CONSTANCE
HOLLIS
Constance Hollis lives on Halcyon working in her family’s wood working shop: Hollis Hardware. For generations, every Hollis family member has continued to use traditional woodworking methods to provide antique luxury items for the social elite. Constance and her siblings are no exception, and though they are all proficient in the craft, each of the five siblings has their own specialty item. Constance is a master at creating ornate doors, her older brother Maximillian made exquisite dressers and wardrobes, their little brother Charlie creates tables, and Henry - the youngest brother - makes chairs. Last but not least, the baby of the family, Margarette, has begun showing real promise when it comes to chests.
Despite - or rather, because of - their skill with their hands, all of the Hollis family members are technologically inept. All except Maximillian of course, who ran away to join the military and escape his family’s technological deficits.
Now Constance, as the remaining eldest, is training with her father to take over when he retires, allowing him more time to instruct the rest of the Hollis kids in their craft. At least, she was before the summit. Who knows what the looming war will do to the family, much less the family business?
Letters
by Lydia Freeman
A series of letters written by Constance to her older brother before the events of Paradise Lost.
Dear Max,
There is no way for me to hide this letter for you to find, since you’re not around to try and find it anymore. But since your last letter was hidden so poorly I found it a full day before you intended for me to read it, I’d say that shipping it to you in a box is about on par with your last effort. Thanks for the knife by the way, you did a good job on the handle, it’s beautiful. You are sooooo lucky that I haven’t ratted you out for leaving to become a pilot. I had to tell everybody you ran off to “pursue your passion for antique music boxes.” Which Dad obviously thinks is ridiculous, but he can appreciate the fact that you're still an artisan. Mom is just mad at you for leaving without saying bye. So they don’t totally hate your guts, we’ve left that job to Charlie, who's taken to it with gusto. I’ve caught him making a firepit in the yard to burn the pistol model you carved for him. Henry keeps asking for your EXACT location, so he can send you the doll chair he finally finished. And wants to know if you’ll visit for his “VERY IMPORTANT” seventh birthday party. Also did you really have to leave right after dad got that new computer? You're the only one who actually knows how to operate it and Dad keeps accidentally completely resetting the entire system, and is hairsbreadth away from selling it to someone else since it's “too fancy to operate.” Since you've decided to skiv off you better respond to this letter and explain how I’m supposed to set up the payment system. Not that I’m any more tech savvy than Dad is, but I’m also not ancient, so maybe I’ll have better luck. Please don’t be a jerk, and actually respond to this.
-Constance Hollis
P.S. Send me some sort of music box contraption would you? At least to keep up the charade until you grow a spine and tell the truth.
Dear Max,
Thanks for the music box, it definitely helped sell the story, though when you come and visit you’re gonna be barraged with insults about your terrible taste in music boxes. Margarette loves it though, she listens to it to go to sleep EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, if I have to hear that tune again I might have to make it disappear. I’m glad you’re enjoying learning all that tech stuff, even if it does make you a traitor to the craft. I kinda envy you learning all that tech stuff though, cause it would’ve been really nice to not get stuck in a public restroom today. They changed all the locks to some new fancy schmancy model and it took me an HOUR to figure out what the heck made that thing tick. It didn't matter that I carried four different screwdrivers on me at all times because the panel didn’t have any screws to get to the wiring! I don;t understand why they can’t just use a good old fashioned padlock and focus more on making their doors more visually palatable because they're all hideous and also at this point a normal old padlock would stump more people than a fancy techy lock. Anyway that aside, Dad sold one of the doors that I did the detailing on yesterday! The Rich idiot that came in here knew absolutely nothing about antiques, but really wanted to pretend they did. I think that’s the only reason Dad sold mine, since it’s not like they’d be able to spot any of the mistakes. Make sure you still practice carving, if you don’t I’ll be better than you by the time you finish training.
Love you.
-Constance Hollis
You better have a good excuse for me to tell Henry why you weren’t at his birthday party. He made us wait an hour after the party was supposed to start, claiming that you must be running late. And if you love me at all please send Margarette a music box that has a different song. A week ago I would’ve said that I’m not cruel enough to intentionally destroy a two year old’s toy, nope, I am definitely cruel and petty enough. I’m about to destroy it with a hammer. I know you’re trying to be all mysterious and everything but, I’d appreciate a few more details about what you’re up to. After all you’re the one out in the world doing interesting stuff, and training with the military, I shouldn’t be the one with long letters.
Love,
-Constance
Dear Max,
How long are you gonna keep up this music box pretense? I can’t keep coming up with lies for you, and I’m sick of everyone bugging me about you. They latched on to the fact that you addressed a letter to me, which clearly means I know everything about what's going on in your life right now. Which I don’t cause you won’t tell me anything, I mean the most you’ve said is comments on
Family shenanigans I’ve told you about, and that the food is weird. I mean at this point it's like sending letters to a wall, I mean you’ve almost been gone a year and I still know about as much information as I did when you left! It’s not fair to hide stuff from me when I’m keeping your big secret from everyone else. Please respond with some actual details please.
Love,
-Constance
Dear Max,
Thanks for the warning that you were gonna casually reveal to our parents what you’ve really been doing by sending them photos of your military awards! That was just a peachy conversation, especially since you didn’t send an actual message with it, you only sent the pictures. What is happening to you?! Before you left you would explain my ear off about how to do something correctly, or about how some tech thing worked that I definitely didn’t understand. Now your lips are locked down tighter than fort knox. I could stand being in the dog house with Mom and Dad if I had some idea of what’s been happening to you. I don’t want to just see those awards. I wanna know how you got them! So you better explain in your next letters.
Love you, (even when you're a jerk)
-Constance Hollis
P.S. Charlie decided to deface your room with the words “Military scum” because he’s almost 13 so he’s feeling edgy about the fact that his older brother decided to abandon him to a life doing a job that you thought you were too good for. Also I think he managed to sneak onto the work computer and find a site with really old comics that kids used to read on earth so he’s been picking up phrases and slang that are nowhere near modern but also not proper classics. So maybe spare a thought for the rest of your siblings?
I can’t believe you sent me that pitiful ELECTRONIC message on my birthday. I thought… I thought letters were our thing, that you’d like to receive and write them. I know you hate how we were raised, but I didn’t think that meant you hated the letters. Well, even if you have become a scrooge about the letters, I’m going to send them anyway, I am NOT responding on the computer, with my luck I’ll break the thing. If you even care to know, Charlie has gotten so good at tables that Dad is thinking about starting to sell his work. And Henry has started to upgrade from doll furniture. And Dad can sell my work to more educated clients now. I doubt you’ll tell me anything, but once again, details about what you’re doing or even how you’re doing would be kinda nice.
-Constance
Dear Max,
It’s been months and you haven’t responded, even electronically, are you ok? You’ve gone radio silent before, but never for this long, I don’t want to be dramatic but I’m truly worried this time. Please respond if and when you can.
-Constance
Max,
Why one earth would you want to pilot something that plugs into your brain?! That has to be dangerous! Maybe if you had spoken to me in the last eight years I could’ve dissuaded you before you decided to do this, but no, you had to go radio silent. I also can’t believe you have the nerve to ask me to keep more secrets for you, and honestly at this point I don’t know how you still care what our parents think of you when you clearly haven’t cared about this family in years, but I’’ll keep my mouth shut anyway, we can add it to the list of things you owe me. I don’t know if you even care, but I guess if you decided to tell me about your plans you’re either pretty freaked out about putting a machine in your brain, which you should be, or you’ve had some pretty good realizations about how awful you’ve been these past years and do care. If it’s the latter, then I’m gonna pull on one of those favors you owe me, and you will laugh at me for the reason. I always thought I would rejoice the day that awful music box broke. Margarette has listened to it every night for the last nine years. Until tonight when it just stopped. We must’ve deconstructed and reconstructed that thing fifty times, but it just won’t play a thing. Margarette has been sobbing into her pillow for over an hour, the worst part is that she doesn’t even remember you, so she doesn't even realize why she’s crying so hard over it. The point is, if you have a scrap of brotherly affection left for your 11 year old baby sister, send her a music box and a note, and if you care at all about your original little sister, please don’t get in the habit of plugging into that machine.
-Constance