The Weight of Legacy

Hildegard just didn’t get it. She didn’t understand why Adelheid hadn’t answered, and Adelheid didn’t blame her.

“Do you need a nap?” the old butler asked her. She kept asking things like that. It reminded Adelheid of stories about that ‘governess’ Brother Alaric had talked about. “Well, a longer nap?”

Adelheid was still sleepy, yes. Her thoughts just weren’t working right. She was sad. And some other stuff. She didn’t understand why that kept her thoughts from working right. She just knew it was the reason.

She’d stayed in Hildegard’s room—even though the room was so tiny, the couch was so big, it would have fit two Adelheids. Maybe three. She scrunched her eyelids like Sister Malwine sometimes did.

“Why are you squinting?” Hildegard asked. It sounded far away, because Adelheid wasn’t paying attention. The butler looked in the same direction, probably trying to see what Adelheid was looking at.

Maybe she should have brought her sister.

But that was exactly what was making Adelheid so confused. She didn’t know what to do, and that confusion was making Hildegard confused. It was like it was spreading.

Sister Malwine would have known. She always came up with plans that made sense, but Adelheid wasn’t her. Just because she could know things, didn’t mean she was good at having ideas ahead of time.

She liked Franziska and Anna Franziska was a good teacher. But she also wanted to tell the butler ‘yes’. Adelheid wanted to learn.

To be like the other Adelheid—like her great-grandma—but better.

And Hildegard was offering to help with that!

…But how was she going to have lessons with Franziska and Sister Malwine, if she stayed down here, learning from Hildegard?

Her sister didn’t want anyone to know about her cooler levels and Franziska didn’t understand the system yet. She wanted them to be here with her, but how was she going to get them here?

Adelheid was too confused. Maybe that wasn’t the right word, but she didn’t know the right word, for how she felt, not yet.

She pouted, not getting up from the sofa. “What about my sister and my friend?”

Hildegard moved her head to the side. “Pardon?”

She did like using that word a lot, not that Adelheid got it—saying ‘excuse me’ made more sense, and that was what she’d learned. The more she started to understand adults, the weirder she thought they were.

To her, they used to be untouchable, bigger people that were impossible to understand. Nothing she did made them happy. Now they were… disappointing—that was the word, Adelheid was almost sure.

Getting to know Hildegard was harder than she hoped. The butler had known her great-grandma… and something told Adelheid she knew how {Implicit} worked. She almost always answered Adelheid, even if it was just with one or two words. It was so annoying.

There weren’t enough things going unsaid for Adelheid to learn a lot about her.

“I take lessons with Sister Malwine, and our friend Franziska,” Adelheid knew her sister would have given her a weird look if she head that last part. “Would you teach them too?”

“…I did serve in that role, for your mortal mother,” Hildegard said after looking to the side. “But it is different. I understand your power enough to tailor lessons around it, but mortals would not benefit from that. It would mean more effort would be necessary on my part.”

“But can you teach all three of us?”

“You would have to convince your parents, but I will think of something for your friends to do, if you do so,” Hildegard scratched her chin for some reason. “I doubt your mother would agree, however. As for your father…”

The butler closed her mouth before she could actually say anything, but Adelheid knew anyway. She’d had taken too long to say anything and she’d failed to hide what went unsaid. Hildegard didn’t like her father. He was too old. Like Dietrich had been.

And Hildegard must have known Adelheid knew too. She just sighed really slowly, shaking her head. If she’d been friends with Adelheid’s great-grandma, she had to be used to this. That made Adelheid a little happier, to see the old butler wasn’t perfect—she couldn’t always keep Adelheid from finding things out.

“How old are you, Hildegard?”

Hildegard moved her hand to be in front of her chest and looked shocked. “One does not ask a lady her age!”

“But you said, for the census…” Adelheid tried to remember the age her sister had for Hildegard on the census. She hadn’t tried very hard to remember it, so she had to think about it for longer. Sometimes this wouldn’t work, but it worked now. “Aren’t you 93?”

“Oh, for that thing? I simply answered something reasonable.”

Adelheid’s head turned so fast her hair hit her face. Her eyes were wide, and she couldn’t stop staring at the butler. “You lied? To us? Lying is bad!”

“I simply allowed a coworker to perpetuate a misunderstanding,” the butler said, but she was speaking slowly.

“How is that different from lying?” Adelheid was still sad about her Mother’s family. Hildegard offering to teach her had almost cheered her up!

And now, it was going to turn out that Hildegard was a liar?

“It’s simply customary for a gentlewoman to not state her age,” Hildegard insisted. When she stopped talking, Adelheid noticed the butler would have said she didn’t even have anything to do with the ‘93’ being passed around, however that happened.

She was going to have to ask her sister later. Actually, she could ask right now.

Adelheid moved back to their room, finding Malwine with her eyes closed. “Sister?”

“Yes?” Malwine opened her eyes, turning to look at her.

“If people thought Hildegard was 93 and she knew that, but let them think it anyway even though she isn’t, is Hildegard a liar?”

Her sister’s eyes widened, and she almost looked sick for a moment. Before Adelheid could move closer to see if she was okay, Malwine answered. “Eh, not really. If you want to insist you could maybe argue it’s a lie by omission but that’s… a slippery slope…”

“What?”

“It means that yes, sometimes you could interpret that type of thing as a lie by omission. ‘By omission’ here, it’s when people don’t correct something they know is wrong. But, the problem with that is that if you start thinking of anyone who doesn’t correct other people about themselves a liar for that, you’d be labeling many people liars when they never actually told a lie.”

Adelheid nodded along. “Okay, thank you.”

“Wait, what’s her real age? I need to fix th—” her sister started asking but Adelheid had already left.

Moving back to Hildegard’s tiny room, she pointed at the old woman. “You’re a liar by omission but I’m going to forgive you because I don’t want anyone to slip.”

Hildegard looked confused, and that might have made Adelheid happier than she’d expected. “What…?” the butler shook her head. “Your words confuse me. But no matter. If you can convince your parents, I will teach your friends. For now, tell me—is the power of Bernadette’s grandmother the only Affinity you command?”

Adelheid frowned. Would it be safe to tell the butler? …She did know so many things already. It’d probably be fine. “No.”

Sister Malwine had said they should be careful about sharing their Skills with anyone. Even if this wasn’t going to be a secret forever, Adelheid didn’t want to just tell Hildegard everything. She looked at the floating panel with her Skills. Malwine could have just shown these off…

Adelheid couldn’t, so she just stared at the table.