Chapter 3 The Dress Fitting
After her bath, Celise returned to her lofted bedroom above the stables.
The gentle rustle of horses drifted up through the floorboards.
A clay bowl of birdseed rested on her windowsill, where a yellow finch twittered merrily as he ate his dinner.
She sat at the edge of her bed and watched the little bird as she unwrapped a towel from her hair.
A soft wool robe covered her slight, waiflike form.
Celise lived in a modest room above the stables.
Her belongings fit into a single weathered chest at the foot of her bed—she didn’t own very much.
The rest of the room’s furniture was rescued by helpful servants from Marcella’s donation piles.
Her iron bed frame was sturdy, if a bit scuffed.
Straw and flock filled her secondhand mattress.
Burlap curtains framed the windows, embroidered with little yellow buttercups.
On the wall hung four small paintings of the famous Grapevine Mountains.
One of the paintings was stained by water damage.
A single square window looked down over a fenced dirt corral, which connected to a grassy paddock, which opened into an expansive pastureland behind the Dhastel estate. Beyond acres of grazing horses, a dirt country road wandered past the pasture’s fieldstone walls.
Suddenly, Celise heard a ruckus of stomping boots on the staircase up to her loft. She heard Mordwen’s familiar voice drift up the stairwell: “Curse these damnable steps, why are they so uneven? Crow’s rot, this entire barn is about to fall over!”
“Watch your step, Mordwen!” sang out the young maid, Dasha.
Celise’s room didn’t have a proper door, so she hung a linen curtain across the entrance.
Throwing the curtain aside, three servants entered her bedroom: Steffie, Dasha and Mordwen.
Steffie and Dasha did most of the tailoring for the household, from refitting uniforms for the stable-hands to mending Lord Dhastel’s wardrobe.
Their arms were laden with colorful dresses from Katrina’s closet.
Mordwen entered the room after them with a moody scowl. A hard-bitten widow, the Head Housekeeper had worked for the Dhastel family since Celise’s father was a boy, more than forty years now. She was the only servant immune to Marcella’s tantrums, since Lord Dhastel had a soft spot for her.
Technically, Mordwen didn’t need to be in the room for the dress fitting, but Celise considered her a great aunt of sorts, and the old bitty went about the grounds as she liked. By the look on Mordwen’s face, it seemed that word of Celise’s predicament had reached her already.
“Now, my girl, no need to explain; I’ve heard everything. My only question is, how did your name end up on this devastating invitation?”
Celise found herself smiling at Mordwen—her first smile of the day. She shrugged her fragile shoulders. “The Blackwoods must have a very thorough clerk.”
“Right,” Mordwen said. “Very thorough . . . but I think we best consult the cards for this. It all seems too auspicious!”
“The cards!” Steffie cheered.
Mordwen reached into her housecoat and pulled out a stack of thick, dusty purple cards. They were bigger than playing cards by a good inch, almost too large for the old woman’s hands. The backs were decorated with geometric patterns printed in bright goldenrod, visible against the purple cardstock.
“Ooh, a fortune telling?” Steffie gasped. She dumped her armful of dresses down on the bed, swept her blond hair out of her face, and moved to sit down near Celise.
“Oh no, you don’t! You and Dasha get the room set up. What are you lazing about for?”
Mordwen snapped her fingers at the maid.
Steffie pouted and stood up again, then went to help Dasha lift a heavy mirror up the staircase.
In the meantime, Mordwen shuffled her cards.
Celise felt hypnotized by the geometric patterns sliding back and forth in the master’s hands.
Mordwen never explained why or how she shuffled, but she used various techniques, her lips screwed into a frown, her eyes focused on a distant spot on the wall.
“Oh Mother of Dust and Moon, She who governs the fates of Her children,” Mordwen muttered. “Why has Celise been summoned to this ball? What glory or tragedy awaits her at Gravenmere Castle?”
Celise was mesmerized. She felt a little chill run down the back of her neck. She wondered what the cards might reveal.
Mordwen withdrew a card. She glanced at it. Grunted in satisfaction.
“What is it?” Celise couldn’t help but ask.
The old woman revealed the card with a bit of flair. Celise’s eyes fixated upon the painting of a pale hand holding a glowing wand. Steffie let out a loud gasp from across the room.
“You drew Valestra’s hand! That’s so rare!” Steffie said.
“Oh, yes! My suspicions were correct,” Mordwen crowed. “This is more than just a chance invitation. This card reveals that Valestra’s wand is stirring the pot. Your invitation to the ball is no mere coincidence, Celise. This, my dear, is fate.”
“Fate?” Celise whispered.
“Watch the mirror!” Dasha shouted when Steffie almost dropped it. Together, the two maids wrestled the heavy mirror into the bedroom, then placed it against the wall next to Celise’s bed.
Mordwen pulled out another card from the deck.
This time, the card was painted with a shooting star falling into the ocean.
“This card depicts the meteor that struck Nilos so many eons ago. It means a significant change in your destiny,” the crone declared.
“Coupled with Valestra’s wand, this is very auspicious!
It seems that fate is guiding a catastrophic change in your life, my girl.
Whatever happens at Gravenmere Castle will change the course of history—perhaps for the entire Kingdom!
It’s the will of the Goddess Valestra.” Mordwen fixed Celise with a stern gaze. “What do you think of that?”
Celise gulped. “I don’t know.”
“I think it’s rubbish!” Dasha called across the room. “Put the cards away. You’re scaring the girl!”
“It’s not rubbish,” Mordwen said with a snort of indignation. “I’ll prove it. The next card I pull will be Celise’s birthflower. I trust the Goddess will give it to us as a sign. Once I draw her birthflower—which is—”
“The Starlight Dahlia,” Celise supplied.
“Lovely. Once I draw the Starlight Dahlia from the deck, her fate shall be sealed!”
Mordwen began shuffling again, muttering under her breath and closing her eyes, her wrinkled face tilted toward the ceiling.
The theatrics were quite impressive. Dasha stopped her work to watch.
Steffie abandoned the heavy mirror and ran to Celise’s side, where she placed her hands on her shoulders.
Celise couldn’t help but feel a bit excited.
“Ah-hah!” Mordwen yelped as she pulled a card from the deck and thrust it under Celise’s nose. “Here it is!”
“The Abyssal Rose!” Steffie declared.
“Oh.” Celise’s shoulders slumped. “It’s not for me.” She didn’t know who the rose belonged to, but it wasn’t her zodiac’s birthflower. She was born in the cold season of Brumadir, in the month of Stargrave, with the Star as her zodiac sign and the Starlight Dahlia as her flower of birth.
“Who does the Abyssal Rose belong to? Anyone in the room?” Steffie asked.
Celise and Dasha both shook their heads, “no.”
“Let me pull again,” Mordwen blustered. “It wasn’t the first card I touched; there was another one at the front of the deck. I had a misgiving. . . .”
“Put the cards away, Mord!” Dasha rolled her eyes. “You’re disturbing Celise! Just look at how pale she is! No more talk of destiny or fate. No catastrophe is going to happen at Gravenmere Castle that will change the fate of the kingdom.”
“The cards don’t lie!” Mordwen spat.
“Balderdash and nonsense!" Dasha snapped. "Celise was invited by accident to the ball by an overzealous steward, and there’s nothing more to it than that.”
Steffie patted Celise’s arm apologetically. Celise gave her a wan smile. Then the maids went back to work clearing space for the dress fitting in the small room.
Celise sighed and gazed out the window again. She wasn’t surprised. The Abyssal Rose. Of course Mordwen’s reading would be for someone else and not for her. What interest did the Goddess Valestra have in her fate?
Mordwen quietly slithered up to her side and thrust the cards into Celise’s hands: Valestra’s wand and the falling meteor.
“Remember these,” she cautioned. Then she stacked up the rest of her card deck and slipped them back into her pocket.
Celise fumbled with the two cards for a moment, admiring their detailed artwork.
Then she placed them on the windowsill, standing them upright so she could see them from her seat.
Meanwhile, the maids began laying out dresses on the bed.
“Most of these styles are from at least three years ago,” Dasha lamented. “I’m surprised Katrina’s kept them this long.”
“We can’t send Celise off to a ball wearing that,” Steffie muttered. “She should at least look like she belongs!”
“She belongs, no matter what she wears!” Mordwen scoffed.
“But she doesn’t, ma’am, not really,” Dasha insisted.
“I mean no disrespect, but we all know Celise wasn’t raised right by His Lordship.
She doesn’t know the first thing about a lady's etiquette; none of us do, and she doesn’t have any of those flashy powers.
” Dasha brushed off a sprigged cotton dress—an off-yellow color dotted with tiny, nondescript flowers—and handed it to Steffie. “Put this one in the ‘maybe’ pile.”
“Our Celise is just as worthy of becoming a duchess as any of Marcella’s brood,” Mordwen said. “Celise is every inch a noblewoman by birth. Perhaps this will be her chance to take back her birthright!”
“Even without mana?” Steffie glanced sadly at Celise.
Mordwen harrumphed. “She’s heir to Windhaven Estate by blood and birth order. What should it matter?”