8. Lope
8
Lope
I loved her in the darkness,
When the warmth of her body
And the sweet push and pull of her breath
Was the entirety of my world.
A s I lay in the daybed, I counted Ofelia’s breaths. She had stopped crying hours ago and had finally fallen asleep. Each breath I counted was supposed to assure me that she was well. That she was alive. It was supposed to lull me into sleeping, too.
But when I closed my eyes, the world grew dark, and I was no longer alert. And she’d no longer be safe.
I remembered being a child, arriving at the barracks at the edge of the manor. Those first few hours—Carlos, a year my senior, introduced himself and explained to me that I would be sleeping during the daylight hours from then on. I couldn’t fall asleep then, either.
“I cannot listen to you tossing and turning one more minute!” he had said with a dramatic sigh. And as sunlight had gleamed in a small beam through our shutters, he sat on the floor across from me and taught me to play chess.
Cradled in the warm embrace of the palace daybed, for a moment, I could still feel the smooth wood of the rook beneath my fingers. Hear the triumphant click as Carlos knocked down my king and then laughed at me.
“Another round,” I’d said.
And he’d said my name, my old name, Luisa , the name that didn’t suit me. “This is supposed to bore you to sleep.”
“I want to learn,” I had whispered, while the world was awake beyond our window.
His eyes, green like crisp apples, had twinkled at me. “You’re stubborn. You will make a good knight.”
What good knight allowed their mentor to die?
I clawed my way out of my memories and sat up in the bed, rubbing my eyes. My gaze fixed once more upon Ofelia, lying on her side in her bed, her hands tucked beneath her cheek.
She looked like a painting. Not like the ones here, in dark tones with ostentatious gold frames. She was softer, sweeter. Something painted not for the need of lavish decor, but because such beauty needed to exist.
I sat on the daybed, my breath held tight in my chest.
I failed Carlos. I cannot fail her.
My hands trembled. I had no more weapons. And at this court, they did not fight with blades. They wielded stories, and the story of Ofelia’s mother had been like a dagger to her heart.
With such cruelty within these walls, I needed to be stronger, strong enough to protect Ofelia.
I needed the strength of the gods. Any god, any that would listen to my fervent prayer.
I crept toward the nightstand beside Ofelia’s large bed. Silently, I drew open the drawer and selected a single yellow candle, and then lit it with the flint from my tinderbox. I placed the burning candle in a brass candlestick before the vanity and frowned at the faint, white blur of my reflection in the dim light. A moment later, I threw my bedsheet over the mirror.
From my rucksack, I procured the journal Ofelia had given me, filling up fast. Poem after poem, verse after verse. All of the nonsense I could not keep trapped in my mind. By the flickering, golden light, I wrote down a few verses. They were all I could give.
You are attached to my heart,
If I am a tree, you are all of my roots,
You bring me life, you hold me,
You turn me toward the sun
I paused, imagining my small, stumbling voice as I’d read this to her. But I could never dare to do such a thing. My metaphors were poor, my words were so weak. She deserved perfection. And she certainly didn’t deserve the paltry affection of a common knight.
I sighed and massaged my eyes. “Gods above, numerous and unknowable, please give me the strength to keep her safe.”
Even if this ritual was useless, I had to carry it out. The orphanage that raised me taught me to be devout, and a part of me clung desperately to the constancy of the faith I had found there. Even if my cries were to fall on ears that did not care to hear... I had to try.
I carefully fed the poem into the flame. Ashes crumbled into the candlestick. I waited. I watched the smoke rise.
When I prayed, sometimes I thought I could hear a voice. I could remember the sound, remember the tone, but whatever that voice had said, I could never remember.
Maybe that would be the only sign of holiness I’d ever receive.
Maybe I was only calling into empty darkness.
“Lope?”
I turned. I had been so ensnared by my own worries and prayers that I hadn’t noticed Ofelia stirring. She was sitting in her bed now, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was an artful mess of copper curls.
“Yes, my lady?” I replied. I dug my nails into my hand to suppress the foolish, lovesick smile building within me from just looking at her.
She blinked slowly and sleepily. Her shoulders were slumped, as if the night’s slumber hadn’t been restorative enough. “I thought this place would be a dream,” she mumbled, her words slow as the fog of sleep lifted. “I thought we’d find Mother and that we could live here and be happy, but... I feel more confused than ever. More hopeless than ever.” She bunched the embroidered sheets in her fists. “All those things that lady said last night. It feels as if I don’t really know my mother. I... I almost wonder if she isn’t coming at all. If she abandoned me. Like she abandoned her old life. I worry those stories about my mother were true.”
I could see the storm clouds in her eyes. My heart fractured. She did not deserve to live in a world with dreary skies.
“I’m sure that isn’t so, my lady,” I said. “They like stories and rumors around here. And a good story is always exaggerated.” I slowly crossed the room and held out my hand for hers. “Your mother would never abandon you. I’m certain she will arrive at the palace in a day or so.”
I did not fully believe my own words, but the hope dawning on Ofelia’s face made me want to.
“Come,” I said, pulling her up gently, “we’ve come all this way, and you have yet to show me those beautiful gardens you always read about. Perhaps the sun on your skin will lift your spirits.”
Her hand squeezed mine. “A walk would be nice.”
I nodded. “We will continue to investigate. Ask everyone we meet if they’ve seen your mother. And we shall stay at the palace until she arrives.”
Ofelia smiled. “No one knows how to make my heart glad like you do, Lope.”
My face burned. Her smile widened into a grin, and she slipped out of her bed. She approached one of her windows, parting the latched doors of the shutters. Beyond lay vast gardens with fountains spraying mist like rain high into the air, glimmering with rainbows.
“Oh my,” she said breathlessly. The sun glowed yellow upon her freckled skin. She was a daisy, blooming in the dawn.
The second we pushed open the doors leading outside, we were overtaken by a flood of bright sunshine. I blinked back stars, disoriented and dizzy—and then the world came into focus.
Before us, the sky was an endless blue canvas, without a single cloud. White gravel walkways extended before us far into the distance, interrupted by terraces with boxwoods and rows upon rows of flowers, kept in tidy, colorful beds.
Ofelia cried out in delight and barreled toward the nearest flower bed, bending as low as she could to smell the lavender and freesias. She knelt down on the gravel and practically embraced the flowers. “Lope, come smell them!” she called.
I laughed and joined her, kneeling in the dusty pathway, the rocks pressing against my knees through my stockings and breeches. The delicate, beautiful scents washed around me.
Her fingers brushed each leaf and petal so gently, so lovingly. When I closed my eyes, I could almost see her caressing my cheek with that same fond look upon her face.
I woke from my reverie when I heard a small gaggle of people laughing not too far away. My eyes flew open, and to our left, a group of courtiers tittered as they looked our way, at the two girls kneeling in the dirt.
Ofelia leapt to her feet and dusted off her skirts, her cheeks flaming the bright pink of a sunrise.
“Let’s walk on,” she said softly.
I followed in her shadow, until she slowed, shifting slightly, so that we walked side by side. If I wasn’t careful, our hands would nearly touch.
She took my arm, and we walked onward, this time toward a long corridor made of hedges that climbed all the way up to the sky. The garden was beautiful, fragrant, and sunlit. But being outdoors, even on the brightest day, set me on edge. Nature, the subject of so much poetry—it was also the Shadows’ domain.
Ofelia grinned as we rounded a corner and found another long hedgerow before us. “The king’s labyrinth!” She eagerly tugged at my arm. “Oh, it’s just like a storybook! Perhaps a secret is hidden here. Where else would someone hide a treasure?”
Or a monster , I thought, recalling one of the stories she’d read me by candlelight.
The farther we walked, the darker the world became, with the shade of the hedgerows blocking the morning light. The growing darkness made the hair on my neck stand on end. We had seen a Shadow attack us while the sun was still in the sky. The dimming light still made me anxious. This kind of thick, heavy shade was a Shadow’s chosen battleground. If any creatures were lurking about these grounds, they’d be hiding here.
“Follow me,” said Ofelia, walking faster.
I raised my brows. “Do you know which way you’re going, my lady? This... this labyrinth seems quite vast.”
She walked backward, smiling impishly at me. “I read the book about Le Chateau so many times I’ve practically memorized the garden. At night, before I fell asleep, I used to imagine what it would be like to walk these allées.” She twirled in place, her skirts blossoming around her. “And we’re here !” Ofelia’s smile faltered the smallest bit. “Mother must be here, too. She... she surely wouldn’t have gotten lost. She hired a coachman to bring her here. She must be here already, and we just haven’t found each other yet.”
I hoped that was so.
She turned a corner, and we entered an area surrounded by a round wall of hedges. A large fountain was in the middle of the space, with the statue of a woman draped in cloth that seemed thin as paper, even when carved from marble. Her arms were outstretched, as if asking for an embrace—but the flat, blank surface of her face was a reminder that she was a goddess. We mortals were not worthy of knowing whatever beauty she held.
As we walked into this little pocket of the labyrinth, we approached the fountain. At its base was a massive pile of offerings, red roses, letters sealed with kisses, locks of hair, books of love poems. Candles flickered and the smell of freesias was thick in the air. In a few days, this would all be burned in a passionate, desperate gift to the goddess, casting all the prayers from Le Chateau into that invisible palace where the gods were said to live.
“Le Bosquet du Temple de l’Amour,” Ofelia noted. She smiled up at the goddess of love as if she were an old friend.
When I looked to the goddess of love, my stomach clenched. It felt too bold of me, too wrong, too foolish to ever even attempt to pray for love. My pulse always raced for Ofelia, but even I knew that the flutterings of my heart were pathetic, terrestrial things. My feelings were true, certainly—but surely not important enough to ask for the aid of a goddess.
“You could write such beautiful poetry about this place,” Ofelia mentioned. How sweet it was that her mind never strayed close to the darkness. I wished often that I could mold my mind to be like hers. That my eyes would see beauty like hers did, instead of danger. Basking in her light was the closest I could come to viewing the world like she did.
“I hope I’ll get the chance to, my lady.” She was so near to me, her cheek almost brushing the shoulder of my coat. I had to catch my breath. “You gave me a great gift when you taught me how to write. It was like teaching me how to see the world in new colors.”
“Even when you talk about poetry it’s like poetry,” she beamed.
I laughed, bowing my head and praying she didn’t notice the red in my cheeks.
Ofelia pointed at a small green book in the offerings pile, Grandes Obras Poéticas , and said, “Oh, you have that one!”
I smiled—it, like every book I owned, had been a gift from her. “I’ve read that one so many times the binding is holding on by a thread.”
“Oh, I shall have to buy you another one as soon as I can.” She turned on her heel and began to walk out of the bosquet, her hands behind her back, like this was some ordinary morning stroll. Like she belonged here. “So which one is your favorite poem?”
“There’s a poem I like,” I said. “The writer says that he knows that one day his lover will pass away. That one day he will pass away. But he writes that death cannot erase the love they had. It exists outside of time, outside of flesh. He says even when they are dust, they will be enamored dust.”
Ofelia let out a delicate sigh. “Oh, how romantic!”
The inevitability and the strength of death did not strike her as it had me when I’d read the poem for the first time. She gleaned immediately what took me months to understand. The beauty of love so deep it could not be separated even from one’s own ashes.
Part of me wanted her to keep looking at me like that, swoony and fond, and part of me wanted to turn invisible at once, so I could run away and stop making a fool of myself in front of her. What was I doing? Knights didn’t recite poetry to those they were sworn to protect!
“Do you believe that?”
I blinked, leaving my cloudy thoughts behind. “Believe what, my lady?”
“That love is something immortal.”
I stared down at my feet as we walked, watching the gravel turn the toes of my boots white. The poets always said love is immortal... but is it? I had loved only two people in my life. And one I could still see behind my lids. Carlos’s face, so still in death, and then wrapped forever away in a sheet, his freckled face a blank, nameless skull.
Love was not only some romantic thing, not just something bright and pure like the illustrations of knights and princesses. It was strong and angry and resilient and most of all, painful—viciously so. I looked at Ofelia, and my heart ached for a future that could never be. I thought of Carlos, whose memory still wounded me, even after he was gone.
“Yes,” I said to her. “Love outlives everything.”
The two of us entered another bosquet, with orange trees planted in a circle around us, their perfume thick and sweet in the air. Bushes with berries and patches of vegetables all surrounded the fountain in the center. A marble statue of a deity with a bird on their shoulder, a lamb in their arms, vines crawling along their robes, and a crown of abundant flowers.
“Le Bosquet du Jardin de la Vie,” said Ofelia. “To the deity of life.”
We stood, wordless, listening to the rush of water and the wind breezing through the orange trees. I gazed up at the statue, at the bird on its shoulder, and my forehead wrinkled. I hadn’t heard any birds, not in the whole garden. I looked to the sky to see if I could catch any flitting by.
“What is it?” Ofelia asked.
“Birds go quiet when Shadows are near,” I said softly.
Ofelia’s hand took mine, and she slowly led me out of the bosquet. “There are no Shadows here—we’re safe now.”
Still I listened; still I looked to the skies. “We saw Shadows just beyond the palace gates.”
“Yes, but we are within the palace grounds now.” She gestured behind her back to the bosquet. “This whole place is blessed. It honors the gods. Surely no monsters could come into a place like this.”
How sweet her words sounded. How much I longed to believe them.
Yet as we walked, something within me, something trained but unnamable, continued to feel ill at ease. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. There was a tingling in my spine, that strange, invisible sense of someone watching me. I glanced behind me—but there was only a sunlit garden.
Ofelia’s hand petted my arm. “It’s all right,” she promised. Like I was some child having a nightmare.
Perhaps I was imagining things. Years on the wall, being trained to be nothing but vigilant... it could have addled my mind.
But no birds sang.
I kept my eyes upon the vast, black shadows the hedges cast onto the gravel.
Ofelia guided us into a new area—but instead of an open space, there was a large iron grate between the two walls of hedges. She approached the grate, frowning, her fingers curling around the little diamonds formed between the lattice grate. “I don’t remember this area on the map,” she remarked.
I stepped closer, peering through. This bosquet was a large circle, like the others, lined with white gravel. But there were no plants, no fountains. Only a white, domed pavilion. At its center was a black door with a golden handle—it stood alone, attached to nothing but the marble floor.
“Each bosquet honors a god,” I said softly. “Who could this be for?”
Ofelia’s eyes had a little twinkle in them as they flicked toward me. “The deity of doors, perhaps?”
We frowned at that strange door.
“Or maybe it’s some sort of artwork?” Ofelia murmured.
I kept my fingers curled against the cool iron. The feeling from before—that Shadows were close by—it didn’t abate. The hissing sound I heard—was it the water from the fountains? Was it the wind through the trees? Or could it be the monsters that had followed me throughout my entire life?
I watched our silhouettes on the gravel drive, mine tall and angled, hers short and round, and then—suddenly, a large shadow swallowed both of our figures.
In an instant, I withdrew the knife hidden in my boot—the only weapon the palace hadn’t taken from me. I whirled around, pushing Ofelia behind me, and in a second, I had my dagger pointed—but not at a Shadow. It touched the silvery throat of a soldier’s armor. He wore a breastplate and gorget over the deep blue coat of the king’s guard. He had a halberd leaning against his shoulder as he glared down at us with icy eyes.
The soldier grabbed me by the lapels of my coat. “Who do you think you are, assaulting one of the king’s knights?”
Ofelia darted close, and with her so near, I lowered my blade.
“Sir, this lady is my personal guard,” she said. “She was only protecting me; you startled us. Now, please, enough of this roughness. Let her go.”
He shoved me back a pace. I kept my hand around the handle of the blade, and even though I knew that this man wasn’t the enemy, I remained on my guard.
The soldier gave me a hard look. “Courtiers are not permitted to have weapons, senorita.”
“Caballera,” I corrected. “It is my duty to protect Lady Ofelia against the Shadows, and I will not do so unarmed.”
His lip curled. “There are no Shadows at Le Chateau.”
“I’ve seen them just beyond the gates!” I cried, incensed that a fellow soldier would enforce this lie. “They could slip under the walls or into this garden in an instant!”
He stepped even closer to me, his eyes blazing. “We do not welcome troublemakers in this palace. Perhaps you and your mistress would like to cut your stay here short?”
“No!” yelped Ofelia, grabbing my arm. Her eyes shone imploringly at me. “Lope, please.” She glanced up at the soldier. “Please, sir, she means no harm. We were only taking a walk. We’ve traveled so far, and I’m searching everywhere for my mother. She was supposed to arrive here and—I’m looking everywhere for her.” She slowly pushed me behind her. Her voice wobbled as she spoke. “You’re a king’s guard, sir. Would you know if she arrived? Her name is Mira—” She paused. “Her name is Marisol de Forestier.”
The soldier’s posture eased. It was like some magic Ofelia possessed, being able to calm people, to get them to listen to her and want to help her. It worked on me, certainly.
“I do not know every soul who’s come through the gates,” said the soldier. “But a ledger of all guests who enter and exit Le Chateau is kept in the library, along with all other records.”
Hope made her eyes sparkle. “A ledger! Oh, excellent. Thank you, sir!” She turned to me, squeezing my arm. “Let’s go to the library. They ought to have some proof if Mother arrived here safely.”
She curtsied to the soldier and started to leave, but I lingered for a moment.
“Why did you approach us?” I asked him coldly.
“This bosquet is not open to the public,” he said simply.
My brow furrowed. “Why would that be?”
“The king’s order.” The soldier held out a gloved hand. “Now, your knife, senorita. Unless you wish to leave the palace alongside it.”
As I placed it in his hand, my heart plummeted. They wanted us defenseless here. Why?
He nodded his head. “Be on your way.”
Ofelia grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the bosquet, back into the brightly lit allée. Her hand slid down my arm, her fingers entwining with mine. It made the heat of my anger and confusion melt into something sweet and warm.
“Let’s go back to the palace and find this library, like he said,” Ofelia told me as we walked side by side.
I glanced back over my shoulder. The soldier lingered in the shadows of the bosquet entrance, his halberd held in his fist. “Why would he concern himself with us?” I murmured. “The place was gated off, anyhow....”
“He probably just has a temper.”
Her thumb brushed against mine, the only thing that could make me tear my eyes from the soldier and that little alcove.
“Something’s hidden there,” I murmured. “Something we got too close to.”
She let out a soft sigh through her nose, her gaze firmly upon the palace in the distance. “Lope, I don’t want a mystery,” she said, small and defeated. “I want my mother back.”
Her eyes looked like sunlit water. My heart twinged. I was letting my ambition take charge. My knightly need for duty and honor and defeating evil.
Now Ofelia didn’t need me to fight her monsters. She needed me to guide her someplace safe.
I clenched her hand to ground me. To turn my thoughts from myself to her—her and her mother.
Yet when I looked at the palace before us, golden in the morning light, something unsettled me. That ethereal, splendid beauty. It reminded me of the divine stories the pious caretakers would tell in the orphanage. That if the gods were to visit us, they would be too resplendent. That blood would seep from our eyes.
Beauty so brilliant it was deadly .