Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 96695 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96695 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“What’s wrong? Why can’t you sleep? If it’s about the palace, I’m fine. Everything worked out.”
His mother shook her head. “No, I guess I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about that tiny house in Bog Hollow.”
Hugo had started to take a sip of his tea, but quickly lowered the cup again. “What house in Bog Hollow?”
“It was the first house your father and I lived in after we married.”
“I thought you and Dad lived on Maplehurst Square when you first married.”
“Ha.” The sound that broke from her throat was bitter and harsh. “That was our second home. The one we bought after your father began working at Mr. Davish’s bakery. We moved in a few months before you were born. It was small, and we had a devil of a time keeping the mice out of the pantry, but it was leagues better than Bog Hollow.”
She moved closer to Hugo and took a seat on the footstool beside Hugo’s leg, but she still refused to look up at him. Instead, she kept her eyes lowered and fiddled with the skirt of her dress.
“Bog Hollow has always been the very poorest part of Frostbourne. Our house had one room. There were floorboards you couldn’t step on for fear of your foot breaking through. In the winter, it was always freezing cold, with the wind blowing straight through. In the summer, the heat could roast you, and the smell was worse because the drainage gutters were always clogged with waste. Your father and I worked constantly, but it was still barely enough to pay the rent and buy food. Sometimes we’d alternate who got to eat that day because there wasn’t enough food to feed us both. It was decided by who had to work the longer shifts.”
“Mother!” Hugo gasped. He’d known that things had been rough in the early years, but he’d never known that his parents had gone without eating. Neither of them had worked easy jobs, but ones filled with hard physical labor. Even his father’s use of magic was incredibly draining.
But Jessamine continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “Those first couple of years, I’d cry myself to sleep, praying that I wouldn’t get pregnant. We wanted children so badly, but how could we bring a child into this world when we couldn’t even feed ourselves? What if something happened and I couldn’t work for a while? Your father’s job couldn’t support us and a baby.”
“I’m sure you would have figured something out. You’ve always been so resourceful.”
She shook her head. It seemed to dislodge a tear, and she quickly wiped it away with a trembling hand. “We were at the end of our rope. I didn’t have any brilliant ideas for our survival. At the end of each day, I was so exhausted my brain couldn’t think of any solutions. But I swear everything changed one Winter Solstice. One of the noble ladies that I cleaned for gave me a bonus. I’d considered buying something special for our dinner that night. Instead, I went to the altar for Lady Brighid and bought a candle and three sticks of incense. I lit them and prayed as hard as I could. I begged her to help us have a good year so that we could afford to have a child.”
“You think the goddess intervened to help you and Dad?” Hugo couldn’t quite keep the skepticism out of his voice.
His mother lifted her face to him and smiled. “As I was leaving my prayers, an orange rolled from out of nowhere and hit my foot. I looked around to see who might have lost it, but I was the only one visiting the altar that late at night. Do you know how expensive oranges are in winter? Your father and I couldn’t have afforded it after a month of saving. I figured it must have been a gift from Lady Brighid, so I snatched it up and hurried home. Your father was in bed, but I woke him up and we shared that orange in bed together.”
Hugo squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to erase the mental images already forming. “Please don’t tell me that’s how I was conceived.” If that was where this story was going, he was done listening.
His mother snorted and smacked his hand lightly. “No, but the next day, Mr. Davish came into the bakery and tried one of your father’s scones. He offered your dad a job on the spot. Two days later, your father was the head baker at Mr. Davish’s Baked Delights. Your father was making more money in a week than we would see in two months. We could get out of Bog Hollow and into that house on Maplehurst Square. A year later, your father made the wedding cake for the king and queen. And a short time after that, you were born.”