Weiss and Winter were having tea when father introduced them.

They were young girls, with sparkling white hair and eyes of different shades but the same pointed cleverness. Curled in their chairs in the atrium, as sunbeams glimmered through the glass skylights to dapple the floor and the furniture in yellow. They both had biscuits and they both had warm mugs of tea (Weiss had secretly spooned several heaps of sugar into hers).

It was peaceful. Quiet. A robin warbled from a frosty branch in the garden. The snow shone like a great white carpet made of tiny, dissolved diamonds, or the microscopic fibres of a pale star. Weiss and Winter felt a bit as if they were dreaming, gazing over their winter garden kingdom from great palace windows, like fairy tale princesses, or at least important countesses.

Not real princesses, of course. Neither of them liked being real princesses.

The doors to the sunlit room opened loudly. Father entered the room as he always did: without knocking or announcing himself, expecting decorum from them but not from himself. The little girls, in their pale skirts and blouses, stood up and curtsied.

"Daughters," said Jacques.

"Father," said the girls.

Then they saw the tall and thin man stood behind Father, a bit to the right, as was proper of a butler or chauffeur.

He wore round spectacles. He had pale hair combed straight and neat to his shoulders, a hard, sharp nose, and narrow lips. His expression was impenetrable, and his suit was grey and immaculate. The collar of his white shirt looked uncomfortably stiff and starchy, and he wore no tie or cravat, which would usually be-as current fashion dictated-the splash of colour to his toneless suit.

This man had no colour to him, except for his eyes, which were unnaturally yellow and sharp.

"This is your new Servingman," declared their Father, moustache twitching as he talked, waving at the tall man.

He wasn't right.

Weiss and Winter stood still, staring at this frightening stranger, who-to their young minds-seemed somehow wrong and eerie. Like the ugly duckling, he didn't fit in their world. He didn't look like a human being.

Still, the girls curtsied. Winter managed a small, uneven "Hello," but Weiss only made a sound in the back of her throat.

"Hello," he said. He had a wonderful voice. Soft and resonant, without a hint of thunder or passion. Cultured. Disinterested.

Jacques nodded brusquely, then turned and walked out the room. Weiss glanced at her feet. That had been the first time she'd seen her Daddy all day, but he hadn't talked to her once.

Winter was better collected, and more used to it. "Might I inquire your name, Mr Servingman?" Her eyes were fixed on his shirt buttons, far below his eyes.

Ridiculous. She was being ridiculous. He was just another servant. There was nothing strange about him. Winter forced his eyes up to his eyes, and beat down her fear with a very large mental stick. Just like Mama taught her - brave and defiant.

He hummed tunelessly. "Call me shhhhhh, little Winter." His tone was brusque, and the moniker he gave her, fond and endearing, became cold and empty through his tongue.

Weiss sat down and shuffled away from the Servingman, nibbling on her biscuit. Winter flushed red, and squinted at him, her fists like cannonballs at her side.

"Firstly!" She cried, and Weiss yelped and nearly dropped her biscuit. "I am not little!"

He nodded very seriously.

"Secondly!" Here she paused, and stuttered, and flushed with embarrassment rather than anger. "I - I'm afraid I misheard your name. If you wouldn't mind, awfully…"

He cocked his head. "Shhhhh."

Winter nodded, and then blinked, and blushed, and looked at him a bit forlornly.

He stood straightly again, feeling the tiniest, most insignificant beginnings of a smile play at his lips. "Why don't you call me Lawrence?"

"Oh!" Weiss cried from her seat, and both Winter and Lawrence glanced at her. She flushed. "Like the fairytale," She murmured.

"The fairytale?" Lawrence moved like a drawing, smoothly, flawlessly, and pulled himself a chair from the coffee table. Winter blinked. Butlers always got the chairs for her and Weiss first. She supposed that was why he was a Servingman, and not a servant.

She sat down in her cushioned chair with a slight huff.

"Yes," Weiss whispered, shy, and noticing how he didn't move or shift or twitch at all, sat down as he was. "Lawrence the Vicar. From the fairytale."

Lawrence made a flat sound. "I suppose those stories end up just about everywhere, don't they?"

Weiss and Winter both blinked. "I suppose," Winter said; she didn't know what else to say to the quite confusing statement.

There was a moment of silence. A bird outside chirped gladly, and Weiss glanced at it. A little brown one. She didn't know its name.

"Do you like Fairy Tales?" Asked the Servingman.

Weiss spun on him, and grinned, leaning over her armrest, momentarily forgetting her fear. "Yep!" She chirped. "I love them!"

Winter gave her a funny glance, but nodded. "They're nice enough," she said because she hadn't read one in some time-father preferred books he said would develop her mind-and couldn't remember her opinion of them.

"Would you like to hear one, Weiss?" The girl blinked, and noticed again how yellow his eyes were, and how creaseless and straight his suit was, and shrunk into her shoulders. She didn't say anything.

"I would," Winter said after a moment, only to fill the quiet, which had suddenly become stale and gloomy.

Lawrence pursed his lips. "What sort? I've quite a few."

Winter glanced at Weiss.

When Weiss replied, she didn't look at the man. She kept her eyes on Winter. "An o-old one," she stuttered.

The man laughed. Both Weiss and Winter looked at him. The sound was warm and human, and when they looked at him again he seemed indeed warmer and more human, his eyes softer, his suit more wrinkled.

"Those," he said, "I have quite a few of."

He knocked on the table with his knuckle. Softly, but both Weiss and Winter stilled, and it almost felt as if the room had leaned closer, and cupped a hand around its phantom ear, just to hear him speak.

"Kisa had a baby," he said. "But the baby died." Winter looked at Weiss. She didn't look upset - rather more, she looked attentive and solemn.

His voice was like an instrument, gentle as a bassoon.

"Kisa goes to the villagers, and says 'my baby's sick!'

The villagers shake their heads and say to her,

Better bury your baby in the forest real quick."

He spoke sonorously, knocking on the table as if to music, his eyes placed somewhere above the girl's heads.

"Kisa went to the mountain and asked the Buddha.

'My baby's sick!' Buddha said, 'Don't cry.

Go to each house and collect a mustard seed,

But only from a house where no one's died.'"

No birds sang outside. The wind didn't whistle, and the house had fallen quiet. It was only the two Schnee girls, and tall Lawrence, knocking on the table, nearly singing, nearly praying.

"Kisa went to each house in the village,

'My baby's getting sicker!' poor Kisa cried.

But Kisa never collected one mustard seed,

Because every house, someone had died."

Winter inhaled, slightly. She glanced at Weiss, whose eyes were big and empathetic, damp with sadness. She was leaning forwards in her chair as if to better catch every word he spoke.

"Kisa sat down in the old village square

She hugged her baby and cried and cried

She said 'everybody is always losing somebody'

Then walked into the forest and buried her child."

He paused. His gaze was slightly distant.

"It's a long way to find peace of mind."

He knocked one final time on the table. The sound echoed. He blinked, and reaffirmed himself, crossing his hands over his knee. Weiss turned back to the table and took two biscuits, and Winter just stared.

Weiss handed him the second biscuit. He blinked at it, like he couldn't quite believe it was there, and then took it, and nibbled delicately at it.

Tasty.

"Thank you," he said.

Weiss nodded. Winter sighed lightly and sunk into her chair.

"What does it mean?"

Lawrence glanced again at Weiss. "I don't know," he admitted.

Weiss pouted. "All good stories have a meaning," she complained, plaintively. Lawrence made a small amused sound.

"Of course," he said. "But the story isn't mine. I just collect them, I'm afraid. You know just about as well as I do what the story wants to say." He paused, then smiled. "Maybe you can find out for me."

Weiss nodded earnestly. "Could you write it down for me?" She asks. Winter takes a biscuit and munches, almost feeling like she's intruding on a private, intimate discussion between the two.

"Certainly," he says, and there is a sheet on the table and he takes a pen from a little holder. As his pen scritch-scratches on the paper, the sound even and coarse, Winter gazes again out the window.

A silent choir of birds line the trees. The clouds seem still. The snow is frozen in time. There is a little white mouse beneath a bush, standing on its hind legs, its eyes bulging and its nose shiny and quivering. It seems to be leering at Lawrence through the window.

Winter blinks, and everything is back to normal. The birds chirp and hop, the clouds slide along, the snow glitters and the mouse scurries away. But still, that image lies in her head. She knows she didn't imagine it. Perfect stillness.

She turns to look at Lawrence, who's handing Weiss the paper - her sister glares at it quite intently, as if she can uncover its secrets by intimidating it into submission. Lawrence's smile is slight and subtle, but it's there. Now he seems like a tall, elegant man, thin and well-mannered.

Nothing like the poor caricature of a human being he'd been minutes ago.

Winter decides then that she doesn't trust him, and that she hasn't forgotten his unnaturalness when he first stepped through the door. Weiss is just a child, and it doesn't take anything at all to endear her to someone-even father, still-but Winter is not like her.

And she will uncover her Servingman's secrets.

Lawrence glances at her and smiles.

"Tea?"

The thing cocked its head, leaned against the kitchen counter. "Yes. I suppose." Willow raised her eyebrow.

"Are you even able to drink?"

"The last time I checked. I'll need to return to human eating habits and such, anyways." It paused. "You all still eat at the regular times, yes?"

Willow took two teabags from her pot and placed them in porcelain mugs. They were both inscribed with little apples. "Last time I checked," she said.

It laughed. The sound was wooden. She hummed as she flicked on the kettle. "That doesn't sound right," she told it.

It grunted, annoyed. "Truly? It fooled your daughters. The youngest, anyway. Little Weiss." It smiled a bit too thinly. "I quite like her. Did you know she loves fairy tales?"

She smiled in turn. "I read them to her every night. What about Winter?"

It shrugged languidly. "She kept staring at me. A clever child's mind is not easily fooled. Especially as brave a child as your eldest."

"But not Weiss?"

"She's young. Her brain hasn't stretched to fit its confines. But a child like Winter, old enough to think but young enough to imagine - those are always the hardest to fool." It shrugged again. "Illusion is hardly a speciality of mine."

The kettle started to whistle. Willow flicked the switch, lifted it, and poured the steaming water into their pair of mugs. She glanced at it. "Milk?"

"No, thank you."

She proffered its tea. Slender fingers wrapped around the mug, numb to the heat of the porcelain, and he lifted it to his nose and took a sniff.

"Wonderful," it purred. "It's been so very long since I've drunk tea." Then it reached into its jacket and withdrew a small, corked vial. The liquid inside was stodgy and dark, and he tipped just a droplet into the tea before he tucked it away again. A puff of steam rose from the mug.

It took a sip, then shut its eyes and purred. "Oh, these little pleasures," he murmured, as Willow took a sip of her tea with milk, cream and a generous teaspoon of sugar.

She imagined it was better not to ask. She pursed her lips. "You mentioned specialities. What is yours?"

It looked at her and smiled warmly. "Incomprehensibly brutal acts of violence," it said. "And I tell a fine story."

She sighed. Of all the things.

It laughed. The sound was subtler this time. It sounded nearly natural to her ears, if stiff. As if he was someone who only wasn't used to laughing. Uncomfortable doing so.

She suppressed a shiver. She'd given an absent-minded, unspecific comment, and now it was nearly indistinguishable from the other butlers and chauffeurs that managed the household.

What a creature Nicholas Schnee had tied to his favour.

She wondered, if she didn't know what it was, and if she hadn't brought it to the world herself, if she'd be able to distinguish it as something other than human at all.

It made a small, comforting sound, and patted her shoulder. "Don't be scared, child," it said. "Of all the things in this world, you have the least reason to be scared." It laughed again. The sound was perfectly natural. "You and your children shall be kept safe," it said. "As you wished for."

Willow pursed her lips, and took another sip from her tea.

the story 'Lawrence' tells isn't mine, if that wasn't already obvious. It's from the Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds track Hollywood, from the record Ghosteen.

also now realise I start, segue and end this prologue with tea. oops.

thank you for reading.

(please consider review if product was successfully consumed to moderate enjoyment.)