I'm still in my own bed in the morning, which is a miracle, I suppose. But I'm still trembling from the cold, and worry.
It didn't help that my dreams were filled with torment; swarms of flies undulating and crowding around me, taking shape into the Dimitrescu daughters. Many more of that, creature-woman chasing after me throughout the halls of the castle, their long nails dragging along the walls and floor, hissing my name in my ear. The castle feeling so empty, and yet so cramped and suffocating.
I don't want to go back up to the main floor of the castle, and I certainly don't want to encounter Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters, but I guess since I'm still alive, my fear doesn't excuse me taking the day off. And I have little choice of where else I can go.
The servants' room is still dark, safe for some dying embers in the fireplace, and the moment I move, a searing pain whips through my head, leaving my vision white for a second. I slowly sit up, placing my head in my hands. I don't think I even cleaned myself yesterday; I just jumped into bed, too afraid to do anything other than what Helga ordered of me.
I take slow breaths and carefully tap my fingers up my nose. It didn't seem broken at the time, but adrenaline could've masked the pain until now. It would explain the light throbbing in my lip. I don't feel any dislocation, probably just swelling from wherever I got hit. After all, the blood stopped.
My eyes adjust to the darkness of the chamber, and a take a steadying breath as I ease out of bed and over towards the fireplace. I make quick work of reigniting the flame before heading back to bed to change into some fresh clothes. As I unpack my final dress for the week, I notice an ivory tin sitting on the trunk next to my bed. It's filled with a salve that smells of mint and rosemary, and beneath it is a note written in smooth, cursive letters: No early chores this morning, just report to the kitchen at your usual time. Don't say anything about what you saw. No serving today.
I release a breath I didn't know I was holding. Whatever Helga did, it worked. I suppose it isn't much of a secret anyway if there's a hovering fear in this castle, of the dungeons. They're not the best place to begin with, but if what – or who – I saw is a result of its cruelty . . .
I shake my head. Don't say anything. Don't think about it. I smear the salve onto my still-swollen lip and nose. It immediately cools like a winter's kiss against my skin.
Meanwhile I have a couple of hours of free time before I'm due for the kitchen, I might as well tend to my laundry. There are no days off for us here. Whatever time is needed for personal matters is done so between the gaps in duties, or at the end of the day.
What I wouldn't give to just have that damned payment in my coin purse. But Helga mentioned being paid every two weeks, which puts a damper on my plan to send some out to Luiza. But if it gets done, fine. Another week won't mean anything. Besides, I gave her enough that I could probably afford to spend something on myself once Duke comes back again.
As I look around, everyone is still asleep, and I hear no sounds of movement. Even Gretta, Nadine, and Bianca aren't even stirring. I must be up incredibly early, but it's an opportunity, nonetheless.
My washbasin is full, as are the others, and I carefully clean myself as quietly as I can: scrubbing my skin pink despite the lack of soap, and the water feeling like another smearing layer of filth. I braid my hair up and around the crown of my head and step into my final clean dress before draping the others over my shoulder, and my intimates over my arm.
I've barely touched the caps and bonnets since I've gotten here and decide to leave them as an experiment to see if anything truly does go missing. Tucking the tin into my dress pocket, I slip my knife into the other.
I shove everything I can, including my coin purse, into my satchel and make my way up the stairs and towards the laundry room. After what I saw, I'm almost glad to be stuck in the kitchen, compared to having to wash the clothes of the Dimitrescu family. I caught a glimpse during the tour with Helga, and all I could note was the red-tinted water and the underlying smell of copper within the sharp fragrance.
I recall asking Helga if there's more than one laundry maid, and she said no. With only have to wash four people, there's no need to excess; though, I am a bit bitter that the laundrymaid doesn't help the other servant. But if she's not getting paid for it –
A crack of thunder startles me, and I look out the large window to see a thunderstorm raging outside. A bad omen. Rain pats against the glass, the sky darkened with no signs of stopping soon. Another flash of lightning has me cowering back, flinching as the following thunder rattles the castle's foundation. I tuck my head into my shoulders and scurry down the hall.
I reach the familiar door and step inside to a room of darkness. A flash of lightning allows me to see the room and I aim for the oil lamps mounted between the windows along the wall. A single match is left at their base, and I make sure to find some more as I ignite the lamps and turn their knobs so the flame is at its brightest.
The laundry room is bigger than the kitchen, though still interred with the dark grey stone of the castle. A worktable sits at its center, and a long washing trough lining the right wall by the windows. Divided into four separate tubs, washboards rest one the left-hand side, pitchers on the right. A wooden tub sits next to the worktable with a washing dolly poised inside, another washboard nailed to its side. Beneath it, a long drain follows the room's width, and whicker baskets and iron tubs sit stacked along the back wall.
I notice a large alcove similarly shaped like a fireplace along the left wall, a small black-iron door at its lower center. Its white chipping paint make it more eerie than brightening, a couple small pitchers resting at the back. Setting my things on the table, I walk over and find two large copper pots sleeved within the painted stone, the wooden lids left askew. Some kind of stove then for hot water, probably for large pieces.
Hanging along the racks, the clothes of the Dimitrescu family lay pristine and smooth. I can't help but run the lace of a blouse between my fingers, the texture and design so beautiful. If there was any blood on these, the laundress did an amazing job removing them.
Such a pity to have the work wasted on a daily basis.
I decide to use one of the tubs within the trough and turn on the faucet. Despite wanting to use some of the vials I see in a glass cabinet, I opt to use one of the soaps that had been left out. I lather it in the water, creating a nice thick layer of bubbles before dunking one of my dresses into the tub. At least it smells of cinnamon.
I slap the garment onto the washboard, covering my hands with more soap and scrubbing up and down the ridges. My dresses I can make quick work of, it's the aprons that will need more attention. The number of times I've wiped my hands on them, but from a week inside the castle . . . maybe Luiza should've focused more on aprons than an actual dress.
I flinch again as lightning arcs across the sky, the thunder sharper as it cracks in my ears. The rain is dashing against the windows with a force that makes me think it's trying to get in. The oil lamps don't do much to ease the eeriness that seems creep in every room of this castle, their golden glow reminding me of the Dimitrescu eyes.
I rinse the dress in the next tub and drape it on an empty
A softer rumble of thunder. I wonder what Lacy is doing right now. She would always come running to our father during thunderstorms. They would cuddle in a rocking chair by the fireplace while my father hummed her one of her many lullabies. I, on the other hand, loved the storms. They gave me a reason to stay inside, and lose myself in my books. But it didn't stop me from listening to my father's singing as he rocked my weeping little sister to sleep.
It didn't take long, after his passing, for Lacy to come running to me, instead of our mother. I don't know if it had something to do with her usually seeing me with our father by the fire, or because she just knew our mother was already down a broken road, but I became her sole comfort afterwards. I'm sure Lacy is sitting with Luiza just fine, she practically clung to the woman once we moved in for those couple of months.
But what would my mother make of all this? I am here, after all, because of her. Not just here in this physical place, but here inside this endless exhaustion, the near constant ache in my chest. It's not her fault our father died, I never blamed her for that. And I doubt she blamed herself for something like illness. But the unwillingness to push past her grief and pain, unwilling to create her own light after my father's had been extinguished, that is what I cannot stand, what I cannot forgive among other things.
Maybe it was my own fault. Perhaps I'd been foolish to believe in her, to have hope, only for it to be gutted and dashed again and again.
She didn't even acknowledge me when I announced I was going hunting.
The pain in my chest sharpens enough that breathing becomes difficult. I stand there for a moment, pushing back against it, letting it sink into the fog that smothers my soul.
Opening my eyes, I catch my thinly veiled reflection in the window glass, outlined through the smattering of rain. The salve has already taken down the swelling in my lip and nose, but not the color. And my eyes look more haunted than when I neared starvation for the first time.
I shove the second dress into the rinsing tub, wringing and sloshing and rubbing and wringing again. I might've underestimated the amount of time I have to clean all of my clothes as I glance at the clock on the wall. Then again, it doesn't have to be perfect, just clean. Besides, I doubt anyone will notice my tardiness with Helga giving so many early morning chores. So, I wring out the excess water on the second dress before placing it on the rack and starting the third.
The rain lightens as I lather my third dress, the thunder seemingly more distant now. With nothing but the patter against the glass and the near-silent ticking of the clock, it feels so, empty. I didn't think I'd want human companionship this soon, or perhaps I've already grown used to the chaos that is the kitchen. Especially with Gretta being so social, without her voice lilting through the discordance of sound, the place feels as hollow as I do.
I leave the dress in the tub and begin the fourth. I don't really have the time to think about that; I can deal with that some other time . . . in the far, far future.
Still, I shouldn't waste this opportunity of pure solitude.
Bela Dimitrescu watches the young scullery maid wash her laundry. It would seem that she took her word on being quiet, and yet she can sense that fire brewing within the young woman. It was, admirable. And it's the reason why she's now watching her from the upper corner of the laundry room. By now the flies have dispersed, their tiny forms – her form – evaporating with a single thought, until she is nothing more than a whisper of wind.
It is a feeling that might never get old, perhaps – to have her entire body be able to dissipate, but her consciousness still be whole. Her eyes still be visual, her ears still active.
When she first opened her eyes – after days or months or years drifting in a cold, endless dark – all she knew was that she wasn't normal. She still can't explain it today, but something in her shredded soul, engraved in her bones, told her she is not human. Not anymore.
She can't even remember what her past life was, who she might've been. And while it still bothers her today, there's no point in thinking about it. She has a wonderful mother, two tolerable sisters who make life around her interesting, and free reign to do as she pleases. The only downside is her constant thirst for blood, and being caged to the castle during the colder months.
The eldest daughter had been browsing the halls in boredom, just waiting for someone to emerge from their quarters. She had half a thought to just drag one of the older servants to the dungeons, take a chomp out of their neck and leave them there for tomorrow. But her mother is still bringing in new recruits, and they can't afford to be wasteful . . . yet.
She floated about the halls like a thin draft, sighing in annoyance at how empty the castle felt at these times. She was about to just go to the dungeons for her fun, when she spotted the scullery maid with her clothes draped over any limb she could use, a large satchel hanging at her waist.
Bela angles her head as the young human woman starts on her fourth dress. She doubts the maid will have time to clean everything. She should've just started on the aprons first. She can't fight or care to wonder why she is intrigued by this young woman – she's lasted longer than most maids, the others having either died by their hand, or just fleeing the castle all together – but there's something else about her that draws the eldest daughter in.
She pondered over it during the week, after their first official encounter with each other the morning she was cleaning the fireplaces. She had guts, more so than any man they've ever dragged through here. It truly struck Bela by surprise that she risked grabbing for that fire poker. Enough so that the eldest daughter toyed with the girl in an attempt to throw her off.
That was half of the fun with this woman.
Not a girl – a woman.
For the way those teal eyes have aged, how she carries herself as though she bore a hundred burdens, the lack of . . . vibrancy from someone usually her age. Like that other maid, Gretta; only the sight of that girl makes Bela's skin crawl with annoyance. So chipper and bubbly.
This one – Erika – might actually be pleasant to look at were it not for such a dead soul in a husk of a body.
She's already lost weight—enough so that her face looks hollow, the castle already having its effects. Even her cornsilk hair has become rather dull and limp. And the dresses do nothing to hide the near-protruding ribs poking from beneath her skin.
And yet . . . it's there. A spark. A sign of life, of determination and a want to live swimming within those teal-colored eyes.
It's a clever rouse; to look so defeated as a means to hide. But those stunning eyes reveal her true intentions. Cassandra would have such fun breaking that spirit. She might actually be a challenge. Daniela would just have fun with her. Bela herself not into forcing the servants, and despite all they've done to others before her, it is the one thing Bela forbade her sisters from doing – at least to the women. Mother didn't disagree.
As Erika begins on her fifth dress, now combining it with the sixth, Bela is about to pounce to try and distract her, but then Erika looks over her shoulder, towards Bela's direction, and then over the other.
The eldest daughter becomes rigid as the maid begins to sing, a wave of sparkling sound that drowns out the torrent rain beyond the glass windows. It starts timid, short soft notes that dissipate within seconds, as if testing to see if she is truly alone.
From somewhere across the castle, Bela think she hears her mother calling her. The eldest daughter half-hears it, near ignoring it while waiting for the sound, the perfect, beautiful sound, to begin again.
Erika seems to be shimmering with contentedness. Wrapped in her laundry, distracted by time and rain and song, her features soften into a delicate beauty that has Bela's eyes widening.
She begins to sing again.
Bela has never heard such music, not in this lifetime. Like a spell, a dream given form. The entire room hums with her, her voice resonating through the stone.
It soars like a bird through the cave of a room as she starts allowing herself more adventure with the tune, and Bela closes her eyes, leaning into the melody, shutting out one sense in order to luxuriate in the sound of this woman. Something beckons in her song, in a way resonates a fogged memory in her mind. Like Erika is calling only to her, her voice full of sunshine and joy and unshakable determination. Bela has never heard a voice like Erika's—by turns trained and wild, as if there was so much sound fighting to break free of the maid that she can't quite contain it all. As if the sound needs to be loose in the world.
It wraps around the eldest daughter, as if she's been dropped into a bottomless pool of sound. The maid's voice rises again, holding such a high note it is like a ray of pure light, piercing and summoning. Erika begins to sway back and forth, the heels of her feet lifting with the movements, yet her toes remain rooted. As if her very soul longs and yearns and pleads and begs to lose itself within the trance; the sound whispering and flowing, lulling Bela down, down, down into a pure, ancient place where no outside world exists, no time, nothing but the music in her bones, the stones at her feet, her side, overhead.
The music took form behind Bela's eyes as the scullery maid sings lyrics so delicate and soft it might've been a lullaby. She sees what the song speaks of: mossy earth and golden sun, clear rivers and the deep shadows of an ancient forest. A place where wildflowers grow, a sea of bright colors, pink, blue, and yellow.
Bela can hear the phantom ballad of a piano, twining with Erika's words like a braid; the notes of the woman and the instrument weaving in and out, individual strands that together form a pattern. The song carries Bela through shimmering ballrooms to floral mountainsides, a wide-open sky above merging into an endless star-flecked night. She feels like she can dance for hours, twirling and spinning and dancing; her body has never felt so full of life –
The song halts, and the vision shatters.
Despite not having any limbs, Bela can feel her knees giving out, her hands throwing out to the walls to catch herself as the room sweeps in, nearly collapsing to the floor.
Her lips pull back into a vicious snarl, so animalistic as she hears the door on the opposite side of the room throw open.
How dare they ruin what might've been the happiest she's ever been in her miserable existence! Oh, she is going to slice their throat and stuff it with worms –!
The laundress, of course.
Bela looks at the clock, the two hours of solitude seemingly evaporated, and Erika has already finished laundry. Unfortunately, drying them seems to be a hassle, as the head laundress seems to be chewing the young woman for coming in unsupervised.
"What in the world are you doing here, young lady? Who gave you permission to be here?!"
Another snarl, so deep even Bela doesn't recognize it. Barely human.
This old, wretched bitch – acting as if she owns this room. This is the Dimitrescu Castle, she's lucky to even be alive. The woman's greying brown hair is dull like matted silver, her mud-brown eyes dark enough to look black. Her face is lined with so many wrinkles, particularly around her mouth and brows, Bela thought they were brought on by years of scowling even before she came to the castle.
Erika holds firm, lifting her chin. "I woke up early with no necessary chores. I decided to use my time to clean my belongings. Helga never said that the laundry room was off limits."
"So you think you can just walk in here, use my resources, and just walk away?"
"Well how else does anyone get their things clean? They certainly don't pay you!"
The woman steps closer, raising a death finger to Erika, and Bela nearly launched herself at the bitter woman. "You watch your mouth girl; remember you place. You're a scullery maid, the lowest of the low. You're a servants' servant. So how about you get the hell out of my room, and make me some nice tea?"
Erika doesn't back down. "I can't even dry my clothes here? I didn't do anything wrong."
"And what if I were to walk into the kitchen and just munch on some bread?"
"Then Kathryn would chop your hand off, and I'd feed it to the Dimitrescu family with some lemon; because apparently your blood is so fucking sour."
The crack echoed in the room, stilling Bela's cold, blue blood.
Erika's head snaps to the side, her cheeks already turning red. The laundress takes her chin, fingers digging into Erika's cheeks. "I told you to watch your fucking mouth girl," she snarls. "But I shouldn't be surprised by your lack of manners, given your mother is nothing more than a useless whore."
Something primal flickers in Erika's eyes, reflecting in Bela's own. The eldest daughter has never seen this before: eyes of a predator on someone other than herself or her family. Most of the women here cower and whimper like kittens before them. Whatever disputes they have amongst each other, Bela couldn't care less about.
But Erika . . . she looks like a leopard ready to pounce. Wild and reckless yes, but a killer, nonetheless.
What was the laundress talking about?
The laundress grins, a hideous parody of mirth. "Don't think that I, or the other servants, don't know who you are, girl." Her eyes rake over Erika from head to toe in distaste, as if she were nothing more than a creature who crawled from a cesspit. "An ignorant renegade like you would've been better of using that mouth at the whore houses, seeing as how you can't keep it shut."
Bela watches Erika's chest rise and fall, such control, such restraint from mauling this bitch. From the looks of it, the scullery maid can easily take her.
And Bela wouldn't say a damned word.
Erika's eyes blaze like a Caribbean blue opal, her hands fisting at her sides as if to refrain from clawing out the woman's eyes. Something roared in Bela, encouraging her to do it.
The maid blinks, and suddenly her eyes harden into a killing calm. "I pity you."
"Excuse me?"
"Something must've happened in your life for you to be this bitter, to be so enthralled with the power of your position. So much so that I doubt you have the right to judge someone else."
The laundress stiffens, her folded arms gripping the fabric of her green, homespun dress.
Erika's voice is so soft that a chill runs along Bela's skin, something deep within her core purring at the tone.
"I've dealt with worse vitriol than yours – most from my own mother – and I also know that I have others waiting for me should I ever have the chance to leave this place. It seems like you have no one waiting for you. No one who cares."
She turns to gather her things, leaving the tub full of bubbly water. The laundress stunned as Erika removes her dresses from the drying rack. From her place, she looks to the woman once more. "I wish for you, in the future, to find someone who will mourn you when you are gone. Respectfully."
She begins her walk towards the door, scooping up the satchel in one smooth motion. The laundress is red in the face, stomping towards Erika.
"Why you ignorant, little –!"
The door slams behind the maid.
As the laundress is about the reach the door, Bela Dimitrescu leaps before her, her form materializing into a swarm of flies. The woman yelps and swats at the air with her arms, her anger instantly diminishing into fear as she attempts to cover her ears and nose. She whimpers and stumbles as she tries to escape the cloud of insects.
Within the fray, Bela Dimitrescu steps forward. The rest of the swam dissipates behind her, her mind stilling as she grips her sickle.
"Oh, my My Lady –"
The eldest daughter slashes at the laundress, baring her teeth in hatred, a small roar pushing past her grit teeth.
The laundress cries out and stumbles into the trough, her hand pressed against her cheek. The contents of the trough rattle, the surface of the still full tub rippling in its wake. Bela doesn't wait for the woman to get her bearings before gripping her by the coiled hair atop her head and turning and shoving her head into the tub.
The woman's arms flail about, the buzzing of the flies still in the daughter's ears.
After a few seconds, she yanks the woman's head up. She brings her dried, blooded lips to the laundress's ear, and seethes, "This is not your place. This is not your room."
The bubbles of the soapy water run red; the cut fairly deep on her cheek. It runs straight down the woman's face, barely missing her eye. The realization settles on the woman's face faster than hoarfrost.
The woman coughs, her eyes pinched shut from the blood and soap and water. "I – I'm sorry, My Lady. I – I was just worried that she would mess things up. I kn-kn-know you like y-y-your clothes a certain way. I just didn't want her to ruin it."
Bela brings the blade of her sickle towards the woman's throat. She risks opening one eye, and immediately whimpers in fear.
"What were you talking about, with her family? Her mother?"
"I-I-It's nothing, Lady Bela. Just some rumors spread about the village –"
Bela shoves the woman's head into the tub again.
Larger, thicker bubbles boil up. Bela takes the tip of her sickle and slices along the back of the woman's knee.
A garbled sound from the tub as her hands grip the edge and her leg gives out, knee nearly touching the floor.
Bela counts the seconds before yanking her head up again. the woman spews and coughs and gasps, the eldest daughter rolling her eyes. She doesn't even want to lick the blood off the sickle like normal. What Erika had said about the woman's blood was surprisingly accurate.
"What. Were. You. Talking. About?" Bela teems, but her voice is pitched and chipper. Sounding like nothing more than a curious, gossiping socialite.
The woman catches her breath, holding up her hands, as if it would stop her from shoving her head back into the water. "Her mother never recovered from the death of her husband. She drinks herself stupid and sleeps with any man who looks at her. Erika soon began hunting to provide for the family."
"Who else is in this, family?"
At the woman's hesitation, Bela once again aims her head for the water, but stops so the tip of the woman's nose is just at the water's surface.
More whimpering and whining as she adjusts her legs, not wanting to put weight on the bleeding leg.
"Just the mother and her younger sister, Lacy. She's no more than five years old."
Bela tosses her sickle onto the washboard that doubles as a counter for the trough. She lazily leans her head on one hand, arcing a perfectly groomed brow.
Again, Bela shoves the woman's head into the soapy water, counting the seconds.
The woman flails about, her voice nothing more than a warbled cry. Bela stays there, a picturesque of boredom while the woman's arms flail when not grabbing along the counter's edge.
Cassandra said it takes forty seconds for a human to drown, so Bela decides to count thirty-five.
The woman's body was just about to limp when Bela hauls her out and throws her to the floor like a ragged doll. The woman gasps and clutches her throat, disgorging water and soap and blood. She pushes herself back by the heels of her feet as Bela approaches, grasping the sickle again.
In a flash, the eldest daughter appears before her, the blade of her sickle shining as it arcs through the air.
The laundress screams as a gash sears itself across her chest, blood pouring onto the front of her dress. It doesn't even tempt her.
Bela can't risk injuring her too bad that she can't do her job, just enough that she'll hold her tongue before Bela cuts it out.
As the woman backs herself against the wall, nothing but the iron tubs to protect her, Bela pauses her pursuit.
Why is she even doing this?
What does she care about servants' quarrel? Amusing as it is, she has better things to do with her time.
And yet . . .
Those eyes. That spirit. That determination.
And the beauty of those songs . . . beauty of something Bela had long since thought had burned to ash.
She doesn't say anything when she nears.
With otherworldly silence, she crouches before the woman and lifts her chin with the end of her sickle. The pathetic laundress pants as Bela brings her face close. There is nothing beneath the cowl—nothing of this world.
"She's right you know." Bela says, her voice like gravel. "No one would care if you're suddenly gone. Not even the other servants. Even I have my sisters and mother."
"Husband." The woman trembles and shakes her head. "I have a husband."
"Do you?" Bela purrs. "It was never mentioned."
"No one ever asked, M-My Lady."
Bela sits back on her heels and stares at the laundress. "Hmm, then I guess I'll just have to investigate."
She rises as the woman's eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. Bela turns on her heels and begins walking away, but not towards the door.
In a blink, and a thought, flies start to swarm around her as the woman attempts to push to her feet.
Attempts, and fails, collapsing to the floor with her aching knee. She crawls towards the eldest daughter, eyes now lining with tears, words of pleading and begging tumbling past her lips in gibberish.
Bela only grins, soulless and deadly. She chuckles. "Clean up this mess, or I'll report you to Mother."
The laundress is still sobbing when Bela disappears in a cloud of flies.