The Traitor's Daughter

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The crowd grew louder as they spoke, and they kept taking steps towards Elizabeth, until they were mere inches from her. Still, she was planted in place and couldn't move. Even if she had been able to move, she was completely surrounded by people, and wouldn't have been able to escape. Those closest to her reached a hand out, and one of them stroked Elizabeth's hair, causing her to cry out in surprise.

"Please, leave me alone," she begged, hoping that it would stop them. But the chants grew louder and Elizabeth was forced to cover her ears to try and block out the deafening roar from the crowd. She squeezed her eyes shut and hummed to herself, trying anything that would distract her or calm her down.

The crowd tore at her gown and ripped it to shreds, and she could feel their hands pawing at her, almost as if they would tear her apart too. She opened her eyes, just as a man lunged at her and knocked her over. She fell to the ground in seemingly slow motion, while the crowd watched around her, some of them laughing, the majority still chanting. She reached out and tried to grab onto anything to keep her from falling, but her hands only grabbed air as she continued to fall.

Just as she was about to hit the ground, she woke up with a scream, her heart beating fast, her hair plastered to her damp skin. She fought to catch her breath and lower her heartrate, while Mary rushed to her side and pulled Elizabeth to her.

"I'm here, Elizabeth. I'm here." She held Elizabeth's head to her chest and stroked the damp hair out of her face.

"You're here?" Elizabeth asked between breaths, her heart still racing. "Wh...how?"

Mary shook her head, although Elizabeth couldn't see it.

"It doesn't matter right now, my dear. Take a moment to calm yourself and then we may speak."

Elizabeth stayed quiet and focused on the rhythm that Mary had created while she stroked her hair. She matched her breathing to the speed of Mary's movements, and her heartrate slowly went back to normal.

When Elizabeth had first been taken into Mary's home after being tortured by Sir Richard, she would wake up in the middle of the night frequently because of nightmares. She would think that Sir Richard was in her room, coming to kill her once and for all, or she'd dream about her father's execution again and would wake up and swear that his ghost was in her room. Mary's room was next door to Elizabeth's, and she had gotten into the habit of keeping her door open in order to hear her if she woke up.

She would go running into Elizabeth's room and would climb into bed with her and hold her and stroke her hair until she had calmed down. It seemed to be the only thing that worked to soothe her quickly.

Mary had stopped doing it when Elizabeth had turned fourteen, the age where Elizabeth believed that she was too old to have someone there to comfort her all the time. Her nightmares were less frequent, but on the nights that she would wake up terrified, Mary would stay in her own room, fighting the urge to rush into the young girl's room and comfort her.

Elizabeth didn't want to admit it, but Mary's touch helped to calm her down much faster than if Elizabeth was alone.

Once she was able to breathe properly once again, she pushed away from Mary and turned to face her.

"I arrived in the night while you were sleeping," Mary explained. "I had planned to arrive the morning after you arrived, but the king's men were all over the path we had originally planned to make, searching for you, Henry, and I. They had checkpoints in every village on the way here, so we had to be extremely cautious and take a different route."

"I'm glad you made it safely," Elizabeth replied. She settled back against her pillows and let out a sigh. Her dream had unsettled her, and she couldn't shake the image of Henry's head from her mind.