I found out, to my regret, that I had unwittingly raised the bar for poor baby Anna. The Baron and the Baroness had gotten so used to me. They had heard enough stories from my parents about my infant years. They had developed a severely skewed standard on what to expect of a baby, which Anna promptly failed to deliver in every aspect. She, for example, was not up and walking and holding conversations with adults by her twelfth month, as I had done. Anna barely managed to stand up on her own, and even that required holding onto something for support.

"Well, I must have had exceptionally strong legs for a baby," I tried to downplay my achievement, but the Baroness sighed and shook her head.

"Perhaps I have not been feeding her right," she blamed herself.

I felt frustrated. I so wished to tell her I was special, that I was reincarnated with seventeen years and a bit of afterlife already under my belt. Of course, doing so would reveal my mission and thus who Anna really was. That, I could not do, although the entire point was to restore her divinity. We could not simply insert a deity into people's minds; 'Here's a goddess. Worship her." It had to naturally emerge from within, upon miracles and unexplainable. Legacy had to be built and myths born, not spoon-fed, because otherwise, it would just be like any other forgettable fictions. So, I resisted the urge and kept my mouth shut.

It puzzled me, too, though. Surely, Anna, as a divine, should at least have something up her sleeve?

My question was answered by Paris when she came to check on Anna. One night she took over the body of a squirrel and watched Anna through the light-slit on the wall of the Baroness's room. Satisfied with knowing her friend was well, Paris came knocking on my wooden window. I let her in, and she sat on my little desk.

"Simple. She... and also the girls, including me, have never been a mortal. Firis is just experiencing everything for the first time," said Paris, patting her squirrel tail with a fascinated look on her little eyes. She continued.

"Besides, she's been bedridden for so long she's kinda out of touch with how the mortal world works. The last time she had been called upon, these people were running around naked."

"So, you are telling me, Anna- I mean Firis is just a baby? I have a genuine baby in my hand?"

"Indeed."

"But she's got some powers, right? Knowledge, perhaps? They are just laying dormant until the time is right, yes?"

"Welp," the squirrel shrugged, "she has the memory of her past glory... and she's got you."

"For fuck's sake!"

I slammed my fist on the desk, and Paris jumped and scurried away. Before leaving through the open window, which was just a hole in the wall with wooden panes, she turned her small head towards me.

"Don't think we are joking around, little boy. We are all afraid. It's not just Firis, you know. She was just unfortunate enough to be the first of us."

I blinked, trying to digest her words. Paris shot me an icy look.

"The world is ever-changing, and many of us, too, will someday be forgotten like Firis." Her icy stare changed into pleading. "We really really need you to show us there's hope. That it can be done."

With that, Paris left the squirrel dead in my room.

###

Apparently, baby Anna hated taking a bath. The tiny little thing cried her lungs out and flailed her limbs like mad, splashing water on everyone involved. I hadn't actually seen the ordeal myself, but the maids dreaded bathing the little demon, not only because it was stressful enough of a job, but they also had to mob the wet floor and go and change the drenched clothes afterward. That was until one day I was passing by in the hallway. Tremendous noise was coming out through the half-opened bathroom door. I heard Anna wailing and choking as if she was on the verge of death. The splashing sound resembled someone drowning. The maids were shouting at each other over the noise. All the while, the Baroness was singing and talking sweet to calm her baby daughter down, to no avail. I pitied the poor women, yet became curious. I poked my head in and peeked inside.

Three maids were gathered around a small child-sized bathtub. Two stood on each side, desperately keeping Anna afloat, who was thrashing and twisting and screaming and kicking. One girl hunched over and tried to wash the writhing lump of meat. The Baroness was doing her little dance and was singing by the foot of the tub, trying to please the demon-spawn. Understandably, all four women were drenched, their faces wet and red from the struggle.

Feeling sorry for their misery, I spoke up.

"Is there anything I could help with?"

"Oh, René! Please do come. Help me with Anna," the Baroness's face turned bright. "Look, Anna! Your brother is here."

The maids and I briefly exchanged glances. It wasn't the first time the Baroness had said the word. By now, everyone sort of understood why the Baroness kept repeating this same mistake. Ingrained deep in her mind, she subconsciously regarded me as her own son, despite fully knowing the fact I had mom and dad of my own. So when her mind was occupied, or just tired, or excited even, the Baroness would forget that I wasn't her own child, and thus would address me as Anna's brother or Anna as my little sister. Because of the sheer enormity of love behind this simple slip of the tongue, nobody dared to correct her when she did this.

I hurried to the Baroness' side, and as soon as I got into Anna's field of view, she stopped her tantrum. The snotty faced girl stopped crying and reached her arms out towards me, demanding a hug. The maids sighed and wiped sweats from their foreheads, taking a breather in this momentary peace and calm. I rolled up my sleeves and put my hands under Anna's armpits, holding her gently upright in the pleasantly warm water.

"Kyahahaha," Anna was pleased, her eyes locked onto mine.

"Please, milady. You are making it difficult for everyone."

The little devil splashed water on my face and let out hiccups of laughter. I forced a smile and, with one hand, scooped up some water and washed down the back of her head. Anna did not resist, so I proceeded to venture further, moving on to her small face.

"Splendid," the Baroness sighed in relief. "Why don't you get in, too, René.

"But, I-"

"It is fine."

So, I undressed and climbed over the tub and into the water. A maid handed me a bar of soap, and sitting cross-legged, I propped Anna up on my laps, and we bathed together in peace. When I finished, I realized the maids had withdrawn. I also found the Baroness half asleep sitting on a small stool. Not wanting to disturb Her Ladyship's well-deserved rest, I quietly got out of the tub and dried myself with a large towel. Then I hoisted Anna up and whispered,

"Shhh. Mama is asleep,"

"Huh? No, I am not," said the Baroness, opening her eyes. She stood up and came over. She knelt down beside us as I was drying Anna off with a new towel. The mother poked her daughter's soft belly and tickled the girl's nose.

"You like it when it is René, yes? Eh, my precious."

I kept my mouth shut. The Baroness smiled and reached out and patted my head then ran her hand up and down my back. I blushed and carefully covered my small Jalapeno with the towel, which made the Baroness burst out laughing. After that, Anna became my job.

###

By the time Anna reached the age of two, we had noticed something was odd. At first, we had just brushed it off as 'Maybe she's just a bit slow.'

For comparison, my little brother, at the time, was already able to form short sentences such as 'I love you, mama,' and such. Anna, on the other hand, never uttered a single coherent word. She sometimes blurted out incomprehensible mono-syllabic gibberish, but that was it. Not even mama or papa. I was getting a bit impatient, for I needed to talk to her as soon as possible. I wanted to know why she came, what her plan was, and what she wanted me to do. But I, too, had overlooked the obvious signs. It had never occurred to me to ask the goddesses whenever they visited me. Instead, I thought she was just slow.

Although smaller and lighter than other toddlers of her age, Anna nevertheless grew healthy and energetic, which further misled us to believe she was alright. In every other aspect, she was alright. Anna was as normal as a little child could be. She ran around the manor and bugged everyone in her path. She shattered expensive vases, smeared shit on the walls, crawled into places where she shouldn't, ate dirt, threw a tantrum when carrot was on her plate, smeared shit on my bedroom door, and so on and so on.

It was sometime in the summer. I was seven at the time, just a scrawny little kid. Whenever I went to the town, Anna tagged along. She and my little brother were good friends, and through him, Anna made friends with the kids in the town. I would leave her in my father's tavern, and kids would come to play with her while I went to do my business of the day. They were still little kids, aged three or four. They mostly hung around the tavern, often playing in the mud or squatting down in an alley and torturing bugs.

One afternoon, though, after such a play session, a kid around my age came up to me when I returned to the tavern from whatever business I had in the town. I picked Anna up and was scraping mud off her before getting in the carriage back to the Baron's manor.

"Is the little Lady Anna a mute?" the kid asked.

It hit me hard. I was stunned. Why, yes, for God's sake, why hadn't I considered the possibility?

On our back to the manor, sitting inside the carriage, I observed little Anna. She was watching the passing scenery, her eyes darting around the landscape with great interest. I made some remarks on the weather and stuff, and Anna just silently nodded as her response. After a bit of hesitation, I sighed and ventured the question.

"Milady, can you actually talk?"

She faced me, and with a nonchalant smile, shook her head.

"Oh, boy..."

I sank in my seat. A defect. The Roseland's heiress was a mute. Even if it was something very minor as Anna's, being born with a defect was considered a curse and a punishment. A great shame to the family that birthed the abomination. This would be a heavy blow to the Baron and the Baroness. I was sure they would be devastated. I felt a pang in my heart, imagining their saddened faces.

###

I kept my mouth shut about Anna. Instead, I started to teach the little girl letters and words. It took me some patience-testing months to get the basics into her tiny head, for she was still very young. Her hand to eye coordination was still in development, and her writing left much to be desired. In frustration, Anna would often throw the pen away and fall back to body language instead of writing it out, usually pantomiming the motions related to whatever she was trying to say. Eventually, I caved in and let her have it her way. But I demanded consistency. If she used a munching gesture to indicate 'eating,' she should use the same the next time, too. It took much scolding and scowling and pretending to be angry to get the message across to the brat.

Naturally, we were spending a great deal of time together. On top of my usual duty as a member of the Baron's council, I had by now become the de facto caretaker of the little Lady. Wherever she went, I went along. Wherever I went, she tagged along. I fed little Anna, wiped her bottom, bathed with her, played with her, and even slept with her from time to time. I talked to her as much as I could. And when some new words came up, I explained the meaning, whipped out a sheet of paper, and spelled it out. Anna and I would then engage in a silent discussion on what gesture to use for this particular word. When an agreement was reached, I would draw it on the sheet beneath the word that I had scribbled.

Slowly, day by day, we built an illustrated index of words, a dictionary of our own home-made sign-language. It took grueling months to compile, and memorize, just over a hundred words. The greatest challenge, for me at least, was weeding out the duplicates. We were just kids. Not the brightest you would ever meet. Of course, there were accidental duplicates, where we mistakenly assigned an existing sign to a new word. Decisions had to be made, whether to live with multiple meanings of one sign, or to create new gestures. That process, too, was very hard, because I was discussing the matter with a silent toddler, who still had no reliable means to communicate with other people.

I made a booklet of the sheets and carried it with me all the time. Every time we were conversing, Anna and I would sift through the pages, from the first to the last, either to look for the word we need or to see if a freshly assigned gesture for a new word had been used for something else. The words were only indexed in the spelling order because we did not have a system for how the gestures were composed. So if either of us forgot the meaning for a hand-sign, we had to go through the whole thing from page one to the last, looking for the corresponding written word. This happened a lot, so initially, this process considerably slowed down our conversations. But as the pages grew, our habit of running through the dictionary from the beginning to the last again and again turned out to be instrumental in memorizing the words and their corresponding signs by heart. In general, though, I had no idea if we were doing it right, and we, two little kids, fumbled our way, trying to find what worked for us.

And what worked for us worked for us. I felt immensely proud and rewarded when around the time Anna reached the age of four, she and I could hold the most basic conversations such as saying 'Good night,' or 'I hungry,' or 'I poop,' or 'You smell' and such only using our home-made sign-language.

By now, everyone was already suspecting Anna was a mute, but they were just, simply put, in denial. It was a hard-to-swallow fact, especially to the Baron and the Baroness. They would just shush the concerned, carefully put words, and say,

"Oh, nonsense. She is just a bit slow."

But they, too, were suspecting it themselves. From time to time, I overheard the Baron and the Baroness exchanging their concerns in hushed voices.

"What if she really is-" the Baroness would trail off.

"Please, dear. Let us wait just a bit more and see," the Baron would say, in a tone that wasn't very convincing.

So, one day, I decided it was about time the two La Rose faced the fact. But I wanted them to accept the reality gracefully, not in shock. I wanted them to accept the fact that Anna was a defect, but it was OK. I sat down with Anna and told her what I wanted her to do and waited. We waited.

We were wrapping up a session at the Baron's court one afternoon. We were gathering documents and parchments to put away, when, with a creaking noise, the door to the large room opened inward slowly. Anna often visited us in the court to see her papa working, so nobody was surprised to see her walk in. Anna waltzed in with a maid in tow, and the sight of her made the Baron and the Baroness smile. The four-year-old girl skipped to her parents and gave them kisses, before settling down in her papa's lap.

"Good afternoon, precious," the Baron greeted his girl, "Have you enjoyed the picnic?"

Anna sprang up, motioned for me to come over by her side, and faced the Baron. I hurried to her side, my eyes on her hands.

Anna made a series of gestures. I took a deep breath and spoke on her behalf.

"Milady has seen a toad."

Ignoring the gasps in the room, Anna made some more gestures.

"A very large, round toad. By the pond."

'And I had some bread,' Anna went on, borrowing my voice, 'and honey. But I did not eat the carrot. Please, no carrot.'

The Baroness had her mouth covered with both hands, her eyes tearing up. The Baron's lips quivered as he fought the emotion. This was the first time ever that Anna properly talked to her parents. And she did it in the manner that confirmed 'Yes, I am a mute. I cannot talk.' But it was alright, because Anna was talking to her mom and dad, and she still was their beloved child.

The Baron choked. He turned his face toward me.

"René, my lad, you do understand her?"

"Yes, My Lord," I nodded. I took hold of Anna's hand and continued, "THIS. Is milady's voice. And I dare say it sings beautiful."

###

The Baron and his wife had finally accepted the fact that Anna was a mute, a defect. Understandably, they were upset. But on the other hand, Anna was now talking to them, albeit having to go through my translation. The joy overrode any disappointment and shame they had. After all, a mute or not, Anna still was their beloved child.

"It is a test," the Baron said one day. "By gifting me a defective child, the land is testing my worthiness as its master. Testing to see if I would shun the less fortunate."

"But we shall refuse to be judged," his wife shook her head, gently rocking Anna in her lap. "Regardless what our Roseland deems our worth, Anna is a precious daughter of mine. My love is absolute, and her muteness is irrelevant."

I was quite proud of these two nobles and their attitude. When I went to visit my family, I told father of this. After thinking about it for a while, father commented,

"If His Lordship is fine with it, then none shall frown upon the young Lady's defect. After all, it is just a minor inconvenience."

"True," mother agreed, "it does not make her any lesser of a child."

"Is it because she is the Baron's daughter?" I asked, rather sharply. Mama and papa were taken aback. They looked at each other, trying to see their soul reflected on the other, searching for the answer to my difficult question.

"I fed her, René, do not forget that. The child is as good as my own as much as you are to the Baroness."

I lowered my head and apologized to mother. They were good folks, my mom and dad.

Later, the Baron and the Baroness would eventually become proficient in the sign-language themselves to converse with Anna without my help. Still, for now, they had to rely on me. Now, having acquired a mean to learn what their daughter wanted, the Baron and the Baroness set out to spoil Anna appropriately. And spoil her they did.

Anna wanted to see the Baron's retreat up in the north, having heard how we used to go there and spend months in the huge villa. As soon as she made her wish known, we were packing. Messengers were dispatched to the north, carriages were called in.

It was a brilliant summer. I was eight, Anna four. I was fairly excited myself, for we had not been to the retreat for some years ever since Anna had landed in our rose garden.

"-and the lake is as cold as ice, because when the weather gets warm the snow and the ice melt and flow down the mountains-," I hyped it up on our way, riding in a horse-driven carriage with the Baron's family. Anna was excited, and as all kids do, kept asking whether we were there yet. She jumped up and down and kept poking her head out the window. Whenever she found people passing by, she grunted in greeting and waved her small hand. Recognizing the Baron's carriage, the subjects of the Barony bowed and waved their hats to the noble child, wishing her a pleasant journey. A good journey we had, but, of course, I had then no idea that I would later witness the brutal truth. Despite her tiny, innocent appearance and the pity-inducing muteness, Anna still was Firis. A cute little monster.