopia. There was also Russia, and its more modern changes she had barely been able to comprehend as a young child.

From time to time she would read with a little of anxiety these books talking about her original homeland, she and her already adoptive parents had left in a hurry near the end of the war. What she learned was far beyond interesting to her, she was more fascinated by this history of an entire continent and array of people and classes, than she was about Esther’s whereabouts.

Russia had never been quite like the other countries of Europe into her eyes, and it seemed now even more that it would never become the case really. Now that their flag was red, that country she felt a link toward was quite a different world from every other. It was more than a different world, it was a small and full world in itself.

It seemed to have so much more... And yet from all she could read in this house, nobody managed to put the right words on it, because perhaps no English word was right for the duty. Perhaps they didn’t have the right words to describe things they’ve never experienced in their history.

And no other country would fully be able to grasp some of it’s true hidden might.

Isha wanted to visit her motherland someday, reading these books about its past and recent history.

Even though she didn’t really speak Russian herself, she longed to go there someday. Even if she felt her home was there with the Herson ladies now.

While Isha was swallowed and lost by history studies, Rose was trying to make her own imagination work, and attempted to improve it by reading novels and fantasies. It still was mostly coming to exercises in futility when she had a pen in her hand and no words to directly copy.

Blue however had enough to think about on her own with what came from her dreams, so she fancied reading mostly things on the other topic brought with her experiences.

Something unexpected at first, but gradually more tangible, on which Rose was also trying to help, at least acquiring the texts.

Blue’s goal was obvious and kind. They knew that and knew better, but outsiders might have been less tolerant about that new hobby of hers.

It began with a book about Roger Bacon. It went further with one about Faust.

With Rose’s help and connections, Blue began to collect and study through all the books related to the occult she could find. She grew an interest in esotericism not as a way to reconnect with her parents, but as a mean to help Esther through her initiatory journey below.

Blue kept a rather rational approach on things nonetheless, skimming with ease with through the archaism of the texts. She was a rather sceptical person on everything beside Esther.

I - Do you have faith in god?

B - I’m not a believer at all... Except for Esther’s truth, as she’s my blue rose.

Blue wasn’t interested in the folktales of various pagan or historical origin, not feeling like she had a void to fill in her heart or sense of self in a wider reality. With her focused goal in mind, she went through the books quickly, looking only for potential help and tools. She gave no second thoughts to the esoteric glyphs and symbols that came without reason or perspective.

Still to someone unaware of her mission, who would naturally believe that a book owned is a message fully believed in, Blue’s growing collection of forbidden books would be seen as eldritch or unhealthy. Blue would have been shunned by anyone else but Rose and Isha most likely.

Blue’s cheerful mood didn’t change despite her researches devolving into the black arts, shamanism and various paganism and other books of different faiths and powers than the Christian ones. And even through the three Abrahamic religions, there still was a lot of forbidden powers to seek according to some of these.

The powers of god, or gods, along with the ones of demons or from the devil, or even the ones of nature and what not, Blue investigated all these testimonies and fantasies, at least on a shallow level.

All this looking for something that would ring a little better, for a way to help Esther becoming alive later.

R - Do you think Esther is closer to Petrushka or Pinocchio?

B - From what she told me, it would be something further in Asia... An omamori.

R - What is its story?

B - I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s even a doll.

Unfortunately, beside crafting new bodies with wood, clay, straw or cloth, there wasn’t anything clear and easy to find in how to animate it afterward. There was nothing obvious with a similar case they could find.

The closest things Blue could relate too in Esther’s desire, were the summonings of otherworldly entities. But these were rapidly involved with the kind of magic rituals that made no sense, contradicted each other, nor were the kind of things the sister would believe or trust anyway.

There was a limit to both what she could find around, and to what was realistic in all these pages. Even if she went to London’s libraries, or the Vatican archives, she would have too much time to spend with too little a chance to find a text really able to help. Therefore Blue met the paradox that encountering such real magical power, had it been real, would be easier to meet and find. She was unlikely to stumble upon a tome of which reading some verse aloud would suddenly bring forth unnatural powers.

It was a logical conclusion that if such power truly was, it would either be already well known and part of natural philosophy, or carefully hidden away...

The more she thought about it over time, the more she realised she had probably not a chance to find anything useful in books sold in common shops and bazaars or flea markets.

If she began to consider what could be the other options for research available, what was left for her to do obviously, was researching the topic by herself instead of through scholarly fashion. To find the great all and secret of the princes by herself was not an easier feat however. She had quite little to start with actually.

These logical conclusions were annoying Blue and hardly debatable unfortunately.

She realised it, and mulled it over trying to find a solution. She was trying to keep a sane and pragmatic approach to a situation that wasn’t logical. No matter how she turned the problem around and thought about it, she could only these two prospects of research to have some minute chance of success.

Either looking for written information in the past, but more out of the usual ways; or starting experimenting by herself.

Exposing her conclusion and discussing these options with Rose and Isha, Blue was the first to say how much she was uncertain that beginning to practice sorcery and holy magic in the yard would be the wisest choice.

To which they obviously fervently agreed.

R - No animal sacrifices outside the kitchen please.

B - Until I have a plausible hint that it could help, I’m not planning to cook live animals more than we need to eat.

I - But... What kind of magic would work anyway? If prayers aren’t enough?

There were more or less old arts around alchemy since antiquity, however Blue had already been through most of them. With the modern progresses of chemistry, she was dubious.

Whether history had other records of more spiritual ways to near the issue at hand, they remained to be found.

Which brought Blue to raise the next concern she had with that side of the problem.

When it came to otherworldly powers, over which they were most records, it was split in two categories. First was the modern occultism trend, which bound to every new fad and technology a little too randomly or eagerly. It was a modern jungle with little history and no consistency. Blue was sorry for her parents who had apparently played around some of these clubs and circles.

The other side with the most records, it was simply the ones from which every religion in the word had sprout and developed, sometimes assimilating local faiths as they expanded.

But an understanding of history and the history of the religions, made everything doubtful again at best in the end.

The most logical conclusion they could reach, it was that this wish was impossible.

Esther’s dream was impossible. And in the end, even Esther’s existence per se was in truth plainly doubtful too.

They were facing a dead end. How could they prove, and help, something that did not exist?

Would the words of a messiah in blue dress be enough?

While their merry life kept going naturally, they all pondered about it. In truth, they were all wondering about it as they would have a hard riddle, or trying to come up with the best possible course of action for a novel they were trying to write together.

And though no solution revealed itself to them miraculously, the snow kept falling slowly through winter.

Time was passing softly, sweet and nice inside.

Then one day, Blue woke up with a different feeling, and a memory from which a proof might later come.

~

The apparent solution had been Scarlett.

Because it was about more than Esther.

It was now something bitter and different, if Blue could reach more than that usual strange memory of Esther living through her sleep, but also communicate with someone who was also long dead...

The problem revealed itself to be different in description, if Esther was not just a spirit born from a hundred years of caring, but the same essence as a dead person. Not different enough to highlight an immediate solution obviously.

But Esther’s situation was left aside for the day to focus on the new discovery.

The fact that Blue might have exchanged a few words with her dead elder sister was now far more important, and disturbing.

Rose wasn’t smiling hearing this, nor was Isha understanding it.

Nonetheless, if Blue was more than Esther’s link but actually a medium or conduit for also Scarlett’s words, and perhaps others as well, things were quite different.

That morning getting close to new year’s eve, they were sensibly puzzled by that piece of news.

Blue the first was less cheerful than usual sharing the content of her dream. Because of what had occurred, and what Scarlett also what she had to tell her.

She could recall the voice of her sister, and repeat word for word a few things she had said at the end.

These few words meant something deeper for Rose, who looked even more stern listening to them.

Through the choice of words and the way of speaking, Rose felt as if it truly had been Scarlett’s speaking.

She could really hear Scarlett’s soul through them and what they meant.

Despite the extraordinary situation they found themselves facing, they all had to work that day.

Following the breakfast Isha had prepared, she moved on to the housework and chores, while the sisters went into town separately.

That day was gray, from ground to skies. Despite the odd morning event, they had to go on with their daily lives, focusing on more pragmatic reality, putting aside that fragment of slightly lifted veil of something else and different.

They had to work and focus, to eat, to continue living and go along their daily needs and necessities.

Only when the evening came and they finally were reunited around a nice and warm meal, could they really start to discuss it.

~

Rose revealed that Scarlett’s words, the ones meant for her, had a small hidden meaning only meant for her to understand; that was beside the obvious allusions.

Scarlett had for some reason chosen something very specific to say, that would remind her elder sister Rosemary of something only them two had experienced in the past.

R - Scarlett and I were not in the best of terms the last few years you know... And on one occasion when we were discussing about my age and wedding options, well... Scarlett spat at me a few mean things, with one above all that came as a slightly off topic surprise. That I would never be able to take real care of you Blue... I was shocked hearing this back then, and she pressed further on that pain. She just wanted to hurt me, and that time, she made me spiteful enough to reply in kind...

S - Me and Elise will always take better care of Blue than you ever will, freak.

R - ... And yet, she will choose me. For the better and the worse, for ever and ever...

Scarlett had been infuriated at the time, alive.

And now recently she would have alluded to it, but with a far different thought in mind.

On this dawn of winter, that meant something utterly different and less provocative.

B - Do you think it’s just bittersweet? That Scarlett is tired and letting go?

R - I think so, along perhaps a warning. To be careful about your future health, and just maybe, to be wary of Esther as well...

~

New year’s eve was right by the door side calmly. They didn’t really care for that specific celebration. Through countless talks and chatters around tea, they were thinking together as a team about the situation, trying to find the best possible course of actions.

Each of them with her personality and experience, their respective knowledge and perspective, they were sharing quite openly their thoughts to figure out what could or should be done.

Rose was a little reluctant still to write to some of their parents’ friends for advice on the topic, but eventually did, very cautiously. She inquired as to whether the selected few of them would have more to say or share about their late parents’ researches on the topic of daiûas. She was keeping it vague for now, and using the generic name they both had hear spoken often while they were children. The fairy tales of daiûas.

A distant relative who had risen to the rank of cardinal was their best chance to get closer to the Vatican, but there was little chance he would care in a good way for these childish stories from his own curious youth as well.

While pondering about who else from the outside of town might bring them even the beginning of an insightful help, life was peacefully flowing on. The days were short and cold, but the life inside remained cosy and comforting for everyone.

The weather turned colder that winter gradually.

One thing they could agree on so far, warming their hands, it was to ask either Esther or Scarlett for accurate historical information that Blue could definitely not possibly know by herself.

That was a difficult challenge but a good and logical first step, in order to prove if these meeting were true. That these encounters were indeed somehow real, and not born from Blue’s imaginative psyche in dreams.

Blue herself was keen to know.

She had experienced herself painfully how things that were real might not be, and how things inexistent from her reality could actually be true. So on this aspect mattering to her, she wanted to know herself as well.

Rose was smiling a little hearing Blue expressing that desire at the very least.

B - When what is above is from below, and what is from below is from above... When you know you can be spared from truth itself sometimes, there might be an absolute form of freedom in there, but...

R - You feel like you want to live upon something more solid, like an island over this existential sea, right?

Blue’s eyes felt illuminated hearing this, looking at her sister.

B - I don’t want to feel like I’m drowning at sea no. I want to have some pillars of virtue for my identity. And finding the truth about Esther with you, it’s a good solid land to live upon.

Blue was smiling, Rose slightly embarrassed, and Isha the witness quite amused by them.

~

Isha slowly closed the door from Rose’s room, just after having wished her a good night. She was going to turn left and reach the stairs, when a sound stopped her. She thought she might have heard a whisper, coming from Blue’s room perhaps. It was on the other side of the corridor beside the stairs. Isha went closer and listened carefully for a second, but it was silent.

Until another whisper startled her. She headed into the eastern boudoir, but all there was to find was the snow falling slowly behind the windows.

She looked outside. The small garden was dark. The field starting behind was a vast area of dark white nothingness. Maybe the odd polite ghost was that tiny form she could barely guess and far away.

Some snow fell from a pine on the left, onto the small shed below. Next to it were the new rosebushes as they called them, now buried beneath a snowy layer. Below them, that would be the family grave she recalled.

Isha was almost expecting to witness a ghost appearing there and spooking her. At least she wanted to, a little bit.

Realising that odd wish she had, she cursed kindly Blue for transmitting her strange desires onto her.

Isha sighed about it and left the small room, not noticing anything else.

She climbed the stairs up to the floor that was holding her personal apartments as she called them, and the huge library around. Her room without windows was like a cocoon, a smaller house inside the wider one.

Inside her bed large enough for three people like her, she went softly to sleep, to dream again...

~

Isha’s dreams were normal and rarely recalled on mornings. Nothing as well spoken as what Blue seemed to often experience.

That one however she had that night was more scary.

It might have been because of the news regarding Scarlett. Or perhaps the other little things that were startling her a little recently were piling up into some anxiety. It might also have been nothing but bad memories resurfacing.

There was the snowy field in her dream, and the odd lady awaiting.

But somehow Isha knew this was Esther.

She went closer, curious, and discovered a woman that was her future self, in perhaps fifty or sixty years or so. Was it her own mother or grand-mother rather? She was looking at her with a severe and nearly aggressive expression.

Isha felt that this presence was dangerous and she ran home. It was the same home.

The house she now spent most of her time in and around.

The sisters were not there and Isha ran around, alone and scared.

Ghosts were appearing everywhere, showing their hands trying to grab her, or their terrified faces at every reflection and window. They were banging against every part of the house, desperately trying to swarm in.

Isha was terrified and looking for an escape or a safe spot desperately.

She ran upstairs, not finding any good shelter, until she reached her room, where the oddest thing seemed to happen.

As she had slammed the doors shut behind, everything was more black than ink in her little shell.

But there, she saw herself sleeping in the bed.

Isha tried to reach for it and herself as if that was somebody else, to warn and help her before it was too late!

But as she stepped in, she immediately fell. The darkness was a hole. Her entire room was the entrance to a pit she had carelessly fallen in. She screamed while her fall didn’t end, the wind blowing against her.

For a split second, she could faintly see walls rushing by alongside her fall, an endless wall surrounding her as if she was falling into a large well.

She saw for another split moment of fright the ground rushing at her. A giant rosette made of mosaic tiling was covering it. She saw wings rising abruptly around as she cried and braced for the end, and woke up.

Isha was in her room, waking up from that bad dream in sweat and sudden jolt.

She recognised her room and that it had merely been a dream, so she could breathe and relax.

She collected her thoughts back, feeling uneasy for a moment. She was fine, it had only been a dream. She was home and safe. She could still feel her own heartbeat pulsating in the small blood vessels of her forehead nervously, she had really gotten sweaty in that moment of stress and rush as well.

The fall in that pit had felt so real. She wondered if that wasn’t similar to what Blue kept experiencing.

~

Isha was seeing and hearing more odd things along time passing by, whether she was awake or asleep now.

Meanwhile Rose kept collecting books and data from every possible horizon, for Blue to skim through and possibly analyse.

Rose was organised and kept the accounts cleans and the inventories up to date. She also collected and re-documented all the possible testimonies she could find. Many of them now were being pulled back from the oddly massive archive of letters from her family and their older and distant relations.

She lacked imagination, but she was efficient at keeping her cool in most situations in exchange. Rose found also herself rather efficient at making the right connections like an historian, between seemingly unrelated events. She could see the patterns where others would only see random occurrences.

Between their hands and eyes, they had all the information they could reach and find. And as for details of the household, Rose was usually the one to organise the most efficient solutions to their every day situations.

The story of Isha’s dream now shared, and her recent observations that were accumulated, she could recognise some details. The link between Blue’s experiences and now Isha’s, over the course of months, were occurring seemingly coincidental and never correlated.

Every event was a small peculiar thing, insignificant in itself. However with that last dream, Rose had found another piece to a wider puzzle.

The hypothesis could change, and string together far more and bigger a picture with all these previously discarded elements. What had appeared meaningless at first now came under a new light to them.

With little imagination but a good memory of these disconnected little things spread over a long period of time, Rose managed to find a draft of what these amounted to possibly. It was still a very early sketch, frail and light, but one worth keeping in mind under the more recent light of Scarlett’s last words.

Although she couldn’t quite figure out how to prove or hopefully disprove it yet, that emerging theory could explain most things so far and open new possibilities. Rose seeing possible dire consequences if this idea was right, she hoped to be proven wrong.

If Blue was to be considered as Esther’s link or medium to this world; whatever the right word was, conduit, chosen one or saviour... In exchange maybe Esther was making her own presence grow around them already.

Maybe although still invisible to them and each other, she was already walking beside them in the same house.

Perhaps she was already around them, much closer than they thought because they simply couldn’t interact directly with each other. That would mean among other things that her presence would be gradually felt more and more by everyone here, until she managed to become even directly visible and maybe even physical.

Isha’s pattern of odd experiences was hinting at a pattern of growth over time.

Esther’s presence might already be growing more than they thought, and be on its way to reach fruition, until she finally found a way to come through in solid matter, one way or another.

~