2. Ofelia
2
Ofelia
W hen I was seven years old, the night after I had first seen and survived a Shadow’s claws, Mother held me and hushed me to sleep, even though her arms were raw and covered in fresh sutures. She sang to me and comforted me.
There had been no wall back then. Back then, I was obedient and innocent and good. I had not tempted the Shadows by crossing into their domain.
Now, Mother sat in the parlor, her face pale and horribly blank. She had cried more when I was younger. Her stillness was worse.
I sat across from Mother, a knitted blanket wrapped around me in an effort to stop my trembling. Tears still clung to my cheeks. Lope reached into the pocket of her breeches and silently offered me a handkerchief. The one I had decorated for her with a messy embroidered L. I thanked her under my breath as I cleaned my face.
“You could have died,” Mother said, her voice faint, broken in two.
“Lope was there to protect me, Mother, she—”
“And what if she hadn’t been?” Her blue eyes narrowed. “I nearly lost you to those creatures before. I built this wall to shield us, I hired a dozen knights, and still you have the gall to ignore your safety to, what, go on a nighttime stroll?”
“It was still light outside,” I whispered, but with my weak voice it was hardly convincing.
“That makes things worse,” she said, her voice delicate but quaking with rage. Her gaze flitted to Lope, who stood stock-still, her posture tall and noble as a suit of armor. “Caballera de la Rosa, have you ever seen anything like this before? Shadows out before nightfall?”
Lope shook her head. “No, Your Ladyship. But there have been more of them each night. We try our best to keep count of the monsters that assail the manor.”
“More of them,” Mother whispered. She leaned forward over the tea table, pressing her hands against her eyes. “Gods above. Ofelia, what were you doing beyond the wall? What did you think would happen? A knight your age just died at that wall.”
Memory struck me. She was right. A boy a little older than me. Carlos. Lope’s friend. No wonder she was crying before. I glanced at her, but her face was stony.
“Did you think the Shadows would just ignore you?” Mother continued. “Did you wish to be harmed?”
I flinched at each accusation.
“Your Ladyship,” Lope said softly, “I’m the one to blame. I should have been more alert. And Lady Ofelia only wanted to be outside to meet with me. It’s my fault she was out.”
Of course she’d try to save me, even from my own mistakes.
“Nonsense,” said Mother. “She’s only alive because you were there.” She wiped her eyes and shook her head. “Thank you for saving my daughter, Caballera de la Rosa. I will reward you for your valor. For now, please—please let me have a word with Ofelia in private.”
My stomach sank. Lope hesitated for just a moment, head turning toward me, before she bowed to my mother and then to me. I watched helplessly as she slipped through the double doors of the parlor and shut them.
The clock on the nearby table ticked a frantic little heartbeat. Mother sighed. The sheen of her tears made the candles’ flames flicker in her eyes. “How could you do something so heartless?”
The word was a blade in my chest. Heartless , as if she herself hadn’t listened to me pour my heart out hours ago and rejected all my pleas. Heartless, as if I could sit silently at home while her sadness grew daily.
Rage bloomed inside me, and I cried, “Mother, I did this for you! You have been so unhappy and so frightened and—and you’ve shut yourself away on my behalf. But you don’t have to! We would thrive at Le Chateau, I know it. We could all be happy there! So I decided to go to Le Chateau so that I may ask the king for refuge.”
“Ofelia, don’t—” Mother did not even let herself finish her own sentence. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly, like she needed an embrace but didn’t have the strength to ask for one . My heart twisted. Even after all our quarrels, seeing her hurt made me feel like I’d swallowed poison. I crossed the carpet and sat beside her on the sofa. Suddenly, her arms were around me.
At the soft touch, it was like a barrier I had put in place crumbled away, and the memories and the fear of the last hour rushed back in. My memories flickered between my childhood terror and the one I had met just minutes ago.
I leaned into her embrace, sobbing. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop shaking. The scene played itself over and over against my eyelids, the creature lunging, its empty eyes, its jaws, widening, widening, widening...
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Mother whispered, covering my head in kisses.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice smothered against her gray gown. Her lilac perfume embraced me as she did.
Mother sniffled as she rubbed her hands against my back. “My sweet girl,” she murmured. “I am here to protect you. You should not feel burdened with my fears. I wish I could just keep you locked away, keep you safe from all this trouble.”
When I finally caught my breath, I lifted my head and began to brush the tears from her own cheeks. It was rare to see Mother show her emotions so plainly. It made me forget my own fears and only long to tend to her own. “We’ll be fine,” I told her. “We have the knights to protect us.”
She shook her head. “No, I—I had thought so, too. But every day things get worse. And now we cannot even rely on the sun for safety.”
Mother pulled away from me, a distant look in her eyes as she drifted toward her gallery wall, past one painting, then another. She paused at the first portrait she’d made of the two of us, me as a little girl with my arms around her neck. Mother had spent months on it. She had liked it so much she commissioned it to be painted in miniature. The tiny portrait of myself at age six was tucked into the golden locket that she always wore: the one she twirled when she was anxious, as she did now.
Mother always seemed drawn toward the past when she was upset. As the silence stretched, I knew which painting she’d turn to next: the portrait of my father, hung in a chipped gold frame on the wall. Long dark hair, blue eyes, thin lips. I took after my mother, mostly, though my father had a smile similar to mine. His pure white cravat and his red brocade coat spoke of his title, Comte Luc de Bouchillon. According to Mother’s stories, they first met when he commissioned a portrait from her.
I joined my mother by the painting as she brushed her fingertips against his painted hand, resting on a saber at his hip.
“Did he ever fight any Shadows?” I asked.
“No. He courted me at Le Chateau Enchanté. There were no Shadows there.”
A thrill zipped through me like a bird flitting through open air. Mother had many rules; the most important being that I was to never ever speak of Le Chateau or her time there. Sometimes she would let slip some detail about the marvelous gardens, the grand canal, the fountains. But if I asked her too much, her eyes would turn cold and hard.
“I—I had heard stories about such things in the town market,” I murmured. “It’s true, then?” I touched the topic so carefully, just brushing against it. I knew if I said the wrong word, she’d never speak of it again.
Mother nodded with a far-off look. “The gods built Le Chateau for His Majesty. The ground it’s built on is blessed. The walls, the statues, the gardens, every inch of it is sacred, they say.”
They say.
“Is it not so?” I asked.
“I’m not sure what I believe.” She shivered from some wind I could not feel. A memory perhaps, cold and invisible. Once more, she turned her gaze to the painting of Father. “There are no Shadows at Le Chateau. That I know; I lived there in safety.”
In my smallest voice, I said, “We could both live there in safety.”
Mother shut her eyes, a tear dripping onto her cheek. “You’re just a child,” she whispered.
“I’m seventeen now. I—I think I’d flourish at court, actually.” I fidgeted with my dress; I shifted back and forth on my heels, my heart pattering, hoping, desperate for this chance. “You know Le Chateau well; it’s not as if it’s a whole new world. And you could find me a tutor there instead of having to teach me yourself. Think of all you could paint there. I could sit out in the sunshine, and you wouldn’t have to fret over me, and I would—” Be happy was at the tip of my tongue, and I only just choked it back. “ It would be good for me. I could meet other people. I could learn about the court, and I’d become more independent. And perhaps... well, you met Father there, perhaps I could... find someone, too.”
“Ofelia.”
I bit down on my tongue, feeling an ache already unfolding in my chest. She’d never approve of it. I’d stay in this manor, alone, bereft of all beauty and romance and intrigue, until I was old and gray.
Mother bent close, resting her hands gently on my cheeks. She took a long, shaky breath. “We no longer have a choice. It is the only safe place in the kingdom,” she said. She gave a grim nod. “In the morning, I shall go to petition the king.”
My heart was overflowing. I was made up of a million brilliant butterflies, finally about to be set free. I squealed with delight and wrapped her in a crushing hug.
“Oh, Mother, Le Chateau! I can’t wait to see it! Is it really true that the grand canal is so big the king has galleons sail on it for fun and that you can borrow a gondola and—”
She pressed her finger to my lips, a stern furrow in her pale brow. “I will go first. Alone. It’s too dangerous a journey for you to take. I’ll hire a carriage, and once I arrive at Le Chateau, I will ask His Majesty for a place for us. Then I’ll return for you with his knights and a royal coach.”
I groaned. “Mother, I can brave the journey! I should come with you, introduce myself to the king—”
“No.” The ferocity in my mother’s usually gentle voice shook me. I blinked, as startled as if she’d struck me. With delicate fingers, she brushed baby hairs from my brow. “It’ll only be a few days. A week at the very most.” She pressed her locket against her heart. “I will be fine. I’ll have you with me.”
“So you don’t forget what I look like?” I asked with a grin.
Mother kissed the crown of my head. “For luck.” Her lovely blue eyes were as hard and flat as turquoise. “Ofelia, some things will be different once we start our new lives at the palace. I tried all my life to keep you from having to go to a place like that, a place with such—” My mother’s voice caught, and she took a deep breath before continuing more calmly. “You must stay by my side always.”
The idea made me squirm. It was too much like how things already were. “Mother, you needn’t fasten yourself to me all day—”
“If we go to Le Chateau,” she said, the sweetness in her voice giving way to cold finality, “you have to do what I say.” Her fingers trembled as she tucked a curl behind my ear. “It’s the only way to keep you safe. Do you understand?”
So it was a bargain she proposed: I could go to the palace but only on her leash.
“What are you keeping me safe from?” I murmured. “You said there were no monsters there.”
“There are no Shadows. But monstrous people? They are not hard to find in that place.”
I did not have the same wiles that one might gain from spending their whole life at court. But I had read hundreds of novels about it. I was quite adept at detecting the emotions of others; even Lope had told me so. I knew a great deal when it came to people, and my heart was a compass: I was sure it would easily determine whether those I spoke to had good or bad intentions.
Now I could finally prove this to my mother.
There was just one important character missing from this beautiful fairy tale unfolding.
“Maybe Lope could join us?” I asked.
The look my mother gave me was tinged with something—fond exasperation, perhaps? I flushed.
“Yes, if she wants. She could help me keep watch over you.” She gave one of my curls a light little tug. “Gods know I’ll need it. You must promise to be diligent and obedient and virtuous, if you really mean to live in that place.”
Obedient and virtuous. I almost shuddered. Those words sounded terribly boring, but for the palace, and with Lope at my side, I could make such sacrifices. “I’ll do exactly as you say,” I told her.
She nodded, unsmiling. “Then I’ll leave in the morning.”
I took a steadying breath. I was so close. So close to my heart’s dearest dream finally coming true. And a whole week to wait, while my mother traveled to Le Chateau and back... I could hardly bear it.
When I stood in the drive the next morning, blowing her kisses as her hired carriage pulled away, my head was filled with beautiful, painted-gold dreams of the balls we’d attend. The people we’d meet. The life we’d live.
I spent the entirety of the first day packing all my things into various trunks, debating which gown would be the best for making a first impression at court.
The second day I spent cleaning the house with more vigor than I ever had before. When Mother returned home, she would see how diligent and responsible and good I was. That I was grateful for this gift of a new life.
Mother was due to arrive at Le Chateau on the third day, and in her honor, I requested the cook prepare a cake, and I drank the sweet wine that Mother and I loved the most. I giddily imagined Mother meeting with the king and his enthusiastic greeting; how he would beg her to go fetch her charming daughter. How she would see it was the perfect place for us.
After the fourth day, she was on the journey back to me. Every evening, with Lope to guard me, I waited on the terrace, breathless with the hope that each night would be the one when she returned. I felt silly, at first; surely she could not leave the palace and arrive home to me in the blink of an eye.
It was strange how much I already missed her. She had always been with me. Every single day. Even on days when she preferred to be alone, I could press my ear to the door to her studio and hear her murmuring to herself or the clinking sound of brushes being cleaned.
By the sixth night, the ache in my heart led me to sleep in her studio. She’d left her shawl there, and it still smelled of her: lilac and linseed oil. When dawn broke, I woke to see her great works all around me. Her current project was a portrait of a little boy, the mayor’s grandson. There was a blank spot on the canvas where his hand ought to have been, and when I stood near, I could see the lines of her pencil outlining the hand holding a ball.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the section she had left for last. She made her art seem so effortless, but I knew her better than that.
“Gods,” she’d always said, “I’d be a happy woman if I never had to draw hands again.”
I smiled at the memory, my finger gently tracing her signature on the painting, a simple curling M.
There was a wound in my heart where she ought to have been, but surrounded by her art, I felt close to her again.
“Soon,” I told myself. “She’ll be home soon.”
But one night passed, and then another.
I waited at the gate until the knights insisted I return inside. Even then, I sat by my bedroom window, watching the horizon.
She had said her journey would take a week. I promised myself not to worry until it had been more than a week.
An eighth day.
A ninth day.
A tenth.
My mind was racing. Because this wasn’t right. In the fairy tale I was writing, she was supposed to come back.
Was she lying somewhere, injured, in pain? Had she been attacked by brigands?
Was she in a field somewhere, a Shadow’s claws pinning her down, its rattling gasp filling her ears, the breath torn from her body until—
No. No, I couldn’t bear to think like that.
And if something awful had befallen her, if she’d been attacked by Shadows or waylaid by the court—that wasn’t a tale suited for someone like me.
In the evening, as I stood on the drive, I looked to Lope, her eyes fixed hawklike on the twilit horizon.
It was a story suited for a knight.