by Lucia Ashta
In that place of solitude, of desperate vulnerability, a part of me that had long been dormant awakened.
And it would refuse to go back to sleep.
Life within Death
I still don’t know how many days passed in this way. At some point, one of the servants carried me out to the carriage. Wrapped in blankets, I remember only a burst of cold, crisp air on my face that startled me to temporary alertness. It was air more refreshing than any I could remember; it carried the joy of being alive with it.
I looked into John’s concerned face and managed to smile at his kindness. His was the last face I recalled seeing before leaving Norland Manor.
The clop, clop, clop of horse hooves. The uneven rocking of the carriage. Maggie’s hand reaching out to feel my clammy forehead. Feeling cold within all my blankets, even while sweat dripped down my sides in unconstrained rivulets.
Maggie coaxing my mouth open to take in a spoonful of water. The occasional snorting of tired horses as they climbed up and down hills. Maggie praying to her God, the one that didn’t make mistakes.
Then a soft, cold bed. The bright flames of a new fire, its crackling speaking a language I didn’t know. The face of the mysterious man, lifting my eyelids to examine my eyes, the windows to the soul.
And finally, darkness, long and prolonged, free of any thought at all.
Existence within the void of it. Coming alive within death.
I welcomed this death of my old self, and Death eagerly indulged me.
Particles of Magic
I finally awoke. There was no warning. One morning, it was simply all over, and I woke.
I realized I was capable of thought again, and I probed my memory only to soon give up. The gap in it was large and cavernous. It took more energy than I had to explore it.
A trail of sunshine peaked in through partially open shutters. It played with the dust in the air, and I felt inexplicable hope, as if the dust were particles of magic.
The chirps of morning birds found their way through glass, and I realized that I felt different than I had before.
I threw off two top blankets. I was sweating, but no longer from fever. I edged to the side of the bed to swing my feet down, but the effort exhausted me. I propped pillows behind me and sat back instead.
I swooned, darkness clouding the edges of my brain. I closed my eyes to rest from the exertion, the wet cotton of my nightshirt clinging to my breasts, my chest heaving up and down.
I lost time.
I wasn’t ready to find it.
Not yet.
A Dark, Brooding Man
When I opened my eyes next, it was dark outside. Maggie had dozed off in a chair by the fire. The stark firelight exposed the worry and exhaustion in her face.
I watched her sleep, incapable of more than that. I found peace in watching her, in glimpsing a part of life outside myself.
I slid down on the pillows and slept for the rest of the night.
It was midday when I next woke. My eyes fluttered open slowly, shuttering away the blur of sleep and the haze of fever past. When they focused, Maggie’s smile exploded with brilliance.
“Oh my God, Clara! You’re awake!”
Maggie clapped a muted clap and then pressed her smile to her clasped hands. Her eyes watered, and she blinked away tears. “I thought you were going to die, Clara. We all did.”
Maggie was breathing irregularly and sniffling. In the midst of my sickness, she’d realized how much we cared about each other. There would be no more “milady” behind closed doors. We were friends.
I tried to smile at her, with poor results.
“No, Clara, don’t do anything or try to talk yet. You need to take it really, really slow.”
Maggie spooned out water from the pitcher on the bedside table. I drank thirstily. Maggie smiled, accomplished. She’d labored to get me to drink water during my illness, and I would never take in enough. My lips had been perpetually dry and cracking. I felt the discomfort now, for the first time. I drank more water, wincing at the pain in my lips as I moved them.
“Your, uh, doctor is away right now,” Maggie said, drawing out the word “doctor” dubiously, and then quickly averting her eyes. I noticed the suspicious behavior, but could do little more. My mind and emotions were already struggling to keep up with the basic conversation.
“He left to get something. He wouldn’t say what. He didn’t say when he’d be back either, but I don’t suppose it’ll be long. He never leaves for very long. When he gets back, I can get a message out to your parents. They’ll want to know the fever has broken.”
Resistance flared in my eyes. I’d forgotten about my impending marriage. Now that I remembered, I didn’t want my parents to know I was better—at least not yet. Nothing good would come of it.
Maggie read my expression accurately. “Okay, I won’t tell them yet. But I’ll have to tell them before long. And what about Gertrude? She’s worried sick.”
Gertrude. A wave of love and tenderness swept over me. I didn’t want her to worry needlessly.
“Shall I send a discrete message to her alone?”
I nodded weakly. That would be perfect, until I decided what I wanted Maggie to say to my parents.
Maggie wrote the note in anticipation of my doctor’s arrival. Then, she tended to me. She spoon fed me a warm vegetable broth. I was able to drink only half a cup, but Maggie was satisfied. It was far more than I’d eaten in a very long time.
Under the covers, I could feel my hip bones protruding, my stomach sinking below them. Once I was able to dress again, my clothing would hang loose on me.
I didn’t have the strength to bathe submerged in a tub, but Maggie was able to clean me up significantly from where I lay on the bed. I immediately began to feel better. Maggie told me that I had been intensely feverish for a cycle of the moon. That was a very long time to be coated in sweat and out of my mind.
The many experts and doctors who had come to see me had been shocked that my body could survive this long under such duress. They warned my parents that, if by some miracle I survived, I would most likely be feeble minded. No brain could bear such a high fever for long. There would certainly be permanent damage.
My parents had waited to inform the Count and Countess of Chester of my illness for as long as they could, but as the days progressed and morphed into weeks, they sent a messenger to the Court at Chester to warn of the situation.
Winston’s parents extended their generosity by offering to delay any decision until a cycle of the moon before the wedding date—they could afford the delay, with their attention focused on the impending nuptials of their eldest, Samuel. If at that time I was still unwell, severely brain damaged, or dead, Winston would marry another. If by then I had recovered or was only mildly brain damaged, the wedding would proceed as arranged. In the meantime, the Count and Countess of Chester would make provisional queries with other families. They would line up a back-up bride for Winston.
Although Maggie had not returned to Norland Manor since we left it, her mother had been sending her letters keeping her abreast of the situation. I was most grateful for the insights and to Maggie’s mother for sharing them with us. As my mind regained its usual sharpness, this information would serve me well. It was up to me to carve out a path for my happiness.
For once, I appreciated the misguided opinions of others. The doctors’ prognoses provided me with a ripe opportunity for avoiding marital obligation. The wheels in my mind were beginning to break free of the cobwebs, beginning to turn again. I would come up with a plan.
“There he is,” Maggie said, interrupting my thoughts. The sound of a galloping horse drew near, passed right outside the window, and came to a stop not far away.
“Maggie, where are we?” My voice cracked from a throat that had been parched for too long. Maggie had done virtually all of the talking so far.
“You don’t recognize this room?”
I looked around. I didn’t.
; “This is your room. That you share with Gertrude.” When Maggie identified the vacuous look on my face, she continued, stating what to her was obvious. “We are at your family’s house at Lake Creston.”
Lake Creston seemed like a good place to be. It was a day’s ride from Norland, which meant I was far from my parents’ scrutiny. Besides, I’d always liked our visits to the lake when I was a girl. The visits had grown further apart as I entered adolescence. I hadn’t been here in years.
Strong and swift footsteps sounded in the house. In the skip of a heartbeat, the dark, brooding man I vaguely remembered from the haze of fever was at the door. Five long strides put him at bedside. I stared up at him, mesmerized, a little frightened even.
“Maggie, please leave us alone.” Even the sound of his voice was different from anything I’d heard before, but I couldn’t understand then what made it so.
“Yes, Sir,” Maggie said and closed the door behind her.
Who was this man?
I looked up into deep blue, foreboding eyes.
Dangerous Secrets
He examined me very differently than the other doctors. He didn’t take my pulse or look at my tongue or in my ears. He did stare into my eyes, but it wasn’t to check the dilation of my pupils or the white that surrounded my irises.
His eyes bore into mine. I felt that I shouldn’t blink, and I stared back at him—uncomfortable at first, then angry at his encroachment, and finally, indifferent. I settled into myself and released concern over his actions, and it was only then that he seemed satisfied and shifted his gaze.
His eyes scrolled across what was visible of my body. My skin tingled and pricked in heightened awareness everywhere his eyes skimmed. The fine hairs on my arms rose to alertness even though I was warm. His eyes swept the outlines of my waist, hips, legs, and feet beneath the blanket.
I waited. He studied the room, searching for I-don’t-know-what. He rose and looked into the fire. He stared at it as intently as he’d stared at me. Then he removed something from his pocket and threw it into the flames.
The fire sparked and sputtered, and as it did, he turned to look at me once more. His gaze was steady although distracted in a way it hadn’t been before.
Then he walked out of the room.
I thought he would soon come back, but he didn’t. I sat, waiting, until I heard the thundering sounds of a horse leaving the property. Only then did my regular breathing resume. I hadn’t even realized I had been holding my breath.
I was still too weak to call out for Maggie. I swallowed my impatience as I anticipated her coming to check on me. When she finally did, I spoke even before she reached the bed.
“Maggie, you must tell me all about him. Who is that man? He’s unlike any physician I’ve ever encountered before.”
I expected Maggie to smile, perhaps even to blush, and to tell me what she knew of this man my parents had left us alone with.
But she didn’t. She looked at me for a moment, turned to look out the window, then looked at me again, a nervousness splaying across her face. She breathed out heavily.
I tensed, anticipating whatever news she had to tell me.
“I’ve been here at the lake house with him for weeks waiting for you to wake up. It’s only been the two of us in the house. There’s a caretaker who tends to the horses and brings us food from the markets, but he stays in a room off the stables. Even though we’ve been alone in the living quarters all this time, I hardly know anything about him.
“I only know that he’s private and secretive. He leaves frequently, always coming back later in the day or by the next, but he never tells me where he’s been. He keeps the door to his chambers closed and locked at all times when he’s not in them. He speaks little, and even then only says what’s necessary.
“I know nothing about him first hand, really. I don’t even know his full proper name or where he’s from.” She looked disappointed, but she was nowhere as disappointed as I felt.
“Surely my parents wouldn’t have sent us away with just anyone.”
“Your parents were desperate, Clara. Everyone said you’d die. When Martha learned that your parents had given up, that only a minister prayed over you, she asked to see his Lordship, your father. You know that Martha has always loved you, and she was worried about you.”
I nodded. Martha had been at Norland Manor since Father was a boy. I’d grown up visiting her in the kitchens whenever I could get away with it. She would bake sweet buns for my sisters and me. I had fond memories of warm hugs among the folds of her skirts.
“She told your father about a—well, about a magician.” Maggie tumbled on, avoiding eye contact with me as she did. “She’d heard about this magician when she was in town a few months ago. It was rumored that he’d cured a child in the countryside. The Devil had twisted the boy’s legs so that he couldn’t walk, and the magician cured him.”
Maggie was solemn as she continued, purposefully avoiding my eyes, wide as saucers. “Martha took a big risk telling his Lordship this. But she wanted to see you better.”
Martha had taken a big risk indeed. Any association with sorcery was dangerous. The townspeople of Norland and its surrounds were highly superstitious. Rumors sprang like leaks, and no one examined the source of the allegations too closely or too objectively.
Once gossip attributing evil proclivities to a townsperson began, it was nearly impossible to squelch. It spread as rapidly as the fire that would punish the convicted.
The condemned were sentenced to burn at the pyre within a matter of days. The mayor could see no other way to prevent a violent frenzy, even if he suspected that some of the accused were victims of false charges.
The more witches and wizards the townspeople saw burned, the more readily they attributed this particular type of evil to their neighbors. No one was truly safe from the reach of snowballing popular opinion, and social status frequently meant the difference between life and death.
Our family’s title protected Gertrude and me, with our flaming red hair. Much of the region considered our hair color to be a mark of the Devil. Others saw it for the ludicrous assertion that it was. Either way, the memory of the last “witch” to be condemned was fresh in my mind.
She was a sweet girl, young like me. However, she was the daughter of the town baker. She lacked the protection my status afforded me. Her hair was straight where Gertrude’s and mine curled, but it was just as red as ours.
The mayor drowned her, while her sanctimonious accusers cheered on what only they considered justice. The terms of her condemnation were illogical, yet common.
She was bound with chains and thrown into the lake. If she freed herself from her bindings and floated to the surface of the water, then she was clearly a witch, destined to burn at the pyre. If she couldn’t break free of her chains, then she was a girl of pure soul.
The chains pulled the baker’s daughter under the water. When she drowned, the mayor declared her a pure soul. She came up only when her broken father dove in to retrieve her body, the lake washing away the first of many tears he would shed.
As far as I knew, the only crime the baker’s daughter had committed was to dare to be born with red hair and to be the unintended object of the blacksmith’s affection. The accuser of the baker’s daughter was also a girl, one who hoped to marry the blacksmith and saw the world as a harsh place, where she had to do what she must to forge ahead.
Father and Mother attempted to shield my sisters and me from the savage realities that took place in the town, just past the sloping hills of our estate, but the stories reached us anyway. Regardless, Father understood the dangers of tempestuous public opinion far better than we did.
He was cautious to the point of paranoia, all too aware of his life disappointments. He’d wanted only sons, yet all that remained to him were five daughters, and two of them had hair so bright it was impossible to conceal its abnormality.
He’d already lost his son and true heir long ago. He couldn’t affo
rd to lose me. Even if I was a distant second to my deceased brother, I was what he had to secure Norland Manor’s future.
Under ordinary circumstances, Father wasn’t a tolerant man. When witchcraft was involved, he was downright zealous. I found myself clenching in fear for Martha. Even if Father had visited Martha’s kitchen as a boy as well, I knew his character. Allowances and exceptions were not Father’s norm.
Maggie continued, and I felt my shoulders drop with her first words. “Lucky for Martha, his Lordship was desperate enough to take her seriously. He set about making very discrete inquiries into who this man was. When he found him, he ordered him to arrive after nightfall, cloaked, and not to tell anyone where he was going.
“When Marcelo asked his Lordship’s permission to take you away so he could heal you in private, his Lordship was extremely agreeable. As you can imagine, he didn’t want anyone to even suspect that he had willingly invited a magician into the Manor.”
I nodded, absently. It wasn’t just Martha that had taken a risk. Father had taken a big risk himself by involving a magician. I would have thought he and Mother would have preferred to let me die before attempting something like this.
“Marcelo?” I asked. “That’s the magician’s name?”
“As you know, Clara, I’d never disrespect a lord, and I think the magician is at least a lord—”
I raised my eyebrows at her in question.
“Well, I’m not sure that he is. There’s something about him that makes me think he has good breeding. But no one ever introduced me or any of the other servants to him. Given the circumstances, I guess that’s understandable. I don’t know his family name or status, so I have no idea what to call him. I suppose I could ask him his name myself, but the chance hasn’t come about, and he isn’t the most approachable.” Maggie was flustered.
“It’s all right, Maggie. I understand.” I was sure she didn’t mean to be improper, not that I cared much about these kinds of formalities. “Continue with your story, please.”
“Well, once Marcelo told his Lordship that chances were high that he could cure you, if only he could be left alone to his ways, your father gave his permission. No one else was giving you much of a chance at survival. The next day, they loaded you and me in the carriage. John drove the carriage instead of one of the usual horsemen. His Lordship didn’t want anyone outside of the house to know.