Chapter 13
The sun bathes my face in warmth, robins chirp in the oak trees and a butterfly flutters past my face, but all I feel is irritation.
Why can’t the man just use his words and tell me what’s going on? Based on Alistair’s behavior, one would think that I’d demanded he give me every coin he owns rather than the simple explanation I asked for.
“I may have been a bit aggressive,” I admit to myself, picking threads of grass and sprinkling them over my boots. “But he is being difficult.”
“Stella?” I glance over my shoulder and see Milly coming my way with a basket hanging from her arm. The sun reflects off the blonde in her hair, and the way the light hits her face makes me wonder if she’s not a little younger than I first assumed.
“Did he send you to tell me to stop pouting?” I say, knowing it’s unfair to take my annoyance out on her. It’s Alistair’s fault. I should take it out on him.
“No.” She folds herself down onto the grass beside me, setting the basket between her crisscrossed legs. “When he came rampaging into the kitchen and I asked why he was upset, he said ‘Stella is by far the most annoying one yet.’ Then he told me to let him know when you were ready to grovel.”
I roll my eyes. I shouldn’t be surprised by the audacity of him. But rare is the man that carries as much unearned confidence as Alistair.
“What did he do this time?” Milly asks.
“He’s just so insufferable. He can’t answer a question, he has to evade it. He can’t share an idea, he has to hint at it. Everything is so difficult with him.”
Milly nods quietly, turning to face the line of trees along the tall stone fence. There’s a thoughtfulness to the silence that surrounds us, both of us lost in our own heads. It might be the most peaceful I’ve felt in years, despite my frustrations with Alistair. There’s a sense of maternal comfort when Milly is around, and I can feel her concern extending not just to Alistair, but to me too.
“You’re a direct person, Stella,” she says, smiling fondly at me. “I imagine part of that is who you are, but part of it is probably due to the things you’ve experienced.”
I don’t answer. We both know my past is messy, it was clear when I showed up here covered in dirt and ready to run. But I’m grateful that Milly doesn’t ask much about it. I don’t have the energy to relive it all right now.
“And Alistair avoids directness?” I ask ruefully.
“You have survived by cutting through the fluff. Alistair has survived by shrouding himself in fluff. You’re two sides of the same coin, my dear.”
I don’t argue with her. What would be the point? She’s not wrong.
“So then how do you suggest I deal with her highness in there?” I sass, nodding my head back toward the manor where I’m sure Alistair is stewing, plotting ways to get back at me for questioning his authority.
Milly’s responding smile is mischievous. “I thought this might give you some ideas.”
She hands me the basket. I pull back the cloth on the top and find an assortment of different colored paints and paintbrushes along with a wooden pallet.
Memories flood my mind. Happy mornings in the meadow with Mother, her planting new flowers she bought from a traveling salesman and me painting the blooms perched beneath her nose every time she stopped to smell them.
But then there are also the dark nights, Paul’s feet creaking on the floorboards and his drunken voice shouting through the walls as my every brushstroke on the canvas was a desperate attempt to paint the peace I yearned for or the vengeance I knew I shouldn’t reach for.
“What do you want me to do with them?” I ask, hesitant to admit that my mind is already conjuring pictures to paint. Even the duke doesn’t know of my propensity for art. I’ve made a point not to tell him.
Why give the man another pressure point to push on?
“Play a prank,” Milly shrugs. “Paint the seat of his chair so it sticks to his pants when he stands. Or use it to release your feelings; splatter it on a wall. Do whatever you want with it. I just hope it helps.”
I consider her ideas, an unconventional one beginning to form in my mind. “How are you so good at giving advice?”
Milly’s smile is sad, and she looks up at the sun shining through puffy white clouds. “I’m a mother. It’s my job to give advice.”
“But you chose to stay with Alistair?” I ask hesitantly. I have no right to ask her personal questions, knowing that I’m keeping secrets of my own. But Mildred makes me feel at ease, and that’s a rare occurrence.
“My kids are grown and independent. They didn’t need me much anymore, but Alistair did. When he was first cursed, no one else was willing to stay here with him, so I did. The other staff followed suit, but I don’t think any of them would have done it without me. They’re under the false impression that I actually have control over that boy.” She laughs and shakes her head.
“You kind of do. He’s on much better behavior when you’re around.”
“He’s a good boy, he just has a bad habit of handling fear with anger.”
I snort. “You can say that again.”
Milly pats my hand. “His time here at the manor hasn’t been quite as simple as you might think. Things have happened that make us all a little wary, but him especially. He just hides it with sarcasm and a smile. But give him time. He’ll come around.”
Then she stands and goes back to the manor, leaving me with the basket of paints. But the longer I sit there, the more my fingers itch to hold a brush. There’s no canvas in the basket, but Milly did say I was welcome to splatter paint on a wall…
Hopping to my feet, I return to the manor and walk the corridors, looking for the right spot. I stop outside of an unused parlor, the wide hallway clean but rarely used. There’s a wide gap between windows and I already see in my mind the way I want the paint to spread across the stone.
My body moves of its own accord, remembering the steps as I place a blank canvas of white paint across the stone wall, prepping the surface. Then I use a piece of charcoal to sketch out my idea, and mix my colors on the wooden pallet.
Then I paint.
First comes powder blue, blending with vaporous clouds, a golden sun off to the side. I have to stand on an end table as I delicately layer gold and orange over my sky, turning everything warm like honey. A cottage comes next, white and brown with pops of green and pink.
Mother loved flowers, so I put lots of them around the base of the cottage and coming out of the window boxes. More than she ever had time to care for.
But I know she would love to see our home like this. Surrounded by a clearing, wildflowers blooming and forests and mountains far off in the distance.
I’ve finished the sky and barely begun painting the cottage by the time I feel the pull for dinner, the meadow only a simple charcoal outline on my white stone canvas. But seeing it, even unfinished, brings a small feeling of peace that I didn’t know I’d been missing.
‘Haven’t you ever heard that lone wolves die alone?’ Alistair’s words repeat in my head, but as I stare at the mural that’s slowly taking life, I know he’s wrong. If I die today, Milly will be sad. She may not miss me constantly, but she would miss me. Even Alistair would be haunted by it.
My fingers brush across the sketched-out flowers, remembering how much Mother loved the tulips. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were talking to me now. It’s like she’s here in the hall, and I smile, knowing that if I died tonight, I would be welcomed into my mother’s arms. And even though I have no desire to give up just yet, it gives me comfort to know that in death, I won’t be alone.