It was uncomfortable, sitting in the sunroom.  In the chair across from me, as calm as if this were completely normal, sat my own maid.  She looked so comfortable in that dress of Mother’s.  But she studied me too closely.  I almost thought she intended to eat me with the tea.  

I felt suddenly dizzy, and ill.  This was wrong.  She was the maid, not the lady of the house! 

I knew I was trying to live in the past, and sooner or later I would have to face the facts: Mother was dead, and this woman was my stepmother. 

--

(No, the irony of Tea following Teal does not escape me.)

I decided for this drabble to start attempting to work with the characters for my novel, Daughter of Snow.  This scene of Eirlys with her mother-turned-maid-turned-stepmother (no, don't ask) never made it into the first draft.  The timeline and pacing changed from my original vision, and this ended up on the cutting room floor of my brain.

But it's still a good study of Eirlys.  Trying to live in the past, being uncomfortable and awkward, knowing she's doing it but finding it too difficult to change.  It was a good personality for her, and I'm pleased.