It had been two weeks since Charlotte start working and living at the Holly Oak Lane of the East Side London. Her everyday routine started with waking up and having a breakfast with mademoiselle.
Next, they would start operating the shop and she was left looking after the shop alone as the mademoiselle would usually locked herself off in the office. There was nothing much to do in the shop anyway.
They scarcely had any interested customer coming in to buy an antique. Most of the visitors were local girls who wanted the mademoiselle to read tarot card about their future love life.
Through the girls, Charlotte gained new knowledge about the mademoiselle. Charlotte was amazed to know that, she was not only the owner of a random antique shop, but she was also a popular clairvoyant among the locals girls.
It was said that other than her mostly accurate reading, the mademoiselle was also an expert revolving topics such as relationship between men and women. Most of the times, the girl would seek for her relationship advice instead of her tarot reading. Throughout her two weeks working at The Morpheus, Charlotte had established good relationship with the girls and gained several new friends already.
This was her first time making friends since she left her village. Due to her position in the Duke of Earlington's house, no other maids would want to be seen near her as they were afraid that they would also face the Duchess's wrath.
Therefore, Charlotte was excited when the local girls wanted to befriend with her- the new worker at the antique shop.
Other than that, she also expanded her knowledge regarding the Underworld Associate in which she accidentally became a part off two weeks ago. While there's not much ordinary humans paying any attention to the shop, but it was fairly popular among the underworld associate.
Every day, there would be - at least - a visitor from a member of the association who wanted to used the portal to cross into the Underworld. Bit by bit, Charlotte also learning on how to compose herself whenever these creatures appeared unexpectedly inside the shop. Since then, she no longer gotten easily spooked by her extraordinary vision anymore. She learned to live with her gift.
Charlotte was also intrigued to learn more about The Morpheus and the underworld. However, Roux had stated that there's not much to learn about them. The Morpheus - according to Roux - is nothing more than a train station where the passenger hop from one train to another to reach their destination. The shop was open for every Underworld Associate's members except for the ones who ditched the group and turned to the dark side.
"The dark side?"
"Yes. The dark side. Just like the vampire that we encountered that day. When they first migrated to the human world in big numbers, the vampire clan proposed the idea of dominating the human world by using our extraordinary power. The idea was, however, rejected by the other clans as they wanted to live quietly among the humans."
"Oh my…" Charlotte covered her jaw dropping mouth with her palm.
"Yes. They had an intense argument and the vampire clan decided to removed themselves from the Underworld Associate and turned to the dark side, accumulating power to conquer this world. Luckily, the other clans set aside their differences and cooperated together to thwart their plan."
"How many clans do the association have?"
"We have five main clans, namely, The Sorcerer, The Fairies, The Healer, The Hunter and The Watcher. Each of them has their own unique power systems nd responsibilities that help to find balance within the association. Also we have many more smaller clans, but they held no significance power unlike the big five"
"Is there any reason why vampire supposedly cannot entered The Morpheus?"
"Yes. For generations, the Mademoiselles of this shop would team up with the Sage from the sorcerer clan to place a barricade spell in effort to thwart anyone from the dark side to enter this premise. It was impregnable! Hence, we were so surprised that the vampire managed to enter this shop. We're not even sure whether the spell is no longer effective or the vampire had found a new way to dismantle the spell"
"Was it only for vampire?"
"What?"
"The spell?"
"Ouhh no…of course. It was for everyone who had ill intention to the shop"
"You mean there were other people from other clans dejected from the Underworld Associate aside from the vampires?"
"Yes. There were several members from each clan that was besotted with the vampire clan's idea to the point that some of them decided to join the vampire clan. They dubbed themselves as the Midnight Claw, a group of rebellion who had been eyeing for world conquest. But , there were also many others who decided that they wanted to go on their own way by not associating with any groups. Most of them - the vagabonds - that's how we named the loners , lived quietly and did not caused any trouble, unlike those who joined the Midnight Crawl like the witch who dejected from the sorcerer clan and turned me into a mannequin"
"You were turned into a doll by a witch?!"
"Mannequin! Not a doll! And I'm going to find that wretched witch" the mannequin suddenly clenched her fist into a tight ball.
Charlotte did not dare to ask her any more questions afterward. However, the conversation left a deep impression for Charlotte about the underworld.
From the point of view of an outsider like her, the underworld's story is complex issue with so many layers, one could not learn about it in one whole day only.
"Charlotte!"
The sound of a familiar voice calling after her, pulled Charlotte away from the Underworld's problem, she lifted her face and saw Bertha, Gwen and Lily standing at the shop's front door.
These girls were her new acquaintance. Bertha was the barmaid who worked at the pub beside the antique shop. Gwen was working at a tailor shop while Lily was the daughter of the brothel's madam.
All of them were the mademoiselle regular tarot reading customer. Charlotte formed a special bond with the three inseparable girls and they were planning to go explore the shops nearby this morning.
"Wait over there. I will informed the mademoiselle about my departure"
Charlotte knocked the mademoiselle's office's door and swung it open even before the mademoiselle gave her the permission to do so. When the door was flung opened, she saw the mademoiselle was refilling water for her cockatoos.
Roux once told her that the cockatoos belonged to the first mademoiselle who had taken guardianship of The Morpheus, hence, it was not a mere normal bird. The Cockatoos was as old as this place!
Generations of mademoiselle was assigned to take care of the bird and it was declared to be an important part of the shop. As important as the portal!
"Yes. What do you want?" The mademoiselle greeted Charlotte
"Mademoiselle, my friends is here now. I'll go first. See you later"
"Ok. Have fun" The mademoiselle bid her goodbye without even looking at her. She was still facing backward while intently refilling the water into the cockatoos' bucket.
The sun shone brightly that morning. It was the perfect weather for the resident to go out and running errands while basking under the warm sun.
The four girls wanted to visit several shops around the area. First, they went to clothing shop to buy a new dress for Charlotte.