I flinched with shock at the clear words.
Lily! I responded instinctively, reaching out for our familiar connection. But instead I hit the mental wall, feeling nothing but a cold emptiness where my usual sense of my sister lay. I took a deep breath, shaking slightly from shock.
I had heard the words. I was sure I hadn’t imagined them. I replayed them in my mind and realized the voice had sounded nothing like Lily’s. And the words themselves made no sense. I closed my eyes and listened again, this time focusing on the sensation of making my mind receptive, of opening it to whatever path my projections traveled. I made no effort to cast my own thoughts out, and I similarly put away all thought of my sister or the familiar cadence of her thoughts.
If you weren’t so busy gossiping, Tara, you wouldn’t have dropped the platter. Now what are we to use to serve the prince’s potatoes?
Yes! I cheered myself silently.
Oh hush, Gilda, you’re always complaining. The castle has a hundred platters.
Watch your tongue, girl, or I’ll make sure you’re sent out to the stables to shovel manure.
As an outraged gasp sounded inside my mind, I carefully peered back into the kitchen. Most of the food had been cleared away, but a dish hung frozen half inside a large sink of water and several other items hung in various positions around the room.
You’re not head chef, yet, Gilda. A third voice entered the conversation, deep and slow. So don’t get ahead of yourself.
I’m just trying to keep order, Matthew. The Gilda voice sounded grumpy, but she offered no further comment, and the various frozen objects began to move again.
I swallowed and whipped my head back out of sight. For a long moment I simply sat there, making no effort to move or even to listen. Now that I had stopped trying, the inaudible whispers sounded again.
I closed my eyes and pictured the scene in the kitchens. Apparently, it was spirits who served the Beast and his castle. I shivered. Except the conversation hadn’t sounded much like otherworldly spirits. In truth, Gilda sounded very like a head chambermaid from my own palace who had always secretly terrified me a little. And Matthew had sounded so much like a stable master that I could almost picture him. They certainly sounded nothing like spirits.
I considered another interpretation. Invisible servants. I chewed on a fat curl of hair while I rolled the idea over in my mind. So many things began to make sense. The missing people of Palinar. The doors that opened themselves. My guides through the castle. The unmanned coach. Even the words I had heard my first night in the coach when I had been half asleep, my mind relaxed.
A new thought hit me and two tears leaked down my face unheeded. I was not alone here with the Beast, after all. I had a whole castle of potential companions, if I could only find a way to communicate with them. Seeing them would be nice, too, but definitely secondary.
A tiny part of me felt sad to realize that no magical force had been assisting my efforts to defeat the Beast, but I thrust it aside. The inhabitants of the castle had helped when I had asked, which suggested they were friendly. And I preferred a friend to an inhuman magical purpose, even if that magic was helping me.
I reached out with my mind for the voices I had heard, trying to connect with their conversation, but I heard nothing. I frowned and tried again. Still nothing. The sensation of reaching out for Lily and connecting with her mind felt so familiar that I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working now. I tried again without success. I couldn’t even hear the whispers now.
I stopped trying and relaxed, and the whispers rushed back. I could understand now why I had been unable to hear them more clearly by listening harder. They weren’t a physical sound, but a brushing against my mental awareness.
I resisted the urge to attempt to connect to any of them, or to the people behind them, as I usually did with Lily. Instead, I replicated my earlier efforts, opening my mind to an extra awareness and focusing merely on being receptive.
Aren’t you finished yet?
Sorry, Gilda. The voice sounded young, like a child, and guilty.
You always say that, and yet you’re always slow. How sorry can you really be? I detected a note of affection under Gilda’s harsh words.
I expanded my awareness.
So, then he invited me to go walking with him after the chores are done.
He didn’t!
Really! Several mental giggles sounded along with the words.
I crawled forward to peer into the kitchen again. It was a different sort of listening from what I was used to with Lily. With my twin, it took no effort at all, a mental connection that bonded me directly to her and required the merest thought from either of us to spring into being. This felt more like opening a new set of mental ears to the general chatter of the world. I could feel no sense of the person behind the words, and I had no channel to receive an impression of their emotions or wellbeing like I usually did with Lily.
But I found, with concentration, I could tell the direction the voices came from. I identified that the voices of the girls giggling over one of the grooms came from several sinks where dishes appeared to wash themselves. And that the voices of Gilda and the boy came from a silver fork that was being polished by an industrious cloth floating in the air.
Matthew, the one who had sounded so much like my old stable master, hadn’t spoken again, so I couldn’t be sure where he might be positioned. For all I knew he had left the room.
A loud mental gasp rang out, but it ended too quickly for me to tell where it had come from.
I recognized the shocked response as coming from Gilda, however. It’s Princess Sophia!
I had been caught. I bit my lip and looked around the room at the flying items, not sure where to direct my gaze.
Where? I want to see her!
What’s she doing here?
What’s she doing on the floor?
A flush crept up my face at my foolish position. I scrambled up off my hands and knees and stepped into the room. “Good evening,” I said aloud with as much confidence as I could muster while brushing off my hands. “I don’t suppose someone could find me some food?”
She’s speaking to us!
Well, not to us exactly. One of the chambermaids told me that she sometimes speaks to the castle. She’s very polite, apparently.
Except to the prince. I heard she told him off.
Told off the prince! I wouldn’t dare!
Well of course you wouldn’t—as is right. You’re a scullery maid, not a princess. Gilda sounded disapproving of the girls but did nothing to silence their conversation, obviously as certain as the rest that I couldn’t hear them.
Oh, and you would, Gilda? I thought I recognized the defiant Tara. He was scary even before the curse.
As scary as he was handsome, said one of the gigglers.
I think she must be very brave, added Tara, and my heart instantly warmed to her.