Chapter Text
I. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
the sprig of a juniper tree (Barnes 1882)
Cordelia had thought it would all be over when her mother suddenly wasn't there. She hadn't known any better, reaching hands, like wings, through the slats of bars toward a sky she could see but never reach. It was one more way of learning how sheltered—how ostracized—her mother had kept her all of her life. She still found herself anxious about her door being opened without warning. Or woke, sweating from nightmares where her mother had made her obedient forever for participating in what had happened. Sometimes, nothing could soothe away the certainty that she'd seen or heard Falada in the dark woods out of the corner of her eye.
II. On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
two turtle doves (**)
Still, she was never less than grateful. Daily, in soft ways. Occasionally, at a fever pitch, for accidentally breaking a vase, ripping the hem of a dress during a walk—as though everything that had saved her might abandon her so easily, shatter to those same shards, snap against the weight of her (too hurt, too broken, too unnatural; too much Doom's daughter). While she could not miss the occasionally bewildered and helpless look in her direction from the Squire, Hester would harump (about the 'uselessness of men') and tell her it was no bother crying over spilled milk, that this was normal for children her age, growing into their arms and legs as geese did to their widening wingspans. (Not that Cordelia was crying; not that she cried still after those four and ten years.)
III. On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
three french hens (**)
Though it had been more than once offered to still turn her out into society, Cordelia preferred the quiet and serenity of the Evermore Estate. Of stealing out across the land for long walks where she only needed to be back on time for dinner (and not because her being out of sight was suspiciously a secret in a world with none). She preferred Alice's gentle nudging in the morning and the evening, the soothing gentleness of her brush strokes, and her sharp, witty, accented advice. She preferred embroidery with Hester next to a fire, or trying not to smile as Lord Evermore smoothed Hester's feathers after she lost her tongue in a debate while Hester pretended she was still annoyed at him and that he might need to be sent packing for another decade (from his own house)—and they both knew she wasn't; wouldn't.
IV. On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
four colly birds (Mirth Without Mischief 1780)
After the spareness of what her mother allowed her to have, no matter how much or how little they'd had while she was growing up, it was hard to feel comfortable with the easy way Hester and Richard were almost always instantly ready to support whatever she might need, or they, or Alice, might think would be suitable for her, or 'a girl her age.' At Christmas, that had been girl's day book, in the supple leather of her favorite color, with tooled twining vines around the edges. She'd been honored (and horrified), and she'd found it a twisted relief to write, in hard, angry letters finally, I HATE MY MOTHER, as she'd once so oft dreamed of doing. But it felt stale. Sour. When she put her fingers to the grooves her pen had dug, she found that it was not only hate she had for her mother still—which was even more confusing. So she started there with that, and first her first night, she ended with circling the line:
I don't know if I am happy, but I know I am closer to it than I've ever been before.