Chapter 8 #2
The space isn’t good enough for the elite anymore.
And with the student population growing, the Academy needs more bodies to tend beds, clean toilets, and cook.
Those are the more favorable jobs, as the ruddy faced head maid explains in mincing terms. Ours will be a tough task but someone must do it.
Now, that someone is me.
The servants’ areas are bare in contrast to the main spaces of the castle. In order to keep us from standing out, the maids tasked with cleaning the castle are dressed in gray.
The linen is scratchy, a little too coarse, but light. We’re made to blend in. The dresses are practical, ugly. A matching ribbon in the same dull granite hue will keep the end of my braid from going wild.
Luxury only extends to what is seen by the public, by the privileged. The light, airy vaults and arches dominating the foyer of DragonSpear are replaced by crudely carved doorways notched from the stone on our level.
A constant drop of water from some leaky pipe accompanies the general air of dismay.
“Your name, child,” Milkin presses again.
I consider giving her something false but finally squeak out, “Morgan Whyte.”
She bristles.
“Well, Miss Whyte, we’ve got you on the bottom bunk here.
” She points a fat thumb at the creaky mattress and paper-thin sheets.
“You’ll be expected to pull your weight and complete all assigned tasks without incident.
The moment you step out of line, punishment will be swift.
There is no getting around the consequences. Know your place.”
From top student to bottom rung. I keep the thought to myself while Mrs. Milkin talks me through the expectations for the tenure of my employment. I’d be here until my body failed me.
The expectations are great, the meals ample, and the work constant. I’ll be fed, with a roof overhead, and a blanket for the colder months, but little else.
Nothing else.
Four days later, slender knuckles rap against the side of my head when I’m too slow to avoid them.
“Hello? Anyone home? Get your head out of the clouds, Morgan! You’re no better than anyone else here and certainly not too good to actually scrub.”
The hiss belongs to my partner for the day, a maid by the name of Daisy who grabs for any opportunity to steal a bit of power for herself like a frog’s tongue plucking a fly.
“You’re all but useless, more useless than a one-headed hydra.” Those hands she happily uses to swipe the insides of toilets or knock against my face now rest on her hips. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
I sit back on my heels until the skin stretches at the bottom of my foot.
My muscles are tight and cramped from a combination of stress and no sleep.
The cot is a marked difference from my bed at home with fresh sheets and a window open to the fields.
The night breeze always brought with it the scent of warm grass and fresh flowers.
Here, there is nothing but stale air.
Whatever we get down in the basement of the castle.
“As I’ve said before, I’m doing my best,” I tell Daisy through gritted teeth.
She is the least appropriately named person I’ve ever met. She taps her foot against the stone floor in an anxious rhythm and barely understands a word.
“You can’t even properly scrub a floor.” Her tone goes screech high. “How is that your best?”
I was supposed to be settling into my dormitory, getting ready for classes, meeting new friends. I was supposed to be making Mother proud.
Instead, I’m on my knees scrubbing floors in the same castle where I should have been a student.
I shake my head and face the leaky mop bucket. Every inch I manage to scrub in the hallway leading to the rear courtyard is marred by a trail of brown water pulsing from the crack in the bucket’s seal.
The smear stands out starkly against the polished black marble floor. The walls are made of equally seamless stone in a color like the breast of a mourning dove and the stone arches are perpetually lit with long tapers of beeswax candles.
“My entire family were warriors of the highest order,” I reply, forcing my hand back into the murky water.
Lye burns every abrasion in my skin.
“They taught me how to fight, how to lead, and how to protect people.” My voice cracks. “They didn’t teach me how to survive this.”
The weight of the admission settles in my chest. Mother prepared me for battle, not servitude. She prepared me for honor, not humiliation.
“You might not have lived in a palace, but it doesn’t take much to understand how to clean it. You swipe the mud, you rinse the rag, you repeat.” Daisy mimes the motion, mocking me. “There. How many more times do I need to explain it before it penetrates the thickness of your skull?”
“Once will do, you horrible hag.”
She catches the last bit of my whispered curse and her brows, already thin, draw down into a nearly invisible V. “What was that?”
This is what they wanted—to break me down until there’s nothing left of who I used to be. To turn the daughter of Illonia Whyte into nothing more than another nameless servant. I’m failing at even this simple task, and the shame burns worse than the lye.
I slowly rise and turn to face Daisy. “Give me a proper bucket and I’ll clean the floor. What would you have me do with a leak and filthy water?”
“You take it to the pump and you get fresh.” She rolls her eyes. “I swear, you make more work for me daily.”
The other maids hate me because Daisy is not far from the truth. In fact, this time, she’s right. I’ve burned food and been banished from the kitchen. That was my first night here. My hands had been shaking—they still shake when I think about Mother’s last words to me.
I’ve broken a pipe by cranking a wrench too hard at a junction. Day two. The anger comes in waves, and sometimes my grip is too tight, my movements too sharp.
I accidentally lost one of the fitted sheets for a bed by shaking it too near a window. Day three. A stiff breeze hooked one end of the fabric and tore it away, wagging it in midair as though it were waving goodbye.
For a moment, watching it disappear into the sky, I’d wanted to follow it.
To just… let go.
Mrs. Milkin must have seen the expression of longing on my face as she’d hustled me far away from any duties involving windows and heights.
I’m not going to kill myself. That’s what she doesn’t understand.
Day three in the books ended with me dusting a candelabra and knocking it off the table, splashing melted wax everywhere.
The other maids hate me. I’m sure of it and although some have taken pains to hide it from me, others like Daisy wear their disdain proudly.
I follow her to the pump where she shows me with excruciating slowness how to use it. I keep my own eye roll to myself.
The floor mopping takes an inordinately long time to accomplish given the leak. By the time I finish, my spine is fastened in a permanent curve. I use the wall to bolster myself, hauling up from my knees with a hastily smothered groan.
Four days and I am already breaking. My body won’t be able to withstand much more of this abuse. Or maybe I’ll get used to it. The hunchback will stay, my nerves will harden, and my tendons go stiff until they are used to the torture and nothing will bother me.
I shake my head and catch a bit of hair in my mouth, shuffling on sore feet. Pins and needles prick my ankles as circulation flows again, and I limp toward the main room through side hallways invisible to the main student populace.
They don’t want to know how their beds get made in the morning, and they certainly don’t want to know why there’s no dust in the corners or along their bookshelves.
“Mrs. Milkin has your next duty ready.” A surly brunette stalks past me with the hem of her gray dress swishing.
She speaks hastily from the corner of her mouth and darts away before I can ask her where Milkin is.
No rest for the wicked. Or in this case, the trapped.
I hustle my limp as quickly as my legs will carry me. The cot I’ve been assigned is all the way at the back of the old gym and furthest away from the bathroom. A flash of movement in the shadows catches my gaze ahead and a blonde straightens as I approach, her hands shoved behind her back.
My eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”
The maid refuses to glance down, but my pillow has been adjusted and the sheets are no longer where I had them last.
“None of your business, new girl,” she retorts.
The pieces click into place and I glare. “You were trying to steal my necklace.”
The sapphire is the last piece of Mother I have left. The last piece of home. The last tangible proof that I was loved, that I belonged somewhere.
I should have known better than to hide my mother’s sapphire underneath my pillow. The mattress isn’t thick enough to disguise the lump for long, but I thought it better to keep the necklace stashed rather than wear it out in the open.
The high neckline of the maid’s dress will give me away immediately if I wear it.
“You’re out of your mind,” the girl insists.
She’s my age and slender. Her movements are concise but her hands flutter like a bird with a broken wing.
“You’re lying. I saw you hovering over my cot.”
“I’m cleaning up another one of your messes,” the girl corrects.
I haven’t bothered to learn her name. She doesn’t care about mine. She most certainly does care about the gem I’ve hidden.
I refuse to check and see if the necklace is there. Besides, she’d look puffed up and pleased if she’d managed to steal it.
“You’re denying it?” I press.
The girl scoffs and draws her bony shoulders high enough to wear them as earrings. “You have such an inflated ego.” She tries to step around me. “That will be beaten out of you soon enough.”
Instead of letting the matter drop, which is the smart thing to do, I grab her before she makes it past. My mother’s voice screams in my head to stop, think outside the blazing flash of anger, and use reason. None of it matters.
My mother is dead, and I plow my fist into the girl’s chin hard enough to break the bone.