still don't know what i'm doing

“Bless you,” Anne called out again. Catherine of Aragon had lost count of how many times she had been blessed by Anne so long ago. Her eyes ached, red and swollen, rubbed raw from days of relentless itching. Catherine turned her face into the couch cushion, clutching the box of tissues tightly to her chest, groaning, wallowing in her misery. This cold just would not quit. A whimper escaped as the burning sensation built in her nose feeling another sneeze coming on. She held a tissue to her chafed nose, wincing as it made contact against the sensitive skin. The sneeze rattled her ribcage, and scraped against her ravaged throat.

“Bless you,” Anne’s voice rang out yet again, just as cheerful as the first time she had said those words days earlier. It somehow made the situation worse.

A wheeze laced coughing fit overtook her, and she turned her head back into the couch, pleading with every higher power she had ever heard of to end her suffering.

“Alright, love?” Jane asked, perching herself on the edge of the couch next to Catherine. She set a cup of tea down for her on the end table, giving Catherine’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

“No,” she said petulantly. Her voice was muffled by her position and weak from the abuse her body was enduring. “I’m dying.”

Jane tightened her grip on Catherine’s arm. “Don’t joke like that. You know I don’t like it,” she admonished.

Catherine could only grunt in response, feeling sleep overtaking her.

***

When she woke hours later, she was laying on her back with her arms thrown over her head, hanging painfully over the arm of the couch having pinched off the blood supply for too long. She wasn’t sure if it was the discomfort in her arms or if it was her own snoring that had roused her.

As she waited for the feeling to return in her extremities after a laborious trial of repositioning them, the sound of her own mouth-breathing, coarse and rasping, filled the room. Her pulse in her ears kept time with her breaths, resounding in her head, echoing off the walls. Irregular and scratching.

She struggled to prop herself up on her elbows.

She really was dying. She’d been here before. Her heart pounded in an unsteady rhythm, sporadically beating in conjunction with the fitful clamor of her lungs drowning in their attempts to expand.

Of course it would happen now, while she was alone.

Catherine was torn between conserving her energy or calling out for anyone in the house to come to her, to give her one last moment of comfort before she closed her eyes for the last time. She lowered herself down once again and brought her hands to her chest, resting them against her sternum in her final prayers.

The Lord’s Prayer brought her peace, each line bringing her more tranquility. Unsure of the effectiveness of the Prayer of Commendation when said for one’s self, she said it twice to be careful. She reached the last verse of her second recitation. “May you rest in peace and rise in the glory of your eternal home,” she took in a deep breath. “Forever in the paradise of God,” she exhaled, slow and steady. “Where grief and misery are banished,

and light and joy abide. Amen.”

With her next deep breath she readied herself to begin her next prayer. But something didn’t match up.

Her hands were pressed against her chest. And beneath them was the firm, unfaltering rhythm of her heart.

But faint thudding still resonated in her ears.

She listened further. The scritching sound wasn’t her poor lungs either. It sounded as if mice were scurrying just overhead. Miracle or conspiracy, her newfound lease on life gave her the vitality to lift herself from the couch and investigate. She followed the sounds to the hallway upstairs.

The soft thumps and scuttering led her to Katherine’s door.

“What are you doing?” Anne asked. She had materialized in a spot Catherine was certain had been empty a moment before. It seemed to add credibility and validity to the claim that Anne practiced witchcraft.

“Does Katherine keep food in her room?”

Anne’s brow furrowed. She tentatively stepped toward Catherine with her arm stretched out in front of her. As her hand came closer to Catherine’s face, Catherine batted it away.

“I’m concerned about your well-being,” Anne said as she reached her hand toward Catherine’s forehead again.

“Stop. Listen,” Catherine evaded Anne’s hand again and directed her attention toward Katherine’s closed door. “I think there are mice in her room.”

Anne blanched. “I don’t hear anything,” she exclaimed loudly. Her words tumbled out of her mouth before she had taken any time to listen.

Laden with bags of dirty clothing and takeaway food, Anne used her foot to open the front door, kicking it with the heel of her boot and leaving a dark scuff mark against the pristine white paint. Her bags scraped against the doorframe and walls as she entered. One caught against the corner of the hallway table, pulling dangerously at her overloaded arm and threatening to send her milkshake to the ground.

“Shit,” she said quietly to herself as she righted her cup and dropped the duffle bag filled with sweaty clothes. Untangling the shopping bags on her other arm, she groaned as the circulation returned to her fingertips, bringing with it the sensation of pins and needles. “Double shit,” she exclaimed a bit louder than her last curse. Katherine’s set of keys were already on the table. Her bag already tucked to the side of the door. Anne had no hope of getting in the shower for at least another hour. She knew she should have come straight home and had her food delivered. She looked at her traitorous milkshake in a tenuous grip in her numbed hand. It was what had kept her waiting when the boy at the counter, so painfully new, had needed to seek out assistance to make it. The Magic Stars and caramel sauce wouldn’t taste as sweet knowing what they cost her.

Resigned to a night that would be later than she anticipated, Anne let her bags drop to the floor, one by one, leaving a trail in her wake as she went into the kitchen to eat the food leftover after her journey home and wait for her turn in the shower.

***

Jane led the way up the path to the door with Anna at the back of the line ushering Parr and Aragon along. Both Catherines had found themselves locked in another theological debate, about which this time Jane categorically did not care. A regular inconvenience, the women would try to hook the other girls in as support for their side of the argument, and Jane did not have the energy to handle a discussion of a matter that held no importance in her current state of being.

As she approached the door, her patience, already being tried by Parr and Aragon moving at a glacial speed as they discussed the merits of one line of scripture over another, seemed to wither out of existence at the scuff on the door. There was no doubt as to who the culprit was. Her irritation was compounded when an obstacle impeded the door from opening enough to allow them entrance.

“Anne! Get these bloody bags out of the way!”

“Sorry,” Anne mumbled around a mouthful of chips, shoving more in as soon as the word was out. She kicked the impromptu doorstop out of the way, not bothering to pick it up or put it where it would no longer serve as a tripping hazard. Retreating from the inevitable reprimand, Anne clomped up the stairs still wearing the boots that had left the offensive mark across the front door.

Knowing no one else would take care of it, Jane set to work clearing the mess in the entryway, grumbling to herself all the while.

No sooner than the final bag was set in the cupboard, Jane’s hip crashed painfully against the doorknob as she jumped, startled at the thunderous cacophony of Anne running down the stairs again, hitting some steps and missing others in her haste. Clutching her sore side, her face reddened with rage, Jane slammed the door to the cupboard shut before turning to give Anne the reprimanding of her lifetime.

A rare curse forming on her lips, the beginning sound was making its escape. Until she saw Anne’s pale face.

***

Katherine didn’t know how long she had been unconscious. Intense flashes of white light, burned through her skull when she opened her eyes. This pain was an unwelcome contrast to the cool comfort of nothingness which she would mercifully lapse into. Regardless, she endured the daggers of light piercing her eyes as often as she was able. Images distorted by pain and confusion cycled through her mind so many times she had long lost the chronological order in which they occurred.  

A blanket, coarse and hot, was thrown over her. A rough hand tucked it around her, jarring her head into the sharp metal pieces her face had been pressed into. She wasn’t sure if the metallic taste in her mouth could be contributed more to the component in front of her or the pulsation in her jaw. It hurt to breathe.

Concrete. She was sure she was sprawled out on a concrete floor. She tenderly rolled her head to take advantage of the biting chill of the surface against her wounds while the rest of her body convulsed with shivering. The lighting was too dim to see past the placid sea of grey.

She felt strange. Weightless and leaden all at once. Her limbs were stone, pulling her down into the earth, yet she seemed to be floating somewhere in the clouds. No. Not floating. She was being carried. She willed her stony limbs to respond, to fight back against whoever was carrying her, but they remained as they were, immobile. Her temple cracked against the wooden frame of a door.

Voices, hushed and indiscernible over the sound of her own pulse. A hand on her arm, a sharp cracking sound, and the hand was gone. She turned her body away from where she thought the hand had come from. The voices, still incomprehensible, rose in volume before a swift kick landed against her sternum.

She was on her hands and knees against the tiles of the bathroom floor. She tried to crawl forward to find refuge but her hand slipped in a pool of blood. Her elbow dropped sharply and kept her face from landing in the congealing puddle. She felt a pang of sympathy for whoever the blood belonged to before she lowered herself to the floor to rest for just a moment.  

Katherine felt lighter than she had in quite a while the day following her adventure through Richmond with Cleves and her night in the fort with Boleyn. With little effort, her shoulders were set back and her head was held high, and when Parr swung a phone in her direction at the end of the show, her smile and giggle that accompanied it were, for the first time in weeks, genuine.

“It’s good to see that smile again, Kat,” Jane said as they made her way off the stage. Her comment was delivered with a gentle pat on the back.

Katherine nodded at her before bounding up the stairs ahead of the other girls, not wanting to provide time for their inevitable questions about her change in mood which would, without any doubt, end the short reprieve that she had found from her worries. Already, Jane’s words were pressing against the base of her neck, rounding her shoulders.

A bead of sweat dripped from her hairline and down the side of her neck as she straightened herself up again. She swiped at it frantically, too much like the feeling of a person running an intimate fingertip where she absolutely did not want it. Skin crawling, she suppressed the shudders as she stripped off her costume and changed into a vest and running shorts. She was halfway into her regular clothing before the rest of the women reached the top of the stairs.

Parr gave her an unmistakable once-over before transparently jotting down a few lines in her notebook. Katherine dug her thumbnail into the flesh of her index finger to keep herself from rolling her eyes at the insolence.

“Alright, my love? Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Jane caught her arm as she was collecting the last of her belongings, shoving them into her bag so she could make her getaway. Her words were saccharine, laid on thick and heavy, drowning her irritation and distress in honey.

“Yeah. I want to beat Anne home so I can get a shower in before bed. You know how she takes an age in there,” Katherine matched Jane’s sugared tone, masking her own irritation only marginally better than Jane had. She pulled her arm from Jane’s grip, picked up her headphones and turned to walk out the door, praying that she had enough of a headstart to be in bed by the time the others got home.

***

When the front door shut behind her, Katherine sighed in relief. Home at last. She had only just made the train as the doors slid shut behind her. Ignoring an elderly couple that shook their heads at her daring leap through the closing doors, she allowed herself to be quite pleased with her timing and leant against the plexiglass partition, her back to those unappreciative of her luck. She let her bag drop to the floor and nudged it to the side with her foot before heading up the stairs.

She was halfway through the door into the bathroom when something broke her from her reverie. She wasn’t sure what it was that had pulled her from her daydream of sunbathing on a beach with a cocktail in hand. At first she worried that the others had been right behind her and had arrived home, but remembered that the next train wouldn’t have left until twenty minutes after her departure. A strange noise, but she was unable to tell whether it had come from her musings, or if it had come from something in the house.

She paused to listen. The hallway was dark. The only illumination came from the small strip of light beneath Anne’s door. Anne never remembered to turn out all the lights before she left. Katherine stood still, fixed to the spot, waiting.

Nothing.

And then her door opened.

“Hello, darling,” a gruff voice greeted her. One she instantly recognized. Bile rose in her throat, threatening to spill all over him. Mannox might have been the face in the crowd, but Dereham was the one before her.

A gloved hand reached out toward her. Katherine flung herself backwards, swinging the bathroom door shut to try and separate herself from him. Before the door could latch, his foot found its way through.

He threw his weight into the door. Katherine’s tiny frame pressed against it was not enough to keep the force of his momentum from entering the room. The door crashed open, sending her small body flying into the towel rack. All of the air was driven from her lungs at the impact, her ribs constricted painfully after colliding against the railing. She found herself on the floor, clutching the metal bar that had detached from the wall. Bits of plaster flaked around her, settling as they fell from each end of the bar and the wall behind her.

Her oxygen-deprived brain let a momentary thought of just how angry the other girls would be when they saw she had made such a mess of things again before snapping back to the reality in front of her. Her moment of shock was replaced by rage. Incensed at the audacity of the man, she dodged out of his grasp again. She kicked at him futilely, until she was able to get back to her feet.

A brief impasse occurred, both Katherine and Dereham assessing the situation they had found themselves in. She didn’t know who made the first move but before she had a chance to think about it, Dereham was closing the short distance between them and she was swinging her impromptu weapon in his direction.

Though her intended target had launched himself at her, she still hit a mark, smiling to herself when she heard the crack of the metal bar against the man’s shoulder. It was enough to throw him off balance and create a gap between him and the door. She hurled herself through it, but came up short when his hand closed around her upper arm. He spun her to face him, not relinquishing his hold on her despite her twisting and wrenching. His hold was too tight for her to be able to swing the bar again. He squeezed until the railing dropped from her hand and all she was left to defend herself with was her enraged kicking, striking anywhere she could reach.

A fist struck her in the jaw.

Flashes of white light shattered her vision. She landed on the floor. Blood filled her mouth as she rolled to her side, trying to get up again. She’d made it up onto her elbows before the first kick landed on her stomach, followed quickly by a second and third kick - these to her ribs.

Her fingers dug uselessly into the bath mat as she scrambled to get away, black spots filling her vision. She couldn’t breathe.

Cleves didn’t know what it was about her presence that comforted Katherine, but she wasn’t going to waste her time questioning it. Though dubious about Katherine’s choice of housemate to seek consolation and support at first, it quickly became evident that the rest of the inhabitants were either inept or pursuing their own agenda to appease their personal traumas.

As she watched the others’ schemes fall to pieces or their good intentions dig their way beneath Katherine’s skin, she had to put her particular anxieties and past ordeals into check. She had previously been keeping Katherine at arm’s length, the desolation of having lost her once too much for her to overcome, she wasn’t about to open herself back up to withstanding that torment. Until she wasn’t given a choice. Until Katherine, just as she had before, flashed those wide, terrified eyes in her direction and Cleves’ apathetic, frigid front went to rack and ruin. Wrapped around Katherine’s little finger, malleable, pliant, and entirely at her mercy, Cleves was reminded of just how much she adored her before.    

Since her first disastrous attempts to discuss what had happened, Katherine had refused to bring up the topic. She chose, instead, to turn in on herself more and more, until she was hardly recognizable, a mere shadow of herself. Cleves could understand the change in her composure, considering that not one of them bothered to listen to her when she tried to explain. All of them thought they knew better than she did, so intelligent with their own theories about what caused her “funny turn” and with Katherine so young, impressionable, even weak. Cleves wasn’t so sure. She irrefutably believed that Katherine was not some frail thing to be wrapped in cotton wool. She hadn’t seen anything in that crowd or in any subsequent crowd; however, she wasn’t about to doubt the visceral reaction that the girl had. Every night, she prayed she would not look over and see panicked eyes turned to her. No matter how often she would look back out into the sea of faces where Katherine’s gaze would direct her, she could never find the one that instigated such turmoil within her friend.

Cleves would never admit it, but she was just as much at a loss for how to help Katherine as the others. When their questions turned from casual, curious, well-meaning asking into interrogations, she had no information to provide. When their interrogations turned into something Cleves imagined was akin to threats of an inquisition styled after the Crusades, she legitimately had nothing to offer them.  She liked to think that even if she had known something, she would never divulge those secrets entrusted to her, but with the impact on Katherine’s well-being, she wasn’t sure she would be able to shoulder that burden on her own.

When an opportunity presented itself one morning for both her and Katherine to have an entire day with nothing booked, Cleves saw her perfect window to provide Katherine with some much-needed time to get out of the house, away from the others, and put some distance between herself and her troubles.

She broached the topic of getting away for the day that same morning. Katherine gave her a long, vacant look in response. Heart in her stomach, Cleves thought her absence in the moment was a direct result of crossing the line she had been dancing upon for weeks, as though she had been revealed for exactly what she was, another person in Katherine’s life that was trying to slap a bandage on a situation she could not even begin to understand.

A gaudy clock on the kitchen wall kept time of each passing second, echoing torturously throughout the room, until Cleves was certain an eternity had passed between them. After many prayers that the ground would open beneath her, Cleves released the breath she had been holding when Katherine gave a small nod.

***

Katherine’s hesitancy at the suggestion of a day out ebbed away as she readied herself for their excursion. By the time they alighted from the bus at their destination, Cleves could feel Katherine’s eagerness and curiosity buzzing intensely from her. Cleves found her excitement endearing, seeing the bright, cheerful girl that had been missing for far too long. She had to hide the grin on her face when Katherine had reached out to take her hand as they started down the road.

“This way,” Cleves directed her, down an alley between a Gregg’s and a fish and chip shop. Astonished at Katherine’s implicit trust in her, she guided her down another dodgy side street, stepping gingerly over puddles of substances neither one of them wanted to think about. When Katherine didn’t even question the instruction to slip through a gap in an old fence, Cleves gave the hand in hers a squeeze. “We can go back, you know. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Katherine’s face scrunched from more than the lingering smell of the alley before relaxing quickly again. It was the look that she had been giving Jane and the others nearly every interaction she had with them. Cleves feared that she had ruined the moment, questioning Katherine’s ability to handle something completely within her control.

“If I didn’t know where you were taking me, I’m not sure what my answer would be,” she admitted, squeezing Cleves’ hand in return. “But things haven’t changed all that much in the last 500 years that I don’t know where we are or what we are doing.” She grinned impishly and tugged Cleves forward into the wooded area, stepping lightly on the soft earth at the border of the park, and dragging her through the thicket looking for familiar markers to take along a path that time had all but forgotten.

***

Hours later, as the soft golden hues of sunset highlighted the strands of hair that had escaped the confines of her bun, Katherine walked through the doorway to the house unencumbered by the problems that had been plaguing her. A day of traipsing through nature, getting snagged on branches and thorns, spotting wildlife, and reconnecting with an old friend had done her spirits wonders. The positive effect of which extended on toward Boleyn, who, upon Katherine’s arrival home, had leapt on her nearly the second she stepped foot into the house.

“God! Where have you been? It looks like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, twice over,” she screeched as she pulled a pine needle from Katherine’s hair. “I’ve been waiting ages for you to get home! Thanks, Anna, I’ve got her from here,” she said waving a dismissive hand in Cleves’ direction.

Cleves rolled her eyes at her and announced she was going to take a shower. She tilted her head toward Boleyn and raised her eyebrows at Katherine. Katherine gave her a small smile and a nod, letting her know that she would be fine, despite what her cousin had in store for her.

“I’ve got everything set up!” Boleyn continued. She licked her thumb and reached out toward Katherine’s cheek, presumably to wipe away a smear of dirt or pollen. She tutted when Katherine swatted her hand away.

Katherine followed her, a bit begrudgingly into the living room. Chairs had been swiped from the kitchen and were placed at various points around the room. Duvets and sheets were draped over every available surface, hanging from the bookshelves, over the couch and chairs, and clipped to the lighting fixtures. Katherine spotted several towels, scarves, and even jackets among the folds of fabric. Fairy lights had been strung along an entrance, held open with a broom, and she wondered just how angry Jane was going to be when she saw this mess.

Parr drained her soda water, dropping the glass back onto the tabletop. The wooden surface had been marred with nicks and gouges from years of abuse. Initials carved into the veneer finish glared at her, ugly and pretentious. Parr was unnerved to see her own “CP” paired with a “DS.” Circles of condensation from her drink in the place in front of her further defaced the table, and as she dragged her glass through them, connecting one to another and leaving behind a trail of moisture, she realized she was further nettling herself with the mess.

She hated this pub. It was dark, dirty, and woefully understaffed. She shuddered wondering when the last time the table had been wiped down.

The sight in front of her did little to diminish her detestation of the location.

Aragon, sitting across from her and behind a barricade of empty wine glasses tainted with a thin red film, eyes glossed over, was staring just to the left of Parr’s head. Parr had tried to find what had caught her attention, but with no luck, she had to determine that it was a long ago memory that had nothing at all to do with the present. Fat, heavy tears left tracks down her cheeks, and she had not uttered a word since she had sat down with her last glass of wine - the contents of which had been emptied in almost a single gulp and had taken up its position in the blockade separating the two women.

It was unsettling to say the least.

Parr had tried many times over to continue the conversation, or to steer it in a direction that would see them leaving the dive for a brighter, less filthy option, or better yet, home. Her efforts were to no avail. Aragon continued to sit, still as stone, leaning over the table with her arms folded, staring off into the distance, as silent tears rolled down her face.

“Who would have known that those exorbitant expeditions would result in such a state of affairs all those years ago,” Parr shrugged and continued with her one sided conversation. “Do you remember your parents discussing any of that hack’s voyages when you were still in Spain?” She paused, allowing enough time for an answer to be supplied. “No, I don’t suppose you would have remembered when you were so small,” Parr concluded. Since Aragon had become a lackluster conversationalist, she’d been having an ongoing discussion with herself after reading a headline from the news app on her phone.  

Aragon gave a little hiccup, startling herself out of her trance. Parr’s breath caught, hopeful for the prospect of getting out of there.

When Aragon made eye contact with her, she nearly leapt out of her seat in triumph, gathering all of her belongings and sliding from the booth to give Aragon a helping hand.

Aragon looked at the proffered hand, but did not take it. She stayed fixed to her seat.

“Look, Catherine, whatever Anne has done this time, I promise we’ll get it sorted. Please can we just go?” Parr begged, not at all ashamed of the whining tone her voice had taken on in her desperation.

Aragon gave another hiccup. “This isn’t about her, it’s- no. Wait. Sorry. It is about her,” she slurred, swinging her legs out of the booth and taking a fistful of Parr’s shirt to bring her down to eye-level.

Parr, hunched uncomfortably, asked, “What is it this time?”

“It’s just- it’s. You know? She always has to be so-” Aragon finished with a growl, giving Parr a bit of a shake to drive home her point.

“Yes. Argh. You’re right. Let’s get a move on then, shall we?”

“Ugh. You know what she’s like!” Aragon pulled her even closer.

“Yes. She’s terrible. The absolute worst,” Parr said quickly, eager to speed things along with her back protesting her positioning.

Aragon’s face twisted, letting out a howling sob, “She’s not! You take that back! Take it back!”

Parr felt the soda water slosh in her stomach at the violent shake Aragon gave her. Thoroughly confused at the reaction she received and feeling rather ill with the drink splashing about inside her, she quickly recanted, “You’re right. She’s not! I’m sorry.”

“I spent so much time hating her,” she cried, her words broken apart with sniffling. “And all this time she’s just been so,” she let out a shuddering breath, “nice!”

Parr, nearly nose-to-nose with the sniveling woman, had no idea how to react. She had only ever heard Aragon railing against Anne, dwelling on her detestation of her and her antics. The person before her was not the one she knew.

“Like this morning,” Aragon continued, “She gathered beautiful, fresh, yellow flowers and left them on my windowsill. I think she pinched them from the neighbor’s garden, but still, how nice was that?” Tears had entirely covered her face, clinging to her eyelashes, and dripping off the tip of her nose onto Parr’s.

Parr gave the hand still holding a fistful of her clothing a gentle pat. “You’re right. She can be sweet when she wants to. Why don’t we go thank her for those flowers, yeah?” Freedom was so close, Parr could almost feel the cool breeze from the door on the other side of the pub.

“No! She doesn’t want me to know it was her! Why does she do that?” Aragon wailed.

Parr sighed. “You know how she is.” She wrapped an arm around Aragon’s shoulders, giving her another gentle pat.

“Yeah. I do know how she is,” Aragon nodded along with her and dropping her head forward to rest against Parr’s shoulder.

Parr, awkwardly positioned, watched as harried bar staff ran from one end of the bar to the other to fulfill orders until she heard soft snores from her friend.

“Nebula.”

“Neverla?”

“Nebula.”

“Netherlands?”

“Nebula.”

“Networker?”

“Nebula.”

Anne sighed, frustrated, and dropped down onto the bed, undignified and heavy. The frame creaked dangerously at the sudden weight of her. She lifted the kitten up above her head and let her hone her hunting skills by batting just out of reach of nose with her ineffectual paws. “Why would you curse this sweet little face with such an awful name?” She questioned before making soft kissing noises.

“What is so awful about it? All of the flecks of color along her back look like star constellations,,” Katherine defended her choice, indignant. She leaned over to try and take Nebula out of Anne’s hands, but Anne rolled just out of reach.

“Constellations don’t make up a nebula, you nerd,” Anne laughed before letting out a yelp as the kitten hooked a claw in her septum piercing. She let the cat drop to the bed, shielding her face from continuing, relentless attacks until she could sit upright again.

Nebula leapt over her, running to Katherine and climbing up her shirt to play with one of her dangling star earrings. “See! She approves. Don’t you sweetheart?” She giggled holding Nebula up to her shoulder to reach the earring without having to shred the material of her shirt just to keep balanced.

“What about the ‘K’ behind her ear? Like, I still don’t see it but you did. Shouldn’t her name start with a ‘K’?” Anne’s eyes were watering from the tug on her nose ring. She dabbed at it with a gentle fingertip to check for bleeding, finding none.

A soft knock at the door made all three inhabitants of the room jump.

“It’s just me,” Parr called. She waited until she received consent this time before carefully slipping inside and closing the door quietly behind her. Her face lit up as she scooped the kitten into her arms. “Hello, my darling!” She murmured into her soft fur. Her tone was higher-pitched than either Katherine or Anne had ever heard from Parr before. The girls exchanged bemused glances behind Parr’s back at how easily she had been won over by the kitten’s charms.

“Does she have a name yet?”

“Knightly. Like Kiera but less swashbuckly,” Anne interjected.

Katherine rolled her eyes ostentatiously. “It’s Nebula.”

“Oh, Nebula,” Parr tested it out, dropping kisses between her ears as she scratched under her chin, repeating the name a few more times. “I think it suits her,” she beamed as the cat twisted around so that she could nip at her fingers. “Have you given any more thought to how you are going to break the news to Jane?”

Katherine shifted uncomfortably before getting off the edge of her bed to tidy up the toys scattered across her floor. She gave Parr a weak shake of her head, acknowledging the fact that she had no idea how she was going to go about confessing her discretions.

Anne flopped indelicately back onto the mattress, pulling the pillow to cover her mouth as she groaned and then tossing the pillow at Katherine’s vulnerable form as she was bent over to pick up a plush mouse.

The pillow missed its mark, rather than harmlessly bouncing off of Katherine, it ricocheted off of a floor lamp. All three women froze as the lamp tilted perilously towards one side before Katherine came to her senses. She lunged forward to right it, tripping on her desk chair sending it clattering to one side, and crashing into the desk with her hip. Her hands caught the pole just as it was nearing the floor.

Before she could set the lamp back on its base, her door flew open. “God, Kat, are you alright? I thought you were going to come through the wall,” Cleves walked into the room and helped Katherine set her chair back on its legs and had a look around the room.

Nebula, terrified by the noise, took advantage of the opportunity for freedom and tore out into the hallway, running as far from the commotion as she could. Anne took up the chase, clumsily crashing into the wall across from Katherine’s door before taking off down the hallway to retrieve the kitten.

“What the hell was that?” Cleves shouted, catching only a blur of motion before Anne bumbled out of the room. She turned to Katherine for answers when Parr ignored her question and followed Anne through the door.

Katherine refused to meet her eyes, biting her lip as she went around her room picking up odds and ends and shoving them into drawers and under the bed.

“That,” Anne announced loudly as she stepped back into the room, “Was Kneecaps.”

“Nebula.”

“Whatever.” Anne held the squirming kitten up for Cleves to see. “She’s the love of Katherine’s life and her dirty little secret, and if you squeal I will personally end you.” She stared Cleves down, almost daring her to try her.

“Katherine, love, can I get you a-” Jane stood in the door of the living room, her question caught in her throat. Katherine was curled up in the corner of the couch, her knees tucked beneath her oversized sweatshirt. The starkly contrasting white drawstrings had been pulled tight to frame her face with her black hood, letting just a few wisps of brunette hair stick out at odd angles around her forehead. A single pink tendril wrapped underneath her chin, slick and shining with sweat and tangled in one of the drawstrings. Her face was relaxed, finally finding peace as she slept.

Jane smiled at the sight. Katherine’s sweet face, innocent and child-like, filled Jane with wholehearted, sincere protectiveness. Though she knew Katherine was an adult, she couldn’t stop an irrational side of herself that demanded she care for her as if she had been her own baby. Having never held her child, it was all she could do not to go to Katherine and cradle her against her chest, whispering to her that all would be well. Jane would move mountains to give Katherine that comfort and make her feel safe again.

She stepped further into the room, engaged in a conflict with her own mind and better judgement over her desire to give her a cuddle. Having cared for other children, she could almost feel the warm weight of the girl, pliable and boneless in sleep in her arms. She was desperate to provide the love that only a mother could, but knew the irreparable havoc that could be wrought on their relationship if she were to make an attempt to pull her into her arms without consent, especially when the trauma of Katherine’s past was taken into consideration.

Sighing and finally settling on keeping her distance, she looked at her sleeping form again. She didn’t quite understand how the girl could be comfortable enough to fall asleep in that position, pressed tightly against the arm of the chair and contorted inside the confines of her hoodie, not to mention wrapped so tightly in extra layers considering the continuing heat wave. Jane, in a thin sundress, still found the temperature to be almost unbearable. She was tempted to wake the girl and help her change into a more breathable fabric so she could rest easier.

Staring at her, Jane weighed her options. She knew how little sleep Katherine had been getting. Even when she did sleep, it was fitful at best. Dark circles had taken up permanent residency under Katherine’s eyes, dull and bloodshot, no longer bright and glinting with mischief as they had been only weeks before.

On the other hand, Katherine had given them all such a scare and the heat had been to blame for it. She was putting herself at risk of another heat-related episode if she was going to insist on bundling in winter wear. Jane tried to remember the last time she had seen her fill the water bottle sitting on the side table. Was it this morning? It might have been yesterday, Jane wondered. With Katherine’s wardrobe choices lately it was hard to discern the memory of one day from another.

Sleep deprivation or severe dehydration and heat stroke? Jane worried her lip as she questioned which scenario would be the most detrimental to Katherine’s health. She took a furtive step forward and promptly backtracked. Stuck in a repetitive loop, back and forth, Jane was once again at odds with herself. She could see the sheen of sweat on the only skin Katherine had exposed - her face. She’s overheating with that sweatshirt bunched about her. Jane took one step forward. But what was that saying about sleeping babies? Let sleeping babies lie? Did that saying apply for when those babies were ill and feverish? Did it still apply for babies who were no longer, in fact, babies? A step back to where she started.

A soft murmur on an exhalation brought her out of her cycle of self-torment. Katherine shifted a bit, arching her back. Her spine crunched and cracked, loudly protesting the position it had been held in for much too long. With a yawn, Katherine signified the end of Jane’s anguish.

“Hello, sweetheart,” Jane whispered.

Startled, Katherine nearly jumped off the edge of the couch. Snapping stitches, stretched beyond their limits by Katherine’s knees beneath the hoodie by her chin, popped loudly as her legs flailed to find balance.

“God! Jane! Were you watching me sleep?” Katherine’s voice was rough from disuse, cracking in odd places and refusing to sound in others. She pushed her arms through the sleeves, and righted herself on the couch again, breathing heavily. Her eyes darted around the room as if she were expecting another person to be around and watching her.

“No, love, I was just coming in to see if you wanted some tea,” Jane explained softly. She hoped that her face was earnest and that the sweat dripping from her hairline was not a dead give away that she had, indeed, been watching Katherine sleep for quite some time.

“No,” Katherine answered almost before the last word had left Jane’s mouth. She cleared her throat and started again, “No, thank you.” Unnerved, she looked around the room again.

“Alright. We’ll need to get going soon if we’re going to be on time. Do you want some help packing your bag?”

“No. I’m fine,” she responded curtly. Her face scrunched a bit before she added, “Thanks, though.”

It was difficult not to take Katherine’s surly behavior to heart. Jane watched as she unfolded herself and stood, heading toward the stairs without another word. Jane returned to the kitchen, the kettle long since cooled, and flicked it on to boil again. She began to pack Katherine tea for later. She hadn’t eaten all day. She was bound to be ravenous before the show started.

As she snapped the lid on a container of fruit, Jane resolved that she would not back down next time. Katherine needed to know that she was cared for and loved, even if that meant being a little too overbearing. She might not have had the chance to be there for her Edward, but she was here, now, and Katherine needed a mother.

***

Katherine’s heart had yet to slow to its normal pace, even after finding solace in Anna’s bedroom. The room was empty, but Anna had offered it as a safe haven from the relentless hounding of the others.

She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of being watched. As she woke from her nap, stiff and uncomfortable from her position, she thought she felt eyes on her. She had just convinced herself that she was being paranoid, that there was no one there, before opening her eyes to find Jane gawking at her.

Guilt racked her for her inability to appreciate the good intentions Jane had in being there. She only wanted to help. Her persistence in caring was unparalleled; however, her tireless devotions were exhausting Katherine, standing on her chest and stealing the breath from her lungs. It was suffocating her.

The unwavering dedication was smothering, reminiscent of long-past flings. Indistinguishable to the tenacity once shown to her when she was very young.

Those eyes that still found her.

“Shut up!” Anne hissed a little too loudly for someone trying to keep quiet.

“It’s not me! I can’t do anything about it!” Katherine responded in a suitably quieter tone.

Although they were still several streets away from their own, if there was any hope of pulling this off, they were going to need to rethink their approach to the front door. As it currently stood, their transgression would be discovered before they were able to step through the entryway.

An impropriety such as this had every chance of creating a rift in the house. Illicit, unpredicted, and divisive, Katherine’s stomach ached with the stress of her crime. Each step bringing them closer to their gate was racked with guilt, a tortuous self-affliction of distress. Heartbreak and misery were the expected outcomes of far too many scenarios Katherine could think of. She felt downright wretched.

Betrayed by the squeal of the hinge on the front garden gate, the girls had to play the part of two innocent  returning shoppers, above reproach and not at all in anyway the miscreants they truly were. Katherine’s legs fought each step, as though her delinquency had turned her bones into stone. Trembling, she took slow, steadying breaths to keep herself from being sick all over the front steps.

Anne transferred all of the bags she was carrying to one hand, shuffling them around noisily to unlock the door with her free hand. The racket made Katherine’s heart pound violently, relentlessly, against her ribs. The tempo of her heart increased with every crinkle of the reusable carriers.  

As if sensing her discomfort, her own package-in-arms squirmed and let out another mewling cry.

Anne shot her an outright homicidal glare, communicating all of the savagery and ferociousness that she was unable to convey in words at that given time through one brutal look. Katherine felt what little color was left in her cheeks drain away and her breathing became arduous once more.  

Reaching over her, Anne pulled the blanket to cover the little head peeking through the folds of the fabric, tutting at Katherine in the process.

“She won’t be able to breathe!” Katherine whispered, alarmed and verging on hysteria, she freed the tiny face from its confines. Bleary eyes blinked up at her worriedly. Her little nose twitched. Despite her panic, Katherine leant down and dropped a tiny kiss between two furry ears. The act soothed them both.

Already, Katherine had fallen head over heels for this kitten. She couldn't even begin to imagine what she was going to do if she had to give her up.

***

Katherine was astonished that she was able to sneak her new friend into the house without another soul knowing. She was amazed that no one had investigated the strange sounds coming from her bedroom. She was stunned by her new kitten’s seamless integration into her everyday routine. She was astounded, most of all, by Anne’s uncharacteristic restraint and discretion when it came to their new four-legged companion.

Katherine had been sure that she would announce the arrival of a new housemate almost as soon as she stepped through the door with her.

Things had been going far better than she had ever dreamed.

Sometimes it still felt as though she were dreaming. As she lay in bed, the tiny, humming radiator weighed against her chest. The soft vibrations of her purrs made her subdued the creeping anxiety she always felt when she first woke up. She woke every morning to the comforting weight pressing against her, warm and reassuring, easing her into the day, rather than being jolted into consciousness from some horrid dream or another. She found herself laughing more than she ever had at all of the kitten’s silly antics, reminding her of Anne on her best days. A soreness had settled in her cheeks from smiling all the time. Even the practicalities of caring for an animal helped structure her day, adding meaning where she didn’t know it was missing.

All that she had yet to do was to tell the other four members of the house and come up with a name.

Feeling tiny, needle-like claws press against her chin before she had even opened her eyes for the day, she couldn’t stop the giggle from escaping her.

“Are you hungry, sweetheart?” She asked, eyes still closed to keep the kittens whiskers from poking her. She laid a gentle hand on the kitten’s back and was about to sit up when her bedroom door flew open.

“I knew you were hiding someone in here!” Parr called out as she barged through the door.

The unexpected noise startled the kitten. Her little legs flailing, trying to find purchase against Katherine’s bare skin so she could skitter to safety beneath in folds of the blankets.

Parr looked expectantly around the room, assuming she would see another person. Instead, all she saw was Katherine, now bleeding profusely from her chest and face from dozens of shallow cuts.

“What-”

“Everything here is a secret. So, y’know, keep your mouth shut, or we’ll probably kill you,” Anne interrupted her before she could get any further with her question. She slipped into the room behind Parr and closed the door quietly behind her, grabbed a tissue from a box, and sat next to Katherine on the bed to try and staunch some of the bleeding.

“What is here? And what happened to your face?” Parr looked around baffled, before spotting a flicking tail amidst the duvet and sheets. “Is… Is that a cat?”

“It was Kat. Now it’s Freddy Krueger,” Anne sneered, mocking Parr and Katherine alike. She shifted slightly in an attempt to shield the kitten from view, but she knew she was too late. Hearing her playmate, the kitten dashed from her hiding spot and began to bat at Anne’s hands as she pressed tissues onto Katherine’s wounds.

“Oh my God. You got a cat,” Parr whispered incredulously.

“Yeah, yeah. A kitty for Kitty. Cat for Kat. However you want to put it. If you’d seen both their little faces at the shelter you would have brought her home too,” Anne mumbled as she picked up the cat, wincing as she immediately wrapped her front paws around her wrist and kicked Anne’s forearm with her hind legs.

“What am I supposed to do with this information?”

“Nothing, is what.”

“Please, Catherine. It was meant to be. Out of all the kittens at the shelter, she was the only one to give me a cuddle and fall asleep in my lap. Look at her, she even has a little behind her ear that almost looks like a ‘K’” Katherine pleaded quietly, sitting up and pulling off the tissues Anne had stuck to her to slow the bleeding. She stood to go clean the scratches properly, unsure of whether it was safe to leave the room now that one more person was in on the secret. She bit her lip, grimacing as it pulled open one of the cuts. Changing tactics, she jutted her lip out and gave Parr the most pathetic, wide-eyed, beseeching look she could manage.  

Catherine tapped her whisk against the edge of the glass mixing bowl, the metallic drumming reverberating off the tiled backsplash. Globs of freshly whipped cream dropped off the wire loops into the dish. Rogue spots of cream spotted the countertop, marring the pristine surface with crisp white tear drops until Catherine had a moment to swipe the tea towel over them, smearing long lines of cream rather than cleaning them up.

She huffed in annoyance at the mess, but dropped the towel and resigned to take care of it when she was finished. She pushed the bowl of whipped cream aside to use later. Cracking the first of many eggs along the rim of a clean bowl, she began to separate the whites into it. Rather than discarding the yolks, she set them aside to make a custard for Jane to make a custard with when she was done in the kitchen.

She poured the egg whites into her bowl of whipped cream. Her arm, already sore from the exertion of whipping the cream, burned in protest as she began the arduous task of turning the egg whites into soft, fluffy peaks.

“You know we have an electric mixer for that, right,” Anne interrupted the silence from her perch at the other end of the counter. Taking her chance while Catherine’s head was raised, she stretched out her arm. A dab of whipped cream on her fingertip and a long trail of glass glinted, cream conspicuously absent, in the artificial lighting. Catherine scoffed at her, picking up the previously discarded towel and batting it at her.

“You’ll make yourself sick. And it wouldn’t be the same,” Catherine chided. She had had no idea that it took this much labor to make such a simple dessert when she had decided to look up this recipe, but she didn’t want Anne to know that.

“It’s not going to be the same anyways, you sap,” Anne commented around another mouthful of cream. “You always had someone else making it for you.”

If her arm hadn’t ached from her efforts, Catherine would have used the whisk to batter her. She was wholly tempted to do so regardless of the pain. Instead, she chose to direct her animosity into the egg whites, willing them to form peaks faster after moving the bowl away from Anne’s reach.

Just when Catherine was convinced she would never be able to move her arm again, soft mountainous forms began to hold their shape. With a sigh of relief, she looked to the recipe for her next step, moving her body between the bowl and Anne’s not-quite-stealthy-enough approach.

Holding her now lame arm at her side, she poured in the rose water and folded in the sugar gradually with her less dominant hand. An ever watchful eye was trained on Anne as she worked out her strategy to abscond with the treat.

Glowering at the girl, she took the bowl with her to the refrigerator to fetch the rest of the ingredients that had been prepared. Unable to carry both dishes with one arm, her shoulder screamed at the weight of the strawberries. As gravity pulled her weakened arm to the floor, the muscles in her hand relaxed. Time stopped as the bowl of wine-soaked strawberries tipped and spilled onto the tiles below.

She heard Anne gasp behind her, splattered in red wine and spices. Shards of shattered glass lay everywhere, and softened strawberries splashed clear through to the other side of the kitchen, more pulp than berry shaped.

In her shock, the other bowl began to slip out of her grasp. As her fingers released their grip, she closed her eyes and waited for the second crash to occur.

When no great clatter happened for a second time, she slowly opened her eyes to see that Anne had leapt into action. The second bowl was safely secured in both of her hands.

Anne placed it gently on the countertop before grabbing the tea towel that Catherine had recently used as a weapon against her, and crouched down to soak up the mess and pick up the larger pieces of glass.

Leaden, Catherine’s legs stayed rooted to the spot, wine and glass surrounding her.

“Don’t move,” Anne cautioned, grabbing the broom to sweep up the shards.

Catherine looked to the floor again, remembering that she had been barefoot. A steady stream of blood from a nick in her ankle joined the puddle, a stark crimson red mixing with the burgundy spill. The whirling courses were altered with an occasional ripple radiating through, the result of her falling tears.

She stared at the swirling colors, noticing several more cuts and gashes along the tops of her feet, until her brain caught on and registered the pain of her injuries. Her tears fell faster, though the lacerations were not the cause.

Anne tutted when she saw the sight of her, standing in the middle of the mess, crying, bleeding, covered in strawberries and wine. She disappeared from the kitchen for a moment, returning with a pair of sandals which she helped Catherine step into before guiding her away from the worst of the flood.

“Don’t pretend like you’re not happy to see me like this,” Catherine whispered when Anne turned back around to finish cleaning.

“What do you mean?” Anne looked at her baffled before gathering additional tea towels and a bag to hold the ones that had already been soaked through.

Incensed, Catherine scowled at her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it for what it was earlier. “It’s what you were waiting for in here, wasn’t it?”

“Catherine, I literally don’t know what you’re on about,” Anne threw her hands up in the air, droplets of wine arching off the towel wadded in her hand at the motion.

“You wanted me to fail,” Catherine accused, her breathing ragged and tears still streaming down her face.

Anne’s cleaning halted. From her position on the floor, she turned her head to meet Catherine’s glare with one of her own. “It may come as a surprise to you, but not everything I do is a direct act of vindictiveness against you,” bitterness clung to her every syllable, enunciating with all of the spite she claimed she did not have.

“You knew what today was. You knew what I was making.”

“I’m not as vacuous as you’d think,” Anne retorted, returning to her task with vehemence.

“Then why were you here?”

Anne dropped from her crouched position to her knees, wincing as an unseen sliver of glass imbedded itself beneath her skin. “Because, despite what you may think, I loved her too,” she spoke softly, remembering the vibrant young girl who had raged so willfully against her, just as her mother did now. Always ready for a fight, Anne remembered so fondly how Mary had battled her father time and time again, ignoring all etiquette. Though her ire was directed at her nearly as much as it had been toward Henry, Anne had admired her tenaciousness and her ability to stand firm for what she believed in.

It was her birthday.

Anne could still see the precocious child during one of her first days as a maid of honor for Catherine, staring up at her with a dollop of cream on the tip of her nose, trying to make her laugh before some faceless attendant hauled her off to clean her up and reiterate the proper behavior of a princess.

Catherine was making that treat. Her favorite. The one she would wait all through the year for, until the strawberries were in season. Even before they were in season, some years, she would simply sprinkle the not-quite-ripe berries with extra sugar and hummed contentedly with every bite.

“You loved her?” Catherine scoffed. “She wasn’t yours to love.” Furious, Catherine stomped to where Anne was knelt, sending spatter flying in every direction as she stepped. She ripped the towel out of her hand and screamed, “Leave. None of this would have happened if you weren’t here!” Nudging Anne out of the way with her hip, she set to work to finish cleaning the mess.

Anna shuffled her deck of cards, splitting the pile in half, letting her thumbs gradually release pressure so the cards drop and recombine. She bridged them to reset the pile and smiled as she tapped them against the table to even them once again. Over and over, she let the repetitive action sooth her nerves, finding satisfaction in the rustling sounds they made.

She had only half-heard the origin of the argument. From what she could tell, Aragon and Parr were having words over something theological in nature, although Anna was certain the undertones were more domestic.

Peaceful days were uncommon in a house of six strong-willed, opinionated women. More often than not, personalities would clash on a grand scale. Flaring tempers would batter the walls of the house like a raging tempest, devastating forces threatening the foundations of their home. Just as quickly as the storm had moved in, it would subside, leaving behind a camaraderie amongst the survivors and an unparalleled yet temporary sense of serenity.

Having learned from the frequency in which these squalls blew in and out, Anna kept to the living room with her deck of cards. Mediation attempts were no better than direct instigation. Meddling in the affairs would result in exponential exacerbation, and with heart and haven on the line, it was a gamble that most did not have the courage to risk. The only person who had yet to wisen to that fact was Boleyn, regularly throwing her two cents in and taking her chances.

“Sit,” Anna demanded, when she saw Boleyn surreptitiously tiptoeing her way through the living room to spy on the drama unfolding in the kitchen. Boleyn gave her a sidelong glance, pretending as if she had not heard the instruction, and continued to pick her way around the squeaking floorboards that would announce her arrival.

Anna watched as Boleyn pressed against the wall, grasped the doorjamb with both hands, and stuck her head out, peering around the corner like a cartoon character. She couldn’t help but shake her head at Boleyn’s over-the-top and ineffective sleuthing.

“A week’s worth of chores,” Anna announced, eyebrow raised, appealing both to Boleyn’s lazy tendencies and inability to turn down a bet.

Boleyn pulled her head back and leaned her back against the wall. Crossing her arms in front and lifting her chin high, she countered, “Make it two weeks.” Her eyes narrowed a little, assessing Anna before she turned her head back toward the escalating argument. She bit her lip, torn between the promise of a spectacle in the other room and the offer on the table. “And £20.”

“£20, two weeks of chores, and the loser has to refer to the winner as ‘Your Majesty’ for the duration of those two weeks.”

Boleyn would never be able to pass by the opportunity for such deference. With her eyes glinting at the idea of being referred to as the ultimate queen in a house of queens, she acquiesced enthusiastically throwing herself into the chair across the table and gesturing for Anna to deal her in already.

***

Several rounds later, Boleyn’s head hit the glass table with a thud that made Anna’s heart stop. Boleyn lifted her head and let it drop again with another sickening thump.

“Pair of twos,” she grumbled, showing her pathetic hand.

Anna almost felt guilty for just how badly she was trouncing her.

Boleyn pushed the cards in Anna’s direction and rose from her seat.

“You’re like a paper doll. You’re pretty but you fold so easily under pressure,” Anna snickered.

“You’re a god damned cheater, Cleves. That’s what you are,” Boleyn sneered not turning back to face her, throwing her arms up in the air, and seeking refuge in the now silent kitchen.

Anna sank deeper in her chair in the back garden, bringing herself to the edge of the seat so she could rest her head lower against the backboard. She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle, and sent out a silent prayer that no one would notice her presence. Blades of dried grass scratched painfully at her bare feet as she slid further from sight, making herself as small as possible to avoid being seen from the window looking out from the kitchen. She stayed in her position, still and imperceptible by the inhabitants of the house as their notes of laughter emanated out, ringing impossibly loud in the tranquility of the night, disrupting her solitude with reminders of what she could no longer avoid.

Katherine’s voice, high-pitched and animated as she recounted Anne’s latest blunder between fits of giggles, resonated loudest. In the twilit garden and in her thoughts.

Anne, attempting to thwart Katherine’s story with loud complaints of what had allegedly occurred, was drowned out by the laughter of Jane and Aragon. Joyous, exuberant, and radiant, their hysterics were in direct contradiction with the leaden, back-breaking weight pressing Anna downward into the particle board and driving the air from her lungs into the darkened sky.

Tones of Parr’s opinions indiscernible amid the din, which she would typically find soothing regardless of the absence of words felt hollow and menacing with her low-pitched timbre.

Anna’s breath caught in her throat when those rich, indistinguishable intonations began to increase in volume and form coherent, unambiguous words and statements. Beneath her iron grip around herself, she could feel her heartbeat drumming a too quick tempo in each limb. Her pulse crescendoing in her ears, it overwhelmed everything but the sound of that deep, honeyed voice heading in her direction.

“Hey, we were just looking for you, you know,” Parr whispered in her usual mellow demeanor, tapping the arm of the chair as she walked around to face Anna. “Are you alright?”

Anna could only nod her response before dropping her chin to her chest, not trusting that she would be able to hold everything together just yet. Thankful for the bright lights of the kitchen which had kept her from seeing her with clarity, the brief moments it took for Parr’s eyes to adjust gave Anna  just enough time to brace herself, feigning a half-asleep demeanor of relaxation. She even managed a small upturn at the corners of her mouth, more a grimace than a smile, but enough to fool Parr in the dim evening light.

“You should have heard what Boleyn got up to today,” Parr began before trailing off, catching on to the sight in front of her. Slowly lowering herself down to the ground, she sat cross-legged at Anna’s feet. Reaching out, she laid a comforting hand against Anna’s knee. Anna had to school her reaction, biting her lip instead of jumping at the contact. The taste of copper flooded her mouth. “I’ll let Katherine tell you. Her Boleyn impression has become quite impressive.” Parr continued cheerfully.

She gave Parr a soft hum in response before making as if she was interested. “Looking forward to hearing that one,” she faked a laugh and flashed another grimace. Parr didn’t appear to detect any of the falsity of her words.

“You used to do this before, too, sitting out on your own” Parr acknowledged, angling her head to catch Anna’s gaze. “I never learned why.” She gave Anna one of her dazzling smiles, exuding light-hearted curiosity.

Anna gave her an evasive shrug of one shoulder, breaking eye contact with her to watch a bird hop from branch to branch in a nearby bush. Parr wouldn’t understand why she did it. None of the girls ever would. “Just like to reflect on my day a bit. Process what has happened.”

“I’ll leave you to get on with it then,” Parr said, once again patting Anna’s knee. She stopped, fleetingly, when Anna was unable to control her reaction to the touch, but continued back toward the door without comment.

Anna watched her rejoin the rest of the girls in their antics. It was where she belonged, surrounded by those that loved her, illuminated and vivid. Anna wasn’t made for that world. Hers was out in the fading glow of the last rays of the sun. Adjacent to a world she would never quite belong to, aching in every part of her to be included in, she would stay at the fringes of those moments.

She had learned what can happen when people chip away at the bricks painstakingly built to towering heights, finding faults within the mortar to exploit and bring the carefully constructed fortifications crashing down.

Even just one clandestine person breaching the walls can be found and used against you.

Katherine’s laughter rang out again into the chilled air as if no time had passed since they had last spun each other around on the ballroom floor. Anna flinched, willing her mind to go anywhere else.

When the cracks become too deep and the heart reigns free, you’re left with nothing and no one in the end. Not even yourself.

Katherine had grown accustomed to finding her phone in Anne’s possession over the next several days. It had occurred so many times that her outrage at the indignation had melted away into something more akin to mild irritation at the inconvenience.

For a time, she refused to let her device out of her sight. She kept it tucked tightly in a pocket, under a pillow, or in her hand, but needs must when performing in barely there costumes. When Anne began picking the locks to gain access to it, Katherine had to let it go. She no longer cared about where she put her phone down. She knew where she needed to go to find it. Anne’s inability to keep her volume at a reasonable level always led her straight to it.

Interventions led by Jane and Parr had been to no avail. Mediation between the parties had only amplified the behavior they had tried to quash. Both women, irritated by Katherine’s repeated claims that her phone had been stolen yet again, had bowed out of the fight, leaving Katherine to fend for herself.

Katherine had also given up on changing her passcode. After Anne had cracked it the first three times, she knew she had lost that battle. She wasn’t necessarily hiding anything on her phone; however, the invasion of her privacy set her nerves on edge. Her skin crawled with the idea that someone was trawling through her conversations, pictures, and files. Her stomach clenched at the thought that Anne had full access to all of her social media accounts. She tried not to dwell on it for too long to keep her anxiety at bay.

Eventually, she became desensitized to the intrusion on her personal affairs.

That was until several weeks after Anne had first stolen her phone. All of her pent up feelings, dissociated to keep her numb, had surfaced in one moment, at one sight.

What had turned her into sweating, tense mess was seeing Catherine of Aragon in on Anne’s scheme as well. She had walked into their dressing room to retrieve her phone and found Catherine peering over Anne’s shoulder as she typed something. Both girls had been giggling uncontrollably.

“Give me that,” she demanded, reaching to snatch the phone out of Anne’s hand, but Catherine beat her to it.

Guarding the phone from Katherine’s view, she swiped several times.

“It’s alright. It’s already done,” Anne piped in.

Catherine hesitated a moment before holding out the phone with a smug, “Here,” for Katherine to take.

“I expected better of you, Catherine. Her I understand, but you?” She didn’t even attempt to hide the wounded look on her face conveying how deeply she was hurt by Catherine’s betrayal. She had come to expect underhanded dealings by Anne, but the lofty pinnacle of morality that Catherine claimed to be a part of  was directly opposed to such a breach of trust.

Katherine felt violated. Alarmed, she grumbled, “What were you doing?” She knew any answer they could provide would not mollify her.

“Don’t look so glum, Kitty! You’ll find out soon enough!” Anne appeared downright euphoric.

Holding her phone in her hand, she watched the display darken before going black, her reflection in the glass marred by frustrated tears.

***

Katherine walked home alone that night, giving the other girls a wide breadth of space and time. She fell further and further behind until they were long out of sight. Walking past the pub just at the top of their street, she heard Anne’s elated cheers and felt herself being tugged inside the dimly lit bar.

“You might not have noticed, but we’ve had something of a small project in the works.” Anne, delighted with herself, dragged Katherine deeper into the pub.

“If your project was anything other than finding yourself on the sorry end of a swordsman’s swing again, I would call it unsuccessful,” Katherine only half-joked, feeling an unfamiliar and entirely out-of-character desire to take up a more murderous path in life.

Anne wasn’t listening. “-and now he’s that one there. Right under that horrid lamp!”

Katherine gawked at her. “Who is where now?”

“Your date!”

“My what?”

“I never took you for an idiot. I mean, not really. But now I might have to,” Anne rubbed at her temples and began to speak slowly, as if Katherine were incapable of understanding her words. “Your. Date.”

“Why do I have a date?”

“Because me and Catherine set you up! Weren’t you listening to me?”

“Do I ever?”

Anne leaned her head against the wooden back of a booth, not caring that it was sticky with an unidentifiable substance, and bounced her head against it. “Look. He’s right there!”

“I’m not sure what you expect me to do.” Katherine had no clue how to proceed with this scenario, nor did she have any interest in the man below the gaudy lamp in a cheap pub.

“I don’t know. Maybe start with ‘Hi. I’m Katherine.’”

She looked around to find Catherine smiling broadly at her from a booth in the far corner and gesturing in the man’s direction with her drink. Katherine presumed she was trying to communicate that she wanted her to buy the man a drink. Making her way past the tables, Katherine set off in the direction of the man before making a brisk escape through the fire exit at the side of the pub. Never more glad to be wearing her flats, she made a break for it through the narrow alley knowing Anne would try to cut her off from the front doors, picking her way over glass shards and leaping over puddles shining in the moonlight.

Anne nearly had her in reach when she emerged from the alley, but fortune, it seemed, had been on her side. Nothing but the wind from Anne’s hand grasping for her touched her as she gave everything she had into getting home.

***

A warm shower did her wonders. Katherine was able to calm her frazzled nerves and her simmering desire for homicide cooled. With her hair wrapped in a towel and I’m a warm set of pajamas on, Katherine re-emerged from the bathroom feeling refreshed and able to find the humor in the scenario she had escaped from.

She was turning the handle to enter her bedroom when she was once again yanked off her equilibrium by Anne.

“I didn’t want you to be unprepared?”

“Unprepared? God, Anne, what now?”

Anne didn’t elaborate, choosing instead to pull her into an awkward hug and tucking a small wrapper into her waistband. Katherine pushed her off just as quickly as she had latched onto her, and Anne disappeared into her own bedroom.

Pulling the small package out of her waistband, Katherine’s nose scrunched in disgust at the realization that she was holding a condom. Alleviating some of her feelings, she chucked it at Anne’s door before returning to the solace of her bedroom.

Throwing her door open, she was ready to collapse into her bed and forget about how the day had unfolded, but was held to the spot by the sight in front of her.

Her bed was occupied.

By the man from the pub.

Katherine stood, wide-eyed, staring at the sight, unable to react.

“Hey beautiful,” he greeted her, lifting the duvet up as if the sight of him unclothed beneath it would entice her to join him.

The action was all she needed to remind her limbs how to function. She spun on her heel, storming out of her room. Anne’s door rustled a bit as the occupants of the room shoved each other to get a look through the inch opening, Katherine threw the full force of her weight into it, enjoying the cracking sound it made as it bounced off both of the women’s heads.

“He took off his pants. I’m leaving. He’s your problem.” Katherine deadpanned, unable to enjoy the sight of both girls clutching their heads in pain before she went to seek shelter in Anna’s room.

***

Catherine had to admit, setting Katherine up on a date had not been one of her wisest or kindest ideas that she had made in recent memory. She hadn’t expected the events to unfold in the manner in which they had, and the resulting anger and humiliation that Katherine felt was undeserving. Guilt had certainly settled in, though that was well after the annoyance of trying to dismiss Katherine’s spurned stud.

They had yet to find where he had left his pants.

Anne was already babbling about the next phase of her plan, and Catherine couldn’t help but feel the irritation creeping back up her spine. “Haven’t you given up yet? Please, stop embarrassing yourself,” she begged, holding her head in her hands. The lump just above her hairline a painful reminder of what happens when she lets Anne get too carried away.

“If rather be dead," Anne stated matter of fact.