Cassandra

V. Dust and Echoes

    Waking up in my bed the next morning felt like some kind of surreal dream. Like I had traveled back in time nearly three years, to my own bed, my own room where I had grown up. Absolutely nothing was changed, and when I opened my eyes I found myself looking up at the same stone ceiling and dark red draperies over my bed that my eyes had looked at over a hundred times. White morning sunlight was peeking through the heavy velvet curtains, faintly illuminating the room, and as I turned my head on my pillow I could see a lance of white light across the stone floor, exactly as I had seen it every morning as far back as I could remember.
   Lying untouched on the bedside table was the thick book of military tactics that Mother had let me borrow all that time ago, and I could even see my bookmark sticking out of the back of the book, between the pages and the binding, where I always put it when I was reading. If I tried hard I could almost believe that my family was still alive. That Ludwig would come bursting in at any moment, telling me to come down to the garden and look at the newest contraption Percy had rigged up, or that my maid would come in soon to help me dress for breakfast. But nobody came.
    At last I sat up, swung my feet out from under the warm covers, and I rose to pull the curtains back. Sunlight flooded into the room, shining over the worn rug on the floor, my dressing table in one corner, the wardrobe in the other, and my bed with the covers thrown carelessly aside. I could see all my personal belongings scattered over the dressing table, hairpins, scraps of paper I had doodled on, bits of wax from the two candles, and my jewelry box shoved off to one side. Not that there was any jewelry in it, or any reason to really call it a jewelry box other than the fact that it had been made to hold jewelry, for the only thing I owned was a pearl necklace Aunt Eleanor had given me for my sixteenth birthday. Going to the wardrobe, I found all my clothes hanging inside, pristine and untouched. Everything was so perfectly unchanged that my room felt more like a frozen moment in time, instead an actual place, and I felt afraid to touch anything or move around much.
    But in the corner I could see the bloody sweaty clothes I had wearily shed the night before, and when I looked in the mirror over the table it wasn't sixteen year old Cassandra de Rolo who looked back at me. She had been as slim and slender as a frail willow, with a lively face, gleeful blue eyes, a royal blue gown, and tiny white flowers threaded through her brunette hair. I looked at her in my mind's eye, this merry slip of a girl, frozen in time, and I couldn't find any part of her in my own heart. Sixteen year old Cassandra had been young and fresh, eighteen year old Cassandra was taller and older, she was hardened and more experienced. In a way I was sad, but sixteen year old Cassandra had died in the snow years ago, and nothing would bring her back.
I was almost afraid to touch any of my old clothes, but when I thought of putting on the soiled clothes from the night before I shrank back from the idea, so I reluctantly pulled out one of my old gowns and shook the dust off. It felt strange and other worldly to be dawning one of my old dresses. I had grown a little in the two years I had been living with Father Rynoll and Ivan, so that my dress no longer reached all the way down to the floor but came just an inch short, and I had to hold my breath before I could do some of the buttons. Once the dress was on the resemblance between me and the old Cassandra I used to be became much more striking, and it felt like looking at a ghost in the mirror. I was slightly taller than her, and my face was older, but unlike her I had two streaks of white hair beginning at my temples. While living at the Zenith I had never looked at my reflection much, except in windows, because Father Rynoll didn't keep a mirror, either for religious reasons or simply because he didn't need one. This was the first really clear reflection of myself I had seen in years, and I couldn't help but stare at myself for a minute.
At last I turned away from the mirror, gathered up my old clothes from the corner I had thrown them into, and spread them over my bed, looking them over carefully. The pants were still decent, although the knees were dirty, my sword was still in tact, but the shirt and leather armor were both ruined, for both had a long slit across the chest area where Silas's sword had slashed across my chest the night before.
I had a vague memory of the event, but the whole night was a little fuzzy, a little blurred, like the colors of a smeared painting, and it was difficult to remember exactly what had happened. I could vaguely remember the battle, a faint impression of the anger that had consumed me, Lady Briarwood's voice, her hand on my arm, sending a burst of regenerative energy through my body, and I could just barely recall the crushing grief I had felt as I collapsed into bed, although I couldn't remember who or what I had been grieving for...
The only thing I remembered clearly was Lord Briarwood's face, his eyes capturing my gaze, holding me captive, and the rush of elation I had felt. As I thought about it, his face seemed to become clearer and more sharply defined, the vague recollections of last night blurring in comparison. A burst of affection overwhelmed and blotted out the haze of sorrow that had been slowly creeping over my mind, and I longed to see him. Tossing the leather armor aside, I went to the door of my room, and peeked out into the hallway.
    It was completely empty, and I hesitantly stepped into the passage. The silence of the castle around me was unsettling, it contrasted so strongly with the memories of my childhood, and I hardly dared to move, lest I would somehow disturb the complete silence that almost seemed to fill the air like a living thing. Everything around me was so familiar, and at the same time so shockingly different, and it didn't take me long to get caught up in exploring. I forgot that I had been looking for Silas.
The castle was like an abandoned graveyard, an empty ghost town, or the face of a dear childhood friend that you haven't seen for years. My sibling's rooms were all as untouched as mine, and I quietly walked through them, looking at all the familiar objects. Vesper's was achingly tidy, and I could just imagine the horror she would feel at finding it so dusty, Julius's was also very clean, although from the look of the desk, his paper's had also been riffled through like Father's. Whitney's was a complete disaster, books and papers everywhere, her closet empty with all her clothes spread across the floor instead. She hated it when her room was tidy, and she had always been fighting about it with Vesper. Luwig and Oliver's rooms were both untouched, but when I went into Oliver's I found his pet frog dead and abandoned in its cage, there had been no one to feed it.
All of these rooms had been such a mirror image of each of my siblings, every detail so extraordinarily like them, that by the time I came to Percy's room I was already crying silently. I had put off his room until last, and when I reached the door I stopped, afraid to go in. At last I pulled in a resolute breath, and pushed into the room. Of all my older brother's rooms, this one was the most characteristic, and I stood frozen in the doorway, trying to take it all in. It was an absolute mess, papers scattered across the floor, charts, graphs, books on engineering and mathematics, half completed then abandoned inventions, bits of machinery, scrap metal, and on the corner of the desk was a half eaten biscuit that had long molded over. I could almost see Percy: bent over the desk, covered in grease, hair disheveled, saying "go away Cas I'm busy..."
    Strangely enough I didn't feel like crying as I hesitantly moved into his room. It almost felt too sad for that, as if my emotion couldn't be expressed through tears, and my eyes were completely dry as I looked around me. The floor was such a mess it took me a minute to pick my way across the room to the desk, when I reached it I found it was strewn with papers, many of which were covered in Percy's handwriting. One at the very back, partially hidden under a stack of books, had a sketch of what appeared to be an arrow on it, with notes in the margins explaining how it worked. It appeared to be some kind of explosive arrow for a crossbow, with a simple enchantment on the tip to give it an affect similar to a fireball, and a small pouch full of steel shrapnel. I had always known that Percy was interested in machines, he had come up with a new contraption on average once a week, but they were always flimsy things that never worked, and I had always found his inventions more amusing than impressive. This was the first creation of his that actually impressed me, and as I looked over the marginal notes I was surprised to find how much sense it made. Something like this might actually work...suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and somehow I knew I wasn't alone anymore. Hiding the arrow sketch behind my back, I whirled to face the door, feeling a cold lump of guilt in my stomach. I probably wasn't supposed to be in here.
    "Anna?!" I exclaimed surprised, for there in the doorway was Anna Ripley, the woman Professor Anders had allowed into the castle on the night of the attack. The woman that had tortured Percy...I felt my surprise give way to dislike, and frowned, my hand convulsively squeezing the paper behind my back.
    "And who were you again?" Ripley said coolly, looking me over, with a faint look of recognition as if she knew that we had met, but couldn't remember where or how.
    "Cassandra."
    "Oh...right..." Anna said with the same coolness, but now there was a hint of disdain in it. "Silas's new pet. I remember you..." Moving so suddenly it startled me, she crossed the room and seized me under the chin, tilting my face up. "I thought you had died."
    For a moment we stood still, eyes locked, and as I stared defiantly up into her face I felt a hint of anger. A surge of warmth, like something aggressive trying to push it's way into control of my fingers, and for a split second my palms itched to reach out and wrap around her throat. It was a distressing feeling. Looking down at me, Anna could sense my momentary aggression, and she released my chin, her face hardening.
    "You'd better go downstairs. Anders was looking for you, Delilah want's him to keep an eye on you, and with good reason."
    Clearly this was a hint for me to leave the room, and I slowly complied, still feeling dazed by that momentary flash of anger. In the doorway I turned back, feeling an apology and insult both fighting to get out of my mouth, and Anna frowned. She was searching through the papers on the desk, but stopped the moment I turned back.
    "Get out." She said sharply, no longer bothering with veiled hints. Seeing that there was nothing left for me to do but obey, I left the room, wondering what on earth Anna Ripley could be looking for among my brother's things.

Over the next few weeks life gradually slipped back into it's old routine, and sometimes I could almost imagine that I had never left the castle, that the two years I had lived at the temple had all been nothing more than a dream. A vision of life as a peasant, and nothing more. If it weren't for the faint hints I found here and there, I could almost have believed that Lord and Lady Briarwood had always owned the castle. But somehow the memory of passed things, of people long dead and gone, couldn't be completely wiped away. As if their presence had long ago sunk into the very walls of the castle, and now the whitestone was completely soaked in it. Like the rooms of my brothers and sisters, most of the castle seemed to be frozen in time, completely untouched. It was only in much used rooms like the dining room, sitting room, kitchen, foyer, and Father's study that there was any sign of change. Rooms like these were the only ones that looked lived in, and occasionally a servant could be seen entering or exiting a doorway, bringing firewood, or lightning lamps in the evening. This was a rare occurrence, for the servants seemed to be intent on showing themselves as little as possible, though whether by the Briarwood's orders or not I didn't know.
Other than the servants the only people living at the castle were the Briarwoods, Anna Ripley, Professor Anders, and myself. Most of the castle was completely empty, and the professor and I were the only ones that spent a large part of our time in these public rooms, for Ripley and the Briarwoods spent most of their time in the Undercroft, a series of chambers buried deep under the castle. What they were doing down there I didn't know, and I was forbidden to go down there. What ever it was, it was something foul, for in the two years of my absence they had dug giant vents in the garden that now belched green smoke out in clouds that covered the ground in a thick sheet.
This garden was the only part of the castle that was completely changed almost beyond recognition. Mother had loved the garden, and had spent a large part of every day there, tending to the plants and hedges; or consulting with the head gardener, a man she had hand picked from among the people of Whitestone, who knew more about plants and their needs than I ever thought any man could know. Under their tender care it had been a verdant paradise, full of ancient trees, sloping lawns, beds of flowers, and shaded nooks. Mother had spent so much time in the garden, she almost lived in it, and it was on the back terrace that she had instructed me in fencing all those ages ago. Since the attack the garden had completely died and everything had turned sickly gray, as if the very color had been sucked out of it. The trees Mother had loved so much were dead, the flowers were wilted, the grass withered, and the sunny memories of my childhood here blotted and ruined. As if the color had been sucked out of my childhood too.  
This barren desolation was now peopled by the walking corpses of the castle's long dead servants and guards. Shambling undead creatures that kept a ceaseless patrol over the garden. Many of them were still wearing what ever clothes or armor they had been wearing when they died, and the sight of them, not even allowed the dignity of death, always filled me with indignation. I hated looking at the garden now, I hated looking at these terrible creatures, animated by some unholy spark of life, and it was at these times that my old hatred had the most control.
Most of my time was spent either in my room, or with Professor Anders, for Lady Briarwood had told him to keep an eye on me. At first he did keep a very tight leash on me, but as time went on, and I never tried to sneak off, slowly his vigilance relaxed slightly. After a while he was content to let me stay in my room, and put a simple alarm spell on my bedroom door that would alert him if I tried to get out. But it didn't take me long to find a way around it. My father's study was full of useful books, one of which was an old spell tome that no one had read for an age, and in the very back of the book was a simple counter charm that would work against minor enchantments and spells. This counter charm proved to be just the thing for disabling the enchantment on my door, and before long I had free reign over the castle.
    There was something about pushing the line between obedience and open defiance as far as I could, something refreshing about it, and during these times of mild disobedience I felt freed for some reason. In the same way that a prisoner would feel if he was able to thrust his hand through the barred window of his cell out into the open air. It wasn't true freedom, but for a brief time it had the appearance and sensation of it. Which was strange, because I wasn't a prisoner, no one made me stay at the castle against my will, but I felt restricted all the same...