And even that dream world never came back to me. Without the blade, without the pool, I’d never know if I’d seen a vision of the past.
I saw the specters often. They brought me tea between meals and built a fire. At first they also brought things I assumed were meant to amuse me: old books, art supplies, and embroidery. All things to which I had never taken and had no desire to practice still. My mind was numb enough without drudgery. Several weeks into the snows, the servants saw to my fire, but they no longer brought me anything.
There were dresses in the chest at the foot of my bed. At first the specters would choose one—a different one each day—and lay it on my mattress. My hands dared to touch them and found them finer than anything I had seen on any woman, but rough and cold to the touch—and far too heavy. They also immediately brought to mind images of Master and Mistress Tailor, whom I assumed would have made them, as they were the only true tailors in the village. And thoughts of the Tailors brought up thoughts of Jurij. I wouldn’t wear them.
Eventually, the specters delivered a strange package to my room that contained the clothing I’d left behind at home. I sorted through the pile, my heart nearly stopping when I came across the dress with the fine embroidery flowers on the back. I fingered it, familiar with the dress but the needlework new to me. It was the torn dress I’d worn that day I fell into the pool. She’d fixed it at some point, and I hadn’t even noticed. It was clearly Elfriede’s handiwork, done to mask the ripped material. The rips down the dress like the cracks of a whip. My finger stopped at a single crooked thread that Elfriede had failed to cover up.
This dress was first stitched by Avery. And that dream was no dream at all.
I burned with the stupid idea that this was more proof I’d met the lord in the past. In a past so long ago no one else even remembered it.
Not that it mattered. I wasn’t allowed to leave the castle.
As soon as I slipped into the dress, the specters swooped into the room and took the dress I’d worn to the castle from the floor. I nearly screamed upon their sudden entrance.
The dress was given back to me later the same day, washed and folded.
For some reason, it felt like I had lost in a game I hadn’t intended to play.
***
When I woke up one morning, a surge of warmth hit my face. I lay in bed for a moment, picturing myself having risen from a nap on the hilltop where I’d often picnicked with Jurij. But I couldn’t feel grass and dirt beneath my fingers, only cold silken plush.
I remembered where I was. My eyes opened reluctantly.
A sunbeam trickled onto my bed from the window. It actually warmed me, and I felt a stirring in my heart. Cautiously, I sat up and then took the few steps over to the window. I peered out and my heart soared, if but for a brief moment. The snow had melted. A gentle haze permeated the horizon, but I could still make out the village below. Perhaps spring had finally come.
Before I could be summoned for breakfast, I dressed, this time in the worn-down dress that I often wore when I’d been carving. It had been cleaned before it was presented to me and was cleaned every time I wore it since, but I still imagined it carried the scent of sawdust.
I bypassed the untouched vanity and the white hairbrush I knew would be lying out for me. Although I didn’t brush my hair myself, the specters had started brushing it for me before meals. All the better reason to leave before they got there. Perhaps I would find a knife with which to chop it all off and leave them with nothing to make pretty.
Gently, I pushed the door open a crack. I sucked in my abdomen and squeezed through, quietly pushing the door shut behind me. No one was in the hallway, but I stood still for a moment anyway to see if anyone stirred. I knew from the “tour” that the lord’s chambers were located on the floor above mine, but I wouldn’t put it past the specters to be on guard. But no one came.
I slipped across the hallway to the staircase and took one step down at a time, cautiously peering through the banister for signs of the specters. There was no one.
I came upon the grand entryway and my heart skipped a beat. This was where I’d had my first encounter with the lord, more than a year prior. I could picture myself now, bathed in a moonbeam, following it to its source.
A sunbeam had replaced that moonbeam. The rays of dawn were peeking through the cracks in the door that led to the inner courtyard. I shuffled quietly over to it and peered through the space in the door as I had the first night I’d foolishly ventured to the castle. A garden. When I’d been shown the place on the “tour,” it was but a drab collection of stone and branches. Now, almost overnight, the sun had breathed life into the place.