Calypso

Day 19

Please enjoy with the music located on the side. Thank you.

Amy curses as she brushes the stray crumbs onto a plate, stacking the tea cups and placing all the used utensils together, cold tea licking the bottoms of the cups. How could she have forgotten to clean up after tea? The mistress surely thinks she is a slob now, an incompetent maid. Maybe even lazy.

Amy grits her teeth, stacking everything onto the large platter holding the leftover cookies. She is not lazy. Still, that does not take away from the fact that she missed a chore. Even though Amy allows herself no room for mistakes, they still manage to creep in, a dusty lamp here and a forgotten fork there. Although seemingly minor at first, Amy knows that they will start piling up, leaving her cracking even further under the stress.

She feels she has failed Miss Calypso. Amy is a disappointment, to be sure. As she balances the stacked platter, she bites her tongue. She apparently has not learned to stop her awful habit either. Failure after failure.

No matter how stiffly Amy stands, the delicate porcelain cups teeter precariously, wobbling unsteadily as they shift. They are as fragile as Amy herself, but nobody would blame them if they were to suddenly fall apart. No, the fault would still be Amy's.

She stands tensely, gripping the tray with white hands. The tea sloshes, wetting the cookies and making them stick to the plate. They seem to mock her, making themselves even harder to clean up. In a fit of rage, Amy picks up a cookie and crushes it in her fist, dropping the crumbs in the tea.

Although they float at first, they beginning dropping to the bottom as they take in tea, sinking like dead bodies. As Amy continues examining the crumbs, they begin morphing into actual dead bodies, faceless figures drowning in the dark liquid. 

Amy stares at them silently before taking a deep breath, shaking her head as she leaves the room and heads for the kitchen. She flinches every time they clink together, as if the small impact would cause a new crack to form.

The candles are already beginning to go out. The remaining candles flicker weakly, the slightest draft causing them to blink rapidly. As Amy walks, the candles above her finish their last dance, slowly dimming until there's nothing left.

Amy pauses in the darkness, letting her eyes adjust to the lack of light. Having pulled the curtains of the numerous windows decorating the halls earlier, the only source of light is from the remaining candles, each creating their own soft glow.

She feels herself relax, the platter lowering a little. She has always felt calmer in the dark, no matter the situation. In the daylight one is able to see another closely, and Amy'd rather not have someone examining her closely.

She feels protected in the night, protected by a suit of darkness. She is invisible.

Invincible.

Amy begins walking again, calmer than before. The dead bodies are now nothing but waterlogged crumbs, the black liquid nothing more than cold tea. She laughs under her breath. She must have been hallucinating under the stress. She has been staying up late working, after all.

She is about to turn the corner when she hears footsteps on the marble floors, someone pacing back and forth. The entire time they are muttering unintelligibly under their breath. Amy abruptly stops, making a face as the tea sloshes again and wets her fangers.

Watching people has become second nature to Amy. Setting down the platter on a nearby table, she peeks around the corner quietly, masked by the shadows. Although the pacing has stopped, the muttering has not.

A dark figure sits hunched over on the grand staircase, gripping the intricately-patterned railing tightly. Shrugging and figuring 'to hell with it,' Amy picks up the platter and makes her entrance.