Chapter 10
ten
One day later, Gretel appeared at my bedroom door.
“What are you doing?” My heart hammered. Partly because she’d scared me and partly because why in the stars was Gretel in my doorway?
She wore a shift dress, something I had left out for her days ago when I tried to tempt her out of bed. Her curls were freshly washed, the golden hue illuminated by the one lamp in my room.
She held a pillow to her chest and stepped into my room, not waiting for permission. Her head tilted all around, and I tracked her gaze.
My little room sat under the servants’ staircase, the door just on the other side of the kitchen.
It meant I was nearby but somewhat tucked away, giving me much needed space from my typical work zone.
The stairs creaked, but I appreciated the heads up if someone ever came into the kitchen.
Though it used to be that no master of Blackwell Manor would have ever used the servants’ stairs.
The room itself was cramped but neat thanks to my tidiness.
A narrow bed, the linens folded down, ready for bed.
I’d gotten lucky to find a rug years ago in the basement and rolled it out to cover the cold stone floor.
There was no fireplace, but the kitchen and lower floor were a snug, warm place to begin with, and I benefited from it.
Gretel slowly turned in a circle, taking it all in. “You don’t have much stuff.”
A book sat on the one night stand. There wasn’t room for a full-sized desk.
“There’s no window,” Gretel noted.
“No,” I huffed. “What are you doing here?”
Gretel hugged the pillow to her chest, and I realized the shift she wore wasn’t the one I had left out but another one. One meant for sleeping.
“If I’m working here, I can’t keep living in the guest bedroom,” she said.
The guest room was triple the size of this tiny room. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d wanted to stay up there, with its pretty windows and giant bed with an oak frame. My mattress was lumpy in comparison.
“Is this where I’ll stay?” Gretel asked, rolling her shoulders back. The healing ointment we’d applied yesterday had already taken effect.
I frowned so hard I thought my face would crack. “There are other rooms.”
Blackwell Manor was the largest in the neighborhood. Even Clinemell had to admire it. While in recent years, only two servants kept the place up, it’d once housed dozens.
But until that moment, I hadn’t realized none of those old rooms were made up.
It was an awful oversight on my own part. I’d known for days Gretel would be staying. And I’d cleaned almost every inch of the kitchen in preparation, yet somehow I’d forgotten to fix up a room for her.
“You’ll have to stay in the guest room for one more night.”
Gretel dropped her pillow onto my bed with a thump.
“You aren’t sleeping here!”
Gretel fluffed up the pillow. “Why not? It’s big enough.”
“It’s my bed.” I couldn’t share my bed with Gretel.
“Do you want me to make up a bed on the floor?”
“There are other rooms,” I huffed again.
“If I’m going to stay and help you,” she said, smoothing her hand over her pillow, “then I’ll sleep down here with you.”
“You could stay one more night in your old room.”
“It’s not fair,” she said, her curls shaking as she shook her head. “And I’m ready to go back to normal.”
“You’re willingly giving up your much nicer bed to sleep in the servants quarters?”
She lifted her chin, brightening in that sweet Gretel way of hers. “I want to sleep where you sleep.”
Something in me startled. “The bed isn’t big enough!”
She considered this. “I think it will be okay. But if you wish, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
She grabbed a blanket and meant to pull it off the bed.
“No, stop.” I didn’t want the fresh linen dirtied on the ground. Besides, I could hardly have our recent patient sleeping on the floor.
Gretel held the blanket delicately. She stood taller than I by a few inches, yet she always stared at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“It’s fine,” I amended my original response to her showing up to my room. “Just. . .”
I motioned to the bed. She sprang up on it, the blankets instantly wrinkling and twisting about. I already had an inkling that she was a messy person, and this confirmed it.
“Don’t move it all about!”
She instantly stopped moving. For what it was worth, she knew how to take direction.
Gretel might annoy me, but when I gave her orders, she followed them.
And without realizing it, I’d started to understand that this was a dynamic I liked.
No one else had ever followed my directions.
Not Master Blackwell and not Boswell, who would scoff.
It took me months to get him to wipe his muddy shoes before he came into my kitchen.
She wiggled about, but the moment I told her to stop, her body stilled, her muscles snapping to comply. And I noticed because everything her body did attracted my attention.
“Move over,” I demanded. I blew out the light, the Manor quiet in the night.
I wondered if in a few days Baz and I would go back to our evenings in the library.
Though I suppose that meant Gretel would also be invited.
I couldn’t imagine Baz being the type to not include her in household activities.
Thank the stars for the dark because as I climbed into bed, I could feel my cheeks flushing. Not so long ago, I’d read out loud dirty passages from a book to Baz. But that had been when it was just the two of us.
Though as I tucked myself into the bed, the memory of that interaction twisted. It morphed into the idea of sitting in my wingback chair, trying my best not to squirm as I read aloud. When I lowered the book, it wasn’t just Baz staring at me. But Gretel too.
I squirmed under the covers, some deep part of me breathless as I imagined how I would feel in that moment. My thighs clamped together as I tried to turn away from the memory, which had turned into something I wasn’t quite prepared to fully look at yet.
“Goodnight, Wystle.” Gretel’s breath tickled my neck, she was so close. My toes curled, and I tried to bring my knees to my chest, but that only knocked our legs together. It was absurd, the idea that the pair of us could fit on the narrow mattress.
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, not wanting to focus on how physically close we were.
“What, Wystle?”
Gretel had a naturally chirpy voice. It grated on me usually, but I sat as still as I could, listening.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I just think it sounds right. People give little nicknames to their friends you know.”
I didn’t really.
“I think it sounds ridiculous.” I wasn’t a whistle.
I should’ve known Gretel wouldn’t let my opinion end the conversation.
“I hear Baz,” she said so quietly, I strained to hear her, “call you fairy.”
“Go to bed, Gretel.”
Her breath stamped my skin as she sighed and then said, “Okay, Tangwystle.”
She slid her hand down, skimming my chest. I told myself she’d simply moved her arm, had tried to get comfortable.
I believed I’d never fall asleep, not with Gretel invading my bed.
But to my surprise, I opened my eyes to find that I had slept so deeply I’d never even moved.
I remained on my side, facing Gretel. Her chest moved up and down as she breathed deeply, one arm tucked under her head and the other lazily curled around my waist.
I not so gently sprang out of bed. Gretel’s breath caught, and she let out a sleepy stretch as she woke.
But if I thought getting out of bed would end my problems, I was sorely mistaken.
“Today’s my first day to help,” Gretel stated the obvious. I’d known her long enough to know she loved talking. And I think she mostly chatted to herself. She pushed the covers back, scooting to the edge of the bed.
I’d hung my dress for the day on the door of my narrow wardrobe. I tore my night shift off and stuffed the black dress over my head. I threw open the wardrobe, realizing Gretel needed something to wear.
“Here.” I handed her one of my dresses. “I’ll need to buy more fabric. Can you sew?”
She shrugged, not looking thoroughly enthused about the task.
“I’ll get several yards of black fabric. No one will know it’s not for me. If we work hard we can get at least two dresses made by the end of next week.”
She plucked at the material. “Does it have to be black?”
I rolled my eyes. “The point is to blend in, Gretel. We don’t want the neighbors gossiping about some figure in a pink dress roaming around.”
“I wouldn’t want pink,” she reasoned, but stopped when she saw my arched eyebrow. Shoulders drooping, she let her night shift fall to the floor and pulled on the borrowed dress.
It fell several inches above her knees.
“I’ll go to the market today,” I said. I needed to stock up, thanks to the havoc of the past week, and it wasn’t like Gretel could go around in such a short dress.
Though she didn’t show any signs of caring. She swayed slightly, tilting her neck to get a look at herself, and then shyly looked at me. “You didn’t put on any panties.”
To this day, I don’t know how I stood there. Surely, part of me wanted to combust. To scuttle into the wallflower I knew myself to be. I’m sure my face appeared slack-jawed, and I’m fairly certain a dark voice in the back of my head growled at how she had the audacity to say such a thing to me.
But she was right. I took Baz’s order to not wear panties very seriously and, as such, hadn’t worn them since he’d pulled them off me that morning in his bedroom a little over a week ago.
I’d grown so used to it that when I changed that morning, I hurried to cover my chest, but hadn’t given a second thought to my lower half. And of course, leave it to Gretel to shamelessly watch me dress.
Gretel reached her arm out.
I stepped back, hitting the still-open door to the wardrobe. “What are you. . .”
“Let me braid your hair for you.”
She’d already tied her blonde curls up high on the top of her head. Stars know where she found the black ribbon to do so. I swear she hadn’t had it when she came into the room last night.
“No, it’s fine.” I pushed her hand away.
“But your hair is in your face.”
“It’s fine.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“No,” I lied.
But I think even then Gretel could see through me.
She took a step forward, her movements stronger as she tugged me toward herself.
I tried to bat her hands away again. “I get headaches.”
She paused.
“I get headaches when I put my hair up,” I explained. “I’d rather it in my face than my head hurting.”
Gretel considered me carefully. And then gently pulled a few strands back. I could’ve snapped at her or pushed her back. But I think I was surprised to see that she hadn’t left me alone.
“What are you doing?” I found my voice after a few minutes.
She’d moved to work on the other side. Her fingers were quick but delicate, the hair rustling as she played with it. I enjoyed the sensation.
“Here,” she finally said, stepping back.
The strands on either side of my face were pinned back.
“I kept the braids loose, but they’re out of your face,” she said. “Hopefully not too loose. If I need to fix it during the day I can.” A warped mirror hung by the wardrobe. It was more wall decoration than anything, I used it so little.
But that morning, I glanced at it and surprised myself.
I liked my reflection.
I didn’t think of myself as a vain person. I kept clean, but I was a pale, mousy creature.
Thanks to Gretel, my hair was swept back prettily. I was still pale, but my cheeks were rosy, and for a moment, I thought my lips looked wine-stained.
Gretel snuck up closer and leaned her chin on my shoulder. “See, Wystle, I’m not so entirely useless like you think.”
I told her smirking reflection, “We need to start breakfast.”