There was an extended windowsill, about the width of a park bench, in the parlour of Mme. Dalles's home. A nice, dark wood windowsill, with a light protective varnish.
The windowsill itself wasn't actually so important, but the boy who sat tucked into its lefthand corner, cheek pressed against the glass and a book propped up on his knees, rather was.
It was Hamlet, and he'd occasionally catch his lips moving as he read. He could probably recite the whole play, if he was asked.
"Ciee-eh-el!" His foster sister burst into the room, drawing him out of his Shakespearean trance. He slipped in his placemarker before setting his book down to look up at her.
"Yes, Elizabeth?"
"Anne says it's time for dinner. No, no, don't worry," she added when she noted the slight fear evident in his face, "Sebastian cooked."
Sebastian was Anne's butler. Why someone with a butler would take on foster children was beyond Ciel to this day. He nodded to Elizabeth and stood, shaking his head and smiling slightly as his foster sister flounced away.
~
Mme. Dalles was actually quite a good foster mother. One would hope so, for a woman who had taken in two teenagers. Then again, hers were hardly difficult children. Smart children rarely were.
She'd brought Elizabeth home when she was thirteen. From what she'd been told (from the social worker, not her foster daughter), her parents had finally run away to their dream house off the coast of France; apparently Elizabeth had no place in that dream. She'd lived alone in the family's apartment for months, paying the rent from a savings account full of birthday checks and piggybank change. It wasn't until Paula, her neighbor, went over to ask for a couple of eggs that anyone noticed anything wrong.
Ciel had come when he was fifteen. Anne still remembered exactly what he had said to her the first time she saw him sitting on that windowsill.
["Oh, hello, Madame," he said, setting his book down - Emily Dickinson, for Christ's sake - and looking up at her with a polite smile. "It's good to see you, I wanted to tell you something. As you are letting me in to your home, I figure you are entitled to some of my business. My parents were murdered. By arson. I would strongly recommend you don't delve any deeper into the issue."]
She never did. She respected her children, and they respected her.
For three such troubled people, their family was perfectly suited. It was as if fate had decided they could be allowed at least that.
Ciel and Elizabeth had known each other just a little over a year, but they were every bit brother and sister. They were the same age, both sixteen, but sometimes Ciel felt more like an older brother.
That was okay. He would protect Elizabeth to the end of the world. She would do the same for him, probably. She preferred not to think about end-of-the-world scenarios.
Both children would also do close to anything for Mme. Dalle. She wasn't the most touchy-feely of people, but they could tell she cared deeply for them. Actually, even with (or perhaps thanks to) Madame's small range of expression, they could tell what she was feeling most of the time.
They could tell that, for instance, Anne was trying to decide whether to tell them something all through dinner.
As they were setting their silverware on their plates to be taken away, and Ciel was on the verge of one of his polite outbursts, Elizabeth read his mind.
"Will you tell us what's on your mind, please, Anne? It seems to us that something's been troubling you."
Ciel sent her a look that clearly said "God bless you"; she rolled her eyes.
Mme. Dalles looked up at Elizabeth with an eyebrow raised, then nodded and looked down with her rare, soft smile.
"I should've known I'd be caught. Honestly, the pair of you."
Elizabeth gave her a smug smile in return.
"Yes, yes. I was going to tell you sooner or later, it's not like I can keep a secret from either of you." This was with a slightly stern voice, and both dipped their heads a bit in recognition. It was true, they had no reason to distrust her.
"We have another child coming. It'll be a few weeks."
Anne wasn't sure what sort of reaction she was expecting, but the one she got was shrugged shoulders and hummed assent, and that was about what she should have expected, really. She huffed a laugh. These were definitely her kids.
"Do you know how old they are?" Elizabeth asked after a moment.
Anne blinked, then laughed to herself for forgetting. "Oh, yes. He's seventeen. He's called Alois Trancy."
~
Mme. Dalles met with Alois several times in the weeks before he could come home, and all she could say for certain was that he was a very charming and very odd boy.
She quite liked him.
"Madame," he had asked her once, "how will it be to live with you? If that's not a strange question."
"Well, I quite like my home, but I don't believe I can answer from a perspective relative to yours," she had replied. "I do have two other children; their opinions will likely be of more value to you."
"Oh?" Alois had tilted his head curiously. He'd smiled. "Tell me about them."
She had, as much as she felt Ciel and Elizabeth would be comfortable with.
She would have told Ciel and Elizabeth about Alois in return, but she knew that they would ask if they wanted to know.
It wasn't that Ciel actively didn't want to know; he was just further involved in other things - the plight of Frodo Baggins, for example.
In fact, Ciel had been sitting in that lefthand corner of that parlour windowsill when he saw some unfamiliar car come up the drive, and that was the moment he actually remembered he was getting a foster brother that day.
To his credit, he did put the book down to look.
He couldn't tell much. A tall boy with a mop of blond hair got out of a car, an even taller social worker with ridiculous cat-eye glasses came out after and gave the boy a hug. Anne came out to meet them, greeting the caseworker with a kiss on the cheek - Ciel smiled at that; he knew that wild red hair would have had to draw her interest - and Alois with a smile and another hug. The two waved as the woman drove away before coming in.
"Ciel!" He barely had a chance to turn to Elizabeth as she said finished, "The new kid's here!" before running off again.
Ciel hesitated a moment, then shrugged to himself, taking out his book again. He would meet his foster brother at some point that day, anyway.
~
"Some point" turned out being about ten minutes after Alois came inside. Elizabeth was excitedly leading him on a tour of the manor; Alois's eyes were glazed with wonder. He'd probably never lived in an actual house, let alone one so vast as Mme. Dalles's.
"This is our parlour, but it's really more like Ciel's room. In fact..." Ciel looked up as Elizabeth opened the door. "Yep, there he is now. C'mon, come in. Ciel, this is Alois!"
He watched as the tall boy from before came in behind his foster sister, boredly taking in his confident posture.
Still, Ciel had manners. He rose to his feet, walking across the room and smiling to his new housemate. "Ciel Phantomhive," he introduced simply, offering his hand.
Alois took Ciel's hand; rather than shaking it, though, he held it loosely and brought it to his lips. He smiled when he met Ciel's confused gaze.
The blue of Alois's eyes dimmed all other colors in the room. "It's good to meet you."
Ciel stared blankly after Alois's back as Elizabeth led him back out of the parlour with a giggle.
This could be a problem.