Chapter 800

“Wake up,” said Kat into Lily’s ear.

Luckily for them both, this time Lily wasn’t in a particularly deep sleep. Her left eye cracked open to gaze at a table full of nicely prepared sandwiches. Lily hopped down from Kat’s arms and transformed back into her human form. “Sorry. I’m not all that confident in my knife skills so I just sort of fell asleep... I hope you don’t mind...”

The matron waved Lily off, “Oh it’s no problem dear, your friend here saved me probably an hour’s worth of work so it’s really no trouble. Normally I’d call in Colin to help towards the end once the meat and lettuce is prepped but I got it all done already. Hmm... give me a moment,”

The matron moved to the back door and yelled out, “Sharleen! Foods ready when you want to serve it. I’ve got two nice ladies here with me that helped me get it done early. No rush, but you call everyone in whenever!”

Once the back door was closed she turned back to the demonic pair and asked, “Would either of you like any a bit for yourselves?” as she was pulling out a small plate and grabbing her own two slices.

“No thanks,” said Kat, “I don’t really eat much and I’m not hungry at the moment,”

Lily was about to similarly deny the need for sustenance when her stomach growled rather loudly. Lily went red and buried her face in Kat’s shoulder as Kat held back a set of giggles. “I see your stomach has spoken dear,” said the matron grabbing out a second plate.

.....

With food in hand the matron passed off a plate before opening the door and heading back into the hallway. She stepped into a side door leading to a staircase to the second floor. Then to the third... and then the fourth. You might think they stopped there, but instead the matron reached up to a small string on the ceiling and pulled it down. A moment later a ladder slid down and the trio marched further upwards.

It turned out the matron’s office was the attic. The ceiling was low and the only reason Kat could stand at all was that the peak of the roof was sufficient in height. A slight move to the left or right would see her horns poking through the ceiling very easily. Lily wasn’t too much better off now that she had her ears. It wasn’t quite as bad as it was for Kat, but as she was forced to stand off to the side so Kat could take the middle it was still closer than everyone would like.

The matron for her part had to bend right down to get around the desk and into her chair. She slipped into it somewhat heavily and turned to face Kat and Lily. “Sorry I don’t really have other chairs up here. I’m not even entirely sure how this all got up here originally, just that it is the same office used by my predecessor. Feel free to sit on the floor if you like. It’s mostly clean,”

Kat took a glance at the floor and shrugged, sitting down without any real hesitation. It was a simple matter to resummon her clothes if necessary, though it probably wouldn’t be. The floor was clean after all and not much stuck to Kat. Lily bit her lip slightly but seeing Kat take a seat so quickly decided to do the same, placing her plate on the floor next to her as well.

“Now that we’re all settled can I ask what you were after? Oh and my name is Theresa,” said the matron, now identified as Theresa.

“Well...” Kat glanced at Lily, “We were wondering if you could tell us a bit about Zuhra?”

Theresa’s lips tightly slightly at the name, “Hmm... can I ask if this is official in some capacity?”

Kat nodded, “Yes and we do have the paperwork to prove it,”

Theresa nodded and asked, “I see... can I ask if she’s in trouble at all?”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Kat shook her head quickly as Lily grabbed a bight of her sandwich, “No she’s not in trouble at all. She’s just...” Hmm... how do I say she’s a potential marriage candidate for the heir to the 3rd of the 10th... hmm... that could work... “potentially moving to a higher position and we’re doing a bit of a background check you could say.”

“I see... so who exactly are you working for?” asked Theresa.

“Are you willing to keep this somewhat quiet?” asked Kat. Theresa nodded quickly, “right well officially we are here on behalf of the heir of the 6th but I am in actuality employed by the 3rd.” Praise technicalities!

“I see. Papers?” asked Theresa, when Kat handed them over without any issue Theresa gave them a quick scan before handing them back. “Thank you for that. It’s not that you don’t seem like nice girls but you can never be too careful. I know my predecessor had a few horror stories passed down to her about why you always check papers... I’m not sure if you want me to get into them... but needless to say I listened.”

Kat shrugged but Lily was already in the process of nodding. Lily paused partway to glance at Kat who glanced back and shrug. “It’s up to you,” said Kat.

“Um... while Kat might not want to... I kinda do? It sounds interesting so I’d like to hear it if you don’t mind,” said Lily.

“It’s no trouble really. With lunch done I shouldn’t be too busy so I can spare the time. As to those stories... well... perhaps I’ll explain a lighter one. You see a group of boys were pranked quite thoroughly by some of the orphanage kids. So they dressed up all officially and asked for all the information they could get on the perpetrators. Once that was done, they worked out who they didn’t get along with in the orphanage and hatched a giant plan to get back at them. In the end, they set up a haunted house and had a slightly innocent third party offer to pay the kids to clean it.

“A few hours later, a group of four boys come running back to the orphanage screaming, fake blood that was really tomato juice on their clothes, a bunch of cobwebs stuck to their hair, and mud all the way up their pants. It was somewhat funny... but a little too far. The boys had nightmares for months afterwards,” the matron paused. “I’m sure you can see how it could have been much worse,”

Lily gulped and nodded. Theresa smiled and said, “Yes that’s the more fun version of those stories. Still, it’s fun to tell. I’m not the best at it, Sharleen actually is. She can do the whole atmosphere really well and likes to do a bit of a production during the day of the dead when she can.”

The moment stretched on for a little until Kat broke the silence by asking, “So what can you tell us about Zuhra?”

Theresa let out a long breath of air before taking a bite of her sandwich, “Where to begin. Well, the start obviously but truth be told I don’t REALLY want to start there. Still, I suppose you’ll need to hear about it eventually and might as well get it all over with. It was about a year after I took over as matron actually and I think this was the first truly tragic accident I encountered.

“See, it’s not all that uncommon for us to take in children shortly after they are weaned from their mothers. It’s sad but a lot of girls just aren’t ready for it or don’t want the child so we take them in. Other times accidents happen but they aren’t quite to the scope this was... see...” Theresa swallowed heavily.

“You see, Zuhra’s family were a family of bakers. A rather innocuous profession perhaps, but they came from a long line of bakers and it was their downfall. Now, this is what I’ve heard second hand and all pieced together after the fact but it makes sense to me, and my brother, who is also a baker, confirmed this certainly was possible. Their house was an old one, and normally that wouldn’t be so bad, but they had a basement where they stored a lot of ingredients.

“Well, one morning after the ovens were lit, a part of the floor collapsed and a huge bag of flour was thrown when Zuhra’s father fell. If you know anything about flour... well... you might be able to guess what happened next. It exploded not moments later. This chained into a much larger issue because it took out the rest of the floor and while the oven wasn’t technically over the basement it was close. The explosion took out the rest of the supports and it leaned over dumping burning logs straight into the supplies and well... everything else went up.

“A few hours later, a distraught fire chief handed me Zuhra. Burns all across her back, hair hastily slice off where it caught fire, and her whole family dead. I think she might have been five or six at the time? I don’t actually know her birthday exactly... but... she lost her parents, her older brother, and her grandparents in a single night. That’s how she came to live here with me...”