"Good lord girl, what have you done?"
Light blinds me as my eyes flutter open, and a groan escapes me as the grimace causes shooting pain to flare across my left cheek.
I glance up to Aggie as my hand cradles the sore cheek carefully.
The sight sends a new sort of fear through me.
The old maid stares down at me, fury alight in those aged blue eyes, and as she continues to stare me down I take in the wrinkles that line her face. They are deep lines, gouged into her skin around her eyes and mouth. They note her age, and her worry. And her anger.
And then I take in the hands pressed firmly to her chest as she crosses her arms.
"What did you do?"
She glares at me and I stare back up at her, dumbfounded. The ache in my cheek takes my attention until she grabs my hand and pulls it away, hissing at the sight.
"What did you do?" the words are repeated, a frantic edge hardening her tone. I groan in response.
"What?"
Aggie doesn't respond. Instead she stares hard at me and I duck my head, not sure if it is shame that makes me nervous of her response, or if I simply can't meet those calculating gray eyes, like coals covered in the finest layer of ash.
It is as I look down at myself that I realize the mistake I had made in my exhaustion last night.
My training clothes, covered in gouges and sand and torn to shreds, lay unceremoniously across both my body and the bed. Sand clings to my skin, falling off and dirtying the sheets.
I sit up quickly, moaning as my body screams in protest, but when I'm sitting the realization that there is nothing I can do to fix this now flicks through my mind. And then we rest in the silence, her fingers tangling into my hair and twisting it into some intricate braid that I couldn't hope to accomplish without her, and I stare down at my hands.
Habit helps her to work quickly, and though sand and flecks of blood fall to the sheets, I can imagine the elegant look she is creating.
We both know the motions are useless. I could never leave my room like this. Skin coated in sand. Hair tangled by grease and dirt. But it is that same habit that forces her to move, knotting her hands into the oily strands.
If I could imagine the braids she works onto my head, I would still be too distracted by the look on her face to care.
Heat burns my cheeks, but instead of pooling up inside of me as it had when I had been trapped by Captain Linthian yesterday, it spreads to the back of my neck and burns the words away from my tongue as I try to think of anything that will get a response from the woman staring at me.
Don't make me think about last night, I beg her internally, and yet the fire in her eyes tells me that that is all she can think about.
Of course she knows I was up to something. I never get anything past Aggie. The best I can hope for is that she will let the subject drop without too much detail.
The sheets underneath me crinkle as I shift uncomfortably. Light shines, too bright, through the open windows, and I squint at her face once more.
"Aggie?"
The space between us grows so quiet that I imagine I can hear the steady sound of my heart beating, and when Aggie's hands finally fall from my hair and she turns from me, I still can't find the courage to take her in face to face. Instead I keep my head angled, looking to her for any cue that we might be able to talk.
She walks to the wardrobe across my room and I watch her in the mirror. This woman, the closest thing I've had to a mother since I was just a child, is the one person that knows of my full intentions outside of Amos.
I had told her one wintry evening as we had sat in this very room, spreading all of my hopes and dreams out like the quilt she had tucked me under each night.
It had been a mistake.
Aggie had a way of making me feel both confident in myself and ashamed of every action I've ever committed within the woods beyond Dallworth.
Especially the ones that could reflect poorly on Lord Shilton.
A long time ago she had told me that he had saved her from another master, one who would beat her for bringing him the wrong spoon for breakfast even though it wasn't even her duty, and I suppose that ever since then she had felt particularly indebted to him. He had saved her, in a strange way that only he could have. And had he offered her her freedom I don't doubt she would choose to stay.
Lord Shilton could be a cold, caustic beast when he needed to be, but no one would ever hear one of his servants complaining about a beating.
Still, when I had told Aggie this deep dark secret that had been crawling through my chest, desperate for some outlet other than a tree or practice dummy, I had been careless of her feelings.
I had ignored the fact that she cared for him, possibly more than she cared for me. I held no debt over her. She owed me nothing.
I clench the sheets beneath me in my fists, discomfort tightening my already sore muscles.
For whatever reason Aggie had kept my secret all these years, but it was the one thing that forever stood between us.
This beast with no name, built on the sticky, dark hopes of a girl who had once lost everything.
"That's the thing about hope," she had finally said after hours of deliberation. "Once it finds some poor soul to latch onto, it digs its claws into their heart. Everything you do to feed it only tightens it's hold on you, and the longer you let it reside in you, the harder it will be to let it go later."
At first I had thought she was being poetic, telling me to keep my hopes close because they would protect my heart from some other monstrous need.
I had been a child, though.
It wasn't until years later, when she had finally screamed her own dashed hopes into the stars out my window, turning at me with rage and terror in her eyes with a finger pointed toward my chest that I realized how much these secrets of mine bothered her.
She was terrified for me.
Since then there had been an unspoken rule between us.
We never spoke of my dreams.
Not those ones at least, for they would tear apart not only my own life but the lives of everyone surrounding me, and I could not make her understand the worth.
At times she would bring up the fact that she knew how I sent my afternoons at home, and I would appease her by lying. She chose to live in some self-imposed pit of ignorance, and who was I to take that from her?
Whenever I feel the need to talk to her about my fears and dreams I remember the wild look in her eye when she had finally confronted me, and I remember the tight feeling in my chest. Not hope. I refuse to believe her pretty words.
Hope couldn't hurt this much, even if it tried. These demons are made of fear and hatred.
I am jolted from my thoughts as my bed lifts, the weight of my maid disappearing as she walks across my room. I track her movements, watching as she walks slowly across the plush carpet that fills all of Lord Shilton's rooms.
"A blessing," she would say. Because, of course, if it wasn't for Lord Shilton she would never have even stepped foot within Highland Bluffs.
"Aggie," I finally choke out her name again as she begins to rummage through my dresses.
She remains silent for a few more moments, finally deciding on a dress for me and then, once she has placed it neatly at the door of the wardrobe, sitting on the edge of my bed and looking my way.
She waits.
"It was nothing," I finally settle on the lie.
"Don't worry about me. Just enjoy your time at court and... and we'll go home together once spring arrives. Like always."
Aggie stares at me for a long time.
Finally, it seems as though days have passed, she nods. That's it. A simple nod that I know could get me through the rest of the day, even if I don't believe it.
"C'mon, miss," she says, standing.
She leads me to the bathroom and I could cry from relief. But something clenches within me as well, and I keep looking to her, waiting for that fire to emerge in a mix of terror and rage.
It doesn't until I am in the tub, thoroughly soaked.
In the water I can see her reflection when she begins shaking her head. The tears that begin tracking down her wrinkled face are all too visible.
But it is her words that cut through me.
"You lied."
"What?"
"You told me it was nothing, but that gash across your cheek tells a different story."
The accusation stings, but I bow under the heat of her gaze. And nod.
"You were hurt. Following these foolish dreams and... and... I thought you would have given them up by now!"
Her words shock me, and my hands drop to my lap in the water.
"I thought that by now you would have been happy. I was so sure that maybe... Maybe you could find someone that would take away all of the hurt from what happened but you're stubborn. A stubborn fool, just like I knew you would be. But I hoped!"
A tear slides down her cheek, dripping into the water of my bath, and suddenly I feel so dirty.
"And for a second I had thought you really had given it up, too! You seemed happier and...and..."
My face scrunches up as I fight my own tears, and I reach one hands for hers, hoping that the contact might comfort her. Or me.
"Aggie..."
"What did you do?"
She asks that same question again and again, harsher each time, and I cringe, pulling back. I place my hand back in my lap and turn from her. The water of the tub sloshes quietly around me, and the throbbing ache of my cheek is suddenly unbearable under the weight of her gaze.
"Aris Shilton. What did you do?"
Her voice is practically a growl now, but I can't answer it. I won't.
So I shake my head.
I hear her scoff. I see the anger in the towel that she throws into the tub, and I recognize that fury by the sound of her shoes, stomping away from the room.
The bedroom door slams shut, and I can hear the faint sound of Lord Shilton questioning her before our rooms become silent once more. All the while, guilt threatens to swallow me whole, it's inky grasp reminding me of the beast that had attacked me last night.
The vision causes a shock of terror to course through me, and I shudder in the warm water. The ripples surround me, and as a gust of cold air rounds my body I shiver once more.
A whimper escapes my clenched teeth as the feel of that inky black mass whispers across my memory. Tears track down my cheeks, dripping into the water with a hiss, and it is at that sound that I realize the temperature in the room has dropped several degrees, ice on the window crackling as it spontaneously grows thicker.
And I cry, until the small bar of soap crosses my line of sight and I grab it. Suddenly thick, hot rage races through me, coursing through my veins, and I throw that bar of soap.
Hard.
I yell, pouring the fear and anger and guilt and everything else that thickens the blood racing through me into that yell as I bring my hands to my face, and I yell louder when my wet hand presses into the cut on my cheek, pain searing across it and momentarily blinding me.
And something crashes into the stone wall across the bathroom.
That resounding crack echoes through the air, too loud to have come from the soap, and yet when I look up slowly, that strange moment from last night crossing my mind, I see it.
The bathroom is a simply decorate space. Stone walls with a simple, alabaster tub, a toilet in the corner, one of the few pieces of plumbing that we have, and a bucket filled with soap and the shreds of old towels that can be used to wash one's self.
But now a crack in one of those stones stands out, blindingly clear. And dripping from the edges of that crack are a few flecks of water, and a few scattered soap bubbles.
Water splashes onto the floor as I lunge from the tub.
In three steps I've reached the wall and I crouch down, droplets of water cascading down my body as I reach out to run a hand across the webbed mosaic.
Sharp edged stone juts out from the wall, the soap bubbles slowly traveling toward the floor.
It isn't until my lungs begin burning that I realize I have stopped breathing.
I look down to the ground and take in the disintegrated remains of the bar of soap, and my breath gets caught in my throat once more.
"Oh..."
I quickly grab the bucket of towels and pull them in front of the wall, groaning in frustration as the lip barely covers the bottom of the shattered stone. I throw a towel against the wall in another attempt to cover the damage.
No.
My hands press against the stone that sticks away from the smooth wall, pushing it back where it belongs.
A small piece falls to the ground.
Another update!!!
Hey everyone, I hope you've had a marvelous week! I have absolutely loved getting feedback from those of you who have given it, and it is based on that that I am going to hold a small competition. I need some banners!!!
I've got a map of the country of Aspia that I will be posting in the next chapter, and a temporary layout of the castle (though I may decide I need to move some things on that), but I would love to see what YOU all have to offer.
It is based on that that I will now be accepting banners from all of you! Comment any questions about this that you might have, but feel free to take a favorite quote or thought and throw it together with some cool pics!
Whoever's banners I choose will get a free follow from me, a shout out once the 'competition' is over, and I will read up to five of one of your stories, with comments on my thoughts!
So what do you say? Jump on in!!! And let me know what you thought of this chapter while you're at it!
Read, Think, Comment!
Ashlee Ivey
edited 6/16/17