Feeling suffocated inside, I grabbed hold of both handles on the wide double door and pulled. I stood still for a moment and closed my eyes. They couldn’t adjust to the brightness, and I felt blind, but the light that seeped in through my closed eyelids was enough to make my heart race and my mind come to life.
My thoughts flew instantly to the field of flowers that covered the hills near my home in the spring and how I’d run as a child, giggling with Jurij, Darwyn, and my other friends as we kicked up petals and rolled down the hills. I remembered looking up one day and seeing Elfriede sitting quietly atop the hill as she looked after us, careful not to disturb the passionate purple of the flowers that framed her peaceful little body. She weaved together lilies into a circlet for my hair, crowning me “the little elf queen.” She’d first named me that, taking a title from one of Mother’s stories, although I’m sure she didn’t remember. There was no mistaking the vivacity of those hilltop blossoms, flowers that could both robustly cushion a tribe of lively little adventurers and still yield to the gentle movements of a weaver girl’s fingers.
The garden in the castle featured only white roses on carefully manicured bright green bushes. Save for the large space immediately in front of the two large wooden doors that led back into the castle, the rose bushes linked together in an unbroken circle framing the entire garden. Cobblestones lined the rest of the garden ground, and there was sign of neither dirt nor grass.
It was no hilltop, but it would have to do.
I shivered. The winter air was retreating, but there was still a nip of cold in the spring morning. The closest thing I could find to a comfortable seat was on one of the two benches on either side of a stone table to the left of the entrance. I sat down on the bench that would give me a full view of the garden and stared again at the odd water fountain at the middle. Two streams of water still spurted from the eyes of the pointed-eared child, his arms outstretched towards the skies. My heart ached for his torment. He seemed to be reaching for something—and weeping because it would never be within his grasp. He and I, we shared much of the same feeling.
A tray with food appeared on the table before me.
I started. A specter stood next to me after dropping off the tray on the stone table, but I hadn’t noticed him enter. Despite my best efforts, my movements in the castle hadn’t gone unnoticed.
I felt ill.
But the specter soon retreated, leaving me alone in the garden. The empty feeling in my head and the rumbling in my stomach won out. I picked up the spoon on the tray and began eating. No one disturbed me. The sun rose ever farther over the horizon and the light made the water pouring from the child’s eyes sparkle a brilliant blue. It was the first meal I’d enjoyed since my stay began.
Whenever the sun was out over the next few weeks, I took my breakfasts and lunches in the garden. Even when it was overcast and a chill swept through the air, I went to the garden. Only rain disturbed my sanctuary. And dinner, for that was the one meal the lord ordered that I eat with him. He didn’t tell me that—we still didn’t speak—but the specters always appeared at dusk, their hands clenched tightly around my arms, and I was whisked away. I always knew it was coming shortly after they came to water the roses.
I began to feel. And that feeling, I was upset to find, was boredom. I almost wished for the books, the needles, and the paints again, if only to find some way to make each day pass by. But I didn’t want them enough to break my vow of silence. I hardly wanted them at all. Instead, I took to staring at the fountain or pulling out the petals of a rose one by one.
As if hearing my thoughts, the specters started bringing things again. Paper, quill, and ink. A board decorated with black-and-white squares and thirty-two odd-shaped figures made of bone set on top. I laughed one time when they brought me a flute. I didn’t touch it.
Once, they brought me a few blocks of wood and a set of gouges and chisels. I ached to pick up the items and numb my heart with them, but I refused to acknowledge the gift he got right. I didn’t touch them, I wouldn’t look at them, and they didn’t appear again.
Drawing wasn’t my strength, but I picked up the quill and ran it back and forth over the paper. I thought about writing a letter home, but I didn’t know whether I would be allowed to send it, nor if I could even begin to express my feelings at their betrayal. There was no way I could write a letter to Jurij, and even if I could, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I held the different bone figures in my palms, running my fingers across the cold, smooth surfaces. I liked the one with the multi-pointed crown the best. It reminded me of the elf queen.
One afternoon, the specters brought a letter.
I looked at it warily where it sat on the stone table, at first afraid and then enraged that it might contain a message from the lord. But I felt a stirring in my heart that I hadn’t known in ages as I looked at the script that wrote out my name: “Olivière, second daughter of Aubree and Gideon, Carvers.” It was Elfriede’s hand.