1870 | Callista is born, Taiwo and Bosede’s first daughter. She is given an English first name and a Yoruba middle name – a bridge between her heritage and the place she is brought up to consider home.
1873 | Another brother, Femi, is born; Callista can’t keep up with the older twins, so Femi is her companion in the nursery, those first few years.
1876 | By the time Iphigenia is born, Callista is her own person already – which is to say, actually perfectly well-behaved. She is an obedient, compassionate child, and besides her lessons, she likes to play in the garden as much as she likes to carry around dolls.
1878 | And they get an upgrade to their gardens with the new estate purchased in Cambridgeshire, and also move their town house from London to Wellingtonshire.
1882 | Her brothers have been sent to Uagadou in their father and his forefather’s footsteps, but when Callista’s time to go to school comes, she finds herself on a different path. Hogwarts. The first child to attend Hogwarts, it hits Callista hard at first – internally, at least; she did not outwardly complain – because it feels almost like a punishment, to be educated in a lesser fashion. That said, she enjoys Hogwarts, even if its curriculum is different from all the stories she’s heard in her family. She is sorted into Hufflepuff, and makes friends easily enough.
1884 | In spring, a startling event – her mother has disappeared. Callista doesn’t understand how, or why, or what their grandmother means by half of what she says – but she internalises the message of it fiercely, over the years. Love is dangerous; one should not debase oneself by it, by loving unwisely. Callista misses her mother terribly, but she can’t shake the sense that her mother did something wrong, and in the years that follow, she also absorbs her father’s strict sense of honour and pride.
She carries a new anxiety after the event, though she tries not to let it affect her outwardly. Perhaps that is why she finds comfort in Divination as an elective, seeking solace in a pre-warned future. Nothing can go wrong if she looks ahead, after all, and always thinks before she acts.
This year also, Femi goes to Uagadou. Callista feels more left out than ever, particularly without her mother at home, whom she was always closest to – she doesn’t know if anyone else means to make her feel this way, but she sees herself as the outcast in the family, almost an afterthought.
1887 | There is Genia, at least, who is being brought up more in her mould – but Genia is so like her brothers, and already has more ravenous an appetite for learning. Callista has been perfectly content to focus upon music, art and etiquette, and only really adores Herbology.
1889 In May, she graduates from Hogwarts, and is enrolled at Pendergast’s School for Young Roses. She knows what is expected of her; she is entirely inclined to live up to every expectation. She doesn’t know what the alternative would be, if she proved herself foolish or a disappointment or worse, but she doesn’t think she could bear the alternatives.
1890 | Practising for a life on the social scene has been perfectly fine – Callista is a quick study of society. It proves a little more nerve-wracking, to be launched upon it – only because she is suddenly more exposed to little charms and flirtations, and she is very wary of the notion of love, and afraid of anyone falling in love with her. She is happy to make friends with anyone, but she hopes to avoid love at all costs, and instead is determined to marry well – in a respectable, businesslike arrangement, the more unromantic the better. Just to be safe.
1893 | Genia becomes an animagus, which is a great achievement for an Adebayo not educated in Africa. (Callista is not one, and was not talented enough at Transfiguration to dare trying – but this is just another area in which she feels like the most disappointing of her siblings, even if she hasn’t necessarily put a foot wrong.)
1894 | Admittedly she hasn’t managed to marry yet, though has enjoyed being in society for other reasons – forming friendships; devoting time to charitable causes; musical evenings in parlours; people watching most of all. Just because she fears the consequences of love for herself doesn’t mean she doesn’t like to see it happen to other people – and she takes a genuine interest in other people’s fortunes there. She can be content with that.