A/N: Okay, so I went back to write another chapter and realized that I must have been clinical when I posted this chapter. So I've gone back and re-done and I apologize with all sincerity for my doltishness. Our darling little girl is back to being Helen instead of Elyssa (a mistake that I had fixed at one point but apparently forgot to save) and it has been re-edited to remove - hopefully - all or most of the grammar errors. I have also added quite a bit to this chapter, so even if you read it before, I beg you to please read it again. Thanks. And sorry again. I promise that I will never again post a chapter of this story without re-reading it. Please don't hate me!

Chapter Twelve

The days ticked by slowly, Helen came to see me every day, speaking little. There were days when we did not say a single word to each other, and yet it was as though we had spoken all that needed to be said. We were both content to be silent; sometimes we would stare at each other's faces and sometimes out the window. I was mesmerized by her childlike beauty and wondered what it must be like to see the world through her perspective. Likewise, she seemed to be trying to imagine what it must be like to be me and to have seen the places and things that I had seen.

She was helping me regain my mobility a little more every day. With much work and pain, eventually I was even able to walk around for small bits of time. The doctor had come the day after I had woken up and started mumbling something about too much time asleep, muscle loss and bone frailty while he examined me. I didn't pay him much attention.

I eventually gathered that I was in a hotel of sorts, and though it didn't appear to be especially splendid, from what I could imagine where we had been I guessed that it was most likely the finest hotel in between two large cities but I had not real idea what cities they were. The winter was finally melting into spring and it seemed as though everyone was getting ready for the traveling season to begin.

As I began to regain my mobility I was able to wander through the halls briefly. The care-taker of the hotel, Ester, was a portly little woman with premature silver hair, making it impossible to guess her age. I heard no stories about a husband, so I assumed it was just her that ran everything. Despite her occasionally crotchety attitude, I felt sad for her that she was alone. She wasn't mean at heart, just motivated by making money. I suspected that she had cared too much for money that she would place it above the love of a man and therefore struggled to keep both.

She happened to pass me in a hall one morning. She looked me up and down, assessing my condition. "Well," she said, with a slur of possibly German. "you look more alive than before. Thought you were gonna die for sure." When I didn't say anything in reply she seemed to be irritated. My brain was still sluggish and didn't pick up that this small woman was responsible for allowing me to stay. "Can you understand me?" she asked, her voice raising several octaves as though yelling at me would make it easier to understand her.

"No one told me she was dumb," she started mumbling to herself and looking around helplessly for someone who spoke 'dumb' to translate. "What the hell am I going to do with a half-dead and dumb skeleton?"

I found myself just staring at Ester with curiosity, my mind furiously trying to keep up but unable to comprehend. I made a jerky movement towards my room and caught her attention. She seemed to know that I was trying to leave and shooed me off and then left before I had even fully turned to walk back.

The next morning Helen helped me stumble to the kitchen to sit on a small chair in a corner, while she went away to do her chores, leaving me to listen to the boisterous cook. I was touched by the sincerity of Helen. She was always making sure that I was perfectly fine before she had to run off.

The cook, Janette, was a voluptuous woman with a very kind face. She was much younger that Ester. I couldn't guess her possibly any older than thirty. She spoke ceaselessly and I was thankful. She told me that she and her husband lived in a small house off the side of the hotel and John, her husband, worked as a general handy-man, making sure all the latest gadgets from the big cities were working properly. He was currently working hard to make the whole hotel fitted with a new running water system. Her talk showed some hint at an education, but it seemed like mostly it was just picked up by the aristocrats that occasionally stayed at the hotel.

She occasionally asked me a question but didn't wait for an answer. She had laughed with a hint of an Irish accent and said it was no wonder that Helen and I got on so well. She had called us both kindred in our silence.

Later that afternoon, Helen stopped by the kitchen to check on me, carrying a mop and bucket, her cheeks all smudged from cleaning fireplaces all morning. She touched my cheek and looked into my eyes. When I nodded at her unspoken question, she smiled brightly and went about to do the rest of her work.

Janette had laughed at me and brought over a cloth to wipe the smudge Helen's fingers had left on my face. "It's a good thing she has someone like you to be with. Poor dear. Ever since her mother died when she was a baby she's been so alone."

My blank face must have been amusing to her somehow because she laughed lightly and added, "Helen never told you did she? No, I don't suppose she would have," she continued, answering her own question again.

"Elizabeth Jameson was already on death's door when she came knocking here five years ago, looking for a warm place for her and Helen to stay. Little thing was hardly more than a year old and shivering so badly her lips were blue. 'Course not even Ester could turn her away, even if she didn't have no money. Elizabeth died that night, with her little baby curled up next to her. 'Found her the next morning when little Helen was crying, trying to shake her mamma awake. There wasn't anywhere else for her to go, so she's stayed here, doing the housework to pay back some of the debt Ester keeps tacking on for her food and shelter. She'll be working it off the rest of her life, unless she grows up to be a beauty and meets a rich man. If it weren't for her current station, she wouldn't have no problem with that. She's got such a pretty little face. You just wait until she grows up, she'll have all the lads flocking to her, mind you."

I didn't argue with her, even in my mind. I sat and thought about what she had said. Maybe that was why she and I seemed to understand one another so well. We were both alone in this world. I at least had known my father; she hadn't had the chance to know either parent very well.

As soon as Ester discovered that she could communicate without words she put me to work as a waitress of sorts. She handed me a tray and drug me through the dining room, pointing obviously at a table that needed something – a dish picked up, more water, the usual things. There weren't too many customers yet, but I still found myself running around trying to fill everyone's needs. Ester told everyone beforehand that I was deaf and dumb so I got yelled at a lot and had to decipher over-exaggerated gestures. Had I actually been deaf, it would have been easier to read their lips. I quickly learned to try to anticipate what they wanted before they told me to avoid the hassle.

Most of the characters who stayed at the hotel were very private people and kept to themselves. I didn't mind it because I wasn't forced into pointless conversations and I got to work closely with Janette. When the days got warmer, the business became better and soon I wasn't able to keep up with all the tables on my own. Ester hired another girl, Suzy, to help and even let Helen do a lot of the running. She had been forced to hire a full time housekeeper as well, who greatly lightened Helen's chore list. The new housekeeper had an inexplicable disdain for small adorable children so Helen was often sent away from her work to come help me.

I got along just fine with Suzy and found that I really enjoyed the life that I had fallen into. I realized that I would be sad to leave, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't want to. I was sure Ester could use me all year round and I found I could even be able to make a little extra money mending clothes that I could put aside in case I ever had need of it.

The serving was greatly increasing my muscle strength and the mending was returning my dexterity. Even Helen started making small dresses for Ally with the scraps I had left over. It was just one more way we bonded. She came into my room every night as we sat by the fire. Some nights, when we were both too tired to work much on the sewing she would climb into bed with me and we would fall asleep with her curled up next to me with my arm wrapped around her.

One night, while we both stared blankly at the burning timbers, Helen looked up at me from under the crook of my arm. She touched my cheek lightly. "Christine?" I inclined my head more towards her. "You talk?" she asked simply, her words soft and low, as though she was trying not to disturb the ambiance of silence.

I could never lie to Helen. After all, she had heard me speak once before. I had told her my name, something that I communicated to everyone else via pen and paper. I nodded my head once. She continued to gaze at me for a while and I returned to looking at the fire. She seemed contented with my honesty and didn't speak again until the fire had burned into smoldering timbers.

"Why?" Her voice was even softer with the second question. It wasn't accusative in manner, just curious.

I thought about her question, wondering myself how it had managed to come to me letting everyone believe that I was deaf and dumb. She did not push me for an answer. She was as patient a Sunday prayer.

Like her questions, my answer was soft and short. "Still scared."

She nodded her head. "Safe," she said again, impressing upon me the significance of the word.

I smile slightly – as much as I could smile anymore. "I know." I could not explain while I was still frightened. Something inside me told me that I would never be completely safe again. The only time I had felt safe since my father died had been – ironically – with the most dangerous man in several countries. My heart still burned a hole in my chest when I thought of him. An extra wave of pain rippled through me again as I thought of the man that reminded me of Erik. I tried to push the thoughts away until they returned to the dull ache that I had grown to live with.

Helen was somber. She understood what I meant without my ever needing to say more. She slid off my lap and stood next to me. She placed a small kiss to my cheek, something she had never done before, yet felt so natural as to almost make me believe that she had done it every night before she left for her own bed.

We returned seamlessly to our contented silence. I knew without asking that Helen would keep my secret.

One day fell in fairly much just like another, so it was unusual when I went down to the kitchen just before dawn to start my work and found Ester yelling at Janette to make sure things were absolutely perfect. Janette remained uncharacteristically quiet while Ester seemed to beat every point in. I listened without acknowledgment. A piece of me felt badly for eavesdropping, but the conversation was interesting and possibly pertained to my ability to waitress without being treated like an imbecile.

"Absolutely no brown spots on the salad! Make sure that you serve him only the freshest fruit, I don't care if you have to steal from a neighbor's orchard. You make sure that you serve him no less than perfection! We can't afford for him to not like it here. If he makes a single good remark about us, we'll be the most popular hotel outside of Paris! And one word to the contrary and we'll never see another aristocrat come through those doors and you'll be the first to be searching for a new job, you hear?"

Janette nodded her head once, her lips pressed into a very thin line. I could tell she was ready to burst. I breathed a sigh of relief when Ester stormed out without seeing me.

I watched her slightly hunched retreating back, wondering what on earth she could be so upset over. I jumped and bit back and unladylike shriek when Janette's rolling pin came down on the counter with a heavy crack. Thankfully, Janette was too preoccupied to notice. I had never realized how pronounced Janette's accent was when she was upset, but I noticed when she started swearing like a sailor, making me blush.

"If that woman thinks she can just prance in 'ere and bellow at me like that, she's got anothur thing coming ta her. And it'll be my boot up her arse!"

I tried to disappear into the corner, but my foot caught on a wooden stool and I tripped backwards. I caught myself before I fell but it caused a bit of a stir and Janette whipped around, rolling pin raised like a club, her face a deep crimson color. I held my hands up in a show of surrender and Janette sighed deeply, her weapon coming down slowly when she realized it was just me. She went back to rolling out bread for her meat pies, still visibly upset, but thankfully no longer in attack mode.

She took my "deafness" as the perfect excuse to rant without actually talking to herself. She rolled her eyes in my direction and with another exaggerated sigh she explained, "There's some sort of mysterious Baron Von Something-or-another who's a big to-do from the city just arrived and he's put Ester in a tizzy. He's very particular about his likes and if he doesn't find everything up to his standard he leaves and never comes back. His opinion is highly thought of and if he says he doesn't like it, you can kiss your arse goodbye, 'cause no respectable member of society will ever go where the Baron doesn't approve. Filthy luck that he's come here. I don't see how we can give him what he wants. I heard that he hasn't said a single good thing about the last five places that he's stayed. Best start sending out John to inquire about another job and place to stay."

When I continued to just stare she took sympathy on me and pulled me to my feet, leading me over to the counter. She spread flour thinly on the counter and took her finger and began to write in the off-white powder. Important customer. She smoothed it over and wrote again. Ester paranoid. She looked at me and I nodded. She pointed to where Ester had left and with her other hand made a cutting motion across her throat several times. I was confused by this until I understood that she was trying to explain to stay away from Ester. I nodded again and began putting away clean dishes. Janette continued talking, but I was busy thinking about the news I had overheard.

I was frightened by the idea, particularly by Janette's comment of having to find another place to live. I liked my life at the hotel. I didn't want to lose a single aspect of it, not even greedy Ester. They were my world here and I was afraid if I didn't have them near me, my ability to hold all the unpleasant memories at bay would shatter. I could already feel it cracking.

What would become of Helen? Would Ester keep her, still futilely hoping that one day the little girl could pay off the mounting debt? Maybe I could use the little money I had saved up to convince Ester to let me take Helen with me and I would continue to pay her until the debt was gone. I didn't know where we would go, but I would find a way.