4 - One Love

She had entered the pantry very quietly, and he’d started, but instead of shouting at her like everyone else in the Castle would have; he merely watched her in amusement with those beautiful big eyes.

‘You scared me!’ he chuckled, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. ‘I was unpacking those boxes but thinking about other stuff.’

Isobel said nothing, and annoyingly blushed an even darker shade of crimson. She was about to squeak something in return but he’d interrupted her before she opened her mouth.

‘My name’s Elyot. What’s yours?’

Even in the dull pantry light, his eyes had shone like the jewels in the Baroness’s jewellery boxes. They sparkled like stars in his lively face and she thought she had never seen anyone as handsome. He held his hand out for her to shake. Isobel felt as though the sun was trapped beneath her cheeks as her blush intensified. She finally managed a garbled, ‘Ght! Er –‘.  She stepped forward to take his hand and her foot caught on a jar of mayonnaise near one of the boxes. With a twirl of her black skirt and a small squeal, she pivoted forward and lost balance. Elyot held out an arm and caught her before she fell.

‘Watch yourself!’ he said kindly, helping her to her feet. In that moment, closer than she’d been to any boy, she glanced up into his eyes and felt a jolt of electricity run through her. She hadn’t understood the feeling and it startled her.

Isobel was bewitched, under a spell. As she looked into his eyes, the warmth inside her spread deeper. She was too young to understand love in a romantic sense, but what she managed to describe in her journal later that evening was hope. She had seen compassion in his eyes, and something that ran deeper. And she had hope that she would find it again. In the same way in which her world had changed that day on the riverbank, she knew her meeting with Elyot would change her life forever.

Before she’d had a chance to say anything to Elyot, Mrs Fatima Orderve, the head chef, had bustled into the pantry and dragged Isobel out by the ear, screaming at her for stalling her chores. Isobel looked back over her shoulder and caught a last glimpse of Elyot. He stood with his cap in his hands, his eyes shining concern – those beautiful green eyes that she would never forget.

Isobel spent that evening overcome by longing, a feeling that later turned to sadness. She had never seen Elyot again, but in the long months that slowly trundled by, after countless beatings from either the Baroness or Mrs Orderve, Isobel read and re-read the entry in her journal about her encounter with him.

She had made numerous plans to run away in the hope of finding him, and once got as far as the Castle gates, but her getaway attempt had only resulted in the worst beating she had ever received. The Baroness also strengthened the potency of the fattening spells, resulting in the adjustment of her dress by two sizes. Isobel had never tried to escape again.

The longer she worked for Famika the more she realised that if she did ever manage to escape, the Baroness would certainly find her, for her magic was becoming increasingly potent.

§

Just after sunset that day, Isobel ran along the stone corridor of the servants’ quarters, sobbing into her cupped hands. Mrs Orderve had found her daydreaming at the windows of the Royal Dining Hall where she was meant to have been polishing the Baroness’s vast collection of cutlery. She received a beating so vicious that tiny rivulets of blood still trickled down the back of her legs.

Isobel fumbled with the key to her chamber door and with tears streaming down her cheeks, half fell into her room and collapsed onto the bed. As each day passed she felt less and less like she had any control over her life whatsoever. The strict regime enforced by Mrs Orderve over the Castle staff had become unbearable and Isobel felt herself withdraw further with each working hour. She reached under her pillow and pulled out a shapeless nightdress. It wasn’t eight o’clock yet, the time her workday officially ended, but she needed somewhere to retreat to, some way of losing herself and escaping the brutal drudgery of her day.