by D D Croix
“I’m speaking,” she said, “of those within the castle who understand the purpose of your gift.”
“My what?” I had never considered my visions a gift. An affliction was more like it. Perhaps a curse.
“Don’t play coy, dear.” Her fingers flexed into fists. “As I said, I have known about your circumstances for quite some time. You see, I’m acquainted with your former headmistress. More than acquainted, actually. Miss Trindle is my sister.”
That grim woman was Mrs. Crossey’s sibling? I fell back against the chair’s wooden spindles. The two were so different. Miss Trindle’s whisker-thin frame towered over Mrs. Crossey’s shorter, stouter stature, and I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen her smile. How could they possibly share a mother?
But then, what did I know of mothers? I didn’t know how to respond, so I simply held my ground. “I don’t know what you think you know or what you were told, but it isn’t true.”
I would not repeat that old mistake. If nothing else, Miss Trindle had at least taught me that.
“Listen to the girl, Mrs. Crossey.” Mr. MacDougall’s voice rattled the walls. He rose to his feet, and his gaze bored into her. “Just as I said. This is nonsense. I insist you stop this madness.”
Mrs. Crossey shot up from her chair. “It is not madness. Jane, whether you like it or not, your gift marks you for a particular purpose. An important and noble purpose.”
Was she trying to trick me with flattery? It wouldn’t work. I knew the truth. My visions were no gift, and I had no important or noble purpose. “Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong.”
Her bosom rose and fell with a heavy sigh. “I wish we could give you more time, so this would be easier for you. But time is a luxury we do not have.”
I listened without reacting, silently begging her to release me from this room and this interrogation. I almost wished for a permanent dismissal now. At least my secret would still be safe.
She rose and paced and pinched her bottom lip, retreating into her own thoughts. When she turned back, her eyes sparked with fresh determination. “Here is the whole of it, Jane. The Queen is in danger, perhaps mortal danger.”
“Mrs. Crossey!” Mr. MacDougall’s face bloomed red with rage. A vein bulged in the middle of his forehead. “I must protest.”
She ignored him.
Yet her statement was absurd. It was beyond belief. “If that’s true, why are you telling me? Go alert the guard.”
“We cannot,” was Mrs. Crossey’s curt and ready answer. “There would be questions.”
“What’s wrong with questions?” She was comfortable enough asking them. Why not answer a few?
She clasped her hands. Her jaw clenched. “We couldn’t explain how we came by this information.”
I looked at Mr. MacDougall. He rolled his eyes, whether at me or her or the whole mess of this exchange I didn’t know.
“The answers would be troublesome,” she added. “Suffice it to say, we don’t wish to share our secrets for reasons much like your own.”
I stiffened and chose to ignore the obvious trap. “If you cannot share your source, are you sure you can trust it?”
Mr. MacDougall and Mrs. Crossey shared a look. He seemed to be screaming with his eyes, “Please stop!”
And for once, I agreed with him. This back and forth was tiresome. I would not give in and, it seemed, Mrs. Crossey would not give up. I only wanted to leave this room. This cold, airless, windowless cave of a room.
Mrs. Crossey ignored the House Steward’s silent plea. She pulled a kerchief from the wrist of her sleeve and held it out to me. It was a small scrap of white linen with a border of simple lace that she always carried with her. “Take it.”
Before I could move, Mr. MacDougall lunged across the width of his desk, trying to grab the square himself. “You cannot do that!” he cried.
Mrs. Crossey pulled the kerchief back before he could snatch it and stared him down. “I can, and I will.”
Despair clouded his expression. Or was it fear? He pulled back.
Again, she extended the kerchief to me.
I knew I shouldn’t take it. I’d been tempted many times to swipe it in the kitchen. To spirit it away for a momentary window into her past. But now that she was offering it of her own free will, I was powerless to resist.
I grabbed it, tugged off a glove, and held the kerchief’s gentle fabric in my bare hand. Such a soft weave, worn smooth from years of use. I imagined I could feel every thread, every fiber, every loving touch.
I glanced up. In Mrs. Crossey’s eyes, I could see she knew what she was doing.
And she knew I could no longer deny the truth.
I closed my eyes and waited for the vision.
~ ~ ~
The sun sat low on the horizon, glinting through the green canopy of an ancient oak, its gnarled branches rising like crooked fingers to the sky. In its shadow stood a gray stone house, thatched with straw that glowed gold where the sunlight brushed its edges.
A small but tidy dwelling. Five paned windows along its length. Two chimneys, one at each end, and a Dutch door beneath a bundle of dried rosemary.
I caught the scent of the herb in the whispering breeze and breathed it in.
“We’re home,” squealed a young girl beside me, a long blond braid swinging across her back. She kicked pebbles as a basket filled with carrots, eggs, and a fresh loaf of bread dangled from her arm.
Her blue eyes sparkled with delight, and freckles gleamed upon her nose. “C’mon, Sylvie, let’s race.”
I shook my head. “You’ll drop the eggs. Mother will send us back to the village if you break them.”
We’d already spent more than half the day walking to the market and back, and I didn’t want to waste the rest repeating the errand. There were still kitchen chores to do, and I’d have to hurry to get to the woods before sundown. Mother never let me out after nightfall, and I knew he’d come this time. I just knew…
“Let’s race, Sylvie. C’mon.”
I shook my head. “Ida Trindle, I already said no.”
~ ~ ~
Ida Trindle. The name jolted me out of the vision. I opened my eyes, curled my fingers into my palms, and waited for the swirling sensation to stop. Slowly, I settled back into myself.
Mr. MacDougall leaned over his desk, his gaze as sharp as a sword.
Mrs. Crossey watched me, too, her fingers clenched in her lap.
I stared at her, trying to reconcile the stern, mature woman in front of me with the young woman I’d inhabited only a moment ago. “Sylvie?”
Mrs. Crossey’s eyes widened. She nodded, a glint of triumph in her eye.
“Did you see something?” barked Mr. MacDougall.
“I saw…” I clamped my mouth shut and swallowed hard.
“Say something,” Mr. MacDougall bellowed. “Tell us what you saw.”
“I saw…” My voice died as the magnitude of what I’d done settled over me. I’d been foolish and now that weakness was going to ruin everything, just as it had at Chadwick Hollow. Pressure pulsed at my temples. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Even if I kept my job, I couldn’t live with the whispers or the furtive looks branding me a monster. That’s what would happen if I told them. Instead, I shut my eyes and swallowed that old pain. “I saw nothing, sir.”
The shine of hope died in Mrs. Crossey’s eyes.
Beneath our feet, the floor trembled and the walls rattled. I recognized the sound. Horses and coaches, teams of them, descending on the castle.
The royal family was home.
I seized the excuse and shot from my seat. “There’s still so much to do. I have to get back to the kitchen. Please understand.”
By the time Mrs. Crossey called out, I was already out the door, and I didn’t look back.
CHAPTER THREE
As I stormed out of Mr. MacDougall’s room, I knew I’d sealed my fate. A kitchen girl couldn’t defy Mr. MacDougall without consequences.
It was still better than the alternative.
Those old pangs of shame and regret ripped through me. I could see those girls again, huddled around me. Repulsion in their eyes. Their spiteful words slicing my nine-year-old self to shreds.
I’d only wanted to impress them by telling them what I’d seen when I picked up little Dottie’s rag doll in the play yard. A mother setting up a picnic on a grassy hill beside a pond. A father rowing on the water. A child basking in the loving glow of that happy moment under a clear blue sky.
A vision had never before manifested so clearly, or with so many details. I’d been so utterly charmed by it, I was sure it would charm them, too. At least I’d hoped so. Being new to the school, I’d wanted desperately to win their favor.
But any chance of that died when I told little Dottie what I’d seen. Instead of welcoming the memory, it had stirred something dark in the girl. Something that crumpled her expression and sent rivers of tears streaming down her face. Instantly, the others had rallied to protect her from me, not understanding my intent or not caring.
Dottie had told them there was no earthly way I should have known about that day and that it was pure cruelty to rekindle it when her parents had died not a fortnight later, both of them, from fever. When she called me a devil, the rest of the girls had taken up the taunt.
I’d stood there, watching their faces contort as they spewed those savage words at me until Headmistress Trindle appeared and dragged me away. She’d taken me to her office and tried to console me, but when I told her about Dottie’s memory, she looked at me as horrified as the rest. “Never speak of such things again,” she begged. “It’s for your own good.”
I’d followed her advice from that day on—until today.
I wanted to blame Mrs. Crossey for tricking me, but I knew the fault was mine. I was weak and that’s why I had to leave. Before it got worse.
~ ~ ~
The royal retinue of horses and carriages had converged on the State Entrance Tower, so I set my course for the East Terrace, keeping my head down and my feet moving. A determined pace would keep questions at bay about why I was out of uniform and what a bulging carpet bag was doing under my arm.
At least I hoped it would.
I didn’t want to explain myself or why I was leaving. I didn’t want to think about any of it. Not now. Maybe never.
I hurried along the narrow stairwell connecting the maids’ quarters to the ground floor. Through dim corridors. Past the mending room and the butler’s pantry, and finally to a heavy door that opened to a small lilac patch.
Darkening clouds threatened rain, but I pressed on, my gaze on the path ahead, threading through the manicured rose bushes and shrubs with my sights set on a gate well away from the commotion.
A familiar disturbance filled the air as I neared the fountain at the center of the terrace garden.
I lifted my finger and welcomed the soft landing of six tiny feet.
“What took you so long?” I whispered so a pair of gardeners pruning a nearby shrub wouldn’t overhear.
My dragonfly danced forward and back, making her needle-like body and wings shimmer in the scant sunlight. Her movements spoke to me as clearly as any words. They told me her moods, her thoughts, her complaints. I sensed them now as I always did through our silent communication. She wasn’t happy.
“Yes, I’m leaving.” I looked away. “But you can come, too.”
Did she think I would leave her?
She was my only friend. From the moment she landed on my knee as I sat beneath the oak tree behind Chadwick Hollow plotting my escape—I was twelve then and convinced I could fend for myself. But this remarkable dragonfly had turned her wide violet eyes up to me, and in that moment, I knew she was urging me to stay. Telling me, in her way, that if I was patient, a better path would come. And she was right, for I didn’t know it then, but the headmistress was already grooming me for a life of service.
My little visitor had come to me every few months or so back then. While I walked along the stream that meandered behind the school or sat among the grove of old trees. If the visits had been more frequent, I might have given her a proper name. But dragonfly seemed to fit and so it has remained.
My dragonfly.
When I first learned I was to leave Chadwick Hollow for Windsor Castle, my heart broke as much at the prospect of losing her as losing the only home I’d known. But somehow, she followed me. I found her on my first day at the castle, perched on the ledge beyond my window. It had been such a happy moment, a welcome balm for an otherwise distressing day.
Right now, she seemed to regret that decision to join me. She was in one of her moods again. Stomping as much as her tiny legs could stomp.
“I have no choice,” I said. “They know about me. I mean, I think they do. Mrs. Crossey was asking questions.”
My friend froze. Her pearlescent eyes locked on me.
“What do you know about Mrs. Crossey?”
The little one dipped her head.
“I didn’t tell them anything. Of course I wouldn’t.”
Her tiny stare held mine again. No head dip, no dance. None of her usual gestures.
How did she know I wasn’t telling the whole truth? How did she always know?
“Fine. I might have said something, but it was vague. They only suspect. Maybe just Mrs. Crossey, but still—”
She stamped her feet as though she were stamping out a fire.
“You do know something about Mrs. Crossey, don’t you?”
Her head dipped once, then again.
“You’re not making sense.”
Instead of explaining herself, she flew away.
I wheeled around, my gaze following her trajectory. “That isn’t nice,” I called out. “You could at least answer the question.”
I had no intention of letting her off so easily, but the argument would have to wait. She had found me once, so I was sure she could again, and I had reached the lower gate. The metal bar was down; an ancient-looking hinge that might have been forged when William the Conqueror first built his fortress here more than seven hundred years ago.
I knew from previous visits that the gate didn’t lock from this side. Its purpose was to stop outsiders from coming in, not insiders from going out. I’d learned that lesson after my first stroll to the river’s edge. I’d been forced to walk all the way back to the King George IV Gate to get back in.
Since then, I made sure to prop the door open with a sturdy rock. Out of habit, I grabbed a cobble-size limestone as I approached before realizing I wouldn’t need it this time.
I dropped the stone, and it landed with a thud at my feet. As I lifted the latch, I paused for one last look back.
To think, this castle had stood on this mount for a thousand years and would likely stand a thousand more. Its time here would go on even if mine had come to an end. My jaw tightened against the unexpected emotion creeping up my throat.
“There you are. What took you so long?”
At the sound of Mrs. Crossey’s cheerful voice, my head snapped forward. I found her leaning against the wall on the other side of the gate, still in her kitchen apron and with a worn issue of Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine opened to the recipe pages.
I opened my mouth but found no words.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she continued. “Come. Walk with me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I stood at the gate, stunned into silence and gaping as Mrs. Crossey dog-eared the page she’d been reading and closed the magazine.
“You appear to be leaving us.” She might have been remarking on the weather, not catching me mid-escape.
I didn’t trust myself to speak. She looked like the same, sweet woman I’d worked alongside for so many months. The friendly mentor who had taken me under her wing and who disappeared to the Servants’ Hall or the garden with a magazine while a stew simmered or the porridge boiled yet always returned well before anything burned.
But how
well did I really know her? After the exchange in Mr. MacDougall’s office, I realized I knew very little.
“I thought it would be easier for everyone this way,” I muttered.
Mrs. Crossey rolled her magazine and shoved it into a skirt pocket. “Fair enough. But stroll with me before you go. Just for a few moments.”
When I didn’t move, she tried again. “There’s nothing to fear. There are simply things you should know before you make this decision.”
My fingers tightened around my bag’s brass handle. “What things?”
She sighed and watched a crow take flight from a nearby tree, its throaty caw echoing across the hills. “You might think what happened today came out of the blue, but I assure you it didn’t. It was always going to happen. I’d hoped to wait a bit, till after your birthday at least. But this matter with the Queen changes things.” She paused and rubbed her lower lip. “And then there’s the matter of your visions—” Her gaze dropped to my hands. My gloves.
“I told you, I don’t have—”
She stopped me with a look. “Let’s stop the nonsense, shall we? If I’m not mistaken, your visions have taken a turn. Grown stronger, yes? If you don’t learn to control them…” She shook her head, unable or unwilling to continue.
“Then what?” I didn’t care if she interpreted my concern as a confession. I had never seen that look on her face. Not just worry, but fear.
“Without training, you could lose control. But there’s no reason to be alarmed.”
“I’m not alarmed. I just want to be left alone.”
“All right. If that’s truly your wish. But as I said, there are things you should know. About your family, for instance.”
At that, she strode past me, taking the path that meandered away from the gate and down a slope, toward a grove of trees that was nearly swallowed by a fog bank rolling off the Thames.
I kicked at the dirt. “I have no family.” A noose tightened around my heart.
She turned back and watched me without saying a word.
Shifting, I watched a breeze drag its lazy fingers through the oaks and yews, making their branches sway. Then from somewhere in those hazy woods, another crow cried out and broke the silence.