The cold had loosened its grip on the Flür Kingdom, paving the way for a string of warm days. It was nearly time for the year-end festivities, and every household in the nation was busy getting ready to ring in the new year.
Violet watched in wonder as the servants dashed back and forth through the mansion, all of them in an even greater hurry than usual.
“What’s Flür Day?”
Now that she’d developed a better understanding of the world around her, our daughter was smack dab in the middle of her “what, why, and how” phase. This wasn’t her first Flür Day, but this time she must have gotten curious about the “why” of the celebration.
“Flür National Day is our kingdom’s birthday.”
“Its birthday?”
“Yep. You know how we call the day you were born your ‘birthday’? It’s just like that. We call the day our kingdom was born ‘Flür Day.’”
“Huh...”
The first day of the month of Flür marked the start of a new year in our kingdom. It also happened to be the anniversary of our nation’s founding and the birthday of our reigning king, making it quite the joyous occasion.
Each household had its own New Year’s traditions, and here at the Fisalis manor, we celebrated by gathering the whole family around the dinner table. Some people liked to go all out and throw big New Year’s Eve parties, but we preferred to avoid all the fuss and carry on as usual.
The morning of the first always began with the “Rite of Audience,” an official function chock-full of speeches. The king would give his New Year’s address, talk about how wonderful it was that we’d reached another National Foundation Day after a year of peace, thank us for celebrating his birthday—you name it. Attendance was mandatory for us upper-class aristocrats. To make matters worse, our seats looked out over the common folk, which meant we had to keep a smile on our faces the whole time. Even after all these years, it never stopped feeling like complete torture—whoops, that was a little too much honesty there! But it’s true—I was pretty sure I’d never get used to it for as long as I lived.
Once the speeches were done, it was time for a prayer at the sanctuary, and then everyone would go their separate ways. As soon as the official stuff was over, everyone was free to spend the day as they pleased. Mr. Fisalis and I usually wandered over to the church downtown.
There were ten days left until New Year’s Day.
“Our kingdom’s birthday is a special occasion, so we like to celebrate it together!”
“Together?”
“Yep. Remember how Grandpa and Granny always come to visit us on Flür Day?”
“But they visit all the time!”
“Okay, fair point! Ahem—but they always come just before Flür Day, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Err, let’s see...”
Mother and Father Fisalis came by to see Violet on a regular basis, so that one hadn’t made for a great example.
Just as I was brainstorming a better explanation, the little girl’s eyes lit up. “Quin comes home too.”
Good thinking! He’s always around for the holidays!
“Yeah, exactly! Quince always gets a break from school and comes back to the manor!”
“Yay!”
“That reminds me—Uncle Tin said he’d be home for the holidays too.”
“Uncle Tin too? Wow! So many people!”
“Yep. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
Since schools closed for New Year’s, barring any extenuating circumstances, students living in the dorms were expected to go home for the holidays. Both Quince—Rohtas’s adopted son who was enrolled in boarding school—and Tinctorius—Stellaria’s younger brother who had finally stopped bumming around and found a job in Rohze—would be coming back to our mansion for their vacation.
Of course, though we had a few faces returning home, there were others who had to go home. A good handful of our servants would be off visiting their families; many of them hailed from areas outside Rohze, after all. (That’s why we could make so many different regional dishes for the staff meals.) The away team would leave for their homes as soon as the preparations for New Year’s were in place. Meanwhile, the home team’s shifts were staggered to allow them some time off.
As Quince’s biggest fan, Violet was practically counting down the days until he came home.
But hold on! There’s something else that has to happen first!
“Say, Lettie, my dear? Isn’t there something you need to do before Quince gets here?”
“What?”
“Clean your room. Don’t you want to ring in the new year with your personal space all nice and tidy?”
“Yeah!”
“And it’d be nice if Quince complimented you on how neat your room is, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah!”
“Then go put away all the toys you left out.”
“Okay!”
She never made all that much of a mess, really, but Violet did have a lot of stuff in her room. Her grandparents weren’t the only offenders in this area—there was no shortage of people who loved to shower her in toys, dolls, and stuffed animals. The annual cleaning blitz was as good a time as any to get her in the habit of picking up after herself.
“Daisy, come help me,” said Violet.
“Sure.”
It looked like she had successfully enlisted some help in her endeavor.
Intent on winning Quince’s approval, Violet went to work tidying up her room. With Mimosa and a few other maids helping her out, we could go ahead and cross her room off the list of places to clean.
Since the end of the year meant cleaning the entire mansion, it was always one of our busiest times!
✦ ✦ ✦
“Stocking up on food and drinks? Check. Cleaning blitz? Check... Oh, but we still have to give the cottage a thorough scrubbing. Next comes harvesting the mistletoe and hanging it up around the manor. And then...”
“Heh heh. This may be the busiest I’ve ever seen you, Madam.”
“I know I’m already a great housekeeper and all, but something about starting a new year makes me want to go above and beyond.”
“That’s a good thing, to be sure.”
Rohtas’s smile was a little on the cynical side, but he didn’t bother trying to stop me these days. I’d been given full permission to run around with the servants by the master of the house himself!
When I stepped out into the corridor, I was greeted by the sight of the servants bustling about. Over in the kitchen, meanwhile, there was bound to be a constant stream of guests coming in and out as our go-to merchants showed up to deliver their ingredients.
This was no time for me to be slacking off!
That said, I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way, so I opted to go see Bellis and discuss what flowers we should use to decorate.
“It is New Year’s, so I’m thinking something classy.”
“Good idea. What about this? It comes into bloom right around Flür National Day.”
“That sounds nice! Then let’s put those up around the entrance hall and parlor.”
The flower Bellis had picked out was still only a bud, but it would blossom just in time for the holidays. A feast for the eyes with a textured bloom, it was the perfect decoration for the most prominent spots in the house.
It always made my heart sing with joy to see how beautifully the flowers bloomed around this time of year.
Now that we’d picked out what flower we were going to use, all that was left was to set them out on the big day.
Anything else left to do?