Status: NaNoWriMo 2017

The Land of Infinite Whispers

FLOWERS

The thorn of a purple rose stuck her finger and drew a crimson drop that fell to her lap and stained the blue of her gown. She plucked one petal, then another and another. When she raised her hand to pluck a fourth, dark tendrils came to envelop her in their embrace, gently caressing her in their cold chill. The rose fell from her hands and hit the ground, and from its impact came more and more tendrils that wound upward like dark vines. They encased her and pulled at her and yanked her down, down, down into nothingness.

Mirabelle jolted awake, struggling to breathe. Her heart pounded and with its rhythm she heard the land speak to her--“Here, here, here,” it rang loud in her ears. “Here, here, here.”

“Where?” she screamed. Her eyes were wide as they darted around the room. “Where!?” She hoped she would find someone—anyone—standing in her room, saying these things to her, but she was alone, and her ears filled with the voice of the land, “Here, here, here.”

“WHERE?!” Mirabelle yelled at the top of her lungs and threw her wool blanket to the floor. She stood and stomped her way to her dresser, littered with books and pins and buttons and small gems. She took the golden compass in her hand and saw it spinning wildly around and around, first clockwise and now counter. “WHERE?” She yelled once more and threw with all her might the cursed object against the hardwood floor. She had hoped to see it split in two, the glass shatter, to see springs and hinges and gold bits fly everywhere. But instead the compass simply bounced off the hardwood floor before landing across the room.

The voices continued to fill Mirabelle’s mind. She began to sob and found her way back to her bed where she hugged her knees to her chest, “Where?” she begged, “Where?”

It was Arwen who silenced the voices when she opened the bedroom door. “Are you alright, my lady? I heard a commotion.”

Mirabelle looked at the housemaid through her red and puffy eyes; with her curly red hair tied back in a bun, she carried a high pile of linens, clothes, sheets, and blankets. Mirabelle wiped the tears from her face. “Yes, I am fine,” she said. “Just had a nightmare.”

“What a shame,” Arwen entered the room and closed the door behind her. “Nightmares are never good. Are you ready to dress for breakfast?”

She wasn’t, but she had no choice but to oblige. She couldn’t imagine what her father would say if she were late for breakfast two mornings in a row. So, Mirabelle stood, and Arwen helped her out of her nightgown and into a pair of white stockings and a dress of dark purple, with a silk underlayer and lace over, displaying an intricately embroidered design of flowers and butterflies. The finishing touches on her ensemble this morning was a pair of silver-buckled black shoes with small butterflies decorating the strap, a gray collar to modestly cover her neck, and matching gray bows in her hair.

“Ah, you look so beautiful,” Arwen said as she stood back to observe the young Lady like one would a piece of art. “Never there lived a more stunning lady.”

Mirabelle couldn’t help but blush. “You’re too kind, Arwen,” she said. Arwen and Tilly had been serving their family for as long as Mirabelle could remember, and even though Tilly had always been kind to Mirabelle it had always been Arwen to encourage her and treat her with love and compassion. The ginger-haired maid had become family over the last sixteen years.

Downstairs, the dining hall was empty except for Merlin. He was always early; he sat in the same seat as always, wearing a white ruffled shirt with gold buttons, black trousers with black suspenders, and boots. Mirabelle took the seat next to him.

“I can never win with you,” Mirabelle said with a sense of dismissal. “I wake early for once, and you still beat me to the table. How am I supposed to redeem myself from yesterday?”

“One could start without screaming,” Merlin said, idly fiddling with his silverware.

“What?” Mirabelle asked. Had she really been so loud?

“The screaming. I’m sure you would have been ready earlier had you not wasted your time. What were you hollering about, anyway?”

Mirabelle wanted nothing more than to tell him the truth about their brother Maelor and Sterling, but she couldn’t. She had to tell their father first, but when? She lied, saying, “It was nothing at all. Arwen just lost my favorite hair barrette, that is all.”

Merlin nodded his head as their mother entered the room. She wore a dress, the same style as Mirabelle’s—a silk underlayer with a lace over—blue instead of purple, and her shoes even matched as well. She wore her blonde hair down in curly ringlets that met the small of her back, and as she sat she turned to Mirabelle and said, “You and I are going out today.”

“Out?” the young Lady asked, “for what reason?” Morgyn entered now, taking her seat at the table. The only space left was for their father.

“To visit the town,” Alena said, stiffly arranging her silverware to the side. “This morning is a good morning to raise some spirits, don’t you think? After all that went on yesterday.” She looked to Morgyn and Merlin for confirmation, and they both nodded in unison. “Things aren’t going to well around here, and with the Autumn festival just weeks away, we must make sure attendance is perfect.”

“Of course, mother,” Mirabelle replied. She had forgotten how close they were coming upon the turn of the season. With the cold setting in early, it felt as if it had already happened.

The Baron entered a beat later, walking tall with his chin high and the familiar sureness in his step. “Good morning,” he said to the table. “How did you all sleep last night?” He was answered with an assortment of very wells and very goods and okays. Once everyone had finished, he clapped his hands once, and in came Tilly and Arwen, carrying with them platters and plates and pots filled to the brim with breakfast. It was the same as always; biscuits, milkgravy, eggs, ham, with toasted bread and jam. Once they had lain out the course and retreated into the confines of the kitchen, the family began their meal.

“Anyone have a rough morning today?” Lady Alena asked, looking with her eyebrows raised at the table. No one answered. “I heard someone yelling—what was all that about? I hope it was handled.”

“It was me,” Mirabelle said. She hoped to expand upon her lie from earlier—nothing would eat at her more than being disbelieved. “Arwen lost my favorite barrette from my dresser. I don’t know what became of me—I was hysterical. I do apologize for any disturbance.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, but she felt that anything at all would be better than, “I can hear voices in my head.”

“Well, try to keep it down in the future, is all,” Alena said. “We can’t have you blowing up every morning, can we?”

“No, mother. Not at all.”

All was quiet after that. The six family members picked and prodded at their food in silence, as they did every morning. Mirabelle wondered when she would tell her father about the journal and the compass and the king’s orders. The refugees had left town already to return to their homes. With the way the entire town had picked up and moved in fear of the Scourge, Mirabelle couldn’t imagine what they’d learned…

Once the last person had finished their meal, the Baron clapped his hands to summon Arwen and Tilly to clean the mess. When they all stood, Alena hooked her arm around Mirabelle’s and the two ladies left the dining room into the hall.

Mirabelle’s mother walked her down the hallway and into the parlor, where two baskets of vibrant flowers sat waiting for them. Mirabelle knew what this was.

“We are to hand these to the villagers,” Alena said. “Giving them flowers is a reminder of the Autumn celebration. Their acceptance means they must attend the party, or they will be cursed with poor luck until the next Autumn comes.” She picked a small daisy from the basket and looked at it in the light of the window. It was often that Mirabelle regarded her mother as beautiful, despite the stressful life she led. To Mirabelle, her mother was more of a Baroness than anything, and could scarcely see her anywhere else.

“I love flowers,” Alena murmured as she picked her own basket from the table and handed the other to Mirabelle. “Now let us go share this love with the town.”

Both Mirabelle and her mother slipped on small wool overcoats to keep warm in the chilly morning air before they crossed the yard outside their home, dressed all in silk and lace. Mirabelle waved to Pritchett as he worked at the stables and the old white-haired man waved back to her, his palms colored black from dirt.

Two men stood by the statue of the First Baron, speaking with one another by a wagon stacked with goods. Mirabelle was unsure if they were villagers or traders; they wore plain trousers with old leather boots and gray wool hats, and their faces were dirty from work—neither were the type to appear at the celebrations of nobility. Nonetheless, she and her mother Alena approached the two with smiles. “Good morning,” her mother greeted the men, and she and Mirabelle curtsied in unison. Alena stripped one flower from the basket for the first man, and another for the second; two red roses, their thorns trimmed away. “The turn of the season is soon,” she said, “and I hope and pray with all my heart to see you gentlemen there.”

“Thanks, my lady!” the first man said through crooked teeth. “My good man Ive and I will be there, only if we get to be in your gracious presence.”

“Rest assured, gentlemen, myself and my family will all be there!”

And just like that, Alena had charmed two men into attending a banquet they likely had never imagined possible. Together, the two women moved on to the next passerby, and then the next, enchanting everyone they came by with yellow daisies and pink tulips and blooming carnations. Whether it was an outcome of their poise and nobility—because everyone held respect for the Baron’s family, no matter where they were—or their beauty and grace, every man, woman, and child they invited smiled happily, nodded, and boldly declared, “I will be there, m’ladies!” They went from the butcher, to the pub, all the way down the alleys and walkways that weaved through the town of Maddock’s Mark. They met pilgrims, resting in lean-tos against worn houses, and working men and women who came and went from their homes.

It was a child that Mirabelle found herself kneeling in front of to match his height. He was a small boy, no older than the age of eight, with dark hair like down from a raven. He plodded past the two noblewomen, shirtless with his tattered shoes splashing in a puddle as he went by. He stopped at the corner and looked up to Mirabelle and her mother. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Ladies like you don’t belong out here. Ladies like you belong with the Baron.”

This is when Mirabelle knelt and tussled his hair. She smiled as warm as she could muster and pulled the prettiest flower she could find from her half-empty basket—a bright red dahlia, blooming full and wide with its petals pointing every which way. The boy took the flower and rolled its stem between his fingers to observe the kaleidoscope of angles and shades and highlights. “We are handing out invitations to the Autumn festival,” Mirabelle told him. “Wouldn’t you like to go?”

“What’s there?” the boy asked.

“Well, there are games, music, dancing, and lots and lots of food.”

The boy smiled and nodded, saying, “I would like to go.”

“Then go tell your mother,” Mirabelle pat his shoulder. “Go run and tell your mother that Lady Alena and Lady Mirabelle have invited you to this banquet.”

And just like that, the boy was running down the alleyway, the red dahlia still in his hand. Before he turned the corner, he stopped and looked back at the women, and then he was gone, shouting “Mommy! Mommy!” as he went.

Mirabelle stood from the ground, dusting the dirt from the skirt of her dress. Alena leaned over and beat at the dirt with her hands. “You shouldn’t get on the ground like that,” she said. “These dresses are expensive, and these streets are dirty. Now let us go.” Lady Alena took Mirabelle by the arm and she dragged her down the way.

The two women went along a narrow passage between two buildings and found themselves in the town center. They proceeded on along the outer edge, handing passersby flowers and leaving them at doorsteps as they passed. With a long-running tradition such as this, none would deny the invitation.

They then came to the Inn; it was a two-story building right off the center of town, with open doors and windows and a front porch decorated with ornate and flowery bannisters and columns. Above, a balcony sat populated by patrons enjoying themselves with various breads and cheeses and wines, while on the lower floor, through the open door, Mirabelle could see the rowdy crowd within, yelling and shouting and slamming their pints on the wood tabletops. She followed Alena to the door, where they looked inside for just a moment. It was then that a silence fell across the crowd— “Shush!” someone yelled. Mirabelle thought it was because two noblewomen were poking their heads in, but then she heard the strums of a lute.

It was a dark-skinned man standing off-center of the room, wearing a worn leather jacket opened to reveal a gray buttoned-tunic and a golden necklace that dangled down to his chest. In his hands was a fire-red lute, embellished with hints of orange and yellow at the center and up the sides and around the strings. He began strumming slowly, but soon picked up the pace, and before Mirabelle knew what was happening, the bard began to sing.

“I come from a place far, far away / A place too beautiful, some women might say / All the land I traveled, yet I can’t seem to get back / the Death took my mother, my father, and I rode away on horseback…”

“It’s so beautiful,” Mirabelle said under her breath. The bard’s voice was like sweet honey, smooth and deep and reverberating off the hardwood floors and countertops. It filled her ears and moved her mind in such a way she never thought possible.

“Come,” Lady Alena said and tugged at Mirabelle’s skirt. “We needn’t hear this filth.” They began to storm off, in the direction of the house, but her mother continued her rant: “This Scourge is nothing but a myth—an old wives’ tale, you hear me? It’s not true and I will not allow these ideas to fill your head—not yours, not any of your brothers or sisters. Do you understand? I refuse to believe in that lie. I refuse to believe in it until I see it for myself. And neither will your father.” Mirabelle said nothing. How could someone think in such a way? Neither her mother nor her father would believe in the danger at hand until they witnessed it. They wouldn’t believe in the Scourge until it was too late, and it had already begun to consume their land and take their people. Mirabelle clenched her fists as they walked back home. She didn’t want it to come to that, but what could she do?

Before dinner, Mirabelle resolved to tell her father the truth of her findings. If anything could convince the Baron and her mother that the Scourge was real, it would be Maelor’s journal. She hadn’t read it yet, but the writ outlined his duties: to investigate it and understand it. Maybe words from their own son might sway them.

She gripped the journal and compass in hand with her palms damp from sweat. She paced around her room, looking down at the items; the compass spun still as the setting sun cast its orange glow over the land. She rubbed her finger on the leather of the journal. It was time to tell the Baron—this was their only hope of finding Maelor. Surely, her father would be glad to find him and bring him home—after all, it had been two years since they last spoke as Maelor mounted Sterling and rode off to the king at Honor’s Stone.

With a breath of bravery, Mirabelle left her room and carried her head high down the hall to the closed door of her father’s study. She knocked with two quick raps before she let herself inside.
“Yes?” her father asked. He did not look up from his papers as he scrawled with a quill.

Mirabelle closed the door behind herself and crossed the room to the Baron’s desk. She held out the journal and the compass for him. “You saw Sterling, right? In the stables?” Pritchett had said he would talk to him. “Sterling was Maelor’s horse. This is his journal. And his compass. The papers from Maplewatch—he was there!” She couldn’t help but get excited. The thought that she would get to see her dear brother after so long…

“And what of it?” the Baron still didn’t glance up at her. Mirabelle was struck at his indifference. Did he not care?

“But it’s Maelor, father. Two years—”

“Maelor is no longer my son,” he set the quill down and looked his daughter in the eyes. “Maelor may have taken my name, but that is all. When he made the decision to leave the Mark, he renounced his family. The way I see it, Sterling’s return is just my property being returned to me.”

Tears welled in Mirabelle’s eyes then. How could he say such things about his own child? “But the townsfolk, from yesterday—they…” she couldn’t find the words with his face as cold as stone. If the refugees from Maplewatch were running from the Scourge, then surely Maelor had been caught up in it. “He could be dead,” she pleaded.

“Maelor has been dead to me for two years,” the Baron said. He picked his quill up again and resumed his writing. “Now leave. I have more work to do and the night is growing old.”
With her shoulders slumped, Mirabelle made her way back to her room. She could not believe he had been so cold to her, that his feelings against Maelor were so strong. His own blood!

The compass had stopped turning; the needle stuck pointing eastward. She set the items on her dresser and fell back into bed. What could she do now?