A Father's Sin

A Father's Sin (Chapter Eleven)

The clothes Elizabeth provided for me were very nice and very expensive I'm sure but I still wasn't used to wearing them. The very fine lace, very very fine silk and the corsets that always threaten to squeeze my entire life force out of me were very pretty but the all made very uncomfortable.

I didn't have to remember what I usually wore before I ended up here to know I didn't like dressing up like this. One of the chamber maids helped me with my hair sometimes because I usually declined and claimed I could dress myself but on days that my hair did not cooperate with me, I admit defeat and I am grateful for the assistance.

Before dinner I had changed into a navy blue evening gown and Elsa had helped me put my hair up. He didn't join us for dinner still, why did I suddenly expect him to that was odd. All through our meal Elizabeth was visibly trying not to talk about her son or our walk which it will soon be time for.

"I don't want it to be awkward or make it seem like I have high expectations of him, or of you I'm just really excited that he is doing something other than locking himself up in his quarters studying all the time or going for really long walks at night. There was one time that he was gone the whole night, gave me quite the scare."

She went on like that I was input half hearten responses and trying to make them sound eager because for some unknown reason as our meal drew closer to its end, my nerves began to flare. So when we were done with dinner and I had said good night to Elizabeth, my hands were a bit shaky.

As I approached the corridor on the ground floor north of the dining area, it opened into a number of other large hallways to my left and to my right in the north wing. The one straight ahead of me was direction I would take.

I was smoothing out invincible wrinkles on my dress by the time I got to the end of that hallway. Elizabeth's quarters and my room was in the south wing, the servant's quarters were in the east wing from the little knowledge I now had of the castle I could find my way around the places I visited frequently but I could still get lost easily so I had reverently memorized the directions that were given to me since I claimed I did not need an escort, just directions.

As I stepped into a hall with an arched entrance, the lamps on the wall illuminated the hall brightly and I could feel some of the night air it was warm inside but some of the large windows were open letting a generous amount of moonlight in.

When my eyes adjusted to the different lights in the room I looked up and there he was waiting for me, he look more put together than he was this morning almost like he had gone through a grooming process.

I don't know what possessed me to tease him but I did, "You look very handsome this evening my lord you must really think highly of me to want to impress me with your looks this evening." He genuinely looked surprised at my word for a moment. When he got over his surprise he laughed, I'm guessing it was laugh because when he noticed my uneasiness he laughed harder because in his moment of surprise I thought I had offended him the look on my face must have been priceless. He just laughed some more, if thunder could laugh that would be the sound of it.

"I always try to impress my guests especially if there are as beautiful as you are." He said playfully and added with sincerity in his voice "You look beautiful tonight, like you do every other day." With heat rising to my face I said thank you.

He then held his elbow out to me and I placed a hands on it; one through the nook and the other on it. It was almost comical how little my hands looked on his very large arm, he was warm under my touch and this close I could smell him.

For someone that looked like that he smelled good, he smelled really like a mixture of clean fresh air and very intoxicating herbs. A spearmint and Marino Blue is how I can best describe his scent. We walk straight ahead from the hall to an adjoining hallway to the left; soon we were in very large room that looked like an extension of the north wing. It was as large as the ballroom in the south wing but unlike that ball room the roof and the wall in front of us was completely glass.

Through the wall you could see a clearing and sparse vegetation that connected with the forest ahead of the clearing. The forest from here in the moonlight looked so beautiful and peaceful. I looked up at the glass roof and it took my breath away, through the glass roof I could see a full moon and the stars were so pretty in the night sky it made me long for home, what home? The longing was strong enough to pull tears to my eyes.

"You don't like it...?" His voice came from beside me; my hands were still on his arm I had almost forgotten where I was again. I happened very often recently, almost remembering who I was, a strong feeling that I should be elsewhere, an old man sitting in an arm chair with his glasses perched on his nose. It always left me staring into nothingness willing the bits and pieces to connect.

"No I love it; it just made me feel like I need to go home. Where ever that is." I turned and faced him and he had a look that looked like both guilt and sadness on his face. Why would he feel guilt? "I'm sorry you can't remember..." he paused like he had more to say but stopped himself.

"There is nothing to be sorry for, of fact I owe you a thank you for saving my life." He bowed his head then, either he was really humble or he really had something to feel guilty about. It didn't matter to me what it was right then anymore, because I started to look around this truly beautiful place.

It smelled of earth, rain, flowers, herbs, vegetables and many other things. I could stay up all night just looking at the stars. "I don't think I've ever seen a place so beautiful in all my life." He relaxed visibly when he saw I meant what I said.

"Come, let me show you something." He said holding his hand to me, I placed my hand in his and he held it like it was the most fragile thing in the world, like he was afraid to break me. He led me to a flight of spiral stairs by the left of the entrance I hadn't noticed. It led directly to the glass roof, the top of the stairs opened into a wide area with a corner. It was almost as wide as my room and spacious enough for him to stand straight in with his head a few paces from the opening in the glass roof.

Through the wide opening in the glass roof I could see the night sky clearly, I looked over at him and he was adjusting something towards the opening in the roof. It was a telescope! I was bouncing with excitement now, "This is incredible, we can look at the starts more closely with it! Did you know that the stars are...?"

"Millions of light years away, that in fact most of them are brighter than the sun, that the sun is in fact a star?" Straight up and completing my sentence and my thoughts really while smirking at me.

"You know your stars well I take it?" I said raising an eyebrow, "Naturally" was his short and humor filled reply. I didn't care if he was laughing at me the thought of seeing the stars that closely made me giddy with excitement.

"We can find Gemini easily at this time of the year." "The twins, Oh but we don't have a star map." "Don't worry I've done since I was a child, I can find Castor and Pollux without a start map." He brought out a heavy looking blanket from the corner and laid it on the floor, sat and invited me to sit with him.

He adjusted the telescope methodically until he was satisfied he shifted the telescope stand towards me, "have a look" he said. I did look; we tried to find other constellations and talked about the myths that surrounded them. We fell in to a comfortable silence I did not know how long we were up there, minutes or hours I could not tell because it seemed that time had stopped.

"Seeing the stars like this make you wonder doesn't it?"

"Wonder about what?"

"Wonder about how big the universe is and how we all are really just small insignificant beings." Sighing tiredly he went on; "it almost makes my condition bearable, there are people out there that have worse problems ey?"

"True there may be worse things in this world; it doesn't make your problems a lesser problem. We are not all made the same way."

"Hmm"

"Bevan?"

"Yes?"

"What happened to you?"

There was a long pause, I was afraid I had over stepped so I started to apologize; "I'm sorry you don't have to answer that..."

"My father's sin, I am paying for my father's sin." "Or more specifically his ancestor's sin, it's punishment a generational curse that was passed down to him from generations before him.