The Long-Lost Home: Chapter 1

It was enough to make a person feel no more than a speck, a scrap of flotsam or jetsam tossing in the waves, to be cast willy-nilly into such an unimaginable expanse.

It was enough to make a person feel no more than a speck, a scrap of flotsam or jetsam tossing in the waves, to be cast willy-nilly into such an unimaginable expanse.

Russia was known for its stormy classical music, its tormented poets, its mournful novelists and bittersweet playwrights.

Though only sixteen years old, she was an experienced and capable governess, previously employed at Ashton Place, where she had cared for the three wards of Lord Fredrick Ashton.

So far, Penelope’s attempts to instill this unpleasant trio with the virtues of her own upbringing had fallen upon barren ground, much like the rocky, thin soils of Plinkst, in which little seemed to grow, not even the beets that Plinkst was inexplicably famous for.

So far, Penelope’s attempts to instill this unpleasant trio with the virtues of her own upbringing had fallen upon barren ground, much like the rocky, thin soils of Plinkst, in which little seemed to grow, not even the beets that Plinkst was inexplicably famous for.

The twins were as bad-tempered and cruel as Veronika was vain and insincere.

The twins were as bad-tempered and cruel as Veronika was vain and insincere.

She gave her globe another half spin and gazed upon the eye of the potato that gamely stood in for the town of Heathcote, where she had spent so many happy years at school.

The exact nature of their misdeed is unimportant, as Boris and Constantin did dreadful things all day long.

Veronika shrieked and wept and chased her brothers ’round the room that passed for a nursery in the Babushkinovs’ house: a spare bedchamber no bigger than a closet, with uncomfortable chairs and nary a bookshelf to be found, never mind watercolor paints, or puzzles, or an abacus, or any of the other items Penelope would have deemed essential, had anyone bothered to ask her opinion.

She mocked her brothers in tones of utter contempt and shamelessly lied to their parents by inventing wrongdoings (as if they needed inventing!), for which the boys were constantly and unfairly blamed.

She mocked her brothers in tones of utter contempt and shamelessly lied to their parents by inventing wrongdoings (as if they needed inventing!), for which the boys were constantly and unfairly blamed.

“And mind the furniture, please!” she reprimanded, for Veronika now dangled in a reverse swan dive, knees hooked over the sofa back, with her strong dancer’s feet digging into threadbare cushions that were already on the brink of splitting open.

Penelope was sorry about it, but only because it meant her own meager salary nearly always went unpaid.

She tried to muster the will to scold her pupils for the hundredth time that morning but found she could not.

Too, in his current state, Quinzy hardly resembled the stout, silver-haired Edward Ashton who gazed forbiddingly from the portrait that hung not ten feet away.

That was the path he had chosen: to die to all who knew him, and to all he knew—his devoted wife, his bumbling, nearsighted son, his palatial home, his vast fortune.

So the insolent young governess had said when she learned the full, murderous scope of his plan.

He cast a bitter glance at the portrait of his grandfather, the vain and selfish Admiral Percival Racine Ashton, who wreck’d his ship on an enchanted isle and carelessly murdered a litter of sacred wolflings, as if they were a brace of grouse on his own estate!

On that point he was fixed and unwavering as the North Star itself.

He managed a wan smile.

“Marvelous country. The Alps are sublime, the marmots endearing. Not to mention the proud ibexes, the flocks of agile goats, the countless rustic villages...”

He had searched every one of those sickeningly quaint villages, with their happy yodelers and endless mugs of hot chocolate, but to no avail.

If it were a sofa, he would have removed all the cushions and felt his way ’round the edges with his fingertips, the way one might search for enough loose change to pay one’s fare on the omnibus.