by P. L. Kurup
Soaking up the castle and its setting, he realized he had seen the same structure in his dreams the night he was changed. And in that respect, it made his arrival there inevitable.
Chapter 22
The following day, Samuel hiked to the heart of the forest and looked around. Like the day before, he was swathed in misery and sensed the sorrow of brokenhearted people emanating from everywhere.
“I will not listen anymore,” he cried, wanting to be free from grief.
He marched on until he came across rows of trees that were tall enough to touch the clouds. He broke off numerous branches from the healthiest looking plants, bundled them together, and carried them back to the castle kitchen. After retrieving a rusty but workable axe from the fireplace, he sculpted dozens of elaborate planks from the brushwood, and replaced the missing stairs and part of the bannister. He then used the leftover wooden pieces to mend the holes in the floor. The resulting corridor was free from unsightly gaps and regained some of its regalness. The kitchen, fireplace and ballroom were scrubbed until they were spotless. As were the rooms in the castle. By the next afternoon, his efforts made the entire fortress sparkle. Work kept his mind off the revolution and Clara, and he was thankful for the interlude.
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For two and a half days, he rummaged through the forest, collecting an assortment of brightly-coloured flowers, seeds, nuts, twigs, and branches. It seemed like difficult and pointless work, yet Samuel threw himself into it. He transported the vegetation back to the castle, and crushed the flowers with a coarse stone, adding oils from the seeds and nuts to create a wealth of paints. He then threaded conifer needles through narrow sticks and fashioned them into paintbrushes. Armed with the cache of implements, he meandered through the constricted, rocky passage and arrived at the secret hideout. He daubed the brush with paint and applied brushstrokes to the wall. To the untrained eye, his work resembled a vibrant mess. Samuel showed no sign of slowing and worked throughout the night.
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By dawn the next day, his hands, face, hair and clothes were smeared with colour. He applied the last stroke of paint to the wall and hurriedly scanned what he’d created. Before him was a striking portrait of Alexandra wearing her wedding gown and standing amidst the roses in the chateau garden.
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