7. Ofelia
7
Ofelia
D ressed in our finery, Lope and I breathlessly stood in a queue of courtiers entering the ballroom. My heart was fluttering like a butterfly trapped in my chest.
I curled my fingers tighter into the hard muscle of Lope’s arm. With her other hand, her thumb grazed against my knuckles. All the warmth in my body rushed into my cheeks as I met her gaze. Could she tell by looking at me how tender my heart was toward her? Or that I knew about the beautiful words she’d written—possibly about me?
“I’ll be beside you all night, I promise,” she said.
Relief washed over me. She was the steady ground I could rely upon, always.
We had survived the Shadows. A party would be a trifle.
We entered into a hurricane: dancers spinning in skirts of blue silk like crashing waves, their sapphire-suited partners whirling them around and around in the storm. Above it all soared beautiful music, light and chirping, fifty times louder and fuller and lovelier than the lone harpsichord my mother played at our manor.
The thought of my mother stung me, and I breathed steadily through it. I couldn’t be afraid now. I had to find her.
Mother will be just around the corner , I tried to tell myself. We will find her, and everything will be back to normal.
I carefully removed my hand from Lope’s arm to smooth my skirts. Just like the others did, I held my shoulders back and my head high and confident. I dove into the current of courtiers standing at the edge of the dance floor.
“Excuse me,” I said, locking my gaze with the first person who looked in my direction—a lady about my mother’s age with golden paint on her eyelids. “Excuse me, madame, I’m looking for my mother, Mirabelle de Bouchillon? She looks like me. She’s a little taller than I am....”
The woman turned away and carried on her previous conversation.
I asked another stranger and another. When I said Mother’s name, the partygoers gave me the same confused stare. Even Lope, who’d rather fight monsters than attend a party, was willing to ask a courtier or two whether they’d heard of Mirabelle de Bouchillon.
“Her Ladyship arrived only a few days ago, we believe,” said Lope to a viscount in a cerulean suit.
The viscount shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle. A new arrival like yourself always brings new gossip to the court. I’d certainly know if she had arrived.” He pointed behind us, past the dancers and past tables stacked high with fresh fruit and pastries. “The salon des jeux is that way. Ask at the gambling tables. If there’s any news, they’ll have it.”
We thanked him profusely and tore through the ballroom. In our mad dash, I caught a quick glance of extraordinary beauty—the ballroom’s ceiling, a massive painting of the thousandfold gods in their finery, each with their face turned from the dancers swirling on the parquet below.
Please look at me just this once , I begged the divinities. Help me find her. I’ll be the most obedient daughter, I promise.
The adjoining chamber was more intimate. There were a dozen tables with a dozen different games, and courtiers all around, laughing and shouting and clinking their bags full of coins. The faint haze of pipe smoke swirled around us. That and the perfume and the cologne and the sweat and the spice-filled pomanders made my senses reel.
“You there!”
I started and whirled on my heel toward the voice. Quickly, I scanned each of the gamblers, looking for the chestnut brown of Mother’s hair or her turned-up nose or the way she’d tilt her head when calling to me....
“Coucou! Mesdemoiselles!” called the lady with her hand aloft. She had sapphires and diamonds placed delicately among her scarlet curls. “Come here, come here!”
Hand in hand, Lope and I drifted toward the noblewoman and her friends.
At the center of their table was a heap of pastries, covered in melted chocolate and ripe, bursting fruit, all sprinkled with flakes of gold. And all around the pastries were stacks of gold coins, diamond rings, pearl earrings, hands of cards, wooden fans set aside, and a dozen glasses of wine.
“New arrivals!” shouted the woman who had called us with her swooping, musical voice. I glanced down at her, sitting far back in her chair while a young man languorously pressed kisses along her arm. In her other hand, she waved her cards back and forth like they were a fan. “ Very new arrivals in deed ! I’ve not seen these faces here before.”
“I daresay I’d remember that face,” remarked a man with blue ribbons tied into his long dark curls. He pointed at Lope. He pointed at her wound; the scar that looked like a tear had seared its way down her cheek.
Hot fury boiled in my middle. I opened my mouth, ready to scold him for drawing mocking attention to this sign of Lope’s bravery, before I remembered: people at this court did not seem to like speaking about the Shadows. And I needed to ingratiate myself with these nobles as much as possible if I wanted to find my mother. I breathed out the anger and tried to be as cool and unflappable as Lope.
“Yes, sir, we are new,” I said, my voice small. All my life I’d yearned for this, and now that I was here, in this moment, it all seemed so big and so much . Days ago I’d been full of such hope for this place. But this reality had never been my dream. “We arrived here at dawn.”
“How fascinating!” remarked a man with dark brown skin, setting down his cards and leaning his hand on his cheek. “Where did you come from, then?”
“The countryside,” I said. “The nearest town is Bosque de las Encinas—”
“The countryside?” exclaimed a girl, leaning forward onto the card table. “How curious! So how does a little country bumpkin find herself here ?”
“W-we are seeking My Ladyship’s mother,” Lope intervened. “She is la Condesa de Bouchillon. We suspect she came here recently.”
The lady with the sapphire-studded coiffure gave her head a very small shake. “I’ve never heard of her.”
“And she would have,” volunteered the man who’d been kissing her. He gave her a reverent look as he said, “Emilia remembers everyone.”
The possibility had started to take root in my heart—that Mother really hadn’t arrived. She’d never made it here. My heart felt like it had floated outside my chest, like I was no longer in my body at all. Each breath was slow, crawling its way in and out of my lungs.
Lope bent close, a loose lock of her hair tickling my ear. “Should we leave?” she asked.
I wanted to. I wanted to be a child and curl up and hide. I wanted this to be like that day at the market, when I had lost Mother for only a few minutes before she had found me, scooping me up in an embrace while I collapsed into a puddle of tears.
Just breathe , I told myself. I clung to Lope’s hand. I felt the steady, plush carpet beneath my shoes. Inhaled the sweet perfume and the sour sting of smoke in the air. All these years I had wished to jump inside a fairy tale, and all around me was a world just like those illustrated in my storybooks. A room sparkling with diamonds and gold. Music I’d never heard before, beauty I’d never seen. Glamorous people, laughing and carefree.
To uncover the truth, I had to become one of them.
Imagining what a confident, fearless noblewoman would do, I boldly took a chair from another table and placed myself beside Senora Emilia. Without even looking, I could feel Lope standing behind me, watching over me, just in case.
“Forgive my eagerness,” I said to the scarlet-haired lady. “If it’s true you know everyone at court... I take it you know the best gossip, then?”
Emilia set down her hand of cards with a loud slap. She showed me a wide grin. “Oh, thank the gods . I was hoping you’d ask. The past few weeks have been absolutely mad. And you’re completely new here? Searching for your mother, too? Come, come, tell me everything.” Her bracelets jingled as she raised a hand in the air, snapping her fingers. “More wine for the table!”
Emilia turned back to me with her green eyes alight. “What is your name, my pet?”
“Ofelia de Bouchillon, senora.” Over my shoulder, I smiled at Lope, who curtsied as I introduced her as “My knight, la Caballera Lope de la Rosa.”
Emilia smiled at the two of us. “Enchantée—or, judging by your accent, encantada . Your family must come from the south, like mine.” Emilia glanced from where I sat to Lope, standing behind me. “Well, if you were looking for gossip, you’ve come to the right place at just the right time. Only a few days ago, we had a strange little miracle unfold at the palace.”
My brows furrowed. “A miracle?”
“A mystery!” said the man with ribbons in his hair.
Emilia shot him a quick glare, as if annoyed she’d been interrupted. “Yes, indeed, a mystery. You see, it was very recent; it’s the talk of the court. A new room, a new hall , appeared in the palace overnight.”
“A... an entire hall, my lady?” Lope asked.
“An entire hall,” said Emilia, her eyes only upon me. “There were no workers, no sounds of construction, no announcements that it would come to be or that it was planned.... We all woke up and found a strange black-and-golden door in the west wing of the palace.”
I leaned forward, as enraptured as if I were reading a novel. “And what lies behind that door?”
Emilia’s grin sparkled in the candlelight. “ No one knows . The king won’t allow anyone in. He says it’s still in progress. It’s so strange; we can see from the edifice of the palace that it is truly a room and not just a door with an empty wall. But whatever’s behind that door... none of us knows. No matter how we beg and plead with His Majesty.” Emilia pointed her fan at a young girl in green. “You should have seen how Camille was batting her eyes, asking for a chance to look upon this new divine miracle the gods had given the king....”
Camille huffed. “He just said the hall wasn’t open to the public yet. Now they’ve got guards watching over it day and night.”
“Do you really think there’s just... scaffolding and dust in there?” Lope asked me softly.
I echoed her question, since I knew she did not wish to say it aloud.
Emilia shrugged. “Who knows. The gods gave the king this beautiful palace, every inch of it, the ballroom, the gardens, the canal, the rooms, the theater, all of it, from floor to painted ceiling.”
A young man smiled and touched Emilia’s arm. “Gifts are much better when anticipation is built, you know. I’m sure the king is going to dazzle us with something grand in a few months’ time.”
Camille leaned forward in her seat. “I will mention one thing—when the king spoke of the room, he called it ‘the Hall of Illusions.’”
“How intriguing!” said Emilia.
I wondered what sort of illusions could be inside—how such a thing could be captured and put into a room. But something else confused me. “Why would a gift from the gods need renovations?”
My words were greeted with thick silence. Shame washed over me, though I didn’t quite know what I’d done to offend.
Emilia cleared her throat, smiling. “So, mi linda, why is it that you brought your knight here ? To the safest place in the world?”
It was simple: because she and I were not to be parted.
“Lope and I traveled alone, all the way from the countryside,” I said. “It was imperative that I come here, that I find my mother, even if we faced monsters on the—”
The gamblers gasped and hushed and whispered. A young woman’s fan clicked rapidly as she fluttered it. A man clutched at his heart. Emilia waved a hand at me.
“Enough of that,” she said. “You’re new here; you do not understand. The king loathes such talk. He’d have you thrown from the palace if he knew you spoke of those... things .”
I frowned. “But His Majesty is not here.”
Emilia lifted her own fan, white and covered with flowers. She hid her mouth as she said, “One can never be too careful, my dear.” With a flourish, she shut her fan and tapped the back of my hand. “How curious it is, that a noblewoman would be raised in the countryside. You are nearly a woman. You should have been here , finding yourself a match, not languishing out in the middle of nowhere.”
Yes. Yes, she understood. That had been all my heart had wanted. Mother and Lope and I, tucked safe within the pages of the story of this beautiful, blessed palace. A story where I was independent and bold and in love. In love with a stormy-eyed girl, spinning in a ballroom...
“Who is your father, dear?”
I blinked, awaking from the reverie. “My father?”
Someone at the table giggled and then hastily tried to disguise it with a cough.
“Yes, love. If he was a count, he must have lived at Le Chateau, mustn’t he?”
Mother rarely spoke of him. A few paintings of him were among the many portraits lining the halls of the manor. I had always assumed that stories of him, like stories about Le Chateau, were simply too painful for her.
“I—I know little about him,” I admitted. “He was Comte Luc de Bouchillon, and Mother fell in love with him when she was commissioned to paint his portrait. He and Mother both lived at Le Chateau before I was born.”
“Another clue!” said Emilia. “How long ago was that, dear?”
My heart quickened. Perhaps she remembered. Perhaps the tiles of this strange, muddled mosaic were coming together. “I just turned seventeen, senora.”
“Seventeen years ago... I was a little younger than you are now.” She looked heavenward as though trying to remember something. “So your mother was a painter. That does not help our mystery, I’m afraid. The king loves to collect artists.” Emilia fluttered her hand in the air to every wall. “As you can see.”
My eyes flitted from one canvas to another. Vistas I’d never seen, great boats amid violent storms, castles and manors, and snowcapped peaks.
If one of her paintings had been on these walls... if some trace of her remained in this very room...
“Excuse me—!” I cried as I leapt from my chair and moved toward the gallery walls. I knew her style so well. She preferred simple, realistic settings, pastoral and sweet. Her favorite part of painting, she’d said, was trying to capture how the light would play against the features of her subjects.
Weaving through the tables, I glanced from one painting to the next. A portrait of an old woman—no, it was painted indoors, which Mother didn’t care for. I looked past every landscape, every dull painting of a bowl of fruit or a stack of books.
“My lady!” I heard behind me.
I called back to Lope, “Maybe Mother painted one of these!” and dove back into the crowd. There was a smaller portrait, the size of my hand, hanging beside a window, similar to what Mother would have painted. But the artist’s signature in the corner was a J and a scribble—nothing like Mother’s at all.
It was a useless hunt. One fueled by desperation and fatigue. We had journeyed for days and had been whisked into this room like leaves blown by storm winds. My head was addled, I was losing my—
Across from me, among a thousand other paintings, one captured my eye. It was no bigger than one of the history books in our library. A small window without any panes.
In the painting, bushes overflowed with scarlet roses, and spraying fountains were placed along a dirt walkway into the vanishing point of the painting. The bright sky with the softest brushstrokes of clouds was so realistic that I could imagine the sun shining warm upon my face.
Two statues were rendered delicately, tenderly, within the painting. A marble statue of a man was on the left side, dressed in robes like he was from a thousand years ago. His hand was upon his hip, where a sword was kept. His head was turned toward the right side of the canvas—toward his companion statue, a woman. Though made of stone, her full figure appeared soft and graceful beneath carefully draped fabric, carved in marble. She looked fondly at the other statue—and cold seeped into my stomach as I looked at her.
The shape of her nose. The dimple in her smile. The paintbrush hidden within the crown of laurels in her hair. The statue of the woman—my mother?—gazed so intently at the statue of the man. If she was real... who was he? This man looked nothing like the painting of my father hanging in our manor.
I stumbled closer, my eyes darting to the bottom-right corner of the canvas. Among boughs of ivy was a single letter painted in white— M . The same curves and flourishes of Mother’s signature.
“My lady,” said Lope, just behind me, her words punctuated with frantic breaths, “forgive me; you move too fast—”
“She really did live here once,” I whispered. I longed to touch the canvas—instead I stood as close as I could, examining each glob of paint and trace of the swirling of her brush.
“That—that painting, it looks—”
I pointed to the M in the corner. With a proud, pained smile, I turned back to Lope. “I’m not dreaming,” I said. “She was here. She painted here. She lived here. This is proof.”
Without a second’s thought, I scurried back to the cardplayers, who had become distracted by the wine that had just been served. When I touched Senora Emilia’s arm, she jumped in her chair and let out a nervous little laugh.
“I’ve found the painting,” I said.
“Mademoiselle, I’m in the middle of a game!” She grinned back at her fellow cardplayers. “Poor dear didn’t learn manners in the countryside, did she?”
Desperate for her help, I took the barb she’d meant to hurt me and twisted it into a tool of my own. “I have a great deal to learn,” I said, my gaze respectfully low and demure. “All I want is to be a part of the magnificent story of this palace, this marvelous tale you’ve woven. I believe there is more still to learn about myself. About my mother. Could I impose upon your kindness just once more?”
“Darling thing,” cooed a blond noblewoman.
Emilia heaved a sigh. “Very well—which painting was it, my love?”
I pointed to it. “The one of the two statues in the garden.”
The table erupted into gasps and whispers and laughter. My confident, charming smile faded; a great chill swept through me. I had heard this sort of laughter from the gossiping market-goers back home. Mirthless and cruel.
“ That painting has an absolutely delicious story,” Emilia said with relish. “Sit, sit!”
Lope and I took our places again, but this time, I reached for her hand. Each callus and scar was so familiar to me. So faintly I thought I’d imagined it, I felt her thumb brushing against my knuckle.
“That painting was done by la Comtesse Marisol de Forestier. The king’s favorite painter. And his favorite .”
As the others snickered, I threw a confused glance to Lope, who always knew more than I did—but her brow was furrowed, too.
“My—my mother’s name is Mirabelle,” I said weakly. “I’ve seen her sign it—”
“That may very well be her name now , but when she was at court, it was Marisol.” Emilia lifted the fan from where it hung on her wrist, covering her mouth once more. The glee in her eyes, however, was undisguised. “So she changed her name, ran off to the countryside, and had you.... ”
“Senora,” interjected Lope, anger glinting in her eyes, “please—speak plainly.”
“Yes, yes, tell the story,” said the man with a flock of ribbons in his hair. “No interruptions from anyone , agreed?”
The table nodded solemnly. I pressed my hand to my hammering heart, as if I could silence its beating.
“Yes, yes, dear. Once upon a time,” Emilia began, “there was a young countess. She was considered one of the great beauties of the court, and His Majesty himself spotted her. During a ball, he plucked her out from the dancers, and she danced just for him. The two of them, they were like the sun and the moon. Resplendent and glorious. They were captivated by each other at once.”
My throat had gone dry as sand. All Mother had ever said was that she had met the king once or twice. And even then, she’d say precious little about him, no matter how I pestered her. “Are you saying that my m—that Marisol was in love with the king?”
The others at the table tittered behind their fans. Was my question that ridiculous?
“Oh, my sweet girl,” said Emilia with a twinkle in her eye. “You know so little about the ways of the court.” She poked my arm with her fan. “Whether or not true love bloomed between them, one tiny problem remained. The countess already had a husband, and he was no fool. Well, in some aspects he was. He was jealous, too jealous.”
Emilia shook her head, her red curls wagging like the ears of a dog. “The count was so angry, hearing rumors that he was made the cuckold, that he fetched a horse and rode off to be a soldier in His Majesty’s army at once.” She jabbed her finger against the tablecloth, making it ripple like she’d dropped a lump of sugar into a cup of milk. “He preferred to die rather than see his wife shame him so. They say that before he threw himself in front of a cannon, he shouted, ‘I curse my wife and her lover!’”
“No!” I cried.
I blinked, reacquainting myself with my surroundings. Everyone around the table, even Lope, had turned to gape at me.
The gamblers. The music. The laughter. A moment ago I was on a battlefield, watching an innocent man fling himself into the arms of Death.
Was any of this true? Was my mother this same woman? It seemed impossible to believe. This Marisol they described was so bold and careless, so easily swayed by the pleasures of the court—the kind of woman my mother feared I’d become.
My thoughts were a tide quickly sweeping over me. My mother had rarely spoken of my father. She had never spoken of the king. She avoided talk of Le Chateau.... All these years, could she have done so out of shame ? Had she left behind an old life, an old name, and all memories of the husband she had betrayed?
The faces around me swirled, morphing in my tear-spotted vision, looking more like twisted masks than faces at all. Emilia said something I couldn’t understand, and the courtiers around the table laughed—laughed at me. I thought of Shadows grasping at my throat, and the way their faces split, almost like a smile. How Mother had saved me in the garden. Mother. Mother. Mother, who I knew, who I loved, who had been a lie ?
I left behind the ballroom. I left behind the beauty and the dreams, staggering about in the dark hallways until Lope finally found me. She rescued me, yet again, as I clung to her, sobbing.