It had been a week, and the days at the Lewis mansion bled into one another like watercolors left out in the rain, precise, perfect, and painfully predictable.
Every morning, Esther rose at six.
A bell chimed.
Mather's knock came promptly at 6:05 with a clipboard of scheduled activities, Betty's physical therapy at seven, silent reading at eight, followed by a thirty-minute "calm hour," then vocabulary drills, a nature walk, piano practice, more reading, therapy again, dinner, lights out, light on.
All timed. All tracked. All approved by Mr. Lewis.
And every day, Esther smiled and followed through.
Circled and circled she danced to the tune of the master, and she was getting sick of it.
Yet, thankful she had Zianab calls to keep her from blowing off.
"Goodness, I'm really doing fine," she said with a plastic grin during her video call with Zianab, shifting to mask her irritation.
Zianab raised an eyebrow from across the screen, her expression amused. "You've never been a good liar, Essie. Don't even try."
Esther dropped the act and slumped into the pillows behind her. "You have no idea how annoying he is. I'm literally pretending to be dumb here. Like, 'yes sir,' 'no sir,' 'should I breathe now, sir?'..ugh!"
Zianab burst into laughter. "I would lie and say I feel your pain, but honestly? That's your bed, sis. You better fluff the pillows."
"Wow, thanks for the empathy," Esther replied with a dry look. "I swear, this man is like a walking rulebook. He's got eyes everywhere in this mansion. Like, if I so much as breathe irregularly, Mather will show up with a humidifier and a printed apology from Mr. Lewis himself."
She grunted in frustration and added, "And I can't even do what I was hired to do. I'm supposed to help Betty heal, emotionally, not just follow a checklist of when she should blink or breathe. I swear if I see that clipboard tomorrow again, I might chew it."
Zianab's laughter faded into a soft smile. "Look, I get it. But you're Esther Cole. You'll figure it out. Just don't let his structure kill your spark. Betty needs you, not a glorified timekeeper."
Esther let out a sigh, her lips curling faintly. "That's the plan. I just need to find a way to sneak my spark past his security system."
They both chuckled lightly before Zianab's tone shifted gently. "On a more serious note… Mum's asking for you."
Esther's smile waned, and her eyes softened.
"She's awake?" she asked.
"Yeah. The doctors say she's responding well to the initial rounds of radiotherapy," Zianab said. "The steroids are helping reduce the swelling, and she's been more alert this week."
Esther exhaled in relief, gripping her phone tighter.
"That's… that's really good to hear. I've been praying it all works. I just, I hate being so far away."
Zianab nodded. "I know. But you being there is helping her more than you realize. She keeps saying you're fighting in her stead. And the doctors here are great. Her next scan is in a few days, they're monitoring the tumor's progression closely."
Esther blinked away the burn in her eyes. "Did they say anything about surgery yet?"
"They're holding off for now. It's risky with the location of the tumor. But if the radiotherapy keeps working, it might shrink enough to make that an option."
There was a quiet pause before Esther whispered, "Thank you, Zia… for staying with her."
"Always," Zianab said. "She's our mum. We've got this."
Esther nodded, feeling steadier again. "Okay. Call me if anything changes, alright? I don't care what time it is."
"Deal. And Esther?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't let the Ice King turn you into a snowflake."
Esther laughed, the tension melting from her face. "I won't. If anything, I'll melt him."
"Atta girl," Zianab winked. "Now go shake up that mansion. Love you."
"Love you more."
As the call ended, Esther stared at the screen for a moment, then glanced toward the clipboard on the desk.
"Alright, Mr. Lewis," she murmured. "Time to rewrite the schedule."
And it started, small.
A missed "calm hour."
A skipped vocabulary drill.
A nature walk that turned into a tea party in the garden with Betty under the sun-dappled trees.
At first, Esther was nervous. Always checking over her shoulder, listening for Mather's quiet footsteps, waiting for a door to creak and reveal Mr. Lewis with that stoic face and clipboard-ready questions.
But it never happened.
So, she went a little further.
Instead of following Betty's therapy chart to the second, she began adjusting the sessions to the girl's mood. If Betty felt anxious, they danced in her room until she crack up herself tired. If she looked drained, Esther read her stories until she fell asleep on her shoulder. And so it went on for days without a notice, or perhaps a blind eye turned on her actions.
Another afternoon welcomed in, instead of piano practice, Esther took it to liberty to fragrance the whole mansion with cookies baked. Powdered floors and scattered trays were the results of their aroma, which they offered to clean up but the staffs cut in and cleaned the mess.
The servants stared wide-eyed, unsure if they were allowed to smile. Betty flour-smudged and gleeful, laughed so loud it echoed through the marble halls. Esther caught Mather watching from a distance, lips twitching at the corners like she was trying not to smile.
No one reported her. Not yet.
She started ditching the clipboard entirely. Sometimes she and Betty would just sit by the pond, feet dangling off the edge, tossing pebbles and secrets into the water.
"This is better," Betty's tablet said one afternoon. "You're more fun when you're not following the rules."
Esther looked at her with wide eyes. "So you've been keeping track, huh?"
Betty nodded, cheeky. "Daddy will freak."
Esther laughed. "Let him. This is nothing , you should see my rebellious side"
"Now that's a challenge am skeptical to see, but I fully support you" Betty wrote with a smiling face.
"No worries, your super governess got you" Esther assured, yet-deep down, she knew it was only a matter of time before the Ice King noticed the warm breeze shifting through his house.
And when he did… well, she'd be ready.