Flames of Revenge

Secrets

March 11th 1872

ROSALYNN MAYFIELD

Two days before the fire.

"May I braid your hair, Miss Rosalynn?"

Siobhan has been watching me intently for the last ten minutes as I play the piano. It's slightly unnerving, to be honest, but I don't really mind.

Shouldn't you be somewhere else? I think, but I don't say it out loud.

"Alright," I reply, feeling sorry for her. She's such a small, wretched thing.

Siobhan claps her hands happily, and stands behind me, taking out my hairpins with a bit too much enthusiasm. I sigh and start playing the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Siobhan finishes taking out all my hairpins and arranges them neatly in a row on top of the piano. My hair falls over my shoulders in a silky curtain.

"Oh, you have such gorgeous hair," she gushes, "So long and black - like midnight." I hide a snort.

Siobhan begins to run her fingers through my hair, brushing it.

She tugs at sections of my hair, gentle yet firm at the same time.

I lose myself to the music. I haven't played the Moonlight Sonata for such a long time. I don't know why. It's one of my favourite pieces. I love the first slow, thoughtful movement, coupled with the light and playful second movement, what I think of as the 'calm before the storm', before the final movement, fast, loud and downright exhausting.

The Moonlight Sonata was the last piece he ever taught me before I...left him. It's been nearly three years already, I realise. Has it really been this long? Have I really been stuck at Chapworth manor for nearly three years?

"There, all done."

I gasp as I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the shiny, polished surface of the piano. Siobhan has plaited my hair and piled it on top of my head in an extravagant coil. I turn my head from side to side, admiring it. It's beautiful. I feel like a princess.

"Where did you learn to braid like that?" I ask, astonished at the intricacy of it all. And then, before I could stop myself: "Did your mother teach you?"

"I can't remember my parents," she said in a nonchalant tone, "They left me at the orphanage when I was only a baby."

I could slap myself. What was I thinking?

I've assumed that Siobhan had parents all this time. I thought that perhaps they had sent her daughter her to earn a little extra cash, that's all.

How selfish I've been. I'm not the only one who's ever lost a loved one. I'm not the only orphan in the world. She only wanted for someone to love her in this strange new place, but all I ever did was ignore her, look upon her condescendingly, find her insufferable.

"I'm sorry..." I begin, but Siobhan shrugs off my concern.

"A kind old lady took me in, after that. She was very good to me. She taught me to read and sew and braid hair, and she always told me stories before bed and let me chose sweets from a big jar she kept on her shelf when I'd been good."

Siobhan watches my fingers intently as they dart up and down the keys. Like a butterfly, she once told me.

"She liked to brush my hair, too," Siobhan mused, "She said that my hair was long and soft and beautiful, like silk." Her voice became soft. "She told me that it reminded her of her daughter's hair."