The Vials of the Princess

Chapter 1 - A perfume bottle

When thinking about her, Eugénie's red eyes had a hint of sadness and longing for long gone times. Her mother had died in a carriage accident, but Eugénie still remembered her soft smile, rosy cheeks and warm touch. Ever since she was gone, nothing had been the same: everything now seemed drained of joy and even her father, who always had managed to cheer her up with countless presents and granting her wishes, couldn't brighten the mood in the mansion. Today was especially hard, since her mother had died today, exactly five years ago. They had held a funeral party and, if, according to Eugénie, that wasn't already cruel enough, it seemed most people there didn't even know her.

"And they dare to show up at her funeral." she thought to herself.

Now, she was in her room and her maids were busy brushing her hair and changing her attire into a nightgown. She had several maids for personal use, like any other noble lady of her status. Eugénie's room perfectly reflected that: silk damask, which had golden threads woven into, was used as wallpaper, a Diamond chandelier was hanging from the ceiling, the furniture was made out of the most precious woods and one could go on and on about everything in the room that could feed an average family in the Crystal Empire for at least ten years if sold. For the Archduke, Eugénie's father, this was pocket money. Furthermore, for him nothing was too expensive for his beloved only daughter.

She dismissed the maids with one simple hand gesture. They bowed and all but one left the room.

"When is my earliest appointment?"

"At ten in the morning my lady was invited to the tea party hosted by count Cavriany's daughter."

Eugénie jolted up as if she had just remembered something. "Umm... wake me at eight in the morning then."

"As you wish, my lady."

Now this maid, like all the others, bowed and left the room. Eugénie was alone in her room and was sitting at her dressing table, like she always did when she had to reflect on something.

"That little girl still hasn't understood the ways high society works. Let's give her a little scare." she thought.

She waited a little while, opened the drawer and took out a key. She went, as quietly as possible, to the door and turned the key. She put the key back and went to the bookshelf with books her mother had always read with her. Eugénie had prohibited the staff to even touch these books. She even cleaned them herself. One might think she had ordered that simply for the love she had for her deceased mother, but that was only half the reason. She pushed out one of the books and, if you were to listen carefully, a mechanical sound signalizing that something had popped out of the wall could be heard. One adornment on the prior mentioned silk damask has now come out of the wall. Eugénie's turned the adornment and pulled. As the reader may have already guessed, the secret door opened and behind it was a room. The walls were made out of stone, it was cold and dark (this was rather due to the fact that the maids had extinguished the candle fire from the chandelier and left their mistress with only one candle). She took a blanket and the candle, entered the room and admired her collection of vials, flasks and herbs. She had collected everything in that room over long periods of time and was fairly proud of it. Every object, plant or herb had a label and an entry in her book, where she listed the herbs, their symptoms, where to get them and other things that may be important to know.

Eugénie quickly choose a vial. Over the years she had memorized everything written in the book, but she didn't want to destroy it. This was because of two reasons: Eugénie was afraid that someone would find the pages, or their remains, and use it against her and, this may be the predominant reason, her mother had written the first half of it. She had often flipped through these pages to see her mother's elegant handwriting and sketches. To get back to Eugénie, she had poured a small amount of the vial's liquid into a perfume bottle with water in it and mixed it, so that the liquids color was not visible anymore. She got back into her room, closed the door, pushed the adornment back in and put the book back in its place. She quickly labeled it and put it with her other perfumes.