The floor creaked as I dashed across the hallway, and I winced, squeezing my eyes shut. I opened one eye and looked down at the floor behind me, as if some evidence of the noise I'd made would show up. Then I waited another beat, for the sounds of someone waking up, but there were none. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and pressed myself against the wall, scooting along the hardwood floor not covered by the long, thin rug which decorated the hallway. Finally, I saw the painting of the woman on the shore. This painting always fascinated me. It was so out of place, surrounded by elaborate portraits of wealthy men and women and depictions of grassy meadows and delicate cottages. Every painting on these walls looked as if they could combine together to tell the story of a single village. This painting seemed to be the town's secret, and it always startled me– I could just imagine the townspeople covering up the event with fanciful stories or avoiding the subject altogether. If they ever found out a painter was creating an image of the horrid event, they'd surely have his head.
It was a beautiful, detailed image of a crystalline lake at night, the moon reflecting off the water the surrounding trees casting shadows. The grass surrounding the lake was thick and a vibrant shade of green, flowers blooming in patches of purples and yellows. The whole scene made your heart ache, as if you were looking at a place you once knew, a place you called home, that was now long lost.
But none of the pristine beauty of the nature in the painting was what really caught your attention. That was left solely to the woman.
She lay on her back, her arms splayed out and her legs tucked into herself. Her hair was yellow, almost gold, mirroring the glimmers of gold in the moon's reflection on the water, and the bright petals of the dandelions. But it was also wet, you could tell b the way it was matted together and close to the ground; clearly, if it were dry, it would be an even brighter color, and it would be waving in the breeze which caused the flowers to tilt slightly to the side. Her dress, too, though elegant; intricately designed with deicate stitches and shining pearls, was clearly soaked. It looked like it might normally be a quiet, lovely shade of lavender, but now it was a deep purple. Her eyes were an incredible shade of blue, like the crest of a wave in the summertime, but they were subdued...lifeless.
Her lips, you might think, would be red as Snow White's; red as blood and rubies and roses. But they were not. They were blue. Light blue; like the Antarctic sea, rather than the blue of her eyes. Blue like diamonds reflecting the sky. And her skin was pale, beyond the pale of an albino or someone who rarely sees the sun.
Pale as death.
The woman stared at you with lifeless eyes and blue, parted lips, and she looked startled.
The woman was drowned.
This painting was how I knew where I was in the hallway. Any of the other paintings I might mix up, they all blurred together when you'd seen them enough times. But not that one. It stood out like an emerald in a necklace made of amber.
Tipped off to my location by the painting, I moved slightly to the left until I felt a doorknob, and then I wrapped my hand around it and turned until the door clicked quietly out of place, and swung back an inch. I looked up and down the hallway, and then disappeared into the room, pushing the door quickly back into place in front of me. I took a breath and leaned my forehead on the doorframe. His shallow, sleeping breaths traveled to my ear then, and I spun on my heel. There he was, wrapped up like a caterpillar in a coccoon of deep red blankets, his eyebrows furrowed as his lips moved slowly in the murmuring of silent words. The thin canopy of his bed was still tied around the posts; the attendants always rushed out of the room as soon as they had him tucked in, never remembering to take the canopy down. He didn't mind, though. This life of luxury was too much for him to handle, sometimes. He preferred when the attendants forgot things to when they catered to his every want. I looked out the window at the garden and thought of what I would say. I'd formulated a plan hours ago, and had been practicing my lines in my mind ever since. But when he opened those piercing eyes of his, and stared at me in a way that I felt he could see my every thought, I knew I would forget every syllable, and stare back at him as blankly as the dead woman on the shore.
I walked to his bedside and stared at him for a moment, his messy blond hair, his thin cheeks, the bones protruding like pillows under bedsheets, his lips moving endlessly, though they hardly stirred when he was awake. And his arm was over the covers, his hand clutching the fabric like he needed it to keep him from falling. His arm was just bones with skin laid carefully over it, and I felt if he scraped his elbow, those bones would show right through.
He was so beautiful, I almost couldn't wake him up.
"Axton," I whispered, shaking his shoulder just slightly, a chill going up my spine as my fingers touched bare skin and felt the sharp bone. His eyes flew open like I'd screamed in his ears, and he stared at me with wide, confused eyes for a moment before calming down and looking at me with a calm but questioning expression. "Lorna, what are you doing in here?" His voice was rough, scratchy, coated in sleep. I stared at him and I could feel the words disappearing. His brown eyes adjusted to the light as he stared back at me, and I almost lost everything as I fell into them. I fell to my knees and grasped his hands, and his eyebrows shot up, his tired eyes suddenly alert. "We have to get out of here, Axton. We can't stay here anymore." Understanding filled his face and he shook his head, pulling his hands away from mine. "We can't go, Lorna. We're stuck here."
"We have to run away." Axton seemed shocked at my saying this, at the boldness in my eyes as I declared this outright. But then he shook his head again. "We can't, Lorna. Even if we could get out, we have nowhere to go." I'd thought about this. I was almost offended that he wouldn't assume I'd thought about this. "We do, though. Your sister's house." Now Axton looked truly shocked. And impressed, too, I think.
For months, I had been watching as he received letters from some girl, someone he had never spoken of before. A bright, beaming smile spread across his face every time a letter arrived, and envy pulsed through my chest so strong I felt I might forget how to breath. "She asks me to come stay with her," he said to me one afternoon as I quietly set his lunch tray on his bedside table. I was not a servant, but I often performed servant duties, when I was bored; or if they had to do with Axton. Lady Rane sometimes called me to her side, simply to keep her company, and I had school every day from ten o'clock until five thirty in the afternoon; but other than that, I had the days all to myself.
It sounds nice, I know, but you don't know the mansion.
"Is that so?" I had asked him, using all my effort not to grit my teeth together as I did so, "And shall you, then?" He furrowed his eyebrows and his smile disappeared. He set the letter aside and clasped his hands, staring up at the top of his bed. "I don't know. Perhaps." He was quiet for a long while, and then he finally said, "I think not" and turned onto his side, away from me, and went to sleep.
I did not know, at that point, that this woman writing him was his sister. I did not know he had a sister, for she had never contacted him before, and he had never mentioned her.
But now I knew, and I knew she was willing to take him in, at least for a little while. I also knew she loved him, as he often read passages from her letters to me, and I heard in her tone a familiar feeling toward him which I immediately recognized. She loved him, and would not, therefore, mind if he brought someone with him when he came to stay with her.
She would also not mind that he was not actually permitted to stay with her by his guardians.
I got the taste, from her letters, that she felt towards Lady Rane and Lord Charleston very similar feelings to my own.
She would not mind at all if he ran from them to her.
I could see from his face that Axton knew this to be true as well as I did, and he hesitated before saying, "Lorna, really, how would we–"
"Now," I interrupted him, something I was not accustomed to doing, "We could go now. It is the dead of night, the Lord and Lady are fast asleep, and no servants in this household, if they should stir from their sleep, are loyal enough to said Lord and Lady that they would do anything to stop our progression." If anything, they'd probably help us escape. And perhaps ask to come with us. Axton stared at me for a moment longer. He looked away from me, then, to the foot of his bed. "Lorna," he said quietly. He paused, closed his eyes, and then said, "I cannot walk."
The way he said it, you'd think I'd had no idea of this fact. You'd think this was something he was springing on me. "I am aware, Axton."
"I am...I am very sick." My throat caught and I choked on tears for a moment before saying, "I know, Axton. And look at what they are doing to you." He looked at me then, confused, and I gestured to his body, his bed. "They keep you in bed and give you worthless medication with breakfast and dinner. You are not getting better. You need a real doctor, real help, not the physician who comes and looks down your throat and prescribes cough medicine." Axton pressed his lips together. He knew I was right. Dr. Latham was a worthless old man who cared nothing for Axton's health, only the money he made for his monthly visits. Lord Charleston cared even less than Latham for Axton, and Lady Rane was a kind-hearted but foolish woman; and though her favor for Axton kept him alive, it did nothing in advancing his health.
"What shall you do when there are stairs? When we must go across fields, or up hills?" Axton knew as well as I that we could travel to his sister's by carriage just as soon as we got to town, but I understood his fear. "I will carry you," I said to him, without hesitation. He looked towards me again, and something flew across his eyes that I didn't recognize. He took my hands in his, and brought them to his mouth, and my heart pounded in my chest as he kissed them. He reached up and pulled my face to his, and when his lips touched mine, all my breath escaped from my body into his. He jolted with this surge of breath and pressed me closer to him for a moment, and then we separated, and he closed his eyes and leaned against the headboard. I brought my hand up to my lips and touched them carefully, my eyes wide, shocked, still staring at him. He opened his eyes and looked at me, his expression incredibly, frustratingly calm, and then he said, with determination, "All right. Help me out of this bed, and we'll go."
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