Chapter Six
There are times in everyone's life in which they must make a very difficult decision, such as letting a loved one live or die, or whether one more piece of fudge cake is really an appropriate choice when on a diet. These can be very difficult decisions, as not matter which of the decisions one makes, they will most likely regret it as much as not, because one can never know what the other decision would have accomplished, and they are forced to spend their entire life wondering and never knowing what could have been.
As I stand in the room that once housed Lady Audrey's garden, looking at the wilted leaves and darkened flowers, trudging through inches of mud and ruined lunches, that I am forced to make a decision. I must decide whether to stay and investigate the tragedy that stay here, hoping to gain more knowledge as to what happened here by examining the body of the person that died in this very garden, or I may flee swiftly, ensuring my safety. While my most people would choose to flee, including myself, I must remember that I made to Beatrice, and continue to investigate this scene, stepping over the soaked and moldy bread and moving past the broken cages.
Beatrice was faced with a decision even more dangerous than cake or death. Beatrice had to decide whether to tie the white ribbon around the door, telling Lucinda to come and rescue her from Lady Audrey. What worried her, though, was that Lady Audrey didn't appear to be completely villainous. It discomforted her greatly, but so did stale cheese, which one would hardly be able to call villainous. On the other hand, Lady Audrey did shout at her sometimes, like the dinner at her first night in the flowerbed. It was a difficult decision, and Beatrice was racked with anxiety as she thought about it.
More troubling still, there was the mention of the private room. Lady Audrey did have her own private room, and Beatrice didn't know what was in it. As I am sure you know, not knowing something can quite often be more unsettling than knowing it. After Lucinda's warning, Beatrice would watch Lady Audrey walk into the private room, and stay there for hours on end. Beatrice didn't know what she was doing, but it became very frightening indeed.
That afternoon, after Beatrice had finished her morning chores of watering the plants and soothing them, she secretly watched Lady Audrey enter her private room. Beatrice motioned to a rather large plant behind her and sat on its leaf, sitting suspended in the air. Her eyes were on the room in front of her, hidden through thick walls of leaves, blooms, and roots. There was a silence in the room as she stared at the door. She was thinking about her warning of the room. She was wondering whether Lady Audrey should be feared or liked, when Audrey herself suddenly emerged from the room. Beatrice was so surprised that she jumped back. The flowers were shocked at this sudden movement and leaped back themselves, sending Beatrice falling into the moist earth below her. Lady Audrey ran over.
"Dear child! Do be careful!" She helped Beatrice up to her feet. "You shouldn't sit on the leaves like that if you don't intend to stay. If you aren't careful in this garden, you can be very hurt."
"I'm sorry, ma'am." Beatrice said. She began to wipe the dirt and mud off of her dress. She looked at her red scarf in dismay.
"What were you doing there?" Lady Audrey asked. "You shouldn't have been up so high without being careful."
Lady Audrey looked at Beatrice inquisitively. Beatrice opened her mouth to speak, but then realized that telling Lady Audrey about Lucinda could be a very bad idea, if Lucinda was speaking the truth. She looked away.
"I was just thinking about… my other guardians."
Lady Audrey reached out and touched Beatrice's cheek. "Dear child, I know how hard it is to lose someone so close to you. It can be hard." Lady Audrey smiled at Beatrice. "I must leave for a little while. Do try to be careful. I will be back later this evening."
"Yes ma'am," Beatrice nodded.
The guardian smiled at her and placed her hand on Beatrice's chin.
"Behave, dear child," she said. "The world is a dangerous place for those that don't."
And with that statement, the Lady walked towards the exit, and began to crawl out of sight.
Beatrice watched as Lady Audrey's figure disappeared into the darkness.
"What am I to do now?" Beatrice asked to no one in particular. She looked at the secret room. Temptations, dear reader, can be very frightening things, because, as much as one knows that one may find safety in avoiding them, one can almost certainly find relief by giving in as well. Beatrice, like so many of us with curiosities and fears, needed a relief, a word which here means "knowing whether Lady Audrey was a dangerous and villainous person". She looked at the flowers and asked quizzically, "You wouldn't tell Lady Audrey, would you?"
The flowers shook in a way that may well have meant "We won't tell", "You shouldn't go in there", or "How can a plant be expected to understand English?", but Beatrice couldn't be sure.
Beatrice, frightened, decided to walk towards the room. She stepped towards the room with growing anticipation, a word which here means "fear that she was about to discover something terrible." As she walked, she because more and amore frightened, terrified that something was going to stop her way. She the heard a strange sound, like a scared mouse. She stopped running and looked around her. The flowers were moving around her. She realized at that moment that her running must have frightened the plants. Their vines were tense and blooms all pointing at her.
She took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. As is typically the case with deadly and emotionally distraught flowers, Beatrice decided to be calm. Slowly she walked the final steps to the secret room. What stood before her was a giant wall of leaves and branches. Beatrice thought hard. She had seen Lady Audrey use the door here before, and she was trying to think of where the opening was. She could not, however, find it with her eyes.
With yet another deep breath, Beatrice placed her hands in the branches and began to feel around for the opening. Her fingers became cut and her hands became scratched. She gasped when the different thorns graced her hands, cutting apart her gloves. After what was, according to my research, more than forty-three seconds of searching and less than fifty-seven, she found the door. She looked at the flowers, which all continued to stare at her with great anticipation. Beatrice took her third deep breath, and pushed open the door, seeing for the first time what lay inside.
It is at this moment, reader, that I must tell you something about bravery. Bravery is not to do something one knows one can do. Bravery is to travel into unknowns, knowing that what is there may or more than likely will harm you, but deciding to do it anyway.
Beatrice, the subject of my works and my dear niece, is far braver than I am. For I fear that if I were encountered with such a moment these days, I would almost certainly run and hide, just as I ran and hid when I discovered that someone had placed a certain something in my office not too long ago.
As she opened the door, she saw a strange room filled with marvelous and unusual things. There was a desk with papers and notes scattered across it. An eagle's feather stood in an ink well, and various dresses made of leaves, buds, and occasionally thorns, were hung in a closet made out of the hollowed out base of an enormous flower. Affixed, a word which here means "hung", to the wall was a rack with several different types of soil in several different containers. On the floor of the room was a carpet made of petals that looked completely unstained.
The entire site was almost too much for Beatrice to bear. She stood, looking at the room. It wasn't until she had fully taken it in that she became aware of the scratching and rattling sounds coming from the back of the room. Beatrice fixated, a word which here means "stared", at the back wall, waiting for what was making the sound to present itself. The sound grew more and more fierce, and more and more violent. Then, without warning, it stopped.
Beatrice took several slow steps towards the back wall of the room. The scratching sound started again. She stopped, and so did the sound. Beatrice took a deep breath, her fourth in an hour, and reached for the back wall to search for the door.
It is at this moment, reader, that I must tell you something entirely different about bravery. That is that bravery can often mean opening one up for being harmed in ways one did not expect. For example, if one were to be trying to prove someone's guilt in order to get them arrested, one would think themselves, but it would probably not occur to them that they themselves might be arrested. The same can be said for one who is bravely baking a cake for a dinner party, only to have a burglar sneak in and steal all but three of the candles, moments before the guests at the party sing a monotonous and boring song.
These are both good examples of bravery leading to one being harmed in ways unexpected. I submit to you, though, a way that has not yet been commonly considered an example of being unexpectedly harmed or surprised. For as Beatrice looked for the door to the scratching sound, one might expect that she then, again, hurt herself on the branches of the walls. One may expect that she opened the door, the scratching sound was the same cake burglar, trying to lure Beatrice into a trap. One may even expect that the eagle who lost the quill so many years ago that made Lady Audrey's pen may come back and blame Beatrice for the theft of his feathers, before one expected that a hand was placed firmly on Beatrice's shoulder, pulling her backwards into the flowerbed as she let out a yell.