Chapter Five #2
"I believe your trial period is up," she answers with a graceful sip of her wine—red again; I have never seen her drink anything else—and she gifts me a smile.
"I would like it if you began working for me full time from here on.
I will of course offer you full pay for the additional time, and if you'd like the week's end off, then you shall have it.
You've been doing wonderfully with the inventory work, but there's much left to do and some other duties I think you'd be helpful with as well, if you're amenable.
I am sure Mr. Allard would appreciate another pair of hands to boss around. "
Something in my chest stutters at the offer.
Already the pay I've received from the few days of work a week has been a wonder.
I've tucked most of it away in the hopes of saving to get out of Sainte-Falaise, but the rest I slip into my father's funds.
I tell myself it's because I want to help him, to thank him for taking care of me and for getting me this job at all, but really, I know it's guilt.
I know it's my way of leaving him something to keep him steady when I am gone.
Whether that be to death's embrace, the Devil's clutches, or a far-off destination that does not know my face, I don't know yet.
"That's very kind, my lady." What else am I to say?
The offer is too good to refuse, that I know, but it feels like there is something I'm missing.
Like she's offering me a plate of food at her table, yet I cannot find a chair to sit in.
"I will be sure you don't regret it. May I ask what convinced you to change the arrangement? "
That smile is back on her lips, small and slanted a bit, like she knows something I don't. "When your father recommended your services, I was reluctant to allow a stranger into my house.
Over this last month, I have realized I can trust you to do what you're hired to do, and to not venture where you're not invited.
You're an honest young man, and I value that. "
She stands with one long movement, placing her glass atop the counter to be washed later, before stepping in my direction.
I can't see her boots beneath her pretty gown, but she walks as if she's wearing nothing but her bare soles.
Like she knows where each and every board creaks and which steps to take to avoid making a sound.
By the time she stands before me, my heart is thundering with the need to run. It's a strange need, not quite out of fear or necessity, but out of interest instead. A child running from their parent to see if they'd catch them; a deer running from a stag to see if they'd give chase.
I keep my gaze on the sharp line of her jaw as I imagine what it'd be like to run from her. I wonder how long it'd take for her to catch me.
For some reason, I think it wouldn't be long at all.
I swallow the lump forming in my throat and try to calm my heart, ridiculously afraid that she could hear it. "I appreciate that, m-my lady."
"Azizi," she says again, her voice low. I watch her mouth curl around the word, her teeth just barely visible and oddly sharp. "You may call me Azizi."
"Thank you… Lady Azizi," I manage.
Her laugh rings out like the cracked church bell in the village steeple, rich and full-bodied. My breath hitches and the hairs on the back of my neck raise. My feet itch to run.
Tucked away in one of the far bedrooms of the Chateau de Klein, hidden in a little metal box at the bottom of a wardrobe, I find a key. It's a small, simple thing, with a faded blue ribbon tied around its neck and the varnish of its prongs long scraped away.
Mr. Allard frowns at it when I show it to him, something unhappy pressed into the wrinkles of his face.
“The previous owner spoke of an attic, over in the western tower facing the sea,” he says, gesturing to a set of servant’s stairs in the back of the kitchen.
“It is the only room in the house I was not given a key for, as he claimed to have lost it. Perhaps try there.”
The servant’s stairs lead to a series of thin hallways built in between the various bedrooms and parlors that make up the chateau. Plain and out of the way, just wide enough for someone carrying a tray of food or a basket of laundry to fit through.
It takes me a few tries to find the right passage to take me to the western tower, but there’s no question it’s the right place once I’ve found it.
The door itself is painted a soft, robin-egg blue. The same colour as the ribbon dangling from the key. Flowers bloom along the bottom of the wood, stretching up towards a small gold-foiled bird caught mid-flight in the center of the door.
It might have been lovely once, if the wood was not warped and cracked from age and weathering, the golden bird tarnished and flaking away.
I find it oddly curious, paired with the brine-caked lock that struggles to take the key I shove into it.
The rest of the tower seems to be in fine condition—no worse off than the rest of the manor, at least—and yet this door looks seconds away from crumbling as I push it open.
It’s a music room, much to my surprise—though what is left of it is just as rundown and in disrepair as the door might suggest. Large enough to fit a white, baby grand piano near the bay window, as well as a writing desk and a handful of chairs and shelves.
A dark, wooden harp sits in one of the other corners, a cello beside it.
Books and sheet music have been scattered across the room, waterlogged and torn, the words and notes on some so bled into the parchment that I can barely make out a single tune.
The stained-glass window on the other side of the tower is cracked, a few panels missing and allowing the wind and rain to slip in unchecked.
No wonder the door was all but caked shut with salt.
Despite the warmth of the late summer air outside, the attic room is practically an icebox.
I tug my sleeves down over my arms as I step inside, hugging my vest closer in the hopes of keeping out the chill.
For a moment, I consider turning back, closing the door and leaving it locked behind me.
I consider telling Lady Azizi and Mr. Allard they are best to leave it alone, though I have no real reason why.
I step forward anyway.
My throat closes up as soon as I cross the threshold of the room, my head spinning as I pitch forward and scramble to keep my balance. The vertigo has me grasping at the nearest table, knocking its contents to the floor and squeezing my eyes closed as the walls swim around me.
I cannot breathe past the water flooding my lungs. I cannot hear anything aside from the rushing waves and howling wind below. A scream builds in my throat, but I cannot release it for fear of swallowing more of the ocean I am drowning in. Please, I can't breathe. I can't—
The sensations are gone as quickly as they began, my head breaking through the surface as I tread above the water.
My knees are weak beneath me, and I let them carry me down to the floor where the ground is steadier. Where I can breathe easier without the fear of water flooding my lungs. Drowning. Drowning. Drowning—
Dried petals crunch beneath my palms as I press my hands hard against the salt-stained floor.
The sound startles me, and for a moment I just stare at the long-dead flowers scattered around me, confusion slowly replacing fear the longer I look.
I'm sure they must have fallen when I tried to steady myself on the small table, but I don't recall seeing any bouquets, dead or otherwise, and there is no sign of a vase nearby.
Beneath the petals is a small pile of books—of which I distinctly remember the loud thunk of when they tumbled to the ground.
Their spines are withered and the pages stained and warped from exposure to the elements, most of the titles all but worn off at this point.
It's a sight that makes my heart ache as I begin picking them up and gingerly stacking them back on the table, only pausing when I reach the final book.
It's different from the others, untouched by the salty air, its leather cover worn from love and age rather than water and sun.
When I unwrap the cord keeping it shut, I find a thick manuscript of music, the bound pages interspersed with loose ones, small dots and unfamiliar symbols crowded between printed lines and hand-drawn staves.
French lyrics dance beneath them, scribbled in messy, but delicate, handwriting, and I find myself tracing over them with reverent fingers.
I have never been able to read music very well, despite the few lessons I had as a child, so the notes are nothing more than deliberately placed blots of ink to me, but something tells me the songs within would be beautiful, nonetheless.
Maybe it’s the passion that I can feel seeping from the pages, the love of music that practically bleeds from every page as I flip carefully through it—mindful of the fragile parchment.
The frantic press of a pen until the ghost of the song is left imprinted on the next page.
The crowded margins where the composer left notes and half-finished tunes and fragments of lyrics.
It reminds me of my own journal, tucked away in my satchel. It feels like a secret. Like a soul, trapped between my calloused fingers and unsuited for my stranger’s eyes.
I turn another page and a folded cluster of parchment drops into my lap, the paper far more delicate than the rest, as if the owner had folded and re-folded it too many times to count.
It's another song, one that remains stubbornly unfinished judging by how many versions of it the composer had written. Entire staves have been scratched out, notes re-drawn and lyrics re-written. As if the composer didn’t know exactly what they were trying to write.
Or perhaps, knew too well what they were trying to write and struggled to bring it to reality.
I thumb the title at the top of the first page, a frown twitching at my lips.
To Walk in Madness – lyrics and composition by Kolfina Everleigh de Klein
"Kolfina Everleigh de Klein," I whisper aloud. I don't recognize the given name, but I know the surname to be the previous owners of this house.
Is Kolfina the one everyone says jumped from Echo's Peak? Is she the voice I hear singing at night when I tip my head out my open window to listen? The same voice that haunts my memories and has done ever since I was a child?
"Did you sing for other people?" I ask the air, knowing the mistress was not around to hear it.
Keeping the manuscript tucked beneath my arm, I wander the room, running my fingers over the dusty surfaces and frowning at the state of it all.
"Or maybe you played for them? Sometimes we can hear singing down in the village, and the children say it's the ghost of this house.
Father Thompson thinks it's the Devil trying to trick us. I've never really been sure which to believe, though I think I’d like to believe it’s you, if I had the choice. "
I pluck up a few books from the ground as I pass them, setting them gently on the nearest surface, trying to imagine what their reader might have looked like curled up in the torn chair against the wall.
A cracked viola is placed back in its case on the window seat, the fragile bow tucked carefully beside it.
What wrinkled and tattered sheet music is still legible is slipped into the leather manuscript until it’s bulging.
I tug at the leather strand dangling from its spine, smiling at the small bird charm at the end as I tie the book closed and place it as reverently as I can in its place atop the piano.
It's there that I find the portrait, collapsed on the floor near the window seat as if it’d fallen off at some point, regardless of the hook still clearly secured in the wall. It's heavy in my hands as I pick it up, the frame thick and gilded, and I lean it against the window for a proper look.
There, captured in vibrant blues and pinks and pale, sunshine yellow, is a woman.
Beautiful and soft, with a round face and golden curls tumbling over her shoulders, a blue gown with delicate lace framing her collarbones.
She sits with her hands folded neatly in her lap, her chin turned slightly so that, when hung on the wall, it gave the appearance of her looking out the window.
It's the eyes that capture me, though—big and wide, shining a lovely amber with flakes of greens and blues dotted inside.
There is something a little bit lost within them, a little bit frightened, maybe.
The way she stares off into the distance like she is a ghost already, and she is yearning for the scent of the sea on her skin and the salty wind in her hair.
Like she was sitting for her last portrait, knowing that death awaited her upon the last brush stroke.
I drag a finger down the curve of her cheekbone, frowning at the sadness all but leaking from those eyes. The loneliness. The longing.
She looks like a memory already forgotten.