Chapter 10

Chapter X

“So are we just going to wander until we see the house?” Laura beseeched Beatrice with questions, obviously more energetic than her worn out friend.

“I have a sense of the general direction we came from.”

“But the city is more than full of dead ends. We could spend the whole night looking for it and still not find it.”

“You’ve lived in this city your whole life, I presume. You ought to know which places are the most likely.”

“Beatrice, you need to face the reality,” said Laura, stopping her gait. “Inesta would have been here if she still truly cared about you and would have not fled like… like a coward.” Beatrice’s heart stung with loss, not because she had lost them physically, but because she had grown close to them in such a short period of time. ‘When people save you from mortal danger, you grow close to them, whether you like it or not,’ she reasoned.

In any case, she knew that Laura was right. It was one of many such attributes that led Beatrice to like her. When her reasoning faltered or her actions became illogical, she was there to make sure she didn’t stray from the correct path. They continued walking in silence, Laura leaving Beatrice to contemplate what she wanted to do next. Finally, after a few minutes, Beatrice said, “You’re right.”

“I try my best to be.” She giggled again, her voice soft but rumbling.

“But what about Patrick? He’s still with them!”

It took Laura a few minutes before she responded, “If Inesta left you, then she won’t care for your brother, either. You were the reason they took you in, because you were in mortal danger. Now things have changed. You both no longer require their assistance, so they probably bade him farewell too, albeit in a nicer and more direct way than with you.”

 Beatrice sighed. “Well then, what do I do now? One of my brothers is probably lost in who knows where, and I don’t even know if my other one is alive!” Her voice started out calm, and rose up to a wail. She could feel a lump in her throat, a lump she had become all too accustomed to too many times over the course of the day.

Laura seemed unperturbed despite Beatrice’s condition. Again, they stopped walking and Laura spun Beatrice by the shoulders to face her, earning a shove which made her stumble a few paces back. “Oh, God damn it, I’m so sorry, I keep forgetting! I promise I won’t do that again.” Laura looked genuinely sorry for her actions, so she accepted her apology through her pain. She paused for a few seconds, taking deep breaths, then asked, “What was it that you wanted?”

Laura’s face turned from consoling to capricious as she instantly returned to business. “Look, if you want, you can… spend the night at my place. Then tomorrow we can sort the rest of this mess out.”

Beatrice was hesitant to put another burden on Laura, but she had no choice but to accept. They resumed walking with Laura leading the way, taking a left at some turns and a right at others. Twice they met unilluminated roads, forcing them to take detours lest they get accosted by a harmful being. Beatrice was boiling with questions, and Laura had lost her energy somewhat, a thing which Beatrice had previously not thought possible from her. Beatrice coughed a bit and then broke the silence between them.

“Don’t take me as rude, but how could your parents just abandon you at the alchemists and leave you to be alone till such a late hour?”

Beatrice realized she could have worded her question better when Laura’s face hardened, but only somewhat. “You’ll find out soon enough. Anyways, I’d think the same about your parents, Beatrice.”

She was taken aback by the directness of the question and realized that was the exact same way she worded her question. ‘I should choose my words more carefully, or I might end up offending her. This is a sensitive topic, I guess, so I must tread carefully.’

“If I tell you about my parents, you need to return the favor.”

After a few moments, Laura replied, “So be it.”

They took another left and started walking towards the west edge of the city. The school was from the north edge, and Sherberry was from the south. To the east and west, she assumed, there was nothing but farms. Beatrice took a deep breath and then said, her voice trembling, “My parents both died from the smallpox seven years ago. I was six when they passed away, Patrick was four, and Samuel was one. I only remember a few memories about them. They were always smiling, and my mom used to take me to a park where she and I would go on this huge slide, and I would see her hair flying everywhere around me in the wind as we went together. My dad,” she paused for a second, as if struggling to remember. “My dad used to go and work all day, every day, but he would always sing to me before I went to sleep in this quiet voice. It was a weird language, not Czech or English, and it was only four lines long, but it had such a beautiful melody I never forgot the song or most of the words. Then one day they were both gone, and I never saw them again. I live now with two caretakers, Bessie and Anne, who are probably looking for us right now. Perhaps,” again she faltered. “Perhaps my brother Patrick had gone over there for refuge.” She said no more, and once again they walked in silence, taking in the fresh night air and savoring its scent.

“I had a brother once,” she said, her voice strained and monotonous. “But he died. Trampled by a herd of sheep, they said. I never knew anything about him, since I was only two at the time. That was thirteen years ago; he was only four at the time. And fifteen years ago I came. It made my father happy, but only a few days after, my mother died of a complication. I never asked exactly what, as I already knew that a piece of medical jargon wouldn’t be anything of value. My father died from the grief, but before, he asked me to live with his brother, my uncle. Now that led me to know a piece of medical jargon: Parkinson’s. He was much older than my father, and the doctor diagnosed it two years later. I don’t know anything about how my parents were or about my uncle before his disease, but all I know now is it’s like I care for him.”

Beatrice shivered as a gust of cold air burst through the narrow alleyway. It was only big enough for two or three people to pass, let alone a vehicle. After it laid a vast expanse of farmland, as far as her eyes could see. Together, they continued on the worn dirt path, now completely unlit save for the simmering iridescence of the waxing moon.

          As they walked in silence, Beatrice couldn’t help but glance at Laura’s face. She half expected to see her silently crying or worse, angry, but oddly her expression was indiscernible. If she felt any strong emotion, she didn’t show it. Beatrice didn’t know if it was because she was concealing her emotions �" and really well, at that �" or if she simply accepted the reality and was just stating the facts.

          Laura took a sharp left seemingly arbitrarily, and they trudged through a thick grass patch over to a cluster of trees at the beginning of a forest, one of the few in the area farmers had yet to cut down. At the very edge of it, the duo stopped abruptly.

          “Well, here we are,” said Laura grimly, clutching the end of one of her braids.

          Beatrice peered into the forest. There was no house here, only a thicket of tangled branches and trees locked into an eternal squabble. She was just about to ask her if she was joking when she noticed the house. For the most part, it was completely covered in ivy and moss and lichen with the exception of four openings which Beatrice took to be windows and a fifth sort of duct, a couple of feet wide and about ten feet high. The plethora of vegetation effectively concealed the house in its entirety, and the night’s cover didn’t exactly help. When her eyes finally adjusted to the house, she nearly gasped. The whole structure was raised off the ground by several feet, perched on the wide boughs and extending up to the tops of the trees. It was rather small, only twice or thrice at most the size of her own two room cottage, although it extended for three floors. It reminded Beatrice of a giant tree house she once dreamt of.

          Laura smiled knowingly. “I like to call it my own Manderly and imagine it holds the same secrets, but only the good ones. Sometimes,” she paused, “I like to dream of how my uncle built it while he was still young.” Yet again she paused, then ushered Beatrice towards the large duct which extended towards the ground. Once they were under it, she noticed it was a canopy like arch, also covered in plump grape vines and berry brambles alongside a multitude of flowers. Walking under it, she noticed deep purple morning glories, their petals now shut tight, and bouquets of hydrangeas, stained a deep red by the alkaline soil. Here and there she was able to spot shockingly bright pansies, their colors resembling orange and black monarch butterflies. The flowers gave the darkness a certain sort of weightlessness, as if it wasn’t as dark as it seemed. The canopy rose as steps emerged from in front of them, leading to where Beatrice presumed the entrance was.

          They scaled the old oak steps together, side by side. By the end the canopy was twice as thick and twice as narrow. Although she couldn’t see outside into the forest, Beatrice sensed they were up higher than she’d have liked. Throughout her life, she had never been more than a couple of feet off the ground, and that was the way she preferred. Suddenly a door, also oak, appeared out of the blue, silhouetting the canopy in a perfect arch. Laura didn’t bother to produce a key or knock; she simply nudged the door open. It opened without the slightest hindrance. Inside stood a man, short and burly, draped in ragged clothes, obviously waiting for something or someone. When he spoke, his voice was deep and raspy, but rose and fell in pitch like an adolescent boy.

          “Good evening Beatrice. I’ve been waiting for you.”

***

Author's Note

Longest chapter so far, contains quite a twist! As usual, please comment and rate!