11. Ofelia
11
Ofelia
W e entered the orangery, a large, bright room made of pale stone. The walls were lined with arches and paned windows. Evening sunlight added a shimmer of gold to all the plants—rose bushes, orchids, birds of paradise. There was row after row of orange trees, small and well manicured, each in its own little green planter box. The sweet perfume of orange blossoms filled the air. As I strolled beside the king between the rows of trees, I couldn’t help but smile.
“It smells like my home,” I said. “The nearby town has orange trees growing everywhere. The oranges taste awful, but their perfume is so magnificent.”
The king nodded at me with a smile. “Yes, these are those very same trees, the variety from the south. A little testament to the many great beauties of my kingdom.” He guided me through the stone room, past beautiful marble statues and flowering orange trees, until we reached a wooden bench with a red velvet cushion.
“This place is my little refuge,” said the king. “The silence and the perfume... they bring me peace.”
He sat down, and I placed myself beside him, careful not to touch his gold satin attire.
“This was Marisol’s favorite room,” said the king, his fingertips carefully brushing the leaves of an orange tree. He smiled, a distant, dreamy look in his eyes. “She would sketch here until sunset.”
Once more, I longed to ask him to tell me outright where precisely she was, but he had brought me here. He had said he had much to tell me. I bit my tongue and let him speak.
“We wrote each other so many letters. Her words were so lovely. So true. I have kept her notes, after all these years...”
My efforts to be as cool and levelheaded as Lope were in vain. My lip trembled. I couldn’t bear his reminiscing, not when it reminded me of the notes she would leave me in the morning: Hard at work in my studio. Please try not to break anything.
The king reached into his breast pocket and procured a lace handkerchief, holding it out to me.
“No, no,” I said, “I cannot weep in front of a king. It’s beneath you.”
“You may weep in front of your father,” he said, pressing the handkerchief into my hands. When he smiled, a dimple pressed into his right cheek, just like mine did.
Could it be so simple? To have lived with my mother as the center of my universe in one moment, and in the next, to have lost her but to have gained a father?
I took a deep, shuddering breath of the warm air, fragrant with snapdragons and orange blossoms and roses. With his permission, I let tears fall.
“She came to the palace a few days ago,” the king began. My head snapped up almost without my permission, desperate for answers. “She was asking for sanctuary from those creatures. And she told me about you.” His thumb rose to brush against my chin. “A little treasure she kept for herself all these years. Beautiful. With eyes just like mine. And a head that is always in the clouds.”
It made my stomach twist. She did say that about me. Her little treasure. Her cloud-bound daughter.
“The journey was hard on your mother,” said the king. “When she arrived, she had a fever and a dreadful cough.”
My hands flew over my mouth. “Gods above—is she all right?”
“Of course, dear.” He gave my hand a reassuring pat. “I had my physician tend to her. He said the best option was that she stay at my residence by the sea for a while to heal.”
I leapt to my feet. “Then I must go to her!”
I’d taken just one step when he caught me by the wrist. When I looked back at him, his eyes glimmered with pity.
“She is very ill, Ofelia.”
“Then she needs me all the more.” Already, I could see the plan unfolding in my head. Lope and I, in a royal carriage, on a journey to the sea. I’d hold my mother again. I’d tend to her as she did me through all my childhood illnesses. And when she was well enough, perhaps Lope and I could stand on the shore together, watching the waves. “Where is this residence? I’ll get a coach—”
“Ofelia.” His voice was sterner now. “She is highly contagious and not fit for visitors.”
“She wouldn’t—she wouldn’t accept that. She wouldn’t want us to be apart for so long.”
The king rose from his seat, his brow furrowing. It did not suit his face, so noble and pure and... divine. The face of a god, if we knew what they looked like. “Your mother is bedridden and weak. The physician would not even let me go with her. But she gave me a letter for you.”
My body, clenched tight as the string of a bow, finally loosened. “She did?”
“Yes. I’ll fetch it for you in the morning.” Slowly, he guided me back to the bench, coaxing me to sit down again. “You’ll be with her again in a fortnight, I swear it. But it would not do for you to also be stricken so ill. She would not want it.”
Two weeks. Two weeks, after already waiting so long. I wanted her now. I wanted to feel the warmth of her pressed against my cheek, to smell the lilac perfume and linseed oil that bled into her gown.
“I’ve—It’s been so long. I’ve faced so much to find her,” I admitted softly. “Lope and I. New places and strangers and long walks and monsters . For so long I wanted an adventure and now I... I only want to rest .”
“My poor child,” the king murmured. I saw in his eyes a deep sympathy for me. “Of course. Whatever bedchamber you’ve been given here, it isn’t good enough. I’ll have you settled in the finest suites I have to offer. Tell me what you like, what foods, what books, what colors—I’ll give you all that you wish and make for you a home that you’ve always dreamed of.”
It was too much—too wonderful. Like someone had taken a seed from my mind and planted it, letting all my dreams bloom around me.
Lope would hear all of this and say, It’s too good to be true.
But if the king was really blessed by the gods, if he had become holy... couldn’t it all be true?
“Your Majesty,” I said, shame making my cheeks flood with warmth, “might I—might I ask you a rude question?”
His eyebrows lifted and his cheek dimpled as he laughed. “We have many years of rude questions to catch up on, don’t we?”
How easily he spoke of a future together. How seamlessly I seemed to fit into his life. He didn’t know me. But he seemed to want to.
“The stories that say you were blessed by the gods,” I said softly. “I—I do not know which parts are stories and which parts are... are...” I bowed my head and picked my fingernails, even though Mother would have scolded me for doing so. “It seems impossible.”
He tipped up my chin, making our eyes meet. Even with my doubts, he was so kind. “When I was not much older than you, I asked the gods to make me a great king. And they saw in me a great ruler for this land, so they blessed me with eternal life. They gave me this palace, and in my life, they’ve blessed me more and more. With you , for example.” His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I always wanted a child, and all this time... you were out there.”
The reminder was an unpleasant one. “Why did Mother keep me from you?”
The king sighed mournfully. “We were very young when we fell in love. Marisol found the pressures of courtly life to be too much. She wanted to live in the countryside. I agreed to let her be, to give her the peace that she wanted...” He trailed off before whispering, “If I’d only known she was with child.”
Mother and I had our fair share of quarrels. And yes, I had tried to run away from her, tried to run to this very palace. But it unsettled me, the way she sounded like some villain, absconding with me. All these years, I’d had a father. A father who wanted me. The king. All these years, she could have taken us to Le Chateau. She could have taken us away from the Shadows. She could have called upon the king’s aid the very day we were first attacked in the manor’s garden. It didn’t make sense.
The story my mother had given me had been so small, so sparse. I had been born fatherless and grew up in the countryside with a mother who preferred paintings to people.
In the king’s story...
There was once a girl with royal blood, born of love, born loved by a king and an artist. A child raised in solitude, while her gods-blessed father waited in his golden palace for her to return home....
I liked that story so much more.
What happened next?
“If it’s all true,” I murmured. “If—if you’re my father... what does that make me?”
“You are my daughter. A princess by birthright. And when Marisol is home with us again, I will give you the crown you are due.”
My eyes widened. Every last scrap of reality was fading away, leaving behind only a fairy tale. The one I had always wanted. “A princess? A crown?”
His Majesty squared his shoulders and leaned back, observing me with a proud smile on his lips. “It will suit you so well. Now, come. We have a party waiting for us, and I want to introduce you to everyone.”
The ballroom was a golden blur. Courtiers pushed each other aside to greet me, to curtsy before me and kiss my hand. They marveled to each other that the king had found me. He had introduced me to everyone as a miracle .
For the first time in many days, I allowed myself to feel joy, unbridled and heady and thrilling. Music spun through the air. Decadent sweets were pressed into my hands. Young nobles tugged me onto the dance floor. We hopped and twirled our way through a gavotte, and my heart was flying... but my happiness wasn’t quite complete. There was someone missing.
Across the dance floor, Lope waited, tall and pale like a column of moonlight. She stood at attention, her dark plait draped over one of her broad shoulders. Even from afar, her gaze was like an arrow, direct and arresting. And as if there were a cord tied to that arrow, I felt myself pulled toward her until I was in her arms again, my ear against her drumming heartbeat.
“Are you well?” she asked, drawing back, her hands firm and strong against my shoulders. Her finger carefully swept a curl out of my eyes, and my mind went blank as she did so. So many of my dreams had come true this night. What was one more? An imaginary world unfurled in my head, where her fingers would delicately stroke the length of my jaw—
“My lady?”
“Yes!” I burst out, though I could no longer remember the question.
A small notch formed in her brow. “The king, he—What is he like? Where did he take you?”
“He’s kind and generous, and he really does know Mother! He says she came here a few days ago and that she was ill and he sent her to the seaside to get better and I was upset that I’d have to wait so long but then he said—”
“Breathe,” Lope reminded me.
I took a gasp of air and collapsed against her again with a bewildered, delirious laugh. “It’s just incredible, Lope. I must tell you everything.” With a glance back at the bright colors, the dancing courtiers, the king on his throne, engaged in a conversation with more strangers... it was so much, it made my mind grow muddled.
“Let’s hide in the hallway,” I said.
She led the way, keeping me tucked close behind her so that I was hidden just a little bit. We slipped through the crowd undetected. The guard at the door took one half-hearted glance at Lope before continuing his conversation with a young blond woman.
Hand in hand, we darted through the darkened corridors. Night had fallen so quickly. The candles on the wall were already lit, offering only small haloes of golden light here and there. Through the window at the end of the corridor, the half moon was waning.
We found a small window seat.
The seat was small, such that we were pressed knee-to-knee. I was uncertain of where I could settle my arms in such a way that wouldn’t end up touching her. How silly , I thought. I embrace her so easily, but sitting beside her on a bench, I feel like a nervous lover.
I looked up at her, hoping for some sign that perhaps she felt as timid and affectionate as I did. But her face was so cold, except for the glimmer of fear in her eyes, near black in the darkness.
“The king said your mother was by the sea?” she prompted.
If my head was in the clouds, she was permanently wearing a pair of heavy iron boots, rooting her firmly to the ground. Often, I loved this about her. Yet sometimes I wished she’d join me in my dreaming, in my pleasant thoughts, for just a little while.
“Well, yes,” I murmured. “His Majesty says his royal physician is with her. She is ill and is recovering at the king’s seaside estate.”
“El Palacio de Las Lantanas, then.”
I startled. “How do you know?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I study maps quite a lot.”
“Why?”
Lope folded her arms tight, turning away from my eyes. “For a few years I’ve been researching the path the Shadows have taken. If they have some sort of origin point. Or destination.”
Another piece of herself she’d kept from me, just like the love poetry. She’d been doing research about these monsters for years. How many bits and pieces of her life did she keep tucked away, locked away from me like little jewels? Was it that she only shared the small, everyday things with me?
“What have you concluded?” I murmured.
“It’s only a theory for now.” She rubbed at the back of her neck, her brow bunched in thought. “I think of how storms are calm at their centers. And this palace, the one place they say is free of monsters. When I trace the path of the Shadows, it seems to me... it seems to me that they begin their journeys here. From this part of the kingdom, if not from the palace itself. The way that nobody speaks of the Shadows... I cannot tell if everyone is in denial or if they are keeping a secret.”
Her familiar voice, gentle and quiet, helped remind me of the days before we reached safety. Of the darkness we’d seen. This palace was beautiful, yes. Maybe even gods-blessed. But that didn’t explain the monsters lurking just beyond the gates, and my heart sank.
How I wished this fairy tale were simpler. That we could trust in this palace. That monsters did not gather close by. That Mother had been in this building after all, waiting for me.
“There’s something else,” she said.
I leaned closer, my heart pounding against my throat.
“Did you look at the king’s feet?”
At once, I withdrew with an incredulous look. “Why would I—?”
“I saw it when he entered and when he returned with you. By candlelight, everyone in that room, we each had just one silhouette. But the king... he had six.”
She seemed to be waiting for my reaction, but I had yet to understand. This was yet another day when I wished I’d been given a mind as sharp as hers.
“He casts six shadows on the ground?” I asked slowly.
“Yes!” she said. “Don’t you find that odd? And they weren’t just plain silhouettes.” She rose, waving her hand in front of one of the sconces. A shadow of her hand passed back and forth against the wall. “They were moving , sliding just barely as he stood there, ebbing and flowing like tides, like living things!”
I felt torn, then. Her word was gold; it always had been. She never even exaggerated. But this sounded so... fantastical.
I remembered him sitting at the throne, shadows below him splayed out like the points of a star. Yet something in me doubted. His throne was ornate, his clothes more so, and the room crowded. Couldn’t the shadows have been any manner of things?
On the other hand, not an hour ago he told me he’d been given eternal youth, and I believed him in a blink.
“How could that be?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But this place, the darkness here, the Shadows’ path throughout the years—your mother disappearing—it all seems connected somehow.”
It did.
Mother had always said that this place was dangerous. But it was so beautiful. She had said this place was cruel. But the king, he was so kind....
Yet did any of that matter if my mother was not with me?
“The king forbade me from going to see my mother,” I murmured.
Lope frowned. “How could he forbid such a thing? After all you’ve been through—”
“He says it’s because she’s too ill.” My stomach began to ache with worry all over again. All the brightness and hope and happiness the king had thrown over me like stardust—it was fading away. Something ugly and dark was left in its absence. “I’m so frightened for her, Lo.”
Lope’s hands held tight to mine. “You will see her again soon,” she said. Her eyes held an unbreakable promise.
My heart thrilled at her calloused fingers carefully cradling my hands. When she was so near, when she looked at me, I felt so safe. So certain.
Everything would be all right. Lope would make it so.
Her lips parted, but she seemed to reconsider whatever it was she wanted to whisper to me in that darkened alcove. My breath snagged in my throat as I waited. And my stare caught on her lips, rose gold in the candlelight. Her thumb swept in a slow, careful arc against my hand. I could no longer hold back; I swept her into my arms in an embrace.
I felt like a star, bursting with light, tucked safely within some darkness outside of time, outside of trouble. I always felt that way with her. Once more, I allowed myself to imagine her standing in the waves, the salty air tugging at her silvery hair. When she’d give me one of those rare smiles. And Mother would be there, and she’d be well, and she’d say, You really love her, Ofelia.