Mr. Long’s Lessons

Of course, that wasn’t what she wanted to do. Anne wanted to scream. Shake her. Cry. Do a million things. Anything but stop, and think about what just happened. Dead. Mom was dead. Never again would her laugh ring through the halls( not that the halls still existed) of her home. Never again would she smirk before giving her embarrassing lectures about consent every time she played with a boy( she was ten years old, dang it).

Time started to blur together, hours turned to days turning into weeks turned into months. At first, everyone was paying attention to her. She was the only surviving member of the Windwood family, after all. And then, she said the magic word. Bentless. Suddenly, she wasn’t important anymore. How could a bentless child be anything other than a street urchin, someone fit only to clean their boots?

It irked her, in a way it never had before. Perhaps, she mused, it was because she never had a reason to. Now, she was seeing it through their eyes. And it wasn’t pretty. “Servant!!!” Anne shrieked as they handed her new clothes ( Rags. She thought to herself). They can’t do this. They can’t.

They can. Anne stared at the piece of paper they gave to her before unceremoniously shoving her on the streets.

“ Dear Bentless Person,

As a new member of the bentless community, you have several rules you must follow.

You have no surname. Any use of a formal surname will be considered willful deception and is punishable by death.

You will be assigned to serve a noble family. You must obey their instructions, no exceptions. Punishment for breaking this rule may vary, though flogging is the generally accepted method.

You may not accept money for your services. You will be paid in food and shelter.

...”

The rules continued like that for a few pages. Anne stopped reading. The last page had only one sentence, written in plain script.

“As of 467 A.B, Annebeth is property of the Long family, residing at the Hart Manor.”

One word of it stuck out to her. Property. Like she was some object, to be used and discarded. She contemplated not going for a few seconds, before quickly discarding the idea. Where else would she go?

Anne knew the way to Hart Manor, having gone to some parties there a few years back. A few years back, that house was the place to be. Rowdy crowds filled the halls as entertainers from all over the world showed off their talents. If something was in style, you could be assured that the party would be littered with it. The Long family was small, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Long and their only son. The son( whose name escaped her. Collin? Conner?) was only a couple years younger than her.

A few years back, the parties just… stopped. The Longs removed themselves from the public eye. Sighting of them were few and far between. Even then, it was only the husband. Mrs. Long and her son were nowhere to be seen. Despite herself, Anne felt rather exhilarated by the thought of being one of the few to see the Long family after all time. She had been only six when it happened. Maybe she would get to see the son! Concentrating, she could imagine a blurry outline of how he used to look. She thinks he had blue eyes and brown hair. Or was it brown eyes and blond hair? She didn’t know.

Anne shook her head, and looked up for the first time in several minutes. In that time, she seemed to have made her way to the manor’s front door. She took a deep breath, and knocked.

~

“Who is it.” A gruff voice said flatly. “My name is Anne. I was assigned here-”

“Come in.” He interrupted bluntly. Anne scrambled inside. She found herself in a large entrance hall that rivaled that of her home’s. Here’s hoping I don’t blow this one up too, she thought bitterly. She shook her head. Where had that come from? She looked at the man who had let her in. He looked like he would have been handsome, once upon a time. He dazzling hair, an impeccable face, and yet…

He had an aura of dullness, like a faded garment that had been worn too many times. He seemed both familiar and not, a ghost of a man. The man interrupted her musings. “ I am Mr. Long. Pick any unlocked door on the second door for your room. We will discuss later tomorrow. Dismissed.” Anne made a beeline for the staircase. Wait, unlocked doors? What was behind the locked ones. “That’s none of your business.” Mr Long called up, frowning. Oh. She must have spoken out loud.

When she got the second floor, she found a long hall, lined with doors. After some exploration, she discovered two things. Firstly, all of the unlocked rooms looked the same. A simple arrangement with a bed, a drawer, and a small closet. Secondly, and much more interestingly, there were only three that were locked. One door looked just like the rest, fine wood without even a scratch on the white paint. A second had a faded square in the middle, like something used to be hung up there, but was taken down.

The third, most ominously, had but a single scratch across it. It cut deep into the wood. If Anne had to guess, she would say it was made by a blade. She shivered involuntarily.

She picked one of the rooms at random, locking it tightly behind her. She made a warding gesture with her hand, as if to scare away whatever made that mark. One thing was for certain. Whoever( or whatever) had made that marking was not someone she ever wanted to meet. She felt her bent bubble up inside of her, before squashing it back down again.

Blades were almost impossible to find outside of the High King’s inner circle. You had to get a permit to use one, and very little was considered a good reason to have one. Certainly, anyone with one would know how to use it. Which means… that must be there for a reason. And not a good one, either.

~

The next day, Anne woke up bright and early. After a few minutes of contemplation and eye adjustment (She hadn’t accounted for the window in her new room) , she headed downstairs. Mr. Long was there waiting for her.

“Which room did you pick?” He asked, looking very much the picture of disinterest.

“Room 212, sir” I answered stiffly. He grunted. Anne tried and fail to reconcile this man with her memories of him. He was a lively man, bold and overeager in his attempts to impress the other nobility. What possibly could have happened to cause such a drastic change?

“Food will be dropped off at your room every evening. You take what you get.” He fixed his gaze upon hers. “ You will be training to help my son, Cosmo.”

Cosmo. So that was his name. “To help him with what, sir?”

“He has been hired to find and apprehend a local nuisance” He seem to put a particular emphasis on that word, as if he wasn’t sure if he believed it. “by the city guard. He will need someone to guide him. To ground him, if you will. He is a spirited boy, but he can’t do it alone.”

“What kind of nuisance?” She asked hesitantly. Mr. Long gave her a scathing look.

“The deadly kind.” Anne gulped. She said the first thing she thought of to stop talking about this.

“What type of training?”

“Cosmo knows how to fight. I need someone who can think.”

“Then why not hire someone?”

“Can’t” You would think a man of his (former) standing could speak in full sentences, but here we are.

“ Why ever not?”

“None of your business.” He seemed to like like that phrase, she noted.

“ Go to the third floor, second door to the right. Training starts there.” How many floors does this place have? Anne could have sworn that there were only two.

“There’s a staircase on the far side of the second floor.” Mr. Long interjected, as if he knew what she was thinking.

“Thank you.” She walked up. Sure enough, the staircase was there, sandwiched between two rooms. Anne must have missed it the first time around.

The third floor seemed much like the second, abet with larger spaces between the doors. She quickly found the room she needed, and headed in.

The room was empty, except for a long table. Almost the entirety of its surface was covered with neatly stacked piles of paper. A small space in the corner was cleared, with a ragged chair in front of it and a quill beside it.

With a sigh, she sat down, and reach for a piece of paper. It was titled ‘Tactics: An introduction’.

Digging through, she found that most were similarly titled. Some had problems to solve (she assumed that that was why the quill was there), while others just just had information.

As she studied, time seemed to blur together. Before she knew it, it was evening. She headed back for the night, where almost cold food awaited her.

Soon, a routine emerged. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Work. Eat dinner. Sleep. Repeat. She never seemed to run out of paper, each finished sheet replaced by five more the next day. Anne never saw Mr. Long again. It was easy to get lost in repetition. She wasn’t sure if she liked it.

It was several months before she saw him again. Her eleventh birthday had come and gone. That morning, she received a note summoning her downstairs with her breakfast.

“You asked for me, sir?”

“You ship out tomorrow.” Ship out? Where would she- oh. Anne had forgotten why she was training in the first place. It didn’t help that she never saw Cosmo. That night, she slept so soundly that she almost didn’t hear Mr. Long scream.