Payment

Little White Flower

Note: Rewritten but not triple checked for spelling and grammatical errors. If you see one feel free to comment

"Vera, you've been here for a long time, right?" I asked as I watched her arrange the delicate white flowers in the vases all around my bedroom. They had a soft touch to them, almost as if she had picked them out herself.

"Yes, almost my entire life. My parents started serving the Masters parents when I was just a child. I was four years old." She smiled over her shoulder at me. "Why do you ask?"

Vera wasn't like Dominik and Kana. She didn't seem to be as inclined in keeping secret, though, I knew she had a few. I felt that out of everyone here, she would be the most honest with me. I found clarity and reassurance in her presence.

"I have a question." There was no harm in my inquiry. " Kana said something about being childhood friends with Giovanni and Renee. The four of them. Do you know them well?"

There was pause in her working hands.

"Yes, they were like family. Well, as close as family can get under the circumstances. It was ultimately a business relationship. The four of them were inseparable as kids. Such sweet children they were." She portrayed compassionate sadness in her voice as if she had lost each and every one of them through time.

"Then what happened to them?" I was slightly afraid of finding out but I knew I would regret not asking.

"Well, if anyone asks, I didn't tell you this." She gave me a stern look before going on with the story. "You have to understand that Master Dominik, Master Kana, Sir Giovanni and Sir Renee come from family's of great power and wealth. And unfortunately both of their parents were driven mad with greed."

Stopping with her arrangement, she approached the bed, taking a humble seat at its corner.

"As sad as it is to say, its a rather common end to noble lineage." She spoke with finality. Every word that left her mouth didn't waver with falsities or hesitation. "Sir Giovanni and Sir Renee got the worst of it. When their parents realized someday their power and wealth would be passed onto their children, they snapped. They actually tried to kill the poor boys but didn't succeed. Shortly after, the parents turned up missing. As did the masters parents. Their bones were found together in a hidden chamber within this castle years later. No one knows how they died but there are speculations."

I took a moment to absorb that information. It was thick like molasses, bringing up snippets of past conversations. It made a little sense in head. Dominik had told me from the beginning that his parents passed on from mysterious circumstances at his young age. He hadn't hid it from me just as Vera hadn't. But how did it all tie together? It was strange that Giovanni and Renee's trauma had followed them into this castle and ended the lives of not only their parents but Dominik's as well. Why were they found here? On a basic level, if you didn't look too hard and didn't ask deeper into the dark details, it sort of made sense. But it didn't.

The only thing it explained was how twisted the twins had become.

"I can't imagine." My mind reeled with millions of zooming thoughts. "My parents hadn't loved me. If you had I bet the abandonment would have hurt more."

I looked into her eyes, feeling the swell in her chest spread to mine.

"To have parent who once loved and took care of you. And for them to try to-" I was beginning to get choked up, a large lump forming in my throat. "It's no excuse for how wicked they are, but I think I can understand them a little better."

"I wouldn't be so sympathetic." Standing, she brushed off her apron with cold hands. "Though it was never proven, they were nearly taken to trial for the murders"

I froze. "How old were they?"

She looked straight me in the eyes to convey as much sincerity as she could.

"Eight years old."

The lump that had been growing turned to a rock I couldn't swallow. If this were true, if the twins had really murdered Dominik's parents, it made sense why he hated them. So many things began clicking into place. I hadn't understood his rage entirely, until that moment. I knew there was something more than their complete disregard for other people that irked him.

He had always shown his distaste for the twin. But Kana hadn't. Kana, unlike her brother still had a relationship with them. And as twisted as it was, she seemed almost fixated on them. Every time Dominik badmouthed them she fell into a foul mood. Her strange behavior stemmed from Giovanni and Renee.

Instead of easing my mind, I only felt more lost.

"Thank you for telling me all of this, Vera." I hummed, consumed with an endless hoard of thoughts.

"I thought you should know who you are up against." Her jaw hardened, eyes honest as a dead man. "They are after you."

I smiled at her. She was so straightforwardly considerate. "I know."

I think, if I were able to recreate myself, I would want to be just like Vera. There was no one in my entire life who was as free spoken. It was something to admire and something to strive towards. Though, I knew, given the opportunity, I wouldn't be able to meet her standard. I was, after all, a coward. And that was the furthest thing from her.

The seriousness that plagued her expression broke, softening to a sad smile. She held up her finger for me to wait as she spun around and went back to the vase she had been working on earlier. Taking one of the flowers, she returned, kicking off her shoes so that she could crawl on her knees to where I sat on the mattress.

"I saw these in the garden this morning." She chuckled to herself. "Master would whoop my hide end if he knew I had cut them down, but they reminded me of you. I thought that out of everyone here, you would appreciate their beauty the most."

As tender as a mother caring for a child, she cropped the stem and tucked it gingerly behind my ear. It was so sweet, it brought a tear to my eye. She wiped it away with her thumb and took with it all of my current worries.