Prelude Second chapter, and a splendid one. More descriptions to come, but also more things happen. In this chapter you'll also get a glimpse of this dear Opal's weirdness. Talking of her, do tell me what you think about her and Ember, and about our dear cat. Nobody ever tells me what they think about my characters. If you don't want to review it, e-mail me, sister/brother…e-mail me… But for now, read! READ!

Chapter the Second

The Black Piano and the Red Rose

The next day, as she rose from the bed, Ember had made her decision; she would explore, and if she couldn't ignore the secrets pushing against her door and her face, she would discover them.

She looked around, wondering if it would be polite to dress with one of those beautiful gown that she had worn the evening before, and, still sitting in the bed with her legs safely in the boiling, nearly unbearable comfortable warmness of the blankets, she looked around, screwing her eyes in the darkness of the closed curtains, to try to spot her own dress, or suit-cases.

'I threw them all in a roaring fire,' Gold said, as she opened the curtains, 'And stop looking so startled. Your face is such a clear mirror of your mind and thoughts it is as easy to read it as a book.'

She turned around:

'But don't worry; you'll soon learn to close it.'

She went to the cupboard scooped up a pile of clothes in her arms, then collected a few accessories form the big chest, and came to the bed.

'Get up and dress, you have a long day before you.'

She swooped down, and tore Ember savagely out of bed. Ember stumbled to the ground, and blindly dressed: a heavy dress of ruby-and-azure brocade trailing on the floor over a light under-gown of ivory silk; a tight corset, stockings, and light slippers. A circlet of fine silver around her forehead, hung with a tiny glimmering moon of chiselled jet-stone. The overdress was very heavy indeed, very warming, stiff and elegant; the sleeves were long and loose, and ripped shreds hung form their hems; a huge hood was drawn down the back, and the ends seemed eaten by the tiny teeth of time.

After Ember was dressed Gold gave her an apple, and went away from the room, but Ember didn't have time to start that in a flutter of shiny blueblack wings, a crow came to rest upon her shoulder, and spoke in her ear, very close so that she could feel the sharp end of its beak against her skin.

'Close your face, silly girl, stop looking so much like what you are thinking and feeling! Hide, for your sake! And hurry your ghastly hide to the study! The mistress is going to loose her patient in a few moments!'

And flying before her, as black as a scrap of the deepest night, the crow led her all through the mansion like the cat had done the day before, but crossing utterly different passages, room neither Opal nor the cat had shown her, or even pass by. The crow, also, was very different for the cat: he kept on insulting her and threatening her, he flapped his wings in her face, he screeched his grim cries, and screeched even more when he saw her flinch…

'I hate you!' she exclaimed when he fled away in a corridor, leaving her alone before a closed oaken door.

'You would be safer if you really did!' she heard him reply.

Angry, she pushed the door abruptly, and precipitated herself in, tripping over the hem of her dress.

It was a very vast room, with a tall window at the other side, letting in plenty of pure daylight through snow-white net-curtains. The carpet was very clean, and smelled of light, free flowery scent, the walls were covered in silky wall-paper, white flowered with pale pink and rosy red, and the few tapestries were embroidered with gold flowers upon white velvet. The room was furnished with two or three bookcases, a great, majestic desk, a few high-backed chairs, a little half-circle of comfortable armchairs around a warm fire, a harpsichord, a few violins, and an open chest full of blank canvases and painting material. The tints were pale, pink and white and light gold, the armchairs deep with many lovely fat cushions, the desk was covered with piles of neatly stacked papers, and a pot of beautiful lively flowers lay upon its smooth, dark surface. The chairs were cushioned with dark pinkish-red velvet, the musical instruments were polished and richly shining, and no spider-webs came to disturb the comfortable brightness of the clean room.

Sitting in one of the chairs, Lady Opal was quietly reading from a thin book, her head bent down on the large pages, her hair piled up high and majestic upon it. Even though the slithering strings of chiselled jets and garnets were still present, she looked utterly different, not herself anymore: she had changed her clothes. A dark, stiff black dress, with a huge black silk collar, was sternly tightened around her slender waist; her sleeves were stiff, too, ended by large hems of the same black lace silk as the collar. An under-dress of delicate red satin showed under the severely black, and small, shiny little slippers appeared under the trailing of the skirt. Opal looked magnificent, stern, imposing.

She raised a stern, unsmiling face to Ember, a face so different form the one that had welcomed her so mysteriously and warmly the day before.

'You are late. I believe Gold did tell you to hurry up,' she said dryly.

'My lady, I did hurry up,' muttered Ember.

Which was true. Never before had Ember hurried up to do something she was asked.

'Never mind what you did,' snapped Opal, 'you are late, and that is that.'

She went on: 'Sit down.'

Ember quickly went to sit in a chair, facing the lady's.

'I believe you are not very good in reading?'

Ember blushed, and looked up furiously. Opal stared back steadily, icily, and went on: 'Well, as I am now in charge of your education, you will have to learn to read, and to know how to read, what to read, and to know all about books, and the most fashionable ones; it is, I must say, a most important point of our society's nobility.'

And then started the first real lesson Ember ever received in her life. From eight o'clock till midday, Lady Opal made her read, a book that, strangely, was pleasant. It was the tale of an epic quest to find three stars to lie around the bed of a queen, and the writing was such that it was a great pleasure to the tongue. However, Ember wasn't used to read; her phrases were cut, unsteady, her reading was bumping, trailing, it was an awful experience, such an humiliation when from time to time Opal read for her sentences whole, in such a perfect tone. Then, just as the little dark clock on the marble mantelpiece struck the high noon, Opal led Ember to the desk, where she sat her down, and gave her a pile of snow-white parchment. She gave her a blue feather-quill, a bottle of ink, and the book, and told her to write down all she had read this day: a full twenty page of small, neat narrow writing. She added that she would have her lunch when she would be finished.

Ember set to work, silently, trying to close her face over the feeling of misery and pain she felt. She bent down as low as she could over the paper, and started to write 'As the sun, full glory up in the cerulean heavens, rose like a tossed coin of pure golden-sweet…'

She wrote slowly, impossibly slowly, and when she finished her first page, her hand was aching unbearably, and it was already one in the after noon.

'Well, well, well,' said Opal as she came back from what Ember pictured a delicious meal, 'you do not seem to such a good writer. Well, you will finish this tomorrow, now you have harp lessons.'

And she led Ember exhausted to a great, glittering golden harp. No luncheon, of course as she had not finished writing her pages, and she found, as miserable as she was, that nothing was harder to do, including writing, than to play harp. Opal ceaselessly commented on her chocking incompetence, and when the clock finally stroke tea-time, Ember was near nervous breakdown. She threw herself on her piece of cream cake like a ravenous tiger, her eyes wide open, and then closing in ecstasy as she swallowed her first mouthful. The rest followed quickly, and she would have eaten even the tray if Opal had not dragged her away from the tea room and down the corridor.

'After tea, we have equitation for two hours. Then you are supposed to have an hour free time, but as you did not finish your writing work, you will have to use your free time to complete it.'

She led Ember at the bottom of the stairs leading to the first floor, and said:

'Go and put on some riding-garments, and come down. You have ten minutes.'

Ember quickly raced upstairs, were a black flutter of tenebrous feathers led her to her bed-chamber. The crow left her there, and quickly, it was Gold who appeared, tossing a pile of dark red clothes to her, and then abruptly baring her of the clothes she was wearing. The riding dress was very tight around Ember's slender waist, the bosom was tight too, uncomfortable, the skirt was narrow and light, and opened all the way from her right ankle to her right knee. A pair of elastic, light boots that reached to her thigh and tight knuckle-length sleeves achieved the accoutrement. Finally, Gold took away the hair-jewellery of the morning from Ember's head, and violently brushed the pitch-black hair until it shone smooth and rich like pure silk of raven-azure down her back. She twisted and pulled, and tied the whole at the back of her head, mixing great amounts of pins, ribbons of black velvet and flowers of wild red pansies, until it held firm and rigid. It gave a beautiful effect, but Ember had not time to admire the result, already, Gold was dragging her away from the room, and making her run all the way downstairs to the main door were Opal waited for her.

It was yet a new Opal. Her hair was no more in a great majestic heap upon her head, and it wasn't tightly mixed with ribbons and flowers like Ember's; half of it had been rolled high behind her head, and held there, falling in an idly elegant way over a pale, gleaming circlet of vermeil. The rest was falling in an elegant cascade of supple curls, and it was totally impossible to say whether they were artificial or not, so beautiful and light they looked, all in shiny white, mixed with a long tongue of ivy that curled amid them. The dress was very like Ember's, but all in a dark green, while emeralds fell in a glittery river upon the white throat that the low neck bared. This looked like the only difference.

'Oh, how lovely you look, my darling!' she cried as she saw Ember come, 'hurry up, I can't wait for you to see my horses. And anyway we must make hast as I think the rain will soon start falling from heavens.'

The doors, as if by themselves, opened wide, and the two women went down, Opal more running than walking, Ember following, trying not to look too puzzled. Lady Opal took her around the Manor, and to a long, narrow building of grey-white stones. Inside, as it revealed, were the stables, were at least twenty horses slept. Neat piles of oat were piled in the corner of each of their compartments, and a long iron basin full of peaceful, crystalline water lay at the end of the building. The horses were obliviously well taken care of.

'There now,' said Opal, 'chose a horse to ride. My favourite one is this one.'

A tall horse, one with such a dazzling white coat that it didn't look as if it belonged to this world. Its mane was long and silky, and its eyes were clever and dark, and gleaming in the half-light.

'My lady, I haven't got a good experience in horses. If you would choose for me…' murmured Ember.

'Well, why, of course I will!' and she went toward a gate nearly at the end of the room, she opened it, and came back holding a horse by the reins. It was a tall horse powerful and slim, and like Opal's, it was so beautiful it didn't look like an earthling. It was as black as night, such a glossy black it seemed impossible to do better, polished nearly to perfection. Its mane was longer and silkier than the white one, if possible.

'Here are my two beauties: Light, and Night.'

She stretched the bridles out to Ember, and herself led her horse away from the stables.

The two hours of riding were exhausting, and intoxicating. The violent blusters of grey wind tore away gasps from Ember's chest, and lashed at her clothes. The air was fresh, invigorating, slightly chilling, and soon, even though she was uncomfortable and icy, on the subtle, quick-as-the-wind horse, Ember was thoroughly enjoying herself. Opal had changed, again: she had her hair flying in wild snowy curls behind her head, the wind had struck two clouds of dark pink upon her cheeks, and her lips were wide open in a smile of enchantment and unleashed pleasure. Her eyes were gleaming dark emerald in her flushed face, and she seemed more beautiful—and young—than Ember had seen her yet. When the night finally started to fall, turning the already dark grey atmosphere into and even darker grey one, Opal brought her horse to a breathless halt, and said:

'Well, night is falling. We have to go back in.'

She sounded like a prisoner that would have enjoyed a few moments of freedom before going back in his cell. The wind was still sweeping in her hair, and her cheeks were still flushed rosy, and her eyes were still gleaming dark green, yet it seemed that she had slightly extinguished herself. It was strange to see that change.

The tiny hour between the ride and the supper was a pleasant one: sitting around the fire-place in the comfortable, book-filled living room, they had both changed into evening clothes: Opal was in a long vast robe of dark silks, held with a thin embroidered sash around her round, white shoulders, and falling into loose waves down her body; Ember in a similar one, but warmly covering her arms and completely loose save form a high sash under her breasts; the dress was pale blue, the sash azure, and a chiselled river of sapphires and diamonds fell upon her forehead and temples. Both had small, comfortable satin slippers, and both felt comfortably warm after the slashing chill of the outside wind. Opal was sitting on the floor, on the rushes before the fire, and gently playing a merry, peaceful tone on her golden harp, while Ember sat in one of the comfortable armchairs, spread in cushions of satin, and writing earnestly, and better every minute, the end of her text.

After dinner, which was a strange experience, Opal announced she had two hours more of lessons, before a free another hour of free time, before bedtime. The lessons after dinner were, as incongruous as it seemed, dancing lessons. Opal took Ember to the Blue Ballroom.

With the pale gleaming grey light of day replaced by the silvery, unveiled moonlight, the atmosphere in the room had changed. It was still very blue, and even more enchanting than when she had first seen it the day before. The windows were open, and yet the heavy muslin curtains did not let any chill come in: they were rippling, like the shivery surface of troubled water, under the pushing breeze of night, and a kind of harmonious whistle came in by a series of little holes of every size over the windows, filling the room with a kind of mystic, serene music.

'Take off all your clothes,' ordered Opal in a hushed voice.

She started to take off her robes of wavy silks, and Ember hesitantly followed her example. Then they were left bare but for their thin silken chemises, Opal went to a corner of the room, were a marble chest lay pale in the blue gloom, and came back with two long pieces of spectral white satin material. She gave one to Ember, and told her:

'Remove your chemise, and put this on. Then unbound your hair and turn around.'

She turned her back to Ember, and started undoing her chemise laces and Ember hastily imitated her: she took off her chemise, and pulled the white dress over her head. The dress had no talented cut, or stitches, it was merely a piece of satin coarsely cut, with only two tall shoulder straps to hang it from the shoulders, letting the rest of the cloth flowing free and rippling. When she had arranging the straps as high as she could to hide as much as possible of the young breasts, Ember took off the pins and net Gold had stuffed in her hair to hold it into a firm bun for the evening. The whole came loose, and like a glorious fall of ink, blueblack in the indigo atmosphere, down tumbled her raveny hair. She turned around.

Opal was already ready, and she seemed so strange, so ethereal in the blue air, that Ember was left slightly breathless. Her hair fell down her back in a stream of silvery-blue, and with the flowing white around her slender, tall body; she looked like a ghost. Little did Ember know that it was her, more than Opal, who looked like a ghost, thin, all in white, with her beautiful spidery hands raised to her high bosom, and her hair glorious black down her back.

Opal said:

'Oh…I had never guessed…' she looked up, and met Ember's inquisitive stare, and said quickly: 'Dance is not what women mostly think of: a vulgar way you manipulate, to attract young men. Dance is a gift, which you have, or you haven't, which means that if after a few minutes I see that you are not made for this divine art, I shall not force it upon you. If, however, you are made for it, I will make you work very hard, for, let me explain to you…Dance in a kind of precious stone, you find yourself having from the beginning. When you discover it, you must put all yourself, your very soul, to carve it, to chisel and shape it in your own true personality.'

She paused, thought for a moment, and went on:

'If you are sorrowful, the dance you will be made vaporous, shimmery, ethereal, fragile. If you are violent and short-tempered, your dance shall be quick, cracked, ragged. If you are dreamy, your dance shall be slow, the paces hesitant, light, loose. If you are serene, it will be even slower, the paces wider, calmer…You see, you shall develop your own way, according to your character. Look at my dance and try and find what is my character.'

Ember thought: you have no character, like an Opal, you look white and pure, and simple, yet you change your colour at every different angle.

And Opal danced.

Her dance was, like Ember had thought, changing: her paces started wide, and opposing, then became quicker, then she started dancing in widening circles, then she broke in the circle, and into small, abrupt paces, than she turned around, started a very slow, very airy pace. All the while, her long hair, mixing in a cloud of pure white, flowed with her dress, and her eyes were closed, her face intent, soft, or concentrated, her arms over her head, or stretched out. And also, at every change of her paces, the whistling music of the window holes changed, one moment wailing and soft, one moment piercing and short, one moment slow and low, one moment cracking then beginning again into a merry tune. This room, more than every room, Ember discovered, was magical, but even more magical was Opal, who suddenly came to an abrupt end before Ember, bowed, and said, in a calm voice:

'I know you know what I really am. And now, I expect you to know that I know that you know. Dance, young girl.'

'I do not know how to dance,' said Ember.

'It doesn't matter. Dance, and we shall see if you are made for it. Dance, and know that it will do good to you.'

Ember stepped hesitantly upon the white marble floor, and started paces, slow and hesitant. She felt disturbed to see Opal observing her so closely, and suddenly had the idea to close her eyes. Tightly, she did, and slowly let go of herself, and of her mind. The whistling form the window lightly tossed her body, and she begun: she thought, and her body followed her thoughts.

Her first thought was of her family. She felt sad when she thought of them, for she would have loved for them to love her how she was, and the whistling from the walls became sad, and low, complicated and as her paces grew wider, and slower. She grudged them this lack of feeling for her and her paces changed, so abruptly the whole of her hair slashed across her face: quicker, violent, contradictory. The whistling grew louder, and accusing. And then she thought of the black crow, and of his insult and advices. No fear, this time, only anger towards him, for the words she remembered he had said: 'If only you could hate me, you would be safer.' She knew, of course, that he had spoken the truth, for even know, it was anger, and chagrin she felt, no hate still. Her paces grew even more quicker, tight, narrow, complicated, the whistling low and menacing. And then, the picture of the drawling cat, and his stories. Her dance broke into a fleeing pace, as the invisible pattern she had drawn against the crow vanished, replaced by these ragged paces. And then, the picture of Opal, but an Opal she had not seen yet. A serene, yet regretful, grieving Opal, sitting at a window sill, all dressed in black, with her hair long and white, and her beautiful face young and old at the same time, so filled with sadness that Ember stopped dead, in the middle of the slow, frail, slender dance she had been tracing on the floor under a soft, low, plaintive, feeling-full music of harmonious whistles.

'Well, that is very educative, for sure,' said Opal, a pleased Opal.

'You are for sure very complicated, but, by the Pentagram and the five Sorceresses of Olden Days! What a dance!'

She looked thoughtful for a moment, as Ember crumpled on the floor, trying to catch her hissing breath, and then told her to stand up and dance again.

'You are good; you have talent, but you are not near good enough to be called a proper dancer. Dance.'

For two hour, she made her dance, but not like the first time: she told her things, stories, things that manipulated every single movement the young girl did, and the dance was so exhausting, so restless, that when the end of the two hours finally arrived, she was absolutely powerless.

Opal took her, still dressed in the white dancing-gown, to her bed-chamber, and leaving her at the door, she bid her good night, and told her that she had to be in bed as early as she could, for the morrow would be yet another exhausting day.

When she came in her room, the fire was warm, and Gold immediately took her to the marbled bathroom, were she bathed her and gently massaged her weary limbs with perfumed salves and oils. Then she dressed her in a light, black silk nightgown, and withdrew away to her own rooms at the far end of the manor, in the West Wing.

As she sat on her big, soft bed, Ember thought: I am alone. For the first time, alone and free.

She could perhaps get away from her room, and do a little bit of exploration of her own. She got away from the room, bare-feet, in her black nightgown, with hair black her loose and still humid down her back, and walked down the corridor, her feet chilled by the icy stone. She climbed to the next floor, and stared exploring. The rooms were even more weird and mystic in the night, yet she was exited, the curiosity of the young animated her young body, and made her eyes shine.

She found several interesting rooms, but still went on, when she found the room she knew would be her very own secret room through her new life in this bizarre, gothic place: a small room, with one of the wall only a window, screened with black velvet, and black rugs lying on the floor. Against the right wall, with a side against the window, was a glossy, huge piano, gleaming richly in the night, so beautiful, so perfect it made Ember's eyes water. A small stool covered with a black velvet cushion was before it, and a single, red as blood rose, perfect and fresh, lay upon its shiny lid. The opposite wall was covered by an immense tapestries, all of black velvet, and embroidered with the picture of a tall, blacker-than-black silhouette, stretching her—for the long flowing hair denounced a woman—arms towards a spectral silhouette, which stretched his arms to, as if longing to catch her but unable to. The picture had a sad, unbearably sad, air, and it made Ember's heart ache for those two who craved so much to be close, but would stay like this, longing and desperately stretching their arms, till the end of times.

Ember went to the piano, and sat down quietly, then, hesitantly, she started bringing notes to life, pushing keys at random, and listening intently to the pure, melancholy notes. She soon forgot the present world, as she slowly, hesitantly investigated the keys, and after one hour, she was accustomed to nearly all of them, save from the black ones. She played a short tune, a sad, small one, and stopped, and looked at her fingers. They were very white and slim, and spidery in the dark, and looked magical, as she ran them over the piano's keys. When she had finished her small tune, she stopped, and quickly went back to her bed-chamber, taking the scarlet rose with her, to be sure she had not dreamed.

Requiem Aha, this chapter is truly bi-ooooo-tiful. I love it. And it is greatly amusing to have all those different Opals. I just loved it. But, humhum, it doesn't matter what I think or love. So review; you can see I care about what you think. You can. Review…pleeeease…pleee—REVIEW, WILL YOU!