This is Prompt No. 99-Sun
Over the next two weeks, Mitchie found time to heal. The queen had ordered that she not be harmed further, and for the moment, Lonnie and George had left her alone. At first, Mitchie had been touched when she had heard the queen's order, and the directive had given her hope, but Lonnie had quickly crushed that hope as soon as he saw her face.
"She's not doing it because she likes you," he had told her as he leaned casually on the bars of Mitchie's cell. "She's doing it because the townspeople don't like to see their victims all battered and bruised when they're executed."
Almost instantly, Mitchie's stomach had turned in revulsion and no more had been said on the matter.
Now, the day before the execution was to take place, Mitchie became bold enough to demand that she be allowed outside for a few minutes. Spring had arrived in Europe, and Mitchie was eager to soak up as much sun as she possibly could. Lonnie had tried to debate her, and had finally decided to ask the queen whether he had to grant Mitchie that small courtesy.
Mitchie waited for hours that day before Lonnie had come back down the stone steps to the dungeon, his feet dragging as he came. With a sullen look, he grabbed the keys from George and opened her cell, jamming the key into the lock harder than necessary. "Come on," he growled, and led her up the steps and out into one of the minor gardens where no courtiers roamed.
"That should hold you," he responded gruffly after he had chained her to the wrought iron bench she had chosen to sit on. "Now stay there!" With that, he turned and marched away, angered and defeated by the queen's grant to his captive's request.
Mitchie rolled her eyes as he walked away. "Like I could actually go anywhere?" she said aloud once Lonnie had disappeared and she was safe from him and his very hard backhand. The fear she was feeling channeled into sarcasm and she felt another wave of disgust for the two jailers flow through her.
But as she looked out over the garden, extravagant and beautiful, a small bit of her fear vanished, leaving behind the wonder over the colors of the garden in its place. Her eyes, accustomed to the dim, dull lights of the dungeon, were forced to squint when she looked up, but the pain that she felt from the bright rays was worth it as she saw the sky for the first time in a long time.
She sighed, her fingers curling around the material that used to be a skirt. Now, it would barely pass for a rag. The slight breeze played with her hair as she fingered the skirt, getting lost in the pattern of swirls on it as she remembered the fateful day when she had worn this the first time. So much had happened since then that it seemed as though it had been ages since she had stepped through the barred doors of Queen Victoria's court.
"I wish I hadn't," she muttered out loud, gritting her teeth. She knew that she would have been happy if she had never crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of speaking with Victoria.
"Hadn't what?" someone asked.
Mitchie's head snapped up in surprise and her eyes flew wide open. She scanned the garden for a split second before she pinpointed the speaker. "Hadn't come here," she told him with a small smile.
The young gardener, perhaps only a couple years younger than herself, stood from the flowerbed he had been working on and stepped around the bushel of flowers that had hidden him from view. His knees were dirty and stained from working in the soil, and his hands were making the same kind of marks on the top of his trousers as he wiped them free of dirt. His kind face gazed at Mitchie without fear or disgust even though Mitchie knew that she looked terrible.
"I heard about you being a spy," he said carefully, stepping closer to Mitchie so that he could stand in front of her. She watched as his eyes flickered down to the chains that bound her to the chair and then traveled back up to her face again. "Is it true?"
Mitchie hesitated for a moment. Should she tell this boy the truth, or was he a spy for the queen? Would her answer jeopardize her fate, or had the queen already sealed it? No, she realized, her fate was already sealed. The queen knew without a doubt that she was a spy, so what harm could it do to admit it? She made her choice and nodded. "Yes," she said, her voice sounding defeated even as she admitted it. "It's true."
She expected him to shrink away, to be disgusted that a person would actually spy on his queen, but he seemed unfazed. "Oh," was all he said. He looked down for a moment, and then looked back at her with a pitying look. "You're married?"
Mitchie gave a start. "How did he know that?" she wondered. "How did you know that?" she asked aloud, hedging around the answer.
The boy smiled and nodded to Mitchie's hand, lying limp in her lap. "You have an indentation on your ring finger." He smiled. "It hasn't gone away even though you took your ring off before you came."
Mitchie was surprised by his perceptiveness. "You're right," she said softly, unconsciously touching the base of her ring finger where Shane's ring should be. Instead, there was only an empty space with only a memory of what should have been there.
"Do you love him?" the boy asked.
Mitchie smiled. "Very much," she told him. "Very, very much," her mind whispered.
The boy nodded. "Do you think he'll come for you before tomorrow?"
As he said that, Mitchie suddenly understood the gravity of the situation. Tomorrow was her execution. Mitchie felt a tightness around her heart as though she was being hung already. Tomorrow, she would die, and no one would come to save her because no one knew that she was in trouble.
"I don't think so," she said softly, a tear falling from her eyes without permission. She looked down quickly to hide her tears, but she couldn't keep them back.
She heard a shuffle in front of her, and then a gentle hand was laid on her shoulder. She looked up at the young man in front of her. "Don't give up," he cautioned her, his own face drawn and serious. "Please, don't give up."
His face was pleading her, and Mitchie knew that she wouldn't see him again, so she nodded and tried to smile. The effect was a wobbly grimace of sorts, but the young man understood. "I'll try," she promised. "I promise that I'll try."
The boy nodded, looking a little more relieved. "You never know what might happen," he told her with a smile and doffed his hat, turning to go.
"Wait!" Mitchie called. "What's your name?"
The boy turned around and smiled. "Jeffery, but everyone calls me Jeff." With that, he was gone, disappearing around a corner of the elaborate gardens and leaving Mitchie alone with her thoughts once more.
"Jeff," Mitchie whispered to the garden as she sat back against the bench. "Jeff." For some reason, though she didn't understand why, the name gave her hope. Like the sun that shined down on her as she sat there, his presence was a light in her presently dark world of suffering and pain.
A/N: I am SOOO sorry guys! It's been forever since I've updated! :( Kill me now! (NOT literally!) I hope you liked this, though it's been a long time coming. PLEASE review, though I know I don't deserve it. I really thrive on your guys' reviews! :D
