Anna In The Garden

17

17

Pulling the least damp cover from her bed, Anna retreated into the corner of her room, staring towards the door. Nursey's bellows and the horrifying sound of glass smashing scared her, but far less than the possibility of Nursey entering the room with fire in those dark eyes of hers.

Holding the cover to her chest, she tried to make herself as small as she could, her eyes held upon the door awaiting the click of the key within the lock, the grind of it turning and then the handle making its inexorable descent, prelude to Nursey's massive form entering the room.

She remained there, shivering in her nightdress, from the cold or fear, she knew not what. Silence filled the room after the crash and she felt certain she could hear every creak of wood within the house, every staccato beat of her heart, every breath rasping in and out of her lungs. Even the ticking of the clock upon the mantle, now sounded like the drums upon an execution march. Thump, thump, thumping to her inevitable punishment.

Her eyes flicked to the clock. Five minutes had passed. Still, her breathing refused to return to normal, catching within her throat, grasping for air, fighting to escape. Beat, beat, beat of her heart pounding against her chest. Another glance. Ten minutes now passed since the sound of splintering glass from outside her door. Ten minutes since the girl had faced the full and terrible, unmatched wrath of Nursey.

Ten minutes.

She considered that Nursey only prolonged the agony of the wait. Forcing Anna to muse upon her many infringements, her many broken rules. Determined to break Anna into so many little pieces over a length of time, all the better to extend the consequences of her actions.

When fifteen minutes passed, she drew her knees up to her chest and begged for it to end. For Nursey to enter the room and list her activities. To pass judgement and then to follow through with her righteous punishment. Yet still Nursey did not come.

Tentative, she pulled her back from the wall, hiding her nose and mouth beneath the cover wrapped about her, as though only having her eyes in sight would hide her from Nursey. But Nursey still did not come. Still the door remained steadfastly closed. The handle still untouched. The lock still fast within the frame of the door.

She crawled to the side of her bed, placing it as a barrier between herself and the door. With one hand pressing upon the top of the mattress, she peeked wide eyes over it and considered that Nursey was not coming. Lifting herself to her feet, she took a step towards the door.

Another step followed, and then another, the bed cover falling from her fingers as her hunched form edged closer and closer to the door. Upon reaching it, she placed both hands flat against the heavy, varnished wood, noticing the dried blood upon her finger where her nail had detached as she had scrambled at the door.

That seemed so long ago, now, and her eyes followed the gap between door and frame, down, down, until she saw the nail upon the floor, spots of blood surrounding it. As though wrapped in a cloak of deadening mists, she crouched and picked up the nail. So small. Such a tiny thing that caused such pain as it tore from her skin. She regarded it. Disconnected from the feelings such a thing should invoke.

With fingernail in hand, she returned her hands to the door, as though she could hold it closed if Nursey did, indeed, attempt to enter. She needed to keep the door closed. Needed to keep that protection, that safety. She leaned her forehead against the wood and then turned her head to allow her ear to press against the old varnish.

She heard nothing. Only the ticks of the grandfather clock down the stairs in the entrance hall. As Anna thought about it, she could not recall hearing anything but the ticking of the clocks, her breaths, her heartbeats, since the sound of breaking glass. Not the usual morning bird song by those hardy Winter birds. Nothing. With her uninjured hand, she clicked a finger and scowled as the sound echoed around the room. She returned her ear to the door and then jumped backwards as the sound of the front doors of the house slamming closed.

Running to the window, she pressed her face against the frosted glass and tried to spy as far along the front of the house as she could and, there, striding through the drifts of snow, she saw Nursey. Wrapped within a thick black coat, scarf tied around her wide stub of a neck, gloves upon her hands, Nursey pushed her way through the snow to stop not twenty feet from where Anna stood watching.

A terrible, nauseating thought came to Anna. She had not even looked outside to see if the girl was alive or dead. Sprite, ghost, trickster or dream, Anna should have shown far more empathy than that. Mother would feel ashamed of her for lacking in manners so!

Yet, Anna could see nothing of the girl outside. Try as she might, she could not find a place upon the surface of the glass that could afford her an unfettered view of where the girl may have landed. In fact, she saw nothing at all. Only Nursey, stood looking up towards the broken window, hands upon her ample hips.

No!

She wasn't looking at the broken window. Nursey's eyes, though her head faced the window outside Anna's door, stared, side-long, towards Anna. With a start, she fell back, landing with her bottom upon the cold floor, pushing with her legs, sliding her feet against the floorboards, until her back found purchase against her bed.

Anna felt something else, too, her hand, in the rush to extricate herself from Nursey's accusatory gaze, had landed upon something on the floor. The key. The littlest key. Dropped from her hand as she had fought to open the door, not so long ago, an age since. She turned it, pushing it with a finger until it pointed towards the door.

It took almost an hour for Anna to realise that Nursey was not about to return to her room. That Nursey was not going to bring Anna her breakfast porridge. That she was not going to brush her hair, bathe her, nor dress her. Thus began her punishment.

With little else to do, Anna proceeded to perform as many of her morning tortures herself. With no water in the bath tub, cold or otherwise, she could not bathe and felt all the more dirty for the thought of it. She could, however, brush her own hair, dress herself and, at least, appear like a civilised lady, even if she felt like nothing of the sort.

Sat before her dressing table, she placed her detached fingernail and the littlest key to the side as she reached for the rough bristled hair brush. With memories of Nursey's hair-brushing violence, Anna started her own brushing with as much care as she could manage. Starting with the lower ends of her hair, she brushed the knots free, then proceeded further up her hair until she could run the brush through with little resistance at all, from scalp to tip.

Dressing came with its own trials. Choosing the appropriate clothing for a girl under bedroom arrest proved far more difficult than she ever imagined. She could not choose any dresses that required buttoning at the back, nor any that she would need to lace. Try as she might, she could not twist her arms far enough down her back to reach all the buttons, or tie the laces.

At the very back of her wardrobe, she found a school pinafore dress from the time Mother and Father had considered sending her to the school in the village. They had changed their minds, of course, deciding that teaching Anna themselves would fortify her with a better education more pertinent to the needs of a young lady.

Changing her underwear first, Anna then pulled on a pair of knee length, thick woollen socks before dropping the pinafore dress over her head and fastening the straps to the buttons at the front. With the knowledge that the dress, and Mother and Father's educational decision had occurred over a year ago, Anna surprised herself when the dress fit almost to perfection. She sighed. She didn't think she would ever grow up.

Now set for the day, Anna felt much at a loss. The day had begun in such a flurry of events that everything since, her fearful retreat into the corner of her room, the timid wait for Nursey's tirade, the listening at the door and seeing Nursey out in the snow before the house, were all but a pale reflection.

She returned to her dressing table and pushed the detached fingernail and the littlest key around and around each other with her index finger. Trophies of a terrible day, survived nonetheless? Or evidence of her foolishness and wayward activities? She did not feel it was her decision to make on that particular note.

Her eyes turned to the oil lamp upon her dresser, much like the one on the table outside in the corridor. The smoke blackened glass cover, a tube atop a bulbous bottom, reminded her of the girl once more. A tether, attached to a dangerous world, tens of thousands of miles in length and five miles in diameter.

Anna could not think of anything more ridiculous.