x
I stepped inside my house, and it was with a mixture of disappointment and relief that I found Mother asleep. She was resting comfortably, though, and she’d been up to talking earlier in the day, so I couldn’t really complain. Telling her about Prince Chevalier could wait. She needed her rest, and I had work to do. My heart couldn’t float off into the clouds just yet.
Maybe later.
Jason and Rachel were coming down the hill when I was climbing back up it with the freshly scrubbed bucket. Rachel was still wearing her floral crown, skipping and twirling around while Jason followed with a sour look on his face.
“I found my Prince Charming,” she sang out.
Jason rolled his eyes. “You’re five.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “He’s perfect.”
Jason groaned. I laughed, wishing I could drop everything and join her, but I wasn’t five anymore. Life wasn’t that simple for me. Mother would enjoy hearing about Rachel’s newfound adoration for Prince Licht, though, and I was looking forward to telling him tomorrow, too. I rounded the corner of my house and shyly dropped my gaze to the ground, unable to look at the guards when I walked past them. Rachel’s giggling drifted through the air to me as I let myself back into my house. A desperate gasping for breath hit me as soon as I stepped inside.
My head snapped up, and the bucket hit the ground. I ran to Mother’s side, taking in her sweaty brow and alarmingly fast shallow breaths at a glance. It could be pain, I told myself. When her pain was uncontrolled, she would get hot and her breathing would get labored. She just needed her medicine. I shook her shoulders gently, calling to her as if nothing was wrong, as if my heart wasn’t beating a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
“Mother, wake up. It’s time for your medicine.”
She didn’t respond. If it was just pain, she’d respond. I dashed back to the door, bursting through it with enough force to startle the guards.
“Call the doctor. Now!”
“The…doctor?” the guard on my right asked hesitantly.
I groaned in frustration and put a hand to my forehead as I tried to think. Of course, they knew nothing about the doctor. “Ask Jason. The…the boy with the little girl.”
The guards stared at me, uncomprehending.
“There isn’t time for this,” I growled, grabbing the speaker by his arm and dragging him toward the hillside. “They went that way!”
He took a few hesitant steps. I shoved him in the back and shouted, “Now!”
“Ivetta?” Jason called.
I could barely hear him over the blood rushing to my ears, but the guard was moving in the right direction, and Jason was on alert, which meant I needed to get back inside to Mother. She hadn’t moved, except for the exaggerated motion of her chest as she struggled to breathe. I shook her harder, pleading, “Mother, wake up!”
Her eyelids fluttered open this time, but her green eyes were so clouded with pain I wasn’t sure she could see me.
“It’s alright, Mother, the doctor’s coming,” I said, forcing my voice to be calm, swallowing the fear that threatened to overwhelm me. “I’m here now. Don’t try to talk.”
Her forehead was burning up. I ran across the room to wet a rag in the washbasin and hurried back with it. “Here, this should help,” I said soothingly, laying the damp cloth across her forehead.
“Ivetta,” she gasped.
“Shh, save your strength, Mother. The doctor will be here soon.”
She reached out her thin hand, grasping at the air. “Where are you, Ivetta?”
“I’m right here, Mother,” I said, taking her hand in mine.
She gave my hand a weak squeeze. “I love you.”
My heart wrenched in my chest. I blinked back tears and whispered, “I love you too, Mother. Now just relax until the doctor gets here, okay?”
Her eyes closed, and her hand fell limp.
“Mother?” I called, shaking her gently at first, and then harder and harder. “Mother?”
When the doctor arrived, I lay with my head on her chest, sobbing hysterically. He gently pulled me away and sat me at the table. I couldn’t breathe; I felt numb. Mrs. Stotts was there, hugging me, saying something I couldn’t hear, trying to turn my head away as the doctor pulled the blanket up over Mother’s face. I pushed her hand away. Mine was trembling. The doctor came over to me, examining me like I’d seen him examine Mother so many times. It made me feel sick. He put some pills on the table in front of me, and I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. Mrs. Stotts’ hand was on my head, stroking my hair. I clenched my fingers into my skirt, hoping this was just a nightmare, that they weren’t carrying Mother away right now, that when I opened my eyes, everything would be fine.
“Ivetta,” Mrs. Stotts said, her voice thick, “come and stay at our house. The boys can room together, and-”
“No.”
“Ivetta…”
“No,” I said again, shaking my head.
I don’t know how long she stayed with me, but she left eventually, and I still sat there, staring at the empty bed, remembering the look of peace on Mother’s face when her breath left her. The image didn’t ease the pain in my chest at all. I wanted to be glad for her, glad that her suffering had finally ended, but all I could feel was a deep wrenching agony.
What was I supposed to do now?
There were too many questions, and they all hurt. I couldn’t think about them. I couldn’t lie in that bed, and I couldn’t touch those pills. There was nothing here for me. What I wanted was to go outside and disappear, maybe blown away in the evening breeze, maybe carried away by the river’s current, but my legs wouldn’t move. I shoved the pills aside and laid my forearm across the table, resting my forehead against it and squeezing my eyes shut. If I couldn’t go away, maybe everything else could.
But I couldn’t sleep, either.
Morning came after an eternity. My back and neck were sore from the strange position I’d held all night, but the pain was the only thing that was real anymore. I sat up and mechanically untied my hair, finger-combing through it and tying it back again. My uniform was a rumpled mess. I stood and smoothed it out, looking over at the morning light trickling in through the window as the sun began its daily climb over the horizon. Its routine never changed. I stepped outside and started walking.
“Miss Ivetta,” an unfamiliar male voice said hesitantly.
“Leave me alone,” I said flatly.
“But-”
“Ivetta! Where do you think you’re going?” Mrs. Stotts called as I walked past her house.
“Leave me alone,” I said, more insistently this time.
“You are not working today! If you think-”
A hand touched my arm, and I turned and slapped it away. Mrs. Stotts’ surprised dark chocolate eyes met mine.
“Leave me alone!”
“Ivetta, honey, you’re not thinking,” she pleaded, her eyes softening.
“I don’t want to think!” I said vehemently. “Just leave me alone!”
“But, the carriage-”
I rounded on the guards. “I’m walking. And I don’t want you following me.”
They exchanged glances. “We have our orders,” the spokesman said uncertainly.
“Then shut up and stay out of my sight.”
I turned and started walking again. This time, there were no arguments. The sudden rage surging through my veins cooled into a more comfortable numbness, and I kept walking, not really caring where I ended up, as long as it was away. Away from the pain, the memories, the sadness, the emptiness. Away from the life I didn’t have anymore.
I didn’t see the road under my feet or the scenery passing me by. I saw nothing, and I knew nothing, until I pulled Prince Chevalier’s drapes open.
“Good morning, Prince Chevalier.”
I looked out the window at the roses down below, the same way I did every day, and a tendril of pain stabbed through the wall I’d built to contain it. Mother would never see a beautiful sunny day like this again.
“What are you doing here?” Prince Chevalier grumbled, the blankets rustling behind me.
“I don’t know.”
I went to the bureau for his clothes, shoving his question down into the pit with all of mine, following the routine out of necessity, but my hands were shaking. That single, tiny hole was leaking, the pressure behind the wall building quickly.
“You’re not working today,” he said, his voice somewhere off in the distance.
“Leave me alone.”
I set the clothes on the sofa, noting numbly how badly my hands were trembling. His hand touched my shoulder, and I shoved it away, wishing I hadn’t come here.
“Look at me.”
My chest hurt. I shook my head and turned to the door, just wanting to get away from him, away from this room where the smell of roses suffocated me and I couldn’t breathe. He caught me by the shoulders and spun me back to him.
“Ivetta, look at me.”
He wasn’t supposed to say my name. He wasn’t supposed to sound that desperate, that pleading. The syllables stabbed through the wall and it burst. All the emotions came flooding over me, choking me, drowning me, pouring out of me in a torrent of tears. Agony ripped me apart, the floodwaters rising with no end in sight. Grief for losing Mother, anger at myself for not being able to do more for her, relief that her pain had finally ended - so much more that I couldn’t possibly name. I cried until there were no tears left to cry and all that was left was exhaustion and emptiness.
And Prince Chevalier.
I had collapsed to the floor, my face buried in his chest as he held me. Suddenly self-conscious, I pulled away, wiping my face with my apron. My cheeks were numb and tingling from the intensity of my sobbing.
“I’m sorry, Prince Chevalier,” I said in a small, trembling voice, feeling weak all over.
He stood and scooped me up into his arms, carrying me to the bed.
“Prince Chevalier?” I asked, confused but too exhausted to fight him as he gently lay me on the sheets.
“Get some sleep, little dove,” he said softly, removing my shoes and pulling the blankets up over me. His fingers lightly touched my eyelids, and they closed obediently. I think I fell asleep right away. For the first time in a long time, I just slept.
Until the nightmares came.
They were the same, always the same, since that horrible day when Jack nearly raped me. The old nightmares were nothing compared to the reality of that day. I relived every excruciating moment in vivid detail. His hand clamping around my wrist and dragging me off the street while everybody looked away; the mounting terror as I realized this wasn’t just a threat, that he wouldn’t stop this time; the feel of those dirty sheets against my back, his weight pinning me down, his hand on my thigh; me fighting, as I always did, as I really had, somehow breaking free, somehow escaping with a torn dress to collapse behind my house and vomit into the ditch. It was always the same.
But this time, it was different.
This time, someone was calling my name. It wasn’t Mother, and in my panic, I almost couldn’t hear it, but it was there, interrupting the normal sequence of the dream, making me stop and look around for the person who cared enough to notice my plight before I realized Jack was still there, and I was still in danger, and I couldn’t stop fighting him. I didn’t recognize who it was until I sat huddled in the ditch, clutching the ripped edges of my dress closed and trying to sort out how I would hide this from Mother. The voice came again, more insistent, louder, and I realized with a jolt it was Prince Chevalier. Suddenly, I was panicking about how I would hide it all from him, and then the dream changed. He was there, shaking me, and the ditch was gone, and I was desperate that he wouldn’t leave me alone for Jack to find me again. The fabric of his shirt clutched in my fingers felt more real than my torn dress. The beating of his heart in my ear, the warmth of his arms around me, felt more real than Jack ever had. He was saying something that I couldn’t understand, and I didn’t want to. I just wanted this dream to continue.
Jack didn’t come back.
ns 15.158.61.23da2
