Spring, 1998

Spring 1998
Palace Grounds
Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic

They had been here for months now. Anička had woken up not feeling well, and a quick call to Gwen confirmed her fears. She was pregnant. That had been the middle of November, and now it was April. Ella’s birthday had come and gone, and they were still here. They would be, she knew that. No one wanted them to be in England right now, and she had to agree. She hadn’t wanted the mark on her arm, she didn’t want to be a Death Eater. There were things that were so much more important to her.

Her daughters were all little, the twins would be two in June, Thea had just turned three in December. She knew that the new baby would be here in August, but as she sat on the ground with her baby girls playing around her, she was sure that she never wanted to leave. There was something magical about this place. The palace in Prague was where she had grown up. It was where Ella had been born. It was where this baby would be born too. But there was less peace there.

Out here nothing bad had ever happened. And this palace was hers. She was the Countess of Ústí nad Labem. And she thought that that was something to be proud of. It was trips to this particular palace that always made her happy. It was here that she got to truly enjoy her family. Every trip to Prague that she had made with Ella in the last six years, had been here. They had come to this palace. They had come when Otče had sent for her. She would leave Ella here with her nannies, or with Kreta, and she would go to Prague.

Part of her desperately wanted to tell her daughter the truth. She wanted Ella to know that every time that Josef came to see them, that he was her father. She wanted her to know how much he loved her. And it wasn’t that Andrew didn’t, her husband didn’t know any different. That their eldest child wasn’t his child at all… And she didn’t think he needed to. But she wanted Ella to know. She wanted her to make that choice for herself, and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her. To shatter the illusion that was her life.

She was only six, after all. There was plenty of time to tell her. Even if it robbed Josef of everything that he should have had. It robbed him of every moment that they were supposed to have shared. Everything that Andrew took for granted, she thought that Josef would have cherished. Anička believed that. With all of her heart, she believed that he would have celebrated their little girl beyond anything else if she would have let him. But she hadn’t. She hadn’t risked that. Not yet.

The little girls were playing on the blanket next to her when she heard the squeal of her eldest and her head spun around to try and find her. Eyes locking on the tiny, barefooted princess that was running towards her, Anička couldn’t help but chuckle. “Zpomal!” Her warning came with the tone she had adapted to always speak to her children, warm, and gentle, but with enough strength to know that she was serious. She wished them to mind her, but she would not make the mistakes her own parents had.

Anička would not abandon them. And she would not harm them. No one had touched her as a child. Not terribly anyway. But she would not let anyone hurt her daughters. Not even herself. And that was certainly her biggest fear. That she was somehow going to cause them to grow up with a different sort of trauma. Something that they couldn’t explain, but that they could certainly feel. She didn’t want that for them. She wanted better.

“Máma! Podívejme, kdo je tady!” One slender little finger was streaming out behind Ella as she ran towards her, and Anička couldn’t help but smile when she saw who was coming towards them across the grounds. They hadn’t been expecting him, but Josef was always a welcome surprise. They had stayed in Prague, with him and Matylda, when she had first brought the girls home. But it had become clear, rather quickly, that they were going to need the space.

Her daughter was young, but Anička made no mistake of the gift that she possessed, and she didn’t want either of the elder Wentzells to realize. Not her otče, and not Ella’s. She didn’t think that Josef would do anything about it, but if she could keep it from her own otče then she would. And the fewer people that knew the better.

When he dropped down on the blanket next to her, Anička smiled as he brushed a kiss against her temple. “Ahoj, Láska.”

She shook her head as Ella charged at her otče from behind and knocked into him. “Careful, Ella…”

“She’s fine.” Josef’s arm snaked around behind him and hauled their little girl up over his shoulder and into his lap as he started to tickle her. The little girls were watching from their spots around Anička and she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to stay here? He was here, the girls could grow up happy, and with far less pressure. The people could know them…

“Prosím!” Ella’s squeal as she tried to get away from her otče was enough to have the little ones squealing too, and Anička shot Josef a frustrated look as she had three little ones scrambling for her attention and Ella calling out for her like Josef was going to kill her by tickling.

Everyone settled after a moment and Ella lay flopped over Josef’s lap like a rag doll. “I have a question for you…” His eyes were trailed on Anička, even as he tapped Ella’s leg with his hand so that she would sit up in his lap.

“Hmm?” Temperance had managed to crawl up Anička’s side and wedge herself against her matka’s shoulder, and the witch was mildly distracted trying to keep pointy little elbows and knees away from her rounded stomach. Whatever he wanted to ask her; she knew that it wasn’t for little ears if he was speaking in English. She had barely spoken English at all since they had arrived. The little ones would be learning Czech first.

“I want to take Ella up.”

“Up?” There was surprise written all over her face, and more than a little hesitation at the thought. “Up where? Flying?!”

Brooms were certainly not Anička’s first choice for travel. She hated flying. And she knew that Josef was well aware of that fact. He had tried to take her flying on more than one occasion, and she had hated it every time. She didn’t like the feeling of the broomstick between her legs. She didn’t like her feet not being on the ground. And now he wanted to take their daughter flying…

“Yes. Flying.” He was amused, and she could tell, but before she could say anything he was speaking again, “She deserves to form her own opinions. And I want to do this. Please.”

What went unsaid between the two of them was nearly enough to break her heart. And his eyes locked on hers she saw everything all over again. Everything that he was going to miss with his daughter. Everything that he should have gotten to be a part of. She was going to give him this, and they both knew it. Her nod was enough to cause a grin to spread over his face and Josef put his hand over Ella’s eyes as he leaned down to kiss her matka.

She kissed him back for only a moment before she pulled away. There were far less eyes here than there were in the capital, but they still didn’t need to get caught. And she thought that Thea was plenty bright enough to ask a three-year-old’s questions about Strýc Josef kissing Matka. Those were questions that she didn’t want to field. Not now, and not ever.


“Be careful with her.” The worry in her voice was ever present as he swept their daughter up over his shoulder.

“Máma!!!” Ella’s squeal seemed to echo, even in the open air of the grounds. “Prosím!!” She squirmed, and laughed, and her happiness seemed to surround them as Josef summoned a broomstick to him from the palace.

Anička watched it come flying towards them, and she busied herself with the little girls. She didn’t like brooms. She didn’t like flying. And she wasn’t sure that she wanted to see Josef take their daughter up into the air. He was a good flyer, he had played quidditch in school. But she had been nervous when he was in the air alone, let alone when he was taking their dcera up there with him. The whole thing made her very anxious.

“Láska…” After a moment Josef’s voice carried over the grounds, and she looked up to see him hovering just a meter or two off the ground. They were close enough that she could see the look of wonder of Ella’s little face. But she wasn’t surprised that there was some mild trepidation there as well. She would swear that some part of that hesitation had to be genetic.

“Opatrný, Ella! Dvě ruce!” Temperance had moved back down her legs, and Thea had climbed into her sestra’s place on her lap. Anička wrapped her arm around the little girl as the twins played with one another at her feet. As focused as she was on Ella, she knew that Josef wasn’t actually going to let anything happen to her, and they were close enough to the ground it would be no different than falling off of the swing set if she did manage to tumble away from her otče.

She watched as Josef kicked off higher and she felt her heart flutter as her baby’s delighted squeals turned to something else. Something less happy.

His arm wrapped around the little girl, but Josef could feel her tense against him. “Tatínek…” The word surprised him, and he looked down at the tiny princezna, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was pressed back against him, both hands wrapped around the broomstick. She was scared. He didn’t have to see her face to know that his dcera was terrified on the broom. Just as much as her matka always had been. Clearly, she didn’t get that from him.

Touching back down on the ground Josef held Ella to his chest and he sank to his knees on the grass so that her little feet could touch the ground for themselves. “Jsi v pořádku. Jsi v bezpečí.”

The little girl buried her head in his chest and Josef could feel just how scared she still was. “Slibuju, zlatíčko. Jsi v pořádku.” And she was. He was sure of that. She was going to be just fine. Letting the broom drop all the way to the grass, Josef didn’t try to hang on to her as she tore off across the garden for her matka.

Climbing to his feet he followed, leaving the broom where it lay, and he sank down onto the blanket next to his princesses. If he didn’t know better, he would have teased that that little girl couldn’t have been his at all. No hatred of flying could be that severe if she was half him. He loved flying.

But he knew better. He knew with complete certainty that that little princess was his. And he knew why they kept that secret. Even as she chattered away at her matka, he knew that he could never take for granted that moment in the air. Whether it had been subconscious, or even if it was some cry for Andrew, he wasn’t going to take that title for granted.

The tiny princesses ran off, Ella meters ahead of her sestra as the two older girls tore away from the blanket and out into the grass. Feet on safely on the ground. “Did you hear what she said?” Josef knew that the little ones didn’t speak English. That Anička didn’t plan on teaching them until she had to. And without their father around to worry about it, he doubted that she would for some time. That made English safer. Even around Ella and Thea.

“Hmm?” Anička’s eyes drifted back to him and away from where her girls were running and playing in the grass. Bright blue eyes matched her own as she smiled up at him, “I missed it…”

He let his arm move around behind her, supporting her as they sat together on the blanket, and the twins crawled over their legs. “She called me Daddy…”

“What?!” Surprise was written all over her face, though the moment that she had said it, she regretted her reaction. “I didn’t mean… I…”

“It’s okay, Láska. I was just as shocked as you are.”

“She called you Daddy?” Anička’s gaze moved back to their daughter as she spun in the grass with her sestra.

Josef’s nod was slow, and his lips brushed the side of her brunette curls as he sat there in the moment’s silence. Letting what had just happened washed over them.

“Do you think…”

“Ne.” He didn’t. Not really. There was no logical way that he could surmise that she would know. “It was just a reaction.”

There was a hesitation in his voice that Anička hated. Sparring a glance down at the little twins, and making sure that the bigger girls were preoccupied, she moved her fingers to his jaw, and turned him to face her. “I’m sorry…”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Her smile was soft, and not quite true as she shook her head gently. “That’s not true, and you know it.” Leaning up she brushed a kiss against the side of his jaw, before her lips met his. “You’re her father.”

“Maybe…” Josef shook his head to clear the darkness of his thoughts away. “I’ll always be her father. I promise you that.”

Anička knew that the conversation was over. The way that he said it, the solemnness of his tone. He was done discussing what they could never have. She felt the loss of him as he moved away from her. The warmth of his body next to hers was something that she never quite got enough of, no matter how long he would have sat there.

As he climbed to his feet and took off after the bigger girls, Anička couldn’t help but smile. The squeals that came from both Ella and Thea when he caught them around the waists and hauled them up over his shoulders had that effect. They were happy here. They could be happy here. Without Andrew. Without Matylda. Without the threat of Otče. It was days like these that made her long for forever, in a world that she could never truly possess.

---

“Zpomal!” - Slow down!

“Máma! Podívejme, kdo je tady!” - Mum! Look who's here!

“Ahoj, Láska.” - Hello, Love.

“Opatrný, Ella! Dvě ruce!” - Careful, Ella! Two hands!

“Tatínek…” - Daddy...

“Jsi v pořádku. Jsi v bezpečí.” - You're okay. You're safe.

“Slibuju, zlatíčko. Jsi v pořádku.” - I promise, sweetheart. You're okay.